Merrill Lynch is raising its 1999 and 2000 earnings estimates for airfoil and complex castings specialist Howmet International despite the flattening of the commercial aircraft engine market, because the industrial gas turbine, or IGT, market is helping to pick up the difference.
U.S. Air Force Acting Secretary yesterday ordered a Broad Area Review of his service's space launch capabilities in the wake of a string of launch failures that has cost taxpayers an estimated $3.5 billion since last August.
After several years' planning, the U.S. Air Force is beginning to see real progress in a multi-faceted initiative to cut High Cycle Fatigue incidents - and their costs - to nearly zero by the early part of the next decade, AF officials report. HCF accounts for roughly a third of the Air Force's maintenance bill. In a typical year, the problem - a vibratory phenomenon in which stresses from various sources within an older engine accumulate, ripple out and cause microscopic cracks - costs the AF some $100 million.
MARCH 29 CRASH of the U.S. Air Force's No. 2 Teledyne Ryan Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle has been ruled a "Class A" accident, with damage exceeding more than $1 million. The safety investigation board completed its initial investigation last week. A written report could be finished by the end of May.
The U.S. aerospace/defense industry can make more money by taking full advantage of the commercial-military integration movement and can pass savings along to the government, but the transformation isn't going to happen without help from that same government customer in changing the way it does business, industry and government representatives said Tuesday at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics conference in Arlington, Va.
Boeing's commercial aircraft segment took "a significant first step" toward return to double-digit operating margins with 1999 first quarter performance, according one analyst. Paul Nisbet, head of JSA Research, Providence, R.I., said the first three months of the year marked the segment's best performance since the second quarter of 1997, as commercial operations recorded sales of $9.08 billion with 148 jets delivered.
FAA officials this week demonstrated for the first time in the Asia- Pacific region just how the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) works with GPS to provide precision approaches to airports. Previous tests were conducted in Mexico, Italy, Iceland and Chile. The latest demonstration was for 21 nations represented at the "Intermodalism and Satellite-Based Transportation Technologies" forum in Singapore. FAA worked with the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore to provide the demonstration.
LOCKHEED MARTIN said Janet L. McGregor has been named vice president and treasurer, succeeding Walter E. Skowronski, who has been named VP-finance and treasurer of Boeing Co. McGregor has served as VP-finance for Lockheed Martin's Electronics Sector since 1996.
GENERAL DYNAMICS named Linda P. Hudson president of Armament Systems and vice president and officer of the corporation. Hudson, 48, succeeds Kenneth P. Leenstra, 65, who is retiring. Armament Systems, with 650 employees, is based in Burlington, Vt.
Boeing's new Delta III space launch vehicle failed again on its second attempt to lift a commercial satellite, getting the spacecraft off the ground but leaving it stalled in an orbit that suggests the rocket's upper stage didn't carry out a second engine firing properly. The Delta III with Loral Space and Communications' Orion 3 aboard lifted off from its new pad at Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., at 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday and apparently worked fine through separation and ignition of the upper stage.
BFGoodrich and Coltec Industries Inc. challenged a preliminary injunction issued last Friday against their planned merger with an appeal filed yesterday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. A federal judge in Indiana blocked the merger at the request of AlliedSignal, despite the fact that the transaction has been cleared by the Federal Trade Commission and the Dept. of Defense (DAILY, May 4).
The Senate Commerce Committee yesterday passed legislation amending the Communications Satellite of 1962 to promote competition and privatization in the satellite communications market.
BOEING said it has submitted a bid to upgrade the mission avionics system on the Royal New Zealand Air Force's fleet of six P-3K maritime patrol aircraft. A contract for Project Sirius is expected to be awarded in the last quarter of 1999. The first plane to be delivered in the next three or four years.
The AN/ALQ-211 Suite of Integrated RF Countermeasures (SIRFC), having made its first flight March 23 on an AH-64D Longbow Apache at Boeing Co. facilities in Mesa Ariz., will now undergo tests at Edwards AFB, Calif., and China Lake, Calif.
NASA's QuikSCAT ocean scatterometer, developed and built in only a year's time to minimize the data impact of a Japanese satellite failure, has been delayed yet again by concerns about the reliability of a U.S. Air Force Titan launch vehicle.
While a winner of the ASTOR contract still has to be announced, the U.K.'s Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) and Racal have been awarded a single concept study contract to design a technology demonstrator for a similar podded installation for use by Royal Air Force Tornados and Eurofighters. Like ASTOR, the proposed pod will combine both synthetic-aperture and ground moving-target indication (GMTI) modes to provide detailed long range battlefield reconnaissance in areas where stand-off or other more vulnerable systems are not viable.
The U.S. Dept. of Defense may break up certain teaming agreements because they can kill competition, Deputy Secretary of Defense John J. Hamre said yesterday. "We look with some anxiety at the informal teaming arrangements that seem to be dominating the industry right now," Hamre said. "We would prefer not to have to be more directive in aligning companies, but we may have to if we continue to see exclusive teaming arrangements," he said in an address to an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) conference in Arlington, Va.
The Senate Commerce Committee yesterday passed its fiscal year 2000 NASA authorization bill, cutting $200 million from the Administration's request for the International Space Station. The bill (S.342), which passed by voice vote, authorizes $13.4 billion for NASA in FY '00, $13.8 billion for FY '01 and $13.9 billion for FY '02.
NASA managers will decide next week how far the Space Shuttle Discovery will reboost the International Space Station this month to set it up for a rendezvous with Russia's Service Module, a long-awaited event that could come as early as September or as late as December.
A BOEING AH-64A APACHE crashed Wednesday in Albania killing both U.S. Army aviators aboard. They had been training in support of Operation Allied Force. The Army said hostile fire was not involved. The remaining 22 Apaches at Tirana will continue flying.
The F/A-18E/F has completed its engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase, and is ready to move into operational evaluation (Opeval), scheduled to start this month, Boeing said.
The U.S., just days after a settling a highly public argument with the European Commission on aircraft noise regulations, now will request World Trade Organizations consulations with the European Union (EU) over what was called French government aid for new avionics for Airbus Industrie.
The globalization movement could mean billions of dollars for the U.S. defense industry and could change the way the U.S. government reviews potential mergers, but there are problems that need to be addressed, an industry panel said.
