Helicopter-maker Kaman Aerospace wrapped up flight tests on its new second-generation composite main rotor blades, or CMRB2, for the company's SH-2G Super Seasprite helo, demonstrating four times the life of a conventional metal rotor, the company reports. The new blades should see a 15,000-hour service life, and promise more durability and quick in-field repairs. In addition, the reduced control forces demonstrated in flight test should translate into an easier ride for control system bearings, further cutting life-cycle costs.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to spend about $25 million over the next three years for initial development of systems that exploit chemical signatures to detect land mines and unexploded, shallowly buried ordnance. Existing systems detect mines and unexploded ordnance through their physical properties. But those approaches result in high false alarm rates, DARPA said in the Aug. 12 Commerce Business Daily.
U.S. Air Force plans to replace the propulsion system on its Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles is expected to cost $2.8 billion, according to Selected Acquisition Reports submitted to Congress. The Minuteman III propulsion replacement program (PRP) was included for the first time on the SARs filed for the period between March 31 and June 30, the Pentagon said yesterday when it released the quarterly cost- reporting data. Overall 607 missiles are slated to be modified.
A NASA plan to save money by consolidating all of its research aircraft at Dryden Flight Research Center generates only minimal savings, and those savings go away completely if the cost of the up-front money the plan would require is included, NASA's inspector general concluded.
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization intends to award a sole- source follow-on contract to the U.K. Ministry of Defense to conduct research in the area of lethality technologies to counter chemical and biological weapons (CBW). BMDO is interested only in non-nuclear interceptor technologies.
Saab military aircraft has installed a new full dome simulator at its main facility in Linkoping, Sweden, which it hopes will promote its flagship product, the JAS-39 Gripen fighter. The new facility cost about $7.8 million and was put together in nine months, Saab said yesterday in a statement. The simulator is intended to assist in system analyses, but Saab said it will also "be used as a marketing tool where customers can get a first feel for what it is like to fly the Gripen."
The U.S. Air Force wants to add a towed decoy to the self-protection capabilities of its F-15 fighters. The service's Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio, said in an Aug. 9 Commerce Business Daily notice that it's looking for a contractor to integrate and test the Fiber Optic Towed Decoy (FOTD) on F- 15s. Each plane would carry four of the expendable decoys per mission.
Brunswick's Marion Composites unit unseated incumbent contractor Beech Aircraft to supply composite winglets and landing gear doors for McDonnell Douglas' C-17 Globemaster III airlifter, and could supply the components for all 80 remaining C-17s to be bought if all options are exercised. Under the initial $8.6 million subcontract to McDonnell Douglas, Marion will begin supplying the components in February 1998. If Marion remains on the program through its life, the contract could be worth more than $61 million.
Unsought funding that congressional defense authorizers and appropriators have proposed adding to the Administration's fiscal year 1997 defense request could end up costing the Pentagon an additional $25 billion over its five-year defense spending plan, a new report warns. The FY '97 defense bill is laden with wasteful military spending and pork barrel add-ons, reports the Council for a Livable World, a Washington- based non-profit organization that reports on arms issues.
Boeing engineers are working with airline customers to try to solve a false fire alarm problem on the new 777 widebody twin, apparently related to humidity in the cargo hold, without having to re-work the fire alarm system itself.
Managers at the highest levels of the aerospace industry see a future in which defense spending remains unstable and powerhouse Lockheed Martin is positioned best to take advantage of it, in many cases at the expense of polled managers' own companies, according to a new national survey of top aerospace and aviation executives conducted by The DAILY and investment bank First Equity Development.
A laser designator on a Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle guided four of five ground-launched Hellfire missiles to their targets during demonstrations at Eglin AFB, Fla. The TRW/IAI Hunter assisted in its first kill during a test with the laser designator on Aug. 1 (DAILY, Aug. 2), and scored three more successes last Thursday, the UAV Joint Program Office said Friday. Five Hellfires were fired during the test series. The one unsuccessful test was attributed to a technical problem on launch, the JPO said.
Japan's new Boeing 767 jetliner-mounted Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) has made its first flight. The 767 took off from Boeing Field International in Seattle at 8:03 p.m. EST Friday and returned almost three hours later at 10.58 p.m. EST. Boeing pilots Charles Gebhardt and Gerald White flew the aircraft, Boeing said late Friday.
The Navy Upper Tier missile defense effort faces three problems, according to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization - a shortage of outyear funds, lack of a threat, and immature technology.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS CORP. said Stuart Thomson has been named vice president of business development for the company's Military Transport Aircraft unit in Long Beach, Calif. Thomson, 50, who had been director of business development for the C-17 program, replaces Gary Mears, who resigned recently to pursue other interests outside the company.
Two top Czech air force pilots flew eight evaluation flights in a two- seat F-16D last week at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth, Tex., fighter plant, the company reported yesterday. The Czech pilots flew the two-place F-16s separately, accompanied by a Lockheed Martin test pilot on each flight, and looked at "the full range of F-16 capabilities," the company said, including air-to-air, air-to-ground and weapons performance.
The joint U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force AGM-154 Joint Stand-off Weapon (JSOW) recently completed its first successful flight integrated on an F- 16, JSOW prime contractor Texas Instruments said yesterday. The test last month was conducted at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. An F- 16 flying at 5,000 feet and 420 knots fired a JSOW 11 nautical miles from its target. The JSOW flew the preplanned waypoints to the target where it dispensed its submunitions. JSOW carried 145 BLU-97 Combined Effect Bomblet submunitions as its payload.
Negotiators for McDonnell Douglas and about 6,700 striking Machinists expect to resume talks this morning after making what union leaders described as moderate progress in sessions last week. Union leaders said both sides were closer together on three issues, but wouldn't elaborate on the specific progress that was made. "We are closer than we were," said Gerald Oulson, president of the International Association of Machinists District 837. "We had 10 miles to go. Now it's 9.8."
