Sources say senators will likely seek to extract a pledge from Deutch to report all covert actions and failures "in accordance with the law." That's because members of Congress believe they were misled about CIA payments to Guatemalan military officers who were allegedly involved in the death of American citizens.
C-17 users, although "extremely happy" with the plane, are starting to make notes of things they'd like to see changed, Richards says. For example, the mission computer probably will be upgraded at some point, he offers, saying, "That technology moves very rapidly....A new mission computer would not only give us better capability but would probably provide R&M [reliability and maintainability] improvements, saving us some money."
The U.K. has moved up its schedule for replacing nuclear bombs carried by Tornado aircraft with submarine-launched Trident missiles. The plan was for Trident warheads to take the place of the WE 177 free-fall bombs beginning around 2007, but the move is now slated for 1998, Parliament has been told. Armed Forces Minister Nicholas Soames told Commons Tuesday that Trident submarines will give the U.K. a continuously available "sub- strategic," or tactical, capability that would allow the transition.
A Russian delegation arrived in the U.S. last week to perform an independent review of the second Shuttle-Mir docking mission for the Russian Space Agency. The docking is expected to take place in June. The delegation visited Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., went on to Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday and was expected to take a final swing through NASA headquarters in Washington during the weekend.
Boeing's first-quarter jetliner deliveries fell 28% from the like period a year ago, the steepest first-quarter decline since Boeing's deliveries peaked in 1992. In the quarter ended March 31, Boeing delivered 59 commercial jet transports, compared with 82 in 1994's first quarter. In 1992, Boeing's most recent peak delivery year, the first quarter accounted for 124 aircraft. Full financial data for the quarter will be reported later this month.
Network and satellite operations will be core features of an impending request for proposal for the Command and Control (C2) development contract for the Air Force Satellite Control Network's (AFSCN) Command and Control Segment (CCS), according to the U.S. Air Force.
Preston is also calling for review of contract protests to be consolidated in the Court of Federal Claims. The Pentagon is now subject to suit in any district court in the nation, and those courts often differ in their interpretations, she said.
JAPAN'S ITOCHU CORP. is planning to offer satellite-based cellular phone services beginning in 1998. Itochu said it plans to establish a joint venture in September with AirTouch Communications, San Francisco. The venture will utilize Globalstar, a constellation of 48 low-Earth orbit satellites that will enable worldwide voice communications. The Globalstar project is being led by Loral Corp.
Pratt&Whitney has finalized a $47 million deal with the U.S. Air Force to design, assemble and test a second build of the Advanced Turbine Engine Gas Generator, or ATEGG, core engine to meet or exceed goals for the second phase of the Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology (IHPTET) initiative.
Gen. John M. (Mike) Loh, head of the U.S. Air Force's Air Combat Command, tells members of the House National Security procurement subcommittee that he feels the AF can capture a lot of the technology from the canceled Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile (TSSAM) in a follow-on program.
The fourth flying EH Industries EH-101 heavy helicopter, PP4, crashed late Friday in Yarcombe, England, but all four Westland Helicopters' crew-two pilots and two flight test engineers-escaped with minor injuries. The aircraft, a prototype of a basic naval variant, was slated to reach a maximum of 12,000 feet during the test flight, and it's believed that some "fairly catastrophic failure of some sort" occurred close to that altitude, perhaps at 11,000 feet, a Westland spokesman told The DAILY.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Joe Ralston, deputy chief of staff for plans and operations, has been picked to get his fourth star and succeed Gen. John Michael Loh as the Air Combat Command chief at Langley AFB, Va., the Defense Dept. said yesterday. AF Maj. Gen. Ralph Eberhart, director of force structure, resources and assessment for the Pentagon's joint staff, will be promoted to replace Ralston.
THE HOUSE yesterday approved the compromise $3.07 billion fiscal 1995 defense supplemental, which included $2.26 billion in national security rescissions. Approval came on a 343-80 vote, and the measure was sent to the Senate for final congressional approval. House-Senate conferees restored a House cut of $400 million from two NASA wind tunnels and rescinded $20 million for the Single Channel Ground-Air Radio System, or SINCGARS, because of a lower than projected unit cost in a recent contract award.
The exterior structure for the first U.S. pressurized module being built for the International Space Station has been completed, NASA announced yesterday. The module is one of two connecting "nodes" being built for the Station by Boeing Defense and Space Group, Huntsville, Ala. They will be used to dock the Space Shuttle and to connect the Space Station's laboratory and habitation modules.
LITTON SYSTEMS CANADA, Toronto, has won a contract from United Defense LP to upgrade the combat capability of the U.S. Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Litton said it will provide multifunction flat panel color displays that generate bright, high resolution images with very low power consumption. It said the 6 x 8-inch Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Displays (AMLCD) units will be installed at both the commander and squad leader stations in the vehicles.
McDonnell Douglas publicly reiterated its commitment to the 100-seat MD-95 jetliner program yesterday, even though the program's most recent loss to rival Boeing's next-generation 737 leaves the MD-95 without serious customers in sight. Douglas executives have, however, backed away from earlier forecasts of a launch in the first half of 1995, and now believe a launch could come in the second part of the year.
A few days after Thanksgiving, if all goes according to plan, the European Space Agency will conduct the first test flight of its new Ariane 5 rocket. After a second test launch in April or May 1996, the rocket will be turned over to Europe's Arianespace consortium, which has already grabbed about 60% of the commercial launch market away from U.S. firms. Arianespace hopes to begin commercial flights of the new launch vehicle in October 1996. The impending arrival of the Ariane 5 raises some questions:
LOCKHEED Aeronautical Systems Co. said Richard G. Kirkland has been named director of U.S. government requirements. He joins LASC from the U.S. Navy, where he was deputy assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs.
The EuroFLAG group developing the Future Large Airlifter proposed the FLA to Japan's Air Self-Defense Force to replace Kawasaki C-1s and Lockheed C-130Hs, making Japan's C-X contest a three-way race against Lockheed's C-130J and McDonnell Douglas' C-17.
Gen. John M. (Mike) Loh, head of the U.S. Air Force's Air Combat Command, said yesterday he liked neither low-end cost estimates for additional B-2 bombers advanced by Northrop Grumman Corp. or high-end figures from the Air Force.
A group of Fairfax, Va.-based investors are none too happy with Boeing's use of the name "Sea Launch" for a new international launch venture it is heading up. Sea Launch Investors, a venture that includes former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Thomas Moorer (USN-ret.), says it had the name first.
The House Science Committee is planning to draw up a separate bill for the International Space Station that would authorize funding for the project all the way through its completion in 2002. The long-term authorization bill should be introduced "very early in May" and will continue to cap Station spending at $2.1 billion a year, Science Committee Chairman Robert Walker (R-Pa.) said at a briefing for reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday.
Northrop Grumman signed a long-term agreement with Boeing that extends its 747 fuselage work beyond the end of the decade and consolidates the Boeing jetliner work done by its recently acquired Grumman and Vought businesses under a single agreement, the company reported yesterday.
GENERAL DYNAMICS Land Systems Div., Tallahassee, Fla., on March 30 received $128.5 million from U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command for Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio Systems (SINCGARS).
A nearly $30 million hit to the Defense Dept.'s congressionally mandated SR-71 Blackbird reactivation won't slow the program, a U.S. Air Force official told The DAILY yesterday. Pentagon planners have estimated that they will spend only $72.5 million of the $100 million that Congress gave them to restart the Mach 3 reconnaissance airplane, the official said on the condition of anonymity. House-Senate conferees agreed Wednesday to rescind $27.5 million from the $100 million reactivation effort (DAILY, April 6, page 26).
