Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says he expects "some increased funding" for national missile defense in fiscal 1996, which is a key part of the national security portion of the House Republican Contract With America. McCain, a senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, says he expects the NMD issue to touch off a congressional debate over priorities. He says it's "too early to say" whether legislation for an NMD could command a majority in Congress.
FAA officials, responding to concerns expressed by the military, will meet this week with Defense Department counterparts on potential changes in the wide area augmentation system (WAAS) related to signal accuracy, according to Richard Arnold, FAA's integrated product team leader for GPS/Nav (DAILY, Jan. 27). DOD wants provisions for encryption of WAAS signals and FAA is trying to avoid this, a source told The DAILY, and the dispute went to the White House.
Freeze the Pentagon budget at $250 billion, plan for only one big regional war, and boost readiness and modernization. That's the prescription of retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak. McPeak, who recently left the service as AF chief of staff, said Friday in Washington that current budget levels and the strategy to win two near-simultaneous major regional conflicts (MRCs) represent an "in-between approach."
Traditional military "core competencies" should never be replaced by peacekeeping-specific requirements or training, say top officials of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). "If we can take on military [conflicts], we can handle whatever peace operations come up," says U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. John Logeman, commander of the NATO Airborne Early Warning Forces. SHAPE itself isn't likely to ask NATO nations to provide peacekeeping units only, according to U.S. Army Brig. Gen. John Rose, chief of SHAPE's requirements and programs branch.
The availability of leading edge technology worldwide means the Pentagon has to speed up its procurement process, says Colleen Preston, deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition reform. She says "the country that can integrate first will have the edge."
Granted orally an exemption to AllCanada Express to conduct charter all- cargo service between Canada and the U.S....Granted orally an exemption to Heavylift-VolgaDnepr Ltd.
Contractor teams vying for the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) have a little less than a month to rework all their proposal numbers to accommodate a 20-year program instead of a 12-year program, under a U.S. Air Force modification request (MR) released to the teams last week. "It makes all the numbers irrelevant," a senior executive on one of the contractor teams told The DAILY Friday. "It's fair to say [the program] is significantly restructured," although the program total stays at 712 aircraft for the Air Force and Navy.
Cathay Pacific has concluded, at least for now, that the potential benefits of establishing crew bases outside Hong Kong - not having to pay employees Hong Kong-scale wages - are not great enough to offset the potential problems. The airline has not ruled out foreign cabin crew bases in the future, however, and has appointed a project manager to lead a small team that will study the concept in more detail.
Alitalia will be permitted to fly transatlantic service this spring out of Milan's Linate Airport instead of the more remote Malpensa Airport, where all transatlantic flights currently are forced to operate. U.S. carriers serving Italy are likely to seek the same authority.
DOT on Friday officially named the nine countries to which it has presented open skies agreements. As reported, they are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland (DAILY, Jan. 27). DOT Secretary Federico Pena said the department expects the talks to move quickly.
American is once again urging DOT to deny renewal of the British Airways/USAir code share arrangement. BA filed last week for renewal of the code-share pact - the second renewal of the agreement; first approved in March 1993 and due to expire March 17 (DAILY, Jan. 18). American maintains the renewal would be contrary to the interest of the U.S. traveling and shipping public and airlines.
One week after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and saying it did not plan to reduce its schedule, Leisure Air is phasing out of the Atlanta market and has reduced its fleet to three A320s. The flights dropped were mainly to Los Angeles. Responding to reports that passengers were stranded in Orlando, a Leisure Air spokesman blamed a mechanical problem that caused a 24-hour delay.
Russia's Polyot Aerospace Assn. wants to give Orbital Sciences Corp. a run for its money in the small polar satellite launch business. The Omsk firm builds the Cosmos-3M booster that launched FAISAT- 1, the first U.S. satellite to ride to orbit on a Russian launcher (DAILY, Jan. 26,, page 125B), and sometimes has to add ballast to its launchers because it has more capacity than payloads these days. Last year there were five Cosmos-3M launches, and some of them could have carried piggyback payloads like FAISAT-1 and Sweden's Astrid.
Sens. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) are expected to introduce legislation this week to continue airlines' exemption from the 4.3 cents-per-gallon transportation fuel tax. The exemption will expire Oct. 1 unless Congress extends it.
The U.S. Air Force has pulled out of the joint DOD/NASA Hypersonic Systems Technology Program (HySTP), effectively killing the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) follow-on program to test scramjet propulsion at Mach 15 atop surplus ICBMs and costing some 210 contractor employees their jobs.
USAfrica Airways will become a partner in United's Mileage Plus frequent flyer program, effective Wednesday. Mileage Plus members will be able to earn mileage flying USAfrica and redeem it on USAfrica flights.
A Blow To Boeing At least 35 Boeing aircraft are definitely affected by last week's moves, along with dozens more that Boeing says are still "under discussion." 1995 1996 1997 1998 Total 737-500 Continental 0 6 5 0 11 USAir 0 0 0 0 0 757-200 Continental 0 5 2 0 7 USAir 0 0 0 8 8 767-300
USAir Group posted Friday a 1994 net loss of nearly $685 million, including one-time charges of $226.1 million, and, despite indications that it is close to a concessionary agreement with its unions, the company said it will move ahead with alternate plans to cut costs by shrinking the airline. Turning up the pressure on labor to agree to concessions, USAir Chairman Seth Schofield revealed plans to defer the delivery of eight 757s scheduled next year and the existence of a tentative agreement on the disposal of the carrier's Indianapolis hangar.
Rep. Charles Wilson (D-Tex.), in a House Appropriations national security subcommittee hearing, goes after Deputy Defense Secretary John Deutch's Jan. 3 memo to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) on funding for the PAC-3 multimode team. Wilson says this is a "continued determination on the part of the Deputy Secretary to keep Raytheon in the game" after selection of Texas-based Loral Vought. "That is very frustrating" and contrary to the intent of Congress, Wilson tells Defense Secretary William J. Perry. Perry replies that he will discuss it with Deutch.
The incoming director of space programs in the U.S. Air Force acquisition office says the U.S. must improve the way it conducts launches or get out of the business altogether. "We lost over two-thirds of the commercial market in ten years," said Maj. Gen. Robert S. Dickman. "If we can't do launch better than anyone else in the world, then we should fold our tent."
FAA is "aware" of National Transportation Safety Board concerns about older-generation cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) and the limited post-crash information they provide, and it will work with the board and industry on the issue, Anthony Broderick, FAA associate administrator for regulation and certification, said Friday at the FAA news conference. Broderick said that while aircraft built since the early 1980s, such as the MD-80, might be retrofitted more easily with new, digital CVRs, aircraft with electromechanical instruments are much more of a problem.
Republicans in Congress who deal with defense aren't the only people attacking President Clinton's State of the Union address (DAILY, Jan. 26, page 125A). House Science Chairman Robert Walker (R-Pa.) issued a statement saying he's "deeply disappointed" that Clinton didn't mention America's science mission or technological goals during his lengthy speech. "Such an omission could be seen as an indication that science policy may be a diminished priority within the Clinton Administration," Walker said.
Rolls-Royce's Trent 800 turbofan for Boeing's 777 widebody twin won its European airworthiness certification Friday, much to the chagrin of rival General Electric, which has been waiting for FAA certification of its GE90 since late December. FAA still is wrangling with technical issues stemming from the unique conditions it approved for the GE90 blade-out test, but officials say they may give the all-clear this week.
A European consortium led by France's Alcatel Espace has won an estimated half-billion dollar contract from a U.S. venture that is aiming to establish the world's first satellite digital radio broadcasting service. The deal, signed Jan. 26, calls for the Alcatel consortium to build three geostationary audio broadcasting satellites for Washington-based WorldSpace, Inc. The consortium, which also includes Italy's Alenia Spazio, will make a "major investment" in WorldSpace as part of the deal, Alcatel said.
Defense Secretary William J. Perry said he will submit to Congress the last of four base closing reports within the next month. This report, he told the United States Conference of Mayors in Washington on Thursday, "will not be as harsh as the last one" because there are fewer easy choices. He promised "full and vigorous support" for redevelopment and reuse. The time to transfer bases from military to civilian use is being reduced, he said, and other support is being provided to affected communities.
