The House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee plans to hold a closed-door hearing June 5 to scrutinize the Pentagon's recent decision to kill the Army's Crusader artillery system and shift the money to precision munitions and rocket systems.
OFFER EXTENSION: Northrop Grumman Corp. has extended its exchange offer for TRW Inc. common stock to June 14, the company announced May 31. Northrop Grumman is seeking to acquire the company, although TRW's board of directors has urged TRW shareholders to reject Northrop Grumman's offer (DAILY, May 1). However, TRW has agreed to let Northrop Grumman officials examine the company's books.
The Defense Department wants to give the Army's Shadow 200 Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle an additional $11.4 million in fiscal 2003 to try to make the TUAV a more accurate locator of tanks and other potential targets.
ASTEROID SEARCH: House Science space subcommittee Chairman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) is proposing to set up an awards program for amateur astronomers who discover asteroids in near-Earth orbit trajectories. Rohrabacher sees the program as a way to augment the federal government's asteroid discovery efforts. The congressman has introduced a bill to set up the program at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. The bill, which would provide $10,000 a year for two years to carry out the program, has been referred to the House Administration Committee.
U-TURN: The Marine Corps has changed its approach to pilot training and recruiting for the V-22 Osprey, according to a government test pilot. "In the old days, there was a premise that, hey, this would be a simple enough aircraft for anybody with any kind of pilot experience to jump into," says Air Force Maj. Paul Ryan, who is scheduled to be the first government test pilot for the V-22's back-to-flight testing. "We've probably proved that not the smartest thing to do." The Marine Corps' approach now is to train tiltrotor pilots on both turboprop aircraft and rotorcraft.
June 3 - 5 -- National Defense Industrial Association presents the 2002 Mines, Demolition and Non-Lethal Conference and Exhibition - Saddlebrook Resort, Tampa, FL. for more information contact contact Derek Jenks at (703) 247-2582. June - 5 -- Precision Strike Association presents Summer Event - Shotgun Golf Tournament & Cookout - Andrews Air Force Base South Golf Course. For more information contact PSA at (301) 475-6513 or [email protected].
A study released last week by the General Accounting Office says the overall cost of spare parts on three key Navy aviation programs continues to rise. GAO investigators examined the cost of 453 selected spare parts used on the H-53 helicopter, the F/A-18 Hornet and the AV-8B Harrier between 1999 and 2002. "While nearly 45 percent of the parts decreased in price, about 55 percent increased an average of 91.5 percent between fiscal year 1999 and 2002," the report says.
GENEVA - Connexion by Boeing is claiming "another historic milestone" as it linked executives on a jetliner 37,000 feet above Arizona by videoconference with others at Boeing's annual investors conference at St. Louis. Boeing president Scott Carson was at the meeting and Connexion by Boeing system development director Ed Laase was in the air. Participants "got a sense of the power of broadband," the company said of the system that is intended to someday allow true "office in the sky" flying as well as improved airline operations.
LAUNCH DELAY: Threatening weather forced NASA to postpone shuttle Endeavour's launch to the International Space Station until June 3. Endeavour is slated to deliver the Expedition Five crew to the station. Early weather forecasts indicate a 30-percent chance of favorable launch weather on Monday, according to NASA.
GENEVA - In-flight connection speeds of up to one megabyte per second should be possible on corporate jets within the next few years, according to engineers at Rockwell Collins. That's 400 times faster than possible today, and 15 times better than in an average executive hotel. It will be possible with existing satcom equipment and Aero-H or H+ antennas, the officials said. Executives will have access to streaming video or videoconferencing, as well as their email, without having to invest in new broadband satcom equipment.
NEW DELHI - India is seeking to buy an anti-missile system from Israel, a senior ministry of defense official said May 30. A high-ranking Israeli delegation, led by National Security Adviser Maj. Gen. Uzi Dayan, held talks with senior Indian officials on May 28 and 29 on defense purchases, including the Green Pine Radar, a transportable ground-based system, and the Arrow anti-missile missile.
ON THE WING: An F-22 fighter struck by a bird last month while en route from Lockheed Martin's production facility in Marietta, Ga. to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., is set to return to flight, according to Air Force Brig. Gen. William Jabour, the director of the F-22 System Program Office. In what may have been the first real-life demonstration of the F-22's role as an air dominance fighter, a nine-pound hawk hit the stealthy aircraft and was sucked into the engine, damaging the engine and the aircraft's exterior. "It wasn't good new news for the bird," Jabour says.
GENEVA - The closure of Avolar, the stillborn fractional ownership arm of United Airlines, robbed Airbus Corporate Jet of a 15-airplane order for ACJ widebodies, but ACJ Vice President Richard Gaona said he is not dismayed by the closure. "We have to be in North America," he said at the European Business Aircraft Convention (EBACE). "And we are, but we're not saying much about that. Our challenge is to be considered as a potential competitor with some particular VIP customers.
AEROSPACE BILLS: Congress plans to take up several aerospace-related bills when it reconvenes in early June following the weeklong Memorial Day recess. The Senate on June 3 will begin considering the fiscal 2002 supplemental appropriations bill, which includes $14 billion for defense. The Senate hopes to move to the FY '03 defense authorization bill sometime soon after passing the supplemental. The House plans to take up the FY '03 intelligence authorization bill June 5 or 6.
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), a member of the House Science space subcommittee, has asked the House Appropriations Committee's VA-HUD-NASA subcommittee to provide $122 million in its fiscal 2003 spending bill to reverse the Bush Administration's cancellation of the Pluto-Kuiper Belt (PKB) mission, according to a Bartlett spokeswoman.
Declaring the V-22's first day of back to flight testing "a complete success," the Navy performed a thorough two-day line clearance inspection on the aircraft. "The long awaited return to flight was a success," Marine Corps Col. Dan Schultz, the V-22 program manager, said in a statement issued May 29 after the first day of flight tests in Maryland. "The Osprey not only performed what today's test plan called for, but exceeded our wildest expectations."
PRAGUE - The BAE Systems/Saab consortium suffered a serious setback in Prague May 31 when the Czech senate rejected a bill enabling the purchase of 24 Jas-39 Gripen fighters for the Czech Republic. Forty-five out of 77 senators present rejected the bill after four hours of debate, during which defense minister Jaroslav Tvrdik argued that the purchase was in the interest of the country. The government later said the issue would be sent back to the lower house for debate on June 13, the last parliamentary session before elections on June 14-15.
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) announced May 31 it had completed the acquisition of the Boeing Co.'s ordnance unit. Bought on March 18 for an undisclosed sum, the Mesa, Ariz.-based unit manufactures medium-caliber guns for ground, sea and air platforms. Major programs include the Bushmaster gun family, which includes the 25mm M242 Bushmaster cannon, the main armament on the Army's M2 and M3 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, the Marine Corps' LAV-25 light armored vehicle and Mk 38 deck mounts on Navy patrol boats.
ROLLOUT: Sirius Satellite Radio officials say they hope to be nationwide with their service by July 1. Late last week, the company announced the addition of nine states to its program distribution area, bringing the total of number of states receiving Sirius programming to 37. "Sirius remains on target for our expected nationwide service availability date as of July 1," says Guy Johnson, the executive vice president for sales and marketing.
IO SURPRISES: Scientists are trying to understand the forces at work on Jupiter's moon Io, after NASA's Galileo spacecraft delivered images that show it has many more volcanoes than previously believed. Galileo spotted 13 previously unknown active volcanoes during the last of its six flybys of the moon, bringing the number of known "hot spots" to 120. Scientists say the large numbers of volcanoes appear to drive plate tectonics there. "On Earth, we have large-scale lateral transport of the crust by plate tectonics," says Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson.
U.S. military trainers in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia will help support and integrate the helicopters recently transferred to the military there and also provide some new equipment, according to Lt. Col. Robert Waltemeyer, commander of the Georgia Train and Equip Program. "We will start right within about the next week here, getting accurate property records of everything that's been contributed," Waltemeyer said May 30, speaking to reporters by telephone. The U.S. troops will help train the local military on the new equipment, he added.
The unitary, or single-warhead, variant of the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) has completed its third free-flight demonstration, hitting a vertical structure representative of dams and building walls, the Navy said. "Achieving impact for this sort of target greatly stresses the JSOW Unitary seeker," it said. The demonstration, conducted last week at Naval Air Systems Command's Western Test Range Complex, involved release of the gliding weapon from an F/A-18C/D aircraft flying at 14,000 feet and .75 Mach.
The production of more than 98,000 surface-to-air missiles (SAM) over the next 10 years could generate nearly $23 billion in revenue for their manufacturers, according to a report released last week by Forecast International/DMS. "Although the number of missiles produced annually is expected to decline, the value of this market will increase throughout most of the decade," according to senior missile analyst Larry Dickerson, author of "The Surface-to-Air Missiles Market" report.
