PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Aero Vodochody shareholders plan to meet again before the end of the month after failing to agree on the short-term business plan for the struggling aircraft maker. Company Vice President Viktor Kucera told The DAILY that shareholders discussed several plans at an extraordinary general meeting Nov. 12, but could not reach agreement. "It is necessary to continue examining the details of each business plan variant, and discussions are ongoing," he said.
LARGER ROLE: European militaries may yet play a larger role in Iraq, but not before substantial progress is made in Afghanistan operations, Robertson says. "That is a big job we've got to get right," he says. "There's no point in dabbling in Afghanistan and then going in and dabbling in Iraq, and risking two half-done operations. NATO has to succeed in Afghanistan." Eighteen of 26 NATO countries have supplied a total of 5,700 troops in Afghanistan, Robertson says.
KC-135E RETIREMENT: The fiscal 2004 defense authorization conference report, newly approved by Congress, will prevent the U.S. Air Force from retiring more than 12 KC-135E tankers in FY '04. The Air Force has been planning to phase out 68 KC-135Es by the end of FY '06, including 44 in FY '04 (DAILY, July 25). But lawmakers say that while some of the aging aircraft may be difficult to maintain, large numbers should not be retired until an overall approach to modernizing the Air Force's aerial refueling fleet is better understood.
The U.S. Air Force is considering upgrades to its future Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser-Extended Range (WCMD-ER) to give it an in-flight retargeting capability and make it more resistant to jamming, according to sources. The Air Force also is weighing the possibility of increasing its planned purchase of the WCMD-ER by about a third, the sources told The DAILY.
Nov. 16 - 21 -- 2003 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress, Marriott Wardman Park & Omni Shoreham Hotels, Washington, D.C. Contact John Varrasi at (212) 591-8158, email [email protected] or go to www.asme.org. Nov. 16 - 21 -- Defense Research and Engineering Conference and Exposition (DREX), Marriott Wardman Park & Omni Shoreham Hotels, Washington, D.C. Contact John Varrasi at (212) 591-8158, email [email protected] or go to www.asme.org.
Even if the U.S. Army equips all its helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan with the most modern missile defense equipment, as demanded by the service's top civilian official, they still will be vulnerable to weapons like the rocket propelled grenade, industry officials say. A heat-seeking missile apparently downed a CH-47 Chinook in Iraq on Nov. 2, killing 16. A rocket propelled grenade, or RPG, is thought to have hit a UH-60 Black Hawk in Iraq on Nov. 7, killing six.
GRAND CHALLENGE: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to evaluate and qualify up to 25 robotic ground vehicle teams to participate in its "Grand Challenge" race (DAILY, July 29). DARPA has invited 19 teams to participate in the Qualification, Inspection and Demonstration (QID) event to be held March 8-12, 2004, and expects to invite up to six more next month. The entrants selected range from high school teams to independent engineers and academic groups, according to DARPA.
NON-MARINE TECHNOLOGY: Technologies developed by industries outside the traditional marine industry are beginning to have an impact on naval shipbuilding, according to senior naval analyst Stuart Slade of Forecast International/DMS. A propulsion system being developed by automaker DaimlerChrysler could have a revolutionary impact on submarine design, he says. The system uses diesel fuel to produce hydrogen and oxygen, which is then used to power hydrogen fuel cells.
ARMY HEARING: The Senate Armed Services Committee has rescheduled a hearing on current Army issues for Nov. 19. Acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker are to testify. The hearing had been slated for Nov. 13 but was postponed when the Senate launched a marathon debate on judicial nominations (DAILY, Nov. 10).
ISS FUNDING: The Bush Administration is formally objecting to a Senate-proposed cut in NASA's $1.7 billion fiscal 2004 budget request for the International Space Station (ISS). In a statement, the Administration says the $200 million reduction, contained in the FY '04 NASA appropriations bill (DAILY, Sept. 5), "would deplete reserves deemed critical by independent cost estimates and limit the program's ability to address risks in FY '04, including impacts" from the Columbia space shuttle accident.
MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasianov has ordered the Russian finance ministry to provide 1.5 billion rubles (about $50 million) to Rosaviakosmos, the aviation and space agency, primarily for building additional Progress resupply vehicles to support the International Space Station. He requested the order be fulfilled within three days. "We have to do everything to keep space as a driving force of the Russian economy," Kasianov said.
NEW DELHI - India's navy plans to buy more Heron unmanned aerial vehicles from Israel to equip a new UAV base in the Andaman Islands. India bought eight Searcher Mark II and Heron UAVs from Israel Aircraft Industries in 2001. They have proven effective and Navy officials said they want to buy more UAVs to provide surveillance at critical naval facilities.
COMANCHE TO RETURN: The Army's RAH-66 Comanche helicopter will return to flight testing next April with a newly installed Electro-Optical Sensor System (EOSS), a new helmet and a new target identification and classification system. The EOSS includes a solid-state television, a two-color laser designator/rangefinder and two second-generation infrared sensors. "We're right now poising ourselves for installation of the EOSS," says Chief Contractor Test Pilot Rus Stiles.
Lockheed Martin Mission Systems last week said it has improved the processing capabilities of its Tactical Input Segment (TIS) to work in conjunction with the Navy's Shared Reconnaissance Pod (SHARP), speeding the processing time for detecting targets. During fly-by tests in mid-October, conducted at the Naval Air Station in Fallon, Nev., TIS successfully received more than 1,400 reconnaissance images from the SHARP system through a common data link, Lockheed Martin program officials told The DAILY.
NASA BUDGET: Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) are asking fellow senators to sign a letter urging President Bush to boost NASA's funding after a decade of flat budgets. "NASA has attempted to do too much with too little for too long," the letter says. "It is time to fix that funding shortfall. We are prepared to support you in the pursuit of a realistic and achievable vision for space flight.
Lockheed Martin has won a $2.5 million end-to-end architecture study contract for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) program from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the company announced Nov. 13. The contract covers four areas: space and launch; command, control, communications (C3); product generation and distribution; and end-to-end integration. NOAA's goal is to increase GOES-R's weather and environmental forecasting capabilities and reduce mission cost, according to Lockheed Martin.
A Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flying 12 miles above the battlefield successfully sent images and data to an airborne battle management platform and to soldiers on the ground, Northrop Grumman said Nov. 13.
ISS CONTRACT: Applied Research and Engineering Sciences Corp. of Burlingame, Calif., will support International Space Station program, business and configuration management under a $178 million contract, NASA said Nov. 12. The contract's base period is four years, nine months, with two one-year extension options. The company also will support data integration, program information technology, international partner elements integration management, systems analysis and integration, engineering and technical services and safety and mission assurance, NASA said.
After months of delays, Marine Corps Systems Command has chosen AeroVironment of Monrovia, Calif., to build the backpack-portable Dragon Eye unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system, The DAILY has learned. Over the next five years, AeroVironment is expected to build approximately 300 Dragon Eye systems, each consisting of one ground station and three aircraft. A fixed-wing, battery-powered surveillance UAV with a 45-inch wingspan, the Dragon Eye is launched by hand or with a bungee cord and controlled through a laptop ground station.
The U.S. Navy will continue to look to companies outside the U.S. marine industry, including aerospace firms and international firms, to help develop key maritime technologies, according to Rear Adm. William Klemm. Klemm, deputy commander of the Logistics, Maintenance and Industrial Operations directorate for the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), said the Navy currently relies on the highly specialized skills sets of about 100,000 people in the maritime industry.
RAPTOR PROCUREMENT: Acting Pentagon acquisition chief Michael Wynne has released a memorandum authorizing the Air Force to buy 22 Lockheed Martin F/A-22 Raptors for Lot 4 in fiscal 2004. The memorandum also approves advance procurement for F/A-22s the Air Force wants to procure for Lot 5 in FY '05.
Boeing Co. said four companies have joined it in the competition for the U.S. Navy's Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA), but a Boeing spokeswoman said the four are also free to team with MMA competitor Lockheed Martin. Boeing said Nov. 13 that its partners are CFM International, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Smiths Aerospace, and that the team is "focused on winning the MMA prime contractor selection in early 2004."
