Boeing and Jeppesen Sanderson expect few anti-trust problems in the plan announced last week under which the Seattle giant would buy the Denver-based flight information services provider for $1.5 billion in cash (DAILY, Aug. 16). Jeppesen CEO Horst Bergmann said a possible ramification - one that he specified during negotiations with Boeing - may be the reaction of Boeing's chief competitor and strong Jeppesen customer, Airbus Industrie. He said Jeppesen would work with Airbus in coming months to allay concerns.
The Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Charleston Detachment Washington deployed AXENT Technologies' Raptor firewall and PowerVPN to safeguard online financial information. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center is charged with picking security technologies for government agencies. With the new e-security, the Navy's Financial Management Office can transmit data from remote sites via the Internet, protecting important and sensitive financial information from hackers.
FIGHTER CONVERSION: The U.S. Air Force has approved the conversion of some F-15 training missions at Tyndall AFB, Fla., to the F-22. The conversion will replace 60 F-15s over five years, starting in 2003. Two F-22 squadrons and one F-15 squadron will support training operations after the process is completed. The F-22 squadrons will train pilots and maintenance crews. The number of training operations and the use of airspace over the Gulf of Mexico is expected to increase by about 7%.
TETHER SLIP: Hardware problems have forced NASA to push back its planned launch of the Propulsive Small Expendable Deployer System (ProSEDS) experiment until after the first of the year, says Les Johnson, principal investigator on the Marshall Space Flight Center project. "We've had some delays in our hardware internally, and we're wanting to delay launch to get some of that straightened out," Johnson said.
Civilian leaders at the Pentagon see the idea of a seagoing missile defense system based on the Navy's Aegis air-defense ships worthy of consideration, but as they put the finishing touches on a congressionally mandated report on the subject, they are still betting on a land-based system for near-term deployment.
Intergraph Government Solutions outfitted the USS Abraham Lincoln Battle Group with the first telemaintenance and electronic document management system in the U.S. Navy, achieving a "major milestone" in the Joint Aviation Technical Data Integration (JATDI) project. The Lincoln sports the latest technologies for document management and digital audio-visual maintenance support, allowing squadron maintainers to tap into the most up-to-date technical data.
SENSOR TO SHOOTER: The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center is looking for quick ways to integrate UAV imagery into GEO-referenced terrain maps that can be fed right into the cockpits of attacking warplanes, in effect turning the pilotless UAVs into robotic forward air controllers. Brig. Gen. Thomas D.
Lockheed Martin Federal Systems picked Pathlore Learning Management System to provide online training and education for over 1.2 million people under the Navy Learning Network (NLN) initiative. NLN, which is initially hosting more than 400 courses, will expand as more Navy Web-based courses are added. Pathlore delivers the online courseware and tracks student performance, giving military personnel the chance to go to school anytime, anywhere.
Lockheed Martin has signed on with McGraw-Hill's AviationNow.com as a Founder's Council sponsor. The designation allows it to participate in the development of the online news portal as a member of the Advisory Board. Also on the AviationNow.com Founder's Council are Aerospan, MyAircraft.com, IBM, MySAP.com, Singapore Technologies Aerospace, PenGroup.com, Dassault/Falcon Jet and Pratt&Whitney Canada.
Kistler Aerospace Corp. will have three months to put together a detailed roadmap showing how its K-1 commercial reusable launch vehicle can meet contingency resupply needs for the International Space Station (ISS).
DEPOT DIFFICULTIES: The Air Force is struggling to meet a legal requirement that defense agencies use no more than 50% of their depot maintenance funds on work by private contractors, the General Accounting Office says in a new report. The report, "Depot Maintenance: Action Needed to Avoid Exceeding Ceiling on Contract Workloads" (GAO/NSIAD-00-193), says the GAO's "analysis of available data indicates that the Air Force ... may exceed the ceiling by about $200 million this fiscal year and ...
AEGIS SUPPORT: Henry Cooper, director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization from 1990 to 1993, says the Navy's sea-based systems offer the earliest possible opportunity to defend the United States against ballistic missiles.
HILL RUSH: Capitol Hill may be a popular place for defense contractors next month. With Congress scheduled to return from recess after Labor Day and then adjourn for the year in early October, companies that need the Hill to sign off on foreign military sales will have a small window of opportunity to brief lawmakers on their plans, industry sources note.
The Air Force tapped Peterson's, a provider of education and career information, to handle the online educational and career information needs of over 1.1 million enlistees, reserves and family members, by establishing an online Air Force Resource Center.
HONEYWELL is looking to shed non-core assets, specifically its automotive consumer products group. The company has tapped Salomon Smith Barney to find a buyer for the division. Michael R. Bonsignore, chairman and CEO of Honeywell, said the move comes as the company tries to "maximize portfolio potential" by concentrating on core businesses. Honeywell's consumer products group, with some 4,400 employees, contributed about $1.1 billion in sales for fiscal 1999.
CRUISE MISSILE DEFENSE: MIT's Lincoln Lab is putting the finishing touches on a new architecture for a national defense against cruise missile defense and should be ready to report by the end of the year.
Data Systems&Solutions, Rolls-Royce's joint venture with SAIC, has introduced aeromanager.com, which gives airlines instant access to engine aftermarket services, from health monitoring to technical publications. Rolls-Royce also says that Condor Flugdienst, Germany's largest inclusive tour operator, is the launch customer for enginedatacenter.com, one aeromanager.com's services. Condition monitoring data on Condor's Boeing 757s will be online for powerplant engineers.
RED IS A GO, GREEN IS GONE: The U.S. Air Force traditionally holds about four Green Flag and four Red Flag exercises per year at Nellis AFB, Nev. Green Flag concentrates primarily on air-to-ground operations and electronic warfare, and Red Flag focuses on air-to-air. Lt. Col. Steve Chase, squadron commander of the Washington, D.C., Air National Guard, which operates F-16s, this month's Green Flag was the last. In the future, both exercises will be combined under Red Flag, partly to save money and partly to give a more realistic scenario of multiple battle challenges.
NASA is drawing on the lessons it has learned from the composite cryogenic fuel tank failure that stalled the X-33 reusable launch vehicle (RLV) program as it plans the development work for the "Second Generation RLV" underway at Marshall Space Flight Center here.
DRS Technologies' Electronic Systems Group will provide manufacturing and engineering services on the U.S. Navy's AN/UYQ-70 Advanced Display Systems under new orders estimated at $17.4 million from industry teammate Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics&Surveillance Systems - Tactical Systems. DRS' Laurel Technologies unit, Johnstown, Pa., will make the commercial-off-the-shelf-based AN/UYQ-70 computer workstations and peripherals for the Navy's Aegis class ships, carriers, aircraft and submarines.
TheLaw.com is teaming with CentralHQ.com (ArmyHQ.com, NavyHQ.com, AirforceHQ.com, and MarinesHQ.com) to provide a national directory of lawyers and a wealth of instructive "how-to" legal information for the military community. The alliance will make it easier for the more than 12 million people to check out legal advice or find a lawyer.
'GOSSAMER SPACECRAFT': NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is soliciting proposals for exploratory research aimed at long-range development of "gossamer spacecraft" technology. The effort, it says, is focusing on revolutionary architectures for very large, ultra-lightweight structures such as solar sails, and large apertures for "breakthrough imaging."
Canadian-based COM DEV International Ltd. put the finishing touches on a $16.8 million contract, substantially above original expectations, to supply switches and multiplexers for two commercial communications satellites Astrium is building for Intelsat. "I believe it is another vote of confidence in the huge effort we have been making this past year to enhance our performance and delivery reliability while significantly reducing our cost, said John Keating, president of COM DEV Space.
CUTTING EDGE: Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. opts for lasers to inspect composite parts and assemblies on fighter aircraft. The company is using a unique laser ultrasonic technology system to inspect production composite parts, like the engine inlet duct of the F-22. The system, called LaserUT, can do high-resolution scans of graphite-epoxy and other composites, on parts up to 54 x 27 x 21 feet, in a tenth of the time of water-type ultrasonic systems, according to the company.
BOLT FROM THE BLUE: Pentagon intelligence analysts consider it more likely that the U.S. will be attacked by terrorists with weapons of mass destruction than by a "bolt-from-the-blue" missile attack that might be blocked by a National Missile Defense. The advantage of a terror attack for an enemy is that it would be difficult for the U.S. to know where to retaliate, says Ken Knight, defense intelligence officer for global trends and projections.
