Lockheed Martin Corp. on Oct. 28 reported a 23 percent increase in third-quarter sales, but net earnings fell due to a charge totaling nearly $83 million. For the quarter, net sales rose from $6.5 billion a year ago to about $8.1 billion this year. Net earnings fell from $290 million a year ago to $217 million. In a conference call with investors and analysts, company officials said the decline was due to a nearly $83 million after-tax charge for the early retirement of debt.
U.S. plans to sell more than $1.1 billion worth of military services and equipment to Saudi Arabia have met resistance from American lawmakers who have questioned the Middle Eastern country's commitment to fighting terrorism. One potential deal, worth $900 million, is largely to train the Saudi national guard but would provide some equipment, including "interoperability radios" and various spare parts, a congressional source told The DAILY Oct. 28. Vinnell Corp., a Northrop Grumman subsidiary, would be the prime contractor.
NEW DELHI - To counter India's airborne early warning capabilities, Pakistan plans to buy an unspecified number of FT 2000 surface-to-air missiles from China. India recently signed an agreement with Israel and Russia to install three Israeli Phalcon radars on Ilyushin Il-76 to serve as an airborne early warning system (DAILY, Oct. 13), prompting Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to request a weapon system from China to counter that capability, a Pakistani diplomat here said Oct. 27.
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) highlighted the need for sea basing, which is intended to free U.S. forces from dependence on other nations for overflight, transit, and basing support in future conflicts, said Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael T. Hagee. Sea basing will require inter-service cooperation and major technological advances by industry to become a reality, he said last week at the National Defense Industrial Association's Expeditionary Warfare Conference here.
GENERATOR SELECTED: Quantum3D of San Jose, Calif., will provide its Independence Image Generator to Lockheed Martin for use in F/A-22 Raptor air combat simulators, the company said Oct. 27. Earlier this year, Lockheed Martin also picked Quantum3D's image generator for use in F-35 Joint Strike Fighter air combat simulators, and it is providing graphics subsystems to drive F/A-22 avionics displays. The Independence series of generators has a resolution of up to 2,048 by 1,536 pixels, the company said.
House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) and Ranking Member Ralph Hall (D-Texas) are urging NASA to defer the development of the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) until the government has agreed on a vision for space exploration. In an Oct. 21 letter to NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, Boehlert and Hall said the OSP program "will not be successful on its current track," and expressed doubt over the validity of NASA's OSP budget estimates.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is working to re-establish communications with its Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS) II, known as Midori-II, which went mysteriously silent on Oct. 25.
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - The first use of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and dolphins in combat mine-clearing operations was highly successful, said Capt. Michael P. Tillotson, who commanded Naval Special Operations Task Force 56 in Operation Iraqi Freedom. However, a lack of understanding of mine countermeasures (MCM) by senior commanders produced unrealistic expectations of when humanitarian aid could be delivered through the Port of Umm Qasr, and intelligence shortfalls emerged, he said.
The U.S. Navy has awarded a $100 million contract modification to General Dynamics for work on the fire control systems for the Ohio-class ballistic missile and cruise missile submarine variants.
PRAGUE - Germany has followed Turkey and the United Kingdom by pulling out of a bidding process to supply 14 used supersonic aircraft to the Czech Republic. The Czech ministry of defense said Oct. 27 that German defense minister Peter Struck had written to his Czech counterpart, Miroslav Kostelka, to say Germany is not able to meet conditions attached to the process. No further details about the letter were released.
ACCEPTED: The Danish air force accepted three new C-130J-30 Hercules transport aircraft in an Oct. 21 ceremony at Lockheed Martin's Marietta, Ga., facility, the company said. The aircraft will be outfitted with Denmark-specific equipment and are scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2004.
The market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is expected to be worth about $10.6 billion over the next 10 years, according to a revised report from Forecast International/DMS. The Oct. 27 report, entitled the "Market for UAV Reconnaissance Systems," says successful U.S. military actions around the world have sparked more interest in UAVs. U.S. operated UAVs have seen action in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Yemen and most recently, Iraq, the report says.
TESTING: GE Aircraft Engines has completed all qualification testing of its higher-thrust F110 engine, the F110-GE-132, for the Lockheed Martin Block 60 F-16E/F, the company said Oct. 27. The engine has been cleared for operational service on the aircraft. Flight tests of the Block 60 F-16 are scheduled for late this year.
MARGINALLY INTEROPERABLE: Combat support applications like the Theater Battle Management Core System (TBMCS), the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS), the Automated Deep Operations Coordination System (ADOCCS), the All-Source Analysis System (ASAS), and the Intelligence-Operations Systems (IOS) were "very valuable" in Iraq, says Marine Corps Gen. Keith Stalder, deputy commanding general for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "But all those systems are only marginally interoperable.
Oct. 27 - 28 -- Light Armored Vehicles 2003, "Improving the Lethality, Survivability and Mobility of the Warfighter," Doubletree Hotel, Crystal City, Arlington, Va. For more information call 800-882-8684, email [email protected] or go to www.idga.org. Oct. 28 - 29 -- Nanotech Venture Fair 2003, Loews Coronado Bay Resort, Coronado, Calif. For more information call (818) 888-4444, email [email protected], or go to www.nanotechventurefair.com.
RAPTOR ESSENTIAL: Defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute says Defense Department critics of the F/A-22 Raptor are again questioning the need for the aircraft, but he says he has 10 reminders why the Raptor is essential to national security, which he kept "simple for all the liberal-arts majors." His number three reminder: "Without air dominance, U.S. bombers, transports, tankers and electronic aircraft would be unable to operate in hostile airspace." At number two: "The reason no U.S.
The Iraq war showed that the U.S. military needs to improve its missile warning capabilities and its management of electronic signals in the battlespace, according to a new assessment by the Army's 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command (AAMDC).
A LARGER PROBLEM: The $187 million third-quarter charge taken by Raytheon Co. for 10 programs handled by its Network Centric Systems (NCS) may point to a larger problem, according to senior aerospace and defense analyst Byron Callan of Merrill Lynch. "Clearly, there are going to be occasions in defense contracting when changes to the scope of work, or programs canceled, or technical hurdles, simply prove too high to clear," Callan says. "But the sorts of problems uncovered at NCS suggest to us that a larger problem regarding internal control and planning existed.
PRAGUE - The purchase of used supersonic fighters for the Czech military may help reduce the large number of pilots planning to leave the air force to take up civilian flying jobs, according to Czech defense officials. About 60 pilots indicated recently that they planned to leave the air force before the end of the year. Many of them are concerned about their futures in the face of cutbacks being forced upon the military by planned budget reductions.
Lawmakers were awaiting a proposal from the Bush Administration late Oct. 24 aimed at reaching a compromise on controversial Buy American provisions in the House fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill, congressional and industry sources said.
Raytheon said last week that the unitary warhead variant of its Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) successfully completed the U.S. Navy's developmental testing requirements. The tests, which occurred Oct. 21 at the Naval Air Systems Command's (NAVAIR) Pacific Land Range at China Lake, Calif., included seven free-flight demonstrations of the AGM-154C unitary multi-stage warhead variant of the JSOW.
