A recently approved amendment to the Senate fiscal 2001 defense authorization bill would improve the way the Civil False Claims Act is administered, an Aerospace Industries Association representative said Monday.
BELL-BOEING JOINT PROGRAM OFFICE has been awarded a $86.3 million advance acquisition contract for long lead items for the manufacture and delivery of 16 MV-22 and 4 CV-22 aircraft, the Pentagon reported. Work on the contract is expected to be complete by October 2003.
LOCKHEED MARTIN AERONAUTICS CO. has been awarded a $1.3 billion contract for a total of 50 F-16s, including 34 C models and 17 D models, as a foreign military sale to Greece, the Pentagon announced yesterday. Although the contract was solicited July 1998, negotiations weren't completed until February of this year. Work is expected to be finished by April 2004.
A House of Commons committee has cautiously endorsed revised Ministry of Defense proposals to transfer the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) to a future public-private partnership. Convened on April 17, the House of Commons Defense Committee has examined MOD proposals for a preferred approach, known as Core Competence, which would create two new organizations.
Investors continued to hammer Honeywell's stock yesterday, lopping 11% off the share price following yesterday's 17% fall, as several Wall Street analysts downgraded their ratings for the aerospace manufacturer.
Some of NASA's severest congressional critics yesterday pledged continuing support for Mars exploration and the faster-better-cheaper approach to doing it, even as they chastised top agency managers for dropping the ball on the failed Mars '98 missions.
Israel's Elbit Systems Ltd. said its jointly-owned Vision Systems International LLC (VSI) located in San Jose, Calif., won a contract from the Royal Danish Air Force (RDAF) for Helmet Mounted Cueing Systems (HMCS).
The U.S. Air Force will advocate more reliance on unmanned aerial vehicles to enhance future warfighting capabilities, according to the service's two leaders, Secretary F. Whitten Peters and Chief of Staff Gen. Michael E. Ryan. Ryan, who remarked, "We are into UAVs big-time," and Peters presented the service's vision, "America's Air Force: Global Vigilance, Reach and Power," to reporters at the Pentagon Monday. Peters said the title was chosen to explain the breadth of what the Air Forces does.
The last flight test, which took place Jan. 18, was deemed a miss when the EKV's infrared seeker cooling system experienced a failure (DAILY, Jan. 20). In the previous flight test of Oct. 2, 1999, the EKV scored a hit and destroyed its target. The EKV destroys its target with kinetic energy, colliding at about 4.6 miles per second.
The powerplant for the Airbus A340-500/600 flew for the first time beneath the wing of an A340-300 testbed, Airbus said. The Rolls-Royce Trent 500 engine took the place of one of four CFM56-5C4 engines in a two hour and 30 minutes flight. Pilots were able to explore the envelope of the aircraft up to its maximum operating speed of 345 knots or .86 Mach. The Trent 500 can deliver up to 60,000 pounds of thrust. Airbus said it has 129 firm orders and commitments for the new airplane.
IATA Director General Pierre Jeanniot told the Global Navcom Symposium last week in Vancouver that "our industry must stop going forward at the pace of the slowest or it will first grind to a halt and then regress." Jeanniot was referring to the slow pace of progress in implementing a worldwide system of satellite-based air navigation.
Embraer said yesterday that it has decided to fit winglets to the ERJ 170 regional jetliner. The Brazilian company said the winglets will improve fuel burn and climb capability, extend range and allow for increased payload. The company said use of advanced tools such as computational fluid dynamics, digital mockup and virtual reality allowed introduction of winglets without impact on the development schedule. The announcement was made after a meeting of the company's advisory board in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $24,783,000 (not-to-exceed) modification to a firm-fixed-price contract to provide for incorporation of new capabilities and enhancements into the development effort for the Operational Flight Program Tape 4 for the F-16 aircraft. This effort supports foreign military sales to Taiwan. Expected contract completion date is Sept. 30, 2003. Negotiation completion date was Nov. 21, 2000. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-90-C-2002-P00704).
Utah State University/Space Dynamics Laboratory (USU/SDL), North Logan, Utah, is being awarded a $67.9 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (HQ0006-00-D-0006) to continue efforts in sensor development and in the conduct of international cooperative technology experiments in sensor-related areas. The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization is the contracting activity. The period of performance is from June 2000 through June 2005. Work will be performed in North Logan, Utah. USU/SDL is a Department of Defense University Affiliated Research Center.
Aerojet Ordnance Tennessee, Jonesborough, Tenn., is being awarded $142,672 as part of a $26,633,000 time and material contract for engineering and manufacturing support services in the research and development of heavy metal ammunition and other military unique components. Work will be performed in Jonesborough, Tenn., and is expected to be completed by March 31, 2005. Of the total contract funds, $142,672 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There was an announcement on the World Wide Web on Jan. 31, 2000, and one bid was received. The U.S.
CHINA AVIATION SUPPLIERS Import&Export Corp. and China United Airlines will purchase a Delta Airlines-owned 767-300ER which is being delivered new from Boeing as the "Air Force One" of China.
Boeing Co., Huntsville, Ala., was awarded on June 9, 2000, a $25,028,275 modification to firm-fixed-price contract DAAH01-98-C-0077, to exercise an option for 25 Avenger fire units for Egypt. The Avenger fire unit is a lightweight, highly mobile and air transportable platform that uses a Stinger missile and a 50-caliber machine gun for armament.
NASA has issued a formal request for information (RFI) from potential bidders on a U.S.-built Propulsion Module for the International Space Station, setting the groundwork for a possible competition on the $540 million project later this summer. The RFI published in yesterday's Commerce Business Daily asks companies that might want to bid on the project to outline the capabilities that would enable them to build a human-rated, two-fault-tolerant backup Station propulsion unit that would be ready to launch in three years and last until 2015 or beyond.
Two appointments last week at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works have allayed concerns among current and former employees that the organization is being dismantled, but new fiscal demands on Lockheed Martin management and the drying up of requirements for the super-secret aircraft that have been the Skunk Works' hallmark since the 1950s have forced some major changes. Sherman N. Mullin, who ran the operation from 1990 to 1994, expressed his deep concern in a strongly worded letter to Eugene F.
Based on results through the end of May, Honeywell warned it will fall short of expected second quarter earnings results, precipitating a significant sell-off of Honeywell shares. The company now targets second-quarter earnings per share in the $0.73 to $0.77 range, below Wall Street's consensus of $0.78 a share. Shares plummeted $8.44, or %17.40, to close at $40.06. Volume for the day, even despite a trading halt earlier, was over twenty million shares. Average daily volume is typically around 2.3 million shares.
Boeing Delta Launch Services won the first three firm space launch contracts under the new NASA Launch Services (NLS) contracts, with Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services also picked to launch heavy NASA payloads under the 10-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity arrangement.
EATON AEROSPACE, Irvine, Calif., won a contract to provide the hydraulic power generation system and utility actuation and control valve subsystem for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) team of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. Eaton is responsible for the design, development and integration of the hydraulic power system. Key components include hydraulic pumps and motor pumps, reservoirs, manifolds, accumulators, control valves, quick disconnect couplings, and hydromechanical and electromechanical actuators.
