February 25, 1980

February 25, 1980

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Editorial

Less for More

By William H. Gregory

VIEWPOINT

Carter's New Defense Budget: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

Management

ICBM Survivability Aid Studied

By Clarence A. Robinson

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More Features
1011
Editorial

Less for More

One of the sobering facets of both Air Force and Navy statements to Congress on Fiscal 1981 aircraft procurement budgets is the toll taken by cost growth. Much of this toll is due to inflation and the Administration’s ineffectual efforts so far to try to forestall a further drop in the purchasing power of the dollar through budget constraints.

By William H. Gregory

1011
VIEWPOINT

Carter's New Defense Budget: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

Critics of the current Administration frequently claim that Carter’s actions belie his words, and that he wants to be the world’s preacher, but not its leader. The new Fiscal 1981 defense proposals support these biases. The new five-year plan is woefully inadequate to meet our new challengeschallenges which result largely from Carter’s own prior decisions.
1617
Management

ICBM Survivability Aid Studied

Two concepts that would allow orbital, aerodynamic cruise loiter of Minuteman weighed to counter preemptive strike

By Clarence A. Robinson

1819
Management

Strategic Cuts Laid to Faulty Intelligence

Washington —Defense Dept, factions pressing for a new manned bomber are demanding more accurate U. S. intelligence estimates of the Soviet Union’s strategic weapons capability. The bomber proponents claim that the U. S. must move immediately toward either a stretched version of the General Dynamics FB111 with increased range and payload, or to the Rockwell International B-l to counter Soviet strategic superiority.
1819
Management

Diego Garcia Assumes New Strategic Role

Diego Garcia, one of the Chagos Archipelago islands, has taken on renewed strategic importance simply because it is the only U. S. base in the Indian Ocean, although it is nearly 1,000 naut. mi. southeast of the tip of India and Sri Lanka. The island itself became a British protectorate when Britain set up the British Indian Ocean territory in 1965, and the island was dedicated to the U. K. and U. S. for military use.
2021

Soviet Consul Ousted

Brussels —Soviet consul in Marseille was forced to leave France recently after French secret service officials allegedly found him in possession of top secret documents of the Dassault-Breguet Mirage 2000 fighter. While French police refused to confirm that Guenadi Travkov, 47, Soviet consul in charge of scientific affairs in Marseille, had been forced to leave France because of spying, Soviet officials in France acknowledged that the diplomat had left for the USSR, but maintained that he was forced to leave because French police harrassment made his job impossible.
2021
Aeronautical Engineering

Stretched C-141Bs Slated for MAC

U. S. Air Force will take delivery of 80 stretched Lockheed C-141B four-engine jet transports in 1980 to augment USAF’s Military Airlift Command. First production model was delivered last December (AW&ST Dec. 3, 1979, p. 16) and all 271 C-141s will be completed and delivered by mid-1982.
2021
Management

NATO Air Forces Curtail Flights In Wake of Rising Fuel Costs

Brussels —Sharp rise in aviation fuel prices is forcing a number of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) air forces to curtail combat flight hours and modify training programs as governments struggle to find additional funds for fuel.
2223
Space Technology

Orbiter Protective Tiles Assume Structural Role

Kennedy Space Center, Fla.—Significant change in philosophy by Rockwell International, elevating the space shuttle’s thermal protection tiles to the level of individual structural system as opposed to a protective sheath just along for the ride, has dictated major management realignments and forced intensified long-term tile work requirements here on the orbiter Columbia.
2223
Space Technology

Densification Process Applied to Shuttle Tiles

Kennedy Space Center, Fla. — About 16,000 of the space shuttle’s 31,000 thermal protection tiles will undergo densification prior to first launch. Large areas of the orbiter processing facility’s second bay, currently unoccupied by any spacecraft, have been turned into a tile densification processing facility preparing tiles for the Columbia in the adjacent bay.
February 181980 March 31980