December 23, 1985

View Full Issue Table of Contents

AVIONICS

Self-protection Jammers Undergo Reliability and Flight Testing

enables a beam to be aimed in the direction of a threat radar to increase effective jamming power. Raytheon also has rotated the pod so that the ALQ-119’s aft end now faces forward in the ALQ-184. Washington—Future production prospects of two new-generation self-protection jamming pods, the Westinghouse ALQ-131/Block 2 and the Raytheon ALQ-184, will depend at least partly on the results of flight and reliability tests now getting under way.

By Philip J. Klass9 min

BUSINESS FLYING

Voyager Aircraft Plans Unrefueled, Long-duration Flights in 1986

Mojave, Calif.—Flight testing activity of the Voyager Aircraft, Inc., Voyager is increasing in anticipation of some record flight attempts scheduled for summer, 1986. Voyager Aircraft is planning to break a world absolute distance record with an approximately seven-day, 13,000-stat.-mi. closed-course flight off the California coast this summer.

By Keith F. Mordoff7 min

Aeronautical Engineering

Navy Agrees to Pay One-third of V-22 Tilt-rotor Tooling Costs

Dallas—U. S. Navy has told the industry team of Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing Vertol in ongoing negotiations that the U. S. government will pay for up to $300 million of an estimated total of $900 million in tooling costs for the joint services V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft production line.

By Carole A. Shifrin6 min

SPACE TECHNOLOGY

New Goes to Sharpen Severe Weather Tracking

Washington—Precise pointing accuracy of the next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) designed by Ford Aerospace & Communications Corp. will sharpen the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s tracking of local severe weather conditions in the next decade for more reliable warning of threats such as tornadoes and flash floods.

NEW-GENERATION FIGHTER

French Completing Final Definition of Production Rafale

St. Cloud, France—Final definition work is being completed for the production version of Dassault-Breguet’s Rafale new-generation fighter, while the full-scale demonstrator aircraft has been shipped to Istres, France, where it will start flight testing next June.

By Jeffrey M. Lenorovitz6 min

Management

Defense Planning and Procurement Imperiled By Balanced Budget Cuts

Washington—The $10-40 billion annual cuts in military spending threatened over the next five years by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction amendment will complicate defense planning and procurement and worsen tradeoffs between hardware and combat readiness, private and government defense analysts say.

By Paul Mann5 min

December 161985

December 301985

December 23, 1985

December 23, 1985

Air Force’s Competition Advocacy Program Aims at Subcontractor Tier

By Herbert J. Coleman11 min