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Strategies & Market Trends : Stock Attack II - A Complete Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: HammerHead who wrote (9787)	6/21/2001 3:11:20 PM
From: dennis michael patterson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 52237

just back from DIcks Sports. Stop on JNJ hit but my AMAT soft and Dell doing ok. 1750 looks gone

To: HammerHead who wrote (9787)	6/21/2001 4:10:41 PM
From: dawgfan2000	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 52237

BA has a lot on the line right now. Think GW will have any say? Boeing, Lockheed Martin contend for $200 billion fighter jet contract By Dan Piller Fort Worth Star-Telegram LE BOURGET, France - To hear U.S. Marine Gen. Michael Hough tell it, the joint strike fighter demonstrators built by Lockheed Martin and Boeing are so outstanding that either could be selected for the $200 billion, 3,000-plane contract. But Hough and his bosses at the Pentagon will have to choose one of the two entrants by Oct. 1, the jocular Marine said at a briefing Tuesday at the Paris Air Show. "It's still winner-take-all," Hough said in answer to a question that has been raised often in the four years since Lockheed Martin and Boeing were selected as finalists for what is likely to be the last major fighter contract until at least 2030. The selected contractor will have a monopoly on fighter building for decades, and the loser could be prompted to get out of the business. A win by Lockheed Martin means that its west Fort Worth plant, where the fighters would be assembled, could stay in business after production ends on the F-16. Currently, Lockheed Martin has enough work to last to 2008 and expects additional orders to push production to 2010. A loss means that the plant, a fixture in Fort Worth's economy since it opened in 1941, would probably eventually close. For Boeing, the stakes are no less high. The company wants to reinvent itself by veering away from its long-standing dependence on commercial aircraft. A loss would confine Boeing to slugging it out with a surging Airbus Industrie, whose momentum in the international airliner market has been on display this week in Paris. Hough teased a crowd eager for any sign of a favorite between contractors that have produced superb aircraft. He described their naval versions as "ready for the carrier, right now." Hough described Boeing's effort as a "spectacular performance." Lockheed Martin, Hough said, has been "absolutely perfect. There can be no gripes at all." Boeing and Lockheed have been flying their demonstrator JSF models since September. Both are readying tests of the crucial vertical lift capability that the Marines will need. The vertical lift function is thought by many to be the final determinant of a winner. In a separate presentation, Tom Burbage, director of JSF for Lockheed Martin, said Lockheed's JSF demonstrator will conduct its first hover flight this week or next at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Burbage said that Lockheed's vertical lift engine can engage when the aircraft travels at speeds as low as 180 knots, or less than one-third the speed of sound. He said the transition time for the vertical lift engine is about 12 seconds. Regarding the plane's traditional design, Burbage said it affords more than appearance. "We wanted a longer, more slender fuselage so we could have more room behind the pilot, particularly for our vertical lift engine," he said. Hough said the Pentagon is committed by Congress to select a winner by Oct. 1. Only after that date and a single selection can some work be handed off to the other company, he said. Industry analysts have worried aloud that the winner-take-all contest will leave the United States with just one manufacturer of tactical aircraft, a radical change for a country that has been able to call upon at least a half-dozen contractors since World War II. But mainstays of the aircraft industry such as Northrop, Grumman, General Dynamics, North American and McDonnell Douglas have either merged, exited the fighter business or downsized during the past two decades. Hough alluded to the situation when he said that "when the JSF program was conceived a decade ago, we had threesies and foursies among the contractors. Since then there has been a major consolidation in the industry, and we're down to twosies and onesies." But he said the winner-take-all approach has imposed discipline on the competition. "Do you know why Boeing has done such a grand job with its design?" Hough asked. "It's because Lockheed Martin lives. And Lockheed Martin has built the best plane they've ever built because they knew Boeing was out there." Hough took pains to note that the joint strike fighter, for all the promotion, won't be the most technically advanced fighter. That honor will go to the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. The JSF is being designed to afford what Hough calls the "best value" for buyers. He explained that while the elegant F-22 is expected to be the best fighter in the world, its cost of $82 million probably will put it beyond the reach of most international buyers. The joint strike fighter, by contrast, is expected to cost no more than $30 million to $40 million apiece, which would enable it to take over from the Fort Worth-built F-16 as the major U.S. horse in international fighter sales. "We have identified more than 2,700 aircraft flown by other nations that will need to be replaced," Hough said. Such sales could double the value of the JSF contractor to the winner. Analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group in Alexandria, Va., agreed, saying that "the real role for the JSF is in foreign sales. Lose the JSF, and America loses the international fighter market." seattletimes.nwsource.com