U.S. Considering Update to Top Secret Spy Plane

LOS ANGELES – Spending money on a new generation of manned reconnaissance planes is certain to be controversial in an era of billion-dollar spy satellites and tight military budgets.

Air Force Pilots Jumping Ship

LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, VA. – At age 31, Capt. Glen Gentile has a job that a lot of Americans fantasize about. An Air Force fighter pilot, he spends his days pushing his F-15 Eagle to the edge of its supersonic capability. But while Gentile enjoys the excitement of speeding through the skies faster than sound, he and others like him have begun to tire of the demands of leadership in the post-Cold War world.

Emmitt Smith

The controversy is rooted in part in the high cost of launching multimillion-dollar satellites.

If GD sells all the assets it has put on the block, it will go from an $8.75 billion company (by 1991 sales) to a $6 billion company – if its remaining businesses continue at their current sales rate, which is unlikely in today’s defense spending climate.

Joint Strike Fighter. Photo: U.S. Air Force

Chevy Volt

While Ford, Chevy and GMC once ruled in full-size trucks, entries from Dodge and Toyota will fuel competition and maybe even force other companies to enter the battle. Photo: Chrysler/FCA

The Arlington and Willow Run plants, GM sources and analysts say, are the subject of an internal review at GM to find out which facility could end up producing the company’s full-size, rear-wheel-drive cars. Photo: General Motors Corp.

Even the youngest of the U-2s is expected to have reached the end of its structural lifespan around 2020.

Satellite service providers such as DirecTV and EchoStar, the biggest satellite broadcasters, have tens of millions of subscribers across America.

Lawmakers have been searching for ways to deal with the bills the Pentagon will face just after 2000 when it will attempt to produce three fighters at the same time, the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-22 stealth fighter and the F/A-18E/F. The combined cost of producing the Joint Strike Fighter and the other two planes has been estimated at $400 billion.

Acme Brick Co.

In November 1989, GD acknowledged that F-16 production had fallen as many as 20 planes behind schedule because of production problems. The problems cost GD millions of dollars in delayed government payments, contract adjustments and overtime pay. Photo: U.S. Air Force

Texans bought more than 621,000 light trucks in 1997, tops in the nation. Photo: Ford Motor Co.

To equal or surpass the F-22, the Russians would have had to have made significant advances in their fighter technology.

The Air Force has begun to give all its personnel more time off after lengthy assignments abroad. For example, a 90-day stay in Bosnia will now earn a two-week vacation upon return. A 45-day deployment will result in a week off.

Yesterday’s event in Texas Stadium drew more than 140 dealers from the Southwest region, which includes Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and New Mexico. Photo: General Motors Corp.

The two defense companies said the Justice Department had informed them that it was “fundamentally opposed” to the merger.

The prospect of Supreme Court vacancies is worrying some conservatives, legal experts say, because Republican presidents appointed the three jurists who are considered most likely to retire – Rehnquist, 72; Stevens, 76; and O’Connor, 66.

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U.S. Considering Update to Top Secret Spy Plane

Air Force Pilots Jumping Ship