DTN News: Malaysia's AirAsia Defers Airbus A320 Delivery

DTN News: Malaysia's AirAsia Defers Airbus A320 Delivery

*Source: DTN News / Reuters

(NSI News Source Info) KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - August 7, 2009: Southeast Asia's largest budget carrier AirAsia has deferred the delivery of 8 Airbus A320 aircraft to 2014 from 2010 as the existing low-cost terminal is unable to support its fleet expansion. "AirAsia foresees infrastructural constraints with the current airport facilities and until the new LCCT (low-cost carrier terninal) is constructed," the airline said in a statement. AirAsia has firm orders of 175 Airbus A320 aircraft scheduled for delivery between 2005 and October 2014, it said in a statement. Airbus has agreed to the revised schedule and no penalty will be imposed on AirAsia, which will now take delivery of 16 aircraft in 2010. The budget carrier said it has the right to postpone delivery of another 8 aircraft in 2011 to 2014 if it informs Airbus before the end of October. The Malaysian government in January turned down AirAsia's proposal to build, own and operate a new airport outside of the capital Kuala Lumpur. The authorities subsequently announced that the country's airport operator Malaysia Airports Holdings will build the new low-cost terminal with inputs from AirAsia. The budget carrier this week announced plans to place out a 20 percent stake in the airline, which has attracted strong interest from foreign and local institutional funds, its chief executive Tony Fernandes told Reuters. (Reporting by Julie Goh; Editing by David Chance)

DTN News: Honeywell Unit Says To Double India Revenue

DTN News: Honeywell Unit Says To Double India Revenue

* Plans to more than double $500 million rev from India * Investing $50 million to expand R&D plant in Bangalore * Eyeing revenue from India space programme

*Source: DTN News / Reuters By Bappa Majumdar

(NSI News Source Info) NEW DELHI, India - August 7, 2009: Honeywell International's aerospace unit plans to more than double its $500 million revenue from India in five years by increasing sales of defence and commercial equipment, a top official said on Friday. Honeywell is also upgrading India's Jaguar fighter planes with superior engine, and has a tie-up with state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to produce aircraft engines and equipment for the international market. An Indian Air Force (IAF) 14th Squadron SEPECAT (Breguet/BAC) Jaguar GR-1 "Shamser" (Sword of Justice) ground attack aircraft prepares to receive fuel from a IAF 78th Squadron Ilyushin IL-78 Midas aerial refueling aircraft, flying out of Eielson FB, Alaska (AK), as they participate in an aerial refueling mission during Exercise COOPERATIVE COPE THUNDER, the largest multinational air combat training exercise in the Pacific. This 15-day exercise simulates wartime combat conditions so that military personnel from 12-nations can sharpen their air fighting skills, exchange air operational tactics, and build closer relations with each other. "We have revenue in excess of half a billion dollars, which we plan to more than double in five years," Paolo Carmassi, chief executive officer of Honeywell Aerospace, the world's largest maker of cockpit systems, told Reuters in an interview. Honeywell, a diversified group which makes products such aircraft engines, electronic systems and avionics, has five manufacturing facilities and 10,000 employees in India. As one of the world's biggest arms importers, India plans to spend more than $30 billion over the next five years to upgrade its largely Soviet-era arsenal, which Carmassi said provided the perfect environment to grow its businesses. "Honeywell has had significant investment in India and is committed to realise its vision in the country. For example, in 2009, Honeywell has invested $50 Million to expand its R&D facility in Bangalore," Carmassi said by telephone from Rolle in Switzerland. India will begin field trials this month to buy 126 fighter jets in a $10.4 billion project which is one of the world's biggest arms deal in play at the moment. Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet, France's Dassault Rafale, Lockheed Martin Corp's F-16, Russia's MiG-35, Sweden's Saab JAS-39 Gripen and the Eurofighter Typhoon, are the six contenders. When India finalises the fighter deal in a year's time, it would be a win-win situation for Honeywell, Carmassi said, adding that five of the six contenders for the fighters have Honeywell products. Honeywell components are also present in six C-130J military transport planes and eight P8-I maritime patrol aircraft, bought by India for $3.2 billion from Lockheed Martin and Boeing recently, Carmassi said. Honeywell is also upgrading India's Jaguar fighter planes with superior engine, and has a tie-up with state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to produce aircraft engines and equipment for the international market. The company is also eyeing revenues from India's space programme which envisions the launch of several satellites in the coming years and unmanned and manned missions to space and moon. (Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Valerie Lee)

DTN News: Meggitt To Develop Energy Efficient Systems For Combat Vehicles

DTN News: Meggitt To Develop Energy Efficient Systems For Combat Vehicles *Source: DTN News / Future Technologies (NSI News Source Info) NEW YORK, USA - August 7, 2009: Meggitt’s US-based military electronics cooling facility in California and Maryland-based Patrick Power Products Inc (P3I) are to develop a family of rugged, energy and fuel-efficient auxiliary thermal management and power systems to run and cool electronics on ground combat vehicles.The IAV Stryker is a family of eight-wheeled all-wheel-drive armored combat vehicles produced by General Dynamics Land Systems, in use by the United States Army. Based on the Canadian LAV III light-armored vehicle, which in turn is based on the Swiss MOWAG Piranha III 8x8, the Stryker is the U.S. Army's first new armored vehicle since the M2/M3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle in the 1980s. The Stryker was championed by General Eric Shinseki when he was U.S. Army Chief of Staff. The vehicle is employed in Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, light and mobile units based on the Brigade Combat Team Doctrine that relies on vehicles connected by military C4I networks.

Optimised for size, weight and power (SWaP) and thermal management efficiency, the partnership aims to reduce dependence on a vehicle’s main engine power by command, control and communications systems and the electronics needed to run defensive and offensive weapons and the vehicles themselves. The systems will draw on established technology like the M1A2SEP thermal management system, 1300 of which have been produced by Meggitt for the US Army in the last decade, Meggitt’s third generation combat thermal management system developed for the US Army MULE programme and the recently demonstrated US Army multi-fuel rotary auxiliary power unit produced by P3I for the Abrams Main Battle Tank. Meggitt and P3I aim to develop and demonstrate combat-ready systems that can be integrated easily into a range of US Army and international ground combat vehicles and function reliably in all known extreme environments. Meggitt and P3I estimate the new systems could reduce dependence on vehicle engine power by over 40% on platforms like the M1A2, M2A3 and Stryker family of combat vehicles while reducing vehicle energy and fuel consumption and the associated logistics impact by over 60%.

DTN News: Twitter, Facebook Attack Targeted One User

DTN News: Twitter, Facebook Attack Targeted One User *Source: DTN News / Cnet By Elinor Mills

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - August 7, 2009: A pro-Georgian blogger with accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal and Google's Blogger and YouTube was targeted in a denial of service attack that led to the site-wide outage at Twitter and problems at the other sites on Thursday, according to a Facebook executive. In common usage, a hacker is a person who breaks into computers, usually by gaining access to administrative controls. The subculture that has evolved around hackers is often referred to as the computer underground. Proponents claim to be motivated by artistic and political ends, and are often unconcerned about the use of illegal means to achieve them. Other uses of the word hacker exist that are not related to computer security (computer programmer and home computer hobbyists), but these are rarely used by the mainstream media. The blogger, who uses the account name "Cyxymu," (the name of a town in the former Soviet Republic) had accounts on all of the different sites that were attacked at the same time, Max Kelly, chief security officer at Facebook, told CNET News. "It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard," Kelly said. "We're actively investigating the source of the attacks and we hope to be able to find out the individuals involved in the back end and to take action against them if we can."

Kelly declined to speculate on whether Russian nationalists were behind the attack, but said: "You have to ask who would benefit the most from doing this and think about what those people are doing and the disregard for the rest of the users and the Internet." Twitter was down for several hours beginning early Thursday morning, and suffered periodic slowness and time-outs throughout the day. "The people who are coordinating this attack, the criminals, are definitely determined and using a lot of resources," Kelly said. "If they're asking our infrastructure to generate hundreds of pages a second, that's a lot of pages our users can't see." Facebook and Google were able to minimize any impact to their sites. Facebook even managed to keep the Cyxymu account accessible to Web surfers from that region, Kelly said, although it was inaccessible to people in other geographic areas, including San Francisco. This was the first coordinated attack on the sites, and all the companies involved were working closely on the investigation, he said. "My team and the teams that are working together at all these companies are doing a really good job very quickly and I'm proud and happy," he said. Twitter and LiveJournal did not immediately return e-mails and calls seeking comment. A Google spokesman offered this statement: "We are aware that a handful of non-Google sites were impacted by a DOS attack this morning, and are in contact with some affected companies to help investigate this attack. Google systems prevented substantive impact to our services."

DTN News: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton To Push Pretoria On Zimbabwe Crisis

DTN News: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton To Push Pretoria On Zimbabwe Crisis

*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) NAIROBI, Kenya - August 7, 2009: U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton says she will push South Africa to do more to counter embattled President Robert Mugabe's negative effect on the Zimbabwe reform process. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, during a press conference at the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, Thursday, Aug. 6 2009, where the Secretary met with the Somalia president Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed. Clinton on Thursday pledged continued American support for Somalia's weak interim government as it struggles against Islamist extremists believed linked to al-Qaida. But Mugabe supporters have dismissed her comments as external interference, saying Zimbabweans are capable of resolving their own problems. Clinton's comment comes a day ahead of her scheduled meeting with top South African government officials on Friday. South African President Jacob Zuma met earlier this week with Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in an effort to address concerns that are threatening to undermine the coalition government. Political analyst Somadoda Fikeni told VOA that Washington doesn't see Mugabe as playing a pivotal role in resolving the Zimbabwe crisis. "America has never accepted Robert Mugabe as a partner in resolving this matter, so they grudgingly embraced what the African Union and SADC (Southern African Development Community) have decided on in terms of the government of national unity," Fikeni said. He said Pretoria will ensure Secretary Clinton knows the steps taken to resolve the Zimbabwe impasse. "What will happen is that South Africa will say we've already discussed with Morgan Tsvangirai and promised to intervene again to prop up the peace process, which seemingly is ailing at the moment," he said. South African president Jacob Zuma, left, shake hands with Zimbabwean PM Morgan Tsvangirai, during a meeting in Johannesburg, 03 Aug 2009 Fikeni said there are no reasons to believe that South Africa would be pushed to do more in neighboring Zimbabwe. "They (South Africa) won't agree that it is because of American pressure that they are actually putting more pressure on Zimbabweans to resolve the matter," Fikeni said. He said both Pretoria and Washington are seeking to warm up diplomatic ties from the frosty relationship of recent years. "Remember that this is an era where the South African new administration and American new administration are trying to mend things after what has been a chilly relationship in the (Thabo) Mbeki administration and George Bush administration," he said. Meanwhile, President Robert Mugabe has refused to meet the outgoing U.S ambassador James McGee the man he once described as a "house Negro". McGee had wanted to pay a courtesy call, as is the norm with outgoing ambassadors. At a recent meeting in Libya, Mugabe also verbally abused Johnnie Carson, the top U.S diplomat to Africa calling him an idiot, after describing his predecessor, Jendayi Frazer as "that little girl trotting around the globe like a prostitute. Zimbabwe's embattled President Robert MugabeFikeni said it will not be a surprise that President Mugabe will dismiss Secretary Clinton's remarks ahead of her scheduled meeting with officials in Pretoria. "He will repeat what he has always said and what he said recently when he visited the family of his late deputy president (Joseph Msika) that the Zimbabwe problems would be solved by Zimbabweans. So I think that has become his touchline… to most of what is perceived as external interference or what he will present as external interference," Fikeni said. Secretary Clinton is also scheduled to pay a courtesy call on South Africa's former President Nelson Mandela.

DTN News: Former President Bill Clinton Deflects Questions On Mission To North Korea

DTN News: Former President Bill Clinton Deflects Questions On Mission To North Korea

*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media

(NSI News Source Info) NEW YORK, USA - August 7, 2009: Former President Bill Clinton said Thursday that, while negotiating the release this week of two American journalists detained in North Korea, he went no further than previous Obama administration statements in expressing regret for the journalists having entered the country illegally. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton speaks at a news conference with Robert J. Coury, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mylan (2nd from L) and Jeffrey B. Kindler, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer (L) and Nimmagadda Prasad, founder of Matrix, in New York, August 6, 2009. Through his Clinton Foundation the former U.S. President has worked with drug manufacturers to provide more affordable HIV/AIDS therapy in the developing world. North Korea pardoned and released the two journalists after Clinton met in Pyongyang on Tuesday with the country's ailing dictator, Kim Jong-Il. North Korea said later that Clinton had apologized; the White House denied that any apology was offered. On Thursday, Clinton spoke publicly for the first time about the trip the White House has described as a "private humanitarian mission." While not specifically addressing whether his remarks constituted an apology, Clinton said the secretary of state -- his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton -- had already expressed regret for the journalists' breach of the North Korean border. "I was not asked for any more, nor did I offer any more," he said. Clinton, appearing at a news conference about his foundation's efforts to combat AIDS, deflected questions about his impressions of Kim and about whether he had made concessions to the North Koreans to free the journalists. "My job was to do one thing, which I was honored to do, as an American and as a father," he said. "I wanted those young women to be able to come home." "Anything I say beyond that could inadvertently affect the decisions and moves either here or in North Korea, and the attitudes of our allies," Clinton continued. The two journalists, Euna Lee, 36, and Laura Ling, 32, were detained by North Korean soldiers on March 17, and then sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean prison camp for illegal entry. The former president answered questions at his Harlem-based William J. Clinton Foundation, in a room packed with about 150 reporters, at a news conference intended to announce the foundation's new agreements for low-cost AIDS and tuberculosis drugs for the developing world. Clinton did not directly respond to a question about whether the trip has helped to restore him to the role of elder statesman, an image that suffered because of controversial comments he made during his wife's presidential campaign. "As soon as the election was over, I went back to work here," he said. "I just let my work speak for itself." "There can only be one president at a time," said Clinton, adding that he does not want his statements to restrict the administration's ability to chart a way forward. "It's not helpful and it's not necessary." Clinton described a "deeply emotional" first encounter with Lee and Ling. He said they were "delightful" on the trip home to Los Angeles by private plane, so happy and excited they couldn't sleep. Lee talked frequently about being reunited with her young daughter, he said. The two journalists ate huevos rancheros for breakfast when the private plane stopped at an American base in Japan, Clinton said, and were careful to measure their food intake because they had been on a radically different diet for almost five months. "It was basically a lovely thing," he said.

DTN News: Canada Rejects NATO Call To Stay In Afghanistan Past 2011

DTN News: Canada Rejects NATO Call To Stay In Afghanistan Past 2011

*Source: DTN News / Defense Media

(NSI News Source Info) OTTAWA, Canada - August 7, 2009: Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon reaffirmed Thursday Canada's 2011 exit from Afghanistan despite reported pleas from NATO's chief for an extension of Canada's deployment in the war-torn country. Canadian soldiers with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are seen during a patrol in Mirwais Mina part of the main city of Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan on Sunday, August 2, 2009. Canada has around 2, 500 soldiers with the NATO- led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. "Our government is abiding by the motion passed in parliament in 2008 -- that is that our combat forces will leave by 2011," Cannon said. Earlier, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen remarked while visiting a Canadian development project in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, that he would like to see Canada stay beyond 2011. "Of course I'm not going to interfere with the domestic politics in individual allied nations, but seen from an alliance point of view, I would strongly regret if that became the final outcome of the Canadian considerations," he was quoted as saying by public broadcaster CBC. "I would like to take this opportunity to express my strong appreciation of the significant Canadian contribution to our mission in Afghanistan," he said. "At the end of the day, it is a question of our own security. We cannot allow Afghanistan, once again, to become a safe haven for terrorists. And I also think it is in Canada's interest to ensure a peaceful and stable Afghanistan." Canada currently has some 2,800 troops based in Kandahar as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. So far, 127 Canadian soldiers, as well as a diplomat and two humanitarian aid workers from Canada, have been killed in Afghanistan. In 2008, parliament voted to withdraw Canadian forces no later than 2011.

DTN News: Pakistan Says Indian Evidence On Militant Leader Weak

DTN News: Pakistan Says Indian Evidence On Militant Leader Weak

*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media

(NSI News Source Info) ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - August 7, 2009: Pakistan said Thursday that evidence given by India failed to build a case for the arrest of Hafiz Saeed, the founder of a Pakistan-based group blamed for the Mumbai attacks, a stance certain to stoke anger in India. Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, center, chief of an Islamic charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, leaves under tight security after appearing before the judicial review board of High Court in Lahore, Pakistan on Tuesday, May 5, 2009. Saeed was detained under house arrest last year as part of Pakistan's investigation into the Mumbai attacks. India, which has insisted Pakistan act against Saeed and other members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba for the November attacks in which 166 people were killed, last week handed a fresh dossier of evidence to Islamabad. But a Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said the information provided by India had not helped although Islamabad was proceeding with the case. "The material contained in that ... dossier apropos Hafiz Saeed is not really enough and doesn't really strengthen our hands to take, or to proceed legally, as has been expected," he told a weekly news conference. His comments came as a Mumbai court separately sentenced three Indians to death for conspiring with Lashkar in an earlier attack on the city that killed 54 people.. Indian prosecutors said the blasts in 2003 were hatched in Dubai with several LeT conspirators. Saeed was detained in the wake of the November attacks after a U.N. Security Council resolution put him on a list of people and organizations supporting al Qaeda. But in June, the Lahore High Court released him on grounds of insufficient evidence, prompting the Pakistan government to lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court for his re-arrest. The Supreme Court adjourned a hearing this week without fixing any new date and Saeed's lawyer said it had been put off as the government's prosecutor was not prepared. Tensions have remained high between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan since the attacks in November. Last month the two sides agreed to restart dialogue, but India stopped short of resuming a peace process that was put on hold following Mumbai. India wants to see Pakistan punish those responsible and dismantle "the infrastructure of terrorism" on Pakistani soil. Pakistani officials have told diplomats privately that they cannot risk a major crackdown on militant groups like Lashkar, based in the central province of Punjab, as the army has its hands full fighting a Taliban insurgency in the northwest. INTERPOL The international police network Interpol said Thursday Pakistan had launched a global search for 13 suspects in the Mumbai attacks. France-based Interpol said the global alert issued from Islamabad asked member countries to assist in locating the fugitives and immediately report any leads to Pakistan, which would seek their extradition if any were arrested. The Interpol statement did not name the suspects. Pakistan has also begun proceedings against five militants for their alleged role in the Mumbai plot but charges have still to be read and the next hearing has been put off until August 29. Court delays, and demands for better evidence will do little to allay Indian suspicions that Saeed and Lashkar are regarded as assets by Pakistani intelligence which, according to analysts, has used the jihadi group in the past to fight Indian rule in Kashmir. Saeed quit Lashkar in the days following an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001, that forced Pakistan to ban the group, but he stayed on as head of a charity that has been placed on both U.N. and U.S. terrorist lists and is said to be a front for Lashkar.

DTN News: After Bold Rhetoric, House Leaves Tanker Decision To Pentagon Brass

DTN News: After Bold Rhetoric, House Leaves Tanker Decision To Pentagon Brass *Source: DTN News / Defense Media (NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON - August 7, 2009: U.S. Rep. John Murtha spent months huffing and puffing about forcing the Pentagon to buy both planes expected to again vie for a multibillion-dollar aerial tanker contract. Ultimately, however, the House Appropriations defense subcommittee chair did not blow down the house, according to aerospace analysts. Photo: Boeing and a partnership between Northrop Grumman and EADS are vying for the KC-X contract. (BOEING) Murtha repeatedly told reporters in early 2009 that he saw splitting the KC-X contract between Boeing and its rival, a partnership between Northrop Grumman and EADS, as the lone way out of a years-long saga that has included faulty deals and lengthy protests. He even talked publicly about including in 2010 defense spending legislation additional tanker funds to put the Pentagon on a financial footing to begin developing both industry offerings. But when the House Appropriations Committee unveiled its version of the defense appropriations bill, it quickly became apparent to experts that Murtha's bold rhetoric was not reflected in the legislation, nor in the accompanying bill report language. Analyzing the panel's wording is crucial, according to several analysts, and that is just what Pentagon officials will do when a final spending bill is hammered out later this year. The report language is laden with words and phrases such as "option" and "the committee believes" and "one or more contracts." That is hardly a mandate to split the contract between. Language like that means something, analysts said. In this case, it means the panel is leaving it up to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his subordinates how to proceed on the estimated 179-plane, $35 billion tanker replacement effort, they said. Open to Interpretation The committee could have used straightforward but clear language directing the Pentagon to buy both planes, and significantly increased the 2010 KC-X allocation to do so. What the lawmakers did was state their preference for a dual buy with a faster buy rate, giving themselves political cover should the program again go awry, analysts said. The lone usages of the word "direct" come in provisions mandating the Pentagon to provide a report to the congressional defense committees about its plans before releasing a final request for proposals, and another stipulating the department must award one contract or two. The latter leaves the final decision up to the defense secretary. The analysts acknowledged that some stakeholders will interpret the language how they want. David Berteau, a former Pentagon official and now an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, "You can interpret the language both ways." But because the lawmakers' language only "opens the door to a split buy" rather than "outright being directive," the House is proposing to leave the ultimate decision to Gates, he said. Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group called the language "a rubber mallet, ... not a hammer." The House bill does direct the Pentagon information about how the Pentagon will evaluate all industry, and the process it will use to select a winner - or winners. But analysts said it is unclear whether a possible requirement to disclose information about those aspects of the program will force the Pentagon's hand one way or another. The House report endorses buying the new tankers faster than the 12 to 15 a year the Pentagon is planning. But the language does not direct the department to do so. "The committee believes that it is in the best interest of the taxpayer to pursue recapitalization at a rate of 36 aircraft per year vice 12 or 15 aircraft," according to the report. "This quantity will allow for recapitalization in one-third the time and thus allow for a rapid retirement of the current KC-135 aircraft." The appropriators could have set a faster buy rate into motion by substantially increasing 2010 funding for the KC-X program and stipulating how those funds could be spent. But the House bill only adds about $10 million to the Pentagon's $429.6 million request. The Senate Appropriations Committee will not being work on its version of the 2010 Pentagon spending bill until after Congress's August recess. Once the Senate passes its version of the bill, a conference committee will hammer out differences between the two. Aboulafia suggested one aspect of the House report could tip the scale toward splitting the contract. The final section of the KC-X section directs the Pentagon to notify Congress by Oct. 1 which possible procurement approach "represents the most cost-effective and expeditious tanker replacement strategy that best responds to U.S. national security requirements." "Given the speed described in this language," Aboulafia said, "a split buy would be the only way to go."

DTN News: South Korea To Develop F-16 Simulators

DTN News: South Korea To Develop F-16 Simulators *Source: DTN News / Defense Media (NSI News Source Info) SEOUL, South Korea - August 7, 2009: South Korea will develop a dozen of its own F-16/KF-16 fighter flight simulators by 2014 to help pilots keep up with fighter upgrades and conduct sustainable training amid high oil prices, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said Aug. 4. F-16 simulators built by L-3 Link Simulation & Training today are supporting the US Air Force and Air National Guard, in addition to many allied nations that operate the platform. The agency awarded Korea Aerospace Industries, the country's only aircraft maker, a 130 billion won ($106 million) contract, to develop up-to-date flight simulators and unit training devices for F-16/KF-16 pilots, as well as upgrade existing simulation systems, according to a news release. Previously, South Korean airmen used flight simulators developed by Raytheon, a DAPA spokesman said. The new systems will help pilots practice tactical flight, emergency landing, and normal landing and take-off, the release said. Mass production will begin after the improvement and development of the new simulators are completed by November 2014, it added. "Once entering service, the new simulators are expected to not only help resolve the shortage of flight training for pilots, resulted from high oil prices, but also improve pilots' aircraft operational capabilities to an extent," it said. The South Korean Air Force operates an older fleet of 34 Block 32 F-16s purchased in the 1980s and a newer fleet of 135 KF-16s manufactured locally to the Block 52 standard from the mid-1990s to mid-2000s. Earlier this year, the Air Force unveiled plans to upgrade KF-16 fighters. The upgrades will include arming the aircraft with precision-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions and other guided weapons. Another key upgrade is a replacement for the fighter's existing APG-68(v)5/(v)7 radar systems.