CAS GAP: The Senate Armed Services Committee wants the U.S. Air Force and Army to report whether the planned retirement of 1970s-era A-10s and the introduction of so-called fifth-generation F-22s and F-35s actually leaves a gap in close-air support (CAS) for troops.
With what is traditionally a first “piece” for a new airplane, Boeing’s workers loaded the wing spar for the U.S. Air Force’s KC-46A tanker into jigs at its widebody headquarters in Everett, Wash., on June 26, marking the start of major assembly work that should lead to a first flight a year from now.
For the U.S. Coast Guard, it is the beginning of the end — and not in a good way — as the service eyes a massive proposed cut to its long-struggling recapitalization efforts.
The medium Earth orbit constellation designed to bring broadband satellite service to the “other 3 billion” (O3b) customers in the developing world is taking shape above the equator with the June 25 launch of the first four spacecraft on an Arianespace Soyuz flying from the Guiana Space Center on the north coast of South America. Another set of four satellites is scheduled for launch later this year, and the third and final group of four is set to go up in the first half of next year.
Canada’s armed forces have taken delivery of the first of 15 new Boeing CH-147F Chinook transport helicopters. The first aircraft was handed over on June 27 and will eventually go on to join a new unit, 450 Tactical Helicopter Squadron, based at Petawawa, Ontario. The aircraft were purchased under the Canadian forces’ CDN$5 billion ($4.8 billion) Medium-to-Heavy Lift Helicopter Project, for a highly modified version of the CH-47F Chinook capable of operating in the challenging environment of Canada.
The U.S. Air Force’s MQ-9 Reaper received some hefty cuts from the Senate 2014 defense policy bill, but the defense-wide program for the UAV got a $25 million boost to a $3 million total request. Overall, the mark from the Senate Armed Services committee, approved June 21 and reported this week, barely changed the request: less than 1% was cut from the procurement base budget; less than half a percent added to the research budget. Only 85 lines were changed, from the more than 1,600 lines in the Defense Department’s investment accounts.
F-35 TAILS: Magellan Aerospace has signed an agreement with BAE Systems for work on the F-35 Lightning II program. Magellan will produce more than 1,000 sets of horizontal tails for the conventional takeoff and landing variant. The work has a potential value of more than CDN$1.2 billion ($1.15 billion) over 20 years. The agreement was announced last week at the Paris air show. Magellan says it has achieved sales of more than CDN$100 million on the F-35 program to date.
Shenzhou 10, China’s longest human mission to date, ended safely early Wednesday with a landing on a Mongolian steppe. Touchdown of the mission’s return capsule with its crew of two men and a woman came at 8:07 a.m. local time (8:07 p.m. Tuesday EDT), 15 days after it was launched from the Jiuquan launch site on a Long March 2F rocket.
While most of the recent focus in the Asia-Pacific has centered on China’s aircraft carrier development or the deployment of the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) to Singapore, some of the real regional investment is in the more midrange amphibious ship fleets and their mobile ability to launch fixed-wing aircraft.
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AgustaWestland has carried out the first flight of its initial ICH-47F Chinook destined for the Italian army. The aircraft made a 15-min. flight on June 24 and is the first “Foxtrot” model of the Chinook to be produced outside the U.S. The aircraft is the first of 16 Chinooks and four options ordered by the Italian defense ministry’s procurement agency, ARMAEREO, in 2009. First delivery will be in early 2014, when the aircraft will begin replacing the Italian army’s aging CH-47Cs, which have been in service since 1973.
The U.S. Marine Corps will probably issue a request for proposals (RFP) for its amphibious combat vehicle (ACV) in early 2014, says Gen. James Amos, Corps commandant. “That program is alive,” Amos said June 26 during a discussion roundtable with media. The Marine Corps has secured and saved a “moderate amount” of money for early program development, he says.
Though late to sign on to the network of nations purchasing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Israel will be the first partner nation to operate the fifth-generation fighter. “Israel will become the first non-U.S. operator of the F-35 in the world,” said Steve O’Bryan, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for F-35 program integration and business development in an interview at the Paris air show. The first F-35I combat squadron is expected to achieve initial operational capability in 2018.
CYBER DANGER: The U.S. Defense Department must continue to increase its cyber capabilities, according to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and will do so even as it pares back force structure in other areas where the military has excess capacity measured against real-world threats. “Compared to our conventional military edge, which remains overwhelming and unrivaled, our nation is dangerously exposed to cyberspace attacks,” Hagel said last week in a speech at the University of Nebraska in Omaha.
The U.S. Marine Corps vertical-lift UAV cargo system should become a program of record, says Gen. James Amos, Corps commandant. “The concept of an unmanned system that carriers cargo around is a proven system,” Amos said June 26 during a media roundtable discussion. “My intention is to make it a program of record.”
Click here to view the pdf Senate Authorizers' Changes To Fiscal 2014Defense Spending Bill ($ In Thousands; Base Budget Only) Senate Authorizers' Changes To Fiscal 2014 Defense Spending Bill ($ In Thousands; Base Budget Only) Account Descript
India’s first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) will be ready for deployment by the country’s navy in the next five years, a senior government official says. The IAC, which is likely to be named INS Vikrant – after India’s first and now decommissioned aircraft carrier – will be put in the water in August and undergo its first sea trials 10 months later, the official says.
The Spanish air force has formally retired its fleet of Dassault Mirage F-1s in a ceremony in the country’s south. A ceremonial final flight took place June 23 at Albacete airbase, marking the end of the type’s 38-year career with the air arm, air force officials in Madrid told Aviation Week. The type is now being replaced by the Eurofighter EF2000.
Conducting an amphibious exercise is hard enough. Landing an MV-22 Osprey on a Japanese ship during such a drill can be a logistical nightmare. As the U.S. Marine Corps tested its amphibious chops earlier this month during exercise Dawn Blitz off the California coast, U.S. sailors aboard the LHA-4 USS Boxer trained their Japanese counterparts on heat shields used by ships for MV-22 landings to carry off such an operation.
NEW DELHI — An Indian air force (IAF) helicopter on a rescue mission in the hilly terrain of the flood-ravaged Uttarakhand state in northern India crashed on June 25, killing at least eight people. The newly acquired Mi-17 V5 helicopter was one of 45 aircraft pressed into service by the IAF to evacuate victims of the flash flood, which has killed more than 1,000 people and displaced more than 50,000.
PARIS — French defense procurement agency DGA is seeding innovative dual-use technologies through a fast-track financing mechanism aimed at supporting small- and medium-sized businesses in France.
EADS Innovation Works — the European giant’s research and technology arm — is exploring a concept for a twin-hulled tropospheric airship capable of staying aloft for 40 days. EADS says it has completed initial definition of the Tropospheric Airship, and is “now seeking partners for follow-on work that could lead to flight test of a first (manned) demonstrator in three years.”
ICBM REPORT: With nuclear warhead reductions now clearly up for discussion in Washington and Moscow after President Barack Obama’s Brandenburg Gate speech last week, contractors and supporters of delivery platforms will be increasingly trying to glean the fallout for their favorite bombers, submarines or intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). And a pending report from congressional auditors may feed the conversation.
