LE BOURGET — The U.S. Marine Corps plans to pay a higher price for its next 99 Bell-Boeing MV-22 Ospreys because of a drop in the production rate under the recently signed multiyear contract. The average price in fiscal 2012 was $67 million; the target price for the next multiyear is $70 million, says Col. Greg Masiello, the V-22 joint program manager. The company will deliver 40 V-22s this year. Next year, the program will deliver roughly 35 and then production drops dramatically into the 20s for the next multiyear.
TEL AVIV — Israeli pilots are expected to arrive at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., for training on the F-35 next year, while delivery of the first aircraft to Israel is expected a year later, in 2015. Israel placed an order for 20 F-35s in 2010, becoming one of the first international customers to formally order the fifth-generation fighter.
CIA SHUFFLE: President Obama is appointing Avril Haines as the next deputy director of the CIA. Haines a former deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president for national security affairs at the White House. She replaces Michael Morell, who resigned from his post at the CIA. Morell, who has worked on and off at the CIA since 1980, will continue to work with the administration as a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.
PARIS — Dassault Aviation hopes to finalize the sale of Rafale combat jets to India this year, a deal that could sustain current aircraft production levels as France prepares to cut defense spending over the next six years. Contract negotiations with New Delhi have been underway since February 2012, when India committed to purchase at least 126 Rafale combat jets. Talks have dragged on amid disagreement concerning the company’s liability for the aircraft to be built under license in India.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) JUNE 17 - 23 — 50th International Paris Air Show. "Where Aerospace Leaders Get Down to Business," , Paris, Le Bourget. For more information go to www.paris-air-show.com JUNE 19 - 23 — Navy League of the United States National Convention, Long Beach, Calif. For more information go to www.navyleagueconvention.org//
The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier CVN-77 USS George H.W. Bush completed the first aircraft carrier-borne, end-to-end, at-sea test of the Surface Ship Torpedo Defense (SSTD) system, the Navy confirmed earlier this month. While there has been recent heated discussion underlying concern about carriers’ potential vulnerability to Chinese-developed ballistic anti-ship missiles, submarines and torpedoes remain one of the biggest threats to the Navy’s largest ships.
U.S. House and Senate defense authorizers have set the parameters of their fiscal 2014 policy fights regarding defense systems, including missile defense and nuclear forces, while other issues affecting helicopters for Afghanistan and selling fighters to Taiwan could build more legislative consensus against the White House.
Beechcraft, which has lost its appeal to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to overturn the U.S. Air Force’s award of the Light Air Support (LAS) contract to a Sierra Nevada/Embraer team, is urging Congress to limit the scope of contract, worth up to nearly $1 billion, to the minimum requirements.
PARIS — Absent government backing, Dassault Aviation of France and Britain’s BAE Systems have shelved plans to jointly develop a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAV. But the two companies are forging ahead with the definition phase of a future unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demo that French government officials say could fly before the end of the decade.
SINGAPORE — Australian satellite operator NewSat acknowledges that one of the pitfalls in securing business from Australia’s defense department and other national militaries is that if NewSat were to ever be sold to a foreign party, Australia’s military may take issue.
NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program has been overly aggressive in payments to Orbital Sciences Corp., the agency’s second commercial cargo provider for the International Space Station, according to an audit by the agency’s Inspector General Paul Martin. Orbital, unlike rival COTS provider SpaceX, has yet to carry out its first demonstration mission to the station. Martin characterized $150 million in transfers to the company as premature. Discussions were underway to advance another $70 million, he said.
LAUNCH FAILURE: When it comes to the space launch marketplace, Americans are too busy fighting themselves while losing ground to Russia and other countries in the global sector, says a key author of the Obama administration’s 2010 National Space Policy.
Roger Carr has been selected to take over from Dick Olver as chairman of the BAE Systems board. Carr, who is currently chairman of the Centrica energy company and was until recently president of the Confederation of British Industry, will join the board on Oct. 1 and succeed Olver in the first quarter of 2014. According to the company, Carr was a “unanimous choice” and his appointment had been “warmly endorsed by the entire board.”
As the weight of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) continues to be a major concern, top program officials are considering throttling back on the top speed requirements that have driven LCS development thus far, a recent draft U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says. Rethinking the speed of LCS could involve a major propulsion plant redesign. Eliminating key engines that now provide the ships’ top speed would add payload space but make the ship ultimately slower, GAO says.
Click here to view the pdf Fiscal 2014 Defense Spending Bill: Procurement Lines Cut by Appropriators Only($ In Thousands; Base Budget Only; Hac Numbers From Chairman's Mark) Fiscal 2014 Defense Spending Bill: Procurement Lines Cut by Appropriators Only($ In Thousands; Base Budget Only; Hac Numbers From Chairman's Mark)
The Pentagon has finally signed a $6.5 billion, five-year deal with Bell-Boeing for the next 99 V-22 tiltrotors — 92 MV-22s used by the Marine Corps and seven CV-22s for U.S. Air Force special operations forces. The deal covers five years of work through fiscal 2017 and will save $1 billion compared to buying the 99 aircraft in annual procurements, according to program officials. This savings figure is up from a target of $850 million espoused last year by the V-22’s program manager, Marine Corps Col. Gregory Masiello.
Raytheon is to upgrade four additional airport surveillance radars in the Netherlands to mitigate interference from wind turbines after completing the first upgrade to a radar near the largest wind farm in Europe, close to Schipol Amsterdam Airport. Under contract to the Royal Netherlands Air Force, the company will upgrade primary radars at Leeuwarden, Volkel, Soesterberg and Twenthe air bases over the next 15 months. The first radar to be modified is operational at Woensdrecht air base. The radars are used for military and civil air traffic control.
BRAC SAGA: In their June 12 markup of the fiscal 2014 defense spending bill, the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee unanimously agreed to an amendment calling for a report from the Pentagon on overseas facilities and their potential for consolidation — the latest in congressional efforts to avoid another round of domestic base realignment and closures (BRAC).
Despite the potential effects of further rounds of sequestration, the U.S. Navy remains intent on staying its strategic course — especially with its force rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific — although the service may have to cut down the scope of some of its planned exercises and operations, Secretary Ray Mabus says. “We are absolutely committed to the Pacific,” Mabus said June 13 during a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington. “We are sending our newest ... assets there.”
