As the U.S. Navy awaits the arrival of more Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) and Joint High Speed Vessels (JHSVs) into the fleet to conduct more cost-efficient anti-piracy missions and exercises, the service is relying on bigger ships for the tasks. The DDG-66 USS Gonzalez practiced joint maritime interdiction methods — the types used for anti-piracy, counter-smuggling and related missions — June 6 with the Tanzanian People’s Defense Force (TPDF) in the Indian Ocean.
NATO is hailing the latest test of the Eurosam SAMP/T air defense system against a tactical ballistic missile (TBM) as “the first European theater missile interceptor to achieve NATO interoperability.”
Turbomeca plans to grow the RTM322 turboshaft engine for new military helicopter applications after it completes the acquisition of Rolls-Royce’s share of the program. The €293 million ($382 million) deal is expected to close by the fall. The French engine maker, part of the Safran group, believes rotorcraft manufacturers will in the next decade develop heavy helicopters, above 10 metric tons maximum takeoff weight, requiring engines in the 2,500-3,000 shp range.
U.S. House appropriators are uniting again, uniquely, to try to keep the Pentagon from contracting with Russian arms seller Rosoboronexport to provide 30 Mi-17 helicopters to Afghanistan before the West largely withdraws troops from there next year. The development was one of many over the last few days on Capitol Hill as defense appropriators and authorizers pushed forward competing versions of annual spending and policy bills for fiscal 2014.
EADS North America CEO Sean O’Keefe acknowledges that his unit of the European aerospace company will fall short of meeting a long-held goal of having $10 billion in revenues in North America by 2020. “Absent an acquisition or merger, it sure doesn’t look like that is likely. I would not bet on that,” O’Keefe told reporters during a roundtable breakfast in advance of the Paris air show next week.
AWIN analysis of H.R.1960, and draft report from House Appropriations Committee
Click here to view the pdf House Authorizers', Appropriators' Changes to Fiscal 2014 Defense Spending Bill: Aircraft ($ in thousands; Base budget only; HAC numbers from chairman's mark) House Authorizers', Appropriators' Changes to Fiscal 2014 Defense Spending Bill: Aircraft ($ in thousands; Base budget only; HAC numbers from chairman's ma
VETO THREAT: As expected, the White House has threatened that President Barack Obama would consider vetoing the fiscal 2014 defense authorization bill being debated in the House.
U.S. lawmakers continue to grumble about U.S. Air Force plans to retire some aircraft ahead of a congressionally mandated report on the future structure of the active and part-time Air Force, but so far legislators are withholding their fire in 2014 lawmaking.
Despite the fact that the deal creates a monopoly for certain advanced propulsion systems, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said June 11 that it will not challenge GenCorp’s acquisition of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne for about $550 million. Approval was given “primarily because the Department of Defense wishes to see the transaction go forward for national security reasons,” the FTC said.
As planned, the U.S. Navy’s first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom departed Singapore’s Changi Naval Base June 11 to participate in Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (Carat) Malaysia 2013. Carat Malaysia is among the key maritime exercises and exchanges that Freedom will conduct with regional navies and U.S. 7th Fleet units while deployed to Southeast Asia.
Boeing has signed the $4 billion second multi-year contract for CH-47F Chinook helicopters, with the U.S. Army electing to exercise 22 of the options under the contract from the outset. The additional aircraft, all for foreign military sales customers, take the basic five-year contract to 177 Chinooks, including 155 for the Army. Another 38 helicopters remain on option. Of the CH-47Fs for the Army, 124 with be remanufactured, or “renew,” aircraft and 31 will be new-build. The other 22, and all of the option aircraft, will be new-build Chinooks.
Eurocopter is claiming to have beaten Sikorsky’s X2 unofficial speed record by reaching 263 kt. in a dive with its X3 high-speed demonstrator. During trials in early June, Eurocopter test pilots flying at the Istres test base near Marseille, France, also achieved 255 kt. in level flight, breaking the X3’s previous top speed of 232 kt. set in May 2011.
LONG BEACH, Calif. — The first of 10 C-17 airlifters for the Indian air force (IAF) is en route to an air force station near Delhi, following departure from Boeing’s Long Beach, Calif., production site on June 11.
A U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) draft report on the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program is leading some in Congress to ask for a halt to some LCS funding until the Navy finishes specific tests and reports meant to ensure the worthiness of the vessels and the program. The Navy plans to buy a fleet of 52 LCSs, which now come in two versions: one made by a team led by Lockheed Martin and another class being built by a team led by Austal USA and General Dynamics.
For defense contractors in the U.S., this year suddenly has gone from bad to worse. Just as contractors for the Pentagon and intelligence community were beginning to grapple with the fact that the majority of $37 billion in so-called sequestration reductions to fiscal 2013 spending will come from their lines of business, now comes the epitome of a defense contractor many in America will love to hate: Edward Snowden.
The U.K. Royal Air Force will lose the ability to conduct air sampling for nuclear treaty verification when the last Vickers VC-10 air-to-air refueling tankers are retired later this year. The little-known and highly secretive mission, passed to the Vickers VC-10 following the retirement of the Avro Vulcan back in the 1980s, has been quietly conducted as part of international nuclear verification efforts.
SUPPLY CHAIN: An effort by the Republican-run House Armed Services Committee to guard against Defense Department use of information technology (IT) manufactured by firms with known Chinese affiliations is drawing the ire of U.S. technology lobbyists. The committee is pushing legislation mandating a Pentagon report on the telecommunications and IT supply chain of select military components, especially nuclear weapons command and control.
GMD SITES: The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee is promoting a letter from leading three-star officers that refutes the need for an East Coast branch of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system. The director of the Missile Defense Agency, Navy Vice Adm. James Syring, and the commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense, Army Lt. Gen. Richard Formica, told Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) that “there is no validated military requirement” for a proposed East Coast missile defense site.
