U.K. TRAINER: The U.K. program to modernize part of the country’s fixed-wing and rotorcraft training fleet is slated to kick into high gear again in December. The modernization is part of the Military Flying Training System program being managed by the Ascent Flight Training joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Babcock International. Peter Luff, minister for defense equipment, support and technology, tells Parliament that the request for proposals for aircraft service provisions is due in December. The downselect is planned for mid-2012.
The U.S. Navy took some marked strides toward deploying a more advanced Arleigh Burke-class destroyer fleet at the start of this month with the first voyage of DDG-111 Spruance, the first new-construction vessel of its class with an upgraded machinery control system. The system minimizes problems caused by obsolescence by leveraging open architecture and helping reduce total ownership costs (TOC), according to the Navy.
LONDON — The U.K. Royal Air Force should see the first elements of a new systems enhancements program for its E-3D AWACS aircraft starting next year, with additional efforts to sustain the airborne early warning fleet to follow in the coming years. The program now under way is a downscaled version of the so-called Project Eagle, which would have been a far more extensive system upgrade. But with financial resources tight, the focus now is on assuring the fleet can be sustained until at least 2025 by addressing parts obsolescence and key mission needs.
Unmanned cargo aircraft have moved a step closer to deployment with the completion of an assessment of the readiness of the Lockheed Martin/Kaman K-Max to be deployed to Afghanistan to resupply remote U.S. Marine Corps bases.
SINGAPORE — U.S. defense cuts have led major players such as Lockheed Martin to try to make up for some of the revenue shortfall by investing in their commercial satellite businesses, Arianespace Chairman and CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall observes.
PATUXENT RIVER, Md. — The U.S. Army and NASA are preparing to flight test autonomous rotorcraft technologies on the JUH-60A Rascal fly-by-wire testbed helicopter operated by the Aeroflightdynamics Directorate (AFDD) at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. Autonomous waypoint navigation, obstacle avoidance and landing-site selection have already being demonstrated by AFDD using two Yamaha RMAX small unmanned helicopters, and the capabilities are now being transferred to the fly-by-wire Black Hawk.
The fiscal 2012 budget may begin to take shape this week when Congress returns from the August recess, but it’s unlikely to offer near-term certainty or good news. Analysts are already predicting that with just a few weeks left in the fiscal year, Congress will have to pass a continuing resolution that keeps funding at fiscal 2011 levels for some period of time.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill may be far apart when it comes to the future of defense spending, but it turns out not even key House Republicans are on the same page, according to an Aviation Week Intelligence Network review of the standing House defense bills. In the House committee markup of the Pentagon’s 2012 request, appropriators agreed with authorizers’ changes only 6% of the time. (See charts pp. 7-9.)
TREATY FIGHT: With memories of the political battle over the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty still fresh in their minds, Obama administration officials are trying to prepare better for the long-awaited Senate fight to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). “We do not expect it will be easy or happen quickly, but we will work hard to make it happen,” says Marcie Ries, deputy assistant secretary of State for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Sept. 8 — Women In Aerospace, Safety and Security: How 9-11 Changed Security, Reagan National Airport, Historic Terminal A, Arlington, Va. For more information call 202-547-0229, or go to http://www.womeninaerospace.org./events/current/83.html
House Committee Action On Fiscal 2012 Defense Budget:Agreement Between Appropriators & Authorizers ($ in thousands) House Committee Action On Fiscal 2012 Defense Budget: Agreement Between Appropriators & Authorizers ($ in thousands) Program Request Approved Percent change Account-Line Budget*
LOS ANGELES — Boeing has received a $1.09 billion U.S. Air Force contract for the third batch of Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) satellites, and is poised to start the final phase of pre-delivery tests for the first Block II variant.
Three companies have received a total of $12 million from the U.S. Energy Department to help commercialize technologies to produce drop-in biofuels, as the U.S. steps up efforts to reduce its reliance on imported oil as the source of transportation fuel. Roselle, Ill.-based LanzaTech has received a $4 million cost-sharing contract to develop a technology to convert biomass-derived ethanol into jet fuel using catalysts. The company is working with Boeing and biofuel producer Imperium Renewables.
NASA is working to persuade the U.S. Air Force to co-fund a flight demonstrator for an unconventional transport aircraft configuration, possibly a hybrid wing-body design for a commercial freighter or military airlifter.
Over the last couple of decades, groups of aerospace specialists – particularly those involved with stealth, radars and unmanned aircraft – have disappeared and reappeared. Northrop Grumman has such a group that dropped out of sight and now appears to be reassembling in the company’s special projects operations as the X-47 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) derivatives and next-generation bomber designs take shape.
Raytheon has completed the action items that emerged from the U.S. Air Force’s preliminary design review of the next-generation GPS control segment. The four-day review took place at the end of June, and the final action items were completed in late August, says Bob Canty, vice president to the so-called GPS OSX effort. “The design itself was assessed as architecturally and technically sound,” he says.
House Committee Action On Fiscal 2012 Defense Budget:Disagreement Between Appropriators & Authorizers on Select Programs ($ in thousands) House Committee Action On Fiscal 2012 Defense Budget: Disagreement Between Appropriators & Authorizers on Select Programs ($ in thousands) Program Request HASC HASC % change HAC
In observance of the U.S. Labor Day holiday, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish an issue dated Tuesday, Sept. 6. The next issue will be dated Wednesday, Sept. 7. For customers with access to the Aviation Week Intelligence Network, coverage will continue at aviationweek.com/awin.
SINGAPORE — Arianespace is confident that its first launch of a Russian-made Soyuz will occur in October as scheduled, despite the fact the Russians have grounded all Soyuz rockets. “We are not impacted by this,” Arianespace Chairman and CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall said Aug. 27. “I assume [the Russians] will resume Soyuz flights quite soon.” Arianespace plans to launch a Soyuz from its French Guiana base on Oct. 20, the first time the European company will have used the venerable Russian launcher.
A&D WORKFORCE: Two major lobbying groups in Washington, the International Association of Machinists and the Aerospace Industries Association, are asking the Obama administration to consider helping the aerospace and defense industry in the administration’s upcoming jobs-creation initiative. “We are concerned that reductions in federal spending could have harmful, if not catastrophic, consequences to our current and future national security, economy and workforce,” they say in a Sept. 1 letter to President Barack Obama.
The U.S. Air Force has made progress in developing its Blue Devil 2 surveillance airship, though the project may cost more than expected and take longer to deploy to support troops in Afghanistan, according to service sources. The service has narrowed down Blue Devil 2’s payload. The airship is capable of carrying 2,500 lb. Air Force officials hope to fly the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System, or Argus-IS, a pod capable of supplying 65 “Predator class” video feeds.
COMPETITION BOOSTER: The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) is pressing the leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee to make sure the U.S. Air Force competitively bids the UH-1N replacement program known as the Common Vertical Lift Support Program. In an Aug. 25 letter to Sens. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Pete Sepp, executive vice president of the nonprofit NTU, says sole-sourcing the contract to Sikorsky for the UH-60 would not necessarily save money.
