PARIS AIR SHOW — Study work has been carried out examining the benefits of fitting a low-observable electronic warfare pod to the Lockheed Martin F-35 to further boost the aircraft’s electronic combat capability, according to a U.S. Marine Corps officer. The F-35 is a candidate platform for the next-generation jammer (NGJ), though a conventional pod design would affect the aircraft’s radar cross-section. Using a stealthy pod configuration would provide additional capability while minimizing the affect on the aircraft’s low-observable characteristics.
ARMY Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., was awarded on June 8, 2009, a $60,434,958 firm-fixed-price contract for the procurement of four UH-60L aircraft uniquely configured of the Brazilian Air Force (FMS Case BR-B-UTZ). The work is to be performed in Stratford, Conn., with an estimated completion date of Nov. 30, 2012. One bid was solicited with one bid received. Aviation & Missile Command Contracting Center, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (DAAH23-02-C-0006). NAVY
HYPER ACTIVE: Boeing is studying the potential for mating its X-51 WaveRider hypersonic vehicle technology with small satellites to provide an operationally responsive space launch capability, Phantom Works president Darryl Davis says. Four X-51As are being built for flight tests beginning late this year to demonstrate flight to beyond Mach 6 using a hydrocarbon-fuelled scramjet. The X-51 will be rocket-boosted from under the wing of a U.S. Air Force B-52.
Missile defense advocates on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) will attempt to restore funding for ground-based interceptors when the panel takes up the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill June 16.
PARIS AIR SHOW — Raytheon is planning to conduct a flight trial of the Joint Standoff Weapon Extended Range (JSOW-ER) by year’s end after missing an April date for the test. The flight-test will include a JSOW body fitted with an engine from the Miniature Air Launched Decoy. The baseline JSOW can glide for about 70 nautical miles if dropped at about 40,000 feet altitude. The ER version is expected to go about 300 miles when dropped from the same altitude.
AIR FORCE The Air Force is awarding a cost plus fixed fee contract to Wyle Laboratories Inc. of Huntsville, Ala., for $58,479,586. The contract will provide data collection, interoperability assessments, research, analysis, and reliability test and engineering for the Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Interoperability Project. At this time $200,000 has been obligated. 55 CONS/LGCD, Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., is the contracting activity (HC1047-05-D-4005)09-D-0001, FA8202-09-D-0001, FA8202-09-D-0003).
South Korea will build its second launcher, the KSLV 2, without help from other countries, such as Russia, the main source of technology for the country’s first space rocket. The key challenge is to develop domestic engines, since the country’s first rocket, the KSLV 1, uses Russian engines that South Korean technicians are forbidden from examining closely.
PARIS AIR SHOW — Bell Helicopter says it has sufficient parts in stock to meet its military and civil delivery commitments through the end of this year, after manufacturing employees at its Fort Worth, Texas, plant went on strike June 13. Almost 2,500 members of the United Auto Workers Local 218 went on strike after rejecting a proposed three-year contract endorsed by union leadership.
NASA will try again to launch the space shuttle Endeavour on June 17, and still push to get the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) under way this week as well.
VOLUME SEARCH: The U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon a $217 million contract for two Volume Search Radar (VSR) arrays for the Zumwalt-class destroyer program and the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78). The S-band VSR radar arrays, built by Lockheed Martin, are integrated with Raytheon’s SPY-3 X-band Multi-Function Radar to form the advanced Dual-Band Radar (DBR), currently undergoing testing at the Navy’s engineering Test Center, Wallops Island, Va.
PARIS AIR SHOW — Lockheed Martin is three months into a funded study of an AC-130J gunship configuration for U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC). The aircraft would be based on the HC/MC-130J special operations tanker/transport the company is already developing for the Air Force.
PARIS AIR SHOW — The U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 squadron preparing to deploy to Afghanistan in the third or fourth quarter of this year is now flight-testing a turreted gun to beef up the aircraft’s firepower. The Bell/Boeing MV-22 unit is likely to be deployed to Camp Bastion in the Helmand region as part of the U.S. ramp-up of forces in the country. The BAE Systems turret uses a GAU-17, 7.62mm mini-gun in the belly, or “hell hole,” of the tiltrotor aircraft.
PARIS German Chancellor Angela Merckel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have agreed to allow EADS and its affiliate Airbus Military Aircraft an extra six months to negotiate a new contract for the supply of the A400M airlifter.
WAVEFORM NETWORK: The Wideband Networking Waveform (WNW) demonstrated its validated design and tactical utility June 3 and 4 according to the Joint Program Executive Office Joint Tactical Radio System (JPEO JTRS). A two-day multi-node demonstration was staged at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in Charleston, S.C. Thirty ground mobile radios (GMR) were used in the largest demonstration of the capability to date.
NUCLEAR IRAN: A top Israeli missile defense expert says he believes Iran’s claims that it has no plans to arm its burgeoning missile arsenal with nuclear warheads. That’s the good news, says Uzi Rubin, former head of Israel’s Missile Defense Organization. The bad news: He doesn’t think Tehran will be able to resist temptation indefinitely. Rubin says Iranian officials, when speaking to their own people or among themselves, say offensive nuclear weapons are not part of their policy.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Jun. 15 - 21 — 48th International Paris Air Show, “Le Bourget Celebrates its Hundredth Anniversary,” Le Bourget Exhibition Centre, Le Bourget, France. For more information go to www.paris-air-show.com Jun. 22 - 25 — 2009 Joint CBRN Conference & Exhibition, Ft. Leonard Wood, Saint Roberts, Mo. For more information go to http://exhibits.ndia.org
PARIS Dassault Aviation executives say the Indian air force has extended an official invitation for the Rafale fighter to take part in a competitive flyoff with five other fighters.
OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea U.S. officials are hurrying to introduce “digitally-aided close air support” into the Korean theater of operations before 2012, when operational control of military forces in the peninsula will transfer to the South Korean government.
LUNAR DEMO: German aerospace center DLR has selected EADS Astrium to study the feasibility of demonstrating a precision soft landing of a lunar spacecraft on Earth. If the nine-month study, to begin this month, is conclusive, it would be followed by landing demonstrations in Germany. The first test flight could take place in 2012.
REFORM TIMETABLE: Industry concern that changes within the U.K. Defense Ministry might result in the delay in publication of a report on further defense acquisition reforms may be assuaged by the return of Paul Drayson to his old stomping ground. Drayson, the architect of the 2005 Defense Industrial Strategy, is to rejoin the ministry on a part-time basis as minister of state for strategic defence acquisition reform.
