RENT-A-THREAT: Virginia-based Airborne Tactical Advantage has won a contract worth up to $35.2 million to provide threat simulation services to the U.S. Navy using its own fleet of ex-military fighters. ATAC operates the Mach 2-capable Israel Aircraft Industries F-21 Kfir, as well as the Hawker Hunter and McDonnell Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. The contract covers almost 1,100 hours of high-subsonic and 360 hours of supersonic flying to train aircraft and ship crews to counter potential enemy electronic-warfare and electronic-attack operations.
PARIS Dassault Aviation confirms that deliveries of Rafale fighters to the French air force and navy will slow as a result of redrawn priorities in France’s new 2009-13 defense spending plan. The plan, currently awaiting parliamentary approval, is oriented towards protection of forces in the field, deep strike, force projection and ballistic missile defense. To help defray the cost of these initiatives, Cold War programs like the Rafale and Tiger helicopter will be cut back.
Boeing has kicked off work under a 30-month U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program to study a high-speed rotorcraft design called the DiscRotor. The concept promises helicopter-like hover efficiency, but speeds in excess of 350 knots in fixed-wing mode. This compares with 150 knots for a typical helicopter and 250-300 knots for a tiltrotor.
The Pentagon is downplaying President Dmitry Medvedev’s comments about boosting Russia’s military forces, saying “Russia is an independent, sovereign state perfectly entitled to a robust self-defense.”
MIGHTY WIND: U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) is concerned about wind farms and the radar interference they are capable of causing. Air Force Gen. Victor Renuart Jr., NORTHCOM’s commander, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that wind farm interference is among the challenges facing the regional command in charge of defending the homeland. “We need to identify mitigation techniques that will allow wind turbines and radars to coexist,” Renuart says. The issue is the Doppler signals generated by radar returns from rotating wind turbine blades.
SOLAR ORBITER: Three U.S. science teams will start work on instruments for the European Space Agency’s planned Solar Orbiter mission under Phase A contracts that could lead to a total of $81 million in funding from NASA’s Living With A Star program.
MAINTENANCE SAVINGS: The U.S. Navy is predicting $1.8 billion in savings over the next 20 years as a result of shipboard coatings initiatives managed by Naval Sea Systems Command’s (NAVSEA) Engineering for Reduced Maintenance (ERM) program. One of the initiatives calls for a new, high-solids, rapid-cure, single-coat painting process that requires less application time than current three-coat systems. Prepping and painting ship tanks and voids has traditionally been a laborious process.
MAKIN ACCEPTANCE: The Makin Island amphibious assault ship (LHD 8), which is expected to be delivered to the U.S. Navy later this year, passed its acceptance trials March 19 after three days at sea. The trials took place off the coast of Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico. All major systems and equipment were tested by the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey. The Makin Island is powered by a unique system that uses two induction-type auxiliary propulsion system (APS) engines powered from the ship’s electrical grid.
AIR CHIEF: Air Marshal Pradeep Vasant Naik, presently the vice chief of the Indian air staff, has been appointed as the next chief of air staff as of May 31. He will take over from Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major. Naik was commissioned as a fighter pilot and has 3,085 hours of flying to his credit. During his nearly 40-year career, including the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971, he has served in various command staff and instructional appointments. Before taking over as vice chief, he was air officer commanding-in-chief of the Allahabad-based Central Air Command.
Development of key components of the U.S. military’s beleaguered Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) will be less cash needy from here on in, claims a Boeing official responsible for the JTRS Ground Mobile Radios (GMR) program. “We definitely are on the down curve,” Boeing JTRS GMR Program Manager Ralph Moslener said March 19 during a press teleconference. Boeing organized the briefing after the recent delivery of the first two engineering development models (EDM) of the GMRs to the U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) program.
NUCLEAR REACTION: The British Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee is cautioning that the U.K. will have to manage challenging procurement issues if it is to deliver the country’s future nuclear deterrent on time and on budget. The U.K. needs to introduce a successor to the Vanguard class ballistic-missile submarine by around 2024.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Houston Mission managers are carefully planning the space shuttle Discovery’s return from orbit to bring back some five months of biological samples from cold storage on the International Space Station (ISS) without letting them overheat.
READY TO ROAST: Lockheed Martin’s short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B has finally made it on to the hover pit at Fort Worth where it is being readied for the full-thrust powered-lift ground testing required to clear the aircraft to begin STOVL flight testing. The company expects the pit tests to take about a month, after which the propulsion system data will be analyzed and a flight readiness review conducted.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) Mar. 23 - 26 — The Aerospace Corporation’s 13th Ground System Architectures Workshop. Torrance Marriott South Bay Hotel, Torrance, Calif., For more information go to http://www.aero.org/conferences/gsaw/index.html
WIND OF CHANGE: Qinetiq is building a revised configuration of its Zephyr high altitude long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). It will likely fly for the first time early in 2010. Zephyr 7, as the latest variant is known, has several design modifications intended to improve its aerodynamic performance and potentially further increase endurance. Changes are thought to include a greater wingspan and modified wing-tip design, as well as a reconfigured tail.
S-92A ALERT: Service difficulties with the Sikorsky S-92A main gear box lubrication system has prompted Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. to publish a safety advisory informing operators of impending changes in the rotorcraft flight manual (RFM) procedures. The move was prompted by the March 12 crash of a S-92A (C-GZCH) operated by Cougar Helicopters. The aircraft was transporting workers from St. Johns, Newfoundland, to an oil platform in the Hibernia field. Shortly after departure, the crew reported mechanical problems and requested a return to St. Johns.
LAUNCH COUNTER: The U.S. Air Force plans to launch the seventh Global Positioning System (GPS) IIR-M satellite aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket March 24 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The launch window opens at 4:34 a.m. and will remain open for 15 minutes. The Lockheed Martin-built GPS IIR-20(M) satellite is the first to be launched this year, and offers improved accuracy, enhanced encryption, anti-jamming capabilities and a second civil signal to provide dual-frequency capability and improve resistance to interference.
RUBLE TROUBLE: In-year funding for the Russian air force’s fifth-generation fighter, known as PAK FA, may be cut by 940 million rubles ($28.2 million) as part of proposed cuts by the government to the country’s 2009 defense budget. First flight of the prototype is expected by the end of 2009, with state acceptance of the type completed by 2015. Budget documents also include increased expenditure for building a naval aviation training center at Eisk in the Krasnodar region, to replace the Saki facility in the Ukraine.
Word on upcoming U.S. defense program terminations is expected late this week or early next week in the form of program budget decisions or program decision memorandums, according to an official with insight into major U.S. Air Force programs. “The final budget goes to [Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ office] on April 2nd and then it’s released on the 21st,” the official said.
The crew of the space shuttle Discovery installed the fourth and final solar array on the International Space Station (ISS) during a spacewalk March 19. Spacewalkers Steve Swanson and Richard Arnold bolted the S6 truss element onto the starboard end of the truss, completing the station’s 310-foot long backbone and providing a platform for the last 240-foot-long solar array wing, which is folded into the truss.
Three top U.S. commanders told a Senate hearing March 19 that they can’t be sure whether North Korea plans to launch a communications satellite or test an offensive missile during an announced missile launch next month. But the heads of Pacific Command, Strategic Command (STRATCOM) and Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command said they believed the U.S. already has the capability to knock out an attacking North Korean missile.
BEAUCOUP BUCKS: French armaments agency DGA says a €2.3 billion ($2.9 billion) government economic stimulus package approved late last year will help boost military hardware procurement to the highest level in decades. DGA Chief Executive Laurent Collet-Billon says purchase authorizations will rise to €20.3 billion this year, more than double the €9.2 billion allocated in 2008. The extra funding will permit the acquisition of 60 additional Rafale fighters, five more EC725 transport/medevac/search-and-rescue helicopters and three Fremm multimission frigates.
