A recent RAND report questions the ability of the U.S. Army's Apache helicopter to execute and survive deep-strike missions, but service officials and industry analysts say the proposed Block III improvements should address those concerns. The Army had envisioned "Apache helicopter attacks to a depth of 70-100 kilometers beyond the front lines," said the recent report. During Operation Anaconda, concerns arose about the survivability of the Apache in a low-altitude environment with a significant small-arms threat.
NO MEETING: Democratic leaders of the House Science and Technology Committee are "deeply disappointed" that President Bush has refused to meet with them to discuss what the lawmakers see as a mismatch between NASA's budget and the ambitious slate of tasks the agency has been given to perform.
PARIS - Sukhoi's Su-35, to be unveiled in August at the MAKS air show in Moscow, is the biggest revision yet of the company's heavyweight fighter. Here at the Paris Air Show is a demonstration simulator of the fighter's redesigned cockpit, dominated by two 15-inch diagonal LCDs - more glass area than any other fighter cockpit, including that of the Joint Strike Fighter.
In an effort to rebut U.S. Army test results from 1974 that call into question whether Boeing's Chinook variant would create too much downwash for Air Force combat, search, and rescue (CSAR) requirements, the company says it has more recent data that show the helicopter meets the criteria. Indeed, the company said, the HH-47 CSAR-X Chinook variant has better downwash metrics than its competitors - Lockheed Martin's US101 and Sikorsky's S-92.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), is looking to take the "F" out of the F-22 Raptor and the planned F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and to recast the aircraft as much for their ISR capabilities, he told defense reporters June 21 in Washington. "The F-22, the F-35 - they're not 'Fs,'" he told the Defense Writers Group. "I'd like to [take] what we term today 'nontraditional ISR' and turn it into traditional ISR."
Leveraging advanced communications technology - and looking possibly to steal a page from the al Qaeda war playbook - the new U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) could be organized into a distributed network of people instead of an all-encompassing central headquarters structure, said Ryan Henry, the Pentagon undersecretary for policy. Using information technology, U.S. officials could spread out the command over the continent using connected distributive nodes, Henry said June 21 at a Pentagon briefing.
A technical paper co-authored by NASA Ames Research Center Director S. Pete Worden speculates that future lunar astronauts could pour liquid into a disc-shaped mesh to create a large telescope hundreds of times more sensitive than the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, NASA announced June 21.
ABL BOOSTED: Four prominent Boeing and missile defense spending proponents in the House are asking their colleagues on Capitol Hill to support the Airborne Laser (ABL) program. Reps. Norm Dicks and Rick Larsen, both Washington state Democrats, and Republicans Todd Tiahrt (Kan.) and Trent Franks (Ariz.) asked colleagues to tour the base ABL aircraft, which the Missile Defense Agency flew to suburban Washington, D.C., this week to lobby Congress as it digests fiscal 2008 defense authorization bills.
The Defense Department formally promoted Lockheed Martin's Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) - Unitary into low-rate production, the company said June 21. The U.S. Army also awarded the company a $125 million contract for production of the 200-pound GMLRS rockets. "We are very pleased that the Guided MLRS Unitary system is performing so well in Iraq," said Lt. Col. Mark Pincoski, Army product manager for precision guided missiles and rockets.
The misuse of urgent needs requests coupled with outdated purchasing policies is hampering the Pentagon's ability to get vital equipment into battle zones when it's needed, military acquisition officials say. Speaking at a June 20 panel at the Transformation Warfare '07 conference in Virginia Beach, Pentagon acquisition officials and purchasing experts talked about delays and questionable expenditures caused by requirements creep, Cold War purchasing policies and other related problems. Bogus requests
DELAYED: Thunderstorms near Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Fla., forced NASA to wave off shuttle Atlantis from landing June 21. Atlantis will try again during one of five opportunities at KSC June 22, the first of which is at 2:18 p.m. EDT. If the weather in Florida remains poor, there will be three landing opportunities at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., as well.
Pentagon officials are lobbying appropriators on Capitol Hill in a last-ditch effort to shore up support for the beleaguered Conventional Trident Missile (CTM) program, with particular focus on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Worried about international reaction, Congress last year denied funding to CTM entirely (DAILY, Aug. 6, 2006). The Bush administration requested $175 million in fiscal 2008 for the program, which would tip submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missiles with conventional warheads for prompt global strike.
The June 15 shortfall of a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V launch vehicle with a pair of classified National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) ocean surveillance spacecraft onboard may delay upcoming military missions by the Boeing/Lockheed Martin joint venture. Among them could be the first Boeing-built Wideband Gapfiller System (WGS) satellite, designed to begin replacing the aging Defense Satellite Communications Spacecraft (DSCS) constellation.
Unless advanced technology being developed by defense contractors is going to help the warfighter for an affordable cost, U.S. Air Force Gen. Ronald Keys doesn't want to see it. "This is not about novelty," the commander of Air Combat Command said June 20 during his morning keynote speech at the Transformation Warfare 07 conference and exhibit in Virginia Beach, Va. The ACC cannot waste time on "science projects," he said.
UAS REPAIRS: AeroVironment Corp. of Monrovia, Calif., has been awarded a $17.6 million contract to provide maintenance and repair for RQ-11 Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, the Defense Department said June 20. The work will be performed in Simi Valley, Calif., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 15, 2007. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala.
The U.S. Air Force is living and thinking too much in the Cold War mode with its "cursor-on-target" mantra, says Air Force General Michael V. Hayden, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. "They're still thinking about the end product of intelligence," Hayden said June 19 during an Air Force Defense Strategy Seminar Series speech.
EYE-WATERING: The stealth and maneuverability characteristics of the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter - coupled with some yet-to-be-publicly-seen developments from the black world - will create a subsonic bomber by 2018 that will "water people's eyes," says Lt. Gen. Robert "Bob" Elder, commander, 8th Air Force, Barksdale Air Force Base, La. Even though hypersonic speed or some other more advanced capabilities won't be ready to be incorporated in that timeframe, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen.
PARIS - Two very different approaches to the U.S. Navy's Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) requirement were detailed in presentations at the Paris Air Show by Northrop Grumman and Boeing, which, with Lockheed Martin/General Atomics Predator, are in contention for a $3 billion contract. BAMS is the planned supplement to the abilities of the new Boeing P-8A maritime patroller, calling for some 48 unmanned, high-altitude, long-range aircraft controlled from ground stations.
