LE BOURGET, France - The surprise elimination of the Eurofighter Typhoon from Singapore's fighter contest has focused more attention on the Dassault Rafale, the remaining European contender. The Rafale and the Boeing F-15 remain in the competition (DAILY, April 22). The contest has turned into a grudge match, because the last time that the Rafale was up against the F-15 - in Korea - Dassault and the French government were convinced it was only U.S. government pressure that swung the contest against them.
The sea basing capability being developed for the Marine Corps will allow the service to deploy 15,000 Marines anywhere in the world in 10 to 12 days as soon as 2015, according to the commandant of the Marine Corps. "And when you are able to respond that fast, it is going to change the calculus of the battlefield," Gen. Michael W. Hagee said in an interview with the Pentagon Channel, the Defense Department's television outlet.
The House moved June 14 to approve $16.5 billion in fiscal 2006 spending for NASA, including brushing aside a Democratic attempt to divert $200 million to law enforcement grants. Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, proposed an amendment to H.R. 2862 that would have moved $100 million from Project Prometheus and another $100 million from the moon-Mars initiative to cover the Community Oriented Policing Services and other law enforcements grants that were cut in the annual spending bill.
TESTING COMPLETE: Dallas-based Vought Aircraft Industries recently completed successful testing of its first enhanced wing for the U.S. Air Force's RQ-4B Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle built by Northrop Grumman, the company said. The tests simulated forces experienced during specific "gust load" winds. The testing was part of an effort to allow the Global Hawk to carry a larger payload while maintaining platform performance specifications, the company said. Vought's work has included design development, fabrication, assembly and structural testing of the wing.
LE BOURGET, France - The diversion of scarce funds to more urgent projects will hurt the market for trainer aircraft, according to a new study by intelligence and analysis provider Forecast International. The Advanced European Jet Pilot Training (AEJPT) program is marking time, says Bill Dane, Forecast's senior aerospace analyst. No common specification has emerged from the 12 interested "Eurotraining" countries, while one of the local contenders, EADS, "appears to be losing interest in its design and ... has only built a mock-up [of the Mako] to date."
NASA formally has selected the teams led by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman/Boeing to continue their design work on the agency's Crew Exploration Vehicle, and anticipates awarding bridge funding to both teams to support them until a downselect is made in early 2006. The teams were the only ones that submitted proposals to NASA for the CEV, which is to be used to transport astronauts to low-Earth orbit and return to the moon no later than 2020.
LE BOURGET, France - In keeping with both U.S. and International Monetary Fund recommendations, Israel has made significant progress in recent years in breaking up its state-owned monopolies and privatizing a number of government-run industries. Israel's Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz expects the industry to converge into a few big groups within five years, according to Aviation Week's ShowNews. Mofaz said deeper partnerships and mergers into larger companies will contribute to a healthier defense industry.
LE BOURGET, France - Raytheon has conducted the first test launch of the latest Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) variant over Sweden's Vidsel test range.
LE BOURGET, France - Embraer's ERJ-145 aircraft can provide cash-strapped countries a cheaper way for their militaries to acquire airborne intelligence, a company official says. Anastacio Katsanos, Brazil-based Embraer's defense programs chief, said the reconnaissance-based ERJ-145 can achieve multiforce integration and faster command cycles, allowing the greater mobility and flexibilty that armed services want, according to Aviation Week's ShowNews.
TEAMING: Boeing will provide mission systems integration for Sikorsky's HH-92 helicopter as part of the company's bid for the U.S. Air Force's Personnel Recovery Vehicle program, Sikorsky said June 13. The preliminary agreement is subject to Sikorsky and Boeing entering into a mutually satisfactory teaming agreement, Sikorsky said from the Paris Air Show.
MERIDIAN, Miss. - Lead-in training for Navy combat pilots in the T-45 Goshawk will be safer by the end of the year, Capt. Daniel L. Ouimette, commander of Training Air Wing One here, told The DAILY. By then, Boeing's Nose Wheel Steering Augmentation System, a fix for ground handling problems that T-45s have had since entering service in 1991, should be on enough aircraft for a class of students to train only in Goshawks equipped with the fix.
FLYING HOURS: By the end of April, the four-nation Eurofighter Typhoon fleet had logged a total of 2,845 operational flying hours with the partner air forces. The United Kingdom's Royal Air Force led the way with its 13 aircraft completing 1,357 hours. Germany's 10 Eurofighters had flown 552 hours, Italy's eight aircraft had flown 563 hours, and Spain's eight jets had spent 373 hours in the air. By May 30, Eurofighter had delivered 39 service aircraft, plus five instrumented production aircraft for development tasks.
LE BOURGET, France - New developments in Israel's missile arsenal normally are kept highly classified, so recent reports and official announcements about successful tests of extended-range missiles caused a stir among the world's defense community, according to Aviation Week's ShowNews.
A launch vehicle derived from a single space shuttle solid rocket booster could be ready for flight by 2010 if NASA chooses it as a means of launching the Crew Exploration Vehicle into low-Earth orbit, according to SRB manufacturer ATK Thiokol.
The Tango Bravo effort to investigate new technologies for future submarines has taken a step forward with the award of five contracts. The contracts "are aimed at removing technology barriers for reducing size and cost of future submarines," said the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is managing the program. The Navy is providing the deputy program manager.
FIRST FLIGHT: Northrop Grumman's second RQ-4A Global Hawk maritime demonstrator successfully completed its first flight, the company said June 13. In the four-hour flight, the UAV launched autonomously from the company's production facility in Palmdale, Calif., and tested accurately for air speed, altitude and direction.
LE BOURGET, France - The Boeing Co. is exploring several potential upgrades to the C-17 Globemaster III in case the U.S. Air Force decides to continue buying the transport aircraft well into the next decade, company officials said June 13.
The Odyssey Launch Platform and the Sea Launch Commander have departed their home port in Long Beach, Calif., in preparation for the June 23 launch of the Intelsat Americas-8 spacecraft, Sea Launch announced June 13. Upon arrival at the launch site at 154 degrees West longitude, the launch team will begin a 72-hour countdown, ballast the Launch Platform to launch depth and perform final tests on the Zenit-3SL launcher and spacecraft.
MOSCOW - During high-level talks with Russia's Federal Space Agency, European Space Agency officials confirmed ESA's interest in the joint development of the Clipper reusable manned spacecraft to replace Soyuz capsules. Clipper was a central element of the negotiations attended by heads of ESA's key directorates and Russian space program leaders. The spacecraft, proposed by RSC Energia, is a partially reusable lifting body "mini shuttle" that could allow the delivery of six-person crews to and from low-Earth orbit.
A program to hunt for potentially threatening asteroids or comets down to 100 meters across probably would cost $300 million-$400 million and could use an array of space-based and ground telescopes, according to Lindley Johnson, program manager for NASA's Near Earth Observation Program.
Maritime defense - including the creation of a maritime equivalent of the North American Aerospace Defense Command - presents the greatest single opportunity to beef up domestic security, according to the Defense Department's top official for homeland defense. "When we speak of a maritime NORAD, we're not talking about just a bilateral relationship with Canada modeled on the NORAD agreement we have in the air domain," said Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense.
