NEW DELHI — The Indian air force (IAF) has opted for Boeing’s Chinook CH-47F to fulfill its requirement for 15 heavy-lift helicopters. Boeing emerged as the lowest bidder when life cycle costs were calculated, edging out a proposal for the Russian Mi-26, a source close to the deal says. “The commercial negotiations with Boeing are expected to begin shortly and the contract negotiation committee will finalize the deal for the Chinook,” the source says.
Saab is hoping that its Rigs head-up-display will gain interest from the U.S. Army as the company pushes to boost sales in the U.S. Though the U.S. defense market is under pressure from budget cuts, the company still sees opportunity here, says John Belanger, head of communications for the Swedish company’s North America operation. “U.S. defense is still roughly 50% of the total global budget,” he says. About 80% of Saab’s business is exported from Sweden.
Office of Naval Research (ONR) officials detailed a new program Oct. 22 to optimize tactical handheld technology for “quick decision-making in the field.” Called the Exchange of Actionable Information at the Tactical Edge (Eaite) program, the effort is designed to “sift through data from multiple sources for faster analysis.” Eaite is among more than a dozen Future Naval Capability (FNC) programs kicking off in fiscal year 2014.
The U.S. Office of Naval Research is looking for ways to keep larger unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) deployed longer, says Frank Herr, director of the ONR Ocean Battlespace Sensing Department. “Our challenge now is a large-diameter UUV,” Herr said at the recent Office of Naval Research (ONR) Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference in Washington. The Navy wants a UUV that “will provide greater breadth of autonomy,” he says, adding the service also needs the vehicle to provide more situational awareness.
To better prepare itself for undersea combat and military operations, the U.S. Navy awarded L-3’s Marine & Power Systems (MariPro) division a multiyear contract with a potential total value of $127 million to install an Undersea Warfare Training Range off the coast of Jacksonville, Fla. The contract includes design, manufacturing and installation of a state-of-the-art undersea warfare training system that will ultimately span 500 square nm.
The U.S. Army is working on a 30-year research, development and acquisition “road map” to determine what science and technology efforts it needs to invest in now, according to top Army leaders. Force protection, from ground and airborne threats to individual soldiers and large Army bases around the world, will be a “paramount” focus, said Heidi Shyu, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, at the annual Association of the U.S. Army conference in Washington last week.
U.S. AIR FORCE L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace L.L.C., Madison, Miss., (FA3002-13-C-0006) is being awarded a $34,689,207 firm fixed price contract for acquisition of aircraft maintenance support services for T-1A, T-6A, T-38C SUPT and T-38C IFF. The location of the performance is Columbus Air Force Base, Miss. Work is expected to be completed by Sept. 29, 2019. The contracting activity is AETC CONS/LGCK, Randolph Air Force Base, Texas.
The U.S. Navy says it successfully fired six Rafael Spike missiles from an unmanned surface vessel (USV) recently, the first time the service proved it could fire such weapons from a USV. The Expeditionary Warfare Division and Naval Sea Systems Command’s (Navsea) Naval Special Warfare Program Office conducted the launches Oct. 24 from a USV precision engagement module (PEM), a remotely operated, 11-meter boat armed with missiles and a .50-caliber machine gun.
French aerospace equipment manufacturers saw steady growth last year, with revenues up 14% to €11.4 billion ($14.7 billion) and order intake totaling €14.3 billion, including a 20% increase in exports. Olivier Zarrouati, who leads the equipment group at French aerospace industry association Gifas, says the country's equipment-manufacturing industry is entering a new phase.
Click here to view the pdf 2013 U.S. Defense Spending: Current Funding Outlook: Air Force RDT&E Lines where 2013 Request differs from 2012 Enacted Amount by more than 20%($ in thousands) 2013 U.S.
An unequal battle is brewing to replace the airplane that has provided U.S. Navy aircraft carriers with their logistics lifeline to the mainland for half a century, a competition that could lead the service to reevaluate fundamentally how it transports high-priority cargo to its battle groups.
Orbital Technologies Corp. (Orbitec), a Madison, Wisc.-based space-technology company, has flight tested a version of the 30,000-lb.-thrust liquid-propellant rocket engine it is developing for the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Upper Stage Engine Program (Ausep) and other in-space applications.
The U.S. Army is finally expecting its first delivery—due next fall—of new equipment designed to help correct the problem of fratricide in its air and missile defense forces that has persisted since the Persian Gulf war in the early 1990s.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Oct. 30 - Nov. 1 — 15th Biennial Helicopter Military Operations Technology Specialists' Meeting, Crowne Plaza Williamsburg, Fort Magaruder, Va. For more information go to www.vtol.org/events/helmot-xv. Oct. 30 - 31 — 2012 Coast Guard Innovation Expo, Virginia Beach Convention Center, Virginia Beach, Va. For more information go to www.ndia.org/exhibits/3230.
Competition for Pentagon work can actually drive up prices, says a recent analysis by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). “The way a competition is structured can be a determining factor in whether competitive pressure is sufficient to balance the additional development costs of multiple contractors and the higher unit costs from splitting the award in defense acquisitions,” says CSBA senior fellow Todd Harrison. “In some instances, the structure of the competition can actually incentivize contractors to bid higher and drive up costs.”
Preliminary results show that the Missile Defense Agency scored three of five attempted missile intercepts in the first integrated flight exercise to combine engagements from three different defense systems.
The anticipated upswing in domestic use of unmanned aircraft poses a potential threat to U.S. Constitutional privacy rights that federal agencies have been slow to address, according to experts at an Oct. 25 policy forum. The expected increase in UAV flights is being bolstered by national security and environmental interests, local law enforcement, industrial surveillance as well as private owners. Legislation passed in February requires the FAA to integrate drones into the federal airspace by December 2015.
Slashing its requirement by a third, the Indian air force (IAF) says it will induct only 144 of the originally ordered 214 Fifth-Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) that it is co-developing with Russia.
As the first DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer moves close to completion, U.S. Navy interest is rising and the cost of the ship appears to be dropping. In recent blogs and official releases, the Navy brass has continued to tout the benefits of its new, most futuristic warship, with the composite deckhouse making its trek via barge from the Gulf of Mexico to Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, where the ship is being assembled.
Malaysia's navy is generally last—behind the army and the air force—when it comes to securing budget approval for new aircraft, but the government may be end up giving the navy priority over the other armed services, because anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability is becoming critical. The deputy chief of the navy, Vice Adm. Mohammed Noordin bin Ali, says ASW has increased in importance because there are now many more submarines in Asia. He says the navy needs to boost its capability by buying six more ASW helicopters.
