The U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) has called a temporary halt to operations of its Airbus A330 Voyager refueling tankers after an inflight incident caused injuries to passengers onboard. Internet reports state that one of the RAF’s Voyager tankers, provided by the privately owned AirTanker consortium, rapidly lost altitude over Turkey while en route to Afghanistan supporting the U.K. Afghan air bridge on Feb. 9. The aircraft had 189 passengers and nine crew onboard. The rapid descent caused minor injuries to several passengers.
Electronic warfare and cyber, shipbuilding led by submarines, unmanned vehicles and long-range strike capabilities — all with a focus on the Asia-Pacific — are some of the military technologies the Pentagon will prioritize, according to a prepared speech Feb. 11 by its temporary No. 2 official.
U.S. Special Operations Command (Socom) is looking for “the next big thing,” the “game-changer” weapons system, which like the UAV today will become the indispensable tool of military victory tomorrow, according to a leading Pentagon official.
As the demand and costs for specialty metals used in high-end military manufacturing drops, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) is outlining possible changes lawmakers can make in current statutes requiring the use of domestic sources for those materials.
On the heels of last year’s humiliating third failure of the premier U.S. missile defense system during what was billed as a fairly simple flight trial, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is doubling down on the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program by adding more than $4.5 billion to the Missile Defense Agency’s coffers from fiscal 2015-2019, according to Riki Ellison, chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.
SINGAPORE — Saab is hoping the critical seaways that link Asia’s trading partners will prove to be lucrative hunting grounds for its Saab 340 Maritime Security Aircraft (MSA). The company has bought its demonstrator aircraft to Singapore to show the aircraft’s capabilities to potential customers, using the country’s busy shipping lanes to provide targets for the miscellany of sensors onboard.
Problems flagged by the Pentagon’s chief tester that could hamper the ability of the KC-46 tanker to protect itself on missions have been addressed, according to U.S. Air Force officials. Raytheon’s AN/ALR-69 radar warning receiver is slated for use on the KC-46, which is being developed under a $4.9 billion contract with Boeing.
SINGAPORE — Incongruously wearing a civil aircraft registration, the obviously military Super Heron HF unmanned air vehicle (UAV) comes to Changi bedecked with sensors for a wide variety of surveillance missions and surrounded by the flags of some of the 20 or so countries that use the basic Heron system. Occupying pride of place in the static display, outside the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) chalet (CD03), the HF will be unveiled today.
What was once a program to demonstrate a flying jeep has a new direction and a new name. Formerly called Transformer, the U.S. Defense Advanced Project Agency’s rechristened Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded Systems (ARES) program will now demonstrate a modular, unmanned vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) delivery system.
SINGAPORE — With foreign interest in the V-22 Osprey rapidly gathering pace, the U.S. has decided to show off the type’s capabilities here at the Singapore air show. Two of the Bell-Boeing tiltrotors have deployed from their home base in Japan to feature in the show’s flying and static display.
SINGAPORE — “Four or five nations” are showing strong interest in the Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and antisubmarine warfare (ASW) aircraft, according to Chris Raymond, Boeing Defense, Space & Security vice president for business development and strategy. “These are down to a technical level, not a cursory what-is-it level,” Raymond said on the eve of the Singapore air show. “They are doing analysis of range and coverage, how it would fit in their fleets, life-cycle costs.”
NEW DELHI — Sweden’s Saab is partnering with India’s Kalyani Group to address the Indian military’s requirements for short-range missiles, an official at Kalyani Group says. The pact will initially focus on the very-short-range air defense (Vshorad) and short-range surface to air missile (SRSAM) programs for India. For Vshorad, Saab will provide a system based on the RBS 70 NG missile system, which will deliver a highly accurate, man-portable system with 24/7 all-target capability.
Europe’s defense and space agencies are to expand their cooperation on integrating unmanned aircraft systems into civil airspace for commercial and government missions with a second phase of a project to demonstrate that UAS can be controlled via satellite communications.
Beyond its futuristic appearance, what distinguishes the DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer from its predecessors is the network of sensors watching over the many automated systems used to operate the ship with the smallest crew imagined for the largest modern destroyer in the fleet, program officials say. About 35,000 distinct sensor signals will pulse throughout the ship, says Capt. James Downey, Navy program manager, about seven times more than there are in a DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.
Boeing may propose an upgrade package for Singapore’s Lockheed Martin F-16 fleet if the nation opens a competition, a senior company executive said in Singapore Feb. 10, on the eve of the nation’s air show. “Should they go that route, we’d be interested”, said Chris Raymond, Boeing Defense, Space & Security vice president for business development and strategy.
SINGAPORE — Russia ensures a strong presence at the Singapore air show this year as United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) brings the Sukhoi Superjet 100 regional aircraft and the Yak-130 advanced jet trainer. UAC represnets the merger of Soviet-era legacy Russian aerospace giants into a single, vertically integrated corporation.
Sikorsky has begun ground runs of the U.S. Marine Corps’ CH-53K heavy-lift helicopter and is aiming for a first flight by the end of the year. The ground test vehicle (GTV), which will never fly, achieved “bare head light off” — engines running and rotor hubs turning, but no blades attached — on Jan. 24 in West Palm Beach, Fla. The 88,000-lb. gross-weight CH-53K is an all-new aircraft, designed to triple the external load-carrying capacity of the CH-53E to more than 27,000 lb. over a radius of 110 nm in high/hot conditions.
U.S. Army Sauer Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., was awarded a $56,038,640 contract to build an operational readiness training complex at Fort Hunter Liggett, Calif. Fiscal 2014 military construction funds in the amount of $56,038,640 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is April 30, 2016. Bids were solicited via the Internet with 22 received. Work will be performed at Fort Hunter Liggett. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville, Ky., is the contracting activity (W912QR-14-C-0006).
NEW DELHI — One of India’s biggest challenges in importing military goods is making sure that its systems are secure, says the leader of the country’s top defense research lab. “If we are looking at true cybersecurity we have to address the basic policy of acquisition,” says Avinash Chander, who leads the Defense Research and Development Organization, “[and] ensure that the cybersecurity features are indeed part of our process.”
WORK NOMINATION: The Obama administration’s fiscal 2015 budget request is not expected for another three weeks, but already the White House is showing signals of where it wants to go after the beginning of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1 — and at the Pentagon that means new and advanced weaponry. That is the conclusion Washington analysts are drawing from the official nomination of Robert Work to be the deputy defense secretary, the No. 2 official at the Defense Department.
As the U.S. Navy readies CVN-74 John Stennis to be the first aircraft carrier to receive the new Consolidated Afloat Network Enterprise Services (Canes) system providing a common computing environment infrastructure for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I), the Pentagon’s chief tester notes more testing is planned and needed to validate the technology.
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson says the department has become “very focused” on foreign fighters heading to Syria, where outside Islamist groups have radicalized the three-year civil war between rebels and the Bashar al-Assad regime. DHS is concerned about what those foreign fighters, indoctrinated with radical, violent beliefs, will do when they return to their home countries.
