COAST GUARD: Congress looks set to provide the U.S. Coast Guard with $10.2 billion for fiscal 2014, $464 million above the Obama administration’s request for the year ending Sept. 30. In the congressional compromise worked out late Jan. 13 by Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and her House counterpart, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), lawmakers also provided $31 million for the Coast Guard to stand up an asset project office for the 14 C-27Js it is receiving from the Defense Department.
The main concern of Adm. Samuel Locklear, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, is North Korea and the unpredictable nature of the country and its government. That issue is “what I worry about every day,” he said, speaking Jan. 16 at the 2014 annual Surface Navy Association Symposium. “We’ve put [North] Korea on the back burner for the past couple of decades.” Now, he says, it’s time to put the country and related issues back in the spotlight.
ARLINGTON, Va. — U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Thomas Copeman, commander of the Naval Surface Force and U.S. Pacific Naval Surface Force, wants to bridge a missile gap he perceives in the service’s surface force to make it more lethal. While Copeman and other surface warfare officers have been talking about the growing lack of lethality for more than a decade, he acknowledges that the issue is now getting some of the spotlight.
BEIJING — The Chinese military has become a target for the clean-government drive of the administration of President Xi Jinping, with the armed forces told to cut down on spending that personally benefits service members. The orders announced this week at least indirectly address the problem of officers buying and selling postings, especially those that can be turned to personal advantage.
Test ranges — from a mockup city for disaster-response training to the coasts and waters of the Gulf of Mexico — are key reasons the FAA chose Texas as the location for one of six test sites for research to integrate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into civil airspace. The Lone Star UAS Center (LSUASC), operated by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMUCC), plans to offer test ranges providing different geographies, temperatures, altitudes and environments from maritime to urban, says Luis Cifuentes, vice president for research and commercialization.
Despite the continued push to develop more expertise in “electro-magnetic maneuverable warfare,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations (CNO), says the U.S. Navy still is coming up short in that discipline. Radios, radars and other radiating equipment are emitting signals that Navy personnel should be more aware of, Greenert says. The service needs to do a better job masking, disguising or cutting down on those signals, he argues.
LONDON — British army officials say confidence in the Thales Watchkeeper unmanned aerial system (UAS) is rising and it could be ready to enter service in the spring. Currently running three years behind schedule, the certification and introduction into service of the Watchkeeper has been slowed due to concerns raised by the U.K.’s newly established safety body, the Military Aviation Authority (MAA). Watchkeeper is the first UAS to be examined by the agency.
Test ranges — from a mockup city for disaster-response training to the coasts and waters of the Gulf of Mexico — are key reasons the FAA chose Texas as the location for one of six test sites for research to integrate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into civil airspace. The Lone Star UAS Center (LSUASC), operated by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMUCC), plans to offer test ranges providing different geographies, temperatures, altitudes and environments from maritime to urban, says Luis Cifuentes, vice president for research and commercialization.
CHEATING CHARGES: One week after a leadership visit to a Wyoming Air Force base that houses intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), the Pentagon is having more trouble with its ICBM force. Several dozen ICBM officers are alleged to have cheated on their proficiency tests, the Pentagon revealed Jan. 15. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James briefed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on the allegations. The charges come on the heels of a new series of embarrassments for the U.S. nuclear force.
ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy is making 14 different design changes costing an estimated $40 million on its LHA-6 amphibious ship, the USS America, to accommodate heat and downwash from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, says ship program official Capt. Chris Mercer. At the same time, Mercer says, the Navy has modified the flight decks for its LH(R) amphibious ships to accommodate some of the stresses created by V-22 Osprey takeoffs and landings, and the service has also restricted operations on Wasp-class ships for the Bell-Boeing tiltrotors.
Disproportionate budget cuts to research and development, driven by sequestration, threaten to turn the U.S. Defense Department into a “hollow force” as China and Russia continue to modernize their armed forces, says the Pentagon’s top acquisition chief.
The pantheon of captains of the U.S. defense industry is losing another prominent figure, with Bill Swanson, Raytheon’s CEO and chairman, slated to hand over the chief executive’s office to current COO Tom Kennedy on March 31. The Waltham, Mass., defense prime announced the move Jan. 15, saying Swanson advised Raytheon’s board of his intention to step down as CEO last March following his 65th birthday that February. He will remain chairman at least while the company transitions to Kennedy’s leadership.
As the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom’s crewmembers wind down after their first Western Pacific deployment, the ship is continuing to battle misconceptions that it spends most of the time broken down at pier side, U.S. Navy officials say. While the ship’s deployment was marred by problems related to power generators, coolers and other systems, those kinds of problems are to be expected during a major overseas deployment for a ship at this stage, officials say.
Proper “interface management” of the U.S. Navy’s air and missile defense radar (AMDR) with the existing combat system will be vital to AMDR’s success, says Bill Bray, the Navy’s program executive officer and director of integrated warfare systems. “We had a good idea of what we thought the interface was,” he said Jan. 14 during a Naval Sea Systems Command briefing at the 2014 annual Surface Navy Association Symposium. “It’s going to have to be a continued focus.” He adds, “We really have to look at that integration piece.”
Leading appropriators in the U.S. Congress have opted to use a budget scalpel to meet lower spending caps in their $1.01 trillion fiscal 2014 omnibus measure, rather than wielding the equivalent of a butcher knife and cutting whole defense capabilities.
ARLINGTON, Va. — Lockheed Martin is looking to significantly cut the time it takes to modernize U.S. Navy ships for the most recent Aegis Combat System-related updates, says Jim Sheridan, the director of Lockheed’s Aegis U.S. Navy programs.
The U.S. Navy is considering Hellfire missiles to complete the surface warfare mission module package for its Littoral Combat Ships, says Capt. John Ailes, program manager for the LCS mission module integration effort. Ailes, recently selected to become a rear admiral, says that while the program of record still calls for the LCS fleet to use the Griffin IIB missile, the Hellfires are being tested and evaluated for the role.
ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Army is hoping to retire 898 old Bell Kiowa and TH-67 helicopters in favor of shifting newer Sikorsky Black Hawks, Boeing Apaches and Airbus Helicopter Lakotas into a variety of missions. The measure, likely to be included in the fiscal 2015 budget request going to Capitol Hill next month, was devised to reduce the cost of Army aviation with a minimal effect on mission capability, says Maj. Gen. Kevin Mangum, commanding general of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence at Ft. Rucker, Ala.
ALT FUELS: U.S. alternative fuel research will continue to have a bright future under the fiscal 2014 omnibus appropriations bill being considered this week in Congress. The giant bill, providing spending for the whole government through Sept. 30, includes language supporting the development of alternative fuels, according to aides for Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), a leading Democrat in the upper chamber and a key budget negotiator across Capitol Hill.
A biofuel supply sufficient to meet up to 1% of aviation’s fuel needs could be available “instantly,” and at a price competitive with petroleum jet fuel, if green diesel is approved for use in aircraft, Boeing says. The company is working with partners to gain approval by the end of 2014.
A biofuel supply sufficient to meet up to 1% of aviation’s fuel needs could be available “instantly,” and at a price competitive with petroleum jet fuel, if green diesel is approved for use in aircraft, Boeing says. The company is working with partners to gain approval by the end of 2014.
U.K.-based Reaction Engines has signed an agreement with the U.S. Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) to explore the potential of the company’s Sabre advanced cycle air-breathing rocket engine. The company announced the signing of the cooperative research and development agreement (Crada) on Jan. 13 with AFRL’s Aerospace Systems Directorate. Reaction Engines says the agreement gives AFRL “a framework to assess the performance, applications and development paths” for the Sabre engine.
