ABOARD THE USS FREEDOM — MH-60 Seahawk helicopters are key to the multi-mission capability of the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), but making the aircraft available to help swap out the vessels’ mission module packages presents a significant challenge.
Lockheed Martin is considering all options to continue increasing the production rate of the multinational F-35, though officials are not yet to the point where they must draw on company funds to forward finance the manufacturing line.
At least 74 Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are calling on the Pentagon to continue pursuit of a replacement USAF combat rescue helicopter (CRH).
Sikorsky has revealed the Unmanned Rotor Blown Wing concept it is designing with Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works under Phase 1 of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s vertical-takeoff-and-landing experimental aircraft (VTOL X-Plane) program. Sikorsky has received a $14.4 million contract for the 22-month conceptual and preliminary design phase. Darpa plans to make up to four Phase 1 awards.
ABOARD THE USS FREEDOM — A core crew size of 53 appears to suit the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) Freedom just fine, says Cmdr. Patrick Thien, the ship’s commanding officer. “This is the right crew size and I think we’ve got the right mix,” Thien said Dec. 13 as Freedom approached the Navy port in Pearl Harbor en route to San Diego to finish off the ship’s first Western Pacific deployment.
With $37 million of congressionally directed funding to spend on improving energy efficiency, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is seeking proposals for fuel-saving technology demonstrations. The funding would help manufacturers and others conduct demonstrations to mature technologies to reduce fuel consumption, drag and weight to a manufacturing readiness level high enough for them to be considered for future acquisition programs, AFRL says in a new solicitation.
In a bid to boost the ability to track orbital debris that could endanger satellites, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is seeking methods for the uncued detection of objects in low-inclined low Earth orbit (LILO). The LILO project is part of Darpa’s OrbitOutlook (O2) program to bolster the U.S. Space Surveillance Network (SSN) with new sensor, database and validation capabilities. The SSN is tasked with observing and tracking space objects.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) has demonstrated a complete sense-and-avoid system on its Predator B unmanned aircraft, generating test data that will help the FAA and industry develop standards for integrating UAVs into civil airspace. The test demonstrated both the short-term collision avoidance and longer-term self-separation functions required of an unmanned-aircraft sense-and-avoid architecture, the company says.
The Norwegian parliament has approved plans to accelerate the country’s procurement of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Ministers gave the green light to buy six F-35s for 4 billion Krone ($654.7 million). The approval means that Norway is now signed up for 16 F-35A Lightning IIs. Four were ordered back in 2011, and the other six earlier this year.
Lockheed Martin is to deliver a 60-kw ruggedized laser that will enable the U.S. Army and Boeing to demonstrate the lethal potential of the truck-mounted High-Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL MD) in 2017, on the path to a 100-kw version planned to be tested by 2022. The HEL MD shot down both 60mm mortar rounds and tactical unmanned aircraft using a 10-kw off-the-shelf industrial laser in six weeks of testing at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., that ended on Dec. 12. This followed low-power testing with a surrogate laser in 2011.
The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) remote minehunting system (RMS) recently successfully completed developmental testing, U.S. Navy officials say. The RMS consists of the remote multi-mission vehicle (RMMV) and the towed AN/AQS-20A variable-depth sonar. The system’s purpose is to provide detection, classification, and localization of bottom, close-tethered, and volume mines in a single pass, as well as provide identification of bottom mines.
Iraq has ordered 24 light attack fighters based on the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) T-50 supersonic trainer, with deliveries due to be completed by 2017. The order, including training, is valued at $1.1 billion, but KAI says supporting the single-engine aircraft over 20 years, also in the contract, will take total revenue beyond $2 billion.
The fuselage and wings for the first 767-2C to be adapted into a KC-46A for the U.S. Air Force's aerial refueling tanker program have been joined at Boeing's Everett, Wash., facility.
References to images of two unmanned aircraft, Boeing's X-46A and Northrop Grumman's X-47B, were transposed in an interactive feature with the Dec. 9 cover story on the RQ-180 (p. 20). Tap the icon in the digital edition of AW&ST to view “The Road to Stealth UAS” with the correct references, or go to AviationWeek.com/stealthuas
Often, brochures for a new aircraft program depict a splendid variety of potential versions. Program managers, eager to persuade decision makers a proposed aircraft is viable, suggest it can fill this role as well as that, and—with further development—a few more besides. The temptation for such optimistic promotion is perhaps strongest for helicopters because they are so adaptable.
After less than two years in development, Textron's low-cost, jack-of-many-trades Scorpion aircraft has made its first flight, lasting 1.4 hr., at McConnell AFB in Wichita. The company is promoting the milestone as “one of the fastest developments of a U.S.-built tactical jet.” Whether the aircraft's quick transition to flight will translate into firm orders in the U.S. or abroad is an open question. The U.S. military has no requirement for such an aircraft, and the Pentagon is preparing for a new round of budget cuts.
When EADS CEO Tom Enders announced a major strategic review of the group's defense and space business earlier this year, he inadvertently raised expectations for a plan to overcome the structural limitations of operating in Europe. As it turns out, the grand plan has a lot more to do with cutting jobs and finding internal efficiencies than with a new approach to markets.
