The Eaton chief suspects that the introduction of new technologies that make aircraft cheaper to operate may have permanently shortened their economic lifecycles.
Japan's last attempt at developing a twin-engine transport helicopter flopped. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) built only seven MH2000s from 1998 to 2003.
The call for more U.S. Navy unmanned platforms across the spectrum of the service’s operations is starting to rise to a higher pitch, although Navy officials say such capability is still decades away. “[The] U.S. Navy should prioritize investment in cutting-edge technologies that offer new means of projecting naval power, such as stealthy, unmanned long-range strike platforms and autonomous undersea vehicles,” the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) think tank says in a report released earlier this week.
U.S. lawmakers tend to treat the White House budget proposal as a suggestion, and then proceed to do what they want. But in the fiscal 2013 request, House appropriators changed Navy procurement lines disproportionately more than the other services.
Maps are clearly a vital tool for any military commander, but the days when a two-dimensional, printed representation of an area will suffice have long since passed. Dynamic mapping of the battlespace is not new, but 21st century technologies are revolutionizing the collection, dissemination and analysis of tactical intelligence.
The U.S. Congress is closer than ever before to reversing a 14-year-old law aimed at limiting dual-use satellite technology that the industry complains has put U.S. exports at a competitive disadvantage.
When the U.S. Air Force canceled a little-known airship program, veterans of aerospace development saw it as just another case of a service desperately seeking budget savings. But officials of the small contractor and some observers see something more disturbing—a prejudice against new ways of collecting intelligence and a pre-emptive strike to protect conventional programs.
Do not be surprised if Defense Secretary Leon Panetta secures a $1.4 billion deal to sell India 22 Boeing-made Apache Longbow attack helicopters during his trip there this week, say Center for Strategic & International Studies analysts.
Defense companies that primarily provide services rather than products will be among the first to be hit by reductions in military spending, Moody's Investor Services warns in its latest commentary. Beyond the next fiscal year, a decline in troop deployments overseas will lead to lower services outlays, Moody's says. And as contracts roll over and the Defense Department's heightened focus on procurement cost control takes hold, margins are likely to shrink.
Amid questions about America’s nuclear posture—particularly the role of the country’s ballistic missile submarine fleet—the U.S. Navy says it continues to prove the reliability of the Trident II D5 Fleet Ballistic Missiles (FBMs) carried by the subs. The service conducted successful flights April 14 and 16 of four Trident II D5 FBMs built by Lockheed Martin. The Navy launched two unarmed missiles each day from the submerged submarine USS Maryland (SSBN-738) in the Atlantic Ocean.
During the past year, two large powered-lift models have been tested in the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex (NFAC) at NASA Ames Research Center in California, evaluating the low-speed benefits of blowing air over high-lift flaps for short takeoff and landing (STOL).
The U.S. Air Force may have stopped work on its Blue Devil 2 surveillance airship, but the U.S. Army says Northrop Grumman is making progress in assembling its hybrid-airship Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV). Without giving a date for the first flight, originally expected in mid-2011, Army Space & Missile Defense Command (SMDC) says “the team is assembling the airship and integrating motors and electronics onto and into the vehicle.
As more users adopt cloud-based computing networks to achieve bandwidth efficiency, hardware reduction and other benefits, issues arise over the ability to access different operating systems in the cloud, host multiple domains, assure data resilience and, importantly, maintain security. Three companies have partnered to develop a system that they say is innovative in that it provides a secure, scalable, redundant platform for cloud networks in sensitive environments, including tactical military use.
The German Bundeswehr in April ordered $6.4 million in direct methanol fuel cells to be delivered by the end of the year. About the size of a hardback book and weighing 3.5 lb., the cells can be kept running in the field by swapping out small fuel tanks, promising longer operating life for connected devices and less weight than batteries.
Shifting winds pose a hazard to soldiers and first responders who confront toxic threats, whether chemical, nuclear or smoke and fumes. Software in development by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) predicts the flow of plumes based on weather and terrain over areas of varying size to increase the safe deployment of personnel. Called L-REAC (Local-Rapid Evaluation of Atmospheric Conditions), the program models such factors as wind, air pressure, temperature and humidity, terrain data and building dimensions.
Click here to view the pdf 2013 Markup: House Appropriators Add Money For Advanced Video Sensors 2013 Markup: House Appropriators Add Money For Advanced Video Sensors Description Request HASC HAC
On April 22, a barrage of Hellfire missiles killed a senior Al Qaeda commander and two operatives along the border of Marib and Al Jawf provinces in northern Yemen. It is believed to be among the first of many strikes executed since Washington authorized the targeting of militants based on “signature” patterns of behavior, such as transporting weapons or gathering at known militant compounds. Under previous policy, the identity of a militant in the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had to be established before placing him on a kill list.
UAVs do not fly in commercial airspace or over populated areas for good reasons: They have no sense-and-avoidance systems to prevent mid-air collisions, and there is no way to make safe emergency landings a regular event. “In most cases they just drop,” says Luis Alvarez of the Australian Research Center for Aerospace Automation. Researchers there and at partner Queensland University of Technology are developing onboard systems to address these problems.
The Pentagon is set to expand a pilot program that shares information about cyberthreats among agencies and private companies. The defense industrial base Cyber Security/Information Assurance Program involves companies providing information to the Defense Department about cybersecurity incidents, such as an attempted hack or a computer virus, and the Pentagon providing companies with unclassified and classified cybersecurity information. The pilot program, which has been going on for four years, currently involves 36 companies.
The increased use of UAVs and light aircraft is spurring development of smaller precision-attack weapons, designed to better meet payload limitations of the manned, light-strike aircraft and UAVs. Such weapons also will open new tactical dimensions for light rotorcraft, for which there is increasing demand, especially by a growing corps of special operations forces. So far, most available light scout helicopters considered for armed missions are underpowerd and lack payload capacity and only a new generation of light precison-attack weapons can fill this critical gap.
REORG PLAN: Hawker Beechcraft is facing a June 30 deadline to file its reorganization plan and disclosure statement, and is expected to confirm its reorganization by November. The Wichita airframer is hoping to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection by the end of the year under new ownership through a restructuring plan that would eliminate $2.5 billion of the company’s debt and $125 million in annual interest expenses. Last year the company lost the U.S.
