Military unmanned aerial vehicles are coming to the U.S. National Airspace System, and lawmakers from the House of Representatives want to know how the Defense Department (DOD) plans to keep up training until new safety regulations allow routine access.
Military unmanned aerial vehicles are coming to the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS), and House lawmakers want to know how the Defense Department plans to keep up training until new safety regulations allow routine access.
The U.S. Navy is switching its focus on directed-energy weapons from the megawatt-class free-electron laser to less-powerful solid-state lasers, announcing plans to develop and demonstrate a prototype weapon aboard a Navy ship against aerial and small-boat targets. “We believe it’s time to move forward with solid-state lasers and shift the focus from limited demonstrations to weapon prototype development and related technology advancement,” say Peter Morrison, Solid-State Laser Technology Maturation (SSL-TM) program officer.
ASIA-PACIFIC STAFF / NEW DELHI, ASIA-PACIFIC STAFF / NEW DELHI
NEW DELHI – With India set to approve a $700 million deal with Switzerland’s Pilatus to purchase 75 new PC-7 basic propeller trainers, the Indian Air Force may also need to look outside the country for a fleet of intermediate jet trainers.
FIRE SCOUT BUY: Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Integrated Systems Sector, San Diego, has been awarded a $25,709,758 contract modification from the U.S. Navy to purchase three Fire Scout vertical takeoff and landing tactical unmanned aerial vehicles and one ground control station, the Defense Department announced May 8. The work will be performed in Moss Point, Miss. and San Diego, and is expected to be completed in December 2013. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command is the contracting activity.
ROME – Function and reliability testing of the Airbus MilitaryA400M airlifter will start about a month late due to concerns with one of the aircraft’s four TP400D turboprop engines.
Washington – House authorizers are determined to fund what the U.S. Air Force said it could not afford in fiscal 2013, putting back nearly $200 million for the C-27 airlift and directing a slowdown on terminating the C-130 avionics upgrade.
Washington – Lawmakers are supremely unhappy with the Air Force’s defense of its fiscal 2013 budget request, and it was on display May 8 after the House Appropriations defense subcommittee approved its bill.
Washington – Boeing has “voluntarily suspended” flights of the A160T Hummingbird unmanned helicopter after an aircraft crashed on April 17 in Victorville, Calif., while carrying the BAE Systems Argus-IS wide-area surveillance payload. Both the platform and its payload were damaged, says the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency , which is responsible for both the A160T and the Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System , or Argus-IS.
Washington – Military operations over the last two decades have shown marked progress in the way NATO can respond to international crises, contends a senior NATO official. While it took months to respond to fighting in Bosnia, the execution time was reduced to weeks in Afghanistan and only days in the most recent conflict in Libya, says Gen. Stephane Abrial, the alliance’s supreme allied commander for transformation and former French air force chief of staff.
Washington – When it comes to the Air Force’s request to pare back the Air National Guard and mothball the Global Hawk Block 30, the response from Capitol Hill is a resounding, “no.” The House Appropriations defense subcommittee will consider legislation May 8 that blocks the Air Force request to revamp the National Guard and to mothball Northrop Grumman’s RQ-4B Global Hawk and Alenia’s C-27J Spartan.
Washington – There are dozens of photos of China’s new J-20 fighter design and technical assessments from multiple sources, but there has yet to be a single authoritative article by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) about the aircraft’s mission.
F-35 CHANGES: Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. of Fort Worth has been awarded a $237,740,000 contract modification for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter for changes to the configuration baseline hardware or software resulting from the JSF development effort, the Defense Department announced May 7. This modification increases the concurrency cap for the U.S. Marine Corps and U.K. short takeoff vertical landing aircraft; Air Force and Netherlands conventional takeoff and landing aircraft; and Navy carrier variant aircraft.
As the U.S. cuts its Army forces and shifts its focus and resources into the Asia-Pacific region, Congress may start to put the service’s proposed Ground Combat Vehicle under greater scrutiny.
LOST OSPREY: The investigation of the April 11 crash of a U.S. Marine Corps Bell-Boeing MV-22 Osprey in Morocco is still under way, “but we know an awful lot” thanks to the tiltrotor’s crash-survivable memory units, says Capt. Greg Masiello, V-22 joint program manager. “We are confident we know where this may go, and do not anticipate any changes to the V-22 as a result.” The two pilots were killed and two crew chiefs injured when the MV-22B from Marine Corps squadron VMM-61 crashed during a military exercise with Moroccan forces. A U.S.
F-22A costs have more than doubled and fielding has been delayed, the U.S. Government Accountability Office says, because each increment was managed under the same program, instead of as separate acquisitions that require their own justifications and milestones.
