NEW DELHI — Saddled with obsolete training aircraft, the Indian air force (IAF) has decided to snub the long-delayed, indigenous HJT-36 Sitara intermediate jet trainer (IJT) and purchase new trainers from abroad. The IAF has issued a request for information for a lightweight, single-engine, twin-seat trainer with a secondary light attack capability, an official at India’s ministry of defense says. “We have asked the vendors to provide cost details for the direct purchase of IJTs for batch sizes of 10, 20, 30 and 50 aircraft,” he says.
There is apparently a price to be paid for the width and volume provided by the even-numbered Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) variants built by Austal USA and General Dynamics—a very tight squeeze through the Panama Canal. (LCS-4 photo: Austal USA)
Award of a contract to develop a new cockpit for U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters could be imminent, with a Milestone B decision on launching the L Digital development program expected Feb. 28. Elbit Systems of America, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Rockwell Collins are known bidders for the program, under which up to 763 UH-60Ls would be upgraded with a glass cockpit as similar as possible to that of the Army’s later UH-60M.
ROMEOS ARRIVE: The U.S. Navy officially delivered two MH-60Rs to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) recently. The helicopters are the cornerstone of the U.S. Navy’s anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare operations, and the RAN will acquire a fleet of 24 Romeos. “We pack a punch now using the Hellfire missile that we’ve never had before,” says Cmdr. David Frost, who leads RAN’s squadron of Romeos. “It’s been a capability gap that we’re now going to be able to fill with this aircraft.
Major U.S. Navy ship and radar programs for ballistic missile defense (BMD) have recently made significant headway. Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems awarded General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems a contract to support the engineering and manufacturing development of the U.S. Navy’s next-generation integrated Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR). The contract has a potential value of $250.1 million over 10 years if all options are exercised.
The next likely deputy U.S. defense secretary, Bob Work, agreed with senators Feb. 25 that the U.S. Air Force Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH) represents a necessary capability.
As the U.S. Coast Guard finishes up rebuilding its surface fleet and taking care of major fixed-wing aircraft needs, the service will next need to worry about finding replacements for its aging helicopters, says Adm. Robert Papp, its commandant. The Coast Guard should be monitoring the efforts of the U.S. Air Force to secure another search-and-rescue (SAR) helicopter to see if a basic model of that aircraft can be acquired to meet Coast Guard needs, Papp said Feb. 26 after his annual state-of-the-Coast Guard address.
The U.K. Defense Ministry is about to begin a new series of flight trials involving the Thales Watchkeeper unmanned aerial system. Trials are moving from Aberporth in West Wales to the ministry’s test airfield at Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, where the aircraft will be able to directly support army training over the Salisbury Plain Training Area.
F-35 activities planned to take place after the program’s development phase ends in 2016 could slip by up to six months, according to U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, program executive officer for the stealthy fighter. Work leading up to completion of development of the multinational, $398 billion program is largely on track, he told an audience hosted by Credit Suisse/McAleese & Associates Feb. 25. “I’m measuring the days I’m off in those milestones by days and weeks,” he said.
The U.S. Air Force has ruled that the first Falcon 9 v1.1 flight conducted last fall does count as one of three required for Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to be certified to compete for boosting U.S national security payloads into orbit, as the upstart company works to take on the United Launch Alliance (ULA) monopoly.
The U.S. Air Force’s portion of an emerging Pentagon wish list of extra spending in fiscal 2015 and beyond is $41 billion, including $7 billion in the year starting Oct. 1, according to the armed service’s secretary. Deborah Lee James also told the Bloomberg Government conference on Feb. 26 that the budget request coming March 4 will call for 283 aircraft to be retired, including the A-10 close air support (CAS) fleet and U-2 high-flying reconnaissance system.
POSEIDON WORK: The U.S. Navy this month awarded Boeing a $2.1 billion modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract to exercise options for the procurement of 16 P-8A Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft full rate production Lot I aircraft and 16 Ancillary Mission Equipment kits for the U.S. Navy. Navy officials tout the P-8A Poseidons as a replacement to P-3C Orion aircraft, especially in the expansive Asia-Pacific. The Pentagon is now refocusing its forces on that region.
The U.S. Air Force’s top 10 acquisition programs will amount to roughly half of its budget requests in fiscal 2015 and beyond, but spending will prioritize new capabilities and even readiness over legacy weapons systems, according to the armed service’s uniformed acquisition chief. “It’s going to be a very delicate balancing act of capability, readiness and systems,” Lt. Gen. Charles Davis, the military deputy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, told the Bloomberg Government conference Feb. 26.
Embraer’s defense and security revenues grew 15% in 2013, but are coming under pressure from Brazil’s depreciating currency. The real’s value against the U.S. dollar has been dropping as the country’s trade deficit widens. The Brazilian manufacturer has reported net revenues of $6.2 billion for 2013, $1.2 billion of that from its growing defense business. The company is forecasting 2014 defense revenues of $1.2-1.3 billion—an increase of only 4% at the mid-point of the range, says JPMorgan senior analyst Joseph Nadol.
Raytheon says that it is ahead of its U.S. rivals in developing gallium nitride (GaN) technology for active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radars and electronic warfare systems, following a number of performance and manufacturing demonstrations. “I can’t think of any reason you’d stay with GaAs [gallium arsenide] for any new system,” says Steve Bernstein, GaN program manager in Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems’ Advanced Technology Group.
PARIS — With Eurofighter Typhoon sales lagging, and Germany expected to reduce its planned order in the multinational program by 37 jets, Airbus Defense and Space is paring back export projections. “I’m not terribly optimistic as to future sales prospects beyond 2017 or so, because so far the export success has been rather meager,” Airbus Group Chief Executive Tom Enders said during a Feb. 26 news conference unveiling the company’s 2013 earnings results. “In addition, we have governments considering uptake cuts for the Eurofighter.”
One billion dollars earmarked in the Pentagon’s forthcoming 2015 budget request will support a new development program “in the next few years” to produce an engine beyond that used for the F-35, says Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for procurement. Pratt & Whitney and General Electric are already working through the Adaptive Engine Technology Development (AETD) program to design engines 25% more efficient than today’s and producing 10% more thrust.
Air Force Under Secretary Eric Fanning says the service is “committed to getting [the RQ-4B Global Hawk] to parity before we divest the U-2 fleet,” indicating the high-flying, manned spy plane could be in the fleet for years to come. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Feb. 24 that the Lockheed Martin U-2 fleet would be mothballed in favor of using the unmanned, long-endurance Northrop Grumman Global Hawk for the high-altitude reconnaissance mission. He did not provide dates; more detail on the fiscal 2015 budget plan will be released March 4.
Lockheed Martin has demonstrated a secretly developed capability to fix one of the shortfalls of its stealthy F-22 and F-35 fighters: their inability to link to one another, or to legacy fighters, for air campaigns.
After trying for years to decommission its older cruisers—only to be thwarted by Congress each time—the U.S. Navy is taking a different approach: the service’s fiscal 2015 budget proposal calls for the ships to be taken out of service and improved for possible later deployments.
LOS ANGELES — AgustaWestland is using its experience gained from the development of an urgent operational requirement for the U.K. to offer an upgraded engine for operators of the Lynx helicopter.
Expect additional funding in the forthcoming fiscal 2015 Pentagon budget request to address shortcomings in the Boeing Ground-Based Midcourse Defense program, according to Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for procurement. “We are going to be taking an initiative to address some of these problems,” Kendall said during the Credit Suisse/McAleese & Associates Defense Programs conference Feb. 25 in Washington. “We recognize the problems we have had with all the currently fielded interceptors,” he said.
