The U.S. government shutdown has claimed another victim — the christening of the DDG-1000 USS Zumwalt-class destroyer. “It is incredibly unfortunate that we are being forced to cancel the christening ceremony for this great warship,” says Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. “But the ongoing government shutdown prevents us from being able to honor Admiral Zumwalt’s memory with a ceremony befitting his and his family’s legacy of service to our nation and our navy.”
The European Defense Agency (EDA) is preparing for a second series of manned test flights of a sense-and-avoid (S&A) system under development to allow unmanned aircraft to operate in unrestricted airspace. The system is being developed under the four-year Mid-air Collision Avoidance System (MidCAS) program, which ends in 2014, by a consortium of 13 companies from five European nations, including Saab, Alenia Aermacchi, EADS Cassidian, Indra, Selex and Thales.
Two U.S. Army command systems and the Navy’s Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (Surtass) lead the list of a dozen budget lines in the services’ “Other procurement” accounts with outyear spending plans that are doubled or more compared to what the Pentagon had estimated just a year ago. (See charts pp. 6-10.) For example, the 2014 request for Surtass is $10 million, five times the estimate in the 2013 spending plan. The total for the fiscal years 2014-2017 is $31 million, three times the 2013 estimate.
Click here to view the pdf U.S. Army, Navy Other Procurement: Outyear Funding Increases 2014-2017Compares Outyear Funding Estimates from Fiscal 2013 Request With Fiscal 2014 Request Then-year dollars in millions. Descending sort on Outyear %change. U.S.
LONDON — AgustaWestland has flown the first production AW189 helicopter in Italy. The eight-ton aircraft — ultimately destined for launch customer Bristow — took to the air at the company’s Vergiate facility on Oct. 10. The aircraft is still pending type certification, which is expected soon following what the company called a “milestone” AW189 board meeting held in Germany in late September.
The Afghan Air Force (AAF) has taken delivery of its first two C-130 Hercules aircraft as the fledgling air arm rebuilds its airlift capability. Afghanistan becomes the 70th country to operate the C-130 following the formal delivery of the two former U.S. Air Force aircraft on Oct. 9 at Kabul International Airport. The air arm is due to take delivery of another two C-130Hs in 2014.
The head of Boeing’s defense and space unit thinks the true negative effects of sequestration on the aerospace and defense industry have yet to be felt, and will only get worse over time.
In what senior Obama administration officials call a “recalibration” of the relationship between Washington and Cairo, the White House is halting deliveries of Boeing Apache attack helicopters and Harpoon anti-ship missiles to Egypt and maintaining an earlier hold on the country’s orders of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 52s. Also on hold are deliveries of M1A1 tanks made by General Dynamics.
CARTER DEPARTS: Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter will step down on Dec. 4, leaving the Pentagon after four and a half years. Carter left Harvard at the start of President Barack Obama’s first term to serve as the Pentagon’s top acquisition official under Defense Secretary Robert Gates. In 2011, he was promoted to become the second-highest ranking civilian in the Defense Department under Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. In a statement, his third boss, Chuck Hagel, says Carter will help ensure a smooth transition: “The Department will miss him. I will miss him.”
YOUNG RETIRING: Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), a powerhouse on military spending issues in Congress, will not seek re-election in 2014, he told the Tampa Bay Times. Young, 82, now the chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, led the full committee from 1999 to 2005. As a leader on defense spending in the post-9/11 era, he helped pay to equip troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan while trying to modernize the military. But the environment changed dramatically in 2010, when Congress passed bans on earmarks. Budgets have only tightened since then.
As the U.S. Navy gets ready to christen the DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer on Oct. 19, the service and contractors are scrutinizing the program for lessons they can use to help shape other vessel programs. The futuristic Zumwalt has been a complex shipbuilding effort, requiring the choreography of the Navy and three different major contractors: Raytheon for many of the ship systems and integration; General Dynamics Bath Iron Works for the hull; and Huntington Ingalls Industries for the composite deckhouse.
As the U.S. Navy prepares to christen its newly designed DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer, questions continue to haunt the service’s long-term destroyer strategy. As a recent Congressional Research Service report highlights, the most immediate threat to the Navy destroyer appears to be sequestration.
TEL AVIV — With advanced avionics and mission systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) claims its 1970s-era delta-winged fighter, the Kfir, could rank in the same class of contemporary “fourth generation” fighter jets. The company can deliver up to 50 of the Mach 2+ Kfirs, configured to the newest “Block 60” standard, using airframes retired from IAF service in the 1990s, according to IAI officials. These aircraft were mothballed in the southern Negev desert and are in good condition for refurbishment.
LONDON — With ScanEagle chosen for its anti-piracy mission, the U.K. is now examining unmanned rotary-wing options. The U.K. Royal Navy is widening its focus on the potential of shipborne UAVs. While much of its attention has been on the development of a carrier strike capability with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and two new aircraft carriers, commanders are eager to broaden the intelligence-gathering capability of their surface fleet.
Just as the Pentagon, U.S. intelligence community and their panoply of contractors were beginning to figure out how to live under long-term budget cuts known as sequestration, now come growing fears that sequestration spending levels will be the ceiling, and not floor, for future spending.
STAYING COURSE: Many House Republicans who have supported allowing the government to shut down are continuing to hold fast, saying shutdowns and not raising the debt ceiling are not insurmountable. “No question, a government shutdown hampers the economy,” said Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama’s defense and aerospace-heavy northern congressional district. But there were 17 shutdowns between 1976 and 1995, yet the economy boomed in the 1980s and 1990s, he added. “No question, not raising the debt ceiling poses economic risk,” he said Oct. 7.
Canada has begun “gathering data” on options to replace its Sikorsky CH-124 Sea King maritime helicopters as protracted negotiations continue with Sikorsky on its troubled CH-148 Cyclone program. On Oct. 3, officials from the Department of National Defense (DND) and Public Works & Government Services Canada (PWGSC) procurement agency “met with AgustaWestland, Eurocopter and Sikorsky to obtain their views on the elements that should be included in the data-gathering process,” PWGSC says.
