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.
Cluster munitions still play a significant role in U.S. military doctrine, and the costs of either keeping or getting rid of them, combined with the lack of a big-player endorsement for dispensing with the controversial munitions, may continue to sideline de-armament efforts for now.
The stage is set for a planned increase in U.S. Marine Corps deployments to Darwin, Australia, next spring as part of the U.S. shift of greater military resources to the Asia-Pacific. The second successful rotation of about 250 Marines left the region in September, about the same that Tony Abbott, who was sworn in last week as Australia’s new prime minister, confirmed the commitment of the two countries to a rotational 2,500-member Marine Corps force starting in 2016-2017.
LONDON — The Thales WK450 Watchkeeper unmanned aircraft system (UAS) has moved another step closer to operational service with the British army after receiving certification from the U.K. Military Aviation Authority (MAA). The company announced on Oct. 7 that it had received a Statement of Type Design Assurance (STDA), a document which states that the system has now reached “an acceptable level for design safety and integrity” to meet the current stage of the system’s development.
LONDON — Argentina looks set to purchase 16 Dassault Mirage F1s from Spain in a bid to modernize its fast jet fleet. In its budgetary submissions for 2014, set out at the end of September, Buenos Aires plans to spend $217 million on the purchase of the Mirage F1s, which were taken out of service with the Spanish air force in June. The Mirage F1s will replace Argentina’s aging Mirage IIIs and 5s, which have served the country for more than 30 years and took part in the Falklands War in the South Atlantic against U.K. forces.
LONDON — The New Zealand government has selected MBDA’s Sea Ceptor surface-to-air missile system for its Anzac frigate upgrade program. MBDA is the preferred bidder for the Local Area Air Defense (LAAD) system that will be fitted to the New Zealand navy’s frigates HMNZ Te Kaha and Te Mana as part of the country’s Anzac Frigate Systems Upgrade (FSU) project.
Pentagon officials announced Oct. 5 that the Obama administration’s interpretation of the Pay Our Military Act (POMA) allows wide latitude in recalling more than 90% of non-uniformed employees otherwise sidelined by the federal shutdown.
As the U.S. Navy starts to demand even more access in tougher undersea environments, contractors are honing sonar technology they say will give the service the same speed and fidelity for minehunting that it now enjoys for antisubmarine (ASW) operations. “We are compressing the timeline,” says Joe Monti, Raytheon’s Airborne Low-Frequency Sonar (ALFS) program director. The effort is to make countermine warfare missions similar to “highly integrated, quick-action ASW” operations, he says. “That’s where we and our partners want to go.”
Textron, in partnership with Airland Enterprises, recently unveiled the Scorpion, a largely clean-sheet light combat/ISR jet that is being prepared for a first flight this month (see photo). New military aircraft are so scarce that any new prototype is bound to garner attention, including an Aviation Week cover story (AW&ST Sept. 16, p. 22), and it's good to see innovation make an appearance in the aerospace and defense industry. Yet, despite all the talk of paradigm shifting, low costs and “80% solutions,” what exactly is the market for this product?
We are told there is no silver bullet for aviation biofuels, and that the best choice of feedstock-to-fuel pathway will be regional, even local, not global, as petroleum-based jet fuel is today. But there is an option the aviation industry hopes could work pretty well, almost anywhere, and that is algae.
A consumer buying a car views the quality of the product simply: Does it work as promised and will it last? But the Pentagon inspector general's (IG) recent review of the Defense Department's most costly procurement program reveals that the military's definition of “quality” in its weapon systems is far more nuanced and tricky to manage.
