The widely leaked news over the weekend that the Obama administration is considering military strikes in Syria, along with other Middle East turmoil, is forming the backdrop as Washington begins to seriously mull what kind of military to have over the next few decades.
In an effort to demonstrate that unmanned aircraft can be integrated into civil airspace, NASA is planning a competition next year that will challenge contestants to complete a series of missions while ensuring their UAVs remain well clear of other aircraft and obey the same rules as other air traffic.
AIR FORCE Textron Defense Systems, Wilmington, Mass., has been awarded a $640,786,442 modification (PZ00001) to a firm-fixed-price contract (FA8213-12-C-0064) for 1,300 cluster bomb units. The work will be performed in Wilmington and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2015. This contract involves foreign military sales (FMS) for Saudi Arabia. FMS funds in the amount of $410,218,248 are being obligated at time of award. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center/OO-ALC/EBHKA, Hill AFB, Utah, is the contracting activity. NAVY
U.S. and Chinese forces participated in a counter-piracy exercise in the Gulf of Aden earlier this month as the two countries continue to make good on their promise to have more positive military-to-military engagements. The guided-missile destroyer DDG-87 USS Mason worked with elements of the Chinese navy Aug. 24-25, just days after Gen. Chang Wanquan, China’s defense minister, spoke with U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon about the need for such joint exercises.
LONDON — All three North Sea oil and gas helicopter operators have halted operations of the AS332L2 Super Puma helicopter as investigators begin their probe into why a CHC-operated Super Puma ditched into the sea just minutes before its planned landing in the Shetland Islands, resulting in the deaths of four passengers.
The U.S. Navy is looking to improve the management of its software licenses following the findings in a recent Pentagon Inspector General (IG) report. Navy Enterprise Licensing Agreements “included unacceptable language in two of the 11 best practice areas we identified in software licensing training,” the IG says.
Wind tunnel tests on a high-power, air-driven generator designed for the U.S. Navy’s Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) pod have been completed and its developer is looking for other applications, including power generation on unmanned aircraft. The high-power ram-air turbine (Hi-RAT) developed by Advanced Technologies Inc. (ATGI) was flight tested by one of the NGJ bidders, but the Raytheon jammer selected by the Navy uses a different power-generation system.
APACHE SALE: In what the Pentagon calls a “first-of-its-kind” deal, the U.S. has agreed to sell eight new Apache AH-64E attack helicopters and Longbow radars worth about $500 million to Indonesia, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel confirms. Hagel provided details about the deal Aug. 25 during a joint news conference with Indonesian Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro. The U.S.
ARMY AAI, Hunt Valley, Md., was awarded a firm-fixed-price, no-option, non-multiyear contract modification (P00111) of $11,798,626 with a cumulative maximum value of $1,530,786,418 for purchase of six Shadow unmanned aircraft vehicles and auxiliary equipment. Performance location will be at Hunt Valley, and funding will be from fiscal 2012 other funding. One bid solicited and one received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command – Redstone Arsenal (Aviation), Redstone, Ala., is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-08-C-0023).
The Aegis Combat System successfully completed a test earlier this week that proves the system can defend beyond its line-of-sight by integrating data from a remote sensor to intercept a target, Aegis prime contractor Lockheed Martin says.
As federal budgets have gotten tighter in recent years, federal contractors have become more likely to file bid protests, but they also are more likely to lose, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
A Boeing-led team has demonstrated that a group of EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, connected by a prototype data link, can track a moving ship accurately enough to guide a missile to it, without the help of radar. In follow-on tests, proposed for next year, the Growlers would be linked to an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter carrying an infrared search-and-track (IRST) system for long-range detection and tracking of airborne targets.
NEW DELHI — Boeing has delivered a third Boeing C-17 airlifter to the Indian air force (IAF). The military transport aircraft departed for India Aug. 20 from the company’s Long Beach, Calif., facility. The first and second Indian C-17s were delivered in June and July. “Boeing is on track to deliver two more C-17s to the IAF this year and five in 2014,” the company says. India signed a $4.1 billion contract with the U.S. in 2011 to acquire the aircraft.
While F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) contracts and modifications may make Lockheed Martin the leading fixed-wing contractor for the Pentagon, Boeing’s combined rotary-wing, airframe and UAV deals were enough to make it the Defense Department’s leader for aviation-related transactions in 2011, according to an exclusive Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) analysis.
Autonomy and low-carbon propulsion are two areas likely to receive greater emphasis at NASA as it embarks upon its new strategy for aeronautics research. The new strategy aligns civil aeronautics research under six thrusts: safe, efficient growth in operations, low-boom supersonic and ultra-efficient subsonic commercial aircraft, low-carbon propulsion, real-time system-wide safety assurance and assured autonomy.
Boeing officials say that they are not out of the precision timing and navigation business, despite having lost the $1.8 billion, winner-take-all development contract for the next generation of GPS satellites to Lockheed Martin five years ago.
Young people seem to be getting the message that engineering offers opportunity: 84,000 U.S. students graduated from universities in 2012 with engineering degrees. That is up 12% from 73,000 just six years ago, according to the National Academies. And despite the downturn in the economy and in federal spending, the aerospace and defense industry continues to provide at least some of that opportunity.
It pays to be the new guy, according to data gathered for the 2013 Aviation Week Workforce Study. Pay for new college graduates rose by 3.4% between 2011 and 2012, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). In the aerospace and defense industry, the increase was slightly lower, at 3.2%. Companies with fewer employees worked to retain their workforces, awarding pay increases on average of 4.1%.
The recent rebranding of EADS into Airbus is a superb example of how to justify a top management decision with some strategic rationale that really does not exist. There was clearly an issue with the EADS brand. The name was poorly recognized internationally, but that problem had less to do with the brand itself than with the underlying dynamics within the group.
One hundred years ago, the University of Michigan hired Felix Pawlowski to teach the first U.S. students the subject of aeronautical engineering. Preparing a generation of engineers to build and assure the safety of a country's fledgling airline and aircraft industry was a daunting task. Today, the industry faces a similar challenge in laying the path to develop the nation's next generation of cybersecurity professionals.
