Eurofighter Typhoon has now achieved more than 200,000 flying hours since the entry-into-service of its worldwide fleet. Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH confirmed the milestone today adding that, with 719 aircraft on contract, 571 aircraft ordered and 378 aircraft delivered, the programme has “never looked stronger”.
An aerostat-based cruise-missile defense system has now demonstrated compatibility with the U.S. services’ main land-, sea- and air-launched anti-aircraft weapons. The Raytheon-developed Joint Land Attack Cruise-Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor (Jlens) passed targeting data to a U.S. Air Force Boeing F-15E via Link 16, enabling the fighter to intercept a surrogate anti-ship cruise missile with an AIM-120C7 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile.
Lockheed Martin plans to begin flexible-wing control flights of the X-56A experimental unmanned aircraft after initial “stiff-wing” flights to validate the vehicle’s performance. The 28-ft.-span, 480-lb., twinjet-powered X-56A made its 14-min. first flight from NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, Calif., on July 26 (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 2). The aircraft is designed to demonstrate active flutter-suppression and gust-load alleviation to enable longer, lighter, lower-drag wings for transport and unmanned aircraft.
The U.S. Air Force will take a “sober look at technology” in proceeding with the congressionally mandated 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and “everything is on the table” in terms of trades among programs and capabilities, the senior officer in charge of the effort says.
The Russian government has signed a 12.6 billion ruble ($380 million) deal to purchase 40 Mi-8AMTSh armed transport helicopters from Russian Helicopters for the country’s army aviation organization. Reports suggest the deal was signed on Aug. 3 by Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov and Russian Helicopters CEO Dmitry Petrov, with deliveries due to begin next year.
BEIJING — Attempting to acquire 60 highly capable fighters within a limited budget, South Korea is calling for a further and final round of bids for the F-X Phase 3. The program will be reconsidered if all three bidders again exceed the 8.3 trillion won ($7.2 billion) budget, as they did in their initial offers, local media report.
Lockheed Martin expects to lease its S301 Special Operations Forces dry combat submersible by the end of September, says Stephen Froelich, director and general manager of mission and unmanned systems. “We are just getting done classifying that for [the] military to use it,” he says.” We expect to be under lease by the end of September. They are contracting for 18 months initially, but could go longer.” “Lockheed can make modifications to the submarine as needed and to maintain classification,” he says.
The U.S. Navy continued to hone its at-sea surface-to-air missile skills with a set of special exercises earlier this month. The guided-missile cruiser CG-58 USS Philippine Sea and the DDG-103 USS Truxtun simultaneously launched Navy Standard Missile-2s (SM-2s) while DDG-80 USS Roosevelt launched shortly afterward during the so-called Missilx exercise.
Deactivating the USS Miami Los Angeles-class attack submarine could cause ripples — some good and others challenging — through the rest of the U.S. Navy’s sub fleet force structure. In announcing the Navy’s decision to forego fixing the Miami — whose innards were recently scorched in an arsonist-set fire — Rear Adm. Rick Breckenridge, director of Undersea Warfare, acknowledged in an Aug. 7 media briefing that the service hopes to shift some of the money slated for Miami repair work to other subs.
Two Lockheed Martin F-35Bs are heading to the USS Wasp amphibious assault ship for the second round of developmental testing (DT) trials associated with the aircraft’s unique ability to conduct vertical landings and short takeoffs in support of the U.S. Marine Corps. The trials are slated to take three weeks and will begin Aug. 12 on the Wasp, according to a defense official. In addition to the two primary aircraft assigned to the testing, one will serve as a backup.
Recent technological and programmatic improvements have greatly expanded China’s ability to potentially deploy ballistic missiles on a regional and global basis — including submarine-launched missiles capable of hitting mainland U.S. targets, a recent U.S. government report says.
American air power continues to dominate joint counterterrorism operations against Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which capitalized on 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that culminated in the internationally supported transfer of power from longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh to his deputy Abd Rabu Mansur Hadi in February 2012.
A Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet equipped with prototype conformal fuel tanks (CFTs) made its first flight from St. Louis on Aug. 5. Boeing did not announce the event officially, but it was observed by a local photographer. The aircraft, a late production version, will be used for a series of tests this month to validate the aerodynamics and radar cross-section of the aircraft with the CFTs and the centerline weapons pod, both proposed for the Advanced Super Hornet configuration of the aircraft.
Sailors and Marines aboard amphibious assault ship LHD-4 USS Boxer are slated to become the first West Coast crew to deploy with the MV-22 Osprey this fall. Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 166 is embarked on Boxer as a part of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), and will deploy with 12 Ospreys, the U.S. Navy says. The Osprey is intended to replace the CH-46E Sea Knight, the platform the Marine Corps has used since the Vietnam War. The Osprey can carry more combat troops and has a farther flight range than the Sea Knight.
Scientists launched small UAVs from a research vessel during a July 13-18 experiment to help boost the Navy’s radar and communications performance at sea. Sailing off Virginia Beach, Va., the Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) research vessel Knorr explored ocean and atmospheric weather variations that can change the angle that radar and radio waves bend, making it more difficult for ships to remain undetected and hindering their ability to communicate or locate adversaries, Navy officials say.
FURLOUGHS SHORTENED: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has reduced furloughs for civilian Defense Department employees from 11 days to six, but that may come at the expense of weapons systems as the Pentagon continues to wrestle with budget cuts. “Hoping to be able to reduce furloughs, we submitted a large reprogramming proposal to Congress in May, asking them to let us move funds from acquisition accounts into day-to-day operating accounts,” Hagel said in announcing the changes to anticipated furloughs.
The U.S. Navy has opted for a steel deckhouse for its next DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer, after years of touting composite deckhouses as a way to keep the ship lighter and stealthier. The Navy inked a $212 million contract earlier this month with General Dynamics – Bath Iron Works (BIW) to design and build a steel deckhouse for DDG-1002, the USS Lyndon B. Johnson. The deckhouse shuffle represents more rough seas for the Zumwalt program.
U.S. military airlift providers, already facing the long-expected demand decline tied to drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan, are also coping with a huge reduction in one-way commercial charters, Atlas Air executives report. “With the decline in military cargo demand, we’re also seeing a very dramatic decline in one-way requests from the military,” Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings President William Flynn explained during an earnings report call on Aug. 1.
Click here to view the pdf U.S. Army Procurement Funding Shifts:2013 Plan for Fiscal 2014 Compared to Actual 2014 Request (Losers) (Then-year dollars in millions) U.S.
The Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) wants a further review of the Pentagon’s Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) to guarantee competition and ensure the military makes the best overall acquisition decision. The SAC’s concerns come in the wake of the July 18 protest by BAE Systems of the $279.4 million NGJ contract that the U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon to develop the pod to replace the ALQ-99 tactical jamming system now carried by the Boeing EA-18G Growler aircraft.
