ABOARD THE EL DIABLO — On just about any other watercraft, the sight of land approaching with such speed and proximity would be cause for concern, to say the least. But here on this Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC) vessel, the mission is to hit the beach as quickly and efficiently as needed.
LONDON — The U.K. will acquire an eighth C-17, Prime Minister David Cameron tells parliament. The Royal Air Force (RAF) has long sought more of the Boeing airlifters. The U.K. has been increasing its C-17 fleet incrementally, initially leasing four aircraft more than a decade ago. The aircraft is due for delivery to the RAF in July. As with previous C-17s delivered to non-U.S. operators, the U.S. Air Force has given up a production slot to satisfy an ally’s needs. The eighth RAF airlifter comes off the line in March.
ABOARD THE USS KEARSArGE — High up in the “Vultures Row” flight-observation deck aboard the LHD-3 amphibious landing helicopter dock ship Kearsarge, the February wind cuts through even the warmest of leather jackets as the vessel steams through the Atlantic Ocean to participate in Bold Alligator, the East Coast’s largest joint and multinational amphibious assault exercise in the past 10 years.
Boeing is studying several options, ranging from routine checks to minor structural modifications, to reactivate the closed-out tail fuel tank on the 747-8 passenger model.
The leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee are taking Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to task for undercutting their work on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — not once, but twice. On Jan. 20, Panetta lifted probation on the F-35B, the Marine Corps short-takeoff-vertical-landing variant of the jet, just about one year after the time-out, originally anticipated to be in place for two years, was imposed.
Acting Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall says it was “acquisition malpractice” to approve production of the Lockheed Martin F-35 years before the first flight of the single-engine stealthy fighter occurred. “It should not have been done,” Kendall told an audience Feb. 6 hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But we did it.”
LONDON — NATO’s effort to convince members to maximize their limited defense spending by doing more together may not yield many concrete results, a senior European aerospace and defense industry official warns. The so-called “Smart Defense” initiative is not much different from ideas floated 20 years ago, and “very little has happened since then,” warns Airbus CEO and EADS CEO-designate Tom Enders.
David Van Buren, who has served as a top procurement official in the U.S. Air Force for four years, is planning to seek employment in private industry and will leave his post March 31, according to service officials. Service officials say it is “premature to speculate who and when a replacement will be named.” Van Buren held various procurement titles but has performed the role of the Air Force’s top acquisition executive since the departure of Sue Payton, the service’s last Senate-approved procurement chief, in April 2009.
TEL AVIV — Iran is developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a range of 10,000 km (6,200 mi.), according to Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon. “The blast that occurred in a missile base outside Tehran in November damaged that program,” says Ya’alon, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). “This missile is not aimed against Israel, the ‘small Satan,’ but against the ‘great Satan’ – the U.S.”
AIR FORCE The Boeing Co., Long Beach, Calif., is being awarded a $1,781,413,723 firm-fixed-price contract for a modification as a Foreign Military Sales requirement for the Indian air force. Ten C-17 aircraft will be procured for the IAF. The location of the performance is Long Beach, Calif. Work is expected to be completed by July 28, 2014. ASC/WLMK, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8614-06-D-2006, DO 0009).
FRANCO-GERMAN: Germany and France are looking to further extend their defense cooperation — and thus strengthen EU capabilities — in areas including combat search and rescue and space situational awareness systems. The two have already cooperated on remote sensing, and are already partnering in the helicopter domain, with ideas for France to provide combat search-and-rescue capacity to German troops, and Germany allocating heavy-lift capacity through its CH-53s to France. Another area of joint interest appears to be counter-rocket, artillery and mortar systems.
Mergers and acquisitions activity in the aerospace and defense industry reached a record $43.7 billion in 2011, edging out the previous high from 2007 as consolidation in the commercial supply chain gained steam and underperforming defense units were spun off. A PwC study scheduled for release Feb. 7 tallied 341 acquisitions, mergers or spin-offs worth $50 million or more announced during the year.
Click here to view the pdf Top TenAerospace & Defense Acquisitions, Mergers and SpinoffsIn 2011 Top Ten Aerospace & Defense Acquisitions, Mergers and Spinoffs In 2011 Target Acquirer Category
Analysts at Forecast International (FI) say the six Gulf Cooperation Council members will combine to spend $385 billion toward defense and security through 2016, while Iraq is expected to invest $65 billion in its security forces.
Actions may speak louder than words. So even though the U.K.'s new defense industrial strategy (DIS) says a lot about more competition and off-the-shelf procurement and little about support for its guided weapons and military aircraft sector, recent sole-source awards signal that London still has an active hand in backing its industry.
NEED BRAC: Lawmakers are cringing at the idea, but the Pentagon remains adamant that to best deal with the budget cuts that Washington enacted into law last August, the military must be free to pursue another round of base realignment and closure (BRAC). The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, says a BRAC is already needed just to deal with the first part of the Budget Control Act’s cuts, not to mention if the full, $1 trillion effect of so-called “sequestration” is triggered. “By the way, I didn’t pass the Budget Control Act,” Dempsey says.
Deals for mergers and acquisitions in global aerospace and defense hit a new high in 2011, reaching $43.7 billion, according to a new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
With fortuitous timing, as the U.S. Defense Department unveils plans for budget cuts, a government/industry consortium has released an open systems standard that promises to save money by enabling reuse of avionics software across Pentagon platforms. The Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) technical standard was released on Jan. 30, after just 18 months of work by a 39-member consortium managed by open-systems standards organization The Open Group.
