The Pentagon’s ongoing budget rollout has members of Congress scrambling in all different directions as if trying to gather up pieces of a broken puzzle. The list of items against which some lawmakers are pushing back is long and growing. There’s a steeper round of budget reductions, force structure cuts, base realignment, reductions to the Air National Guard, the cancellation of the Global Hawk Block 30, delays to the Joint Strike Fighter and more.
SPECIAL STRESS: With the Obama administration’s newly planned decrease in overall ground forces and increased reliance on Special Operations Forces (SOF), congressional researchers are warning that there could still be limitations to SOF growth no matter how much the White House, Pentagon and Congress are willing to spend. “While DOD maintains that it is willing to increase its investment in SOF, there are limitations on expansion because of stringent qualification and training standards,” a Jan. 11 report to lawmakers says.
HELP WANTED: Australia is starting to outline the workforce it thinks it needs to match up against a plan for more than $200 billion in defense spending over the next decade, starting with the Future Submarine Project, slated to be Australia’s largest-ever single defense project. “A steady supply of steelworkers, welders, electricians and mechanics is needed, among many other trades. And we also need engineers, systems analysts, accountants and specialists in air and marine transport,” says Sen. Kim Carr, minister for defense materiel.
The U.S. Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle office is teaming up with the armed service’s Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) effort at Fort Bliss, Texas, this spring to test several non-developmental vehicle technologies as part of its larger analysis of alternatives/non-developmental testing and evaluation program.
Sikorsky has issued five technology challenges to entrepreneurs, offering winners access to a new innovation incubator in Stamford, Conn., where the helicopter manufacturer will provide technical and business mentoring. Sikorsky Innovations, the company’s technology development organization, is the first corporate sponsor of the Stamford Innovation Center, which opened on Feb. 2. with the goal of incubating new businesses in Connecticut.
LONDON — The U.K. on Feb. 1 unveiled its long-awaited defense industrial white paper, the first time the Defense Ministry addresses key sectoral issues since severe budget cuts were imposed and program adjustments put in place in the 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review.
NEW DELHI — With French firm Dassault Aviation on the brink of signing a multibillion-dollar order to supply 126 Rafale fighter jets to the Indian air force (IAF), the Indian government may choose to enlarge the contract by adding 60 more aircraft. The size of the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) contract could eventually increase, as there is a provision for boosting the order by 50% without any increase in unit price, a defense ministry official says.
The modification of the U.S. Navy’s aging Austin-class amphibious transport dock ship USS Ponce into a floating home base for mine hunters provides a road map for how the service and the rest of the military are going to have to do business in decades to come. With budget constraints pinching resources to develop, buy and deploy new vessels for emerging or increasing mission needs, the services will need to take their old equipment — even a four-decade-old warship like the Ponce — and alter it for new and novel uses.
The U.S. Army has stayed with experienced laser missile-jammer suppliers for the technology development phase of its Common Infrared Countermeasures (Circm) program, awarding contracts to BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman. ITT Excelis and Raytheon, both of which had hoped to enter the market through Circm, did not win contracts. Lockheed Martin was eliminated from the competition last year.
The U.S. Navy’s bolstered efforts to better maintain Aegis weapon systems are going well, but the service still has plenty of work to do, says the admiral who put the plan into action. “I have seen improvement across the board,” says Adm. John Harvey, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command. “But are we done? Absolutely not.” At Harvey’s insistence, the Navy started a more robust maintenance and monitoring plan to get the radar and combat system problems under control.`
MANILA — Philippines President Benigno Aquino has reignited the debate about whether the country should get fighters. Following the U.S. agreement to give 24 second-hand F-16s to Indonesia for free, Aquino is now calling for the U.S. to give the Philippines a similar deal, and has tasked the Philippines Air Force (PAF) to look into it. The Philippines has had no fighters since 2005, when it phased out its last Northrop F-5s.
THINK TWICE: Foreign military sales, financing and other U.S. defense exports will help the U.S. industrial base in years to come, but do not expect a rising tide that lifts all boats, regardless of how companies promote their growing international revenue, says a Wall Street analyst. “While we think there will be winners in the quest for international growth, it will not be as robust as some investors may expect,” says Michael Lewis of Lazard Capital Markets.
MANILA — The Philippines Air Force (PAF) plans to buy more military transports, light attack aircraft and helicopters to help in the country’s ongoing fight against Muslim insurgents in the south.
Obviously, what you need to prevent your Otto fuel from freezing at altitude during a long patrol is a torpedo cozy. During the January travel break, Editor-in-Chief Bill Sweetman discovered this artwork by Philadelphia “yarn bomber” Ishknits in the Torpedo Factory Arts Center in Alexandria, Va.
Concerns over China's claims to the South China Sea are sparking an arms race among its Southeast Asian neighbors, some of which have maritime patrol, airborne early warning and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft high on their priority lists. China has laid claim to most of the South China Sea, a body of water that includes vital sea lanes and under which lie rich deposits of oil and gas.
The recent discovery by researchers in Rotterdam, Netherlands, that the lethal H5N1 avian flu virus could be genetically modified with relative ease into an airborne vector was the talk of the scientific community going into early 2012.
Few details about the merger are being disclosed, but if approved, it will create a company with more than 40,000 employees and operations to 115 destinations in 23 countries. The combined entity will be named LATAM Airlines Group, although the two companies will operate as separate brands.
MANILA — The South China Sea dispute has led the Philippines to move to strengthen its military capability as quickly as possible as a hedge against maritime intrusions by China. The government is planning to sign contracts before the end of July for the purchase of military aircraft as part of its air force’s modernization program.
A new hyperspectral sensor that could be used to detect drug labs or bomb-making facilities is set to deploy in early 2012 onboard the MQ-1 Predator, according to the U.S. Air Force. The Airborne Cueing and Exploitation System Hyperspectral (ACES HY) sensor works by collecting light reflected off objects on the ground from across the electromagnetic spectrum, which can help identify objects not visible to the human eye. By looking for specific spectral “fingerprints,” hyperspectral sensors can identify the composition of materials and even see through camouflage.
Robert Wall (London), David Hambling (Dubai), David Eshel (Tel Aviv)
Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have been proving grounds for unmanned air vehicle technology, but they have also highlighted the value of manned fighters to provide support for forces engaging irregular opponents. At the same time, such conflicts have been characterized by weak or nonexistent challenges to airpower, so the most expensive attributes of a fighter that enable it to survive against high-end threats are not needed.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Air Force-run tests in New Mexico for the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee were flawed, according to LightSquared. (GPS IIF image: Boeing)
