Rolls-Royce may lack the weight of General Electric or Pratt & Whitney in the U.S. military market, with a mixed bag of programs, but its diverse installed base could prove beneficial as defense spending comes down. Accounting for 20% of overall Rolls-Royce revenues, the defense business is split roughly 50:50 between production and services. The majority of revenues come from mature engine programs. Only about 5% stems from development work, so the company's main focus is on upgrading existing engines.
LE BOURGET — Eurocopter expects the three interim fixes that will return the grounded fleet of EC225 heavy helicopters back into operation to be certified in the coming days. The EADS-owned company hopes the package of fixes will allow the aircraft to return operations over hostile environments by mid-July. Eurocopter has already indicated to EC225 operators that the final definitive correction to the problem will be redesign of the bevel gear shaft, a critical component in the main gearbox that drives two lubrication pumps.
Two major U.S. assets considered key for the nation’s Asia-Pacific rebalancing need some tweaking, according to two recent government agency reports. The P-8A Poseidon has been identified as one of the most important aircraft for the U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy, but a recent Pentagon Inspector General (IG) report says more testing is needed for the program.
LE BOURGET — International Aero Engines (IAE) will begin building the first V2500-E5 test engine for Embraer’s KC-390 tanker/transport next week. The joint venture plans to deliver three flight-test engines to the Brazilian manufacturer this year, and three more in the first quarter of 2014, says IAE President Jon Beatty. The KC-390 is expected to fly in the second half of next year.
NO FAKES: The Pentagon is close to wrapping up a department-wide Counterfeit Prevention Policy to minimize the introduction of counterfeit parts into the defense supply chain, according to the White House’s new Joint Strategic Plan for Intellectual Property Enforcement. The Pentagon policy follows guidance the Defense Department issued due to a mandate in the fiscal 2012 defense authorization act.
President Barack Obama’s call to cut the U.S. operational, strategic nuclear warhead arsenal by up to a third below the New Start treaty’s 1,550 cap, along with the announcement that he is seeking related negotiations with Russia, is drawing criticism from conservatives and even skepticism from some peace advocates.
U.S. federal contractors — particularly primes for the Pentagon and intelligence community — could see hundreds of millions of dollars less in annual profits if lawmakers and the White House lower the cap on how much the government reimburses contractor salaries.
NEW DELHI — Eyeing a potential $2 billion domestic market, India’s state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), which recently carved out a separate unmanned air systems (UAS) division as part of a comprehensive diversification drive, wants to ready platforms quickly to meet a raft of current and expected requirements from the armed forces, police and paramilitary.
While the current developing concept of Air-Sea Battle (ASB) has come to mean many things to many people, one key underlying principle is the need to communicate both before and during operations, according to a recent report by the Pentagon ASB Office. “In the ASB Concept, networked actions are tightly coordinated in real time by mission-organized forces to conduct integrated operations across all domains without being locked into service-specific procedures, tactics, or weapons systems,” the office says.
LE BOURGET — AgustaWestland will add a diesel engine to its Project Zero technology incubator program to boost the endurance of the electric vertical-lift aircraft. The off-the-shelf diesel engine purchased from a car manufacturer is now being modified to reduce weight and will be ready for installation into the demonstrator during the coming year.
ABOARD THE USS ENTERPRISE — The “Queen of the Seas” looked nearly naked without her crown — the upper mast of antennae and other combat accessories normally towering above her flight deck — but her carrier number “65” scrawled out in lights near her shorn top shone as brightly as ever against the dawn. Aircraft carriers are always a beehive of activity — from their gestation days at the Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding yard to the day, like today, when CVN-65 USS Enterprise gets ready to be “deactivated,” or essentially dismantled.
LE BOURGET — The U.K. Royal Navy will operate the Boeing/Insitu ScanEagle UAV from its warships. The service’s contract deal, worth £30 million ($46 million), was announced on June 20 and is the first purchase of a UAV for operation from British naval ships. ScanEagle has been operated from U.K. navy vessels in the past during capability trials.
LE BOURGET — The four Eurofighter nations have finally signed a deal to integrate MBDA’s Meteor air-to-air missile. The long-awaited signature, at the Paris air show on June 18, means that the Eurofighter consortium can now push ahead with the integration of the new missile onto the aircraft. The deal was signed with the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency (NETMA) in the presence of senior ministers from Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K., the partner nations on the program.
Click here to view the pdf House Authorizers', Appropriators' Changes toFiscal 2014 Defense Spending Bill: Navy Research ($ in thousands; Base budget only; HAC numbers from chairman's mark) House Authorizers', Appropriators' Changes to Fiscal 2014 Defense Spending Bill: Navy Research ($ in thousands; Base budget only; HAC numbers from ch
The Pentagon’s acquisition czar said he is “reasonably confident” that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program’s classified cyber systems are “well protected” from Chinese and Russian hacking, but Frank Kendall is “not at all” confident that unclassified information is protected.
LE BOURGET — With Boeing fighting to hang onto its $4.7 billion program to develop secure satellite terminals for the U.S. Air Force, Raytheon is wrapping up work on the initial stage of an alternative terminal development, and is gearing up to conduct an operational test of the system in October.
LE BOURGET — Alenia Aeronautica is preparing for the second phase of flight testing—including the integration of precision-guided munitions—on its palletized MC-27J gunship kit. The concept is driven, in part, by U.S. Air Force interest, though the Italian Air Force also has interest in a C-27J gunship version.
LE BOURGET — Raytheon is looking at ways to respond to an urgent U.S. Navy call for a new version of the AIM-9X Sidewinder with greatly increased range, Vice President for Air Warfare Systems Harry Schulte said at the Paris air show June 19. Although the Block II version of the missile is still in operational testing, the Navy wants to get the long-range Block III into developmental testing by 2018, according to budget documents. The Block III “overlaps the range capability” of the AIM-120 Amraam, Schulte says.
LE BOURGET — Diversification into business aviation and defense will let Embraer grow without forcing the company into direct competition with Airbus and Boeing, says President and CEO Frederico Fleury Curado. “The fact that defense can grow to be a solid business...and business aviation to be another important pillar is embedded in our decision not to try to engage in larger commercial aircraft,” he tells Aviation Week in an interview after the company launched its next-generation E-Jet E2.
LE BOURGET — The Italian ministry of defense and Alenia Aermacchi have agreed to jointly define the operational requirements for a jet-powered basic trainer aimed at pilfering market share from turboprop models such as the Beechcraft T-6, Pilatus PC-21 and Embraer’s A-29 Super Tucano. The aircraft, called the M-345 High Efficiency Trainer, is the latest attempt by Alenia to find a market for its legacy, unsold M-211 single-engine jet trainer, which was derived from the decades-old SIAI-Marchetti S.211.
REAPER REALIGNMENT: The Pentagon may be scaling back its request for MQ-9 Reapers, but Congress is coming to the aid of the General Atomics UAV, citing industrial base concerns. In a report on a draft version of the House’s fiscal 2014 defense spending bill, appropriators contend that the Air Force is reducing the Reaper buy too quickly — from 48 to 24 in fiscal 2013 — and halving it again to 12 in 2014. If the language is adopted by the full Congress, it would direct the U.S. Air Force to buy eight additional Reapers next year.
AN RAF navigator has been awarded a top French medal for the second time in three years, for heroism under fire while protecting civilians from attack by Colonel Gaddaffi's forces in Libya.
