As a U.S. Army-integrated upgrade for the Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior enters flight testing, the service has surprised industry by declaring that no off-the-shelf candidate can meet its requirements for the replacement Armed Aerial Scout (AAS). OH-58Ds modified to OH-58Fs under the cockpit and sensor upgrade program (Casup) are now expected to remain in service until 2036, beyond the originally planned 2025, pending an Army decision on whether and how to replace the aircraft.
High-speed vessel USNS HSV-2 Swift has completed testing of the TIF-25K unmanned blimp Aerostat and a Puma UAV and departed Key West, Fla., on May 1 for Operation Martillio, a Countering Transnational Organized Crime (C-TOC) mission in the U.S. 4th Fleet area of responsibility.
LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Boeing X-51A Waverider demonstrator successfully achieved sustained, scramjet-powered, air-breathing hypersonic flight above Mach 5 in its final test flight on May 1.
The U.S. Coast Guard has awarded a $487 million, fixed-price, incentive-fee contract to the Ingalls Shipbuilding division of Huntington Ingalls Industries to build the sixth National Security Cutter (NSC) WMSL-755 Munro. Jim French, Ingalls’ NSC program manager, says, “The design/build plan is at a mature stage. We currently have two more ships under construction and expect to start NSC-6 in October.”
Oklahoma Republicans Rep. Frank Lucas and Sen. Jim Inhofe are seeking to curb ammunition purchases by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, after DHS’s bulk-buying “strategic sourcing” initiative triggered conspiracy theories online and in related news articles last year.
FlightSafety Services has beat out four competitors for a $78 million contract to provide training devices for the U.S. Air Force’s new KC-46 aerial refueler. The company won over Boeing, which is developing the KC-46, Lockheed Martin, CAE and L-3 Link Simulation and Training.
IN LIMBO: The budget uncertainty pervading Washington continues, and the Obama administration has not decided whether it will have to turn in an alternative budget for fiscal 2014 or work with Congress to make adjustments, should steep budget cuts aimed at reducing the deficit remain in effect next year. In part that is due to a debt-ceiling fight that was expected to occur this summer but is now likely to be pushed into the fall, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters this week.
NEW DELHI — The Indian air force (IAF) is getting the jitters as Indian government negotiations with France’s Dassault on the contract to buy 126 Rafale fighters drag on, with no indications that they are anywhere near complete. Significant contractual issues remain before the talks on the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) can be finished, and in the meantime, national politics could also interfere.
LONDON — Mark King, president of Rolls-Royce’s Aerospace division, is leaving the company just four months after assuming the role. King, who has been with the company since 1986, reportedly has cited personal reasons for his departure. Rolls in a May 2 statement says King “has decided to resign.” King will be replaced on May 13 by Tony Wood, who currently is president of the Marine Engines division.
The U.S. State Department says Raytheon will pay $4 million in civil penalties and another $4 million to make remedial self-improvements to resolve “hundreds” of civil violations of the Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).
The old proverb warns about a war being lost for want of a nail, but in U.S. Navy circles the concern is about fasteners — either a lack or surplus of them. Naval Sea Systems Command (Navsea) completed a fleet-wide fastener study earlier this month, identifying and recommending the removal of thousands of fasteners from the Navy supply system.
BEIJING — China is developing four high-bypass turbofans, only two of which were previously known. All four have potential military and civil applications. Work at Shenyang on a high-bypass turbofan in the 30,000-lb. class and suitable for large transport aircraft was already known, along with development of the similarly sized CJ-1000 engine for the C919 commercial aircraft.
As much as the U.S. Navy depends on its destroyer fleet now for a host of missions, the service will expect even more from its ships once they are outfitted with the proposed air-and-missile-defense radar (AMDR) suite to perform integrated missile defense, according to Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations. Keeping the right mix between the cruiser and destroyer fleets is important now, Greenert says. “We need 88 large-surface combatants — cruisers and destroyers,” he testified last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The U.S. Navy is considering buying 12 Seabird SB7L-360A Seeker light single-engine observation aircraft with electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) sensors and downlink systems for the Government of Yemen. According to a draft statement of work published April 30, the project is being managed by the Navy’s Counter Networks and Illicit Trafficking Project Office, which works with U.S. partner nations to “deter criminal and terrorist networks and illicit trafficking activities” and tackle “rapid response and irregular warfare challenges” anywhere in the world.
ROLLS BUYS: Rolls-Royce has bought Hyper-Therm High Temperature Composites of Huntington Beach, Calif., a supplier of heat-tolerant composite materials for gas turbine engines. Terms were not disclosed. Hyper-Therm specializes in ceramic matrix composites (CMC). Rolls is expected to apply the technology to new and existing civil and military engines.
The U.S. Navy is investigating options for a next-generation mid-air collision avoidance system that could be operational in its fleet of AH-1Z, UH-1Y, MH-60R and MH-60S helicopter models by fiscal year 2020.
China is developing four high-bypass turbofans, only two of which were previously known. All four have potential military and civil applications. Work at Shenyang on a high-bypass turbofan in the 30,000 lb. class and suitable for large transport aircraft was already known, along with development of the similarly sized CJ-1000 engine for the C919 commercial aircraft.
INTEL CLOUD: The director of national intelligence “abruptly” canceled a multiyear effort to set up a single, consolidated data center for the entire U.S. intelligence community about a year ago in favor of migrating such services to cloud computing, according to a U.S. Senate Select Intelligence Committee’s report. Cloud-computing advocates have been pushing the government to use their services, claiming savings over the license and hardware costs of the legacy method of buying information technology services.
LONDON — GKN says it hopes to have fully integrated Volvo Aero into the GKN structure by the end of 2013 following the takeover of the engine component company in July 2012. “The integration was never a 90-100 day program,” said Mike McCann, CEO of GKN’s Aerospace Engine System division, speaking at the company’s pre-Paris Air Show briefing in London. McCann said it was now transitioning from the systems of its old owner Volvo AB and moving into the GKN organization.
Sequestration-related funding cuts are driving the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to train more with simulators, top brass tell lawmakers. But continued funding cuts will bite into operations and maintenance, service officials warn. “During this phase we went through with the continuing resolution and sequestration, we turned to simulators to help keep our folks current, as current as feasible,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, testified last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is sending four investigators to Afghanistan to help with the probe of the April 29 crash of a National Airlines Boeing 747-428 freighter on departure from Bagram Airfield. All seven crewmembers on board, who were Americans, were killed in the 11:20 a.m. crash. The GE CF6-80C2B1F-powered aircraft, one of three in Michigan-based National Airlines’ fleet, was destroyed.
Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives and other Taiwan boosters in Washington have mounted a fresh push to get the White House finally to allow sales of advanced fighters to the embattled island nation.
