Rockwell Collins has topped Wall Street analysts’ earnings expectations for the fourth quarter of 2013. Like some other mid-tier aerospace and defense providers, Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Rockwell last year said it planned as if the full effect of the 2011 Budget Control Act’s annual sequestration cuts to federal spending would occur — unlike most prime Pentagon contractors that did not appear as quick to reflect sequestration’s deepest effects in their business forecasts.
EX-IM BANK: Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA) is asking the Senate Banking Committee to help Congress tighten oversight of the U.S. Export-Import Bank – particularly eliminating financing for wide-body aircraft to foreign carriers. In a Jan. 28 letter to committee Chairman Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and ranking Republican Mike Crapo (Idaho), ALPA claims that the export credit agency has not followed congressional intent in regard to assessing adverse effects to U.S. businesses from its loans.
Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other military technologies associated with the U.S. “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region could be relative winners in the Obama administration’s fiscal 2015 budget request and long-term spending blueprint, according to congressional testimony by Pentagon officials Jan. 28.
Gilbert W. Speed, the founder of SpeedNews publications and conferences, a sister business of Aviation Week, died Jan. 27 after a long illness. He was 81. Speed had a storied career in the aviation and aerospace industries that stretched more than 60 years. He started as a student apprentice at The Bristol Aeroplane Company—now part of BAE Systems—in 1952. Five years later, he moved to New York to work for Eastern Airlines as a development engineer for the DC-8 and Lockheed Electra.
Commercialization remains the biggest challenge to achieving the FAA’s target of 1 billion gal. of renewable aviation fuel use by 2018, says Administrator Michael Huerta. “The challenge we face is scaling up production. We need government and industry to continue to work together on this,” he told the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative general meeting in Washington Jan. 28.
Adm. Samuel Locklear, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, is concerned about “the growing sophistication and the capabilities of today’s weapon systems and our changing relative dominance with those systems.” He again cites, by example, the recent Chinese hypersonic missile tests, saying, “This is just one of many highly technical militarized systems that – whether the Chinese are developing them or we’re developing them or Europeans are developing – that will continue to complicate the security environment with high-tech technology and the systems.”
As the U.S. Navy plans for a growing share of rotorcraft in its aviation fleet, the service is amending its curriculum to provide the only formal, undergraduate-level, rotary wing engineering program in the country. “In an effort to better support the technology development, flight test and acquisition intellectual needs required to staff the change, we made a conscious decision to provide a focused option for our undergraduate aerospace majors,” Capt. Kenneth Ham, chairman of the Naval Academy Aerospace Engineering department, tells Aviation Week.
INCREASINGLY MEXICAN: Bombardier Aerospace (BA) has a goal to boost local suppliers. According to investment advisors at National Bank Financial, about 30% of the supply of BA’s components comes from Mexican sources, with the goal over the next five years to reach 70%. That means going from eight local suppliers now to 12-15. “If BA is able to achieve this level of local content, the cost savings will become much more meaningful,” the advisors say. The Canadian-based OEM is also relying more on Mexican locals for management.
PARIS — U.S. Strategic Command has signed a new data-sharing agreement with France that will permit the exchange of space situational awareness (SSA) information. The agreement will allow the French defense ministry to request information gathered by U.S. Stratcom’s Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., for launch support, satellite maneuver planning, in-orbit anomalies, electromagnetic interference, spacecraft decommissioning and collision avoidance, Stratcom announced Jan. 27.
Pentagon officials have discussed counter-improvised-explosive-device (IED) technology with Russian military leaders, and U.S. ships will be on hand in the Black Sea to help with Olympic security concerns. U.S. Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, acknowledges “an informal conversation between [Joint Chiefs of Staff] Chairman [Gen. Martin] Dempsey and his counterpart, his Russian counterpart … about counter-IED technologies” has taken place.
LONDON — AgustaWestland has been awarded a ₤454 million ($750 million) contract to transform the U.K.’s Merlin battlefield support helicopter fleet for amphibious operations.
LONDON — MD Helicopters has taken the veil off of a new variant of its MD530G light attack helicopter. The MD530GII is a highly modernized variant of the MD530G, which is used by several countries as a light gunship capable of carrying a range of guns and unguided rocket ordnance. GII details were revealed at the International Military Helicopter conference in London Jan. 23.
As the Pentagon seeks to strengthen its relationship with India as part of the U.S. military’s Asia-Pacific rebalancing, Indian military investment is growing, with anticipated acquisitions of advanced aircraft and submarines, according to an Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) data analysis. When it comes to defense acquisitions in the coming years for aviation and shipbuilding, no other U.S. partner or ally in the Asia-Pacific region comes close to India, according to an analysis of data provided by Avascent Analytics.
EX-IM BANK: The U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) is conducting its annual “competitiveness survey,” meaning U.S. companies that export goods and other stakeholders can offer their assessment of how the American export credit agency (ECA) compared with foreign ECAs in 2013. Surveys to known stakeholders, including numerous aerospace, defense and aviation companies, should go out Feb. 7. While somewhat perfunctory, this year’s results could play a role in a looming political fight in Washington over renewing Ex-Im’s charter come September (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 26, 2013).
One of the longest-running military procurement disputes, involving the cancellation of the U.S. Navy’s A-12 Avenger, is finally over. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims dismissed the case Jan. 24. Late last year, the government reached an agreement with contractors Boeing and General Dynamics. The nearly $400 million deal brought the case to an end in exchange for in-kind payments from the companies to the Navy.
INTEL AUDIT: An unclassified version of a long-awaited report by U.S. congressional investigators on intelligence contractors could emerge soon. Citing an unidentified congressional official, Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists tells readers of his Secrecy News that the Government Accountability Office report could be issued in the “next few weeks.” A classified version was provided to lawmakers last year.
NEW DELHI — India plans the first test launch of its newly developed interceptor missile sometime in the next six months from a defense base off its eastern coast. The Prithvi Defense Vehicle (PDV) will be able to intercept rival missiles to a range of 1,553 mi. and an altitude of 93 mi., an official at India’s Defense and Development Research Organization (DRDO) tells Aviation Week.
TORONTO — Bombardier has accepted its ninth Bombardier Q300 maritime surveillance aircraft (MSA) for Japan’s coast guard at Field Aviation’s Toronto modification center after a one-year conversion program. The sensor package includes a Flir Systems electro-optical camera on a ball turret under the nose and a Telephonics search radar in a belly pod. Bombardier, the prime contractor on the program, will deliver the aircraft to Japan, departing Toronto on Feb. 1.
BRUSSELS — Small UAVs have represented the largest number of losses in Germany’s unmanned fleet since their introduction over the last decade. The greatest losses were of LUNA tactical reconnaissance UAVs, according to the latest figures from the Bundeswehr. LUNA losses totaled 56 — 45 destroyed, including 24 that crashed, and 11 missing. Some 23 Aladin mini-UAVs were destroyed, including six that crashed, and another 10 that went missing. Two Mikado micro-UAVs crashed, and two others went missing.
The drag-reducing benefit of flying in formation has been known for decades—far longer if you are a bird—but making it practical is the challenge. Geese join up in V formations when they migrate, but all are headed in the same direction; finding opportunities for formation flying within military and commercial air-transport networks crisscrossing the globe is harder.
