U.S. Army soldiers could be shooting straighter if the benefits of a new weapons contract materialize. Last month, the U.S. Army Contracting Command of Warren, Mich., announced the award of a firm-fixed-price contract for procurement of up to 120,000 M4 and M4A1 carbines to FN Manufacturing of Columbia, S.C. The projected completion date for the order is Feb. 19, 2018. The maximum value of the contract, which is being allocated in stages, is $76.9 million. The initial stage involves 24,000 rifles and is worth $9.3 million. All eyes will be on the M4A1 side of the order.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has selected Lockheed Martin to move forward with a program to build a “flying Humvee” that takes off and flies over roads planted with roadside bombs. Darpa narrowed the Transformer program to two competitors: AAI Textron and Lockheed Martin. Both companies' concepts used ducted fans, but took different approaches to the vehicle.
An Asian shipping company looking to boost its antipiracy defenses started the year by becoming the latest client of the LRAD Corp. of San Diego, maker of long-range acoustic hailing devices that can rumble sound over water for more than a mile and cause hearing damage from 50 ft. away. LRAD stands for long-range acoustic device, the general term for the acoustic systems the company makes.
A highlight of Aviation Week's Laureates gala is always the presentation of the award for heroism. This year, the recipients were the personnel of U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C., who rescued seafarers of the HMS Bounty caught in Hurricane Sandy in October 2012.
NASA has taken down a popular technical reports server after the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the space agency complained the website was particularly popular in China. Shutdown of the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) follows the March 16 arrest of a NASA contractor employee as he awaited takeoff at Dulles International Airport on a flight to his native China.
Immediately after Congress passed a spending bill last week to fund the government for the rest of fiscal 2013, lawmakers' attention has turned to the fiscal 2014 budget. While Congress continues to wrestle with how to reduce the federal deficit and overturn sequestration before its potential consequences become a chilling reality, that does not mean it will be any easier to agree on spending Pentagon dollars. Last year, Congress thwarted Air Force plans to put Global Hawk Block 30 aircraft in storage.
Inspired by two Roman palaces, the National Building Museum was constructed in the 1880s with the dual purpose of housing the U.S. Pension Bureau and providing “a suitably grand space for Washington's social and political functions.” On March 7, nearly 300 aviation and aerospace luminaries from around the globe gathered in the cavernous building for Aviation Week's 56th annual Laureate Awards.
For the second time in just over a year, Lockheed Martin's premier aeronautics division in Fort Worth is getting a new boss. Larry Lawson is leaving as executive vice president for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics—which oversees the F-35, F-22, C-130J and C-5 reengining programs—after only a year (see article above). His predecessor, Ralph Heath, who held that position for seven years, left last April.
In a budget environment where it is hard to find money for experimental aircraft, the 2013 Laureate for Aeronautics and Propulsion goes to a program that used a modest but sustained investment in ground demonstrations to mature technology, culminating in wind-tunnel tests of a model larger and more complex than many X-planes.
While heavily armored ground vehicles dominated attention and interest during the early years of the war in Iraq, the rugged and dangerous terrain of Afghanistan has since presented a more difficult challenge for commanders. This year's winner of the Defense Laureate rose to the challenge, rapidly developing an unmanned cargo helicopter known as K-Max to ease the logistical burden of war in one of the world's most challenging environments.
Most of the news about what will happen to aerospace and defense (A&D) spending as a result of congressional dallying on resolving its own pre-programmed cuts—sequestration—concerns lost jobs and program slowdowns. But sequestration also is likely to hit the way defense contractors fund independent research and development (IR&D), according to a study by the Fairmont Consulting Group.
The annual presentation of Laureates by Aviation Week recognizes intellect, discovery and heroism, and the organizations and programs that cultivate them in the aerospace and defense sector are honored with the Workforce Laureate. In the running for the Workforce Laureate this year were programs that are designed to attract a workforce to aerospace, as well as the individuals who continue to push this effort despite budget cuts and economic issues.
Contract-tower program supporters are appealing to the FAA to limit the number of airport tower closures set to start April 7 due to across-the-board budget cuts. Senate leadership rejected the efforts of Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) to keep the FAA from closing up to 189 contract towers and restore funding for the program in a short-term spending bill that passed Congress last week.
Each year, in addition to naming Laureates, Aviation Week honors outstanding cadets at U.S. military academies as Tomorrow's Leaders. The awards are sponsored by BAE Systems. This year, four cadets were named and recognized at the Laureates gala by Aviation Week President Greg Hamilton.
The final chapter has apparently opened in the turf war among national security agencies over which should control the most prominent weapon system in use since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Now that Congress has passed a spending bill to keep the government running in fiscal 2013, budget fights over programs such as Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk are about to be renewed. On March 21, the House approved a bill to keep funding the government for the rest of fiscal 2013. It provides a new level of spending for the departments of defense and homeland security as well as NASA; the rest of the federal government will continue to run on fiscal 2012 levels.
Beechcraft is showing little sign of backing down from its fight for the Light Air Support (LAS) contract, filing suit in the Court of Federal Claims to object to the U.S. Air Force’s decision to move ahead with work on the program during a Government Accountability Office (GAO) review of the LAS contract award.
All U.S. Air Force flight testing at Edwards AFB, Calif., other than the continuing evaluation of the F-35, will stop by September as a result of cost cuts associated with sequestration, warns Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger, commander of Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC).
Thanks to their long-term contracting nature, most of the aircraft carrier building and overhaul projects remain mostly protected from the severe impacts of sequestration, but continuing resolutions the Pentagon has been saddled with so far in fiscal 2013 have held up carrier work at the most inopportune time, a shipbuilding executive says.
NUKE BAN: Getting the strongly divided U.S. Senate to ratify the long-standing Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty “remains a top priority” for the Obama administration, according to a key State Department official, but it is not seen as imminent. “There are no set time frames to bring the treaty to a vote, and we are going to be patient, but we will also be persistent,” says Rose Gottemoeller, acting undersecretary for arms control and international security.
