TEL AVIV — The U.S. plans to fast-track the delivery of six V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to Israel, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says. The Pentagon will reallocate part of the next production group originally destined for the U.S. Marine Corps to meet the Israeli request for six aircraft. The V-22 is produced under a multi-year procurement, with the fiscal 2014 budget plan funding the production of 18 USMC Ospreys and three for the Air Force Special Operations Command.
As the U.S. Navy continues to hone its submarine payload delivery systems, the service is searching for unmanned systems to deploy from those boats, including submerged and aerial vehicles. Recent research and development tests have combined submarines with unmanned undersea vehicles used for the oil and gas industry, such as the Lockheed Martin Marlin.
Curtiss-Wright Controls is working to turn South Korea from a customer to a supplier, exploiting the progress local manufacturers have made in gaining technology. Perhaps the most prominent opportunity is in actuation, the equipment that, for example, moves flight control surfaces, says Curtiss-Wright Controls Vice President Christopher Thomson. “South Korea has been a good market, growing faster than our other segments,” says Curtiss-Wright’s Tom Quinly. “We want to take it to another level.”
Additive manufacture has the potential to improve the environmental sustainability of aircraft components in production and operation, concludes a study by EADS Innovation Works and EOS, a leader in direct metal laser-sintering (DMLS) technology. The study compared a current cast-steel nacelle hinge bracket for the Airbus A320 with an optimized titanium design additively manufactured on an EOS laser-sintering machine. DMLS builds up parts by using a laser to melt layers of powdered metal.
A Senate panel on aviation led by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) convenes this week to discuss how to keep aviation manufacturing in the U.S. competitive. But competition in the increasingly global airline and aerospace industries is in the eye of the beholder. U.S. unionized pilots and flight attendants are scrutinizing how Norwegian Air Shuttle proceeds with its latest round of contract negotiations. The contract talks represent a test case for the U.S.-EU Open Skies agreement in 2010, which allows more European flights into the U.S.
President Barack Obama entered office pledging to improve the nation's relations with key allies. But with ongoing UAV strikes, revelations of National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance of allies' leaders and continued detentions of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison, even Obama's supporters concede his image campaign hasn't worked out. “The level of support for the U.S. is back to where it was in the [George W.] Bush administration,” says Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.).
Picture this scenario: An adversary nation with an in-depth air defense system and counter-low-observable capability has tested and deployed an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon, disabling a U.S. satellite in the process.
As the hard-won progress in hypersonic propulsion technology can attest, the road to sustained air-breathing engines that can operate above Mach 5 is littered with five decades worth of failed tests, some more dramatic than others.
South Korea may move quickly to order the Lockheed Martin F-35 for its derailed F-X Phase 3 competition for 60 fighters—and yet again, it may not. In a program that has become chaotic and unpredictable even by the standards of fighter acquisitions, a range of outcomes is in the offing.
The B-52H crew were trying to thread a needle through an invisible point in the sky to hit the correct launch conditions for the test flight of the X-51A Waverider hypersonic demonstrator.
Hundreds of applications for aircraft operations and repair stations are held up, stymied by the FAA's inefficient certification processes, a government watchdog finds. FAA is juggling 1,029 such applications, Jeffrey Guzzetti of the Transportation Department's Inspector General's office, recently told Congress. The situation is so bad, one applicant has been in limbo since August 2006. And it is about to get worse, as requests from NextGen technologies and unmanned aircraft flow into the system.
The most conspicuous exhibits at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) show in Washington in late October were a pervasive sense of unreality and a newfound Army paranoia that rivals that of the Marine Corps.
Embraer’s defense and security business grew to more than 20% of the company’s net revenues in the third quarter, as continued market growth coincided with a decrease in commercial aircraft deliveries. Formed in 2010, the Brazilian manufacturer’s Defense & Security segment had net revenues of $266.8 million in the third quarter, up from $256.6 million a year earlier. This was 20.7% of the company’s total net revenues for the quarter.
SEOUL — South Korea may move quickly to order the Lockheed Martin F-35 for its derailed F-X Phase 3 competition for 60 fighters – and then again it may not. In a program that has become chaotic and unpredictable even by the standards of fighter acquisitions, a range of very different outcomes is in the offing.
U.S. Marines recently field-tested a wearable solar-powered system to extend the battery life of crucial electronic devices during a recent field exercise, Navy officials say. Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and assembled at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, the Marine Austere Patrolling System (MAPS) combines solar power and an individual water purifier to help lighten the load of Marines conducting lengthy missions in remote locations with few or no options for resupply, Navy officials say.
SLOW START: The second so-called super committee of congressmen and senators set up to find a way out of the almost quarterly budget wars in Congress gathered publicly Oct. 30 to read prepared statements, and then adjourned until Nov. 13. House and Senate Budget Chairs Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), respectively, are now aiming simply for a bicameral spending blueprint for fiscal 2014, which started Oct.
