AIR FORCE ACENT Laboratories L.L.C., Long Island, N.Y., (FA8650-13-D-2331) is being awarded a $48,500,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price contract for Enhanced Operability Scramjet Technology. The locations of the performance are Manorville, N.Y.; Sacramento, Calif.; Elkton, Md.; Laurel, Md.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; and Dayton, Ohio. The work is expected to be completed by Feb. 28, 2020. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2012. The contracting activity is Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
ABU DHABI — MBDA has received the first export order for its naval Simbad-RC missile system. The company would not disclose which navy had ordered the system, which uses the Mistral IR-guided missile, but said the system would be installed on a fleet of patrol vessels, each one equipped with two Simbad-RC turrets. According to MBDA, the first prototypes are in production and the system qualification is scheduled for 2014. Initial deliveries will take place in 2015.
In early talks on the forthcoming fiscal 2014 budget request, the U.S. Air Force is proposing to close the book on Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk franchise, canceling the ground surveillance variant. The so-called Block 40 aircraft, built on the high-flying Global Hawk platform, is, at least for now, being proposed for termination to pay bills for higher-priority programs for the service, according to multiple program officials.
Lifted by its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter work, Lockheed Martin pulled ahead of Boeing in Pentagon awards for fixed-wing aircraft in 2011, according to an exclusive Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) analysis.
ABU DHABI — United Arab Emirates defense holding company Tawazun has quoted prices to BAE Systems to potentially provide key structural components for the Eurofighter Typhoon.
AWIN, National Institute For Computer-Assisted Reporting
Click here to view the pdf Pentagon's Leading Fixed-Wing Aircraft Contractors For 2011 Pentagon's Leading Fixed-Wing Aircraft Contractors For 2011 No. Contractor Number Of Contracts Or Modifications Total Amount Of Transactions Average Per Transaction
The U.S. Navy still has roughly 250 fix-it items left on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom to prepare it for its scheduled March deployment to Singapore, says a source aware of Freedom operations and maintenance. Most of the items are quarterly required contractor tasks for planned maintenance (PMS) work, the source says, and that work should be finished relatively quickly.
BENGALURU — BAE Systems is busily working to restart the Hawk production line at Warton in the U.K., now that it has firm orders for 22 aircraft for Saudi Arabia and eight for Oman.
The FAA has issued a long-delayed solicitation for proposals to host six unmanned aircraft system (UAS) test sites across the U.S. , along with the agency’s proposed approach to addressing public concerns over privacy. Initially ignored by the FAA, concerns voiced by civil-liberties organizations that UAS operations at the sites could violate individuals’ privacy forced a lengthy delay in responding to the 2012 congressional mandate to establish the test centers.
With Congress preparing for a weeklong Presidents Day recess, lawmakers are predicting that come March 1, across-the-board budget cuts are going to take hold. “I think it’s going to happen,” Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters during a Feb. 15 Defense Writers Group breakfast. “Both sides are locked into positions that they can’t seem to get away from, and so I think we’re going to be forced into it.”
NEW DELHI — The Indian government has initiated actions to scrap its contract for AW101 helicopters with scandal-plagued Finmeccanica subsidiary AgustaWestland. “We have issued a formal show-cause notice to AgustaWestland seeking cancellation of contract and taking other actions as per the terms of the contract and the integrity pact, signed in 2010,” an Indian defense ministry official says.
A three-year operational assessment of a tethered-aerostat cruise-missile detection and tracking system is to begin later this year at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, in part to see how it would fit into the air-defense system around Washington. The operational exercise involving Raytheon’s Joint Land-Attack Cruise-Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor (JLENS) system “could inform a future decision for an enduring operational deployment,” says the Army.
Days after the White House issued a new directive on cybersecurity, House Intelligence Committee leaders are saying their bill to help secure the nation’s computer systems has a chance of passing this year. If so, it would represent a remarkable turnabout from last year, when three efforts to pass cybersecurity legislation through Congress failed. By the end of the year, lawmakers were skeptical about the future prospects of such legislation.
LONDON — Swedish aerospace company Saab and the country’s defense procurement agency, the FMV, have signed agreements to start development of the next-generation Gripen fighter.
The U.K.’s Royal Air Force (RAF) is publicly highlighting its need for a new trainer aircraft while the government continues to delay a decision. At last week’s Aero India airshow, Kevin Marsh, the RAF wing commander for the OC IV squadron, said the RAF’s Shorts Tucano trainer aircraft needs to be replaced because it does not “have a head-up display and mission system.”
India’s state-owned National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) soon will restart the flight test program for Saras, a 14-seat multirole military transport aircraft that has been beset by developmental problems. There will be a test flight in April for Saras test aircraft one (PT1), NAL Technology Director Shyman Chetty tells Aviation Week. The Saras had its first test flight in 2004. There were two test aircraft built, PT1 and PT2. But PT2 crashed in 2009, killing all three people on board. That prompted NAL to make major changes to the aircraft’s design.
BIG DOWNGRADE: Wall Street analysts at Cowen and Co. are not waiting for so-called sequestration to take effect March 1 before telling defense-sector investor clients to move on in their search for profit and growth. In a Feb. 14 note to clients, the analysts say weapons face increased scrutiny from a confluence of the 2011 Budget Control Act’s automatic spending reductions and the likelihood of former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) becoming the next defense secretary. Lockheed Martin is first in line to feel the pain, in their opinion. “As No.
Northrop Grumman’s Long-Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV), a 300-ft.-long surveillance airship intended for deployment to Afghanistan to fly unmanned for up to three weeks, has been cancelled by the U.S. Army. The airship flew once in August last year, at Lakehurst, N.J., 10 months behind schedule in what was originally planned as an 18-month development program leading to deployment early in 2012.
The long-delayed solicitation for proposals to host six unmanned aircraft system (UAS) test sites across the U.S. has been issued by the FAA, along with the agency’s proposed approach to addressing public concerns over privacy.
India is developing the sixth in its series of Agni ballistic missiles, this time with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) capability.
Australian defense procurement is in a strongly aviation-centered phase. In the next few years, the government is due to approve acquisitions of around 60 combat aircraft, a fleet of maritime surveillance drones and complementary force of manned patrol aircraft.
