Congress may be facing across-the-board budget cuts, but that has not stopped members from attempting to protect individual programs from reductions. Included in a bill released by Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), who leads the House committee controlling the government’s purse strings, is a directive to continue purchasing the RQ-4B Global Hawk UAV and C-27J Spartan aircraft that the Air Force had sought to stop buying in its fiscal 2013 budget request. It also blocks the retirement of C-23 Sherpa aircraft.
AIR FORCE Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., San Diego, is being awarded a $71,202,469 contract modification (FA8620-10-C-4000, P00023) for Global Hawk block load/sustaining engineering and production acceptance infrastructure. The location of performance is San Diego. The work is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2014. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2011. The contracting activity is AFLCMC/WIGK, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
ARMY Fidelity Technologies Corporation, Reading, Pa., was awarded a $21,582,669 firm-fixed-price contract.The award will provide for the Armor B-Kits in support of the Heavy Mobility Tactical Truck A4, Palletized Load System A1, Heavy Mobility Tactical Truck A4 Tanker Armor Module Kit and the M915A5. The work will be performed in Reading, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 27, 2014. The bid was solicited through the Internet, with nine bids received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-13-C-0052).
X-BAND PLANS: Washington and Tokyo continue discussing the possibility of deploying another powerful X-band radar in Japan to protect the U.S. and allies against North Korean threats, according to Frank Rose, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of State for space and defense policy. Besides U.S. assets in the Asia-Pacific region, Japan has several Aegis-class ships that have a missile defense capability, and also has deployed the Patriot air missile defense system.
The U.S. Coast Guard would still like to add a small UAV like the ScanEagle to its aviation quiver, but the service says it can’t afford to fund such a program by itself, says Adm. Bob Papp, Coast Guard commandant. “We are looking at the ScanEagle,” Papp said Feb. 27 following his state of the Coast Guard speech, noting the service is doing its second deployment with the UAV this summer.
The temporary grounding of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been lifted after investigators determined the turbine blade crack that prompted the stand down was an isolated event. “Based on the findings from our initial on-wing inspection to our subsequent inspections in our lab, we determined that root cause is sufficiently understood for the F-35 to safely resume flight,” says Pratt & Whitney, the manufacturer of the fighter’s F135 engine.
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is classifying its forthcoming squadron of Boeing EA-18G Growlers as a support force distinct from its air combat units, raising the possibility that the 12 electronic-attack aircraft will be added to the fast-jet fleet instead of substituting for part of it. The move may not persuade the government to pay for more fast jets than it has planned, however.
While the rest of the U.S. defense community continues to be obsessed with the effects of sequestration, the major issue for shipbuilding juggernaut Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) is the effect of the continuing resolution (CR) currently funding the government at fiscal 2012 levels. “From the beginning of this, we’ve been focused on the continuing resolution,” HII CEO Michael Petters says. With no new appropriations yet in place for fiscal 2013, which began last October, the nation’s shipbuilding programs are adrift.
NEW DELHI — India has raised its defense budget for the next fiscal year, contrary to expectations that there would be a reduction in its military spending due to economic strains. The defense allocation for the India’s fiscal year beginning April 1 is being increased by around 5% to 2.03 trillion rupees ($38 billion), from the originally allocated 1.93 trillion rupees for the year ending March 31.
BERLIN — EADS CEO Tom Enders has given up the once important target of balancing civil and defense revenues. “Maybe it is not a bad time to have a smaller rather than larger defense business,” he said at the EADS annual press conference in Berlin Feb. 27. The plan to increase defense exposure faltered when the merger with BAE Systems collapsed last year and important potential military contracts such as the U.S. Air Force tanker program were lost.
Bidding jointly to build the U.S. Army’s Joint Multi-Role (JMR) technology demonstrator, Boeing and Sikorsky have selected the latter’s X2 coaxial-rotor high-speed helicopter configuration as the basis of its proposal, to be submitted by March 6. The two companies have teamed to pursue the JMR technology demonstration (TD) and planned a follow-on Future Vertical Lift (FVL) Medium program to field replacements for first the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk and then the Boeing AH-64 Apache.
From locating balloons to re-assembling documents, from crowd-designed vehicles to disaster-response robots, researchers are using challenges to draw ideas from those who would never normally do business with the Pentagon.
As budgets are cut and margins squeezed, and business becomes more competitive, industry is turning to challenges to seek diverse views on difficult problems. And the prize, for the companies, can be ideas, talent or visibility in key markets. “Diversity of thought is key to innovation,” says Ray Johnson, Lockheed Martin senior vice president and chief technology officer. “The more different views you get on a problem, the more you can facilitate a culture of innovation.”
Sierra Nevada, with team member Embraer of Brazil, has once again defeated Beechcraft for the U.S. Air Force's Light Air Support aircraft contract for the young Afghan defense forces. The aircraft will be used for flight-training, close air support, intelligence-collection and other security missions.
The U.S. has long been a leader in creating new technologies and in creatively adapting existing ones to new uses. This leadership arises from the interaction of several mutually supportive sectors of innovation. But we face a serious challenge to continuing that creative interaction which is so necessary to keep the U.S. engine of innovation strong.
Bolstered by recent new product introductions and buoyant sales of its turboshaft engines, Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) says plans for a next-generation PT6 family replacement will not be firmed up until at least 2014.
