The incoming director of the F-35 program says that a poor relationship between the Joint Program Office, customers and prime contractor Lockheed Martin is the biggest threat to the success of the stealthy, single-engine fighter.
The U.S. Air Force has begun flight tests of the upgraded Rolls-Royce T56 on a C-130H, which could help extend the service life of the transport to 2040. Flight tests of the T56 Series 3.5 enhancement package are taking place at Edwards AFB, Calif., using an Air National Guard-operated Lockheed Martin C-130H. Testing aims to verify a predicted fuel burn improvement of around 8%, as well as assessing flying qualities and improved payload capability.
ST. LOUIS — As the U.S. slashes military spending and eyes even greater cuts, Boeing is starting to set its sights on overseas markets — and the company likes what it sees there. International sales, says Christopher Chadwick, Boeing Military Aircraft president, will be a major part of the company’s success in coming years. “One of the key elements is: How do we go more global?” Chadwick said during a recent briefing with reporters.
Can Congress be publicly shamed into avoiding a 10-year, $1 trillion across-the-board government spending cut before January? Not likely. But two widely respected former leaders of the Pentagon are the latest to make the attempt. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reminded the nation’s political leaders that failing to address the nation’s fiscal situation will harm the country’s security during speeches to the Center for Strategic and International Studies Sept. 17.
BEIJING — A second Chinese stealth fighter, apparently from Avic’s Shenyang plant, has appeared in seemingly genuine pictures that cropped up on Chinese web sites Sept. 15. The twin-engine, single-seat fighter, shown at an airfield, appears to approximate the Lockheed Martin F-35 in size, with a somewhat shallower body but a similar span of about 11.4 meters (37.5 ft.), as indicated by comparison with a commercial aircraft tug shown pulling it.
The successful incorporation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the national airspace system will require regular assessments and a clear approach to addressing privacy concerns, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds in a new report. The investigative arm of the U.S. Congress says the FAA, in particular, should frequently monitor its efforts to fulfill UAS requirements and deadlines signed into law in February as part of a four-year agency reauthorization.
BERLIN – Airbus Military expects to conduct the first flight of its first production A400M transport in the first quarter of next year, later than the most recent plan for the struggling program.
If Congress fails to block a looming government-wide budget cut, the Pentagon will lose $54.7 billion and NASA about $1.7 billion, the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a report delivered to Congress Sept. 14. The cuts amount to a 9.4% cut to defense accounts and an 8.2% cut to other domestic discretionary programs, including NASA. The penalty known as sequestration was put in place last year by a bill designed to spur lawmakers to reduce the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion.
Berlin – Germany is expected to make a multibillion euro decision in the coming years on whether to continue with the Medium-Extended Area Defense System (Meads) or shift to a Patriot-based upgrade plan to modernize its air defense capability.
Boeing says a new contract proposal presented to the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (Speea) will “more than offset some increased health insurance cost sharing” requested by the manufacturer. The company says the net effect will mean average pay increases of more than 3% for engineers and 2% for technical workers over the lifetime of the proposed four-year contract. A Speea official said the union is evaluating the proposal.
As CEO of EADS, Louis Gallois was repeatedly rebuffed by his board when he sought to acquire U.S. defense companies. Less than four months after Gallois' retirement, a single deal could finally make EADS a top supplier to the Pentagon—and in the process create the largest aerospace and defense (A&D) company ever.
This week, Aviation Week & Space Technology publishes two editions. On the cover at the far left, a high-speed camera mounted in the weapons bay of an F-35B Joint Strike Fighter captures a 1,000-lb. Joint Direct-Attack Munition just after release, during the aircraft's first safe-separation trial Aug. 8 near NAS Patuxent River, Md. The squares and circles on the JDAM are photogrammetric markers. Cameras tracked the JDAM as it separated from the bay. Engineers compare the images to predictive models (see page 56).
European aerospace giant EADS is tackling a number of problems in its military businesses as it proceeds with talks to merge with British behemoth BAE Systems in an effort to increase its global footprint in the defense market.
With the U.S. election looming, the last thing anyone wants to say in public is that the Pentagon's biggest program is further from finishing its tests than it was supposed to be four years ago, that nobody agrees exactly how far away it is, and that—11 years after the program started—none of the three service operators has set an initial operational capability (IOC) target date.
It wasn't easy to kill Lockheed Martin's F-22, but resurrecting the Raptor could be just as difficult. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney put the issue in play during a Sept. 8 interview with a Virginia television station near the Air Combat Command at Langley AFB, saying if he were elected president, he would add more of the fifth-generation fighters. But it's not clear whether the pledge aimed squarely at the local audience would fly even if Romney wins in November.
