NEW DELHI — India’s defense ministry is in talks with French firm Sextant to buy 95 more autopilot systems for Indian air force (IAF) Jaguar fighters. “Procurement of autopilot for 55 Jaguar aircraft has been completed and commercial discussions for repeat procurement of additional 95 autopilots are [under way],” Defense Minister A. K. Antony said in parliament Sept. 3.
ARMY Lockheed Martin Gyrocam Systems, Sarasota, Fla., was awarded a $333,300,000 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the procurement of spare and repair parts to support the Vehicle Optics Sensor System. The work will be performed in Sarasota, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 22, 2014. The bid was solicited through the Internet, with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Alexandria, Va., is the contracting activity (W909MY-12-D-0017). NAVY
ARMY PAR Government Corp., Rome, N.Y., was awarded a $48,000,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The award will provide for the services, including Full-Motion Video, Geospatial Information Systems and Surveillance and Reconnaissance related applications. The work will be performed in Rome, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 27, 2017. One bid was solicited, with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Natick, Mass., is the contracting activity (W911QY-12-D-0010).
It certainly has been a hot summer for contracts associated with U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) and Aegis combat system-related work. The U.S. Navy and Missile Defense Agency (MDA) awarded contracts and contract modifications for at least $2.3 billion worth of missiles, BMD research and Aegis system-related work in July and August, according to Pentagon contract reports. The potential total cumulative amount for those contracts approaches about $3.9 billion.
FRANKFURT — Bernhard Gerwert has been named the new CEO of EADS’ defense division Cassidian, effective immediately following the resignation of longtime CEO Stefan Zoller. Zoller has headed the division since 2005. His departure does not come as a complete surprise, after he was rumored to have wanted to become EADS CEO when the group sought a replacement for Louis Gallois earlier this year. The board picked ex-Airbus CEO Thomas Enders, who has headed EADS since June.
SINGAPORE — Thailand’s air force has decided that the Eurocopter EC-725 will be the type to replace its aging Vietnam War-era Bell UH-1Hs. The country’s cabinet has approved the purchase of 10 EC-725s, according to an air force spokesperson. “The project is divided into two phases; the first phase is to receive the first four helicopters within the year 2015,” the spokesperson says.
SINGAPORE — Vietnam is expected to receive its third Airbus Military C212-400 maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) next year, completing its order for the type and giving a major boost to Vietnam’s maritime surveillance capabilities. The Southeast Asian nation ordered three of the aircraft in 2008 for the Vietnam Maritime Police. The first arrived in Hanoi on Aug. 16 after a 10-day ferry flight from Skavsta, Sweden, Airbus Military says. On the way the aircraft stopped in Greece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, India and Thailand.
The Obama administration is supposed to provide details on how it will handle a potential across-the-board federal budget reduction later this week. And although Congress could return after the November elections with a plan for delaying or somehow avoiding the budget penalty known as sequestration, contractors are also preparing themselves for the possibility. Agnes Dover, director of the government contracts group at the international law firm Hogan Lovells, has had a number of tips for her clients as the “fiscal cliff” nears.
While the Republic of Iraq anticipates an initial delivery of F-16 Fighting Falcons in September 2014, the pilots who will fly them have embarked on an historic partnership with the Arizona Air National Guard's 162nd Fighter Wing in the US, to learn how to fly the multipurpose fighter.
Just as the Pentagon has asked for authority to put five programs into contracts that will run for up to four years, budget turmoil on Capitol Hill threatens to throw a wrench in the Defense Department’s plan to save money and add stability to the industrial base on those and other long-term agreements.
LOD, Israel — Israel is ready to test the complete version of its improved Arrow missile defense system to demonstrate that it can reach farther and higher to destroy newer, higher-speed ballistic weapons. The modifications also will provide the basis for even more improvements. These include the ability to search more of the electromagnetic spectrum for elusive, high-speed missile threats being designed and tested by Iran.
FRANKFURT — Airbus Military is delaying the entry into service of the first and second A400M in response to a temporary suspension of function and reliability (F&R) testing.
NEW DELHI — India’s parliament has approved a bill to amend the Chemical Weapons Convention Act to forbid the transfer of specified toxins to and from any country not party to the convention. “The Chemical Weapons Convention (Amendment) Bill, 2012, part of India’s international obligation, seeks to amend the Chemical Weapons Convention Act, 2000, which was enacted to . . . help prohibit the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons and on their destruction,” says a senior government official.
An Aug. 31 story on the JDAM-ER mischaracterized the status of the agreement between Times Aerospace Korea and Boeing. The two companies ended their agreement to co-develop a wing kit for 2,000-lb. JDAM bombs, but Boeing intends to complete the work with other partners.
BERLIN – German researchers are pleased so far with the results of their summer launch of a rocket-boosted hypersonic demonstrator, which reached 11 times the speed of sound, even though it is now clear they will not be able to recover the vehicle payload from its resting place at the bottom of the Greenland Sea.
The U.S. Navy, planning for next-generation antiship missiles, detailed on page DT4, uses the term “net-enabled.” For the Navy, that term has meaning. A net-enabled weapon (NEW) is assisted by the net, getting updates on its target from other platforms, but is not dependent on it.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has successfully tested an imaging device at 0.96 and 1.4 gigapixels of resolution (see photo), developed for its Aware—Advanced Wide FOV(field of view) Architectures for Image Reconstruction and Exploitation—program. One goal of the effort is to produce an imaging system with as many as 150 parallel micro-scale cameras behind a spherical objective lens, which will eventually generate ultra-wide FOV images of up to 50 gigapixels.
U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard units are fielding a helmet-mounted cueing system (HMCS) from Gentex Corp. of Carbondale, Pa., in A-10s, F-16s (Batch 30 and 32) and C-130 gunships flown by Air Force Special Operations Command. The Scorpion HMCS was tested by the Air Force and originally selected in 2010. Nine A-10 Thunderbolt II pilots from the 47th Fighter Sqdn. of Barksdale AFB, La., are the first to trial the system in an operational exercise. They tested Scorpion during the Rim of the Pacific exercise June 29-Aug. 3, in Hawaii.
