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.
The Pentagon's newest missile range instrumentation ship—the T-AGM-25 USNS Howard O. Lorenzen, which includes the Cobra Judy Replacement (CJR) radar system—recently started at-sea testing off Port Canaveral, Fla., as part of its yearlong integration and test phase. Lorenzen will replace USNS Observation Island (T-AGM 23) in 2014, whose mission is to provide dual-band radar data in support of ballistic missile treaty verification.
The U.S. Army plans to issue a request for proposals by the end of 2013 for a battle management and planning tool for electronic warfare (EW). The service will be seeking plans or initial operational capability in fiscal 2015 for a software-and-equipment package that will provide the proper tools for EW battle management and planning, says Col. Jim Ekvall, Army EW Div. chief. Developing that type of tool and accompanying EW training is vital for future Army success, he notes.
The Michigan lab that introduced the notion of beetle-generated power for remote-controlled, insect-borne reconnaissance sensors is back—this time with an idea to generate energy from low-frequency ambient sound.
Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, can do many things, but high-g maneuvers to evade obstacles are not among them. This could change, however, as researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Carnegie-Mellon, Harvard, New York and Stanford universities work to achieve “fast (35 mph.), accurate and repeatable flight” with a small UAV. The team, led by Associate Professor Russ Tedrake of MIT, built a trial UAV with a wingspan of 28 in.
U.S. Marine Corps Special Operations Command (Marsoc) will soon get a new version of its signature .45-caliber M45 handgun. The Marine Corps Systems Command announced on July 18 that it had awarded Colt Defense of West Hartford, Conn., a $22.5 million contract to supply up to 12,000 Close Quarter Battle Pistols (Model O1070CQBP) and spare parts to Marsoc through July 2017. The Colt sidearm reportedly outperformed competitive .45-caliber weapons from Springfield Armory and Smith & Wesson in accuracy and other areas, notably durability.
Israeli intelligence sources say highly lethal Russian weapons have appeared during fighting in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Israeli analysts tell news media they believe that these were recently delivered from Russia. Among the weapons identified or captured were thermobarics, also known as “fuel-air” devices, which explode above a target with a massive blast that sucks in air, creating a dangerous vacuum. When such a weapon is detonated it produces a long-duration-effect blast, causing significant damage and extremely painful casualties.
