BAE Systems is turning to its civil airborne electronics business to provide growth as it wrestles with falling defense spending in key markets. The company is hoping to take advantage of the increase in commercial aircraft sales, CEO Ian King says. The hybrid vehicle business and expanding government cybersecurity activities into the commercial domain are other areas of interest.
UK companies are demonstrating through numbers the importance of the Middle East market at Special Operations Forces Exhibitions and Conference 2012 (SOFEX) in Jordan.
The latest EC635 to be used by the Royal Jordanian Air Force for law enforcement is to be the centrepiece of a broad display by Eurocopter at next week's Special Operations Forces Exhibition & Conference (SOFEX) to be held in Amman
Russian Helicopters has delivered to the Emergency Situations Ministry (EMERCOM) of the Republic of Kazakhstan two modified coaxial Ka-32A11BC rescue helicopters. The delivery of the Ka-32A11BC helicopters marks the quick and successful execution of a contract signed on 15 August 2011.
PROTECTING EUROPE: A cost estimate of the Obama administration’s phased adaptive approach (PAA) to missile defense was due in March but is not likely to be sent to Congress as required until the summer, according to Madelyn Creedon, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary of defense for global security affairs. Typically, program cost estimates developed by the Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation involve individual programs.
The updated version of the Spawar Acquisition Integrated Logistics Online Repository (Sailor) 2.1 is impressing U.S. Navy brass. The U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command’s (Spawar) Sailor program features a self-help website for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) systems that provides the fleet with the capability to complete training, troubleshoot software and equipment, and receive technical documentation and support online.
LANGLEY AFB, Va. — U.S. Air Force officials are narrowing their focus on new combinations of factors as they explore oxygen deprivation issues that have claimed the life of one F-22 Raptor pilot and have plagued the fleet for more than a year. The officials remain frustrated, however, that a “smoking gun” for the cause of pilot hypoxia is still elusive despite an extraordinary effort by the service to enlist help from scientists, doctors and fighter experts.
NEW DELHI — An Indian government panel is highlighting the lack of attack helicopters in the Indian army, contending that the country’s security is at risk. According to the report from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defense, the army’s aviation unit faces a severe shortage, with a requirement of 18 Cheetah helos, one Chetak, 76 Advanced Light Helicopters and 60 ALHs with weapon systems.
PHILADEPHIA and ABU DHABI — Bell-Boeing is nearing closure of its first foreign deal with the United Arab Emirates for the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor after years of often turbulent development and marketing work to garner sales outside the U.S.
LONDON — The Australian government has allocated an additional A$12 million ($12.5 million) to foster locally developed defense technologies for potential military application. The effort is part of the A$45 million Priority Industry Capabilities activity that provides repayable, matched grants to companies. The program is in its second of eight years. In announcing the latest funding recipients, Jason Clare, defense minister for materiel, says “This is an investment in cutting-edge defense technologies developed here in Australia.”
The U.S. Air Force will not turn any missions over to the Navy — such as airborne radar surveillance of the air or ground — even though those missions are currently conducted by an aging, underfunded fleet of E-3B AWACS and E-8C Joint Stars aircraft. Some USAF officials have gone so far as to tell Aviation Week that airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) is in crisis. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz disagrees, but he does concede that ISR is fully occupied.
Participants in a Pentagon Defense Acquisition Board meeting scheduled for May 3 are expected to approve the U.S. Army’s plan to evaluate available helicopters before deciding whether to buy off-the-shelf aircraft or extend the life of the Bell OH-58D to meet its Armed Aerial Scout requirement. “I am fairly certain we are moving forward,” says Jose Gonzalez, Defense Department deputy director for land warfare and munitions, speaking at the American Helicopter Society International Forum 68 in Fort Worth.
The Kazakhstan government has placed additional orders for eight EC145 helicopters in terms of a framework agreement covering 45 of these multi-role rotorcrafts, which are to be assembled in-country by the Eurocopter Kazakhstan Engineering joint venture.
Not everything in the Libyan campaign worked as planned. An emerging issue is the erosion of a fundamental U.S. Air Force skill — targeting — that surfaced in a recent Air Combat Command review.
Lockheed Martin has launched a small precision-guided weapon from an AAI Corp. RQ-7 Shadow 200 tactical unmanned aircraft under a company-funded R&D program. The 11-lb. class, laser-guided Shadow Hawk glide weapon scored a direct hit on the target, the company says. The test was conducted at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. The 2.75-in.-dia., 27-in.-long unpowered munition was released from the Shadow at 5,100 ft. altitude and impacted the target at 460 ft./sec.
Efforts to prevent terrestrial contamination of ice-covered solar system bodies with the potential to harbor life or its biological precursors deserve an overhaul, according to a new National Research Council (NRC) assessment of the current contamination odds-making as well as the science and technology gaps.
LOS ANGELES — The Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office is pushing ahead with preparations for three more missions and continuing a key military utility assessment of the ongoing TacSat-4 tactical test spacecraft, despite uncertainty over its future after being zero-funded in the White House’s fiscal 2013 budget.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) is pushing for a budget to acquire fixed-wing maritime surveillance aircraft on long-term wet-lease, since its existing agreement with Bombardier for maritime patrol has lapsed. The MMEA also is hoping to renew a customer support pact with Bombardier that lapsed a while ago, according to the agency’s director general, Adm. Amdan bin Kurish. “The Bombardier planes have not been flying for some time,” he says.
If U.S. lawmakers want to put back procurement funds for favored weapons programs, the U.S. Air Force’s top general says, then they should put back the operations and maintenance money too. To do otherwise, says Gen. Norman Schwartz, speaking May 1 at the Stimson Center, is the surest way to hollow the force.
SINGAPORE — China is trying to woo the defense establishment of Thailand, one of the very few Southeast Asian nations with which it has no conflicting claims in regard to the South China Sea.
