Despite its programmatic progress and status as an acquisition reform program for the U.S. Air Force, GPS III—as with any other Pentagon project—is under the microscope and could be subject to funding cuts. The budget environment at the Pentagon gives new meaning to the term “capture team,” which is used to describe the group assigned by a company to win a program. Many contractors say they feel they are in a perpetual “capture team” mode, constantly fighting not only to win programs, but to keep them once they have won the contract.
Boeing's decision to close its Wichita defense plant is a story of too much factory capacity and not enough work. The 2013 closure raises concerns about the future of the company's more than 2,100 employees as jobs shift to facilities in other states.
Sensing continued financial pressure even in the well-protected electronic-warfare domain, the U.S. Navy is slicing through red tape to streamline acquisition of its prized Next Generation Jammer (NGJ).
With little publicity, South Korean engineers are working on the largest and most complicated aircraft their country has built independently, an unmanned surveillance aircraft called MUAV. From the scanty information available, they seem to have a technically successful program on their hands, one that augurs well for their ambitious national industry. The problem is that it might turn out to be a fiscal failure.
Tired of cost and schedule overruns, the U.K. Defense Ministry is applying top-level oversight on troubled programs to force companies to cure persistent ills. Unfortunately, in one of the first test cases—the Watchkeeper unmanned aircraft program—that strategy has not panned out.
Sikorsky has unveiled the industry team supplying components and equipment for, and sharing the cost of, private-venture development of the S-97 Raider light tactical helicopter prototype. The team of 35 companies includes several that together are providing 25% of the total cost of building two prototypes of the high-speed, coaxial-rotor S-97. Sikorsky is providing the remaining 75% from its independent research and development funds.
MARKET UP: The global military aircraft market was worth $38 billion in 2011 and is expected to reach $71.9 billion by 2021, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.58%, according to research report being shopped around by ResearchMoz, a self-described market report warehouse. The U.S., then Europe and Asia-Pacific are the dominant markets, with Europe increasing its share of the global market due to the need to recapitalize aging fleets, despite its budget woes.
LONDON — The first two F-35 Joint Strike Fighters being bought by the U.K. should be delivered to the government in May, according to Peter Luff, minister for defense equipment and support. The first of the aircraft, BK-1, was rolled out by Lockheed Martin in November.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — To get more out of future unmanned air systems and reduce manpower requirements, UAVs should “be allowed to do more things on their own,” says Al Romig, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. Speaking at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics New Horizons Forum here, Romig says increased autonomy will be key to cutting cost. “One of the biggest expenses in the military is manpower, so clearly that’s critical to us.”
TRAINER TEAMMATES: BAE/Northrop Grumman are expecting to announce on Jan. 12 that they will bring L-3 Link, known for its crew training experience, onto their team to bid for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X trainer competition. The team, offering a Hawk-based proposal, will likely compete against Alenia’s M346 and Lockheed Martin/KAI with their T-50. Boeing, which had pushed the idea of its own bid based on a clean-sheet design, could eventually opt to join forces with Alenia, but the two so far are mum on negotiations.
Ron Paul, the Republican presidential candidate most likely to support reductions in defense spending, ranks third in terms of donations to GOP hopefuls from defense industry employees.
TOUCHDOWN: The first two U.S. Marine Corps F-35B short-takeoff-vertical-landing Joint Strike Fighters arrived at Eglin AFB, Fla., the home of pilot training for the stealthy Lockheed Martin fighter, on Jan. 11. The troublesome F-35B variant was put on probation a year ago by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates due to technical problems and lackluster testing performance.
Top U.S. Navy leaders are calling for shipbuilding and vessel repair companies to do a better job in the coming years as the service struggles to bolster and retain its fleet strength in a climate of financial austerity. Speaking Tuesday at the Surface Navy Association’s 24th Annual Symposium, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, calmly reprimanded shipbuilders for schedule delays and asked repair contractors to help the service meet its needs.
In its recent request for proposals (RFP) for the latest round of Aegis Combat System upgrades — commonly known as Advanced Capability Build (ACB) 16 — the U.S. Navy took great pains to make sure there would be a true competition for the work, according to officials at Raytheon, one of the competing contractors. When the draft RFP was released last year there was concern across the industry that the wording heavily favored Lockheed Martin, which has been the prime for Aegis for more than four decades.
Now that the U.S. has lowered the flag on official combat operations in Iraq, Pentagon officials and other military strategists are building libraries of lessons learned there. One volume that includes a somewhat detailed account of what works — and what does not — is the book “American Sniper, the Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History,” by Chris Kyle, a former Navy SEAL who spent his career stalking and killing insurgents and other enemies in Iraq.
Lockheed Martin is not likely to protest its loss of the Pentagon’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) development and sustainment contract to Boeing, according to industry officials. The company is set to receive its debriefing from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, which managed the competition, on Wednesday, with Boeing’s to follow Thursday, an industry official says.
The U.S. Navy plans to cut “hundreds of millions” out of its Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) program — slated to fly first in the EA-18G Growler — by selecting only a single contractor instead of two, as was initially planned, at the start of its technology development (TD) phase in 2013. The decision was approved by Defense Department and Navy officials in late December and will be announced late this month to the service’s electronic warfare community at Naval Base Ventura County Point Mugu, Calif.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Gen. William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, is drawing attention to the the increasingly decrepit state of infrastructure at the Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg AFB launch sites, and the threat it poses to national security space. “We limp along from year to year keeping our fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong,” Shelton says, speaking at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics New Horizon Forum here.
ARLINGTON, Va. — With the unmanned Kaman K-Max helicopter proving effective for cargo-carrying operations in Afghanistan, the U.S. Marine Corps is now thinking about arming the aircraft “for self-protection,” a Lockheed Martin executive says. “They’re just talking about it,” said George Barton, Ship & Aviation Systems business development vice president, during a media briefing Tuesday at the Surface Navy Association’s 24th Annual Symposium. He quickly added that arming K-Max is not part of the program of record.
HOUSTON — NASA’s Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) was decommissioned this month, following a productive 16-year mission focused on the workings of black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs. The spacecraft’s final transmissions were logged by the Goddard Space Flight Center on Jan. 4. The 7,000-lb. spacecraft is expected to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere between 2014 and 2023, depending on the influence of solar activity.
