The U.S. Navy’s proposed fiscal 2013 budget and longer-term spending plan includes a slight boost in funding to develop the proposed Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) and shifts some of the delivery dates for the Flight III DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyers meant to support the radar suite. Uncertain, though, is whether the Navy spending plan will sufficiently address AMDR and Flight III development needs, as a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report cites risks and hurdles for both programs (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 13).
The U.S. Air Force requirement for a new bomber—part of the Long Range Strike family—could be as high as 200 aircraft as the bomber replaces aging B-1s and B-52s, according to defense analysts. The problem with containing cost is how to take advantage of new technology without breaking the budget or generating so much political backlash that the bomber program is reduced or canceled. The B-2s ended up costing more than $2 billion each because the program was closed down so early.
LIFE SUPPORT: The U.S. Army is slicing $1.6 billion from the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile project through fiscal 2017 as part of a service-wide proposal to save money in the fiscal 2013 budget plan. “The program remains at minimal funding to determine if it is possible” to insert JAGM guidance, warhead or motor technology into other U.S. missile systems, according to Pentagon budget plans.
Making a virtue of necessity, the U.S. Navy Department is asking to push 69 F-35B/Cs out of the future years defense plan (FYDP) to contain the unplanned costs generated by concurrency in the program and to cut its overall planned spending. The goal is to cut yearly spending on the Joint Strike Fighter in the near term and to further reduce the amount the sea service will have to spend to refit early production aircraft to meet the program’s final operational configuration.
EMARSS TRUNCATED: The U.S. Army has decided to truncate its planned buy of Enhanced Medium-Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance (Emarss) aircraft, purchasing only the four developmental aircraft already under contract with Boeing. The company is working under a $323 million development contract, and the goal is to field the first Emarss aircraft in Afghanistan in 18 months. The Army axed a 28-aircraft follow-on buy as a cost-cutting measure.
NAVY BAE Systems, Land & Armaments, L.P., U.S. Combat Systems, Minneapolis, is being awarded an $8,747,878 modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-09-C-5394) for technical and engineering services in support of the MK 41 Vertical Launching System. The work will be performed in Minneapolis (82%), Brea, Calif. (17%), and Aberdeen, S.D. (1%), and is expected to be completed by December 2012. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
The U.S. Air Force garnered $2.4 billion worth of “savings” from the KC-46A aerial refueling tanker program because the contract came in lower than the service had anticipated, David Van Buren, the service’s top acquisition official, tells Aviation Week.
SINGAPORE — The U.K.’s Royal Air Force is about to formally take delivery of its first A330-based Multirole Tanker Transports from the AirTanker service consortium. The handover of the so-called Voyager aircraft is “days away, not weeks away,” Ian Elliott, a marketing official for Airbus Military, said this week during the Singapore air show. The handover will involve the first two of 14 aircraft on order.
SINGAPORE — Key elements of the newest generation of Boeing’s F-15 fighter — the digital electronic warfare system and fly-by-wire flight controls — are set to begin flight trials on F-15SAs for Saudi Arabia this year. The two technologies are also key elements of Boeing’s pending F-15 Silent Eagle bid in South Korea’s fighter competition.
The $15.1 billion F-35 restructuring — including a cut of 179 fighters through fiscal 2017 — is not expected to trigger a Nunn-McCurdy unit cost overrun, according to the Pentagon’s top procurement officer.
Amid the first real decline in defense budgets in a decade, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta several times committed to protecting the defense industrial base from erosion due to reductions in spending. Panetta was on Capitol Hill Feb. 14 for the first of a trio of hearings this week, defending the Pentagon’s $614 billion fiscal 2013 budget request, and urging lawmakers to avoid deeper cuts to military spending that will occur if Congress fails to reach an agreement on $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction.
Northrop Grumman has filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office over the U.S. Air Force’s award to rival Raytheon of a $76.7 million radar contract. The losing contractor filed the protest Feb. 13, and the Air Force has issued a stop-work order to Raytheon in accordance with acquisition regulations.
SINGAPORE — Lockheed Martin, for the first time, has its Gulfstream GIII Airborne Multi-Intelligence Laboratory (AML) working with an unidentified customer as the company also broadens its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) offerings. The customer is using the aircraft to help develop an ISR concept of operations to specify its requirements for a program that will likely be competed, says Charles Gulledge, program manager for strategic ISR programs at Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions.
SINGAPORE — Stinging losses in high-profile fighter competitions in India and Japan have Boeing refining proposals and bid strategies as the manufacturer eyes several key international contests. The company is looking “to put some new things on the table,” says Jeff Kohler, vice president for business development at Boeing Military Aircraft. The move comes after the F/A-18E/F was eliminated early in India and also lost in Japan to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
DALLAS — French engine maker Turbomeca is seeing a rebound in business and predicts a buoyant 2012-2013 on the back of new sales and increased production. “The trough is behind us and the market is picking up again,” says Turbomeca chairman and CEO Olivier Andries. Engine deliveries climbed to 950 in 2011, a 20% increase over 2010. “We also repaired 1,450 engines, which is 10% higher than 2010.”
Like most everyone else in the federal government, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s budget request has been trimmed slightly for fiscal 2013. In documents released Feb. 13, the agency asks Congress for $44.9 billion for fiscal 2013, down from the $46.2 billion it was budgeted in fiscal 2012.
The sleeper hit of the U.S. Army’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal may just be its network and communications modernization program, as encapsulated in the Network Integration Evaluation effort that takes place twice a year at Fort Bliss, Texas. It’s there that the Army puts an entire Brigade Combat Team (BCT) in the field to take part in weeks of operational assessments of dismounted and vehicle-mounted radios, handheld devices, sensors and surveillance equipment, while linking them though a single robust battlefield network.
THE PENTAGON — The U.S. Navy has grand procurement plans for its submarine fleets — just not right now. The Navy intends to expand its contracts for its Virginia-class submarines and develop the replacement fleet for its Ohio-class ballistic missile vessels, but those plans are being stretched in the face of other increasing shipbuilding needs and decreasing funding availability.
THE PENTAGON — The U.S. Navy‘s proposed fiscal 2013 budget request anchors the aircraft carrier for the coming year and across the proposed Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), but includes a dip in the fleet size from its current number of 11 to 10. “The reduction to ten carriers is a temporary move reflecting the gap between retirement of the Enterprise and arrival of the Ford class,” notes Loren Thompson, a defense analyst for the Lexington Institute. The budget proposal adds $811 million to the CVN-78 Gerard. R. Ford budget across the FYDP.
THE PENTAGON — The U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s fiscal 2013 funding request of $7.75 billion includes a major departure for the agency’s testing regime: shelving the massive Raytheon Sea-Based X-Band (SBX) radar. MDA has long used the radar, which is mounted on a large, floating platform, for providing targeting and discrimination data during flight tests in the Pacific region.
