Boeing is studying several options, ranging from routine checks to minor structural modifications, to reactivate the closed-out tail fuel tank on the 747-8 passenger model.
LONDON — NATO’s effort to convince members to maximize their limited defense spending by doing more together may not yield many concrete results, a senior European aerospace and defense industry official warns. The so-called “Smart Defense” initiative is not much different from ideas floated 20 years ago, and “very little has happened since then,” warns Airbus CEO and EADS CEO-designate Tom Enders.
TEL AVIV — Iran is developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a range of 10,000 km (6,200 mi.), according to Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon. “The blast that occurred in a missile base outside Tehran in November damaged that program,” says Ya’alon, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). “This missile is not aimed against Israel, the ‘small Satan,’ but against the ‘great Satan’ – the U.S.”
FRANCO-GERMAN: Germany and France are looking to further extend their defense cooperation — and thus strengthen EU capabilities — in areas including combat search and rescue and space situational awareness systems. The two have already cooperated on remote sensing, and are already partnering in the helicopter domain, with ideas for France to provide combat search-and-rescue capacity to German troops, and Germany allocating heavy-lift capacity through its CH-53s to France. Another area of joint interest appears to be counter-rocket, artillery and mortar systems.
Mergers and acquisitions activity in the aerospace and defense industry reached a record $43.7 billion in 2011, edging out the previous high from 2007 as consolidation in the commercial supply chain gained steam and underperforming defense units were spun off. A PwC study scheduled for release Feb. 7 tallied 341 acquisitions, mergers or spin-offs worth $50 million or more announced during the year.
Click here to view the pdf Top TenAerospace & Defense Acquisitions, Mergers and SpinoffsIn 2011 Top Ten Aerospace & Defense Acquisitions, Mergers and Spinoffs In 2011 Target Acquirer Category
Analysts at Forecast International (FI) say the six Gulf Cooperation Council members will combine to spend $385 billion toward defense and security through 2016, while Iraq is expected to invest $65 billion in its security forces.
The leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee are taking Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to task for undercutting their work on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — not once, but twice. On Jan. 20, Panetta lifted probation on the F-35B, the Marine Corps short-takeoff-vertical-landing variant of the jet, just about one year after the time-out, originally anticipated to be in place for two years, was imposed.
Acting Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall says it was “acquisition malpractice” to approve production of the Lockheed Martin F-35 years before the first flight of the single-engine stealthy fighter occurred. “It should not have been done,” Kendall told an audience Feb. 6 hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But we did it.”
David Van Buren, who has served as a top procurement official in the U.S. Air Force for four years, is planning to seek employment in private industry and will leave his post March 31, according to service officials. Service officials say it is “premature to speculate who and when a replacement will be named.” Van Buren held various procurement titles but has performed the role of the Air Force’s top acquisition executive since the departure of Sue Payton, the service’s last Senate-approved procurement chief, in April 2009.
AIR FORCE The Boeing Co., Long Beach, Calif., is being awarded a $1,781,413,723 firm-fixed-price contract for a modification as a Foreign Military Sales requirement for the Indian air force. Ten C-17 aircraft will be procured for the IAF. The location of the performance is Long Beach, Calif. Work is expected to be completed by July 28, 2014. ASC/WLMK, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8614-06-D-2006, DO 0009).
General aviation groups are urging U.S. regulators to withdraw LightSquared’s conditional waiver for a broadband wireless network, saying the GPS system must be protected from all sources of interference. Their comments are in response to a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) request for input on LightSquared’s December petition for a ruling that commercial GPS receivers are not entitled to protection from interference caused by a broadband wireless network operating within technical parameters set by the government.
NEED BRAC: Lawmakers are cringing at the idea, but the Pentagon remains adamant that to best deal with the budget cuts that Washington enacted into law last August, the military must be free to pursue another round of base realignment and closure (BRAC). The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, says a BRAC is already needed just to deal with the first part of the Budget Control Act’s cuts, not to mention if the full, $1 trillion effect of so-called “sequestration” is triggered. “By the way, I didn’t pass the Budget Control Act,” Dempsey says.
As of the end of January, the K-MAX unmanned helicopter had delivered over 100,000 lb. of cargo on more than 50 resupply missions in Afghanistan, according to numbers provided by Lockheed Martin, which produces the K-MAX along with Kaman Aerospace. The U.S. Marine Corps flew its first-ever unmanned cargo resupply mission in Afghanistan on Dec. 17, sending the K-MAX on a mission to supply Marines stationed at a small combat outpost with 3,500 lb. of food and equipment.
With this month’s Bold Alligator event—the East Coast’s largest joint and multinational amphibious assault exercise in the past 10 years—the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps brass hopes to tax their commanders to the limit and develop long-lasting tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) for using equipment and units.
NEW DELHI — The Indian air force (IAF) is studying present and future requirements for unmanned aerial vehicles in its fleet. “We are ready to induct more drones in view of their capability to perform specific tasks on the borders,” says IAF training command chief Air Marshal Dhiraj Kukreja. “We can have more of them if the government sanctions additional funds, as there is a cost factor to it.” Acquisition of the latest combat aircraft and warfare systems, including drones and missiles, is a continuous process.
A recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report highlights the high-wire act the U.S. Navy will need to perform to balance its shipbuilding needs with the fleet reductions slated for the upcoming fiscal 2013 budget request that supports a new national security strategy. Congress will have a lot to mull over with the budget request, according to the report, “Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress,” which was released in January before the Pentagon budget pre-briefings.
CLARION CALL: The entire, sprawling U.S. intelligence community’s leadership agrees that the U.S. “is in a type of cyber Cold War, losing some $300 billion annually to cyber-based corporate espionage, and sustaining daily intrusions against public systems controlling everything from major defense weapons systems and public air traffic to electricity and banking,” said a group of high-ranking defense officials last week that included Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr., CIA Director David Petraeus and FBI Director Robert Mueller.
LONDON — NATO defense ministers have given the go-ahead to the Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) program to acquire five Global Hawk unmanned aircraft. A contract is still being prepared with the U.S. and European industrial team in charge of supplying the unmanned aircraft and ground support infrastructure. NATO “found a practical funding solution” to go ahead with AGS, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at the conclusion of a meeting of NATO ministers Feb. 3. Libya “showed how important such a capability is,” he adds.
Lawmakers are getting behind an emerging market in civilian UAVs, setting in motion rules that would speed up the process of allowing law enforcement agencies and first responders to use pint-sized unmanned aircraft.
