Supply Chain

Ask the Editors: Exports will be critical for both the Tempest and FCAS programs.

A committee of UK lawmakers has called upon the country’s defense ministry to stop doing business with British companies owned by Chinese or Russian parents.

What leaders should do when we again are free to move about.

Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon’s leading contractor by sales, will prove its “culture of cash” for shareholders in the coming years after returning almost $4 billion in dividends and share buybacks in 2020 despite the COVID-19 crisis, tempered F-35 deliveries and slowing space work near term.

Consensus is that spending will be flat in the first term of the Biden administration, but analysts are not clear on what this means.

Ask the Editors: USAF pushed the Northrop Grumman B-21 bomber’s first flight from December 2021 to mid-2022. What does that mean?

Customers of TransDigm Group expect to pay roughly 2% higher prices this year from the key aerospace and defense parts provider, compared with an average of just 0.8% more across the whole aerospace supplier base, according to new survey results from Jefferies analysts.

Airbus Helicopter is proposing its H175 twin-engine super-medium rotorcraft as a potential replacement for the UK Royal Air Force’s (RAF) aging fleet of Airbus Puma medium-lift platforms.

Jack London, the longtime face of and driving force behind government services contractor CACI International, has died at age 83, the company announced late Jan. 20.

Leading Tier 1 supplier Spirit AeroSystems and the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) have inaugurated a new kind of federally backed, discounted-rate lending for aerospace suppliers—beginning with a $40 million transaction based on receivables from Spirit’s lower-tier providers.

A British aircraft parts supplier says it has halted supplies of fuel systems to Turkish unmanned aircraft OEM Baykar Makina after discovering the system had been used in Baykar’s Bayraktar TB2 combat unmanned air system.

The Pentagon on Jan. 13 formally unveiled the Trusted Capital Digital Marketplace, a network for preapproved U.S. investor groups to match with technology startups deemed interesting enough to U.S. national security agencies to guard against Chinese or other foreign investment stakes.

As more women and minorities rise through the ranks in aerospace engineering, they will bring their own cultures with them.

If an industry premised on uniting humanity cannot gather, then what hope is there? The answer is: Plenty, just a little less for salespeople.

Michele Evans, the executive vice president for Aeronautics at Lockheed Martin, died on Jan. 1, the company said.

COVID-19 may force companies to change their supply chains, workforces and digital resilience.

Air shows are primarily about the enormous and intricate industry that creates ever-improving platforms and systems.

If successful, the deal bolsters Lockheed against large primes while providing the best outcome for AJR after overhaul in recent years.

Lockheed Martin announced on Dec. 28 that it had delivered 120 F-35As in 2020, a year complicated by supply chain disruptions of the program’s global production system.

Aerospace supplier Moog has acquired avionics provider Genesys Aerosystems of Mineral Wells, Texas, from McNally Capital and Genesys managers for about $77.7 million, the companies announced late Dec. 21.

The agreement on the all-cash transaction includes a $5 per share, pre-closing special dividends to Aerojet’s shareholders, reducing the post-dividend value of the deal to $4.6 billion.

Private equity firm Charger Investment Partners late Dec. 15 announced it had acquired a majority stake in Advanced Composite Products and Technology.

Despite the pandemic, the industry continued to make progress in sustainability, space, aviation safety and more.

Aerospace and defense supplier Curtiss-Wright announced Dec. 3 that Lynn Bamford, currently president of the company’s Defense and Power Segments, will become CEO on Jan. 1 under a planned transition that sees current CEO and Chairman David Adams retiring by May 2022.

Japan’s roles in the defense and commercial aviation supply chains make it a powerhouse.