The Pentagon is backing a plan to craft an international coalition of F-35 buyers for a “block buy” of the single-engine fighter from Lockheed Martin to boost near-term production numbers in exchange for a discount, according to U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the U.S. program executive officer for the $398 billion effort. This is likely to be among the discussions Bogdan and Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall will have later this month with counterparts at the Farnborough air show outside London.
Responding to an auditor’s report critical of its progress toward integrating unmanned aircraft into national airspace, the FAA says it expects to complete a plan by the end of August for a phased implementation approach over five years. The Transportation Department’s Inspector General’s (IG) conclusion that FAA will miss Congress’s September 2015 deadline for integration of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the national airspace system (NAS) will come as a surprise to no one watching its progress.
LRASM LAUNCHED: Lockheed Martin has received a $200 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract for accelerated acquisition of the stealthy Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (Lrasm) after the Government Accountability Office rejected a joint protest from Raytheon and Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace. The contract provides a bridge to the transition of the air-launched Lrasm to the U.S. Navy in fiscal 2016 and to enable an early operational capability on the B-1B in 2018 and F/A-18E/F in 2019.
In observance of the U.S. Independence Day holiday, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish an issue dated July 7. The next issue will be dated July 8. Aviation Week Intelligence Network subscribers can visit awin.aviationweek.com for updates.
Increment 2 of the Gorgon Stare wide-area airborne surveillance system is operational in Afghanistan on U.S. Air Force General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft, says prime contractor Sierra Nevada Corp.
Shareholders and analysts are viewing major aluminum producer Alcoa’s $2.85 billion acquisition deal to buy the parent company of Firth Rixson, a leading provider of rings and forgings for aircraft engines, as positive not just for those companies, but even rival Precision Castparts. “Alcoa’s bullish prognosis on the aerospace outlook, particularly in engine parts, has a direct read-across to Precision Castparts’s competing businesses
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) July 14-18 — 2014 Automated Vehicles Symposium, Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport, San Francisco, Calif. For more information go to http://www.auvsi.org/avs2014/home/ July 14 -20 — Farnborough Airshow.
