ISTANBUL — Turkish state aerospace company TAI is in final preparations for the first flight of the country’s initial indigenous turboprop training aircraft. The Hurkus, named after Turkish aerospace pioneer Vecihi Hürkus, is undergoing ground engine runs and tests before the flight in June, according to TAI officials speaking to Aviation Week at the IDEF defense exhibition in Istanbul on May 7.
The South Korean defense ministry has ensured production of the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) T-50 series until at least 2016 by ordering about 40 of the type’s light-attack variant, the FA-50. The ministry’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration has given KAI a 1.1 trillion won ($1.01 billion) contract for FA-50 production, the company says. It does not disclose the number of aircraft covered by the contract, but an industry official says it is “about 40.”
A pending budget reprogramming request from the Pentagon to Congress will fill war-related gaps created by recent federal budget battles, but it will not solve growing readiness problems and other military issues triggered by sequestration, according to the No. 2. Defense Department official.
WEAK SUPPORT: Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, is questioning the Obama administration’s support for missile defense. “I continue to be concerned about what appears to be a lack of support for missile defense by this administration,” Rogers said at the opening of a hearing May 8.
Disturbed by recent reports of the cost of Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the Senate panel governing defense spending, is planning to hold a hearing in June on the nation’s largest weapons system.
ISTANBUL — BAE Systems and Turkish land systems manufacturer Nurol are exploring the potential of aircraft production in Turkey. The two companies signed an agreement on May 7 at the IDEF defense conference in Istanbul to look at what BAE Systems describes as business opportunities in Turkey and the region for its Military Air and Information products and services. The two companies already have close links; Turkish land systems company FNSS Savunma Sistemleri is a joint venture between Nurol and BAE producing a range of armored vehicles.
China’s development of a ballistic missile able to attack ships could represent a “game-changer” for the U.S. Navy mindset in that region, says Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, as the Asian nation reasserts itself as a maritime Pacific power.
ISTANBUL — Alenia Aermacchi and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) are partnering to offer the maritime patrol variant of the ATR-72 turboprop airliner.
As the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom gets ready for its Asian public debut at next week’s Imdex Asia Maritime Defense Show in Singapore, the U.S. Navy is again finding itself in the position of defending the cost and quality of the ship and the program.
Buy American advocates are mounting a fresh push on Capitol Hill to speed passage of legislation favoring U.S. companies, backed by what they claim is the most comprehensive unclassified study on offshoring’s effects on the U.S. defense industrial base and warfighting capabilities.
ISTANBUL — Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) is testing out a lightweight, rotary-wing UAV that could go on to form the basis of a shipborne platform for the country’s navy. The 300-kg (660-lb.) R-300, previously known as the R-IHA, is an enhanced version of a UAV developed by the helicopter division of TAI before 2012. The company’s UAV division took on the program during mid-2012 and has been retesting elements of the various flight control systems using a 10-kg helicopter as a testbed.
Europe’s Vega light launcher lifted off late May 6 with the European Space Agency’s Proba-V Earth-observation satellite and smaller spacecraft for Vietnam and Estonia, overcoming a weather delay at the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana to go two-for-two in successful launches. Liftoff into a 1-sec. window came at 11:06 p.m. local time (10:06 p.m. EDT) Monday, following a weather scrub at the same time on May 3.
WASHINGTON—The Pentagon’s ad hoc review of roles, missions and spending, due over the next month or so, will propose significant cost savings in nonmilitary departments while tackling health care costs through increased fees and copays and related reductions of facilities and personnel, Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter said May 7.
Advocates of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) recently passed by the U.N. General Assembly are trying to drum up political peer pressure before the treaty’s unveiling for national signatures June 3 in New York.
The U.S. Air Force and United Launch Alliance (ULA) are planning to loft Boeing GPS IIF satellite 4 on May 15 between 5:38-5:56 p.m. local time. The satellite will carry an improvement to the precision clock and it will be the first to launch on the Atlas V rocket, says Col. Stephen Steiner, chief of the space division at the service’s GPS directorate in Los Angeles.
Boeing plans to flight test radar signature reductions for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet designed to give the U.S. Navy the option of using the aircraft for first-day-of-war strikes either alongside or instead of the Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter. Conformal fuel tanks, enclosed weapons pod and signature-reduction improvements to the basic airframe, including new coatings, will be flight tested in late summer, says Mike Gibbons, F/A-18 and EA-18 vice president.
Crewmembers on the International Space Station have been experimenting with the use of ultrasound scans to image their spines, a new application for the technology that could prove useful on the ground as well. Briefing members of the Senate Commerce space subcommittee Tuesday, Expedition 35 Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn said the ultrasound instrument can help flight surgeons learn about the sometimes painful spinal recompression experienced by spacefarers when they return to gravity.
SPACEX LEASE: SpaceX signed a three-year lease for land and facilities at New Mexico’s Spaceport America for flight testing its reusable Grasshopper vertical-takeoff-and-landing rocket. Gov. Susana Martinez announced the agreement Tuesday, noting that the Hawthorne, Calif.-based company wants to expand its test envelope now that it has completed low altitude tests at its facility in McGregor, Texas.
