The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is classifying its forthcoming squadron of Boeing EA-18G Growlers as a support force distinct from its air combat units, raising the possibility that the 12 electronic-attack aircraft will be added to the fast-jet fleet instead of substituting for part of it. The move may not persuade the government to pay for more fast jets than it has planned, however.
While the rest of the U.S. defense community continues to be obsessed with the effects of sequestration, the major issue for shipbuilding juggernaut Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) is the effect of the continuing resolution (CR) currently funding the government at fiscal 2012 levels. “From the beginning of this, we’ve been focused on the continuing resolution,” HII CEO Michael Petters says. With no new appropriations yet in place for fiscal 2013, which began last October, the nation’s shipbuilding programs are adrift.
NEW DELHI — India has raised its defense budget for the next fiscal year, contrary to expectations that there would be a reduction in its military spending due to economic strains. The defense allocation for the India’s fiscal year beginning April 1 is being increased by around 5% to 2.03 trillion rupees ($38 billion), from the originally allocated 1.93 trillion rupees for the year ending March 31.
BERLIN — EADS CEO Tom Enders has given up the once important target of balancing civil and defense revenues. “Maybe it is not a bad time to have a smaller rather than larger defense business,” he said at the EADS annual press conference in Berlin Feb. 27. The plan to increase defense exposure faltered when the merger with BAE Systems collapsed last year and important potential military contracts such as the U.S. Air Force tanker program were lost.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Mar. 4 — Speed News 3rd Annual Aerospace Raw Materials & Manufacturers Supply Chain Conference, Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills, Calif. For more information go to www.spednews.com/conferences.aspx mar. 5 - 6 — Aviation Week Defense Technology & Affordability Requirements, Hilton Arlington, Arlington, Va. For more information go to www.aviationweek.com/events
Bidding jointly to build the U.S. Army’s Joint Multi-Role (JMR) technology demonstrator, Boeing and Sikorsky have selected the latter’s X2 coaxial-rotor high-speed helicopter configuration as the basis of its proposal, to be submitted by March 6. The two companies have teamed to pursue the JMR technology demonstration (TD) and planned a follow-on Future Vertical Lift (FVL) Medium program to field replacements for first the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk and then the Boeing AH-64 Apache.
Andrew Mellon Auditorium Washington, D.C. March 7, 2012 The Aviation Week Laureate Awards recognize individuals and teams for their extraordinary accomplishments. Their achievements embody the spirit of exploration, innovation and vision that inspire others to strive for significant broad-reaching progress in aviation and aerospace. Join us at this black tie dinner and celebrate the best of the industry’s best! www.aviationweek.com/events/current/lau/index.htm
Would-be F-35 customers are still trying to determine if they can afford to operate the new fighter for the long term as a debate over the cost per flying hour for the stealthy aircraft continues between the Pentagon and manufacturer Lockheed Martin. And even as stakeholders try to sort out the ownership price for the aircraft, a grounding of the entire test fleet owing to an engine issue threatens to again delay its in-service date and increase the already bloated price tag to develop the aircraft.
SpaceX and NASA have cleared the Falcon9/Dragon Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for a March 1 liftoff, following a joint investigation into the first-stage engine loss that accompanied the Hawthorne, Calif.-based company’s first cargo delivery mission to the orbiting science laboratory in October.
The ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee has joined two House GOP committee chairmen in publicly questioning why a four-year federal investigation into whistle-blower charges that NASA failed to protect sensitive technology at Ames Research Center was abruptly shut down without explanation.
LONDON — The air arms of Australia and Saudi Arabia have formally inducted their new Airbus A330 tanker aircraft into service. Australia announced it had achieved initial operating capability for the aircraft — known in Australia as the KC-30A — on Feb. 26 during the Australian International Airshow at Avalon.
Sierra Nevada, with team member Embraer, has once again defeated Beechcraft for the U.S. Air Force’s Light Air Support aircraft contract for the fledgling Afghan defense forces. The winning team, offering a variant of Embraer’s A-29 Super Tucano, originally beat out Beechcraft’s AT-6 proposal in December 2011. But the Air Force was quickly forced to stop work on the contract after Beechcraft protested the source selection. Findings of government auditors prompted the Air Force to redo the competition, leading to the Feb. 27 announcement.
It was no secret that across-the-board budget cuts would reduce purchases of major defense equipment and slow deliveries, but testimony delivered to a House panel dealing with the military’s air and ground forces lays out a string of specific programmatic effects due to sequestration and continued funding under fiscal 2012 levels.
BURNING FUNDS: The Boeing KC-46 aerial refueling tanker program still has not figured out whether the significant use of management-reserve funds will affect future milestone successes, congressional auditors warn. “The contractor has already allocated about 80% of the management reserves budget, primarily for identified, yet unresolved, development risks, with the bulk of work — about five years — remaining,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported Feb. 27. “GAO maintains that significant use of these funds early in a program may indicate problems.”
Given the financial constraints, the U.S. should shy away from establishing permanent infrastructure in Arctic climes and instead focus on using temporary platforms like the U.S. Coast Guard National Security Cutter, says Adm. Bob Papp, Coast Guard commandant. “It would not be wise to invest in a permanent infrastructure on the [Alaskan] North Slope,” Papp said Feb. 27 following his State of the Coast Guard speech.
LITTLE CREEK, Va. — As the U.S. Navy continues its more rigorous fleet reviews as part of required vessel inspections by Board of Inspection and Survey (Insurv) teams, cyber readiness is emerging as the major ongoing concern. “Ships can undergo cycles of readiness,” says Rear Adm. Robert Wray, board president and the top Navy Insurv officer. “But we always have to be ready in the cyber realm. We can never afford to be ‘unready’ there.”
Using a special congressional provision granted last September, the U.S. Navy awarded an estimated $40 million contract modification Feb. 27 to Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) for additional advance planning efforts to prepare for the Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH) of the CVN-72 USS Abraham Lincoln carrier and its reactor plants. Funds being used for this extension are from an Above Threshold Reprogramming (ATR) approved by Congress, a Navy official says.
BERLIN — EADS defense division Cassidian has seen its earnings fall nearly 60% in 2012 in the face of the downturn in defense spending. While Cassidian’s declines were offset by a successful year for the Airbus Commercial and Military businesses, its earnings fell to €142 million ($185 million) in 2012, compared to €331 million in 2011. Revenues also dipped slightly by 1% to €5.74 billion, although the company’s order intake rose to €5 billion in 2012 compared to €4.2 billion in 2011, according to EADS’ annual results, revealed in Berlin Feb. 27.
House Republicans are moving forward with a plan to pass a continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown at the end of March that assumes across-the-board budget cuts will be in effect. The continuing resolution would fund the government at fiscal 2012 levels, except for the Pentagon, military construction and veterans affairs. It would fund the military using a version of the fiscal 2013 defense spending bill passed by the House last year.
