LONDON — Thales’ Watchkeeper unmanned aircraft program and BAE Systems’ Falcon communications effort have made enough progress to avoid being among the first to be put on the U.K. defense ministry’s new Projects of Concern list, but the Valiant Jetty failed to dodge the political bullet.
LONDON — Brazil is starting to introduce upgraded P-3AM Orion anti-submarine warfare aircraft to its fleet after a 15-year gap in ASW capability. The first upgraded P-3 is being inducted into service on Sept. 30. The Brazilian government bought 12 aircraft and nine are being upgraded by Airbus Military, including installation of the Fully Integrated Tactical System and improved avionics. Two of the nine aircraft have completed the process, the Brazilian air force says. The three remaining aircraft acquired from the U.S. will serve as spares.
HOUSTON — In a corporate first, Lockheed Martin brought examples of its wide-ranging technology to Johnson Space Center this past week in an effort to promote its skills as NASA embarks upon a fiscally constrained but no less technically challenging new era of human space exploration.
With federal deficit-reduction efforts in full swing, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drawing to a close, and a history as the U.S. military’s back bench, the National Guard could easily return to postwar oblivion. But in this post-9/11 austerity era, the hybrid military group’s supporters have a different, much stronger future in mind, and now they seem on the cusp of achieving it.
HELO TURBULENCE: Ongoing talks over what defense programs to delay or kill as U.S. leaders debate a debt-reduction plan are starting to take their toll. The Air Force is notifying contractors that its planned release of a draft request for proposals for the Common Vertical Lift Support Platform, which will replace aging nuclear support and executive transport Hueys, has been delayed indefinitely from its expected release in early September.
TURKISH WHEELS: The Turkish defense procurement agency, SSM, has formally begun the competition to procure 27 units for its amphibious assault vehicle (AAV) program. Potential bidders have until Oct. 7 to formally apply to receive the request for information protocols, and have until Nov. 28 to respond. SSM plans to buy, on behalf of the Turkish naval forces command, 27 armored amphibious assault vehicles. Of these, 21 will serve as AAV- personnel, three as AAV-recovery and three as AAV-command.
PARIS — NASA’s inability to commit to a two-pronged mission to Mars with the European Space Agency mid-decade has left ESA looking for a ride to the red planet in 2016.
MADRID — With the in-service date for the Airbus Military A400M now set for no later than March 2013 for lead customer France, the country is working to lock in its initial support agreement for the military transport. France and the U.K. have agreed to work together on supporting the airlifter, but because the French air force gets the aircraft about 18 months ahead of the Royal Air Force, a first increment contract will be signed to cover that period, according to Stephan Miegel, Airbus Military’s head of A400M customer services.
Production of aviation biofuels from grasses, crop residues and forest resources is the focus of $136 million in research and development grants awarded to five projects by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Funded under the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, the university-led, five-year projects aim to develop regional renewable-energy supply chains, creating rural jobs while commercializing the production of sustainable biofuels.
LONDON — In a bid to foster the growth of its defense industrial base, the Brazilian government has authorized a new scheme aimed at reducing the tax burden on companies to foster accelerated technological advancement. On Sept. 29, President Dilma Rousseff signed the new policy, which was drafted by a number of government organizations, including the defense and industry ministries.
The U.S. is trying to strengthen its military ties with China, but stressed geopolitical relationships and related tensions are making it difficult to maintain bonds between the two countries, according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.“U.S. officials have faced challenges in cooperation from the PLA [People’s Liberation Army],” the CRS says. The PLA has blamed “obstacles” including arms sales to Taiwan, legal restrictions on contacts, and the Pentagon’s reports to Congress on the PLA.
HARVEST HAWK: The U.S. Marine Corps Harvest Hawk quick-reaction weaponization kit for its C-130 refuelers has taken down 18 Taliban fighters, says Lt. Gen. Terry Robling, aviation commandant. This quick-reaction kit features wing-mounted Hellfires, a targeting pod and ramp-launched Griffin weapons. Marines have fired fewer Griffins than Hellfires because the former requires pilots to decrease altitude to depressurize the cabin. Fifty-two Griffins have been fired from the Harvest Hawk in Afghanistan, Robling says. Two kits have been delivered with a third in build.
PARIS — An International Launch Services (ILS) Proton M/Breeze M rocket launched the QuetzSat-1 telecommunications satellite from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, releasing the SES spacecraft into geostationary transfer orbit following a 9-hr. 13-min. mission, the companies announced Sept. 30.
As the U.S. Navy revs up its DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer production line, the service is also getting the older vessels back into ship-shape condition in preparation for more rigorous deployments to meet expanded ballistic missile defense (BMD) requirements. The Navy this past week awarded new DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyer contracts for up to three ships for a potential total of $2 billion, including options. So far this year, the service has signed deals for up to four ships worth up to $2.8 billion.
The F-35s in low-rate initial production (LRIP) Lot 4 are expected to exceed their contracted cost target, but fall below the negotiated ceiling price, says Tom Burbage, vice president of F-35 program integration for Lockheed Martin.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) OcT. 12 - 13 — Aviation Week 5th Edition, Lean Six Sigma for MRO Forum - Americas, Crowne Plaza San Francisco International Airport Hotel, San Francisco, Calif. For more information go to www.aviationweek.com/events
Marshall Larsen may soon find himself running an aerospace empire. Larsen is the chairman, president and CEO of Goodrich, which has agreed to be acquired by United Technologies Corp. (UTC ) in an $18.4 billion deal. When the transaction was unveiled Sept. 22, UTC said Larsen would run a new operation that was widely assumed to include Goodrich and UTC’s Hamilton Sundstrand, a leading supplier of aircraft control systems.
HERCULES DELIVERIES: Lockheed Martin has delivered C‑130Js to four new customers in a week. The first units of a planned 37 HC-130J combat-rescue tankers were handed over to U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command on Sept. 24 and Air Education and Training Command on Sept. 29. The first of a planned 69 MC-130J Combat Shadow II transports was delivered to USAF Special Operations Command on Sept. 29. Four C-130Js were delivered to the Qatar Emiri Air Force on Sept. 28 at Lockheed’s Marietta, Ga., plant.
U.S. plans to sell Taiwan upgrades for its Lockheed Martin F-16A/Bs rather than new F-16C/Ds look set to kick-start the market to retrofit the popular fighter with active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radars. The proposed $5.3 billion sale notified to Congress includes 176 AESAs, either Northrop Grumman’s Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) or the Raytheon Advanced Combat Radar (RACR). Both have been flight tested in U.S. Air Force F-16s (Aerospace DAILY, Sept. 28).
LONDON — Ultra Electronics is continuing its acquisition spree, adding AEP Networks in a $57.5 million deal. It is the third deal for Ultra this year, with more expected before year’s end. Depending on AEP’s financial results for the current year, Ultra may lay out another $17.5 million for the company.
After multiple attempts to field a single replacement for the Hellfire, TOW and Maverick missiles, the U.S. Army may once again find itself without support for the project. The U.S. Army has been slated to select a contractor to build the so-called Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) by year’s end. Raytheon and Boeing are pitted against Lockheed Martin for the work.
A decade of wartime contracting apparently has not been long enough for the U.S. Defense Department to get its contracting policies straight, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). While the Pentagon has spent $166.6 billion on reconstruction and stabilization efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002, many of those contracts have not yet been closed, which the report says is “a key step to ensure the government receives the goods and services it purchased at the agreed-upon price.”
NEW DELHI — When India did not shortlist either of the U.S. fighter offerings in its large Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft competition, it raised questions whether something was amiss with the defense-industrial relationship between the two sides. But U.S. industry still looks to have access to this growth market. The latest sign is that after seven months of on-again, off-again talks, India’s effort to re-engine more than 100 of its Sepecat Jaguar strike aircraft is finally moving forward, with indications that Honeywell will land the deal.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) engineers have concluded it may be possible to modify the company’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle to make it fully reusable, a feat SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk says could cut the cost of access to orbit “a hundred-fold.”
