ARMY GREEN: The Army is undertaking a “comprehensive” review of its acquisition processes and people and will include recently mandated congressional reforms and lessons learned from eight years of counterinsurgency wars. The Pentagon says the Army review is taking place at the same time as a Pentagon-led examination of acquisition issues, and will call upon the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review and Gansler Commission Report on expeditionary contracting.
LONDON – The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority is setting aside further airspace for unmanned aircraft operations to clear the way for the pending start of Watchkeeper UAV operations. The additional segregated airspace is being created for UAVs flying at the Wiltshire aerodromes of Upavon and Boscombe Down. The new areas will formally become active on July 1.
HOUSE RULES: Boeing congressional proponents in the USAF KC-X tanker duel won a minor victory on Capitol Hill last week with an amendment to the House’s Fiscal 2011 defense authorization bill.
NEW YORK – The results of Aviation Week’s 15th annual Top-Performing Companies (TPC) study are in, with Lockheed Martin topping the rankings of large aerospace and defense contractors for an unprecedented third year in a row. But a surging Raytheon passed General Dynamics to claim second place and moved within striking distance of the top spot.
F-35 DISPUTE: Air Combat Command chief Gen. William Fraser does not agree with the Navy’s projections that the F-35 will cost more to maintain than previously expected. Officials at Naval Air Systems Command calculate a higher cost for operating the system for 65 years than the Joint Strike Fighter joint program office. The recent Navy study finds sustainment for the single-engine stealthy fighter could cost about $442 billion (in Fiscal 2002 dollars) more than planned. “We don’t agree with the Navy numbers,” Fraser tells Aviation Week.
NASA PLANNING: NASA is prohibited by Congress from spending Fiscal 2010 money on shutting down its Constellation Program of exploration to the Moon, Mars and beyond, but it is moving ahead with long-range planning for the new approach reflected in the Fiscal 2011 budget request.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) june 2 - 3 — Hegan Basque Aerospace Cluster’s Aerotrends 2010, Bilboa Exhibition Center, Teruel, Spain. For more information go to www.hegan.com/aerotrends June 8 - 13 — ILA Berlin Air Show, Berlin-Schoenefeld Airport, Berlin, Germany. For more information go to http://www.ila-berlin.coms june 13 — Royal Air Force’s Cosford Air Show. For more information go to www.cosfordairshow.co.uk/
Flight testing of micro air vehicles (MAV) in a controlled urban environment is underway in the U.S. Air Force Laboratory’s new indoor flight facility, officially dedicated on May 27 at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. The Air Force is interested in unmanned aircraft with wingspans of less than 2 ft. that can descend below rooftop level and operate in cluttered urban canyons. This requires flight testing in urban terrain in a controlled environment, says Gregory Parker, MAV team lead.
The Boeing 747SP-based Sofia observatory developed by NASA and the Germany Aerospace Center, DLR, has completed its first airborne measurements. The “first light” observations took place overnight between May 25-26 with the 747SP flying from NASA’s Dryden facility on an eight-hour mission. The aircraft reached 11,000-meters altitude, DLR says.
A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket carrying the first of 12 planned next-generation Global Positioning System satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Thursday night, following four delays for technical issues.
SOCIAL STRATEGY: Analysts and observers reacting to the Obama administration’s new National Security Strategy are focusing on President Barack Obama’s emphasis on international partnership and cooperation. “The burdens of a young century cannot fall on American shoulders alone,” Obama said ahead of the new strategy’s late-May rollout. But aside from Democratic supporters, the president ran into immediate skepticism. “The United States, the document explains, can no longer afford to be the world’s sole policeman,” says Christopher Preble of the libertarian CATO Institute.
OPEN ARCHITECTURE: The Naval Open Architecture (NOA) Contract Guidebook For Program Managers will undergo additional review of a new clause requiring contractor identification of open source software. In the meantime, a temporary version of the new NOA Contract Guidebook version 2.0, issued May 27, will serve as a collection of contracting best practices and lessons learned from implementing IT Open Architecture principles across the Navy and Marine Corps enterprise.
NAVY LASER: The U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) will continue to integrate increasingly more powerful lasers into the Navy’s Laser Weapon System Program. On May 24, NAVSEA successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed a threat representative UAV while in flight. This was the first Detect-Thru-Engage laser shootdown of a threat representative target over water in a combat scenario. A total of two UAV targets were engaged and destroyed during the testing, the second series for the Laser Weapon System Program.
According to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, Capitol Hill’s nonpartisan scorekeepers, the U.S. Navy Department’s latest long-term shipbuilding outline remains underfunded and incapable of actually growing the naval fleet. CBO’s assessment follows similar conclusions ever since the Navy first issued its so-called 313-ship plan four years ago, as well as intense scrutiny from Pentagon leadership and general Washington concerns about federal spending and proper budgeting.
The General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 engine for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter appears increasingly likely to survive at least one more year after a slew of Capitol Hill developments created a scenario where the Obama administration’s veto threat may fall victim to other priorities.
NO THANKS: Safran Chairman and CEO Jean-Paul Herteman says his company will look elsewhere for partners to shore up onboard computer and other defense electronics businesses that it had considered merging with units of Thales, according to Paris press reports. Talks with Thales broke off earlier this month and Herteman says he does not know if they can restart, despite threats by French defense officials – who favor such a tie-up – that they may withhold research and development money to force a marriage.
BEIJING – Kawasaki Heavy Industries is considering a joint venture with a foreign aerospace company to build and support a minimum-change civil version of its XC-2 airlifter, the YCX. The partner would share the cost of increasing the production rate of two to four aircraft a year that Kawasaki would handle on its own, in addition to an intended Ministry of Defense order for possibly 40 aircraft of the military version.
The U.S. Marines continue to navigate the embattled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) through the second phase of system design and development, anticipating moving into low-rate initial production (LRIP) in January 2012. “That’s halfway through the six-month window for the date I was given,” program manager Col. Keith Moore told bloggers at a Pentagon roundtable May 27. Initial operational capability is anticipated at the end of 2015, which is the result of a one-year shift in procurement money, Moore says.
Deliveries of F/A-18F Super Hornets to Australia could be stepped up to 14 by year’s end under plans now being studied by the Royal Australian Air Force. The move will save costs by cutting down the number of trans-Pacific ferry flights needed in 2011 when the balance of the RAAF’s force of 24 Super Hornets is due to be delivered. It will also give the force “more flexibility” as it stands up the operational training squadron, says Group Capt. Steve Roberton, commander of 82 Wing.
L-3 Communications and New Zealand’s Pacific Aerospace (PAC) are demonstrating the P-750 XSTOL utility aircraft in the U.S. as the Air Force here finalizes plans to acquire a fleet of basic trainers and light airlifters to be operated by the Afghan National Army Air Corps. The team has shown the 10-seat, single-turboprop P-750 to Air Mobility Command at Scott AFB, Ill., and will visit Naval Air Systems Command at NAS Patuxent River, Md., later this week. On May 24 the aircraft was on show at Tipton Airport near Fort Meade, Md.
Australian and New Zealand defense officials are studying a range of potential funding options that could lead to joint operations of a single C-17. The deal revives earlier proposals shelved for cost reasons in 2009, and would allow the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) to use a new-build C-17 for airlift and humanitarian missions. The revised plan hinges on development of a successful financing package, Boeing program sources say.
