FATAL FLIGHT: The first fatal U.S. Coast Guard aviation mishap in Hawaii since 1982 has resulted in the loss of at least three servicemembers and an HH-65A helicopter. The accident, during a search-and-rescue drill late Sept. 4, occurred while the four-person crew was performing small-boat hoists with a 47-foot motor lifeboat in waters off Honolulu. Three crew members were recovered and identified, while authorities continued to search for the fourth Sept. 5. The cause of the accident is under investigation.
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT: Boeing will install new cockpits on 11 U.S Air Force Hercules transport aircraft in 2009 under the C-130 Avionics Modernization Program (AMP). The company announced Sept. 5 it completed software development for the C-130 AMP and is ready to begin low rate initial production (LRIP) of the upgrade kits early next year. Two test aircraft are flying, with a third being modified by Boeing, but kit production will be recompeted beyond the 11 LRIP aircraft. The Air Force plans to AMP more than 200 C-130s.
NOT THERE YET: The new U.S.-Poland ballistic missile defense agreement and declaration on strategic cooperation still needs some refining, Acting Under Secretary of State for International Security and Arms Control John Rood says. One issue is a proposed Patriot antimissile battery. Rood says deployment will begin as soon the necessary agreements are reached with the Poles, and that could begin next year. The goal is to garrison a U.S. Army Patriot battery in Poland by 2012.
DENEL BOUGHT: Rheinmetall says it has completed the purchase of a 51 percent stake in Denel’s munitions business, following approval by antitrust authorities and fulfillment of other technicalities. South African-based Denel will retain a 41 percent holding. The move will allow German-based Rheinmetall to expand outside of its NATO customer base to Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America, where Denel has a strong foothold. Rheinmetall generates annual sales of $1 billion, and Denel’s munitions activity about 10 percent of that.
A total of five contracts have now been awarded for Phase 1 concept studies under the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Rapid Eye program. Rapid Eye plans to demonstrate a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned air vehicle that can be launched atop a rocket from the continental U.S. to fill a surveillance gap over anywhere in the world within two orbits (Aerospace DAILY, Sept. 2).
LONDON – The United Kingdom is considering contingency options to cover the risk of an increasing capability gap in tactical airlift as Airbus Military partner nations wait to find out the actual extent of delays to the A400M tactical military airlifter. Airbus and the European partner nations are trying to determine “what is a realistic delivery time for the aircraft,” according to Air Marshal Barry Thornton, chief of material (air) within Britain’s Defense Equipment and Support organization.
The lowering of the threat posed by Tropical Storm Hanna to Cape Canaveral means that United Launch Alliance (ULA) workers can be shifted to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., in time for a launch of the GeoEye-1 high resolution Earth imaging satellite on Saturday, Sept. 6, instead of Sept. 7.
Having just awarded the contract to develop its high-end Multi-Stage Supersonic Target, the U.S. Navy is looking toward its next planned procurement, the Subscale Subsonic Aerial Target (SSAT), intended as a follow-on to the BQM-74E as its high-fidelity anti-ship cruise missile surrogate.
Boeing’s rotorcraft division in Philadelphia will continue studies of a high-speed compound helicopter concept under the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) DiscRotor program. The design has rotating circular wing housing blades that are extended for vertical flight and retracted and stowed for forward flight at speeds up to 300-400 knots.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) deployed the Predator B Sept. 2 to provide live streaming video for damage assessment in the wake of Hurricane Gustav, representing the first time the Department of Homeland Security has deployed an unmanned aircraft for disaster response. The aircraft was launched from Corpus Christi, Texas, and surveyed levee conditions to detect damage and identify potential trouble spots. CBP’s High Endurance Tracker (Cheyenne PA-42s) and Orion P-3 reconnaissance aircraft provided pre-landfall imagery of Hurricane Gustav.
Thailand’s Theos imaging satellite remains stranded on its launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, due to a lingering overflight dispute with neighboring Uzbekistan. The 750-kilogram (1,650-pound) spacecraft is designed to supply 2-meter panchromatic and 15-meter multispectral wide-swath imagery for cartography, land use, agriculture and other products.
SPANISH ARMOR: General Dynamics (GD) Santa Barbara Sistemas said it received a $102 million Spanish Government contract through 2009 for 100 RG-31 Mk5E mine-protected vehicles for the Spanish army. The contract calls for 85 Armored Personnel Carriers, 10 ambulances and five command post variants, plus integration of Remote Controlled Weapon Station turrets and ongoing integrated logistic support. The contract includes an option for a second phase for 80 additional vehicles that will include “some” manufacturing in Spain, according to GD.
The resurgence of Russia is cause for worry, according to Lt. Gen. James Thurman, U.S. Army deputy chief of staff for operations, who says the U.S. is in a very dangerous period. “When I hear [people say] the Army is at its breaking point, I do not see that,” Thurman said Sept. 4 at an Association for the U.S. Army (AUSA) breakfast in Washington. But the recent invasion of Georgia by Russia will test the operational capacity of U.S. forces.
Crews at Kennedy Space Center started moving the space shuttle Atlantis to Launch Complex 39A on Sept. 4, after concluding that Tropical Storm Hanna would be safely offshore when it passes by on Sept. 5. Managers met at 5:30 a.m. EDT to consider the move, which will set up a scheduled Oct. 8 launch of STS-125 – the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Original plans called for moving the shuttle to the pad on Sept. 2, but managers postponed the action when Hanna began to threaten Florida’s “space coast.”
TAILLESS AHEAD: The first of two X-47B carrier demonstration system air vehicles is more than 50 percent complete and ahead of its build schedule as it proceeds toward first flight in November 2009, Northrop Grumman says. The flight-test program for the X-47B – which is aiming to be the first-ever unmanned tailless jet to land onboard a carrier – will include catapult launch and arrested landings, autonomous carrier control-area operations and precise movement of the aircraft on the ship’s flight deck.
MEDIUM TACTICAL: The U.S. Army has awarded Navistar two new contracts worth nearly $92 million, extensions of earlier military awards for Medium Tactical Vehicles and other variants of the company’s International 7000-series trucks. Navistar will provide 400 cargo trucks with increased payload (worth nearly $70 million) and another 120 tractor trailers (worth nearly $22 million). The vehicles will be delivered to the Army’s Tank and Automotive Command (TACOM) Life Cycle Management Command for use in Iraq and Afghanistan.
MOI AUSSI: Sikorsky Aerospace Services announced a five-year contract to provide Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior (MOI) with an Operations and Maintenance Support Program for the S-92, S-76 and S-434 purchased by the MOI in 2007. This contract is the second of its kind for Sikorsky in Saudi Arabia. During the early 1990s, Sikorsky provided maintenance support for the Royal Saudi Land Force Aviation Command, assisting the group with its initial stand-up operations for its fleet of Desert Hawk S-70.
ATAK COPTER: Turkey’s army has selected AgustaWestland’s T129, powered by two Light Helicopter Turbine Engine Company (LHTEC) CTS800-4A engines, as part of the Tactical Reconnaissance and Attack Helicopter (ATAK) program for the Turkish Land Forces Command. LHTEC is a joint venture between Honeywell and Rolls-Royce. Under the agreement, 50 helicopters and 100 engines including spares have been ordered in a deal valued near $96 million. The contract also provides options for an additional 40 engines.
LONDON – The U.K. Defense Ministry and EADS subsidiary Eurocopter are in the final stages of trying to negotiate a deal covering a service life extension program for 30 Royal Air Force (RAF) Puma helicopters. The program is intended to allow the Puma to remain in service until 2024, rather than be withdrawn from service in 2012. Eurocopter is already working on the assessment phase of the proposed service life extension.
LONDON – The United Kingdom will acquire three General Atomics Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) during 2009. The Royal Air Force (RAF) is currently operating two Reapers in support of combat operations in Afghanistan, with the UAVs based at Kandahar. A third Predator will be delivered in January 2009 to replace one the RAF was forced to destroy following a crash landing as a result of an engine problem.
A jury has convicted a University of Tennessee professor of unlawfully passing technical data on plasma actuators used on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to two postgraduate students, one from China and another from Iran, while he worked on a U.S. Air Force contract.
MISSION CAPABLE: The U.S. Coast Guard has awarded a contract to Integrated Coast Guard Systems to missionize the fourth HC-130J Long Range Surveillance (LRS) aircraft at Lockheed Martin in Greenville, S.C. The C-130Js replace the legacy HC-130H aircraft in the Coast Guard fleet. The new Hercules is based on the standard C-130 airframe, but with beefier engines, propellers, avionics and cargo-handling equipment. The missionized C-130J boasts a 20 percent increase in speed, 40 percent increase in range and 40 percent higher cruising altitude than its predecessor.
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate needs to improve the integrity of its project selection process to avoid the appearance of bias, according to the DHS Inspector General (IG).
