HERCULES BUY: The U.S. Air Force has finalized its contract with Lockheed Martin for six new C-130 Js for Air Force Special Operations Command. The $470 million contract includes the buys in fiscal 2009; long-lead funding for the HC and MC-130 replacements is set aside in FY ‘08 These are the first of up to 68 approved by the Defense Dept.
Alenia Aeronautica has flown the first C-27J Spartan Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) for the U.S. Army at its Caselle plant in Turin, Italy. The 40-minute first-flight on June 16 was conducted in poor weather, Alenia says, and focused on functional checks. It marks the beginning of a 70-hour flight-test and 180-hour ground-test program, the majority of which will be conducted at Caselle.
ISIS RISES: Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman will compete to build a subscale stratospheric surveillance airship demonstrator in the third phase of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Integrated Sensor Is Structure (ISIS) program.
NEW DELHI – Indian defense minister A.K. Antony is cautioning defense scientists to reduce their over-dependence on foreign countries and suppliers for “cutting-edge technologies.” Antony’s June 14 speech had overtones of the sanction era when the U.S imposed restrictions on exports following India’s nuclear tests. He was inaugurating a new building of the Defense Avionics Research Establishment (DARE) in Bangalore. Trouble
RIDLEY PARK, Penn. – Boeing representatives are preparing to host a Turkish coalition at the company’s manufacturing facility here, just weeks after having visited Turkey to discuss the potential Foreign Military Sale (FMS) of ten CH-47 Chinook helicopters.
Lockheed Martin plans to complete 20 flights with the first F-35B Joint Strike Fighter in conventional “up and away” mode before replacing the engine to allow short take-off and landing (STOVL) tests to begin. Aircraft BF-1 is expected to fly twice more this week after completing its 45-minute first flight on June 11. It has joined aircraft AA-1, a conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) F-35A, in the test program.
DRS C3 Systems has won congressional investigators’ backing to get U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to reconsider an $83 million award to General Dynamics (GD) Advanced Information Systems for common enterprise display system (CEDS) display consoles.
The Phoenix Mars lander’s organic chemistry instrument is about half way through its first multi-day/multi-temperature heating cycle in a search for water ice and organics on the Martian surface. At the same time, the lander’s robotic arm is beginning to dig deeper at one location to the left front of the vehicle, while also reaching further right to start a new trench in more pillow-like material. The pillow-like soil is at the center of a soil polygon at the landing site, while the deepening trench is in a liner depression.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) apparently has dealt another blow to Alabama Aircraft Industries Inc.’s (AAII) dwindling hopes of wresting a $1 billion contract for KC-135 programmed depot maintenance (PDM) from Boeing Aerospace Operations. According to AAII – formerly Pemco Aeroplex – it learned June 13 that GAO had denied a protest it filed in March challenging the Air Force’s selection of Boeing to maintain and overhaul the KC-135 tanker fleet (Aerospace DAILY, March 13).
ARMY CAS, Inc., Huntsville, Ala., was awarded on Jun. 6, 2008, a $9,044,536 cost-plus fixed fee contract for mission and sustainment support for the rapid aerostat initial deployment product office. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Ala., and is expected to be completed by Jun. 2, 2010. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. One bid was solicited on May 5, 2005. U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Contracting and Acquisition Management Office, Huntsville, Ala., is the contracting activity (W9113M-05-C-0134).
MORE SIMS: Redstone Arsenal’s Cargo Helicopter Project Management Office, responsible for the U.S. Army’s CH-47 fleet, is slated to get more CH-47 Transportable Flight Proficiency simulators under a $37 million contract with WestWind Technologies. The program includes production of five build-to-print units and associated spares. Deliveries will begin in January 2009, with the final delivery the following October.
NASA is reserving about 500 pounds of its weight margin in the Ares I crew launch vehicle to accommodate modifications to solve a potentially dangerous thrust-oscillation problem, but overall the new vehicle development is progressing well as it passes preliminary design review (PDR) for its shuttle-derived first stage.
The U.S. Army is finding that the cost of aviation accidents can really add up, having incurred about $4.08 billion in accident costs as a result of 387,000 accidents since the early 1970s, according to an Aerospace Daily analysis of Army-provided service aviation data. To put that in perspective, that’s more money than the Army budgeted to buy or rebuild 22 CH-47 Chinooks in fiscal years 2008-09 and to procure 63 UH-60 Black Hawks in the coming fiscal year.
A war of words over what war to build for continues to simmer inside Washington, with watchdogs at the Center for Defense Information’s (CDI) Straus Military Reform Project questioning FCS in yet another report.
SOFTWARE NEEDS: DOD should boost its sponsorship of software research to support the management of engineering risk in large systems, software quality assurance, and cutting down requirements-related risk in unprecedented systems without sacrificing capability, according to a new report from federally funded researchers. The Committee on Advancing Software-Intensive Systems Producibility was appointed by the National Research Council to assess national investments in software research – and specifically, where industry’s inherent trends may not meet the Pentagon’s needs.
GREEN AVIATION FORUM • September 23, 2008 • Madrid, Spain Don’t miss the second annual AVIATION WEEK Management Forum dedicated to green initiatives in the airline industry, including: emissions treading; carbon offsets; and air traffic management improvement. Learn more at www.aviationweek.com/forums or call +1.212.904.3195.
With the majority of U.S. Army personnel accidents occurring during off-duty hours, Brig. Gen. William Forrester, commander of the service’s Combat Readiness/Safety Center, is calling for a more personal touch. The statistics show the 65 percent of fiscal 2008 accidental fatalities are due to incidents in privately owned vehicles. Nearly a third of those involve motorcycles. He wants families to get involved and he’s looking for soldiers to seek better company. In a letter this month to Army personnel, Forrester highlights the program.
It’s time to take climate data off the research project shelf and start delivering it 24/7 like weather news, says the head of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “We don’t have a single authoritative service for climate information. We have research science information,” NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher told a House Aerospace Caucus luncheon last week. “There should be a national climate service that provides basic information,” the retired Navy vice admiral said.
LONDON – Brazil is re-starting competition for a long-running multi-role fighter requirement that could see up to 120 of the selected type procured by the mid-2020s. The country’s F-X2 program calls for initial delivery of the first batch of 36 aircraft starting in 2014. The request for information (RFI) released earlier this month is limited to the Boeing F/A-18E/F, Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab Gripen NG, and Sukhoi Su-35 variant of the basic Su-27 Flanker.
