Israel's self-examination of last summer's military debacle in Lebanon may have missed a critical factor. Senior Israeli Air Force officers are saying privately that there's a deeper story of professional jealousy and bureaucratic intrigue. The preliminary report of the Winograd commission faults Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and IDF chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dani Halutz, for the muddled operations against Hezbollah.
The F-22 Raptor will start tests this month with software to use wide area interflight data links (IFDLs) that will enable a four-aircraft team of F-22s to trade data with another team of four Raptors, said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Riemer, the new Raptor program executive officer. The IFDL test is part of an Air Force effort to develop better data links between Raptors and with other aircraft to share the enormous amount of situational awareness data the F-22 can collect, Riemer told the Daily May 2 in his first media interview in his new role.
Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee will push to reinstate authorized funds for the Airborne Laser (ABL) and missile defense spending, including proposed ground-based midcourse interceptors (GBMIs) in Eastern Europe, according to two strategic forces subcommittee members. The lawmakers, whose party used to control of Congress, so far have signed on with Democrats' fiscal 2008 defense authorization subcommittee language, but said they are crafting amendments to offer in the full committee's markup May 9 on the House floor later this month.
FUL FUNDING: The HASC unconventional and terrorism subcommittee has fully funded the related fiscal 2008 budget requests and even boosted a few with additional funds. For instance, the Special Operations Command's Predator unmanned aerial vehicle request was fully funded, and the panel added $10 million more for SOCOM UAV ISR efforts.
TROJAN WORK: CACI International said May 2 that it has been awarded a task order by the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research Development and Engineering Center's Intelligence and Information Directorate to support system development and fielding of the Army's TROJAN satellite communications systems. The three-year effort has a potential value of $149.7 million, the company said. CACI will engineer, integrate, test and deploy TROJAN systems worldwide with the Army, following its TROJAN work through other contracts.
The Air Force and F-22 Raptor contractors team is only a couple of weeks away from completing negotiations for a multiyear procurement contract that could serve as a foundation for additional aircraft buys beyond the deal and become a template for other similar deals. The multiyear deal will provide the promised $225 million in savings over the proposed three years, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Riemer, the new Raptor program executive officer, told the Daily May 2 in his first media interview in his new job.
Top space scientists say their community is willing to do its part to help contain costs on spacecraft hardware and operations, a significant shift from last year's us-versus-them debates that pitted scientific probes against human exploration as NASA absorbed a $4 billion cut in its five-year science accounts.
A Naval Sea Systems command report recommends the service take a look at nuclear or mixed power plants for other ships to allay growing fuel demands. "The Navy should consider ship options with nuclear power and combined plant architectures (e.g., diesels combined with gas turbine boost) in studies for future surface combatants and amphibious warfare ships," said the report, "U.S. Navy Report: Alternative Propulsion Methods for Surface Combatants and Amphibious Warfare Ships," released May 3.
Walter M. (Wally) Schirra, one of NASA's original astronauts and the only one to have flown in space on board Mercury, Gemini and Apollo vehicles, died May 2 at the age of 84. His family asked that the cause of death be reported as "natural causes." Schirra was already a Korean War air combat veteran with two confirmed MiG kills from U.S. Air Force F-86s when he was accepted as one of the Mercury 7 astronauts in April 1959.
A freight train carrying redesigned solid rocket motor (RSRM) segments for two upcoming space shuttle flights derailed May 2 when a bridge collapsed beneath it.
Singapore's defense ministry is replacing its air force's E-2Cs with four Gulfstream 550 Airborne Early Warning aircraft (G550-AEW). The decision, first announced on the ministry's Web site, was confirmed by Gulfstream on May 2. Teo Chee Hean, Singapore's defense minister, is quoted as saying the Gulfstreams "will significantly enhance" his country's airborne early warning and surveillance, a capability he described as "critical."
PILOT TRAINING: The first 12 student pilots from the South Korean air force have begun training in the Korea Aerospace Industries/Lockheed Martin T-50 Golden Eagle jet trainer.
The international market for self-propelled artillery will produce more than 4,500 self-propelled artillery systems worth more than $13.51 billion through 2016, says the Forecast International Weapons Group in its annual analysis "The Market for Self-Propelled Artillery Systems." Most armies tend to rely on tried-and-true older designs, such as the classic BAE Systems Land & Armaments (formerly United Defense LP) M109 series, said Dean Lockwood, a weapons systems analyst at Forecast International.
SANDBLASTER: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Sikorsky Aircraft's Sandblaster counter-brownout program initially will focus on Black Hawk helicopters, and the project should wrap up in 18 months, the company said May 2. Sikorsky is promising a package of integrated sensors, pilot-vehicle interface and flight control systems to address the problem, which can blind pilots when landing in dusty areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S.
JAGM PROMOTED: The Pentagon is requesting $68.5 million in the fiscal 2008 defense budget, $53.5 million via the Army, to cut programmatic risk and boost "seeker" technology for the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile, the reincarnated Joint Common Missile. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Castellaw, deputy commandant for aviation, says a low-collateral damage, precision-guided weapon for moving targets is "critical" for the Corps as the aviation community struggles to replace aging TOW, Hellfire and Laser Maverick weapons.
A House Armed Services subcommittee on May 2 added $2.4 billion to fund 10 additional C-17 cargo lifters while allowing for the retirement of giant C-5 lifters, as Democrats focused their defense authorization bill on the needs of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Air Force would be authorized to begin retiring C-5A Galaxy cargo aircraft and replacing them with newer C-17 Globemaster IIIs when its total cargo fleet reaches 299 aircraft under a measure approved by the HASC Air-Land subcommittee.
DARK CLOUDS: Problems with deliveries on the NH90 helicopter and Airbus A380 are going to hurt Stork earnings this year, and it may be until 2009 that a full recovery will materialize, the company says in its first quarter earnings report. Operating income for the first three months was 25 million euros, up slightly from the 2006 result. The aerospace sector will have a negative contribution for the year. For its aerospace industry operation, "the dark clouds have certainly not yet cleared away," Stork CEO Sjoerd Vollebregt said.
Having completed activation of the Pentagon's first wing dedicated to unmanned aerial vehicle operations - the 432nd -- the Air Force is continuing its hunt for greater and more effective bandwidth. The growth of UAVs is putting an increasing strain on bandwidth resources, said Col. Charlie Bartlett, the Air Force deputy director for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.
Britain's long-awaited Type 45 anti-air warfare destroyers are on the way, with the first-of-class ship, HMS Daring, due to enter service in 2009. Meanwhile, VT Shipbuilding announced May 2 that it has successfully delivered the bow section of the third Type 45, the future HMS Diamond, to the Govan shipyard in Glasgow, Scotland, which is owned by Type 45 prime contractor BAE Systems.
COMM SAT: Telenor has awarded a contract to Thales Alenia Space to build a new communications satellite, Thor 6, for high-power direct-to-home TV applications. The 36 transponder Ku-band spacecraft, to enter service in mid-2009, will serve the Nordic countries and Central and Eastern Europe. It was the first telecom sat award for the manufacturer since it was taken over by Thales. It followed an award for a first Global Monitoring for Environment and Security spacecraft, Sentinel-1, on April 18.
The House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee is recommending Congress cut the boost-phase Airborne Laser missile defense effort by $400 million, re-evaluate nuclear weapons policy while slowing the Reliable Replacement Warhead, (RRW) and bar the Pentagon from deploying Trident nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles as converted, conventional prompt global strike weapons.
