MERLIN DEBUTS: An Italian Navy EH-101 Merlin made its debut on the South Lawn of the White House last month. The aircraft, leased brand new from the Italians by the U.S. Navy, is called test vehicle 1 (TV-1) and is being used as a surrogate for preparatory work to the first VH-71 presidential helicopter deliveries, beginning in September, from a Lockheed Martin/AgustaWestland team. The aircraft, which is a similar configuration to the VH-71, conducted what Navy officials say are "successful" downwash tests at the White House.
Having recently submitted revised proposals for the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA), program competitors Team JCA and the C-27J Team both say the Army and Air Force will likely find new missions for the aircraft, leading to a larger fleet size. The current plan calls for 75 aircraft for the Air Force and another 70 for the Army. But officials for both companies say the services don't yet realize the utility of the aircraft and are likely to discover more areas where it can be deployed.
GCCS-M REWORKED: Northrop Grumman Defense Mission Systems should receive up to $34 million to get Global Command and Control System-Maritime (GCCS-M) Increment 4.1 to Milestone C and to obtain full-rate production, as well as reworking the current version of the government's off-the-shelf GCCS-M 4.1 software, according to a Jan. 31 announcement from the Defense Department.
As the Air Force hunts for more missions for the F-22 Raptor, it may be pushing the aircraft into roles meant for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report says. "It appears that by making the F-22A more of a multirole combat aircraft, the Air Force is blurring the distinction between the Raptor and the Joint Strike Fighter," said Christopher Bolkcom, CRS Specialist in National Defense Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division in his Jan. 24 report, "F-22A Raptor."
COSTLY CAPABILITIES: Some fear that adding new capabilities at this relatively late stage in the F-22A program could increase costs by complicating the program and stretching out its development, the Congressional Research Service recently reported. Resolving instability problems with the F-22A's advanced avionics has been one of the biggest cost drivers in the development program, the report said. Adding a new feature such as an air-to-ground radar, some argue, could jeopardize the progress that has been made in the avionics software, CRS said.
C-5AS RETIRING: The Air Force has plans to retire C-5A model aircraft instead of re-engining and modernizing them later in the decade. That would enable the service to possibly buy more C-17s, said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. But Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group said the funding saved from not doing the C-5 work could come too late to get the C-17s before that production line is halted.
The C-17 Globemaster III Sustainment Partnership program between Boeing and the Defense Department reached a fleet-wide mission capable rate of 85.4 percent in 2006. This covered 150 aircraft at the beginning of 2006 and grew to include 165 C-17s by the end of the year. The 2006 rate is a 2.2 percent increase over the 83.2 percent mission capable rate in FY 2005. The C-17 program's goal for 2007 is 87.5 percent.
HELO DEAL: Industry sources say EADS is attempting to convince France and Saudi Arabia to fold a range of pending helicopter buys into a single framework deal so that economies of scale could permit Saudi industry to have a major role in assembly, parts production and product support and allow EADS' Eurocopter affiliate to acquire a local industrial beachhead. The purchases are thought to total 150 units, including 10 NH90 frigate helicopters and 35 EC130s for training applications, expected to be concluded this year.
HOT TOPIC: Investigators working for NASA's inspector general have confiscated computers and interviewed political appointees in the agency's public affairs shop as a congressionally requested probe into political spinning of government-funded climate-change research results comes to a head. Among those who have had to turn over their laptops to the IG's gumshoes is Dean Acosta, Administrator Michael Griffin's former press secretary, who has since left the agency.
U.S. Army Gen. George Casey said Feb. 1 that if confirmed to be the next Army chief of staff (CSA), his top priority will be equipping and training soldiers for combat, followed by resetting the embattled force and then trying to underpin future investments such as Future Combat Systems.
Already years behind in an effort to develop an air traffic program to provide better national security situational awareness, the Air Force now is pushing ahead with the next phase of the network for tactical mobile versions of the system. In doing so, the service could be discounting existing systems that have already proven themselves capable of protecting the president, guarding the nation's capital and providing the technological backbone for NORAD tactical missile defense systems, according to sources familiar with these types of systems.
U.S. Air Force officials argue that one reason for apparent delays and cost growth in its Battle Control System (BCS) program, meant to help prevent future aerial terrorist attacks, is because of spiral development.
A near-Earth asteroid or comet could be an early target for human explorers under some blue-sky thinking under way at NASA's exploration shops on using a hybrid of planned U.S. launch vehicles for the mission.
SPACE PACT: France and the U.S. have inked a space cooperation agreement to facilitate joint work in civil space endeavors. The two nations already cooperate on a wide range of missions, including the Topex-Poseidon oceanography and A-Train climate research programs, and are planning to work together in moon and Mars exploration as well.
DEFENSE DEAL: Esterline Technologies Corp. has agreed to pay $335 million for CMC Inc., a privately-owned Canadian defense avionics supplier. CMC has annual sales of 205 million Canadian dollars ($174 million) and employs 1,100 in Montreal, Ottawa and Chicago. Its top three customers are the U.S. and Canadian governments and Sikorsky Aircraft.
Sea Launch reports "limited damage" to the Odyssey Launch Platform following the Jan. 30 explosion at liftoff of a Zenit-3SC rocket carrying the SES New Skies NSS-8 communications satellite, causing an estimated $300 million loss counting the booster and payload. "While it has sustained limited damage, the integrity and functionality of essential marine, communications and crew support systems remains intact," the company said in a statement.
CHANGING SUBJECT: A new take on old Chinese proverbs may well be: "When the winds of global public opinion are blowing against you, change the subject." This is what the official Chinese government newspaper "The China People's Daily" has done. It totally ignored the destruction of the FY-1C polar orbit weather satellite by a Chinese anti-Satellite Weapon on Jan. 11, but instead reports how China is about to launch a brand new polar orbit weather satellite to replace older versions.
