Hoping to reverse cuts in its purchase of F/A-22 Raptors, the U.S. Air Force has begun arguing that the reductions could inadvertently hurt the multiservice F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
The retooled Joint Unmanned Combat Air System program is expected to appoint a Navy flag officer to head its new joint office within the next few weeks as the program transitions from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency over to Air Force ownership.
Kimberly Johnson, Airports editor for our sister publication Aviation Daily, has embedded in Iraq with the 2nd Marine Division for three months. She is reporting for The DAILY from there, covering the performance of specific weapon systems, the realities of warfare in Iraq and other topics important to our readers. She also writes and takes photographs for "Mother of All Blogs," a Web journal about her experiences. It is located at http://www.moab-iraq.blogspot.com.
Representatives of Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., still shaking off their loss of the presidential helicopter replacement program to a Lockheed Martin Corp.-led team, are expressing cautious optimism that their consortium will win the U.S. Air Force's Combat Search and Rescue-X (CSAR-X) aircraft program.
Boeing says it will have to begin shutting down the production line for the C-17 cargo aircraft if it does not receive by January 2006 firm commitment from the Air Force for additional procurement beyond the initial program buy of 180 aircraft.
RERP MILESTONE: Technicians have installed the first engine pylon on a C-5 Galaxy Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program test aircraft, marking a "critical" milestone in the RERP effort, Lockheed Martin said Sept. 13. The RERP is the second part of a two-phase C-5 modernization program.
The U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command has given Bluefin Robotics Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., $6.6 million to design and develop the Battlespace Preparation Autonomous Undersea Vehicle, destined for the Littoral Combat Ship. Conceived as an autonomous unmanned system capable of bottom-mapping and gathering other oceanographic data to support the LCS' mine warfare mission module, it is intended for close-shore, clandestine intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and survey work.
AWS CERTIFIED: The U.S. Navy has certified that the latest advancement of the Lockheed Martin-developed Aegis Weapon System, Baseline 7, has been approved for deployment, the company said Sept. 12. The Baseline 7 AWS contains the first complete commercial-off-the-shelf Aegis advanced processing computing architecture and the new AN/SPY-1D(V) radar.
The U.S. Air Force plans to launch a program in early 2007 to examine weapons that could be adapted to destroy large, heavily defended ships at long ranges, an industry official said Sept. 12. Air Combat Command is spearheading efforts to begin the advanced concept technology demonstration (ACTD) program on maritime interdiction, said Ed Whalen, director of strike weapons business development at Lockheed Martin.
TRANSPARENT ARMOR: BAE Systems said Sept. 12 that will provide more than 1,000 Transparent Armor Gun Shields kits and spares for U.S. Marine Corps vehicles under a contract modification worth as much as $40 million. The kits will be installed on Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement units, Humvees and Logistics Vehicle Systems starting in October and continuing through next February. The U.S. Marine Corps System Command has already funded $19 million under the modification.
Metal Storm Ltd. said it lost $5.9 million in the first half of this year, up slightly from the $5.7 million loss recorded for the same period in 2004, but within company expectations. The ballistics company said it has enough money to last through September 2006 even if it doesn't generate any revenue or raise any more money until then. Company CEO and Managing Director David Smith said Metal Storm made "good progress" in the first half of the year in its drive to commercialize its technology, particularly its 40mm grenade launcher.
ARMY Rockwell Collins Inc., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was awarded on Sept. 1, 2005, a delivery order amount of $5,700,000 as part of a $5,700,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the Common Avionics Architecture System. Work will be performed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and is expected to be completed by April 26, 2008. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on March 14, 2004. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (DAAH23-03-D-0015).
AIR FORCE Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., El Segundo, Calif., is being awarded a $20,000,000 indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract to provide for T-38 and F-5 Weapon Systems Engineering Services. At this time, $2,054,000 of the funds has been obligated. This work will be complete by February 2012. Solicitation began in June 2005 and negotiations were completed in September 2005. The Headquarters Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is the contracting activity (FA8202-05-D-0004).
BAE Systems reported a profit of GBP 344 million (USD $633 million, 1.8 dollars to the pound) on sales of GBP 6.8 billion, up from earnings of GBP 237 million for the same period last year. Sales were up 13.6%, the company said last week, and earnings before interest and taxes were up 20.4%. The London-based defense and aerospace company said its defense business should grow in 2005 as much as it did in 2004, including six months' worth of results from its acquisition of United Defense Industries in the United States (DAILY, June 26).
DRS Technologies Inc. announced Sept. 12 that the U.S. Navy awarded it several new contracts worth around $43 million to design and produce power conversion, distribution and control equipment for future and existing combatant surface ships and submarines. DRS said it already started working on the contracts, which will be carried out by the DRS Power & Control Technologies unit in Milwaukee, Wis., and Danbury, Conn. The company said it expects to work through March 2007.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Satellite imagery is being used by state and local officials in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to help determine the depth of water in flooded parts of New Orleans and other areas, and thus decide how to deploy various forces, according to the director of the Joint Operations Center at U.S. Northern Command Headquarters here.
Northrop Grumman Corp. expects to test its Viper Strike munition as a standoff precision-guided weapon on the AC-130 gunship next fall, but is already in discussions with officials about deploying the platform on legacy fixed-wing aircraft such as A-10s and U.S. Marine Corps Harriers, company representatives said Sept. 12.
L-3 Communications' Canadian aerospace unit has won a U.S. Coast Guard contract to provide depot-level maintenance for up to eight C-130H Hercules aircraft, the Guard's long-range surveillance and transport backbone platform. The contract, awarded after a competitive bid process, is worth up to $20 million for all eight aircraft, L-3 said Sept. 9. Repair work will take place at SPAR Aerospace Ltd.'s facilities in Edmonton, Canada.
NAVAL DISPLAYS: The U.S. Navy has awarded Lockheed Martin Corp. $10 million more for the replacement or repair of spares for the AN/UYQ-70 Advanced Display System, including for Australia, Spain, Egypt, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Lockheed Martin MS-2 Tactical Systems is expected to wrap up its contracted work by next March, the Navy announced late Sept. 9. The system is a family of displays, processors and networks currently fielded on the Navy's new Aegis destroyers, cruisers and other surface ships, as well as E-2C Hawkeye aircraft and attack submarines.
The Northrop Grumman Corp.-EADS North America KC-30 tanker is geared toward more cargo ability than the earlier requirements for the Boeing Co.'s KC-767, a consideration not yet formally voiced by the U.S. Air Force but one that the KC-30 teammates expect to see. Martin Dandridge, Northrop Grumman sector executive vice president, told reporters at the Air Force Association's Air & Space Conference in Washington that the companies looked at the 2002 requirements for the KC-767 leasing and then anticipated newer requirements.
A contractor was not treated unfairly when the U.S. Army gave its anti-improvised explosive device technology a poor rating, the Government Accountability Office said Sept. 12. Foster-Miller Inc. (FMI) of Waltham, Mass., a subsidiary of United Kingdom-based QinetiQ, was among companies competing to improve the Counter Remote Control Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare (CREW) system.
L-3 Communications' Vertex Aerospace subsidiary will perform all maintenance and supply operations on 120 TH-57B/C Sea Ranger aircraft used to train helicopter pilots for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, as well as for international militaries, the company announced Sept. 12. L-3 Vertex has been the incumbent TH-57 program contractor since 1999. With four one-year options, the new contract's total value would reach $194 million. The TH-57 is a derivative of the commercial Bell Jet Ranger 206.
