Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

LONDON – The British government has approved the £4 billion ($5.2 billion) takeover of defense company Cobham by U.S. private equity firm Advent. Late

WASHINGTON – The U.S. FAA has pledged to release a draft rule prescribing a means to identify drones from the ground by the end of December. After

BOEING has $1.46b U.S. Army contract for support services for AH-64D/Es for Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Netherlands, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates.

The Senate on Dec. 20 voted 81-11 to pass a fiscal 2020 national security spending package that would provide $738 billion in funding and establish a Space Force.

The U.S. military is immediately assigning over 16,000 personnel to the new entity.

NASA could be a year away from having a cost estimate for accelerating its lunar plans.

The U.S. Air Force has ended its three-month ban on KC-46A cargo and passenger operations.

Argentina will purchase four Lockheed P-3Cs retired by the U.S. Navy.

Joby Aviation has signed an agreement with Uber that makes it the first developer of an eVTOL aircraft to commit to meet the Uber Elevate initiative’s 2023 target to deploy commercial urban aerial ridesharing services.

Consumers are becoming more aware of urban air mobility, but also more concerned about its safety, a survey says.

President Trump is expected to sign two minibus appropriations bills that include a provision allowing NASA to buy more Russian Soyuz seats to launch U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station.

The Japanese defense ministry has published a new design for the country’s next fighter.

Space launch provider Virgin Orbit says it has delivered a flight-worthy LauncherOne rocket to its Mojave, California facility and is poised to

U.S. startup Skyryse has flown a Robinson R44 light helicopter converted to autonomous flight control.

Spirit AeroSystems, the leading supplier of 737 aerostructures to Boeing, announced Dec. 20 that it will stop producing new 737 aerostructures and halt deliveries to its OEM customer on Jan. 1, 2020.

South Korean automaker Hyundai will unveil its first eVTOL PAV concept at the CES 2020 consumer electronics show in Las Vegas.

Local production of the Sikorsky UH-60J has suffered the largest cut in the defense budget for the coming fiscal year OK'd by Japan.

Boeing and NASA were working to preserve as many test objectives as possible for the unmanned orbital debut of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner after a timer issue scuttled the capsule’s engine firing needed to reach the ISS.

Industry Events Calendar

Private equity investor Main Street Capital Holdings on Dec. 18 said it has created a new company, Compass Precision, to acquire precision metal manufacturers, including in the aerospace and defense sector.

BOEING has $564.5m U.S. Army contract for remanufacture of Apache AH-64E aircraft.

General Electric is by far the world’s largest manufacturer of military engines, with 21,806 in service in 2019, 30.7% of the global market.

Days after Boeing announced a coming halt to production of its 737 MAX, the first forecasts to emerge from financial analysts covering aerospace and defense (A&D) still see good business prospects for the sector in 2020 but with several caveats, and with far cloudier horizons.

France has begun armed reconnaissance missions in Central Africa with its General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper unmanned air systems.

Private equity investors Main Street Capital Holdings on Dec. 18 said it created a new company, Compass Precision, to acquire precision metal manufacturers.