Over the next three years European aerospace and defense giant EADS will reduce its head count by 5,800 — including up to 1,450 layoffs -— as part of a plan to put its defense and space business in line with projected revenues, the company announced Dec. 9. The plan, presented to the group’s European Works Council, follows a July decision by the EADS board of directors to consolidate its Cassidian, Airbus Military and Astrium units into a single Airbus Defense and Space Division (Airbus DS), and to rebrand the company as the “Airbus Group.”
AIR FORCE Lockheed Martin Corp., Marietta, Ga., has been awarded a $48,500,000 modification (P00230) to previously awarded FA8625-11-C-6597 for advance procurement funding of long lead efforts associated with five additional C-130J aircraft. The work will be performed at Lockheed Martin Corp., Marietta, Ga., with an expected completion date of Dec. 31, 2016. Fiscal 2012 aircraft procurement funds in the amount of $48,500,000 are being obligated at time of award. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity.
The U.S. Navy launched and recovered its new E-2D Hawkeye airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft from a carrier for the first time earlier this month. The aircraft were launched and recovered Dec. 3 from the CVN-71 USS Theodore Roosevelt following hundreds of practice landings on shore.
In December 2011, Iran proudly displayed on state television a stealthy U.S. unmanned aircraft it claimed it had downed while conducting reconnaissance overflights. The trophy was a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, an aircraft publicly acknowledged by the U.S. Air Force two years earlier. The Pentagon played down the embarrassing loss. One reason may now be clear.
NEW DELHI — India’s indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) is due to achieve the second milestone in its two-step initial operational clearance (designated IOC-II) on Dec. 20, three decades after the development of the aircraft began to replace the aging MiG-21s in the Indian air force (IAF).
DEFENDING IRAQ: Iraq’s defense and security spending is estimated to grow at a rate of 8.68% over the next five years and reach $26 billion annually by 2018, according to a new report from Strategic Defense Intelligence. The Iraqi government spent $17.1 billion in 2013 on defense equipment and training. “National security has become a core issue for the Iraqi government, and in the past five years the country’s defense expenditure registered a growth rate of 15.56%,” the group says.
NAS PATUXENT RIVER, Md. — F/A-18 E/F manufacturer Boeing has until roughly March to decide whether to put its own funding toward continuing production of the Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler aircraft without further U.S. Navy orders, says Mike Gibbons, the company’s Super Hornet vice president. The last Super Hornet/Growlers on order are expected to roll off the production line in 2016; the supply chain has a roughly two-year cycle.
The Romanian air force (RoAF) is testing a firefighting system developed for the C-27J Spartan tactical airlifter. The system, called Caylym Guardian, loads the back of the aircraft with up to six cardboard containers containing 1,000 liters of water or fire retardant that is dropped onto forest fires. The system has been being tested by the RoAF and manufacturer Alenia Aermacchi in a Romanian mountain range. “The system allows for a quick, accurate and innovative way to fight bushfires,” said Alenia Aermacchi.
LONDON — The French army will replace its Milan anti-tank missile with a new weapon developed by MBDA. The MMP (Missile Moyenne Portée) will be used by the French army from 2017 following the signing of a development and production contract from the DGA, the French defense procurement agency, announced Dec. 3. The deal, signed as part of the defense ministry’s military planning act, includes the development of the system, 400 launchers and 2,850 missiles. Around 175 launchers and 450 missiles will be delivered between 2014-2019.
The Pentagon’s acquisition czar has a growing chart in his office of defense programs and their current and past managers, and it is just one of the subtle, albeit significant, personnel-oriented changes being pursued in what is dawning as a new era of acquisition reform. It is not quite Santa’s list of who is naughty or nice, but for the U.S. defense and space sector, it is close.
TEL AVIV — The Israeli Air Force (IAF) is conducting a first-of-its-kind multinational exercise at the southern training base of Ouvda that kicked off last week, where 60 aircraft from four nations are taking part in realistic air combat training, practicing how air forces from different nations can cooperate in a coalition under one command.
U.S. partners and allies in the Asia-Pacific region are set to invest heavily in shipbuilding defense programs over the next 10 years, according to an Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) analysis of data provided by Avascent Analytics, an online market analysis toolkit for global defense programs.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 501 successfully launched the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office’s classified NROL-39 mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 11:13 p.m. Pacific Time on Dec. 5.
Boeing and Saab have signed an agreement to jointly develop and build an all-new aircraft for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X trainer competition. Boeing will be the prime contractor, but both companies will invest in the new aircraft, which appears certain to be the only all-new candidate. Discussions between the two companies were reported in September but have been under way for “much longer,” a Saab source says.
Prototyping is still a vital tool for U.S. Air Force and Pentagon programs, but officials worry that its benefits may be misunderstood and downplayed, according to a recent prototypes workshop draft report released by the National Research Council (NRC). “Prototyping has historically been of great benefit to the Air Force and Department of Defense (DOD) in terms of risk reduction and concept demonstration prior to system development, both during austere budget environments and at other times,” the NRC report says.
LONDON — Airbus Military is close to finalizing the flight control laws to support air-to-air refueling on the Airbus A400M Atlas airlifter. Company test pilots in late November completed the first “wet” air-to-air refueling of an A400M from a French air force C-160 Transall in a set of sorties designed to verify the newly written flight control laws, known to the company as “Delta Six Romeo - Papa.” Until then, the aircraft had only conducted “dry” contacts from U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) Vickers VC10s and A330-200 Multi-Role Tanker Transports.
A large, classified unmanned aircraft developed by Northrop Grumman is now flying—and it demonstrates a major advance in combining stealth and aerodynamic efficiency. Defense and intelligence officials say the secret unmanned aerial system (UAS), designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, is scheduled to enter production for the U.S. Air Force and could be operational by 2015.
By making its announcement on Cyber Monday, Dec. 2, the biggest online shopping day of the year in the U.S., electronic-commerce giant Amazon was certain to get exhaustive and enthusiastic news coverage of its plans to use unmanned aircraft to deliver packages directly to customers. While Amazon has conducted test fights using a small quadcopter UAV to deliver a package, the realities of the FAA's regulatory requirements make it unlikely the delivery service, called Amazon Prime Air, will become available in 2015 as the company suggests.
While there is plenty to debate about where U.S. defense budgets could settle in 2014-15, there is no debate about the Pentagon's desire to continue to compete with cutting-edge technology. It expects defense advantages to be sustained through investment in new weapons and support systems that provide a generational lead over those fielded by adversaries.
