U.S. ARMY Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., was awarded a $135,822,257 modification (P00067), to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price, foreign-military-sales contract (W58RGZ-12-C-0008), for the procurement of Navy MH-60R green aircraft in support of Denmark. The cumulative total face value of this contract is $4,955,310,889. Fiscal 2013 Procurement funds are being obligated on this award. The Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity.
LOS ANGELES — As it nears the delivery of the 100th production standard F135 engine for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Pratt & Whitney has been awarded a $1 billion low-rate initial production (LRIP) contract for the fifth lot of engines.
NEW DELHI — India is considering the purchase of more than a dozen amphibious US-2 aircraft, developed by ShinMaywa Industries of Japan, for both military and civilian services. Designed for air-sea rescue missions, the US-2 is operated by the 31st Fleet Air Wing of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) and could be the first Japanese aircraft offered to the Indian defense and civilian market.
LONDON — The U.K. Cabinet Office says several major defense programs are in danger of being unachievable or may need to be rescoped in order to stay on track.
Despite continued operational hiccups and maintenance issues associated with the ship’s coolant system since arriving in Singapore, the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom is still expected to participate in the regional Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training 2013 (Carat ’13), says U.S. Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Clayton Doss.
PENTAGON HACKED: A Defense Science Board report is warning that designs for 29 major Pentagon weapons systems have been breached by Chinese hackers, according to the Washington Post. But the Defense Department disputes the notion that the intrusions on everything from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to the V-22 Osprey and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile have hampered their effectiveness. “We maintain full confidence in our weapons platforms,” said Pentagon Press Secretary George Little in a statement.
U.S. ARMY The Boeing Co., Mesa, Ariz., was awarded a $69,227,561 modification (P00008), to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price, foreign-military-sales (FMS) contract (W58RGZ-12-C-0089), for the procurement of Apache Block III aircraft and associated parts and services. This FMS contract is in support of Saudi Arabia. The total cumulative face value of this contract is $259,389,626. The Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity.
Large aerospace and defense (A&D) companies are getting out in front of government budget cuts by cutting costs, shedding excess capacity and trimming their workforces, and the payoff has been higher profit margins, according to the new results from Aviation Week’s Top-Performing Companies study.
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) plans for a High-Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW) demonstration program to follow on from hypersonic flights of the Boeing X-51A WaveRider scramjet demonstrator are in flux. A notice issued on May 21 announced that a planned solicitation for the HSSW demo program had been canceled. AFRL held an industry day for potential bidders in June 2012, at which time the program was expected to begin this year.
Lockheed Martin has begun to equip and test the Aegis Ashore development facility in Moorestown, N.J., company officials say. The company has built a ship deckhouse near the so-called “Cruiser in the Cornfields” ship superstructure facility, to test vessel-installed Aegis equipment systems to run Aegis Ashore components through their paces before global operational installation. Use of Aegis Ashore is part of theU.S.’s strategy for ballistic missile defense (BMD).
NEW DELHI — Russia has made a veiled threat that it may stop bidding for Indian military contracts, complaining that some procurements seem to have been engineered for predetermined outcomes. Undermined by fierce competition from U.S. and European defense companies on several deals in the Indian arms market in the past few years, Russia feels, “Sometimes, terms of tenders are crafted specifically to get the required results.”
SINGAPORE — The defense community needs to better employ technology to meet the long-term ebb and flow of military shipbuilding, says Chan Yeng Kit, the permanent secretary for defense development for Singapore.
LONDON — Spain is preparing to make cuts to several aircraft procurement programs as it aims to post more savings in the face of the European economic downturn. Several Spanish news outlets are reporting that the country’s ministry of defense is planning substantial cuts to the Eurofighter, Airbus Military A400M transport aircraft, Tiger attack helicopter and NH90 utility helicopter procurements in a bid to save €4 billion ($5.2 billion) on major weapons programs.
TEL AVIV — Syria’s efforts to modernize its air defenses are increasing the threat of a conflict suddenly erupting between Israel and its enemies, according to Israel’s air force chief, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel.
Recent international maritime countermine exercises highlight the benefits of unmanned vehicles for those types of missions, military naval officials say, but the underlying tactics for such work remain the same. Unmanned systems and their accompanying technology are making it possible for naval countermine operations to continue for much longer, continuous periods of time. “The biggest benefit [is] they’re much more persistent,” says Vice Adm. John Miller, commander of U.S. Navy Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces.
The U.S. Navy successfully completed tests of the Block 2 Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) earlier this month at the service’s Pacific Missile Test Range. Missiles were launched May 10 from a Self Defense Test Ship operated by the Naval Surface Warfare Center Port Hueneme and intercepted turbojet-powered targets emulating enemy anti-ship cruise missiles. The Navy completed another test May 12, successfully firing two more missiles.
CYBERSPACE PROGRESS: At the House Armed Services intelligence and emerging threats subcommittee markup of the 2014 defense policy bill last week, Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) praised the military’s progress in protecting the U.S.
The Pentagon’s latest cost report on the stealthy F-35 shows no change in the high price of estimated flying hour usage or total lifetime sustainment, two areas of great interest to operators in the U.S. and abroad.
Spy movies and drone imagery may give people the idea that the problem of night vision has been definitively solved, but in fact the past few years have seen a vigorous three-way technology conflict at the lower end of the market, where users need portable and wearable sensors and want to fit very small unmanned vehicles—and large fleets of trucks—with night-vision devices.
Commo. Stephen Braham Head of Global Ship Integrated Export Team, U.K. Trade & Investment, Defense & Security Organization Education: Engineering degrees (bachelor's and master's) from Royal Naval Engineering College, Royal Naval Staff College.
Recent technology advancements and risk reduction in the U.S Navy's proposed air and missile defense radar (AMDR) are slashing cost estimates by nearly two-thirds and making it more likely that the sensor suite will survive budget cuts. The technological strides and price cuts put the program on course to deliver a sensor suite relatively soon that not only protects ships against immediate and future missile threats, but helps vessels provide better ballistic missile defense (BMD) for allies.
