LAS VEGAS — Small-UAV maker MLB has teamed with industry leader AAI to build and fly a long-endurance, vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL), unmanned aircraft for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). The company’s tailsitter V-Bat, which combines shrouded-fan VTOL with fixed-wing endurance, has been selected for a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award. MLB will build and flight test a version of the vehicle with an 8-ft. wingspan, 10-hr. endurance, 55-lb. gross takeoff weight, and 70-mph cruise speed.
The Pentagon’s newest missile range instrumentation ship — the T-AGM-25 USNS Howard O. Lorenzen, which includes the Cobra Judy Replacement (CJR) radar system — recently started at-sea testing off Port Canaveral, Fla., as part of its yearlong integration and test phase. Lorenzen will replace USNS Observation Island (T-AGM 23) in 2014, whose mission is to provide dual-band radar data in support of ballistic missile treaty verification.
MDA CHIEF: President Obama has nominated U.S. Navy Rear Adm. (lower half) James D. Syring for appointment to the rank of vice admiral and assignment as director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. Syring is currently serving as program executive officer for Integrated Warfare Systems at Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington. Syring will have to be confirmed by the Senate. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the nomination Aug. 6.
NEW DELHI — India will penalize foreign military firms that fail to fulfill their defense offset requirements within the set time frame under revised guidelines. According to the amended defense offset policy, the “overall cap on penalty will be 20% of the total offset obligations during the period of the main procurement contract,” a defense official says. But there will be “no cap on penalty” if an international vendor falls short of meeting its obligations within two years of the main procurement contract, he adds.
0The U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., plans to stage airborne combat with 50 small UAVs on each side by 2015, in an attempt to determine how future air defenses can cope with large numbers of attackers. Timothy Chung, an assistant professor of systems engineering at the school, is the mastermind behind the Aerial Battle Bots project. He argues that when dealing with potential “swarms” of attackers, low-cost defensive drones could be the answer.
A BAE Systems-operated Jetstream 31 is conducting sense-and-avoid trials over the Irish Sea as a U.K.-funded program to develop technologies and procedures to enable civil unmanned aircraft to operate in unrestricted airspace enters its final stages. Begun in 2006, the ₤62 million ($97 million) Astraea program is scheduled to end in March 2013 with completion of the “virtual certification” of an unmanned aircraft to fly without restrictions in all classes of airspace.
LUCKY LUKE: Luke AFB , Ariz., will be the site of the U.S. Air Force’s F-35A Lightning II pilot training center, including for foreign militaries, the service says. The base will receive 72 Joint Strike Fighters to comprise three squadrons. The selection follows a hotly contested, three-year competition. Aircraft will begin to arrive from late 2013 to mid-2014, although the exact timing will depend on production schedules.
U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND GATR Technologies Inc., Huntsville, Ala., is being awarded a $37,000,000 single-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the GATR inflatable antenna, components, technical support, and training in support of U.S. Special Operations Command. The anticipated period of performance is not to exceed five years. The place of performance is Huntsville. U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill AFB, Fla., is the contracting activity (H92222-12-D-0016).
NEW DELHI — The Indian navy has delayed by another six months a tender to buy 16 multi-role helicopters, even as it plans to issue another request for proposals to procure more than 75 similar aircraft, a senior defense ministry official says. The defense ministry official didn’t give any reasons for delaying the tender, which was initially released in September 2008. NH Industries (NHI) with its NH-90 and Sikorsky with its S-70 have bid for the program, which could expand by an additional 44 units and reach $1 billion.
Indonesia’s air force is aiming to take delivery of its first eight Embraer Super Tucano light attack aircraft by year’s end. Embraer held a delivery ceremony Aug. 6 at the Super Tucano assembly plant in Gaviao Peixoto, for the first four aircraft. Embraer already has delivered Super Tucanos to the Brazilian air force and other customers, but the Indonesian air force is the first customer for the type in the Asia-Pacific region.
As the proposed funding winds down for the counter-improvised explosive device (C-IED) efforts led by the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), questions linger about how the organization has conducted its business. The Pentagon will have spent an estimated $2.9 billion for Jieddo-related contracts between fiscal years 2011 to 2017, based on an analysis of data provided by Avascent050, an online market analysis toolkit for global defense programs.
British aerospace contractor Cobham is expanding its Latin American footprint with the opening of a subsidiary in Brazil to anchor operations in the region. Cobham this week acknowledged the startup of subsidiary Cobham do Brasil, based in Sao Paulo, to clear the way for new business for Cobham Tactical Communications and Surveillance.
U.S. Air Force guidance that told anyone connected to F-22 Raptor operations to report any hypoxia-like symptoms likely led to a number of those reports from ground workers for the aircraft, says Maj. Gen. Charlie Lyon, Air Combat Command’s director of operations.
The Senate quietly approved two last-minute changes to the defense spending bill for fiscal 2013 aimed at boosting space-launch industries in California and Alabama. The amendments were approved as part of a package and were not publicly debated, but neither involved government funding.
NEW DELHI — Boeing is preparing to test fly the first of the 10 C-17 heavy-lift aircraft it is building for the Indian air force (IAF) by January 2013. The major join ceremony — which integrates the forward, center and aft fuselages and the wing assembly — was held on July 31 at Boeing’s factory in Long Beach, Calif.
The increased use of helicopters in Afghanistan and other mountainous areas is changing the way the U.S. Army looks at mountain warfare. “The helicopter now allows access to terrain that was once unreachable, or that was only reachable by slow, methodical climbing,” says the most recently updated Army training guide, “Military Mountaineering,” released in July.
PUSHED OUT: The NROL-36 mission to launch a classified satellite from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., for the National Reconnaissance Office has been pushed back to no earlier than Aug. 14. Col. Nina Armagno, commander of the U.S. Air Force’s 30th Space Wing, says additional time is needed to address a range instrumentation issue that prompted a launch scrub on Aug. 2. Originally, the Air Force expected to be ready to launch as early as Aug. 4. There are no problems with either the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket or the NROL-36 payload.
Rolls-Royce and Snecma will study development of next-generation combat aircraft engines under an Anglo-French bilateral agreement led by the U.K. Defense Ministry and announced late last month. The contract calls for Rolls-Royce Snecma Ltd., a joint venture formed in 2001, to consider derivatives of existing military propulsion systems as well as the potential to develop novel engine concepts during the study, which are expected to require a little more than one year to complete.
