Now armed with additional information, the Obama administration and Congress are revisiting whether LightSquared should be able to build its 4G broadband communications network.
NEW DELHI — India’s engineering and construction conglomerate Larsen & Toubro Ltd. (L&T) signed an agreement with French defense products company Nexter Systems March 30 to collaborate on the Indian army’s key artillery gun programs. Under the deal, Nexter Systems will transfer technology for its 155mm 52-caliber Towed Gun System and Mounted Gun System to Larsen. The two companies will work together on subsystem manufacturing, integration and support. Larsen also plans to assemble Nexter’s Caesar and Trajan guns in India.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Rolls-Royce is working on further upgrades to its long-running Model 250 small turboshaft engine series aimed at the U.S. Army Armed Aerial Scout and Navy unmanned aircraft system requirements. The company has provided an upgraded engine to Bell Helicopter to power a company-funded OH-58D Block 2 demonstrator.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Rockwell Collins has demonstrated a synthetic-vision display for improved crew situational awareness in military helicopter cockpits. Generated from an onboard digital terrain and obstacle database, the three-dimensional head-down display was incorporated into the company’s Common Avionics Architecture System (CAAS) for flight tests on a U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-60L Black Hawk. The tests were conducted under a cooperative R&D agreement between the avionics manufacturer and the Army’s Aviation Applied Technology Directorate.
Boeing’s decision to close down its Wichita facility, which was slated to handle military modifications for the KC-46A aerial refueler, has added some uncertainty and risk into the development effort, according to Maj. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, who oversees the U.S. Air Force program.
Click here to view the pdf Cost Growth In Major U.S. Defense Acquisition Programs, 2011 Portfolio (Fiscal 2012 $ in millions) Cost Growth In Major U.S.
NEW DELHI — India’s defense minister has directed the country’s army to restructure its acquisition procedures to improve oversight and speed purchases. On April 2, Defense Minister A.K. Antony met with top army officials led by service chief V.K. Singh to complete various proposals related to acquisition and procurement of equipment for the service.
Airborne electronic attack in the U.S. is being overtaken by a new generation of threats including cyberattack, according to a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The overall CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier program price tag is increasing roughly $2.2 billion — or about 5.5% — to $42.5 billion, the Pentagon estimates in its recent Selected Acquisition Report (SAR). The increase includes an additional $951 million for the application of revised escalation indices and another $811 million for revised estimates on non-recurring engineering, Dual-Band Radar (DBR), and construction performance variance for the Ford carrier, the SAR states.
The Pentagon’s annual cost-growth report to Congress looks better this year: three programs had critical breaches in 2011, but only because budget pressures severely cut their procurement plans.
The U.S. Navy’s proposed future DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyer program cost is dropping by $1.1 billion — or 1.2% — to roughly $88.4 billion because of multiyear-buy benefits and changes in the radar suite proposed for the Flight III model of the ship, the Pentagon says in its recent Selected Acquisition Report (SAR).
The U.S. Defense Department plans to kick-start the domestic production of drop-in biofuels by co-funding the establishment of at least one regional supply chain using Defense Production Act Title III money. Title III, usually wielded to create or protect industrial capabilities critical to U.S. security, will be used to fund the construction or retrofit of one or more integrated biorefineries capable of producing at least 10 million gal. of fuel annually from domestic feedstocks.
LONDON — The Australian government is moving forward with plans to upgrade its F/A-18E/F fleet with Growler electronic-attack equipment. The military already has taken 12 of its 24 aircraft wired for the electronic-attack system and now is laying the groundwork to equip them for the EA-18G role, although the final decision to do so will not come until later this year, says Defense Minister Stephen Smith.
SWEDISH SCANDAL: Swedish Defense Minister Sten Tolgfors has resigned over a Defense Research Agency program to build a weapons plant in Saudi Arabia. The secrecy of the deal has been highly controversial in Sweden since the effort became known.
APOLLO 11 SALVAGE: Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos may try to recover one or more of the F-1 rocket engines that powered Apollo 11 on its historic mission to the Moon in 1969. The engines were located with advanced sonar 14,000 ft. down in the Atlantic, where they fell with the Saturn V first stage that they powered, and Bezos hopes to raise them for restoration and display in a museum.
CLASSIFIED SCRUB: The U.S. Air Force has delayed the launch of the latest classified surveillance satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office to allow engineers more time to investigate an issue with the United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket’s upper stage that was discovered during closeout inspections. Liftoff for NROL-25 is now set for April 2 at 4:04 p.m. PDT from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The launch originally was scheduled for March 29.
LONDON — The four core Eurofighter countries have awarded large support contracts to their respective national industrial champions to sustain the fighter aircraft for a further five years. The governments have put significant pressure on industry to bring down the cost of supporting the fighter aircraft as each looks for savings in its defense budget. The complexity of finding those savings led to some difficult negotiations before the deal was finalized.
KILLING MEADS: The government has argued that the cost of ending the U.S. commitment to Lockheed Martin’s Medium Extended Air Defense System (Meads) was equal or nearly equal to paying to complete development of the missile through the end of fiscal 2013. But a group of senators who are trying to persuade the Pentagon to shift funding for the tri-national Meads program to the Raytheon Patriot system are casting doubt on the government’s position.
NASA is claiming a breakthrough in the design of supersonic aircraft, with wind-tunnel tests proving it is possible to design configurations that combine low sonic boom with low cruise drag, characteristics once thought to be mutually exclusive.
Thales is preparing for a three-month flight-test program of its RBE2 radar on Rafale with delivery of the first production version to Dassault. The French military expects to begin fielding the active, electronically scanned array radar next year. Flight testing will involve Rafale C137; the radar is being installed at Dassault’s Merignac facility in southern France. The flight-test campaign will take place at the Istres flight-test center.
Conventional wisdom holds that the U.S. is facing a critical shortage of engineers—in aerospace and other industries—and that not enough students are studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields to offset this coming shortfall. A corollary to this belief is that U.S. high-school test scores in these critical subjects are low, hampering the country’s future competitiveness. But according to some academics, this conventional wisdom is a fallacy that industry repeats for its own ends.
LIFE-CYCLE SOLUTIONS: Expect to see Rockwell Collins announce renewal of its $17.2 million life-cycle support contract with the U.S. Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. The company says it has a 100% availability rate for helicopter cockpit replacement parts for its common avionics architecture system. Also expect Rockwell Collins to introduce a tailored life-cycle service solution called FlexForce for military and government agencies. The FlexForce program is designed to provide transparent repair and supply-chain visibility on a performance basis.
TRAINING PARTNERS: German glider manufacturer Grob Aircraft will supply its G 120TP computer-based training system for Argentina’s Fadea IA-63 Pampa II lead-in fighter/trainer. State-owned Fadea has completed flight tests of the Pampa, which has been re-engined with the Honeywell TFE 731-40 geared turbofan engine.
As EADS North America unveils a new concept for the U.S. Army's still-unmet Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) requirement, executives are expressing annoyance over what they say is a slow and unclear management of efforts to replace the aging Kiowa Warrior fleet.
