TURKISH UPGRADES: Turkish Aerospace Industries has kicked off deliveries of F-16s it has upgraded for the Pakistan air force under a program that is to run until September 2014. The project, called Peace Drive II, involves the upgrade of 41 older F-16s under a contract inked in 2009. The first handover took place Feb. 8, TAI says. The program is largely an avionics and structural update of older F-16s to bring them near the capability of the F-16 Block 52s that Pakistan has received from Lockheed Martin.
NEW DELHI — Pakistan has received the last batch of three sophisticated F-16 Block 52 fighter jets from the U.S. The three Lockheed Martin fighters delivered Feb. 6 at the Shahbaz Air Base in Jacobabad were the last of the 18 jets Pakistan had ordered. The deal’s cost is $1.4 billion for the aircraft and $1.3 billion for technical costs, including upgrades and maintenance.
The traffic jam in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley caused by the heavy volume of Syrian missiles, launchers and transporters going into temporary storage there is sparking concern in Jerusalem and Washington.
ASIA SATS: Hong Kong-based AsiaSat has selected Space Exploration Technologies’ (SpaceX) Falcon 9 to launch AsiaSat 6 and AsiaSat 8 from Cape Canaveral in the first half of 2014. The two spacecraft vary slightly in design, but both are based on the Space Systems/Loral 1300 series. They are to be launched separately. AsiaSat 6 will have 28 high-powered C-band transponders, while AsiaSat 8 will carry 24 Ku-band transponders and a Ka-band beam. They will serve Asia, the Middle East and Australasia.
Boeing is studying several options, ranging from routine checks to minor structural modifications, to reactivate the closed-out tail fuel tank on the 747-8 passenger model.
LONDON — NATO’s effort to convince members to maximize their limited defense spending by doing more together may not yield many concrete results, a senior European aerospace and defense industry official warns. The so-called “Smart Defense” initiative is not much different from ideas floated 20 years ago, and “very little has happened since then,” warns Airbus CEO and EADS CEO-designate Tom Enders.
TEL AVIV — Iran is developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a range of 10,000 km (6,200 mi.), according to Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon. “The blast that occurred in a missile base outside Tehran in November damaged that program,” says Ya’alon, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). “This missile is not aimed against Israel, the ‘small Satan,’ but against the ‘great Satan’ – the U.S.”
FRANCO-GERMAN: Germany and France are looking to further extend their defense cooperation — and thus strengthen EU capabilities — in areas including combat search and rescue and space situational awareness systems. The two have already cooperated on remote sensing, and are already partnering in the helicopter domain, with ideas for France to provide combat search-and-rescue capacity to German troops, and Germany allocating heavy-lift capacity through its CH-53s to France. Another area of joint interest appears to be counter-rocket, artillery and mortar systems.
Mergers and acquisitions activity in the aerospace and defense industry reached a record $43.7 billion in 2011, edging out the previous high from 2007 as consolidation in the commercial supply chain gained steam and underperforming defense units were spun off. A PwC study scheduled for release Feb. 7 tallied 341 acquisitions, mergers or spin-offs worth $50 million or more announced during the year.
Click here to view the pdf Top TenAerospace & Defense Acquisitions, Mergers and SpinoffsIn 2011 Top Ten Aerospace & Defense Acquisitions, Mergers and Spinoffs In 2011 Target Acquirer Category
Analysts at Forecast International (FI) say the six Gulf Cooperation Council members will combine to spend $385 billion toward defense and security through 2016, while Iraq is expected to invest $65 billion in its security forces.
The leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee are taking Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to task for undercutting their work on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — not once, but twice. On Jan. 20, Panetta lifted probation on the F-35B, the Marine Corps short-takeoff-vertical-landing variant of the jet, just about one year after the time-out, originally anticipated to be in place for two years, was imposed.
Acting Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall says it was “acquisition malpractice” to approve production of the Lockheed Martin F-35 years before the first flight of the single-engine stealthy fighter occurred. “It should not have been done,” Kendall told an audience Feb. 6 hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But we did it.”
David Van Buren, who has served as a top procurement official in the U.S. Air Force for four years, is planning to seek employment in private industry and will leave his post March 31, according to service officials. Service officials say it is “premature to speculate who and when a replacement will be named.” Van Buren held various procurement titles but has performed the role of the Air Force’s top acquisition executive since the departure of Sue Payton, the service’s last Senate-approved procurement chief, in April 2009.
AIR FORCE The Boeing Co., Long Beach, Calif., is being awarded a $1,781,413,723 firm-fixed-price contract for a modification as a Foreign Military Sales requirement for the Indian air force. Ten C-17 aircraft will be procured for the IAF. The location of the performance is Long Beach, Calif. Work is expected to be completed by July 28, 2014. ASC/WLMK, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8614-06-D-2006, DO 0009).
General aviation groups are urging U.S. regulators to withdraw LightSquared’s conditional waiver for a broadband wireless network, saying the GPS system must be protected from all sources of interference. Their comments are in response to a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) request for input on LightSquared’s December petition for a ruling that commercial GPS receivers are not entitled to protection from interference caused by a broadband wireless network operating within technical parameters set by the government.
NEED BRAC: Lawmakers are cringing at the idea, but the Pentagon remains adamant that to best deal with the budget cuts that Washington enacted into law last August, the military must be free to pursue another round of base realignment and closure (BRAC). The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, says a BRAC is already needed just to deal with the first part of the Budget Control Act’s cuts, not to mention if the full, $1 trillion effect of so-called “sequestration” is triggered. “By the way, I didn’t pass the Budget Control Act,” Dempsey says.
As of the end of January, the K-MAX unmanned helicopter had delivered over 100,000 lb. of cargo on more than 50 resupply missions in Afghanistan, according to numbers provided by Lockheed Martin, which produces the K-MAX along with Kaman Aerospace. The U.S. Marine Corps flew its first-ever unmanned cargo resupply mission in Afghanistan on Dec. 17, sending the K-MAX on a mission to supply Marines stationed at a small combat outpost with 3,500 lb. of food and equipment.
