With this month’s Bold Alligator event—the East Coast’s largest joint and multinational amphibious assault exercise in the past 10 years—the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps brass hopes to tax their commanders to the limit and develop long-lasting tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) for using equipment and units.
NEW DELHI — The Indian air force (IAF) is studying present and future requirements for unmanned aerial vehicles in its fleet. “We are ready to induct more drones in view of their capability to perform specific tasks on the borders,” says IAF training command chief Air Marshal Dhiraj Kukreja. “We can have more of them if the government sanctions additional funds, as there is a cost factor to it.” Acquisition of the latest combat aircraft and warfare systems, including drones and missiles, is a continuous process.
A recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report highlights the high-wire act the U.S. Navy will need to perform to balance its shipbuilding needs with the fleet reductions slated for the upcoming fiscal 2013 budget request that supports a new national security strategy. Congress will have a lot to mull over with the budget request, according to the report, “Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress,” which was released in January before the Pentagon budget pre-briefings.
CLARION CALL: The entire, sprawling U.S. intelligence community’s leadership agrees that the U.S. “is in a type of cyber Cold War, losing some $300 billion annually to cyber-based corporate espionage, and sustaining daily intrusions against public systems controlling everything from major defense weapons systems and public air traffic to electricity and banking,” said a group of high-ranking defense officials last week that included Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr., CIA Director David Petraeus and FBI Director Robert Mueller.
LONDON — NATO defense ministers have given the go-ahead to the Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) program to acquire five Global Hawk unmanned aircraft. A contract is still being prepared with the U.S. and European industrial team in charge of supplying the unmanned aircraft and ground support infrastructure. NATO “found a practical funding solution” to go ahead with AGS, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at the conclusion of a meeting of NATO ministers Feb. 3. Libya “showed how important such a capability is,” he adds.
Lawmakers are getting behind an emerging market in civilian UAVs, setting in motion rules that would speed up the process of allowing law enforcement agencies and first responders to use pint-sized unmanned aircraft.
Leithen Francis (Camp Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, Philippines)
The South China Sea dispute has suddenly led the Philippines to move to strengthen its military and try to do it quickly. Discussing the upgrade program on Jan. 27, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said the Philippines is in a race against time to improve its military air capability. “Without a deterrent force, we can be easily pushed around, our territories will be violated,” he declared.
EADS Chief Executive Louis Gallois recently was asked to reflect on his legacy as he prepares to step down, but the self-effacing aerospace chief took a pass. It is too early, he said, to render a verdict on his impact on the sprawling enterprise he has led since 2007.
The strategy employed by Boeing to win $3.5 billion worth of missile defense work late last year reveals a willingness on the part of the aerospace giant to embrace highly aggressive pricing and low margins to hedge against the uncertainty ahead with waning Pentagon spending. And, the company's rivals are taking notice.
Deals for mergers and acquisitions in global aerospace and defense hit a new high in 2011, reaching $43.7 billion, according to a new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
The British might have once ruled the Indian subcontinent, but the French are taking over its skies. The Indian government late last month named Dassault Aviation's Rafale the lowest-cost bidder against the rival Eurofighter consortium's Typhoon in the long-running and fiercely contested competition to supply at least 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) to the Indian air force (IAF).
A multibillion-dollar commercial satellite imagery program and a showcase example of the Obama administration's forward-looking commercial remote-sensing space policy has been targeted for cuts that could impact U.S. military and allied operations and potentially lead to industry consolidation in the U.S. sector.
Amy Butler (Washington), David Fulghum (Washington)
The Pentagon's forthcoming $613.4 billion funding request for next year outlines a series of significant cuts—and hints at operational sacrifices—but several questions remain unanswered about what is ahead as defense spending flattens. This budget request is designed not only to slice $487 billion over 10 years, as required by the Budget Control Act, but to shift the Pentagon's focus to the Asia-Pacific region while reducing the U.S. presence in Europe, in accordance with the White House's new military strategy.
In 2001, the U.S. Air Force officially took over the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk unmanned air system (UAS) project, now estimated to cost $12.4 billion for 55 aircraft, and embarked on its development. Within months, the momentum behind the high-flying spy aircraft grew. The young UAS was rushed into operation in the Middle East after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and service officials began crafting plans for a larger, more capable design, dubbed the Block 20/30, that was intended to take over the role long held by the U-2.
Are defense contractors earning too much money in an era of budget austerity? That question is being asked at the Pentagon after earnings results showed the industry managed to maintain and in many cases bolster profit margins in 2011, even as growth evaporated.
Entry-into-service is years off, but that has not stopped the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter from facing its first overseas battles where—at least in the political theater and competitive skirmishes—it has held its own.
First flight of the European Neuron unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) demonstrator is planned for mid-2012 at the Istres flight-test center in France, where the air vehicle was assembled and rolled out late last month. The milestone began what is shaping up to be a critical year for UCAVs in Europe. Prime contractor Dassault says software integration is in its final stages, and ground and engine tests will start soon.
David Fulghum (Washington), Bill Sweetman (Washington), Amy Butler (Washington)
How much of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's spiraling cost in recent years can be traced to China's cybertheft of technology and the subsequent need to reduce the fifth-generation aircraft's vulnerability to detection and electronic attack?
Research suggests that the ambitious performance goals of future long-endurance reconnaissance aircraft and highly efficient commercial transports may only be achievable by using very light structures and long, slender wings.
Actions may speak louder than words. So even though the U.K.'s new defense industrial strategy (DIS) says a lot about more competition and off-the-shelf procurement and little about support for its guided weapons and military aircraft sector, recent sole-source awards signal that London still has an active hand in backing its industry.
With fortuitous timing, as the U.S. Defense Department unveils plans for budget cuts, a government/industry consortium has released an open systems standard that promises to save money by enabling reuse of avionics software across Pentagon platforms. The Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) technical standard was released on Jan. 30, after just 18 months of work by a 39-member consortium managed by open-systems standards organization The Open Group.
Claims by Hawker Beechcraft that the U.S. Air Force’s choice of Embraer’s AT-29 Super Tucano over its AT-6 to equip the Afghan air force is “fundamentally flawed” and will cost U.S. jobs are being dismissed as misinformation by winning bidder Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC). The normally closed-mouthed SNC has issued a public rebuttal of the claims as Hawker Beechcraft’s (HBC) lawsuit challenging the Air Force’s decision works its way through federal court, accusing its rival of using delaying tactics.
The U.S. Air Force is proposing to cut 123 fighters and 133 airlifters as it manages spending reductions triggered by a flattening defense budget and declining operational demands. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, at an Air Force Association event in Washington on Feb. 2, previewed more details of the USAF portion of the fiscal 2013 budget request that comes out Feb. 13.
The Pentagon’s ongoing budget rollout has members of Congress scrambling in all different directions as if trying to gather up pieces of a broken puzzle. The list of items against which some lawmakers are pushing back is long and growing. There’s a steeper round of budget reductions, force structure cuts, base realignment, reductions to the Air National Guard, the cancellation of the Global Hawk Block 30, delays to the Joint Strike Fighter and more.
