The Latest Word On Trends And Developments In Aerospace And Defense
Bonner Boost. Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) last week was chosen by the Republican Steering Committee to fill the seat on the House Appropriations Committee held by former Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). Wicker was appointed to the Senate to replace Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who retired at the end of last year. Bonner is not likely to move straight to the plum defense subcommittee; leadership has already appointed Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) to that panel. Bonner won the race for the coveted seat against a handful of competitors that included Rep. David Reichert (R-Wash.). Rep. Bud Cramer, an Alabama Democrat, also serves on the committee.
Premium Insurance. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said last week he sees the wisdom of developing a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program to improve the overall reliability of the fleet. “Should [the decision] only be determined based on a business case or should it be determined on what would be the worst outcome in the future. And I will tell you, just like life insurance, we hope every year that the business case fails. We still buy it,” Wynne said during a conference sponsored by Aviation Week.
Manned Effort. The move to sift through the roles and missions governing the use and purchase of unmanned aerial vehicles was too hard to accomplish last year, Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, the Air Force’s military deputy to the civilian acquisition chief, said last week. But a task force created last year by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England continues to work through the issues. The working group that deals with buying UAVs is working between the Air Force Predator and the Army’s Warrior. To that end, Hoffman said the Air Force is interested in some attributes of the Warrior–including automatic takeoff and landing, heavy fuel engine, and ruggedized landing gear. “If we can agree on a common platform, we will eventually close on a common contract–common acquisition program,” he said.
MRAP Review. The Army is welcoming Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles into the force and reviewing the number it may need in the future and for its prepositioned stocks, Lt. Gen. James Thurman, the chief of operations, said last week. Thurman and Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, the chief of programs, testified last week before the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.
Coming Up Short. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway says he believes the Navy understands better than they did a year to 18 months ago how the Marine Corps sees a phased movement ashore. “So we have reached an agreement that we need 30 operational amphibious ships in order to do what we have to do with two Marine brigades. That computes to 33…34 ships if you [figure] in 85 percent availability,” he says. “What we have seen most recently in terms of the shipbuilding plan calls for extensions, however, of older ships to get to the number…not the purchase of new ships.” The problem that emerges from that, Conway adds, is that the Marine Corps still can’t transit the force. “Those ships don’t have the carrying capacity of the new ships. So we are still short and that’s a point the Secretary, the CNO and I are talking about in terms of where we are in regards to the idea of forcible entry from the sea.”
…Better Than Expected. The EFV is an absolute must for the Marine Corps, Conway adds. “It is unfortunate it has gone on to some difficult time.” Conway says he’ll never understand how the Marine Corps did reliability tests on vehicles that were well past their service life expectancy. “But we did, and guess what? There were problems. We are still trying to get out from under those rocks and prove that the vehicle is actually in better shape, I think, than those tests would indicate.” Conway adds the Marine Corps wants to get to a multi-year procurement plan for the MV-22 Osprey. “The fact is we’d like to get a multi-year on those aircraft so we can complete our buy and save some money in the process over time.”
Filler’ Up. The Air Force is going to do a sources sought RFI in the near term, looking at whether industry would be interested in operating a fee-for-service for tankers, says Lt. Gen. Don Hoffman, military deputy to Air Force acquisition chief Sue Payton. “We are going to go to industry and say, ‘what would you think of a five-year program…what would it take to have you respond to this pilot program, given that we are not going to pay for your development, we are not going to pay for you to develop a tanker and then you just lease it to us. We are not going to give you our old tanker and have you fly it for us,'” he says. “We are going to say, ‘is anybody out there interested in a five-year pilot program and what elements would you expect in a proposal that would entice you to favorably respond to that?”
…The Business Case. “I think it will come down to the business case, how much do you pay for that fee-for-service, and if you are doing that are you sitting active duty and guard reserve tankers on the ground while they are up there doing their thing? Does that gain you anything? This is the debate. But first we’d like to see what industry says is the art of the doable…what do they think the cost parameters are,” Hoffman adds.
Ships of A Different Color. CNO Adm. Gary Roughead tells reporters last week during a Pentagon briefing that shallow draft, speed, and mission reconfiguration are what sets LCS apart from the Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter. In the past few months, as the LCS acquisition program has been beset with a number of challenges, some inside the Beltway say the Navy should take a second look at the NSC. “I know there have been proposals as far as NSC as an alternative to LCS and some of the cost comparisons, but there are a lot of things about the NSC that [does not] account for some of the additional costs that would be incurred…to try and get to a level of a LCS,” Roughead notes. They are two different ships, “and the costs associated with the NSC don’t give us the capability that LCS affords,” he adds.
…End of The Line. Roughead adds there is no plan to extend the production of DDG-51-class destroyers at either General Dynamics Bath Iron Works or Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding. “Right now that is not in our program,” he says. “But it is important we are able to extend the service life of those ships,” he adds in regard to a proposed service life extension plan for the Arleigh Burke-class ships. “They are very, very capable, they are an incredible ship. In our program right now, the modernization is what’s in there. I believe the hulls have a lot of life left in them, but it’s important we make the appropriate investment so we can stretch them out and continue to use that capability.”
On The Agenda. More than 100 members of parliament from all 26 NATO member countries are in Brussels wrapping up three days of meetings today discussing the alliance’s current agenda and other political and security issues in high-level meetings with NATO and European Union civilian and military officials. Today, NATO legislators will be briefed by the European Commission’s Director General for External Relations, and the European Commission’s Director General for External Trade. Yesterday, Gen. Ray Henault, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, and Gen. Henri Bent�geat, chairman of the EU Military Committee, were expected to jointly address NATO parliamentarians.
Access Denied. The Army is blocking off access to the Reimer Digital Library–a repository of much unclassified information. An Army Training and Doctrine Command spokesman says, “In alignment with current DoD and DA Information Assurance Policies, we [Army Training Information Systems Directorate/Army Training Support Center] (ATISD/ATSC) have been taking a deliberate and structured approach to ensuring the proper controls are placed on the products and services provided by this website. As a part of this effort, on 6 Feb. 2008, we put the Reimer Digital Library (RDL) behind the AKO/CAC single sign-on (SSO) and instituted the Army CIO’s PKI policy. The implementation of PKI policy is the feature that restricted access to users with a DoD certificate.” However, the Federation of American Scientists has filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking the Army to provide a copy of the entire unclassified Library so that it could be posted on the FAS web site.
Southern Stryker. A wheeled, armored Army Stryker vehicle will be tested in Suriname, once an agreement between governments is completed. The program office would only say: “The test is a scheduled, planned part of our Stryker test program. The tropical testing that will take place in Suriname is to confirm vehicle/Stryker performance in a tropical, high humidity environment.” The test project has been seeking permission since 2005. Most recently, it was brought up in October 2007 when U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Suriname, says Caribbean Net News. Possibly as many as 100 days of tests of the weaponless Stryker would be done at an abandoned bauxite mining area, the News says. General Dynamics’ personnel will be on the scene to help out.
New Leader. Maj. Gen. Tim McOwan is appointed the next Special Operations Commander Australia (SOCAUST). Special Operations Command (SOCOMD) provides command and control for the Australian Defence Force (ADF)’s domestic and international terrorism response. Among previous appointments, McOwen in January 2006 was appointed the Chief of Defence Force Liaison Officer to the Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. He was responsible for liaison between the U.S. forces and the ADF in the areas of operations, strategic plans and intelligence.
Pushing Back. Both simple and sophisticated techniques are helping the military and JIEDDO chalk up successes against IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something simple is like the information operations effort to promote a tipline, says Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, JIEDDO director, at a press briefing last week. Tips have gone up, he says. Something sophisticated is the JIEDDIO Red Team effort that works to determine what might be next in IEDs. All this work is to find vulnerabilities to exploit, Metz says. For example, in many cases the adversary has gone from using the electronic and electromagnetic spectrum to trigger a device, back to a command wire often just lying on the ground, with an initiator on one end and a blasting cap on the other.
…Bigger Problem. The effort to cause casualties with MRAPs on the battlefield leads to larger bombs, taking longer to dig a hole to hide it, more explosive to cause damage and “that combination is going to give a better signature that can be discovered,” he says. Once an IED is discovered, there’s an opportunity for forensics–from fingerprints to where an explosive comes from–and the learning that goes with it. That’s why the program utilizing retired law enforcement personnel is successful. They have the skills to dissect a criminal act, science and all, Metz says.