The Latest Word On Trends And Developments In Aerospace And Defense
McCain’s Fleet. SASC Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) comes to the Navy’s defense after President Barack Obama chides GOP challenger Mitt Romney, who wants to increase Navy shipbuilding, for emphasizing the naval fleet is smaller now than in 1917. Obama, during the Oct. 22 presidential debate, maintains today’s ships are much more advanced vessels. McCain tells reporters U.S. shipyards are experiencing a reduction in shipbuilding, just at a time when more Navy vessels are needed because of the Obama administration’s new defense strategy that calls for an increased military presence in the Asia-Pacific. McCain argues Obama does not understand the challenge facing the military in that region. “We do need more ships in the Asia-Pacific region, and any military leader will tell you that, if you’re going to carry out the strategy which he has advanced,” McCain says Oct. 23.
Funding Frustration. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta tells reporters he is frustrated going through a “strategic-choices” process with Pentagon officials amid so much budget uncertainty. The Pentagon is operating under a temporary budget for the first half of fiscal year 2013, and Congress and the White House have not agreed on any plan to delay or stop $55 billion in “sequestration” cuts from being made to the defense budget next year. “I don’t know what…(I am) going to get for 2013 much less what is Congress going to provide for 2014,” Panetta says Oct. 25 at the Pentagon. “And the issue,…and this is a strategic issue, is what kind of stability am I going to have in terms of defense spending for the future?” He adds: “For me to be able to put a strategy in place, for us to be able to make the kind of strategic choices we need to make, I have to have some stability with regards to where are we going from here. And I don’t have that right now, and…frankly, that’s a major concern.”
Keeping Score. The right-leaning Center for Security Policy think tank releases a “2011-2012 National Security Scorecard” that heralds 265 lawmakers for their pro-military votes on legislation. It scores 22 House votes and eight Senate votes on legislation, about topics ranging from defense sequestration to the Law of the Sea Treaty. The center labels 227 House members and 38 senators as “Champions of National Security,” because they score 85 percent or higher. The scorecard also IDs 149 House members and 44 senators as “Lowest Scoring Legislators” who score 25 percent or lower. “It is imperative that the American public be able to assess how our legislators have voted on a range of defense, foreign policy and homeland security matters,” Center for Security Policy President and CEO Frank Gaffney says Oct. 26 in a statement.
Lieberman’s Last Stand. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.) says when Congress debates so-called sequestration cuts next month he “won’t support any debt-reduction package that requires our military to accept further cuts.” Lieberman, who is not running for reelection, writes in a Oct. 26 opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that people should remember the military is “already under unprecedented strain” because of $487 billion in defense reductions already imposed by the Budget Control Act last year. Sequestration could add another $500 billion in long-term defense cuts. “The reductions in military spending that we have already accepted weren’t driven by improvements in the strategic climate facing our country,” Lieberman says, arguing the nation’s national-security threats are becoming more complex “and no less demanding or urgent.” He writes: “Sequestration of both defense and nondefense accounts can and must be avoided by a bipartisan debt-reduction package that deals with the real drivers of our fiscal problem: entitlement spending and insufficient revenue.”
Better Federal, Local Ties. The White House last Friday issued an executive order establishing the Homeland Security Partnership Council aimed at creating partnerships between various stakeholders at the federal and local levels including private and non-governmental organizations “to address homeland security challenges.” The council will be chaired by the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. The supporting policy language in the order says that given the “complexities and range of the challenges, we must institutionalize an all-of-nation effort to address the evolving threats to the United States.”
Hall of Fame Packbot. iRobot’s battle-tested Packbot robot is now in the Robot Hall of Fame created by Carnegie Mellon University in 2003. The Hall of Fame is to recognize excellence in robotics technology. The class of 2012 also included Boston Dynamic’s BigDog, Aldebaran Robotic’s NAO and Pixar’s WALL-E. Packbots are stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was one of the first robots to enter the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant after the 2011 tsunami. BigDog, a robotic mule, is now being tested by DARPA and could become a military robot.
Ahead of Schedule. Boeing’s CH-47F Chinook helicopters are delivering ahead of schedule, says Mark Ballew, director of Mobility Rotorcraft Business Development. To date, 208 of the Fox models have been delivered on a production schedule of five per month, Ballew said at the AUSA annual meeting. Boeing is negotiating with the government on a second multi-year award, with everything almost in place, preparing for an award and budget. There’s been “great cooperation” between the government and Boeing, Ballew says.
Deeper Ties. The strategic partnership between India and the United states is growing in defense and security, William Burns, deputy secretary of State says at the Center for American Progress in Washington Friday. “As India’s military influence grows, our hope is that our partnership can become one of our closest in the region.” Burns says that since 2008, India has bought more than $8 billion in U.S. defense equipment, up from “effectively zero” less than a decade ago. “When we complete delivery of India’s $4 billion in C-17 aircraft, our combined fleet will represent the largest airlift capability in the world,” he says. “As our defense relationship evolves from “buyer-seller” to co-production and joint research, we will be ambitious, and we ask India to be equally ambitious in sharing this vision of a new security partnership with the United States.”
Sniper Trials. The Army International Sniper Competition kicks off Nov. 2 at Fort Benning, Ga., and runs through Nov. 7. Thirty-six two-man sniper teams from around the world are expected to participate in the competition and symposium, a post release says. The teams represent active-duty Army units, the Army National Guard, U.S. Army Reserve, U.S. Air Force, Pentagon Defense Police, the San Diego police department and the countries of United Arab Emigrants, Canada, Germany and Ireland. The competition will take place on the firing ranges on post and events will be conducted continuously over a 72-hour period. The events will test competitors’ physical fitness and mastery of sniper skills to include target detection, target discrimination, stalking, land navigation and marksmanship. The competition will be preceded by a symposium focused on sharing tactics, techniques, procedures and lessons learned from subject matter experts who have recent combat experiences.
USAF Honeywell SPLS. The Air Force and Honeywell sign a new eight-year, $365 million contract extension to the Secondary Power Logistics Solution (SPLS) contract to provide logistics and depot support for F-15s, according to an Air Force statement. This extension builds on Increment I of the SPLS contract, which provides support for the B-2 bomber and the C-130 cargo aircraft. SPLS is one of the Air Force’s first examples of the Defense Department’s Performance Based Logistics (PBL) contracting. With PBL, instead of contracting for individual parts and services, the government pays a fixed amount for a desired outcome based on mission needs, such as an availability rate.
Boeing CHAMP. Boeing and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) successfully test the Counter-Electronics High-Powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) during a flight test over the Utah Test and Training Range, according to a Boeing statement. During the test, the CHAMP missile navigated a pre-programmed flight plan and emitted bursts of high-powered energy, effectively knocking out the target’s data and electronic subsystems. CHAMP allows for selective high-frequency radio wave strikes against numerous targets during a single mission. CHAMP is a multi-year, joint capability technology demonstration that includes ground and flight tests.
F-35A AMRAAM. An F-35A Joint Strike Fighter test aircraft completed the first aerial weapons release of an AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) Oct. 19, according to a Lockheed Martin statement. The F-35A is the conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variant the Air Force is purchasing. The test aircraft, known as AF-1, jettisoned the instrumented AIM-120 over the China Lake, Calif., test range from an internal weapons bay. This was the second in-flight weapons release in three days for AF-1 as it completed the release of a 2,000-pound GBU-31 BLU-109 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) Oct. 16.
Rolls On Amphibious Craft. Rolls-Royce has been selected to provide the engines for the Navy and Marine Corps’ next generation of amphibious landing craft known as the Ship-to-Shore Connector (SSC). Rolls Royce will provide the engines for hovercrafts being built by Textron’s marine systems unit. Textron won the contract in July to build the SSCs, valued at $212.7 million for the first hovercraft. Options for eight more would bring the total value to $570.5 million. Rolls Royce said it will use it’s MT7 gas turbines engines, which are derived from the AE1107 engine that powers the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.