The Latest Word On Trends And Developments In Aerospace And Defense
Waiting On The Defense Bill. President Bush had not yet signed (or vetoed) the fiscal year 2009 defense authorization bill as of Defense Daily‘s deadline last Friday. He has until the end of this week to sign the massive Pentagon policy measure, which was delivered to the White House the beginning of last week, on Oct. 6. Though the Senate cast the final expected vote to pass the bill on Saturday, Sept. 27, the legislation was not sent to the executive branch early the following week–as initial expected– because technical corrections had to be made to the document. The Senate and House agreed to the typo fixes on Oct. 2. Lawmakers and aides say they see no reason why Bush would veto the legislation, because much of the “veto bait” was removed. Yet some acknowledge the president pocket vetoed the FY ’08 defense authorization bill for a reason they didn’t foresee: Iraqi government liability in U.S. courts for Saddam Hussein-era crimes.
New Agreements. ATK and FN Herstal of Belgium enter cooperative agreements that strengthen their respective capabilities and proven expertise. The first agreement led to the recent $53.4 million systems contract ATK and FNM LLC won for the manufacture and delivery of Mk19 Mod-3 Grenade Machine Guns to the Army Joint Munitions and Lethality Life Cycle Management Command. ATK was tasked through the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Detachment to develop 5.56mm and 7.62mm ammunition for special operations for use with rifle platforms to include the SCAR system developed by FN. ATK and FNH USA, LLC have also entered into a distribution agreement covering FN’s 5.7 x 28 mm SS 197 commercial ammunition for the U.S. market. The agreements team together the world’s largest ammunition manufacturing entity and technology leader with one of the world’s leading suppliers of small arms.
…Up To Date. ATK receives another $94 million for critical modernization projects at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant (RFAAP), where it is the operating contractor. The PEO for Ammunition in Picatinny, N.J., and the Army Sustainment Command in Rock Island, Ill., awarded the funding. This brings the total amount of modernization funding received by ATK for RFAAP to $148 million over the past two years.
On The Flight Line. Boeing is offering a new rotorcraft program, the AH-6 light attack/reconnaissance helicopter. Designed on a combat-proven platform with a heritage of successful service with Army Special Operations, the AH-6 is designed to meet the current requirements of international military customers while maintaining flexibility for future growth. “Boeing has been approached by several potential customers seeking light attack and reconnaissance capabilities in a flexible rotorcraft platform,” Dave Palm, director of Boeing Rotorcraft Business Development, says at the Association of the United States Army’s annual convention in Washington, D.C. The AH-6 features an Electro-Optical/Infrared forward-looking sight system as well as a mount for weapons that have been qualified on the aircraft, including Hellfire missiles, the M260 seven-shot rocket pod, a machine gun and a mini-gun integrated with a sensor system. A communications package allows the AH-6 to connect to other aircraft and to ground stations.
Sikorsky Support. Sikorsky Aerospace Services says its signed nearly $11.8 million in contracts to provide the Army Aviation and Missile Command with support work for UH-60A and UH-60L helicopters. Sikorsky Aerospace Services is the worldwide aftermarket division of Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. The separate contracts include $8.4 million to strip and rebuild 89 UH-60A/L helicopter main rotor blades; $1.47 million to overhaul 74 UH-60A/L helicopter main rotor hubs; and $1.89 million to strip and rebuild 20 UH-60A/L helicopter main rotor blades.
The End. The New Zealand Defence Force’s nine-year contribution to the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) comes to an end, Defence Minister Phil Goff says. “The withdrawal brings to a close a 16-year commitment to peace and stability in the Balkans region, which at its peak in the 1990s included a 250-strong infantry company in Bosnia- Herzegovina,” Goff says. “New Zealand has provided a military officer to serve at UNMIK Headquarters in Pristina since the mission was first established in 1999. We will no longer be sending personnel to Kosovo due to the down-scaling of the U.N. Mission, as the region has stabilized.”
No Spin Zone. CENTCOM Commander Gen. David Petraeus says his media strategy in Iraq was to “be first with the truth, not to put lipstick on pigs, not to spin.” While some believed the U.S. had a “messaging problem” and that “strategic communications weren’t working” during some of the tough times there, Petraeus disagreed in a speech at last week’s AUSA symposium, according to an AUSA release. Until the situation improved on the ground, the problem was “results” and not “strategic communications,” he said.
…Too Much Strategic Communication? Concerned about a recent award of $300 million in contracts to private contractors to perform information operations in Iraq, Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) last week sent a letter to SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to request hearings to explore the “scope, reach, and desirability of the Defense Department’s steady growth in expenditures for strategic communication programs and the corresponding increase of civilian contractors to support them.” In a separate letter, Webb asked Defense Secretary Gates to put the contracts on hold until SASC and the next administration “review the entire issue of U.S propaganda efforts inside Iraq.”
Competitive Launch. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have each been awarded $30 million contracts to modernize the Army’s M299 launcher family. The modernization program calls for a multi-platform missile launcher to carry the family of Hellfire II missiles on current and future Army rotary-wing and unmanned aerial system platforms. The 30-month modernization phase includes development, testing and qualification of each team’s design. The contracts also provide two options for low-rate initial production beginning in 2011. The modernized M299 will carry all variants of the Hellfire II and the Longbow Hellfire, as well as the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM), which is currently in competition for further technology development. Both companies have contracts to compete for the JAGM award.
Mega-Maintenance. Boeing has received a contract for the initial phase of a new three-year Air Force contract to continue providing C-17 Globemaster III logistics support. The Air Force awarded Boeing $514 million of the estimated $3 billion performance-based logistics (PBL) contract on Oct. 1, covering the beginning of fiscal year 2009. Boeing’s proposal included a significant decrease in dollars per flight hour that will save the Air Force more than $200 million over three years compared with the previous contract, according to a company statement released last week.
Lift Off. Qatar has signed a $393.6 million contract with Lockheed Martin for the purchase of four C-130J Super Hercules airlifters, with deliveries to begin in 2011, the company said last week. Qatar’s new C-130Js will be the longer fuselage or “stretched” variant of the aircraft. The package includes four aircraft, training of aircrew and maintenance technicians, spares, ground support and test equipment, servicing carts, forklifts, loading vehicles, cargo pallets, and a team of technical specialists. Australia, Canada, Demark, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States also have the aircraft in their military fleets.
Business Sense. During his visit last month to South Korea’s Hyundai and Daewoo shipyards, Navy Secretary Donald Winter had the opportunity to sit down and chat with top executives from each facility. “These guys both knew their business to a level I found remarkable,” Winter tells Defense Daily. “They knew their numbers, and I don’t just mean how many ships they built this week or next week, but even down to the point of their knowing what their average cost for labor was, what the cost of a day’s worth of fuel was on their large vessels. They understood the technology they were applying, who they were buying from.” Winter says he talked to them about their supply chain, who they were buying steel from, about their competitors and what the Europeans are doing, what the Chinese are doing, what the Americans are doing. “Even to the point of knowing the Jones Act work that is being done in the U.S. They knew who is building what ships and how many. And they knew what people were paying for labor costs around the world,” Winter adds.
…Casual Conversations. “We [were] just sitting around a table and talking. This isn’t somebody reading a script or a reading bunch of view graph briefings,” Winter says. “They could describe how they were trying to position their business for the future, and how they were dealing with future challenges. “It was less a marketing pitch and more the senior executive explaining why he is no longer bidding on bulk carriers, what he sees as the future and some of those challenges, Winter adds. “For example the offshore oil work they doing for places like the Gulf of Guinea…wanting to make sure the oil never has to go on land for processing just because of the threats of terrorists.
OA OK. The Navy is firmly committed to open architecture (OA) combat systems and is planning to adapt its C4I systems to be open architectured too, Vice Adm. Barry McCullough, Deputy CNO for Integration of Capabilities and Resources, tells Defense Daily. “It’s how you evolve from where you are now to get to an open systems environment. It’s not just the hardware and the software, it’s a business model too.” At the point the Navy reaches ACB 12 in the Aegis Combat System, anyone should be able to build upon changes to algorithms or computer programs that go in that system because they will understand what the functionality is and what the interfaces are, McCullough adds. “That’s what we really have to get in order to be able to evolve the combat systems.” Modernization of the DDGs and CGs is on the order of $220 million including HM&E and the combat systems, he notes. “We can’t afford to do another $220 million upgrade to those ships, assuming combat systems is about three-quarters of it, yet again half way through their remaining service lives. We just can’t afford to do that.”
…High Praise. McCullough explains if the Navy gets to the OA environment it has defined and is working to achieve, and Rear Adm. Terry Benedict (PEO IWS) and his team have done a good job with that, then the Navy should be able to be continuously upgrade the combat systems to pace development of threats at much less cost. And that’s where the Navy has to head if it is ever going to achieve the force structure floor CNO Adm. Gary Roughead has defined, McCullough adds. “If we don’t get to the OA environment, we will never get to that number of ships. The majority of the 313 force structure, which is the floor of what we estimate we will need, is sitting at the pier right now, and if we don’t get those ships to the end of their service lives we will never achieve any level of force structure close to that.”
Thumbs Up. ATK and NAVAIR have been given the green light to begin producing AARGM, after receiving approval to enter LRIP on Sept. 30, the Navy says. The first AARGM missile will be fielded in late 2010, the Navy adds. “This significant advancement in capability is a result of a team effort between the U.S. Navy, ATK and the Italian Air Force,” says Capt. Larry Egbert, program manager. “AARGM is a cooperative development program with the Italian Air Force, which will integrate its capabilities on the Tornado aircraft. Together, we are leaning forward to get this critical weapon in the hands of our warfighters.”
Fab Three. The Coast Guard and Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding marked the start of fabrication of the third National Security Cutter (NSC) last month, Northrop Grumman says. Start Fab typically is celebrated after the first 100 tons of steel are cut for a ship, the company adds. Using the lessons learned from building the first two NSCs, this milestone for NSC 3 also highlights a ship more complete than NSC 2 at this stage due to improvements in the NSC build sequence, the company says.
…Light ‘Er Up. Last Monday the Deepwater C4ISR team successfully powered up the first set of cabinets and consoles onboard Waesche signifying Electronics Light-Off of the second NSC. All 28 electronics cabinets, which constitute the core of the C4ISR system, were powered up, Northrop Grumman says.
Measuring Up. Engineers from NSWC Port Hueneme will install the first maintenance system utilizing laser technology to improve AN/SPY-1D(V) radar maintenance onboard USS Sterett (DDG-104) this week, the Navy says. Radar measurements are taken periodically, ensuring alignment specifications and operational capabilities are maintained. Previously, measurements were taken over a four-day period for all four ship arrays. With this new laser technology, the effort can be accomplished in two days, with two instead of three personnel. The Navy expects to save more than $400,000 every year for at least the next four years by a reduction in time and labor associated with radar maintenance, adds the Navy.