The Latest Word On Trends And Developments In Aerospace And Defense
30-Year Plans On Tap. The defense secretary is directed to send the 30-year shipbuilding and aviation plans to the House by Sept. 15 under two resolutions the HASC approved last Tuesday. Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) proposed the resolutions, which HASC Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) modified before the committee passed them. The Pentagon annoyed HASC members when it opted against submitting the two plans to Congress this spring, despite laws requiring them. Navy leaders have said the shipbuilding plan could not be completed until after the recently launched Quadrennial Defense Review concludes.
VH-71 Fans. The report accompanying the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization bill the HASC approved last week suggests the Pentagon continue buying the Increment 1 VH-71 presidential helicopters developed for the recently canceled program with Lockheed Martin. The legislation funds the Obama administration’s request for $85.2 million in program cancellation costs. Yet the report notes a new acquisition plan may include more than one helicopter, and says: “the committee strongly suggests that the Department of Defense consider continuing procurement of the current ‘Increment 1’ helicopter for use as the normal transport for the president, and study other alternatives for Presidential transport in other situations. The committee notes that this approach will leverage the investment already made by the taxpayer in developing a helicopter that would meet all normal requirements of the president.” HASC member Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.) is circulating a “dear colleague” letter advocating for buying and using the increment 1 VH-71s.
Taylor On EFV. The HASC bill report may endorse the Marine Corps’ plans to fortify the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle with an armor applique, but HASC Seapower and Expeditionary Forces subcommittee Chairman Rep. Gene Taylor (D- Miss.) still wants to see modifications to the vehicle to better protect passengers from underbelly explosions. Taylor previously pushed for redesigning the flat-bottomed vehicle to have a V-shaped hull like the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP) has. “I’m not crazy about the applique,” Taylor says. “(But) it’s certainly better than the flat bottom. And if it saves Marines lives…and we can get it some (additional) MRAP-level of protection, I can live with it.”
Authorizing Action. The defense authorization bill is expected to hit the House floor later this week. The HASC finalized the legislation last Wednesday morning, after a 16-plus hour markup session. The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet tomorrow at 5 p.m. on the bill, and the Rules panel’s deadline for amendments is tonight at 7:30 p.m. The SASC subcommittees will begin marking up their portions of the defense authorization bill in closed sessions starting tomorrow. The full committee markups–also behind closed doors–are scheduled to begin Wednesday and continue to as late as Friday.
Auditing The Pentagon. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have introduced a bill calling for setting deadlines for the Department of Defense to have a complete audit of its financial statements for the first time. “We owe it to our men and women in uniform and the American taxpayer to fix the Pentagon’s broken bookkeeping without further delay, and only by imposing hard legislative deadlines will this finally be accomplished,” McCain says. The consequences of not having an audited financial statement in the Pentagon is costing lives, Coburn charges, adding: “The waste from this lack of financial accountability, estimated in the billions, results in fewer weapons and less resources for our troops in combat.”
Fly By FY ’10. Boeing will dedicate funding to further development of the F-15 Silent Eagle program with a goal of a flight demonstration in the third quarter of 2010. The announcement came at the Paris Air Show following meetings with potential customers. “We know from talking with current international F-15 operators that they are very interested in the capabilities of the Silent Eagle,” says Jim Albaugh, president of the company’s Integrated Defense Systems division. “Making this commitment to get the program through to a flight demonstration will ultimately help international customers understand how this aircraft meets their need for a flexible, long-range, large-payload, high-speed, multi-role strike fighter with reduced observability.” Company officials would not comment on which potential buyers were involved in the discussions but emphasized that current F-15 customers are the target market for the new, stealthier variant of the airplane. Current international F-15 operators include Israel, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and South Korea.
Greener Pastures. Raytheon is considering incorporating Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) technologies into a next-generation kill vehicle for the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA effort. The Pentagon has proposed terminating MKV in the FY ’10 budget. Taylor Lawrence, vice president of Raytheon Missile Systems, tells reporters at the Paris Air Show last week that “it doesn’t look good” for the program. The effort has been funded by the Missile Defense Agency. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin were developing separate MKV concepts.
New Command. The Air Force announced last week that Barksdale AFB, La., will be the permanent location of Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) headquarters, a new major command focused on the nuclear and global strike mission. Barksdale was previously identified as the Air Force’s preferred alternative for purposes of the environmental analysis process that is now complete. AFGSC will be activated on Aug. 7, according to an Air Force press statement. “The standup of this new command will provide clear lines of authority and responsibility dedicated to the nuclear and conventional global strike mission–a key component of strategic deterrence,” says Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, designated commander for AFGSC.
What Are You Doing? While Defense Secretary Robert Gates might not Twitter or use Facebook, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff does. Mullen tells reporters social networks are how the forces, many of whom the average age is 20 to 21, live. “It’s what they’ve grown up on. And so for leaders, I’ll take myself in particular, I think it’s really important to be connected to that and understand it, certainly not be as facile as they are on it, but to understand, because I think communicating that way and moving information around that way, whether it’s administrative information or information in warfare, is absolutely critical.”
…Reaching Out. When Gates began the process of hiring a new deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, one of the key issues he raised with Price Floyd (who took the job) was that the DoD has two million people in uniform, most of them around the age that Mullen described. “How do we communicate better with them? How do we get reactions from them to things that we’re doing? How do we get better plugged in with what they’re thinking?” Also, in terms of the DoD’s strategic communication, that’s the age, if not younger, of many of the people around the world they are trying to reach, Gates adds. “And how do we reach them in a way that they understand? And this department, I think, is way behind the power curve in this, and it’s an area where I think we have a lot of room for improvement.”
Opening Up. ONR chief Rear Adm. Nevin Carr tells Defense Daily the Navy has to get to an open environment. “We are not going to be able to build proprietary systems. [We] can’t afford to do things that way. The rate of commercial technology is changing…the rate of change is changing…so we have to be able to ride that curve.” ONR is doing work in open architecture (OA) that is directly supporting total ownership cost…the lifecycle cost…of systems and platforms, he adds. “The more we can make our systems open, the more we can open up possibilities for the future,” Carr says. “There is one thing you can bet on, there is something coming in a couple of years that we aren’t even thinking of.” One area in OA that ONR is focusing on is in radars, Carr adds. “In particular, where we are working on the back end of the radar, the processing end of the radar…developing a common scalable open back end to the radar.”
Heading Home. The presidential helicopter presented by former President Richard Nixon to Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat in 1974 has been redelivered to the Egyptian government in a ceremony held last month at Clayton International in Peachtree, Ga., the Navy says. The VH-3A Sea King was completely rebuilt and outfitted with new engines, a heavier-duty transmission, a new, non-folding aft fuselage, a new, non-folding main rotor head and a new, executive-level interior. ‘The Sea King arrived a little more than a year ago at Clayton International as a stripped shell, with most of the parts in boxes,” Capt. James Wallace, Support and Commercial Derivative Aircraft program manager, PMA-207, says. “What you see before you is a testament to the craftsman here turning a stripped shell into a state-of-the-art executive helicopter and delivering it on time and on budget.” This VH-3A Sea King was one of eight built for VIP transport and flew Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon before being presented to Sadat in 1974, the Navy adds.
SPAWAR. General Dynamics IT was awarded a $51 million IDIQ contract to support SPAWAR Systems Center (SSC) Atlantic through the Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) Secure Voice and Defense Red Switch Network (DRSN), Information Assurance and Interoperability program, the company reports. The single-award contract covers a five-year base period with eight potential six-month option periods and has a total potential value of $98 million, if all options are exercised. GD will perform a variety of duties including program management, engineering support, testing and evaluation, integrated logistics support, on-site technical assistance, network security, and implementation and integration of secure voice, command and control, DRSN and information systems networks. The DRSN provides global, secure voice and voice-conferencing services to senior decision makers within the DoD, the company adds.
New Cat. Oshkosh Defense will unveil its SandCat(tm) Special Operations Vehicle (SOV) at the Defence Vehicle Dynamics (DVD) 2009 event, June 24-25 at the Millbrook proving ground in Bedfordshire, U.K., Oshkosh Corp. says. The vehicle was designed specifically for the emerging requirements of international special forces units that need an open, highly mobile and well-protected vehicle for operations in remote locations. The variant is the latest addition to the SandCat family and is based on the same lightweight, high-performance and well-protected platform, the company says. The vehicle’s integrated survivability system was designed and manufactured by Plasan North America, which developed the armor systems in use on the Oshkosh Armored Cab Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement (MTVR) and more than 5,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. The SandCat SOV was built around commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components to maximize ease of maintenance and repairs globally. As with other Oshkosh SandCat vehicles, the SOV’s survivability features can be adjusted to meet the payload needs and threat levels of specific missions, Oshkosh adds..
The LaWS Won. NAVSEA, with support from NSWC Dahlgren, for the first time tracked, engaged, and destroyed a threat representative UAV while in flight June 7 at NWSC China Lake, the Navy says. A total of five targets were engaged and destroyed during the testing, also a first for the Navy. Members of NAVSEA’s Directed Energy and Electric Weapon Systems (DE&EWS) Program Office and NSWC Dahlgren fired a laser through a beam director on a KINETO Tracking Mount. Two additional UAVs were engaged and destroyed in flight on June 9, with two more UAVs shot down June 11. These recent evolutions continued a series of progressively challenging tests using the prototype version of the Surface Navy Laser Weapon System (LaWS), the Navy adds.
BRITE Beginnings. NSWC recently delivered two AN/AAQ-22E BRITE Star Block II systems to Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One for use in a tactical demonstration during the Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) course, the Navy says. As part of the course, NSWC Crane trained both pilots and avionics technicians on the upgraded system’s operation ability before its release to the warfighter later this year. AN/AAQ-22E BRITE Star is an electro-optic multi-sensor that provides day and night surveillance and targeting capability for rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft, including the UH-1 Huey helicopter, the Navy says.
Architecture Recognition. PEO Submarines received the 2009 Defense Enterprise Architecture Achievement Award for its Submarine Warfare Federated Tactical Systems (SWFTS) efforts June 4 during the Department of Defense (DoD) Enterprise Architecture Conference in St. Louis, Mo. SWFTS is comprised of a number of submarine systems. Sonar, tactical control, weapons control, imaging, electronic warfare, radio room, and torpedoes fall within the SWFTS construct. These systems utilize Commercial Off-The-Shelf components and are on a regular Technology Insertion (TI) and Advanced Processor Build (APB) cycle that ensures that they remain state of the practice, the Navy reports.
First In Fleet. Crew members aboard the USS Harry Truman (CVN-75) are learning to operate and maintain the Distributed Common Ground System-Navy (DCGS-N), the service’s newest ISR&T asset, SPAWAR says. Truman became the first ship in the fleet to receive the DCGS-N in January 2009. The training is in preparation for a series of upcoming test events that will culminate in August 2009 with an Operational Evaluation (OPEVAL) conducted by Commander, Operational Test and Evaluation Force. Upon completion of OPEVAL, Truman will deploy overseas as the first operational unit to feature DCGS-N. The DCGS-N is the fleet variant of the DCGS Family of Systems that provides integration of ISR&T support capabilities previously accessed from a variety of stand-alone systems. The system allows Truman sailors to produce and share actionable intelligence products that adhere to intelligence community standards with the family of systems and other DoD customers, SPAWAR adds..
Army Fast. Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli says the service can change fast, responding to SASC Airland panel Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.), who asked if there had been too many changes in modernization plans for the service. Chiarelli says, “I watched us over a period of time in Iraq move from soft-skin Humvees up to Humvees with Frag Kit 5 and now today to the MRAP and thought, thank goodness we were able to go ahead and make those of kind of modernization leaps forward to protect our soldiers.”
…MRAP Futures. MRAPs represent eight percent of the Army’s total vehicle inventory and will be integrated into service formations where they are best suited, he says. “The MRAP has saved arms, legs and lives,” he says. It’s an “absolutely amazing” vehicle, but can’t be integrated everywhere. Some MRAPs are already back in the United States and in the training base. Many of the old MRAPs without off-road suspension can be retrofitted. Both the Army and Marines will do some of the retrofit work in theater.
Big Bucks. It will cost the Army something in the realm of “hundreds of millions” to terminate the Future Combat Systems manned ground vehicle program, Army Lt. Gen. Ross Thompson, military deputy to the service acquisition chief, tells SASC. The precise figure is uncertain because those termination costs are to be negotiated with Boeing and its subcontractors. “There are 25 tier two contractors and some 600 below that,” he says. If funds are not included in the FY ’10 budget, then some part of the work on network development and on the spin out equipment won’t be done, he says.
Clear View. BAE Systems will continue developing a digital night-vision goggle the Army has identified as a priority for improving warfighter situational awareness. A $5.1 million contract extension moves the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle, or ENVG(D) work, into the next phase. The company will produce five of the ENVG(D) goggles, which digitally fuse visible, low-light, and infrared imagery, for limited user evaluation in FY ’10. The initial ENVG(D) evaluation demonstrated the technology’s ability to provide visibility in bad weather, darkness, and other visibility-limiting conditions. Greg Davis, director of advanced systems for BAE in Lexington, Mass., says: “The services have indicated a need for these goggles as they seek to improve situational awareness and generate digitized data that can be shared across the battlefield.” A competitive award for system development and demonstration will follow the advanced technology development phase.