The Latest Word On Trends And Developments In Aerospace And Defense
Super Money. Political action groups (PACs) funded by the defense industry have supported members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that will weigh up to $1.5 trillion in federal budget cuts, on top of $900 billion in recently announced reductions. The nonpartisan watchdog group MapLight analyzes campaign contributions to the 12 members of Congress on the new panel. It finds a PAC funded by Honeywell donated a combined $164,120 to members over the past decade. Other industry donations, to some of the 12 members, include $162,580 from a Lockheed Martin PAC and $132,500 from a Boeing PAC. The Boeing PAC gave Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a major company supporter and co-chair of the committee, $20,000 over the past 10 years, according to MapLight. Still, defense-industry PACs did not rank as top donors overall to the 12 panel members.
Cyber Eye. Outgoing Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn says over the past decade “terabytes of data have been extracted by foreign intruders from corporate networks of defense companies,” including one incident in March when 24,000 files were taken. He tells the 2011 Defense Information Systems Agency Customer and Industry Forum that some of the stolen data is “mundane,” “like the specifications for small parts of tanks, airplanes, and submarines.” Yet, he adds at the Baltimore, Md., event on Aug. 16, “a great deal of it concerns our most sensitive systems, including aircraft avionics, surveillance technologies, satellite-communications systems, and network-security protocols.” He highlights a Defense Industrial Base Cyber Pilot program–between the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security, and “a handful of defense companies”–in which he says “classified threat intelligence is shared with defense contractors or their commercial internet service providers along with the know-how to employ it in network defense.”
Robo-revenge. So as it turns out, the United States can win at international soccer–at least when humans aren’t involved. The Navy-sponsored robo-soccer team defeated Japan’s version in a recent RoboCup match, avenging the U.S. loss to the same country in the final game of the Women’s World Cup in July, Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, reports. Roughead notes the victory during his opening remarks at an unmanned systems convention in Washington. “I am also here to reclaim our national honor,” he says.
Gerald R. Ford Half Done. Construction on the USS Gerald R Ford (CVN-78) has reached the halfway mark, Huntington Ingalls Industries, announced last week. The lead ship in the new class of aircraft carriers has been under construction at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding facility since November 2009. The company says the ship is on schedule for launch in 2013 and delivery to the Navy in 2015.
FRC Launch. Bollinger Shipyards last Thursday launched the Coast Guard’s second 154-foot Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutter (FRC), the Richard Etheridge, in Lockport, La. The launch of the Etheridge follows the launch of the first FRC in April, the Bernard C. Webber. The third cutter, the William Flores, is slated to be launched on Nov. 10. The FRCs are being acquired to replace the Coast Guard’s current fleet of 46 110-foot Island-class cutters. The Etheridge will now undergo a series of tests and evaluations before its planned delivery early next year. Sea trial and crew training will take place later this year.
Holistic Look at DIB. The Defense Department’s Industrial Base Policy Office is undertaking a “holistic” review of the Defense Industrial Base, specifically attempting to gain greater insight into the “technological and industrial capabilities” of subcontractors and their challenges, Lawrence Farrell, president and CEO of the National Defense Industrial Association, says in an email to his organization’s members seeking their participation in the effort. Farrell says the new review will be “holistic” rather than “previous program-focused and product-focused assessments.” Ultimately, “This new approach will enable the Department to replace intuitions about the extent of globalization, commercial-military integration, changing sources of innovation, and other issues with fact-based evaluations,” Farrell says in an Aug. 16 email to NDIA members. “The Department will then be able to tailor their policies when leaders understand the differences across sectors and tiers of the industrial base rather than imposing one-size-fits-all policies that may unintentionally exacerbate rather than ameliorate some problems.”
…First Phase. The first phase of the new DIB review is “Sector-by-Sector, Tier-by-Tier,” or S2T2, Farrell says. This phase will obtain baseline data on aircraft, shipbuilding, space, ground vehicles, missiles, missile defense, services, and information communications technology. Over time, the data will be strengthened and will provide a “starting point for the Department’s wide variety of industrial assessments,” he says. The knowledge gained from the assessment will “contribute to acquisition decisions, help ensure realistic program objectives and reduce programming swings that disrupt industrial base investment,” he says. “It will also contribute to the Department’s merger, acquisition, and divestiture reviews and other industrial base policies.”
Exercise Postponed. Egypt and the United States mutually agreed to postpone the 2011 Bright Star exercise in light of ongoing transition events, the State Department says in response to a media question. The decision was reached as part of routine bilateral conversations. Egypt and the United States also agreed to commence formal planning in June 2012 for Exercise Bright Star 2013. The exercise is a biennial, multinational exercise sponsored by U.S. Central Command. It is designed to strengthen military-to-military relationships and improve readiness and interoperability among U.S., Egyptian and other coalition forces, including France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
Desert Training. Britain’s Prince Harry is expected to do some training in the deserts of Arizona and California in the near future, the MoD says. U.K. does some of its Apache attack helicopter training here in the United States. Harry already passed a 10-month training course and was recently promoted to captain. He potentially could deploy to Afghanistan next year. Boeing builds Apaches in Mesa, Ariz., and at one point in the l990s trained U.K. pilots, though it doesn’t any more.
Kiowa Training. Boeing says it will use a Helimod helicopter simulator leased from Ryan Aerospace to help train Australian Army pilots to fly Bell 206B-1 Kiowa helicopters. Delivery is expected before the end of this year. “…Boeing has traditionally taught students to fly Kiowas using classroom-based instruction and real flight hours,” says Mark Brownsey, senior manager of AATTS for Boeing Defence Australia. “Over the next year, we’ll assess the effectiveness of transferring some of this curriculum to the synthetic environment, which has the potential to reduce costly flight hours and improve safety and training outcomes for the Australian Army.” The Australian Army primarily uses the Kiowa as a lead-in trainer to the Boeing CH-47D Chinook, and Eurocopter Tiger Armed Reconaissance Helicopter and Multi-Role Helicopter 90.
Applauding Cooperation. The nation’s governors say they’re pleased with the work of the Council of Governors addressing long-standing concerns regarding disaster response across the country and encouraged Congress in a letter to the House and Senate Armed Services Committee to include legislation in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. The governors unanimously support a model MoA that would expedite the appointment of a dual status commander during complex emergencies involving federal and state military forces. They also support for legislation to codify the dual status commander arrangement and authorize the call-up of federal reserve forces to assist in a disaster response at the request of a governor.