June 14, 2018 | International, Aerospace

Despite some opposition, US on course to deliver F-35s to Turkey on June 21

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government is proceeding with plans to deliver the first F-35 to Turkey, with the country set to accept its first jet on June 21 despite opposition from some in Congress.

A Lockheed Martin spokesman confirmed to Defense News that it's still gearing up for a rollout ceremony at its production facilities in Fort Worth next week.

“The F-35 program traditionally hosts a ceremony to recognize every U.S. and international customer's first aircraft. The rollout ceremony for Turkey's first F-35 aircraft is scheduled for June 21,” the spokesman said in a written statement to Defense News.

“The aircraft will then ferry to Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, where Turkish pilots will join the F-35A training pool.”

The Senate is set to vote this week on the annual defense policy bill, which includes language that would prohibit the U.S. government from “transfer of title” to Turkey until the time that the Defense Department submits a report to Congress on removal of Turkey from the F-35 program.

But even if that language succeeds in the Senate, the defense policy bill will proceed to conference, where a group of armed services committee members will hammer out differences between the House and Senate versions to emerge with a single, final piece of legislation. That process could take months.

Congress's opposition to allowing Turkey to purchase the F-35 hovers around two points: the country's detainment of American pastor Andrew Brunson and a deal to purchase the Russian S-400 air defense system.

But for now, it appears that the Defense Department has no plans to keep Turkey from getting its first F-35 or to put restrictions on its use at Luke AFB.

Thomas Goffus, the Defense Department's deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO, acknowledged during an Atlantic Council event Wednesday that Turkey's acquistion of the S-400 could present the U.S. military and NATO alliance with added technical risks.

But he would not go as far to spell out what actions the Defense Department is considering or could consider later down the road — perhaps a sign that the Pentagon is waiting to see how this legislation shakes out.

“We have a process to evaluate the risks to Western technology that that [procurement] would present. Our preference is that they do not acquire the S-400,” Goffus said.

“Given that, they are a sovereign nation, and they are trying to take care of their defense needs,” he added. “What restrictions are placed on them and what Congress will eventually pass, I can't even speculate on it on this point.”

By the time Congress passes legislation that could curb Anakara's F-35 ownership, the country will likely have already started building up its first squadron at Luke AFB. There, Turkish pilots and maintainers will train alongside U.S. ones, moving from academic courseware to live flights.

NATO and U.S. Defense Department officials have warned Turkey that if it continues down the path of purchasing the S-400, it will not be able to plug it in with NATO technologies like the F-35. SASC, in its policy bill, echoed those concerns, saying that Turkey's purchase of Russian hardware would “degrade the general security of the NATO alliance [...] and degrade interoperability of the alliance.”

After a meeting in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier this month, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu expressed confidence that the United States would not only deliver the first F-35 to Turkey as planned, but that it would ultimately decide to continue F-35 sales to Turkey.

“Turkey rejects threatening language from the U.S. on the issue, it is not constructive,” Çavuşoğlu said on June 4, according to a report from the Turkish newsgroup Anadolu Agency.

Turkey plans to buy 100 F-35As. As a partner of the program, its domestic defense industry helps build the Joint Strike Fighter. Most notably, Turkish Aerospace Industries' serves as a manufacturer of the aircraft's center fuselage. It has also been chosen as a sustainment hub for the international F-35 community.

https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nato-priorities/2018/06/13/despite-some-opposition-us-on-course-to-deliver-f-35s-to-turkey-on-june-21/

On the same subject

March 2, 2020 | International, Naval

The US Navy’s FFG(X) could be awarded sooner than expected
By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON – The U..S Navy's next-generation frigate could be awarded within the next few months, earlier than expected, the service's top civilian said Friday. Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly told conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he had tasked Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition James Geurts to look at accelerating the award of the first ship, which was slated for this fall. “The plan was to try and do it in the latter part of this year,” Modly told Hewitt. “I've asked [Geurts] to try and accelerate that earlier, and he's looking into the possibilities for doing that. “But obviously, you know, we have acquisition rules, and we want to make sure that we do this in the proper way.” The competition has narrowed to bids from Huntington Ingalls Industries; a team of Navantia and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works; Fincantieri; and Austal USA. Navantia is offering a version of its F-100 design, which is in use by the Spanish Navy; Austal is submitting a version of its trimaran littoral combat ship; Fincantieri is offering its FREMM design; and Huntington Ingalls is believed to be offering an up-gunned version of its national security cutter. Lockheed Martin's version of the FFG(X), an up-gunned, twin-screw variant of its Freedom-class LCS, was pulled from the competition in May. The FFG(X) is supposed to be a small, multimission ship with a modified version of Raytheon's SPY-6 radar destined for the Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, Lockheed Martin's Aegis Combat System, as well as some point defense systems and 32 vertical launch cells for about half the cost of a destroyer. The first ship ordered in 2020 is expected to cost $1.28 billion, according to budget documents, with the next ship in 2021 dropping to $1.05 billion. The Navy expects it to take six years to complete design and construction of the first ship, which should be finished in 2026. Once construction begins, planners anticipate it will take 48 months to build. The second frigate is expected to be ordered in April 2021, and from there it should be delivered about five and a half years after the award date. That means that the first ship should be delivered to the fleet in July of 2026, and the second about three months later. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/02/28/the-us-navys-ffgx-could-be-awarded-sooner-than-expected
February 11, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Security

CAE awarded contract to provide U.S. Customs & Border Protection with aircraft pilot training services
On Feb. 9 at the CAE OneWorld virtual conference and tradeshow, CAE announced that CAE USA has been awarded a contract to provide United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with Aircraft Pilot Training Services. CAE USA will serve as one of the prime contractors on the indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract awarded by CBP. CAE USA will leverage the CAE Dothan Training Center and CAE's commercial and business aviation training centers to deliver simulator and live flight training services on a range of fixed-wing and rotary-wing platforms. CAE is featuring a 3D virtual walkthrough of its Dothan Training Center in the Innovation Hub as part of the CAE OneWorld 2021 virtual conference and tradeshow, which began today and is free to all attendees who register at https://www.caeoneworld2021.com. CAE OneWorld 2021 will be available online for the next month. CBP is the unified border agency within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of the United States borders. CBP is one of the world's largest law enforcement organizations. “The award of the Aircraft Pilot Training Services program for Customs and Border Protection demonstrates CAE's unique ability to leverage both our defense and civil aviation businesses to deliver pilot training across numerous aircraft platforms,” said Dan Gelston, Group President, Defense & Security, CAE. “We look forward to supporting a key organization within the Department of Homeland Security and showcasing CAE's training experience and expertise.” CAE USA will be responsible for coordinating and delivering generic and aircraft-specific training to meet CBP and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certifications for pilots operating a variety of fixed and rotary-wing aircraft. CAE will deliver ground school (academic) and simulator training as well as live flight and other training to meet CBP and FAA requirements. Training will be delivered on multiple variants of the Beechcraft King Air (C-12) aircraft, Bombardier Dash-8 and Lockheed Martin/Sikorsky S-76B helicopter. In addition, CAE will deliver a range of flight instructor qualification and non-specific pilot and aircrew training courses. These include single and multi-engine fundamentals, ab-initio training and upset recovery training. This press release was prepared and distributed by CAE. https://skiesmag.com/press-releases/cae-awarded-contract-to-provide-u-s-customs-border-protection-with-aircraft-pilot-training-services/
August 28, 2019 | International, Aerospace

Astroscale US Targets DoD Sat Servicing Market
By THERESA HITCHENS WASHINGTON: Japanese start-up Astroscale thinks its space junk technology can be used by the Pentagon for on-orbit satellite servicing, to build a foundation for its ultimate goal of building a space debris removal business, says Ron Lopez, president and managing director of the company's new US unit. “Debris removal is the immediate focus for the company, but there is a lot of [technology] applicability to adjacent areas of the market that end up leading to capabilities that the military needs,” Lopez explained in an interview. “DoD is a customer like any other, with a future need for servicing its own satellites to extend mission life.” For example, Astroscale's sensor and guidance technology that allows it to precisely rendezvous with a piece of debris could also be used by the Air Force to do the same with an active satellite, he said, to inspect it or to make repairs. Likewise, the firm's docking technology is applicable to many types of servicing missions, such as re-fueling, that are of interest to DoD. Astroscale US thus is seeking American partners to help it break into the military space marketplace — starting small with component and tech demos. “We are still in early stage of discussions, and trying to understand what the requirements are,” Lopez said. “We've been busy building partnerships with a lot of small- and mid-sized companies,” he added, to bring together “a very innovative set of technologies and capabilities” that can bring “value-added to the commercial marketplace and DoD as well.” Astroscale launched its US subsidiary in April, opening an office near Denver and is slowly building a staff (currently number four full time employees.) The US subsidiary expands the company from the Japanese headquarters, and branches in Singapore and the United Kingdom. It recently garnered another $30 million to its Series D funding that brings the total amount of capital raised in the round to $132 million, according to the corporate website. The company, founded by Japanese tycoon Nobu Okada in 2013, is fully aware that it is cannot make a business case for orbital debris removal today. There simply isn't a country or a customer ready to pay to fully develop the technology required at the moment; nor is it clear that even if the technology is there customers would be incentivized to pay someone to take out their trash if there is no legal requirement to do so. Indeed, there may even be legal obstacles since the 1967 Outer Space Treaty deems debris the property of the launching state, meaning that a garbage collector would need permission of the owner to do so. Therefore, on-orbiting servicing is a nearer-term mission that will allow the company to continue to thrive and grow. “On-orbit servicing can enable space debris removal,” Lopez summed up. “We are working with customers who have an interest in adjacent missions; those interests help us develop our core techology.” The Air Force actively has been exploring on-orbit servicing technologies through a series of small business and tech demo projects. For example, in July, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) updated its request for information (RFI) designed to help the service get a grip on the available industrial base for autonomous Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO) and “InspectorSat capabilities,” as well as the limits of current commercial technologies. Responses were due Aug. 9. Further, the space industry is lobbying hard for the Commerce Department to issue new US government rules to ease development of on-orbit servicing technologies and spur the market via more coherent licensing obligations. Licensing for satellites that can perform proximity operations — that is, can safely maneuver around another satellite or a piece of debris, dock with that object, and perform some function such as re-fueling — currently falls between agency cracks. Meanwhile, the CONFERS consortium, led by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is working to develop industry-created best practices for such tricky space operations. Despite the hurdles for a non-US company to get its subsidiary fully credentialed to compete for DoD contracts, Lopez says being a wholly-owned Japanese company is a help, not a hindrance, because of the high level placed on cooperation in space by Tokyo and Washington. While bilateral and multilateral collaboration is often equated with simply “trying to fulfill political objectives,” Lopez stressed that it also helps the countries involved to reduce schedule and cost risks. “When we have real and evolving threats, the need is urgent and we have an environment where our tax dollars are constrained,” he said, “what that translates into is that collaboration is a way to reduce risks.” https://breakingdefense.com/2019/08/astroscale-us-targets-dod-sat-servicing-market/

All news