European Defense Initiative funding drops in defense budget request

On the same subject

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  October 30, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  In Budget Squeeze, Coast Guard Set to Extend Life of Dolphin Helicopter Fleet

  By: Ben Werner ARLINGTON, Va. – The U.S. Coast Guard hopes to keep its aging fleet of short-range search and rescue helicopters flying for another dozen years while evaluating the potential of vertical lift studies from the Pentagon to fulfill future missions. The Coast Guard started flying the Aerospatiale Helicopter Corp. MH-65 Dolphin in 1984. The helicopters are used on both coasts and in Alaska. During disasters, the Coast Guard loads them into cargo planes for transport to the affected areas to assist search and rescue operations. But the fleet is nearing the end of its lifespan, and a replacement has yet to be identified, Adm. Karl Schultz, the commandant of the Coast Guard, said Friday during a briefing at the annual Military Reporters and Editors conference. “We're watching the Department of Defense very carefully with future of vertical lift,” Schultz said. “We fly a fleet of 98 of Aerospatiale Dolphin helicopters, MH-65s. There's no more of those being made, so that fleet of 98 is what we'll have there.” The Marine Corps and Army are leading the effort to develop vertical lift capabilities. The Marine Corps has used the tiltrotor MV-22 Osprey for years, and the Navy is now starting to integrate the airframe into its airwing as a replacement carrier onboard delivery aircraft for its aging fleet of 27 C-2A Greyhound turbo-prop aircraft. However, funding for the Coast Guard is tight for a force Schultz said is nation's first line of defense to protect borders, combat smuggling, ensure maritime traffic safety and keep ports open. The Coast Guard continually scrapes together resources and accepts cast-off equipment from the Department of Defense to accomplish its myriad of missions. “90 percent of the Coast Guard budget is classified as non-defense discretionary funding,” Schultz said. “We were shortsighted in the past not making some of these needs known.” A month into Fiscal Year 2019, Schultz does not have an approved budget, whereas the Department of Defense does. Congress will likely consider Coast Guard funding, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, after next week's mid-term elections. So, with other priorities requiring funding, Schultz said the Coast Guard is determined to squeeze a decade of life out of the Dolphins. “We're probably looking to fly those more than 30,000 hours, so we're into what we're calling our MH-65 Echo upgrade,” Schultz said. “We're going to keep those things in the air for a while, probably into 2030.” At the same time, Schultz is preparing a gap solution, by squeezing more life out of another aging airframe, the Coast Guard's fleet of 45 MH-60 Jayhawks. Part of the Coast Guard's strategy includes refurbishing used Navy MH-60 Seahawks and keep them flying for about 20,000 more hours. “I'd like to grow the 60 fleet because there's no more 65s and we need to press in on that gap period – 2018 to early 2030 time frame,” Schultz said. “The 60s are our long-term solution, but we'll bridging that gap.” In FY 2018, the Coast Guard received $25 million sustain and expand the fleet of 45 MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters, and $20 million to upgrade the fleet of MH-65 Dolphins, according to the Coast Guard budget. Schultz said the active hurricane season spurred Congress to provide more money for airframes. To recapitalize Coast Guard equipment, Schultz said he'd like to see annual appropriations of about $2 billion for buying new systems or refurbishing used equipment. The Coast Guard requested $11.65 billion total in 2019 to cover procurement, operations, personnel and other costs. “We've lost 10 percent of our purchasing power in the past decade,” Schultz said. “We've deferred maintenance during this period.” The Coast Guard is also refurbishing its fleet of fixed-wing aircraft. Congress funded the purchase of a 15th C-130J cargo plane in the FY 2018 budget, and Schultz hopes, if approved, funding for a 16th C-130 will remain in the FY 2019 budget. He'd like the Coast Guard to have a fleet of 22 C-130J aircraft. Meanwhile, in 2014, the Coast Guard inherited a fleet of 14 C-27J Spartan cargo planes from the U.S. Air Force. The Coast Guard is in the process of preparing these medium-range twin-engine turboprop planes for search and rescue missions, but Schultz said they ran into a snag. “There's a bit of a worldwide parts shortage,” Schultz said. “We're fielding the C-27s, and the first ones are out at our air station in Sacramento.” https://news.usni.org/2018/10/29/squeezing-another-decade-out-of-dolphin-helicopters

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  March 10, 2021 | International, Aerospace

  L’armée de l’Air et de l’Espace lance AsterX, son premier exercice militaire spatial

  La France mène cette semaine son premier exercice militaire spatial afin d'évaluer ses capacités à protéger ses satellites, dans un espace de plus en plus militarisé. « Notre but est de montrer que la stratégie spatiale de défense n'est pas qu'un document, mais qu'on passe de la parole aux actes », a expliqué, mardi 9 mars, lors d'une conférence de presse, le général Michel Friedling, en charge du Commandement de l'Espace. L'ensemble de l'exercice, qui a lieu au CNES à Toulouse, reste virtuel : aucune véritable modification de la trajectoire des satellites français ne sera opérée. 60 militaires du commandement de l'espace y participent. La « Space Force » américaine et le Centre de situation spatiale allemand ont été invités à s'y joindre. Le CNES, l'ONERA, Safran, ArianeGroup et CS Group sont aussi mobilisés. La stratégie spatiale de défense a prévu un investissement de 3,6 milliards pour le renouvellement des capacités satellitaires de l'armée française, avec les nouveaux satellites CSO de surveillance optique, Ceres de renseignement électromagnétique, et Syracuse de communications militaires, rappellent Les Echos. En juillet 2019, la ministre des Armées, Florence Parly, a aussi annoncé un nouveau programme d'armement nommé « Maîtrise de l'Espace », pour intégrer deux volets : la surveillance de l'espace et la défense active dans l'espace. Ensemble de la presse du 10 mars

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  September 3, 2019 | International, Naval

  Navy to Update 2 Dry Docks to Accommodate Ford-Class Carriers

  By: Ben Werner Only one of the Navy's 18 dry docks used for maintaining the nuclear-powered carrier fleet can support a Ford-class carrier, Navy officials told USNI News. Dry Dock 8 at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard can handle a Ford-class carrier, but only after a temporary cooling water systems is set up. A permanent cooling water system and other upgrades to Dry Dock 8 are scheduled to occur before USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) enters its first planned dry dock availability, Anna Taylor, a Naval Sea Systems Command spokeswoman, told USNI News in an email. The Navy also plans to upgrade a West Coast dry dock to handle the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), Taylor added. Mike Petters, chief executive of Huntington Ingalls Industries, whose Newport News Shipbuilding yard is the sole builder of aircraft carriers for the U.S. Navy, said in a conference call with analysts earlier this month that the fixes required were not complicated. The hull size of the new class is roughly the same as the Nimitz-class carriers that make up the rest of the fleet, so Petters said the shipyards do not need to do many physical changes to piers and docks. “There are clearly differences between Ford and Nimitz,” Petters said of the carrier classes. “The power requirements, those kinds of things. I think those are all things that can be addressed and will be addressed by the government shipyards, so I don't really see a major fundamental change in the way the Ford-class is going to be supported from the industry.” The Navy is also planning improvements to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility's dry dock infrastructure before the future USS Kennedy (CVN-79) is expected to enter its first availability, Taylor said. Doing so will give the Navy two dry docks – one on each coast – capable of supporting Ford-class carriers. Kennedy is expected to be christened later this year and is still years away from joining the fleet. The need to upgrade dry docks to support the new class of carriers comes amid both a push to modernize and optimize the four public shipyards that work on carriers and submarines, as well as a realization that the need for maintenance facilities is far greater than what's available at public and private yards. The Navy's long-range ship maintenance and modernization plan, released in March, details the mismatch and suggests some strategies to fix the problem. The Navy's Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) is a 20-year, $21-billion program to modernize the Navy's four public shipyards and is a major part of the solution laid out in the long-range plan, Taylor said. With a renewed focus on readiness, there's an opportunity for private shipyards willing to make investments in their facilities, too, to pick up some more Navy maintenance business, Petters told analysts during the conference call. The Navy's long-range ship maintenance and modernization plan also states that the Navy needs private sector help. “Sustaining the 355-ship fleet will require changes to both public and private industrial capability and capacity. Current infrastructure will require update and refurbishment to support modern classes of ships and repair. Likewise, additional dry docks will be needed to address the growing fleet size,” the plan states. Petters cited the Navy's work improving readiness among its aviation community as a good sign the Navy can translate this experience to the ship repair business. However, the Navy needs private shipyards to address its backlog of repair and maintenance work. “The Navy has taken a hard turn on how do you do readiness in a more efficient way, and that's being led from the secretary's office,” Petters said. “We've talked about readiness in my career for a long time. This is a no-kidding effort to go get it sorted out.” Predictability in contracting, though, is critical if the private sector is going to invest in upgrading its yards, Petters said. “I think we're on the front end of that to see whether we can actually create more efficiency there,” Petters said. “We certainly want to participate in that, and so far we've kind of got our toe in the water with the Virginia-class (submarine maintenance) support. And we'll see what other opportunities it presents. So little early for us to try to predict how that's all going to shake out.” https://news.usni.org/2019/08/30/navy-to-update-2-dry-docks-to-accommodate-ford-class-carriers