February 27, 2024 | International, Aerospace
UK opens bidding for new helicopter, to award contract in 2025
The U.K. wants its New Medium Helicopter to be able to perform up to five rotary-wing jobs that are now done by several aircraft.
July 31, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR
How GSA is Helping Small Businesses Get Contracts Faster
A newly launched pilot program lets the agency's contracting experts help push deals over the finish line.
Officials at the General Services Administration on Monday said a new pilot program will speed up the government's adoption of innovative technologies by helping companies in the Small Business Innovation Research program more quickly strike deals with federal agencies.
Last week GSA launched a pilot that would open up Assisted Acquisition Services to agencies and vendors in the third and final phase of the SBIR program.
Run by the Small Business Administration, SBIR is divided into three phases. The first and second phases focus primarily on research and development, and during the third, companies work to commercialize their products. Under the pilot, GSA would collaborate with both customer agencies and SBIR vendors to hammer out initial contracts. After the products become commercialized, GSA would work to make them more widely available across government.
Most of the 13 agencies involved in SBIR don't have specialists dedicated to finalizing phase three contracts, and delegating that responsibility to GSA would enable speedier deals and make products more widely available, said Mark Lee, assistant commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service Office of Policy and Compliance.
“Currently there isn't a shared services offering that provides assisted acquisition for SBIR contracts,” Lee said in a conversation with reporters. “[The pilot] would be setting up that capability across government.”
While GSA will offer the additional services to all SBIR participants, Lee said he sees the program making a particular impact on the acquisition of cybersecurity and threat detection products, as well as emerging battlefield technologies.
The pilot will be led by the GSA Assisted Acquisition Services' Great Lakes regional office and run through the end of fiscal 2019. Depending on the program's success, GSA will determine whether it can offer the service more broadly, said Senior Procurement Executive Jeff Koses.
Koses told reporters the program originated after defense agencies approached GSA looking for ways to streamline the contracting process. The pilot comes as part of the administration's larger push to simplify acquisition policy, he said, while still including “a set of guardrails to make sure that we're innovative but with essential controls.”
Koses added he hopes accelerating the contracting process would help attract more small businesses to the federal marketplace, which agencies have historically struggled to do.
“I think this is a great example of us listening to our customer agencies, our industry partners and the Small Business Administration and [figuring out] where we can provide value in the federal marketplace,” said Lee. “We think this is an opportunity to inject innovation into the federal marketplace, help support commercialization of these unique solutions and ultimately help grow jobs.”
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August 9, 2019 | International, Aerospace
US Air Force pauses flight ops for more than a hundred C-130s over ‘atypical’ cracking
By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — More than a quarter of Air Mobility Command's C-130 Hercules fleet are being temporarily removed from service after “atypical” cracking was found. During scheduled depot maintenance, the U.S. Air Force discovered cracking of the lower center wing joint — also known as the “rainbow fitting” — which led Air Mobility Command head Gen. Maryanne Miller to order an inspection of a portion of the fleet, according to an AMC statement released Wednesday evening. A total of 123 of 450 C-130H and C-130J aircraft will be temporarily grounded while inspections occur. “This temporary removal of service will not impact ongoing C-130 support to overseas contingency operations,” AMC said in its statement. The decision to pause operations and conduct inspections was made after a single C-130 was found with the lower center wing joint cracks, said AMC spokesman Maj. Jonathan Simmons. But the risk posed by the issue — that the wing could become dislodged from the aircraft — was so serious that the Air Force decided to move forward with inspections for all planes that could potentially be impacted. The 123 aircraft chosen to go through inspections have not been equipped with an “extended service life center wing box” and have flown more than 15,000 hours. Maintainers will look for cracking, and, if discovered, will replace the rainbow fitting. That repair takes “approximately one to two months” to do and is “dependent on depot level availability and capacity,” Simmons noted in an email. Currently, AMC believes it has an adequate supply of rainbow fittings and is not concerned about a potential shortfall. If no defects are found, the aircraft will return to service. So far, eight aircraft have gone through inspections and are now able to fly, Simmons said. Each inspection is set to take eight hours, but the command does not know how long it will take to move all 123 aircraft through the inspection and repair process. “The Air Force takes the safety of its airmen and aircraft very seriously and is working diligently to identify and repair affected aircraft as soon as possible,” AMC said in its statement. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/08/08/air-force-pauses-flight-ops-for-more-than-a-hundred-c-130s-after-atypical-cracking-found/
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April 1, 2021 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR
Safran Electronics & Defense équipera les Falcon Triton et Albatros de la Marine nationale avec sa boule optronique Euroflir 410
Safran Electronics & Defense annonce avoir signé avec Dassault Aviation un contrat portant sur la fourniture d'Euroflir 410 de nouvelle génération pour équiper les douze Albatros, dérivés du Falcon 2000LXS, et les huit Falcon 50M rénovés Triton dans le cadre de la modernisation des avions de surveillance et d'intervention maritime de la Marine nationale. « L'Euroflir 410 de nouvelle génération, élément clé de la fonction SAR (Search & Rescue), apportera des performances d'observation inégalées, y compris lors de conditions de visibilité dégradées, gr'ce notamment à l'intégration d'un télescope très longue distance et à une stabilisation très performante de la ligne de visée », précise Safran Electronics & Defense. Associé à un radar maritime et à un AIS (Automatic Identification System), l'Euroflir 410 permettra à l'équipage de s'assurer de l'identification des navires en fournissant également une géolocalisation précise du b'timent observé. Les Falcon 50M modifiés Triton et les Falcon 2000 Albatros seront déployés respectivement à partir de 2023 et 2025, conformément à la dernière Loi de Programmation Militaire de l'administration française.