Marines overhaul approach to smart robots, eye new military job

On the same subject

• 

  September 10, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Will The Next Air Force One Go Supersonic? USAF Working With Boom

  Government Executive Flight Program Looks At Boom Overture Boom Supersonic has been awarded a contract by the Air Force under a program meant to help fund innovations with future Air Force applications. The contract will fund explorations of an Overture configuration designed for Air Force executive transport. The Department of Defense and the Air Force manage all air transport for executive branch top leadership, including Air Force One. "Supersonic flight brings people together, whether for work, family or global diplomacy," said Blake Scholl, Boom founder and CEO. "By cutting travel times we make it possible for U.S. diplomats and executive leaders to connect more frequently in person, meeting challenges and defusing potential crises with a personal touch. We're so proud to help envision a new way for the Air Force to provide transport for critical government activities." Overture reportedly offers the Air Force a unique combination of passenger capacity, speed, and enough space and power to accommodate the requirements of necessary mission systems. Plus, the aircraft can be configured for multiple cabin zones, affording a layout with as much privacy as necessary. Boom is designing Overture to comply with stringent FAA airworthiness and production regulations, and the aircraft will be fully adaptable to meet specific requirements for a variety of military end users. "The United States Air Force is constantly looking for technological opportunities to disrupt the balance of our adversaries," said Brigadier General Ryan Britton, Program Executive Officer for Presidential & Executive Airlift Directorate. "Boom is an example of the American ingenuity that drives the economy forward through technological advances. We are extremely excited to team with them as we work to shrink the world and transform the future of executive airlift." In addition to its potential for executive transport, Overture could be adapted to satisfy other Air Force and broader Department of Defense mission requirements. Overture could also become part of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF), enabling humanitarian and other critical airlifts in half the time. http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=e8ac4591-8992-4942-9eb3-225c4567d283

• 

  May 1, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  How The Pentagon Is Reaching Small Suppliers

  Jen DiMascio The Pentagon is employing new ways to track and funnel dollars to small- and medium-sized aviation suppliers hit hard by a drop-off in their commercial business since the novel coronavirus took hold. One way has been to accelerate up-front progress payments to prime contractors. Ellen Lord, the Pentagon's acquisition chief, announced April 30 that in this week alone, the Defense Department processed more than $1.2 billion out of $3 billion to defense contractors in accelerated payments. The acceleration was enabled by a March 20 memo which lifted the amount that large contractors could receive before delivering a contracted item from 80%-90% and for small contractors from 90%-95%. Lord singled out Lockheed Martin for praise for committing to speed $450 million to its supply chain. As those payments are being released, the U.S. Air Force is studying the needs of small suppliers and charting the flow of those progress payments through the industrial base, service officials said during an April 29 Aviation Week MRO webinar. After the first COVID-19 stimulus package was released, Col. Kevin Nalette, vice director, 448th Supply Chain Management Wing, Air Force Sustainment Center, said his office was asked to find out how much money small companies would need to maintain a constant flow of work to continue to support the defense sector. They had two days to ask contractors–the third- and fourth-tier “mom-and-pop shops” whose work becomes an end item purchased somewhere up the stream. The majority of defense vendors do more work–55% or more–for commercial aviation businesses. “As soon as the commercial sector shut down, we had an amazing ability. We now had their full attention,” Nalette said. “When you come to their attention with basically free cash, it's amazing what you can get done.” Tony Baumann, director of contracting for the Air Force Support Center, is capturing data about where the money and progress payments are going. And he is tracking some 2,700 contracts to find out the COVID-related constraints they are operating under. “My guys talked to all of them,” Baumann said, and they stay in contact so that the Air Force knows when a supplier needs to shut down to clean a business. Then Nalette's group is looking at whether that closure might impact deliveries of critical supplies or inventory. That has caused the Air Force to rewrite service contracts using new authorities granted by the CARES Act COVID-relief bill passed by Congress to keep multiple teams of service personnel on contract so that one group can work and another can be ready to backfill so that no group would experience a 14-day interruption, Baumann said. All of those changes are being tracked and coded based on COVID-19, he added. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/budget-policy-operations/how-pentagon-reaching-small-suppliers

• 

  January 9, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  To build stockpiles of weapons, UK looks at two-pronged approach

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — When the U.K. rolled out its Modernising Defence Programme report last month, it highlighted a need to increase stores of weaponry to deal with threats from great powers around the globe. In his speech unveiling the document, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson specifically stated that to “improve the combat effectiveness of our forces, we will re-prioritize the current defense program to increase weapon stockpiles. And we are accelerating work to assure the resilience of our defense systems and capabilities.” But what does that actually entail? During a Tuesday visit to Washington, Director for Strategic Planning Will Jessett said the U.K. plans to go about increasing weapon stockpiles in two ways. The first is the easy route: throw money at the problem. And a certain amount — the Ministry of Defence employee wouldn't say exactly how much — of the recent budget increase given by Parliament will indeed be going toward increasing stockpiles of armaments. The second part is more difficult, but goes to a throughline for the strategy document: the need to be smarter about how the British military uses its gear. “We've spend a shedload of money on producing the force structure that we have already. We're not necessarily generating and using it as effectively as we might have done,” Jessett said. “The first thing to do is to make sure that we are making the best of the existing capability that we have, and that [includes] making sure that we've got both the weapon stockpiles and the spares to make sure that you can actual[ly] generate the right numbers of aircraft squadrons." “So some of this will be the new money out of the couple of billion but a lot of this is going to be telling the services themselves,” he added. “There isn't a dollar figure, but there are strong incentives now back on the services to say: ‘Guys, you've got to [use] the capabilities that you've got already.' ” Looking at the Pentagon's efforts over the last few years shows that may be easier said than done. Pushing to find new efficiencies inside the U.S. Defense Department is an annual affair, with the latest attempt delayed by the removal of Chief Management Officer Jay Gibson and the fallout from the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. And building up missile stockpiles is a logistical challenge for the department right now, with the Pentagon warning last May that producers of vital parts and materials are on the verge of going out of business or beholden to foreign ownership. Jessett acknowledged the Brexit-shaped elephant in the room, noting that the ability of the MoD to invest funding into new defense priorities will be directly impacted by any deal reached between Britain and the rest of Europe, particularly with foreign-made equipment. “Amongst the reasons we started to face this affordability delta in 2017 were because exchange rates did fall, relative to where they were in 2015,” he said. “I think back to this [question] about the terms of the deal. If we get a deal that's OK, I can imagine, personally, exchange rates not just stabilizing but somewhat improving. If not, it is by definition going to add further pressure into this.” But, he added, “that's not what we're planning for at the moment.” https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/01/08/to-build-stockpiles-of-weapons-uk-looking-at-two-pronged-approach