Northrop, 4 rivals to compete on Army’s future tactical UAS

On the same subject

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  May 31, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Ministry of the Armed Forces brings development of future Joint Light Helicopter forward

  The French Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, has announced that the launch of the Joint Light Helicopter (Hélicoptère Interarmées Léger, HIL) program has been brought forward to 2021. The HIL program, for which the Airbus Helicopters' H160 was selected in 2017, was initially scheduled for launch in 2022 by the current military budget law. Launching the program earlier will enable delivery of the first H160Ms to the French Armed Forces to be advanced to 2026. During a visit to the Airbus Helicopters headquarters, the Minister also revealed the full-scale mock up of the H160M that will be presented on the Ministry of the Armed Forces stand at the next Paris Air Show. The helicopter was also given its official name and will be designated as “Guépard” (“Cheetah”) by the French Armed Forces. The H160 was designed to be a modular helicopter, enabling its military version, with a single platform, to perform missions ranging from commando infiltration to air intercept, fire support, and anti-ship warfare in order to meet the needs of the army, the navy and the air force through the HIL program. “We are proud that the HIL is considered a strategic program. I would like to thank the Ministry, the French Defence Procurement Agency DGA and the armed forces for their trust and for the close collaboration which helped create the conditions for the program to be brought forward within the framework of the current military budget law,” said Bruno Even, CEO of Airbus Helicopters. “This will make it possible to speed up the replacement of the older generation of aircraft, while optimizing the support and availability of the French State's helicopter fleet. Our teams are committed to delivering an aircraft in 2026 that meets the needs of the French Armed Forces in terms of availability, performance and capability, thus enabling it to rapidly become the new benchmark on the world's medium-lift military helicopter market.” Built around a platform that will enter service next year, the HIL program will benefit from many of the advantages inherent in the civil H160, particularly in terms of support, with simplified maintenance and lower operating costs than the previous generation of helicopters in this category. https://www.verticalmag.com/press-releases/ministry-of-the-armed-forces-brings-development-of-future-joint-light-helicopter-forward/

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  August 16, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Plans for a new base closing round may be running out of time: Report

  By: Leo Shane III The next few months could decide whether the Defense Department gets another base closing round in the next decade, according to a new analysis from a conservative think tankwarning military officials not to dismiss the potential looming impact on budgets and readiness. Officials from the Heritage Foundation, whose policy priorities have helped influence President Donald Trump's administration, have in the past supported a new base closing round to cut back on excess military infrastructure and more efficiently spend annual defense funding. In the analysis released this week, author Frederico Bartels — policy analyst for defense budgeting at the foundation — said a Pentagon report on the issue being compiled now represents “the best chance for the Department of Defense to make the case for a new round of BRAC” in years, and perhaps the last realistic chance to advance the idea for the near future. “I think it's the last chance of the Trump administration to make an argument for this,” he said in an interview with Military Times. “Even if he gets re-elected next year, I think it will be hard to go back and make the case if they're unsuccessful this time.” The military convened six base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commissions between 1988 and 2005, shutting down dozens of military installations and turning over that land to state and local municipalities. The process has always been fraught with political turmoil, as lawmakers protest any loss of jobs, military personnel and resulting economic benefits in their districts. But the 2005 BRAC round was particularly controversial, as defense officials consolidated numerous service locations into joint bases and massively rearranged force structure in an attempt to modernize the military. As a result, cost saving projections from that process were significantly below past rounds, and members of Congress have strongly opposed any attempts at another round since then. In the fiscal 2019 national defense authorization act, lawmakers did include language for a new military infrastructure capacity report — due next February — where defense officials can make the case for the need for additional closures. Similar Pentagon reports in the last few years have shown excess capacity of between 19 and 22 percent. Bartels said Pentagon leaders have repeatedly supported the idea of another round in recent years, but have done a poor job selling lawmakers on the idea. “The department needs to make the case for a new round of BRAC based on two key tenets: potential savings and the National Defense Strategy,” he wrote. “A new BRAC round could save $2 billion by reducing unneeded infrastructure. Additionally, a new round of BRAC would permit the department to assess its infrastructure against the threats outlined by the National Defense Strategy, providing a holistic look at all of the infrastructure.” He warns that naming specific locations will only exacerbate political tensions on the issue, and said defense officials also need to publicly acknowledge problems with the 2005 base realignment round to win back congressional support. And Bartels argues that the Trump administration must do more to push the issue. Defense officials requested a base closing round as part of their annual budget for six consecutive years before the Trump White House dropped the idea in their fiscal 2019 and 2020 budget plans. If officials fail to request one next spring, or if the planned infrastructure report is delayed by several months, the department risks pushing the idea back at minimum an entire extra budget cycle and likely several more years down the road. Even if approved, the new BRAC round is likely to take several years of research and debate before any recommendations are made. “I think there is still support for this in Congress,” Bartels said. “I think there are enough people that are about good stewardship of government funds that this can move ahead, if (defense officials) make the right argument. At least, I hope those lawmakers still exist.” The full analysis is available on the Heritage Foundation's website. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/08/15/plans-for-a-new-base-closing-round-may-be-running-out-of-time-report/

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  July 25, 2019 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  David Norquist has one word for you: Analytics

  By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON — The Trump administration's nominee for deputy defense secretary wants the Pentagon to apply data analytics and artificial intelligence to tackle jobs as diverse as technology development, the Pentagon audit and maintenance of the F-35 fighter jet. More broadly, David Norquist, the Pentagon comptroller who for most of this year has served as acting deputy defense secretary, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that the U.S. needs to more heavily invest in developing technology to execute the 2018 National Defense Strategy. The strategy focuses on competition with Russia and China. The strategy will be “hampered without appropriate funding, development and timely fielding of emerging technologies, notably cyber, space, artificial intelligence, and missiles,” Norquist said in written responses to questions posed in advance by the committee. He called modernizing the military to compete, deter and, if needed, prevail in a high-end fight one of the job's most significant challenges. Per the 2017 defense policy law, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics was split between new undersecretaries of defense for research and engineering (R&E) and acquisition and sustainment (A&S). The R&E office was stood up specifically to push new technologies forward more quickly. Yet, the Pentagon “has made very little progress” to manifest those “key” changes, meant in part to help the Pentagon better harness advanced technologies, SASC ranking member Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., cautioned Norquist. He obtained Norquist's commitment to ensure the department implements the law. SASC Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and Reed cited the need to better manage the Pentagon's acquisitions bureaucracy, acknowledging that a pending bipartisan budget agreement has created new headroom and stability. “Today, we find ourselves in a new and different moment in American security,” Inhofe said. “The American people take our military superiority for granted. China and Russia have passed us in a lot of key areas that we have discussed.” “Our overmatch in areas a decade ago was very clear. That overmatch has diminished,” Reed said, adding that the Department of Defense must extend its tech development efforts into academia and the private sector. Norquist also touted the administration's request for a $32 billion increase in research and development, to include cyber, missile range, hypersonics and lasers — but he called out artificial intelligence as unique. “Artificial Intelligence is different because the potential benefits are less clear; you know what you're going to get with a hypersonic missile,” he said. “But artificial intelligence has the potential to change a lot about how we use [unmanned aerial vehicles] and other items. That puts an emphasis on analytical skills, researching and prototyping." In a related exchange, Norquist touted a DoD project to harness AI in disasters to find people in need of rescue through video analysis — and said he wants more work with the private sector on similar projects. Norquist's hearing comes on the heels of the Senate's overwhelming confirmation of Mark Esper, the former Army secretary, as the 27th secretary of defense. Confirmation for Norquist and Esper, who replaces Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, is expected to hasten an end to the vacancies in other top Pentagon jobs. The hearing lasted 100 minutes and went smoothly, with the tone set at the very start, when Inhofe said he would vote for him. Inhofe said he had recommended Norquist to the president as an ideal No. 2 for a Pentagon with more than a dozen open civilian positions at the top. “I remember telling the president it doesn't matter who's secretary of defense,” Inhofe said, “as long as you have Norquist.” https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2019/07/24/norquist-has-one-word-for-you-analytics/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EBB%2007.25.19&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Early%20Bird%20Brief