Rare Beasts: 5 Military Aircraft That You Might Not Have Heard Of

On the same subject

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  May 1, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Boeing awarded $5.7B for KC-46 Pegasus combat capability work

  By Allen Cone April 30 (UPI) -- Boeing has been awarded a $5.7 billion post-production contract for combat capability for the U.S. Air Force's troubled K-46 Pegasus refueling tanker aircraft. The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, announced Monday by the Department of Defense, includes non-recurring and recurring requirements centered on user-directed and Federal Aviation Administration-mandated KC-46 air vehicle needs. The KC-46 fleet is planned to replace the Air Force's Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers. The company's $49 billion KC-46 program has seen multi-year delays and expenditure overruns. And deliveries have been halted multiple times because of foreign materials found in the jets after arrival from the factory. Work on the new contract will be performed at Boeing's plant in Seattle and is expected to be complete by April 28, 2029. Fiscal 2018 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $9.1 million have been obligated on the first delivery order at the time of award. The military aerial refueling and strategic military transport aircraft are built from from empty Boeing 767 jet airliners in Everett, Wash., then transferred to a facility at the south end of Paine Field called the Military Delivery Center. That's where the jet's military systems, including the refueling and communications equipment, are installed. The first two KC-46s were flown from Boeing's facilities to McConnell Air Force Base, Kan., in January, but deliveries were stopped within weeks. The Air Force halted deliveries of the aircraft on Feb. 21 due to foreign object debris, including trash and industrial tools. Eight tools were found in aircraft under production at Boeing's facility, and two more in tankers delivered to the U.S. Air Force, according to an internal Boeing memo. After inspections by the Air Force and the creation of an additional inspections plan, deliveries resumed about one week later. In April, however, the Pentagon again halted accepting deliveries aircraft due to foreign object debris. The Air Force and Boeing has been working on an even more intense inspection process, including draining fuel tanks on all new aircraft so that they can be inspected for foreign object debris -- as with the rest of the planes -- Defense News reported. Boeing plans to deliver 36 aircraft this year, said Mike Gibbons, Boeing vice president. https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2019/04/30/Boeing-awarded-57B-for-KC-46-Pegasus-combat-capability-work/4791556625605/

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  June 20, 2024 | International, Land

  Tool Overload: Why MSPs Are Still Drowning with Countless Cybersecurity Tools in 2024

  Discover how MSPs in 2024 are coping with tool overload in cybersecurity. Explore integrated solutions like Guardz to streamline operations and boost

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  April 7, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Land, C4ISR

  Think Tank Creates Informal Forum For Japan NGF Talks

  Japan's Next Generation Fighter (NGF) acquisition program is the focus of a new informal channel set up by a Washington think tank for Japanese, U.S., British and Australian officials to discuss requirements and expectations. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) held the first meeting in January with 25-30 people. It included government officials, business executives, and think tanks from all four countries, said Patrick Buchan, director of the center's U.S. Alliances Project. Organized as a “Track 1.5” level working group in the language of diplomacy, it represents a middle ground between formal, government-to-government talks and back-channel diplomacy, Buchan said. It is a format that allows government officials to discuss issues privately, with Chatham House rules imposed to avoid public attribution, Buchan says. The chair of the working group is CSIS Vice President for Asia Michael Green. He organized it to help avoid the miscommunications and disappointments of the FS-X program, which led in the late-1980s and early 1990s to Japan's underperforming F-2 fleet, Buchan says. The FS-X collaboration was designed amidst escalating trade tensions in the late 1980s between Japan and the U.S., two otherwise strong Pacific allies. Likewise, the Trump administration's demand for a 400% increase in Japanese payments to the U.S. to subsidize the costs of the U.S. military presence has also created friction within the alliance. The difference between the two eras is that China's military modernization efforts over the past three decades has raised the stakes for the outcome of the NGF development process, Buchan says. Neither side can afford a result that leads to a combat system that falls short of Japan's expectations for capability. Understanding the difficulty of directly engaging Japanese government officials, CSIS conceived of the working group to offer Tokyo an informal channel for discussing the desired capabilities and industrial collaboration for the NGF, Buchan says. In the first meeting, Green posed 12 multiple-choice questions to the group. Each member secretly answered by clicking a button on an individual controller. CSIS plans to release the full list of questions and answers from the first working group later this spring, along with an analysis. One example provided by Buchan was a question about technical compatibility for the NGF. Other than the U.S., the group was asked which country in the Indo-Pacific region should the NGF be compatible with. The possible answers included Australia, India and South Korea. Eighty-three percent of the respondents said the NGF should be compatible with Australia's air force, Buchan says. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/think-tank-creates-informal-forum-japan-ngf-talks