18 décembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial
By: Jen Judson
WASHINGTON — Congressional appropriators and authorizers have increased advance procurement funds for the newest variant of the CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter as preparation to supply the aircraft to the Army's active force, even though the service asked to only buy a small number of the helos in fiscal 2020 for special operations.
The service's decision to cut the aircraft from the active force was based on the need to free up future cash to cover the cost of an ambitious plan to buy two new future vertical lift aircraft for long-range assault and attack reconnaissance missions.
But Congress has gone against the Army's wishes to divert funding away from procurement for the active force, instead adding $28 million in FY20 funding — in both the recently released spending and policy bill conference reports — for advance procurement to begin to prime the pump to restore CH-47F Block II deliveries to the conventional Army.
The cut the service made would only buy 69 special operations variants — or "G" models. The original plan was to procure 473 "F"-model Block II helicopters for the active force.
The Army approved the Block II effort to move into the engineering and manufacturing development phase in April 2017, and the program officially began in July 2017. In October 2018, the first two EMD Block II Chinooks were already on the assembly line with plans to fly in mid-2019. Boeing, which manufactures the aircraft, expects a production decision in July 2021.
While $28 million won't get the service much, based on the original plan the Army would start building five CH-47F Block IIs in 2021 meant for the active force. The advance procurement in FY20 would support buying longer-lead items from suppliers, but is still a stretch to claim that the additional funding restores the program.
Those five aircraft would be delivered in 2023 based on Boeing's typical three-year lead time to build an airframe.
It remains to be seen whether the congressional plus-up will prompt the Army to restore funding for the five CH-47F Block IIs in its FY21 budget request due out early next year.
It's also unclear how many of those long-lead parts procured in FY20 could be used in G-model aircraft or are exclusive to F-models. Therefore, it's also murky how much of the $28 million in parts might be wasted if the Army sticks to its plan to only procure G-model aircraft.
The Army has indicated it might reconsider the CH-47F Block II cut; the FY21 budget request, when it is released, will likely reveal the Army's decision.
Shortly after the service's plan to cut the CH-47F Block II was revealed in its FY20 budget request, then-Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville, who is now chief, told reporters the Army was comfortable with its decision, but tempered that, adding: “I think in two to three years, we will have a better idea about where we are, as far as developing the helicopters we talked about, and that will drive the decision.”
McConville was referring to the Army's plan to buy two future vertical lift aircraft.
The same day, then-Army Secretary Mark Esper, who is now defense secretary, told another group of reporters that the service would not be rethinking its plans to build CH-47 Block IIs for the conventional force.
The Army has also claimed it is pursuing foreign military sales of its CH-47F Chinooks to soften the blow from cuts made to its intended buy of the Block II variant, but none of the possible sales — to the United Kingdom or to the United Arab Emirates — were newly in the works at the time. And neither country has plans to buy Block II variants. Moreover, the number of helicopters the two countries plan to procure amount to less than 30 aircraft.
4 avril 2024 | International, Aérospatial
EpiSci’s TacticalAI software will integrate into Northrop Grumman’s aeronautics system architecture to accelerate the delivery of advanced autonomous solutions.
4 février 2021 | International, Aérospatial
Pascal Samama Le 03/02/2021 à 14:40 La veille de l'ouverture du salon aéronautique Aero India, Boeing a obtenu la licence lui permettant de vendre à l'Inde son avion de combat F-15EX Coup de thé'tre pour l'ouverture d'Aero India 2021, un évènement aéronautique civil et militaire qui se tient à Bangalore cette semaine. Quelques jours avant l'ouverture du salon, les autorités américaines ont donné à Boeing l'agrément pour vendre des avions de chasse à l'Inde. Le F-15EX n'est pas en concurrence avec les contrats de Dassault Aviation. La France a d'ailleurs déjà signé un contrat portant sur 36 Rafale avec New Dehli. En plus de transporter une vingtaine de missiles air-air, cet avion est un concentré de technologies créé pour participer à des opérations cyber. Des commandes pour 450 avions de combat Le 2 février, l'US Air Force a annoncé que le premier exemplaire d'une commande de huit appareils passée en juillet dernier venait de réaliser son tout premier vol à Saint Louis (Missouri). L'armée américaine souhaiterait en acheter 144. L'Inde pourrait être le premier client étranger pour cet appareil. Le pays veut créer 42 escadrons de chasse et acheter quelque 450 avions de combat, signale le site Opex360. L'armée de l'air indienne devrait accueillir à terme en plus des Rafale, 200 avions de chasse indiens de 4ᵉ génération LCA Tejas, de 114 chasseurs-bombardiers issus du programme Multi-role fighter aircraft (MRFA) et de 100 exemplaires du futur Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), un projet d'appareil de 5e génération confié à Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). Par ailleurs, la marine indienne compte aussi équiper ses porte-avions de 57 appareils. Des discussions sont en cours avec le russe RSK MiG sur le MiG-29K, Dassault Aviation, avec la version marine du Rafale Marine et Boeing avec le F/A-18 Super Hornet. https://www.bfmtv.com/economie/les-autorites-americaines-autorisent-boeing-a-vendre-a-l-inde-le-cyber-avion-de-combat-f-15ex_AN-202102030246.html
10 juin 2019 | International, Aérospatial
By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — Cost appears to have played a major role in the Army's decision to pick GE Aviation's T901 engine for its future helicopter engine, based on a look at documents laying out the service's post-award analysis, obtained by Defense News. Yet, other factors not shown could have also contributed to the Army's choice, which the Government Accountability Office upheld following a protest from losing team Advanced Turbine Engine Company (ATEC) — a partnership between Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney. The GAO is expected to release a redacted version of its decision next week, which could shed more light on how the Army decided to move forward with GE. While the cost of GE'S engine seems to have been a deciding factor, the document outlining the service's criteria to determine a winning engine design to move into the engineering and manufacturing development phase states that “all non-cost/price factors when combined are significantly more important than cost/price factor.” According to that chart, the Army said it would primarily measure the engine submissions against its engine design and development, followed by cost/price, followed by life-cycle costs and then small business participation in order of importance. The Army assessed ATEC's and GE's technical risk as good and gave ATEC a risk rating of low while it gave GE a risk rating of moderate when considering engineering design and development for each offering. Both GE and ATEC had moderate risk ratings when it came to engine design and performance. And while GE received a technical risk rating of moderate for component design and systems test and evaluation, ATEC received low risk ratings for both. Almost all other technology risk assessments and risk ratings were the same for both engine offerings. GE scored “outstanding” in platform integration capabilities. Based off the chart, it appears ATEC won, so its likely the documents are not an exhaustive representation of how the Army decided to move forward with GE. While both ATEC and GE offered prices within the Army's requirements, GE came in 30 percent lower in cost. And according to Brig. Gen. Thomas Todd, the program executive officer for aviation, in an interview with Defense News in April, GE was also working on trying to shrink the timeline within the EMD phase by roughly a year. But, in ATEC's view, the charts show it had offered the best value product to the Army. ATEC's president, Craig Madden, told Defense News that the company took the Army's selection criteria laid out in the request for proposals seriously across the board from engineering design and development factors to cost to even small business participation, where it scored higher than GE in the analysis chart. “We did come in higher in cost but this was considered a best value evaluation and not lowest price, technically acceptable,” Madden said. “I think low price is good for a plastic canteen or a bayonet, it's not good for a highly technical turbine engine.” And despite coming in at a higher cost, Jerry Wheeler, ATEC's vice president said, the up front cost in the EMD phase will be higher but the delta would shrink when considering life-cycle costs of both engine offerings. Both ATEC and GE received good technical ratings and were given risk ratings of low. When just going by the chart, GE's four moderate risk ratings in key categories means “they could have disruption in schedule, increased cost and degradation of performance,” Madden said. He added ATEC was also focused on lowering risk, so that, although the Army offered incentives to finish the EMD phase earlier than 66 months, ATEC presented a plan to complete at 66 months with a plan to look at acceleration wherever possible. ATEC is now pushing to be a part of the EMD phase, essentially extending the competition, so that more data on engines can be garnered. The Army had periodically weighed keeping the EMD phase competitive with two vendors, but ultimately chose to downselect to one. For GE, the Army made the right decision and had enough data to do so. “The U.S. Army competitively selected GE's T901 engine over ATEC T900 engine after more than 12 years of development,” David Wilson told Defense News in a statement. “Those 12 years included the Advanced Affordable Turbine Engine (AATE) program, during which both companies ran tow full engine tests,” he said. Additionally, both companies executed a 24-month technology maturation and risk reduction contract where GE self-funded and successfully completed and tested a third engine, a full-sized T901 prototype engine, with successful tests on all components, Wilson said. “We've done three full-engine tests and provided an unprecedented amount of test data to the Army for them to determine which engine was the best to move forward with in EMD,” he added. Funding a second engine through EMD would cost more than twice as much and delay critical Army modernization by at least two years, Wilson argued. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/06/07/how-did-the-two-offerings-competing-to-be-the-us-armys-future-engine-measure-up/