Collins Aerospace adds navigation receivers to its expansive content on Boeing T-7A Red Hawk

Sur le même sujet

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  25 juin 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  With all eyes on F-35, AAR Corp. looks to ‘clean up’ on F-16 maintenance

  By: Jill Aitoro LE BOURGET, France — As a number of companies chase maintenance work for the F-35 fighter jet, one firm is planning to clean up on the F-16. AAR Corp., a provider of global aftermarket aviation services, won a seven-year contract with the Royal Danish Air Force to perform maintenance, repair and overhaul, or MRO, of Pratt & Whitney F100-220 engine components on the General Dynamics F-16 jet. That win, which came earlier this year, is the latest contract in a long-term relationship supporting the Danish Air Force and air forces across Europe with MRO services from the company's repair facility in Amsterdam. That facility supports about $500 million in business, much of it tied to the F-16. But the win also fits well into a grander ambition of the company, said Brian Sartain, senior vice president of repair and engineering services at AAR. “Everybody is running after F-35 capability,” he said. “But the Danish Air Force is still going to have a lot of F-16s for [the] foreseeable future, and there are still a lot of F-16s being flown around the world.” Sartain pointed to “fairly high-publicized” F-16 maintenance requirements coming down the pike for the U.S. Air Force, which reported a 65-70 percent mission-capable rate for F-16s in 2017. AAR has a facility in Duluth, Minnesota, which is located across the airfield from Duluth Air National Guard Base — home to the 148th Fighter Wing and its F-16C Fighting Falcon aircraft. “Our facility is a perfect place to do F-16 maintenance. We have a lot of capacity,” Sartain said. “We're three tiers down in the F-35 component chain in the way those are being bid. We're not interested. So, while others are running after the F-35, we're cleaning up on the F-16s, and we're happy to do that.” Beyond its F-16 work, AAR supports airframe maintenance for the P-8A fleet for the U.S. Navy, Australia and Foreign Military Sales customers. AAR and Boeing were each awarded seven-year indefinite delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts from Naval Air Systems Command in February 2018, competing each year on workshare. While Boeing performed the majority of work the first year, AAR was recently awarded the larger slice for 2019. “Frankly, we're moving to majority share because our performance has been better,” Sartain said. “Most program competitors will need to sub tier to another company and then stack profit on top of profit. For government, it's a better value for us to be a prime, and for us it's a great opportunity to be a prime.” AAR supports the P-8 work from its Indianapolis facility, where at any given time four P-8s are in the hanger, with two steady lines of maintenance. The location is also used to support maintenance of Southwest Airlines 737 aircraft, which share the same airframe as the P-8. It's gone from about 20 percent military and 80 percent commercial maintenance to an even split. “Southwest asks that airplanes are returned in about 21 days. For the P-8, the Navy allows 60 for turnaround,” Sartain said. “The airplane comes in, we have a small crew of 30-40 that hold secret clearances and lock in a room the top-secret equipment, and then I can flex mechanics from Southwest to take advantage of that experience." https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/paris-air-show/2019/06/21/with-all-eyes-on-f-35-aar-looks-to-clean-up-on-f-16-maintenance/

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  2 février 2023 | International, C4ISR

  Pentagon kicks off 5G competition to upgrade base communications

  Fifth-generation wireless tech promises faster speeds and the ability to accommodate more and more-advanced devices — a windfall for defense.

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  11 mai 2020 | International, C4ISR

  DoD Pushes To Reverse FCC OK Of Ligado 5G Network

  "The impact is significant, and it's unacceptable," Gen. Jay Raymond told the Senate Armed Services Committee. By THERESA HITCHENSon May 06, 2020 at 8:14 PM WASHINGTON: DoD is pressing for the FCC to reverse its controversial decision to approve Ligado's plan to create a mobile 5G communications network, one the Pentagon asserts will jam GPS receivers. “It is clear to DoD that the risk to GPS far outweighs the benefits of this FCC decision. And the FCC needs to reverse their decision,” DoD CIO Dana Deasy told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) hearing during a marathon hearing this afternoon. A formal “re-petition” action has to be taken by National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) by the end of May. NTIA, which falls under the Commerce Department, coordinates federal agency use of the radio frequency spectrum. DoD, Deasy told the SASC, is working to provide NTIA with the necessary technical information to do so. SASC members were divided on the wisdom of the FCC's April 20 decision to approve Ligado's latest plan to repurpose its current L-band spectrum for use in a US-wide terrestrial 5G network. The SASC hearing did not fall along partisan lines. Instead, the division came between the SASC leadership and the committee's members who also sit on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. It has jurisdiction over the FCC. For example, while Republican SASC Chairman James Inhofe and Democratic Ranking Member Sen. Jack Reed excoriated the FCC decision, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, who chairs the Commerce committee, expressed support for the FCC. Indeed, a number of senators with a foot in the Commerce Committee raised the fact that the FCC's decision not only was approved unanimously by the five FCC commissioners, but also has been praised by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Attorney General William Barr. (Barr was tapped by President Donald Trump on April 4 to head a new Telecom Team designed to ensure that China cannot dominate the 5G marketplace and undercut the security of emerging US networks.) DoD and many other agencies, including the Transportation Department, have opposed the planned Ligado (formerly LightSquared) network for nearly a decade, arguing that it will drown out GPS signals in most current receivers. Their protests have been echoed by a wide swathe of the defense and commercial transport industry, including the Aerospace Industries Association and the National Defense Industrial Association. Indeed, according to a press release put out today by Inhofe's office: “This opposition extends to the private sector as well. Numerous industries across the gamut – commercial air, satellite communications, weather, construction, and more – have also registered their objections to the FCC's Order.” Mike Griffin, head of DoD Research and Engineering, explained that the issue is the “noise” that will be created by Ligado because it will use spectrum designed for satellite use to rebroadcast via terrestrial cell towers. He said that the situation for the vast number of GPS receivers today would be analogous to trying to hear the “rustling of leaves” through the noise of “100 jets taking off all at once.” Perhaps most significantly, Griffin pushed back hard against Ligado's assertions in FCC filings (and most recently in a letter today to the SASC obtained by Breaking D) that most receivers would not be affected. He said testing done by the Transportation Department showed that high-end GPS receivers used in civil aviation, which costs some $10,000 each, are impacted by Ligado's planned signal strength. Even those “hardened” receivers are “barely capable” of discerning GPS signals through the “noise” caused by Ligado's 9.8 dBW — an energy level about equal to that put out by a 10 watt light bulb). More worryingly, Griffin asserted that most commercial GPS receivers — including those that would be used to guide self-driving cars in the future — “lose lock” on the signal at a power level some 100 times lower than Ligado plans to use. Gen. Jay Raymond, double hatted as the head of Space Force and Space Command, told the SASC that Ligado's network would have a “significant impact” on Dod's homeland defense mission, as well as on military and commercial space launch capabilities. “In my opinion, the impact is significant, and it's unacceptable,” he said. While Deasy said one avenue for reversing the decision could be legislative action, it remains unclear what the SASC can actually do, however — should the committee even be able to agree on a course of action. Inhofe said it is legally unclear to him right now whether the Congressional Review Act, that allows Congress to overturn a decision by a federal agency, actually applies to the FCC decision for technical reasons. (The FCC officially is independent of the Executive Branch.) Retired Adm. Thad Allen, former Coast Guard Commandant and chair of the Space-Based Positioning and Timing National Advisory Board, suggested that the Senate Commerce Committee should hold a hearing and force the FCC to reconsider. Those members of that committee participating today, including Wicker, seemed reluctant to consider the idea of even having an exploratory hearing. For example, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal suggested that the matter perhaps might be better adjudicated in the courts, given the questions raised about the legalities of the FCC's administrative process that have been raised by members of Congress as well as several industry groups. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/dod-pushes-to-reverse-fcc-ok-of-ligado-5g-network/