14 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Lee Hudson
The U.S. Army is aggressively upgrading its legacy AH-64 Apache, CH-47 Chinook and HH-60 Black Hawk fleets, but is encountering some delays in these efforts related to the spread of the novel coronavirus.
These platforms will continue to be in the service's inventory for many years to come and the Army must continue making them relevant as the Pentagon pivots to Joint All-Domain Command and Control, Patrick Mason, program executive officer for aviation, told Aerospace DAILY.
The majority of Mason's team is teleworking and monitoring COVID-19's effect on production, engineering work and supply chain flow. The Army acknowledges issues related to COVID-19 may not materialize until the summer or fall because the supply chain currently has sufficient inventory, he said.
“Obviously, this is an incredibly unique and unprecedented time that we're dealing with right now,” Mason said.
The Army intends to introduce the Gen III Day Side Assembly, formerly known as the Modernized Day Sensor-Assembly (MDS-A), into the Boeing AH-64E Apache Version 6 (V6) kit this fall. During operational testing users were impressed with the technology's clear picture for target acquisition and the ease of locating a designation site made possible through electro-optical/infrared fusion.
“The good thing about the way we've architected this program is that the production line will be switched to V6, and then we'll also have the ability to upgrade any of the V4s into the V6 configuration,” Mason said.
The service has not determined the number of aircraft that will be equipped with the new V6 kit off the production line or retrofitted. The V6 kit includes upgrades for a Gen III Day Side Assembly, fire control radar frequency interferometer, and an expanded manned-unmanned teaming capability.
“It's just another example of the kinds of technology that we can insert into these legacy platforms,” Mason said.
The service expects industry to integrate a multispectral targeting capability into Future Vertical Lift platforms, he added.
The Army is also planning to outfit the Apache and General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle with air-launched effects in the mid-2020s. Mason's unmanned aircraft system program office is conducting a technology assessment while Army Futures Command is leading demonstrations, he said.
The service funded the effort by issuing an other transaction agreement through the Aviation and Missile Technology Consortium. It will run through year's end. Mason anticipates by 2021 the service will have a better idea of which technologies will compose the initial increment for air-launched effects.
The next upgrades on tap for the Boeing CH-47 Chinook are additional software loads for the digital flight control system and the common avionics architecture system. These are slated for June, but because of COVID-19 the timetable may shift, Mason said.
“We're trying to monitor and understand exactly what we're going to be able to do as we get into June,” he said.
The Army does not want to speculate on when these upgrades will wrap up because this is based on unit availability and the requirement not to interfere with operations and training.
The service is still plugging ahead with Block II flight testing in Mesa, Arizona, to support the special operations community.
“We have some disruption obviously due to COVID and the pandemic,” Mason said.
The limited user test is scheduled to begin in March 2021 at Fort Bliss in Texas, but it may be delayed if not enough progress is made in flight testing. The flight testing in Mesa is not paused, but the team is not generating a sufficient number of sorties because of travel restrictions imposed on government workers in response to COVID-19. The crews comprise both government and industry personnel.
The Army is reaping substantial cost savings by upgrading UH-60Ls to the V model for about $12 million per unit instead of buying a new UH-60V for roughly $21 million in fiscal 2020 dollars.
Mason's team partnered with the Corpus Christi Army Depot to convert the aircraft and is completing the initial tranche intended to field the first unit next year, he said. The Army intends to upgrade 760 L models to the V configuration.
“It's a very unique and cost-effective way to increase the capability of the L models,” he said.
Mason's team is unable to conduct user assessments, which is delaying full-rate production. The Army anticipates the effort will enter full-rate production in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. This is two quarters behind the previous schedule because the team is experiencing travel restriction delays related to COVID-19.
5 novembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial
The United States will provide $425 million worth of additional arms and equipment to Ukraine for its ongoing fight against Russia's invasion, the Biden administration announced on Friday.
31 janvier 2019 | International, Naval
By: Ben Werner General Dynamics Corp. plans to invest $1 billion in 2019 in upgrading and retooling its manufacturing operations company-wide, with a focus on its growing submarine construction business. A plurality of this year's capital expenditures – the reinvestment in manufacturing operations, commonly referred to as CapEx – will focus on making improvements to General Dynamics Electric Boat, the maker of the Virginia-class attack submarines and the new Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarines. “We are poised to support our Navy customers and increase the size of the fleet,” Phebe Novakovic, the chief executive of General Dynamics, said during a conference call with analysts today to discuss the company's 2018 financial results and detail financial expectations for 2019. Submarine builder Electric Boat is on pace to build two Virginia-class Block IV submarines a year while preparing to start building the first Block V submarines. At the same time, Electric Boat is preparing for construction of the first Columbia-class submarine to begin in early 2020. “CapEx will be 3 percent of sales in 2019 mostly because of the Columbia-class construction,” Jason Aiken, the chief financial officer of General Dynamics, said during the call. In 2018, General Dynamics reported sales of $36.2 billion, and the company predicts sales to increase in 2019. General Dynamics capital investments will remain at a similar level for the next two to three years, Aiken said. After 2022, once Columbia-production is ramped up, the level of capital spending is expected to taper off, he added. Overall, the company's Marine Systems division, which includes the Electric Boat, Bath Iron Works and NASSCO shipyards, recorded robust sales growth during the year, and Novakovic said the sales growth is expected to continue in 2019. The Pentagon and Capitol Hill are sending signals that Novakovic said she takes to mean, “we'll see nice defense spending for our programs.” General Dynamics predicts the Marine Systems division will post 2019 sales of $9 billion, a 6-percent increase over sales in 2018. The Marine Systems group has a backlog of 11 Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers; started construction on the future USNS John Lewis (T-AO-205), a first-in-class oiler for the Navy; and continued building Expeditionary Sea Base ships. “They have done nicely with slow, steady growth, but the real growth driver is Electric Boat,” Novakovic said. https://news.usni.org/2019/01/30/40759
12 février 2018 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
By: Aaron Mehta ROME — The fiscal 2019 budget for the U.S. Air Force plans to grow the service from 55 to 58 combat squadrons over the next five years, while buying dozens of high-end aircraft and preparing to retire the B-1 and B-2 bomber fleets as the military retools for the high-end competition forseen by the Pentagon. The National Defense Strategy, released in January, focused on the potential for great power competition between the U.S. and Russia or China. And in any such battle, the U.S. Air Force would play a critical role; hence, the service's request for $156.3 billion for FY19, a 6.6 percent overall increase from the FY18 request. Click here for full coverage of President Trump's FY19 budget request! In FY19, the Air Force is requesting 48 F-35A fighter jets, 15 KC-46A tankers and one more MC-130J aircraft. Ther service is also investing $2.3 billion in research and development in the B-21 Raider bomber, up from the $2 billion request in the yet-to-be-enacted FY18 budget. The latter is notable, as the Air Force has formally announced it will be retiring the B-1 and B-2 bomber fleets once the B-21 — which will be dual-capable for both conventional and nuclear missions — starts to come online in the mid-2020s. The budget request also calls for investing in new engines for the B-52 fleet to keep that aircraft going through 2050 — making it an almost 100-year-old design. “If the force structure we have proposed is supported by the Congress, bases that have bombers now will have bombers in the future,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said in a service release. “They will be B-52s and B-21s.” The budget request also seeks to move forward with a new light-attack aircraft, likely either the Embraer-Sierra Nevada Corp. A-29 Super Tucano or the Textron AT-6, to provide a low-end capability. Although that program seems at odds with the high-end challenge foreseen by the Defense Department, Susanna Blume of the Center for a New American Security believes it fits in nicely, as such an aircraft would remove the need to fly expensive, high-end aircraft for that mission. Overall, the budget request calls for buying 258 F-35A fighters through the next five years. And in terms of space, the service is requesting $2 billion to fund five launches of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle. The service also seeks to increase funding for F-16 modernizations to speed upgrades with the active electronically scanned array antennas, radar warning systems and Link 16 systems. Naval warfare reporter David B. Larter contributed to this report from Washington. https://www.defensenews.com/smr/federal-budget/2018/02/12/air-force-requests-1563-billion-in-fy19-plans-to-retire-b-1-b-2-fleets/