Pentagon close to making first awards on $9 billion cloud contract

Sur le même sujet

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  29 octobre 2018 | International, Aérospatial

  KC-135s and C-130Js are the next aircraft to enter the Air Force’s data-driven maintenance program

  By: Jeff Martin The KC-135 refueling tanker and the C-130J airlifter will be the next two aircraft to be part of the Air Force's predictive maintenance program, part of the service's effort to do maintenance before airplanes break--and improve mission capable and availability rates, according to Air Mobility Command's logistics director. "The bottom line is to get to where we are scheduling all of our maintenance, rather than reacting to the maintenance,' said Brig. Gen. Steven Blaymaier, who oversees Air Mobility Command's logistics, engineering and force protection, in an interview at the 2018 Airlift Tanker Association symposium outside Dallas, Texas. “We want our units to achieve their mission-capable rates on a sustained basis.” According to the latest available data, from FY2017, the KC-135 fleet had, on average, a 74 percent mission capable rate, and the C-130J fleet had a 77 percent mission capable rate. As for the rest of the mobility fleet, by that same data, the C-5M fleet stood at 60 percent, the C-130H fleet was at 73 percent, and the C-17 fleet was at 84 percent mission capable. The concept, known as conditions based maintenance, has already been rolled out to the C-5 fleet within AMC, and the B-1 fleet in Air Force Global Strike Command. It uses algorithms based on reams of data to create models to predict when a part might break, rather than waiting for it to fail. Its a standard practice in the commercial aviation industry, and is now making its way into the Air Force. Blaymaier says the KC-135 fleet will join the program in spring of 2019, and the C-130J fleet will follow in the summer. Blaymaier also added that the other aircraft in AMC's fleet would be joining the program eventually, like the C-17 and KC-10. “They're all in work at their program offices right now,” he said. “What we learn from C-5 will be incorporated into the other aircraft.” Blaymaier also said the Air Force was modelling their effort after Delta Airlines's Tech Ops division's procedures, and that the service was at the beginning or “crawl stage” of the process. He also noted that Delta took “eight years” to get achieve the results they were looking for, and that the Air Force was working on that path. In September, Lt. Gen. Robert McMurray, commander of the Air Force Sustainment Center, told Defense News that the conditions-based maintenance program was critical to increasing the readiness of the Air Force's aircraft. "Given the aging fleet situation that we have, we probably need to be using data better to take care of it — which is a drive toward what most everyone right now is saying is the right way to manage fleet sustainment, which is through condition-based maintenance and data analytics,” he said at the time. Another benefit Blaymaier described was that the service will be able to track maintenance needs by individual aircraft, rather than by a general fleet-wide standard. That could reduce time in depots and increase mission capable rates, a top priority of senior Pentagon leaders. “As we move forward with conditions based maintenance plus (CBM+) and predictive analytics, we'll be able to know by tail number which parts are going to fail on certain aircraft," he said."It'll be much more surgical [and] operational." Blaymaier added that while the transition to conditions based maintenance might be a long journey, it would lead to huge benefits for the Air Force. “Ultimately we want to achieve those aircraft availability standards that we established for each of our fleets that are required to meet our wartime taskings,” he said. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/airlift-tanker-annual/2018/10/27/kc-135s-and-c-130js-are-the-next-aircraft-to-enter-the-air-forces-data-driven-maintenance-program

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  25 juillet 2018 | International, Naval

  Navy, Marine Corps Racing to Increase Amphibious Fleet as Demand Rises

  By: Ben Werner CAPITOL HILL — The Navy and Marine Corps are running up against a deadline to add more amphibious warships to the fleet before older hulls start retiring, Marine Maj. Gen. David Coffman told lawmakers and shipbuilding industry representatives at a congressional forum Tuesday. Recognizing this is a moment when the Hill is pushing to build more ships faster, Coffman said he's focused on ensuring these new ships are designed to accommodate changing technologies and remain useful for 50 years. “We're trying to make sure we have the full ability to take advantage of a multi-year buy,” Coffman, the director of expeditionary warfare on the chief of naval operations' staff (OPNAV N95), said. Coffman was referring to the possibility of the Navy buying 13 San Antonio-class LPD Flight II ships in a block buy contract. These ships are intended to replace Whidbey Island-class LSD ships. As an example, Coffman cited the need to prepare future ships to handle the networking needs of unmanned and autonomous surface and undersea vehicles, which will be incorporated into the amphibious forces of the future. Unmanned surface and undersea vehicles have the potential to dramatically change the way amphibious forces operate, he said. “We have a moonshot idea for amphibious assault, which says it'll be a long time before you see a Marine step off of something because we're going to go autonomous,” Coffman said. “Get autonomous and unmanned to do a lot of the work.” Also, incorporating the networking needs of the F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter into ship design is critical to the Marine Corps ability to use the aircraft, Coffman said. Future amphibious assaults will most likely occur in contested, even urban areas. Since the Marine Corps is counting on the F-35 playing an important role securing such contested locations, Coffman wants to continually ask what can be done better and how to improve the ship class' capabilities instead of just settling on a single design. “No one else on the planet can do what we do in the littoral space,” Coffman said. But the needs of the Navy and Marine Corps to perform in the littoral space currently outpaces the nation's amphibious warship capacity, said Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.). The Navy's shipbuilding plan, which calls for building a 355-ship fleet, is a good start, but the critical number Wittman said is the 38 amphibious ships included in that plan. Previously, Wittman has criticized the slow pace of the Navy's shipbuilding plan. USS Wasp (LHD-1) is expected to reach the end of its anticipated working life by 2030. The concern is older ships such as Wasp will retire before the Navy reaches the goal of 38 amphibious ships, making it nearly impossible for the shipbuilding pace to ever increase the total number of amphibious hulls in use. “Marines can do almost anything, Wittman said.”But until they can walk on water we better be building them more ships.” https://news.usni.org/2018/07/24/navy-and-marine-corps-racing-to-increase-amphibious-fleet

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  10 août 2023 | International, Terrestre

  Rheinmetall affirms guidance as arms demand boosts Q2 earnings

  Rheinmetall reported a rise in quarterly operating earnings and affirmed its full-year guidance on Thursday as it benefited from growing demand for weapons and ammunition amid the war in Ukraine.