Rolls-Royce backs hypersonic-power specialist Reaction Engines with new investment

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  2 octobre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  One KC-46 delivery has been halted due to electrical system problems

  Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force halted a delivery of the KC-46 yet again after problems with the electrical system were found on one new tanker slated to make its way to the service. The issue was first disclosed during an Oct. 1 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, when Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said that a KC-46 that was supposed to have been delivered Sept. 25 by Boeing to Pease Air National Guard Base had been delayed. “They just learned that that delivery was canceled due to electrical problems with the aircraft,” she said to Ellen Lord, the Pentagon's top acquisition official. In a statement, Boeing said a “minor electrical issue” on a single KC-46 was found by the company during acceptance tests. “In flight, one of the radar warning receivers is indicating a fault through the plane's fault management system,” Boeing spokesman Larry Chambers said. “We think it may be a poor electrical connection that needs to be re-seated. We are currently evaluating a fix. Resolving this has caused a minor delay to delivery of this single airplane. Boeing expects to conclude this activity within the next several days and is working with the Air Force on a new delivery schedule.” The issue is not a design or safety-of-flight issue that would pose risk to the aircrew, he added. But Shaheen, speaking at the hearing, expressed frustration with Boeing over its repeated difficulties designing and building the new tankers, with challenges over the life span of the program that have included wiring issues and problems with the vision system that allows boom operators to safely refuel other planes. “I've spoken to a whole number of officials from Boeing from our military leadership as recently as last week with Gen. [Jacqueline] Van Ovost, who is the head of Air Mobility Command, all of whom have assured me that we've had good conversations between the [Department of Defense] and Boeing, and that the problems are being worked out. We're not going to continue to see these challenges,” Shaheen said. “And yet we've got another aircraft that's not being delivered because of another problem. So how do we fix this? Because it is an ongoing challenge that's affecting our ability to our national security, long term if we don't get these refueling tankers up and running.” Lord responded that KC-46 problems have included design and engineering flaws as well as issues occurring during the manufacturing of the jet. “The KC 46 has been an extremely problematical program. I speak with Leanne Caret, the CEO of the defense side of Boeing, on a regular basis about it,” Lord said. “One issue is frankly the technical solution. That was the original design [and] is now being redesigned, but also we have had a myriad of manufacturing issues with [foreign object debris] and other issues.” However, she said the root cause of the problems is the fixed-price firm contract used for the KC-46 program, which makes Boeing financially responsible for any costs beyond the $4.9 billion ceiling. So far, Boeing has spent more than $4.7 billion in company funds on the KC-46 program — almost equivalent to the Air Force's own investment in the program. The Air Force plans to buy 179 tankers, 38 of which have already been delivered to the service. Seven KC-46s have gone to Pease ANGB. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/10/01/kc-46-deliveries-have-been-halted-due-to-electrical-system-problems/

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  24 février 2024 | International, Aérospatial

  How interoperability benefits military, civil and commercial domains

  Opinion: By focusing on interoperability, new capabilities can be quickly adopted and rolled out without significant system redesign.

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  17 octobre 2019 | International, Terrestre

  3 ways the Pentagon wants to make buying American weapons easier

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — America sold more than $55 billion in weapons abroad in fiscal 2019, but the man in charge of those efforts hopes to increase sales as he continues to tinker with the security cooperation system. Security cooperation has long been a foreign policy tool in America's pocket, but under the Trump administration, it “has been elevated to a tool of first resort for U.S. foreign policy,” Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper, the head of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, said during a panel at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference. Since taking over at DSCA, Hooper has implemented a series of reforms aimed not only at speeding the process up, but shaving costs for potential buyers. He intends to keep that reform effort going in 2020. Here's how: Continue to cut surcharge costs. In June, DSCA dropped a surcharge on American defense goods sold abroad from 3.5 percent to 3.2 percent; later that year, the agency also cut a transportation administration fee. Both those charges are used to support DSCA operations, but some in the security cooperation process had argued the increased prices for customers would lead potential buyers to look to cheaper Russian or Chinese goods in the future. Hooper said that in 2020, DSCA plans to also cut the contract administration surcharge — applied to each FMS case to pay for contract quality assurance, management and audits — from 1.2 percent to 1 percent. “This will reduce the overall costs of FMS and could potentially save allies and partners 16.7 percent in CAS surcharges in this coming year,” Hooper said. Make it easier for customers to get custom weapon systems. The FMS system is set up to help sell weapons that are identical to systems already in use by the U.S. military. It's easier to move a package of Abrams tanks equipped with the same gear that multiple countries use than to push through a custom version with specific capabilities. But Hooper noted that partners are moving away from standard designs and are looking for systems “designed and tailored to meet their needs. Our system was not initially designed to process these types of systems, which increases time and cost in the U.S. response.” To help deal with that, DSCA established an “interagency non-program of record community of interest,” which involves all the agencies that have a say in the process, to figure out ways to make moving custom systems more plausible. The goal is to have a new pathway for moving those capabilities by 2020, which Hooper says will “reduce the time it takes to review request for non-program of record systems, to facilitate industry ability to compete in this global market.” Plan out commercial offsets. Many countries require offsets from industry for big foreign military sales. These offsets are essentially throw-in sweeteners for the buying country, put together from the industrial partner. In the past, these were often things like building a new library or school. But in the last two decades, some countries specifically requested high-end technologies or tech transfer to jump-start their domestic defense industries. Because offsets are negotiated between the industrial partner and the customer nation, the Pentagon, which serves as the in-between for an FMS case, often finds out about offsets only at the end of the process. But with offsets becoming more technological, those now require more review time, and so a deal can slow down while the relevant agencies approve the deal. Hooper hopes 2020 will see industry better inform DSCA of potential offsets early in the process so that last minute hangups can be avoided. “We continue to encourage our industry partners to inform the U.S. of potential offset requirements early on so that we can begin the necessary technology security foreign disclosure and policy reviews as early as possible,” Hooper said. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2019/10/16/3-ways-the-pentagon-wants-to-make-buying-american-weapons-easier/