19 décembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial
By: Valerie Insinna
WASHINGTON — If the Air Force moves forward on a proposed initiative to buy light attack planes, it won't happen by the end of 2018.
The service intended to put out a final request for proposals this month for a potential light attack aircraft program, but the date has now slipped into 2019, an Air Force official confirmed Tuesday.
“The Air Force does not anticipate release of the final Light Attack Request for Proposal by the end of the calendar year as we complete additional analysis,” said Air Force spokeswoman Capt. Hope Cronin in an emailed response to Defense News.
The service released a draft solicitation on Aug. 3, following two experimentation campaigns that brought the Sierra Nevada Corp.-Embraer A-29 Super Tucano, Textron's Scorpion jet and AT-6 attack plane, and L3's AT-802L Longsword to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico for several rounds of test flights.
The second set of flight experiments between the A-29 and AT-6 were curtailed this summer after an A-29 crashed, killing its pilot. However, the Air Force maintained that it could garner the data it needed on aircraft maintenance and network operations while testing the planes on the ground.
Air Force acquisition officials have shied away from declaring whether a program of record will begin in the fiscal year 2020 budget, but the August presolicitation seems to limit the contenders to the A-29 and AT-6, stating that SNC and Textron “are the only firms that appear to possess the capability necessary to meet the requirement within the Air Force's time frame without causing an unacceptable delay in meeting the needs of the warfighter.”
The goal of the light attack experiments is to prove whether the Air Force can quickly bring industry to the table to experiment with off the shelf equipment and rapidly make a decision about whether to buy it.
In that light, the delay in releasing the final request for proposals is at least a slight setback, as it's unclear whether the wait for a final RFP could also push back the Air Force's proposed due date for awarding a contract — before the start of the 2020 fiscal year on Oct. 1.
But it remains unclear whether the Air Force will have the money to buy it. Officials have maintained that a light attack capability is “additive," meaning that they would not be willing to sacrifice procurement dollars designated for aircraft in existing or planned programs of record so that it could buy the AT-6 or A-29.
However, the Pentagon's topline budget is still uncertain. Defense Department budget officials had geared up for a $733 billion budget in FY20, only to have President Donald Trump call for a cut to $700 billion. Now, it appears that number is growing after intervention from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and congressional hawks, and could be as high as $750 billion.
Whether the light attack aircraft program fits into any of those topline budgets is currently unknown.
19 février 2021 | International, Naval
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana, has awarded Collins Aerospace Systems, a unit of Raytheon Technologies, a seven-year, $64 million indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract to provide sonar domes for surface combat ships for the...
21 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial
By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — You can count on Germany to stir the pot of nuclear weapons sharing amid a global pandemic. Such was the case in the past few days in a country that, armed with a superb health care system and a relatively low COVID-19 mortality rate, is seen as a model for managing the coronavirus crisis. But as of Sunday afternoon, the national security community was abuzz about a news report saying Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer effectively promised her U.S. counterpart that the ministry will buy 45 F-18 jets from Boeing. The Der Spiegel report comes after news broke a few weeks ago that Berlin planned to acquire a mix of Airbus Eurofighter jets and Boeing F-18s for a smattering of air warfare jobs too demanding for the country's aging Tornado fleet. Those jobs include flying conventional fighter-bomber missions, jamming enemy air defenses and carrying U.S. nuclear-tipped gravity bombs to hypothetical World War III targets somewhere eastward, per NATO's so-called nuclear sharing deal. According to Der Spiegel, Kramp-Karrenbauer sent U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper an email last week detailing her ministry's wish to buy F-18s not only for the atomic mission — which comes as little surprise — but also for the electronic warfare role. That reported promise stung Eurofighter advocates — even those who might begrudgingly accept an American product for the nuclear mission — because Airbus has plans for a souped-up jamming plane that it wants to see in Germany's inventory. In short, the Eurofighter crowd wants nothing more than Berlin to pick a pure Eurofighter fleet, arguing that the F-18′s shelf life is expiring in U.S. budget planning anyway, and that the Boeing jet is no closer to nuclear weapons certification than any other aircraft. The German Defence Ministry has always signaled it will take into account industrial policy considerations in the Tornado-replacement question. So strongly did senior leaders believe in the idea of a keeping the European industrial base humming toward an eventual Franco-German aerial über-weapon that they nixed Lockheed Martin's F-35 from the competition. But keeping American aircraft entirely out of the loop has always seemed a nonstarter. A ministry spokesman on Monday said Kramp-Karrenbauer's missive to Esper was only meant to test the waters regarding America's ability to start delivering those planes when the actual acquisition program gets underway in a few years. A formal decision on replacing the Tornados had initially been expected by the end of March. But as the coronavirus crisis unfolded, that decision was pushed to after Easter. Kramp-Karrenbauer is expected to announce her plans before the parliamentary Defence Committee on Wednesday, where she is likely to face opposition from lawmakers of the SPD coalition partner. Until then, Germans have yet another puzzle to discuss, as an increasingly divisive debate unfolds here over reopening the country. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/04/20/germanys-defence-ministry-is-under-the-gun-to-name-a-tornado-replacement/
22 février 2023 | International, Aérospatial
These new C-130J-30s expand the IDAF's ability to partner on missions and training opportunities with allies and regional forces that also operate Super Hercules.