4 juillet 2018 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
Gareth Jennings
The United Kingdom must hold a fair and open competition before selecting any new surveillance aircraft to replace its current Boeing E-3D Sentry airborne warning and control system (AWACS), the country's parliament has said.
The intervention by the Defence Committee followed earlier media reports that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had already decided to procure the Boeing E-737 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft to replace the Royal Air Force's (RAF's) increasingly unserviceable and expensive E-3Ds.
“The chairman of the Defence Committee has written to the Minister of Defence Procurement to request that any requirement for replacing the UK's AWACS aircraft be put out to a competitive tender, rather than bought ‘off-the-shelf' with no competition taking place,” the committee declared on 3 July, adding: “On the possibility of Sentry being replaced with a new system, the [committee] notes the advantages of a competitive tender in terms of maximising value for money and allowing proper consideration of a range of alternatives. The committee also considers that a competition is particularly appropriate in this case, as there are viable alternatives available, which deserve to be given fair consideration.”
The RAF currently has six E-3Ds in its operational fleet, with the type having entered service in 1991. While other operators of the type have benefited from regular upgrades, the RAF's fleet has fallen behind in terms of capabilities due to a lack of investment. In January 2017, the fleet was temporarily grounded due to an electrical fault, and despite an announcement in the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) of 2015 that the fleet would be upgraded and extended from 2025 to 2035, the legacy Boeing 707 host airframe is becoming too expensive to sustain and an alternative is understood to be being sought.
19 septembre 2024 | International, Aérospatial
Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, and Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, will be the second and third bases to receive the U.S. Air Force's newest bomber.
4 avril 2023 | International, Aérospatial
BAE Systems has received $491 million in contracts from Lockheed Martin to produce Block 4?electronic warfare?systems for future Lot 17 F-35 Lightning II jets.
7 décembre 2020 | International, Naval
By DAVE RESS DAILY PRESS | DEC 04, 2020 AT 5:14 PM Norfolk Naval Shipyard can proceed with plans to build a plant to supply the steam and most of the electricity it uses, the State Air Pollution Control Board ruled. The board found that the new facility would not boost pollutants — including sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide — above air-quality standards. Its staff analyses also found increased emissions of those chemicals would not be significant, although the board staff did note that increases in very small particulate matter would be significant. The shipyard wants to install two natural gas-powered turbines, each capable of generating 7 megawatts of electricity, as well as a boilers, heat-recovery generators and one 2.4 megwatt steam turbine. The $30 million project would allow the yard to generate its own steam, instead of purchasing it from the nearby Wheelabrator plant. The plant also would supply most of the electricity the yard now receives from Dominion Energy. James Boyd, president of the Portsmouth branch of the NAACP, said the project would add pollutants to the already bad air, raising serious environmental justice concerns. In a letter to the board, he also said forecasts of emissions miscalculated totals, by reporting pollutant totals from one gas turbine and one burner from the steam generator, instead of calculating the total of all the turbines were operating. University of Richmond geography professor Mary Finley-Brook noted that the shipyard is a Superfund site, which means its neighbors are more vulnerable to harm from emissions. Finley-Brook said the assessment of impact on community health was inadequate. A study for the board by two Massachusetts-based PhD toxicologists said air currently is safe and new plant would not change that, while board staff said air quality in the area had improved over the past 20 years. Chesapeake Bay Foundation executive director Peggy Sanner said she is disappointed that the board did not require monitoring and reporting of actual emissions from the plant, once it is operating, in 2022. “There are serious environmental justice concerns around building a new fossil fuel plant in this predominantly African-American community, which is overwhelmed by health risks from industrial pollution, she said, adding " Portsmouth residents already live near high concentrations of toxic waste at the nine Superfund sites within a 15-mile radius.” https://www.pilotonline.com/business/shipyards/dp-nw-naval-shipyard-plan-20201204-6pb3dpzdxvgo5b5yr3z4ygptem-story.html