Nouvelles

New York Senator Investigates Fatal UH-60 Crashes Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is asking the Pentagon to launch a formal investigation into four fatal Sikorsky UH-60 crashes to determine whether there is a systemic problem with the helicopter... https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/budget-policy-operations/week-defense-feb-11-18-2021

NAVY Raytheon Technologies Corp., Pratt and Whitney, Pratt and Whitney Engines, East Hartford, Connecticut, is awarded a $49,195,531 fixed-price-incentive-firm-target modification (P00025) to a previously awarded contract (N0001918C1021). This contract provides for one conventional take-off and landing and two short take-off/vertical landing F135 engines to support F-35 Lightning II Block Four developmental testing program for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and non-U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) participants. Work will be performed in East Hartford, Connecticut (33%); Kent, Washington (15%); El Cajon, California (15%); Whitehall, Michigan (8%); West Palm Beach, Florida (6%); Dover, New Jersey (5%); East Lake, Ohio (3%); Rockford, Illinois (3%); Houston, Texas (3%); Portland, Oregon (3%); North Berwick, Maine (3%); and Milford, New Hampshire (3%), and is expected to be completed in January 2023. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation (Air Force) funds in the amount of $3,690,000; fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $2,500,000; and non-U.S. DOD participant funds in the amount of $1,083,021 will be obligated at the time of award, $6,190,000 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. (Awarded Feb. 5, 2021) Bell Boeing Joint Project Office, Amarillo, Texas, is awarded a $17,852,939 modification (P00012) to a firm-fixed-priced order (N0001919F0305) against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N0001917G0002). This modification exercises an option to procure 60 MV-22 and 10 CV-22 proprotor hub spring and drive link retrofit kits; and six CV-22 modification spares kits, in support of the Marine Corps MV-22 aircraft and Air Force CV-22 aircraft. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be completed in February 2023. Fiscal 2021 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $14,675,618; and fiscal 2021 aircraft procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $3,177,321, will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. (Awarded Feb. 5, 2021) BAE Systems Platforms & Services, Minneapolis, Minnesota, is awarded a $17,576,524 fixed-price incentive (firm target) contract for Virginia-class submarine propulsors (delivery order N00024-21-F-2100 under basic ordering agreement N00024-20-G-4107). Work will be performed in Louisville, Kentucky (90%); and Minneapolis, Minnesota (10%), and is expected to be completed by October 2024. Fiscal 2020 advanced procurement shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $17,576,524 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1) (only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements). The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. (Awarded Feb. 5, 2021) American Petroleum Tankers LLC, Blue Bay, Pennsylvania (N3220517C3502), is awarded a $16,479,750 option (P00021) for the fixed-price portion of a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract with reimbursable elements to exercise a one-year option in support of the Department of Defense Logistics Agency Energy aboard the M/V Evergreen State. This contract includes a one-year-firm period of the performance, three one-year options periods, and one 11-month option period, which if exercised would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $81,048,250. Work will be performed in Norfolk, Virginia, and is expected to be completed, if all options are exercised, by Jan. 8, 2023. Working capital funds (Navy) in the amount of $10,565,100 are obligated for fiscal 2021, and will not expire at the end of the fiscal year. Funds in the amount of $5,914,650 for the remainder of Option Three are to be provided for fiscal 2022 and are subject to availability of funds in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation 52.232-18, availability of funds. This procurement was released under full and open competition, with an unlimited number of companies solicited via the Beta.SAM.Gov website with three offers received. The Navy's Military Sealift Command, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity. (Awarded Feb. 5, 2021) Bell Boeing Joint Project Office, Amarillo, Texas, is awarded a $12,273,267 cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price order (N0001921F0090) against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N0001917G0002). This order provides non-recurring engineering services for the conversion area harness aircraft modification. Additionally, this order procures 72 conversion area harness base retrofit kits, 63 conversion area harness supplemental retrofit kits, and interim spares in support of the Marine Corps MV-22 aircraft, the Air Force CV-22 aircraft, the Navy CMV-22 aircraft, and the government of Japan V-22 aircraft. Work will be performed in Simpsonville, South Carolina (80%); Fort Worth, Texas (10%); Long Beach, California (7%); Austin, Texas (1%); Dallas, Texas (1%); and various locations within the continental U.S. (1%), and is expected to be completed in January 2026. Fiscal 2021 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $8,626,985; fiscal 2021 aircraft procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $1,787,911; fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount $480,888; and Foreign Military Sales funds in the amount of $1,377,483 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. (Awarded Feb. 5, 2021) CORRECTION: The contracts announced on Feb. 5, 2021, to Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. (N00019-14-C-0050 P00102); and Opal Soft Inc. (N00253-21-C-0004), were actually awarded today, Feb. 8, 2021. ARMY Birdi Systems Inc.,* Pasadena, California (W912DY-21-D-0037); 3 Territory Solutions LLC,* Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (W912DY-21-D-0053 ); Comprehensive Professional & Proposal Services,* Fredericksburg, Virginia (W912DY-21-D-0050); Futron Inc.,* Woodbridge, Virginia (W912DY-21-D-0051); Evergreen Fire Alarms LLC, Tacoma, Washington (W912DY-21-D-0052); EXP Federal Inc., Chicago, Illinois (W912DY-21-D-0053); M.C. Dean Inc., Tysons, Virginia (W912DY-21-D-0054); Spectrum Solutions Inc.,* Madison, Alabama (W912DY-21-D-0055); Shearer & Associates Inc.,* Huntsville, Alabama (W912DY-21-D-0056); and Chinook Systems Inc.,* Cocoa Beach, Florida (W912DY-21-D-0057), will compete for each order of the $49,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract to provide technical and programmatic support services. Bids were solicited via the internet with 13 received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Feb. 7, 2024. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Huntsville, Alabama, is the contracting activity. Pride Industries, Roseville, California, was awarded a $17,621,657 firm-fixed-price contract for base operations support. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed at Fort Rucker, Alabama, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 31, 2021. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $3,085,875 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Field Directorate Office, Fort Eustis, Virginia, is the contracting activity (W9124G-18-C-0005). The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, was awarded a $10,579,798 modification (P00004) to contract W58RGZ19F0045 to integrate, test, upgrade and field functional hardware and software technology improvements and cybersecurity controls, to the Longbow Crew Trainer Generation Four and Generation Five fleets. Work will be performed in St. Louis, Missouri, with an estimated completion date of April 2, 2022. Fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement (Army) funds in the amount of $10,579,798 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity. Iron Mountain Solutions Inc.*, Huntsville, Alabama, was awarded an $8,233,165 hybrid (firm-fixed-price, time-and-materials) contract for technical support for the Utility Helicopters Project Office. Bids were solicited via the internet with four received. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Alabama, with an estimated completion date of Feb. 7, 2026. Fiscal 2021 aircraft procurement (Army) funds in the amount of $8,233,165 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-21-F-B001). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Leidos Inc., Reston, Virginia (SPE8EG-21-D-0128); FFI Aerospace and Defense, Westminster, Maryland (SPE8EG-21-D-0129); and Araiza Co. LLC, Tullahoma, Tennessee (SPE8EG-21-D-0130), are sharing a maximum $12,000,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract under solicitation SPE8EG-20-R-0017 for ram assemblies used on military vessels. This was a competitive acquisition with three responses received. These are two-year base contracts with three one-year option periods. Locations of performance are Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Tennessee, with a Feb. 7, 2023, ordering period end date. Using customer is Defense Department. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2021 through 2023 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency, Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. OFD Foods LLC,* Albany, Oregon, has been awarded a maximum $10,545,930 firm-fixed price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for dehydrated meat and gravy items. This was a competitive acquisition with one response received. This is five-year contract with no option periods. Location of performance is Oregon, with a Feb. 7, 2026, ordering period end date. Using military service is Marine Corps. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2021 through fiscal 2026 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency, Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE3S1-21-D-Z232). U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND Technology Service Corp., Arlington, Virginia, received a ceiling increase modification in the amount of $12,000,000 on a Small Business Innovative Research, Phase III contract (H92408-19-D-0001) for the Long Endurance Aircraft (LEA) program. The LEA program provides aircraft, turrets and spare parts required to support an increased multi-intelligence capability for U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). This modification raises the contract ceiling to $75,000,000 to accommodate a longer performance period. The contract is funded at the task order level with operation and maintenance funding and procurement funding. USSOCOM, Tampa, Florida, is the contracting activity. *Small business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2497472/source/GovDelivery/

The investment is a sign of the Air Force's commitment to fighting war effectively across all domains, including cyber and its electronic warfare cousin. By KELSEY ATHERTONon February 08, 2021 at 5:08 PM ALBUQUERQUE: The 16th Air Force, designed to constantly contest the electromagnetic spectrum, has awarded a $95 million contract to support both command and control and service cryptologic element roles. The contract — Full Spectrum Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Operational Non-Appropriated Funds Support, or FUSIONS — was awarded to Scientific Research Corp of Atlanta. It will run through February 2026. In a sign that Scientific may have developed a promising approach, this is not the first award to the company for this sort of work. The Navy awarded the company a contract similar in scale and scope in 2018. The 16th Air Force first started soliciting this contract in November 2019, one month after the command was created. The original solicitation emphasized the importance of “delivering timely and relevant intelligence data/products to the war fighter.” The 16th was created by merging an Air Force cyber mission with an Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance component. Combining intelligence collection in the same component as one that can launch attacks on computers is a way for the Air Force to show how closely connected cyber attacks are to online espionage. Cyber, like surveillance and activity in the electromagnetic spectrum, can happen below the threshold of a shooting war but can also be used for targeting and to inflict physical damage. The scale of the investment is a sign of the Air Force's commitment to fighting war effectively across all its domains, including cyber. At a Dec. 11 symposium, Air Combat Command chief Gen. Mark D. Kelly said he'd told 16AF commander Lt. Gen. Timothy D. Haugh to “Take all of us, whether we go willingly, or kicking and screaming, into the non-kinetic competition.” Much of the work of delivering data products to the Air Force will involve harnessing information it already has in its databases, and making them useful on a command level. Some of that work, as outlined in the solicitation, involves targeting products. “The contractor shall provide targeting SME support regarding the Joint and Air Force Targeting Enterprise (JTE/AFTE), and kinetic, Electronic Warfare (EW), Information Operations (IO), Space and Cyber targeting,” reads the solicitation. The contract is designed to support the 16th in its role as a “service cryptologic element,” or the formal mechanism by which signals intelligence components of the service work directly with the NSA. Another component of the FUSIONS contract is identifying and recommending “new or unexploited information systems,” as well as “unique friendly, enemy, or neutral information sources,” with the goal of turning that information into relevant and useful intelligence. This means, broadly, looking at new Internet-connected devices, tools, and networks, and making that information something troops at the tactical level can use. Vital to that intelligence collection and sharing is ensuring the data itself can be transmitted over existing DoD networks. https://breakingdefense.com/2021/02/air-force-awards-95-million-for-cyber-intelligence/

PARIS — France is to acquire its first joint tactical signals intelligence system from Thales and Airbus, the DGA procurement agency announced Feb. 8. The €160 million (U.S. $193 million) contract was signed with the two companies Dec. 31, 2020, according to a DGA statement. Early capabilities of the new system will be delivered in 2023 and full capabilities by 2025. The system will consist of a series of combinable sensors adapted to the needs of a given theater of operation and whatever environment — land, naval or air — in which it is to be operated. Signals intelligence involves using an adversary's signals — either communication (such as radio) or electronic (such as radar) — to gather data. “This information is necessary to safeguard the forces engaged, to determine the enemy's intention and to be able to independently assess the situation. It contributes to the freedom of action of forces in a theater of operations,” the DGA said in a statement. The French armed forces' current tactical sigint capabilities were developed to meet the specific needs of each service. The purpose of the joint system is to provide the three services with a homogeneous system, using as many common bricks as possible to guarantee operational continuity and joint use of the information collected. The new system will modernize and complete the current tactical sigint capabilities, taking into consideration new communications technologies used by adversaries — whether these are detecting emissions, characterizing and localizing transmitters, or intercepting communications on different frequency ranges — according to the procurement agency. In the Army, the new capability will be used by the 54th Signal Regiment on Scorpion vehicles. It will also equip the Navy's capital ships and the Atlantic 2 maritime patrol aircraft, replacing and complementing the current systems. Members of the Air and Space Force will use the system as deployable ground equipment to protect air bases. https://www.c4isrnet.com/global/europe/2021/02/08/french-military-orders-first-sigint-suite-to-work-across-all-services/

By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — The German Defence Ministry will leave planned air defense investments and other high-profile programs involving U.S. vendors unresolved in the final months of the Merkel government, officials have told lawmakers. A Feb. 3 list of “important” but unfunded programs, as officials wrote, includes several trans-Atlantic defense efforts that have been simmering for some time. As a result, American contractor behemoths Lockheed Martin and Boeing are left to wait until a new government re-litigates Germany's defense acquisition posture sometime after the Sept. 26 election. Lockheed Martin, along with MBDA Deutschland, has been gunning for a contract on the TLVS missile defense program following more than a year of negotiations and several years of German-American co-development. The program's prospects turned dimmer last fall, as new requirements drove up costs. Unsurprisingly, TLVS now officially appears on the to-do list for the next chancellor. Notably, a project aimed at defending against short-range aerial threats, like drones or mortar fire, is also lacking a budget, defense officials wrote to lawmakers. Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer late last year reframed Germany's air defense requirements as needing greater focus on drone threats, as evidenced by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. She said a wholesale evaluation of the entire weapons portfolio would determine the way ahead, including what systems the Bundeswehr needs to counter threats of different sizes from various distances. Whatever happened with the review, it appears it did not spur an appetite to start something new soon. That leaves Germany's fleet of Patriot systems, along with a limited order of counter-drone systems made by Kongsberg and Hensoldt aimed at fulfilling Germany's commitment to NATO for 2023, as the baseline equipment for the time being. Lockheed also must wait for what happens next in the Bundeswehr's heavy transport helicopter program, which is meant to replace the fleet of CH-53G models. The Defence Ministry effectively halted the acquisition process last fall after Lockheed and Boeing went over budget with their custom offers of the CH-53K King Stallion and the CH-47 Chinook, respectively. German defense officials recently requested information from the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency about buying more standard, and presumably cheaper, versions of the desired aircraft instead. In response, Lockheed launched a formal protest, which is now on the docket of the Federal Cartel Office, as newspaper Die Welt first reported. Company officials said they want to get a ruling of whether Berlin walking away from the purchase altogether was in line with fair-competition rules. German acquisition laws make it difficult for companies to protest when the government chooses not to award any contract at the end of a competition, said Christian Scherer, a public procurement expert with the law firm CMS Germany in Cologne. “Generally speaking, you can't force the government to buy anything,” he said. “But bidders might have compensation claims.” Judging offers as economically unfeasible, for example, could qualify as a valid reason for the government to withdraw, Scherer told Defense News. At the same time, there is a legal path if companies suspect abusive implementation of the rules, especially if the government's requirements remain the same, he added. Those rules exist to protect offerers against favoritism and other forms of manipulation. “You can't go ahead and compete the same thing with the intention to award the contract to your preferred bidder.” Finally, Germany's long-term campaign of replacing its fleet of Tornado combat aircraft will remain untouched during the final months of the Merkel era, according to the Defence Ministry. Defense officials last spring settled on a mixed fleet of mostly Eurofighters plus a smaller number of Boeing-made Super Hornets for electronic warfare and nuclear missions. The decision has morphed into something more akin to a mere recommendation that would require years to play out, leading Eurofighter maker Airbus to hold out hope that U.S. manufacturers can be entirely kept out of the business when all is said and done. Tobias Lindner, a Green Party member of the Budget and Appropriations committees in the Bundestag, said the list of unfunded programs is “almost more interesting” than the acquisitions considered doable by the time the Bundestag session ends in late June. With so many big-ticket programs in limbo (15 overall), Kramp-Karrenbauer could move to set priorities and cut needless projects. “Unrealistic announcements and promises weaken trust within the armed forces and with our allies,” Lindner said. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2021/02/05/german-defense-ministry-punts-key-us-defense-cooperation-projects-to-the-next-government/

Levon Sevunts, Radio Canada International The modernization of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) will dominate the agenda of Canada-U.S. defence relations as the Biden administration gears up to repair relations with old allies and face emerging threats from resurgent Russia and ascending China, Canadian defence experts say. The continued modernization of the binational command created in 1957 was on the agenda of the first phone call between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month, and during the first calls of Canadiand and U.S. defence ministers, said Andrea Charron, head of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba. “This is at the highest levels. When the U.S. is concerned about the homeland defence and they feel vulnerable, it's something that Canada has to take very-very seriously and I think that is what's happening,” Charron told Eye on the Arctic. Canadian defence expert Nancy Teeple said she expects the Biden administration to ask Canada to contribute more to continental defence. “It opens up the question of whether Canada will participate in missile defence, it's going to push Canada towards that new fighter capability,” said Teeple, who teaches at the Royal Military College of Canada and is Postdoctoral Fellow at the North American Defence and Security Network (NAADSN). The need for NORAD modernization is driven by changes in the strategic and the global geopolitical environment, Charron said. “Where as before the primary threat during the Cold War was one peer competitor, who wasn't using greyzone tactics, or at least not to the same extent as now, we now have two peer competitors to the U.S. – China and Russia – and they are using greyzone tactics, and they're developing more sophisticated weapons like hypersonic glide vehicle weapons,” Charron said. A new generation of threats The urgency of the NORAD modernization and the paths towards that goal were outlined last fall in a paper written for the Wilson Center's Canada Institute by the former U.S. NORAD commander, retired Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, and U.S. Air Force Brig.-Gen. Peter Fesler, the current deputy director of operations at the U.S. air defence headquarters. In the paper, titled Hardening the Shield: A Credible Deterrent & Capable Defense for North America, O'Shaughnessy and Fesler argue that “with innovations in long range missiles and foreign missile defense systems as well as a changing Arctic landscape, threats to U.S. national security are closer and less deterred than ever from attacking the U.S. Homeland.” O'Shaughnessy and Fesler argue that both China and Russia have developed capabilities to target North America with a new generation of long-range and high-precision conventional weapons. They say that while the U.S. has invested billions of dollars into building ballistic missile defences to protect against strikes by rogue nations such as North Korea, Washington and Ottawa have neglected investments and upgrades of the continental defensive systems “designed to defend against the range of threats presented by peer competitors.” Moreover, the various systems in place in many cases simply can't automatically share information, they say. “The radars used by NORAD to warn of Russian or Chinese ballistic missile attack, for example, are not integrated with those used by Northern Command to engage missiles launched by North Korea,” O'Shaughnessy and Fesler write. “Even if the ballistic missile defense architecture were to detect a launch from China, it would not directly share that information with NORAD's missile warning systems. “The watch standers in the consolidated NORAD and Northern Command headquarters are forced to verbally pass information displayed on independent systems.” Putting up a SHIELD O'Shaughnessy and Fesler call for a “more holistic modernization effort” for NORAD. Northern Command and NORAD have collectively developed a modernization strategy for defence referred to as the Strategic Homeland Integrated Ecosystem for Layered Defence, or SHIELD, they write. “SHIELD is not a system, or even a system of systems, it is an ecosystem,” O'Shaughnessy and Fesler write. “It is a fundamentally new approach to defending North America.” SHIELD takes advantage of the data provided by traditional and non-traditional sources to provide a layered ability to detect any threat approaching the continent, from the seafloor to on orbit, in what NORAD and Northern Command refer to as “all domain awareness,” they write. “It pools this data and fuses it into a common operational picture. Then, using the latest advances in machine learning and data analysis, it scans the data for patterns that are not visible to human eyes, helping decision-makers understand adversary potential courses of action before they are executed.” ‘It's many things and they are already happening' Experts say figuring out Canada's role in this new “ecosystem” will be tricky politically and likely to come at a steep financial cost just as both Ottawa and Washington are deep in the red because of the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It's everything from, for example, the runways at Inuvik being extended because right now only the CF-18 Hornets can land there and we need to make it longer,” Charron said. “It's things like better communication in the Arctic because there seems to be the potential for more activity there.” Or it could be something like coming up with a new Combined Forces Air Component Commander to change the command and control structure and allow the NORAD commander to think more strategically rather than to be bogged down by the day-to-day tasks, Charron said. In addition, upgrades to NORAD capabilities also have to be guided by the need for information dominance, Charron said. “So it's many things and they are already happening,” Charron said. “For example there is a new program called Pathfinder, which is helping feeds from the North Warning System through artificial intelligence to glean more information that the North Warning System is actually picking up but current algorithms and analysts aren't able to see.” Teeple said Canada can also benefit from Washington's interest in developing continental defence, including the Arctic by developing infrastructure that has dual military-civilian use. “This provides incredible benefits if Canada can collaborate,” Teeple said. “And those benefits would be obviously involving collaboration, involving input from Northern Indigenous communities and developing systems that can enhance things like communications and other types of infrastructure in the North that would enhance their quality of life.” Canadian policy-makers should also think about some of the niche areas where Canada can contribute to the NORAD modernization and the continental defence, Teeple said. “So enhancing its sensor capabilities for early warning, obviously that involves the upgrading of the North Warning System,” Teeple said. Other roles for Canada could include non-kinetic disruptive capabilities, such as cyber capabilities, Teeple said. This could give Canada a more offensive role in the new SHIELD ecosystem that would be more palatable politically than hosting ballistic missile interceptors on its territory, she added. https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2021/02/05/norad-modernization-to-dominate-agenda-of-canada-u-s-defence-relations-experts-say/

Steven Grundman The COVID-19 pandemic has accustomed us to living in the virtual world and hearing speculation about the ways in which our actual lives may never resume as before. Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently said he believes “over 50% of business travel and over 30% of days in the office will go away.” Explaining why the pandemic-induced surge in virtual house calls is likely to endure, Harvard's Dr. Thomas Delbanco concedes: “There are times when doctors, nurses or therapists really need to see you—no question about it. But there are also times when they really don't.” It was against the backdrop of such head-turning New Year's predictions that I spent the holidays reading about the Cold War and forming a nostalgic rebuttal to those prophesies of Zoom. At the start of my professional life, I led a surveillance platoon of the U.S. 1st Armored Division (1st AD), which was deployed to defend the “Frontier of Freedom” in the towns surrounding Nuremberg, West Germany. So it was that after cracking open Fulda Gap: Battlefield of the Cold War Alliances, I quickly thumbed forward to Chapter 7, “A Personal Perspective from Platoon Leader to Army Group” by Gen. (ret.) Crosbie Saint, who had commanded the 1st AD during my service in it. Saint's reflections transported me back to 1984 and the pastoral beauty of the Bavarian Oberpfalz, where we were actively preparing to fight a third world war. Prominent among the preparations Saint recounts was the terrain walk, a compulsory practice of every officer leading a maneuver unit regularly to traverse the ground where his troops would deploy, battle book in hand, mastering the contours of the landscape and envisioning his squads' movements in the General Defense Plan. Saint writes ardently about how “repetitive terrain walks at multiple command levels to analyze and become expert in exploiting the terrain for tactical purposes” gave the U.S. a decisive advantage over the vast armies of the Warsaw Pact. The still-clear memory of then-Lt. Grundman's own terrain walks along the monikered kill zones in my battle book—The Kemnath Bowl, Erbendorf Fire Trap, et al.—prompted me to wonder if the marvels of a virtual reality simulation would leave as indelible a mark. I doubt it. While the adoption of videoconferencing for commodity conversation is no doubt here to stay, the premium work of enterprise leadership must remain incarnate. Just as the experience of looking out from a ridgeline engages all the senses, strategic vision flows from an intuitive integration of time and space that no telemediation can fully activate. Beyond the battlefield lay other terrain walks affirming my conviction. In April 1993, just three weeks on the job as chief executive of an IBM teetering on insolvency, Lou Gerstner launched Operation Bear Hug, which directed each of the company's 250 most senior executives to visit at least five key customers over the following three months to learn why IBM had lost their trust. Years later, Gerstner wrote that Bear Hug made manifest what came to be the motive force of IBM's acclaimed transformation: “[W]e were going to build a company from the outside in and . . . the customer was going to drive everything we did in the company.” Gerstner invested this practice of deep listening to customers with the same strategic importance Saint attributed to a lieutenant's intimacy with the sight lines of his firing positions. Operation Bear Hug was a terrain walk. One of the trade secrets of my career as a business consultant to the aerospace industry is never to pass up an invitation to take a plant tour. No matter how near it is to your next flight's departure, when asked “Wanna see the shop?” the right answer is always “Of course.” When, a decade ago, I toured SpaceX's Hawthorne, California, headquarters and observed Elon Musk sitting at his desk among the busy cubicles of 30-something engineers gutting out their work in T-shirts, I instantly understood how the company's garage-shop culture could revolutionize the staid business of space launch. Years earlier, the clinical attention to workers' safety I saw at the bustling CFM56 jet engine plant in Villaroche, France, told me more about the success of the GE-Safran joint venture than even its impressive financials. So, too, did I need actually to feel the cavernous quietude in an antique defense factory to appreciate the true meaning of the sunk-cost fallacy. The aerospace plant tour is often a terrain walk. To all you leaders who, like me, find the progressively virtual world unsettling (and with apologies to a certain light lager's ad campaign), I say, “Find your terrain walk.” Once we again are free to move about, go physically to the crucible of what creates value for your enterprise and open your senses. Only from that vantage will you see truly into its future. The views expressed are not necessarily those of Aviation Week. https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/manufacturing-supply-chain/opinion-why-future-will-not-be-virtual

Posted on February 5, 2021 by Richard R. Burgess, Senior Editor ARLINGTON, Va. — Lockheed Martin's new SPY-7 radar will be sailing to sea on the ships of three navies as the company highlights the radar's capabilities for application to other navies, including the U.S. Navy. The SPY-7, which uses gallium nitride modules, initially was developed for the Navy's Air and Missile Defense Radar competition. It was adapted into the Long-Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) procured by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) as a sensor of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system. Being installed at Clear Air Force Station in Alaska, the LRDR is designed to discriminate between incoming warheads and decoys. The core building blocks [of the LRDR] are the same core building blocks in SPY-7,” said Jon P. Rambeau, vice president and general manager, Integrated Systems & Sensors, Lockheed Rotary and Mission Systems, during a Feb. 2 interview with Seapower. “[SPY-7] is a modular radar that allows us to build different configurations for both land-based and sea-based applications.” The SPY-7 has been selected by the Spanish navy to integrate it with the Aegis Combat System on its F110 frigates. The Canadian navy is procuring the radar to install it on its new Halifax-class surface combatant. Japan had selected the SPY-7 for its two planned Aegis Ashore ballistic-missile defense sites, but when the plans were cancelled in part out of concern for missile debris falling on populated areas, Japan shifted to a plan to deploy the SPY-7 on some future, unspecified sea-based BMD platform. Japan already has BMD capabilities in its Kongo-class guided-missile destroyers with Aegis systems using the SPY-1 radar. Japan, which already has placed an order for the SPY-7, “is going through a process now to determine exactly what that platform is going to look like,” Rambeau said. “We are pleased with the progress that the technology has made, and we're starting to see some uptake both here in the U.S. as well as abroad.” “SPY-7 is part of the Aegis common source library (CSL) and the interfaces are understood,” said Patrick W. McNally, director of communications for Integrated Warfare Systems & Sensors, in a statement to Seapower. “For Japan, we have completed the first of three releases which were recently demonstrated to MDA. Starting from the CSL, with over one million lines of code, Japan will be receiving the best of both Baseline 9 and 10 [Aegis software].” The U.S. Navy is considering backfitting some Flight IIA Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers with a radar more modern than the SPY-1, and Lockheed is keeping a watch on developments in the event the SPY-7 could complete in the program if it comes to pass. Rambeau said his company also “has some more affordable options available to upgrade some of the SPY-1 arrays to provide improved sensitivity and improved resistance to electronic attack and we think we can do that at a fraction of the cost of a wholesale replacement, so we've put forth a couple of options for upgrades to SPY-1 to both MDA and the Navy.” https://seapowermagazine.org/lockheed-martins-spy-7-radar-is-going-to-sea

NAVY Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a Lockheed Martin Co., Stratford, Connecticut, is awarded a $478,605,019 firm-fixed-price modification (P00102) to a previously awarded contract (N0001914C0050). This modification exercises options for the procurement of five Lot Three low rate initial production Presidential Helicopters Replacement Program (VH-92A) aircraft, and associated interim contractor support, two cabin interior reconfiguration kits, support equipment, initial spares, and system parts replenishment. Work will be performed in Stratford, Connecticut (50%); Coatesville, Pennsylvania (36%); Owego, New York (10%); Patuxent River, Maryland (2%); Phoenix, Arizona (1%); and Quantico, Virginia (1%), and is expected to be completed in December 2023. Fiscal 2021 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount $478,605,019 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Invicta Global LLC,* Fort Worth, Texas, was awarded a $14,600,550 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity modification for the exercise of Option Three under a contract for base operating support services at various installations in the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) Washington area of operations (AO). After award of this option, the total cumulative contract value will be $39,316,621. The work to be performed is all labor, material, equipment, management and administration for utilities, transportation and facility support services to include fire protection services, facilities management and investment, base support vehicles and equipment, urgent, emergency and routine services for facility support services. Work will be performed in NAVFAC Washington AO, including but not limited to Bethesda, Maryland (40%); Washington, D.C. (40%); Indian Head, Maryland (10%); and Dahlgren, Virginia (10%). This option period is from Feb. 1, 2021, to Jan. 31, 2022. No funds were obligated at time of award. Operation and maintenance, (Navy); and fiscal 2021 Navy working capital funds in the amount of $6,488,840 for recurring work will be obligated on individual task orders issued during the option period. NAVFAC Washington, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N40080-19-D-0311). (Awarded: Jan. 29, 2021) Opal Soft, Inc., Sunnyvale, California, is awarded an $11,979,099 cost-plus-fixed-fee bridge contract for software support services in support of Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport. Work will be performed in Keyport, Washington, and is expected to be completed by September 2021. This contract includes an option which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $19,049,565. Work is expected to be completed by December 2021. Fiscal 2021 service cost center (Navy) $3,154,151 (82.12%); 2015 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) $246,982 (6.43%); 2017 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) $246,982 (6.43%); 2021 defense working capital fund (Navy) $84,895 (2.21%); 2021 other procurement (Navy) $42,474 (1.11%) 2019 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) $37,996 (0.99%); and 2018 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) $27,092.45 (0.71%) funding will be obligated at award. No contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304(c) (1) (only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements). The Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport, Keyport, Washington, is the contracting activity. (N0025321C0004) DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY US Foods, La Mirada, California, has been awarded a maximum $114,700,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for full-line food distribution. This was a competitive acquisition with two responses received. This is a five-year contract with no option periods. Locations of performance are California and Alaska, with a Feb. 4, 2026, ordering period end date. Using military services are Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2021 through 2026 defense working capital funds. The contracting agency is the Defense Logistics Agency, Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE300-21-D-3307). ARMY Oshkosh Defense LLC, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, was awarded a $61,002,554 firm-fixed-price contract for 1,081 Underbody Armor Kit upgrade kits for the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, with an estimated completion date of June 30, 2022. Fiscal 2019, 2020 and 2021 European reassurance initiative funds in the amount of $61,002,554 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, is the contracting activity (W56HZV-21-C-0084). Dyncorp International LLC, Fort Worth, Texas, was awarded a $42,000,000 modification (P00121) to contract W58RGZ-19-C-0025 for aviation maintenance services. Work will be performed in Afghanistan and Iraq, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 31, 2021. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $42,000,000 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity. Coastal Contractors Inc.,* Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was awarded a $9,450,839 firm-fixed-price contract for flood control of the Comite River. Bids were solicited via the internet with eight received. Work will be performed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with an estimated completion date of Apr. 8, 2022. Fiscal 2021 civil construction funds in the amount of $9,450,839 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans, Louisiana, is the contracting activity (W912P8-21-C-0005). Escal Institute of Advanced Technologies Inc., North Bethesda, Maryland, was awarded a $9,443,000 modification (P00004) to contract W911S0-19-D-0009 to provide training and certifications as required to verify and validate student proficiency in cybersecurity roles. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Feb. 5, 2022. U.S. Army Field Directorate Office, Fort Eustis, Virginia, is the contracting activity. Cottrell Contracting Corp., Chesapeake, Virginia, was awarded a $9,416,500 firm-fixed-price contract for maintenance dredging of Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Camden County, Georgia. Bids were solicited via the internet with two received. Work will be performed in Kings Bay, Georgia, with an estimated completion date of April 25, 2022. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (defense-wide funds) in the amount of $9,416,500 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville, Florida, is the contracting activity (W912EP-21-C-0008). WASHINGTON HEADQUARTERS SERVICES Systems Planning and Analysis Inc., Alexandria, Virginia (HQ0034-21-F-0089), has been awarded a firm-fixed-price and time and materials contract in the amount of $34,891,509. This contract is to provide support to the Office of Industrial Policy in carrying out its mission to ensure robust, secure, resilient and innovative industrial capabilities within the Department of Defense. The contractor will provide program support for the Defense Production Act Titles I and III, Industrial Base Assessments, Industry Engagement/Outreach and Strategic Communications and Business Intelligence and Analytics. Work performance will take place at the Mark Center, Alexandria, Virginia; and the Pentagon, Washington, D.C. Appropriate fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance funds will be obligated at the award. The expected completion date is Feb. 6, 2026. Washington Headquarters Services, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity. *Small business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2495622/source/GovDelivery/