Current Events in the Americas

From Aviation Week CV32: Unfortunate, because it indirectly puts greater pressure on the already strained F-22 and F-35 [excerpt]

Why the Navy Wants More Growlers (USNI News)

The Navy’s Much-Hyped Electromagnetic Railgun May End Up Dead In The Water (Task & Purpose)

DoD: Forces still ready for other conflicts By William H. McMichael - Staff writer Posted : Friday Apr 6, 2007 6:19:48 EDT U.S. forces have “enormous power and capacity” despite the demands of the war in Iraq and could defeat any potential enemy, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said Thursday. “There’s zero doubt about the outcome,” Marine Gen. Peter Pace said at a Pentagon news conference with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. “It would simply take us longer than we would like.” Pace acknowledged that the war’s demands, with units spending a year or less back home before being redeployed, mean that troops get “well-trained” for the war but do not get train…

Report: Navy can’t afford proposed fleet By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer Posted : Sunday Apr 22, 2007 12:46:10 EDT An April 10 research report to Congress on assembling the modern fleet says the Navy’s latest shipbuilding plan cannot achieve its intent of a 313-ship future fleet, up from today’s 275-ship force. “The Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan does not include enough ships to fully support all the elements of the 313-ship fleet consistently over the long run,” according to the report entitled “Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress,” produced by the Congressional Research Service. The Navy has estimated that i…

Price Tag For Navy's New Aircraft Carrier On The Rise, GAO Says By Jon W. Glass, The Virginian-Pilot The next-generation aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, under design at shipbuilder Northrop Grumman Newport News, faces "substantial risk" of cost overruns that could complicate the Navy's plan to increase its fleet, a federal report scheduled for release Monday says. The Government Accountability Office, a watchdog for Congress, said that this "likely" cost growth "may force the Navy to sacrifice" other vessels in its 30-year plan to grow the fleet to 313 ships from the current 279, according to Bloomberg News. The business news service first reported the GAO's …

From Air Force Times New tanker named but still not selected By Bruce Rolfsen - Staff writer Posted : Monday Dec 17, 2007 7:14:43 EST The Air Force doesn’t know who is going to build the KC-X tanker, but the service has decided what to call the jet. Drum roll, please. The KC-X is designated KC-45A. While the service didn’t make a formal announcement about the KC-45A naming, the designation has started to appear in briefings given by Air Force officials and a service spokesman confirmed the name. Technically, KC-45A is the tanker’s mission design series name. The “KC” designates the jet as a tanker. Why “45A” was chosen isn’t clear, other than it does…

From Aviation Week Boeing Reveals Sub-Tracking ScanEagle Study Jun 9, 2008 Guy Norris/Aerospace Daily & Defense Report SEATTLE – Boeing, Insitu and the U.S. Navy are studying a variant of the ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that could be air-dropped from a P-8A or other aircraft to detect and stealthily track submarines over many hours. The magnetometer-equipped UAV, dubbed “MagEagle Compressed,” would “go out and find a submarine and follow it for 24 hours,” says John Hearing, senior manager for Boeing Tactical Unmanned Systems. The initiative is a direct outgrowth of ScanEagle Compressed Carriage (SECC), a project aimed at developing a version …

CV32: Interesting take on a perceived shift in priorities in the US DoD/budget ... From Defense Program Begins to Swing Back Towards "High-End" Conflicts

From Defense Aerospace US Military Squadron VMM-263 Ready to Write Next Chapter in Osprey Program (Source: US Marine Corps; issued March 7, 2006) MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. --- The future of Marine Corps aviation took a large step forward as hundreds of Marines, Sailors, Airmen, Soldiers and family members gathered to watch a ceremony in which the first operational MV-22 Osprey squadron was activated here March 3. “Commissioning (Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron-263) is a historic day for the ‘Thunder Chickens,’ for our Corps and for our nation,” said Maj. Gen. Thomas L. Moore, 2d Marine Aircraft Wing commanding general. “We have introduced a …

No Rest For A Cold Warrior The legendary U-2 spy planes are busier than ever as they head toward a phaseout By Kevin Whitelaw Flying at over 70,000 feet above sea level, a lone pilot of an American U-2 spy plane scoured the rugged Afghan mountains near the southern city of Kandahar during a classified mission in mid-September. While the plane's high-tech camera was sending back detailed photographs of the Taliban strongholds below, coalition soldiers operating in the area got embroiled in a firefight with insurgents. The U-2, which flies too high to be heard or seen on the ground, was dispatched to relay images of the battle, locate any targets, and identify p…

CV32: Dark days ahead for the USAF? From Aviation Week's ARES Blog Decapitation Strike Posted by Bill Sweetman at 6/9/2008 7:03 AM CDT The firing of Air Force secretary Michael Wynne and service chief of staff Gen Mike Moseley will have repercussions that last years, possibly decades, and far outweigh the legitimate question as to whether USAF leaders have played their hand well. First of all, for almost a year from now, the USAF secretary's office will be filled by a caretaker. The chances that anyone with serious qualifications or goals would go through confirmation hearings in order to sit out the last few months of a lame-duck administration are zero.…

US Carrier Launch Pushed Back 4 Months (DefenseNews)

From Defence Aerospace MH-60R Weapons System Successfully Completes Technical Evaluation (Source: Lockheed Martin; issued March 22, 2005) OWEGO, N.Y. --- Subsurface and surface warfare systems developed for the U.S. Navy's MH-60R helicopter by prime systems integrator Lockheed Martin have successfully completed Technical Evaluation, clearing the way for Operational Evaluation and fleet introduction later this year. The next-generation helicopter weapons system will help protect U.S. Navy fleets from submarines and surface vessels well into the 21st century. The aircraft entered Technical Evaluation (TECHEVAL) two months ahead of schedule in August 2004, wit…

From Defense Aerospace [excerpt] CV32: Flight III will start with John Finn (DDG 113).

George Friedman at Stratfor is writing a four part commentary on the US Presidential campaign in the context of US foreign policy. It might make for interesting reading for some of you, and I thought I'd post the links here as each part of the series becomes available. Part 1: The New President and the Global Landscape Part 2: Obama's Foreign Policy Stance Part 3: McCain's Foreign Policy Stance

From Aviation Week Tanker Teams Start Posturing for USAF Competition Jun 19, 2009 Amy Butler/Paris Both teams vying for a massive U.S. Air Force contract to build refueling tankers appear to be taking on a more collegial tenor as they await release of the Pentagon's requirements next month, but this newfound spirit could be the calm before the storm in a third attempt for the service to select a new design. Boeing and Northrop Grumman/EADS North America engaged in a volley of assaults about their designs during the past two years, and last year Boeing was on the offensive against the U.S. Air Force customer after it selected the Airbus A330-tanker based desi…

Wanted: A Bigger, Badder Air Wing to Fight China (The National Interest) Link to the report: Sharpening the Spear: The Carrier, the Joint Force, and High-End Conflict (Hudson Institute, pdf)

From DefenseNews U.S. Navy Lays Out 30-Year Fleet Plan By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS The U.S. Navy plans to operate 11 aircraft carriers for the next quarter century, according to a new 30-year force structure plan sent to Congress on March 23. A copy of the report was obtained by DefenseNews.com. The plan also shows the service hopes to build up to a dozen of the new DD(X) destroyers — currently estimated to cost about $3 billion a copy — and up to 18 CG(X) cruisers, a derivative of the DD(X) devoted to ballistic missile defense. The plan, signed by Navy Secretary Gordon England, is described as an “interim report” on ship levels through fiscal 2035. Englan…

From Aviation Week USN Hornet Shortfall Poised To Triple Mar 18, 2008 By David A. Fulghum The U.S. Navy's most recent estimate of a 69 F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet shortage is getting ready to leap by about 300 percent. "The 69 minimum assumes that the Joint Strike Fighter F-35C is operational in 2015 as currently planned, that they buy them at 50 per year and that the [older] F/A-18A -Ds are going to last 10,000 hrs," says a senior aerospace industry official with insight into the program. "All those are very optimistic assumptions, and the Navy's characterization of the shortage [as 69 aircraft] is the most optimistic [extrapolation of that] scenario." …