Current Events in the Americas

From Defense Aerospace Navy Ship $840 Million Over Budget and Still Unfinished (Source: The Virginian-Pilot; published June 30, 2007) By Louis Hansen NORFOLK, VA --- The highly touted nerve center of the new, $1.8 billion amphibious ship San Antonio is fraught with computer hardware crashes that could cripple operations. The ship lacks basic safety equipment, such as hand rails and reliable guns to battle close-in attacks. In all, Navy inspectors found 30 major flaws aboard the San Antonio, according to an internal report obtained by The Virginian-Pilot. Despite the deficiencies, the Navy has earmarked $13 billion to purchase nine amphibious ships …

From Air Force Magazine, October 2007 issue October 2007 , Vol. 90, No. 10 The Navy plans to build many more flattops, and they won’t be “Gary Hart carriers.” Seven New Carriers (Maybe) By Otto Kreisher Today’s Navy leaders are in a bind. With the size of the fleet at 277 warships, and with a stated requirement for 313, the service faces a broad, long-term, and expensive shipbuilding task. Senior officers are struggling to find the money, with no assurance of success. In the midst of all this, however, there is at least one certainty. Navy leadership is staunchly committed to buying many more big-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers—the most powerf…

DND Defers HMCS Chicoutimi Repair article (Source: Canadian Department of National Defence; issued April 27, 2006) OTTAWA --- The Department of National Defence today announced that repairs to Her Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS) Chicoutimi, damaged by fire in 2004, will be deferred until 2010 when a two-year refit on the submarine is conducted. This decision means that repairs caused by the 2004 fire incident will be conducted at the same time as the two-year refit process known as the Extended Dock Work Period, which is scheduled for 2010. If the repair process had begun immediately, HMCS Chicoutimi would have been back in service for less than two …

Following up from the recent report regarding the Zumwalt (DDG-1000) program's curtailment at two hulls ... From Navy Times New DDG-51s could get tweaks, upgrades By Philip Ewing - Staff writer Posted : Monday Aug 4, 2008 6:39:19 EDT Even though the Navy will resume building Arleigh Burke-class destroyers because the ships are cheaper and the costs are predictable, the eight new Burkes could get new refinements that set them apart from earlier siblings, according to a congressional report. According to written testimony submitted Thursday to the House Seapower Subcommittee by Navy shipbuilding expert Ron O’Rourke, the Navy has several options to improve …

From Defense Aerospace Northrop Grumman Celebrates Ceremonial Steel Cut and Facilities Grand Opening for CVN 21 Aircraft Carrier Program (Source: Northrop Grumman Corp.; issued Aug. 11, 2005) NEWPORT NEWS, Va. --- Northrop Grumman Corporation has reached its first construction milestone in the life of the new-generation aircraft carrier, CVN 21. The company cut one of the first pieces of steel, a 15-ton plate for a side shell unit of CVN 78, the first ship of the CVN 21 program. Design work on the CVN 21 is underway at Northrop Grumman's Newport News sector, with the full construction contract anticipated in 2007. Advance construction began in 2005 to allow…

The fundamental controversy remains, of course, but some details in this article of design changes being made ... From DefenseNews [excerpt]

Improved Conventional Munitions Policy (CSBA) This is a big deal. In the world of Harpoon, some of you might have already noticed that cluster munitions (especially older style cluster munitions) tend to fade from sight in many US/NATO aircraft loadouts in the HCDB2 after around 2003.

From Air Force Link Langley officials fight to keep F-22s from being damaged by Tech. Sgt. Russell Wicke Air Combat Command Public Affairs 4/9/2008 - LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (AFPN) -- The Air Force's newest and most technologically advanced fighter, the F-22 Raptor, is under attack here. Free-falling clams dropped by in-flight birds are regular air threats to the F-22 as gulls drop fist-sized mollusks on the Langley Air Force Base runway to break open the shell-fish appetizer. The birds' shelling device just happens to be a convenient launch pad for the F-22. Although the gulls remove half their mess -- slurping up tender meat from the runway -- they…

Winning The Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America's Air And Missile Defenses (CBSA)

From Flight International DATE: 11/07/08 SOURCE: Flight International Indian Su-30 fighters depart for Red Flag exercise By Radhakrishna Rao An Indian air force contingent with eight Sukhoi Su-30MKI combat aircraft, two Ilyushin Il-78 air-to-air refuellers and one Il-76 transport has left India to participate in the 9-23 August multinational exercise Red Flag '08 at the US Air Force's Nellis AFB in Nevada. It will be the first time that the Russian-made Su-30MKI will participate in multinational manoeuvres involving US and other NATO fighters. India expects to spend around Rp1 billion ($23 million) on its participation in the air combat exercise. Sou…

From Aviation Week [excerpt]

From Air Force Times Ecuador: U.S. must leave Manta next year By Gonzalo Solano - The Associated Press Posted : Wednesday Jul 30, 2008 9:42:50 EDT QUITO, Ecuador — The U.S. military must stop using its only outpost in South America for anti-drug flights when Washington’s 10-year lease on the base in Ecuador expires in 2009, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. Leftist President Rafael Correa has repeatedly said that Ecuador would not renew the agreement to use the Manta air base, but Tuesday’s Foreign Ministry statement said the South American nation has now formally notified the U.S. Embassy of the decision. Some 300 U.S. troops are stationed at the Pacif…

From Aviation Week Flight-Test Program Accelerates for U.S. Navy''s E-2D Apr 20, 2008 By David A. Fulghum Within three years, the U.S. Navy's fleet will have fielded the technology for precisely locating small, flying targets. The target set embraces some of the Navy's latest nightmares, including the next-generation of stealthy - sometimes supersonic - cruise missiles. Moreover, with the introduction of space-time adaptive processing (STAP) software, the hybrid APY-9 electronically scanned array (ESA) radar on board the new E-2D Advanced Hawkeye will be able to pick those elusive flying targets out of a background of rough terrain and urban sprawl, a far di…

From DefenseNews Technology Problems Persist for USN Destroyer: Report By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS Technological development for the U.S. Navy’s advanced DD(X) destroyer is still lagging despite progress in a number of areas, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report issued June 14. The report, sent to Senate and House of Representatives Armed Services Committee leaders, highlighted problems with the 10 critical engineering areas being developed for the 14,000-ton destroyer. Packed with new technologies, the DD(X) is intended by the Navy to support forces ashore and dominate coastal regions, and is planned to replace Arleigh Burke-class destroye…

Yahoo News link Sadly, I don't think they'll find any survivors. My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those on board.

From Jane's DARPA looks to go deep with ASW sensor network By Richard Scott 20 January 2010 The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has disclosed plans for a deep ocean sensor network that could provide a long-range anti-submarine surveillance capability sufficient to protect 'blue water' Carrier Strike Group operations. This new initiative, which envisions a distributed system of sensors and sources on or near the ocean floor, harks back to the SOSUS (Sound Surveillance System) deep-water long-range detection capability deployed by the US Navy during the Cold War. It also signals a revival in interest in blue-water anti-submarine warfare (A…

Of interest for everyone of us (see photo): https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2018-07/be-predictably-unpredictable

From Air Force Times Subsonic bomber wanted by 2018 By Gayle S. Putrich - Staff writer Posted : Monday May 21, 2007 6:50:45 EDT The Air Force may trade building a faster bomber in favor of building a bomber faster — even if it means lowering technological expectations for now. Expectations seem to have been dialed down from a supersonic, super-stealthy long-range bomber to a manned, subsonic aircraft with a range of 2,500 nautical miles. Sources say the service plans to buy only about 100 of the stop-gap planes while exploring other options for future bombers. As recently as last year, the Air Force planned a new bomber program between 2025 and 2037. But…

Canada in wait to use its mine-clearing drones Canadian Press CTV HALIFAX — France and the United States will likely be the first countries to take full advantage of advanced minesweeping technology developed in Canada, even though it was first intended for Canadian navy ships, says a senior researcher. While a number of countries have shown interest in purchasing the high-tech gear, the Canadian navy will only get to test drive the Remote Minehunting System because of budget cuts and a cumbersome procurement process. In an deal signed last week, Ottawa said it will pay for operational tests of the system for only 20 days a year. The Canadian tests are exp…

New York Times December 5, 2005 Navy To Expand Fleet With New Enemies In Mind By David S. Cloud WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - The Navy wants to increase its fleet to 313 ships by 2020, reversing years of decline in naval shipbuilding and adding dozens of warships designed to defeat emerging adversaries, senior Defense Department officials say. The plan by Adm. Michael G. Mullen, who took over as chief of naval operations last summer, envisions a major shipbuilding program that would increase the 281-ship fleet by 32 vessels and cost more than $13 billion a year, $3 billion more than the current shipbuilding budget, the officials said Friday. While increasing …