Current Events in the Americas

From Aviation Week GD Keeps EFV, But Program Redrawn Jun 8, 2007 Michael Bruno/Aerospace Daily & Defense Report The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps will allow General Dynamics to keep the troubled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) program, but the Corps will dramatically scale back its future orders and restructure the contract to address award fees among other concerns, officials told reporters June 7 at the Pentagon. The program now will seek only 573 EFVs, almost halved from 1,013 units previously, and officials have built in a delay of four to five years in the schedule. Milestone C approval is slated for mid-2011, instead of last January, and full…

From On Space [excerpt] CV32: I still remember the first Shuttle launch. Sitting in the library of my school with the rest of my Grade 4 class as we all watched on a tiny (by today's standards) color TV.

From Flight Global's DEW Line blog [excerpt]

From DefenseNews Commissioning Party to be on Unfinished Carrier By christopher p. cavas Published: 18 Dec 17:33 EST (22:33 GMT) Ready or not, U.S. Presidents Bush 41 and 43 will gather in Norfolk, Va., early in the new year to commission 41's namesake aircraft carrier, even though the ship won't be quite ready for delivery. Construction delays mean the future USS George H. W. Bush (CVN 77) won't be able to carry out sea trials and be accepted by the Navy before the Jan. 10 commissioning - the normal sequence of events for a new ship, the Navy and shipbuilder Northrop Grumman said Dec. 18 in separate statements. Legal custody of a new ship is transferred…

Somebody doesn't like the DDG-1000.

From Air Force Times Barksdale bombers expand B-52 capabilities Recreation of historic 1938 mission points to future By John Andrew Prime - The Shreveport Times Posted : Sunday Aug 26, 2007 13:57:20 EDT Three Barksdale Air Force Base B-52s used a modern twist to a historic mission almost 70 years old to add a dramatic new capability to the bomber’s long list of tricks. Flying almost 10 hours and putting about 3,500 miles under their wings Friday, the trio of veteran bombers pinpointed a specific ship several hundred miles east of Bermuda then spent two hours gathering images and information about it. In May 1938, three B-17 bombers from what was then th…

From ARES Out In The Open Posted by Guy Norris at 12/17/2008 4:29 AM CST The X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator - the US Navy's first tail-less, stealthy unmanned aircraft, was unveiled at Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale, Calif., site on Dec.16. The first air vehicle, AV-1, is scheduled to make its first flight on Nov.11 next year, while a second demonstrator AV-2 is being assembled, and will be completed around December 2009. Both will be used to demonstrate the viability of carrier operations with an unmanned combat aircraft, with the first X-47B carrier landing expected in November 2011. The X-47B wing span is an impressive 62.1 ft, c…

The drama called the US defense budget saga, can be likened to a poorly cast and predictably-plotted soap opera! Here's the source: http://defensenews.com/story.php?c=AME&amp...49668&s=SEA Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the US shipbuilding industry is getting a high priority in our national defense. What I'm saying is - its overrated. Two flavors of LCS (which are white elephants). The Danish experimented with "multi-purpose" warships and found they didn't work. The Virginia class SSN, while nice is not the best platform for the job. UW is shifting from the deep blue water of the oceans to the littoral. It's like taking a race horse and strapping it to a log…

From Reuters, printed in today's San Diego Union Tribune: LA ORCHILA, Venezuela - Venezuela test-fired missiles in the Caribbean Sea yesterday in a display of military strength at a time of tense realations between Washington and leftist President Hugo Chavez. Five Russian Sukhoi fighter jets swooped over the military base on the island of La Orchila, dropping a half-ton bomb and firing a KH-59 missile at a seaborne target. A patrol boat fired an Otomat surface-to-surface missile at the same target. Buddha

Lots of chatter around the Web about this latest issue with LCS, and more particularly, USS Independence ... From Defense Aerospace [excerpt] and [excerpt]

How US strategic antimissile defense could be made to work An interesting piece. Contains a criticism of SM-3 testing methodologies and instead advocates airborne missile defense via stealthy drones.

From Aviation Week USAF Pilot Critiques Red Flag Action Nov 5, 2008 David A. Fulghum and Graham Warwick Indian pilots flying Su-30MKIs are extremely professional, but they're still learning how to best fight with their new aircraft. That opinion comes from an unidentified, senior F-15 pilot taped while briefing senior retired U.S. Air Force officers about the most recent Red Flag exercise. The video was made available online at YouTube.com. The French pilots flying the new Dassault Rafale appeared to be there to collect electronic intelligence on the Indian aircraft, contends the USAF pilot, who wears an Air Force Weapons School graduate patch. The F…

From Ares KC-X Bids in: And the Race Begins, Again Posted by Amy Butler at 7/9/2010 12:45 PM CDT Another year is halfway through, and another round of tanker bids is in. A winner is expected Nov. 12, though Air Force officials simply say fall. Don't expect much out of the Pentagon. It appears to be in lock down mode. Air Force spokeswoman Col. Debra Millett says the service will not even disclose how many bidders offer proposals. Clearly, the name of the game is protest avoidance. Here's Millett's statement: "The KC-X program is presently in the source selection process, and in order to protect the integrity and independence of this process, we are pr…

From Defense Aerospace [excerpt]

From DefenseNews U.S. Navy Mulls New F/A-18E/F Buy By philip ewing Published: 5 Mar 16:48 EST (11:48 GMT) The U.S. Navy is considering buying 69 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters to bridge a "strike-fighter gap" that commanders fear could imperil aviation readiness at a time when older jets are wearing out before new aircraft are ready to take their place, top service officials said March 5. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, who appeared before a Senate panel with Navy Secretary Donald Winter and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway, mentioned the "fighter gap" in written testimony submitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee defense subco…

De Gustibus Naval Gazing: A Top Gun Fantasy Comes True By Bret Stephens Aboard the USS Harry S Truman -- An hour before dusk, the air crew of the USS Truman -- several hundred men and women of every rank and job description -- gathers at the front end of the deck to walk its 1,100 foot length, looking for tiny pieces of debris. A stray piece of metal sucked into the intake of a fighter jet could cause catastrophic damage to the plane and the pilot and terrible damage to the ship. "We don't think of this as a dangerous business," says Rear Adm. Bill Gortney, an F-18 pilot who also commands the Truman's battle group of cruisers, destroyers and submarines. "It's …

All future military contracts should be set at a fixed price on negotiation. Any budget overruns fall squarely on the head of the contracted company. It'll never happen, but it seems sensible.

From Navy Times LCS manager fired By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer Posted : Monday Jan 29, 2007 22:30:00 EST The manager of the U.S. Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship program has been relieved of his duties in the aftermath of higher-than-expected cost increases on the ships. Capt. Donald Babcock, the Navy’s LCS program manager, was relieved of his duties Jan. 29 by his boss, Rear Adm. Charles Hamilton – who also is being reassigned. Hamilton relieved Babcock due to “loss of confidence in his ability to command,” according to a Navy source, who added that Babcock would be reassigned to “administrative duties.” Hamilton himself will be reassigned …

DDG 1000 program will end at two ships By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer Posted : Wednesday Jul 23, 2008 7:04:43 EDT The once-vaunted Zumwalt-class DDG 1000 advanced destroyer program — projected in the late 1990s to produce 32 new ships and subsequently downscaled to a seven-ship class — will instead turn out only two ships, according to highly-placed sources in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. Instead of more 1000s, the Navy will continue to build more Arleigh Burke-class DDG 51 destroyers, construction of which had been slated to end in 2012. Top Navy and Pentagon brass met Tuesday to make the decision, which means the service will ask Congress t…

AvWeek has provided a PDF of a PowerPoint presentation for the final request for proposals: Tanker final RFP