Current Events in the Americas

From http://www.defence-aerospace.com V-22 Cleared to Begin Operational Evaluation Source: Bell Helicopter; issued March 2, 2005 FORT WORTH, Texas --- The Operational Evaluation (OPEVAL) testing program for the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey has now been approved. On February 24, Tom Laux, the Program Executive Officer for Air Anti-Submarine Warfare, Assault, and Special Mission Programs, certified that the V-22 Osprey aircraft is ready for operational testing and evaluation. "This is great news signifying a crucial step forward in reaching our goal of getting this tremendous aircraft to our customers," declared Robert Kenney, Bell Helicopter vice president and di…

From Defense Aerospace U.S. Government Report Shows Decreased Costs for F-35 Program (Source: Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company; issued April 8, 2008) FORT WORTH, Texas --- A newly released report from the U.S. Department of Defense shows that estimated acquisition costs dropped by nearly $1 billion from 2006 to 2007 for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II program. The Selected Acquisition Reports estimate that F-35 program costs over the aircraft's three-decade production run decreased by $981 million (-0.3 percent), from $299.8 billion to $298.8 billion. The F-35 cost reduction was attributed in part to lower material costs related to agreements made …

From DefenseNews Periscope Pursuit New Breed of U.S. Navy Radars Would Reveal Stealthy Subs By Jon W. Glass Published: 17 November 2008 Trying to spot a submarine periscope lurking in cluttered coastal waters is akin to identifying a floating beer can from 60 miles away. That's the challenge the U.S. Navy faces as it tries to track a growing fleet of modern diesel-electric submarines. The Pentagon plans to do this by improving existing radars with new signal processing software and by rotating the radar antennas faster inside their radomes. The Navy is moving forward to develop Automatic Radar Periscope Detection and Discrimination (ARPDD) radars for Nimitz…

From Defence Talk Phoenix Missile Hypersonic Testbed NASA | Jan 30, 2007 Researchers at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake, Calif., are investigating the use of surplus demilitarized Navy AIM-54 Phoenix air-launched missiles as possible hypersonic test platforms or testbeds. Hypersonic flight is defined as aerodynamic flight at speeds of Mach 5 or greater, and use of surplus Phoenix missiles is one of the methods being considered to obtain critical flight data in the hypersonic regime. These missions, to be conducted over restricted military test ranges, would i…

From DefenseNews Northrop Wins U.S. Navy Unmanned Strike Aircraft Competition By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS Northrop Grumman has beaten a Boeing team as the Navy’s choice to develop the Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) — intended to prove the technology to provide the fleet’s aircraft carriers with a long-range pilotless jet strike aircraft. The award of a $636 million cost-plus-incentive-fee development contract was announced by the Navy late Aug. 1. The competition to develop the aircraft — also known as UCAS-N, for UCAS-Navy — was between Boeing’s X-45N and Northrop Grumman’s X-47B test aircraft. Northrop now will be the prime contractor t…

From Defense Aerospace [excerpt] CV32: Rumors and reports that Global Hawk, well, sucked, have been floating for around some time now. Unfortunate, really.

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…

Good choice, I'd say.

Forces to get rid of navy's supply ships Esquimalt-based vessels unable to refuel at sea for 2 years; Patrol planes also ditched in cost-cutting David Pugliese, CanWest News Service Published: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 Victoria Times The Canadian Forces plans to get rid of its two refuelling and supply ships, one of which is based at CFB Esquimalt, a move that will leave the navy unable to refuel vessels at sea for at least two years until replacements are built. The recommendation is part of a military plan to pare down its ships, surveillance aircraft and helicopters to help pay for new equipment in the future. The cuts include six Aurora maritime patro…

http://www.flightglobal.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/11619

From Military.com http://www.military.com/news/article/navy-...ml?ESRC=navy.nl Buddha

From Defense Aerospace E-3 Sentry Celebrates 30 Years in Air Force's Fleet (Source: US Air Force; issued April 4, 2007) TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --- It all started 30 years ago -- March 23, 1977, to be exact -- when the first E-3 Sentry touched down on Oklahoma soil. The arrival of aircraft tail number 75-0557 began a new era for the 552nd Airborne Warning and Control Wing, and for air surveillance. To celebrate the occasion, wing officials conducted an arrival ceremony the next day and invited the base and local community leaders to help welcome the new aircraft. The story of the E-3 goes back to April 1975, when a systems integration demonstrati…

From Aviation Week Development On Latest Upgraded AMRAAM Slips May 30, 2008 Amy Butler/Aerospace Daily & Defense Report The U.S. Air Force is again extending Raytheon’s contract to design and produce a significant upgrade to its radar-guided Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). The AIM-120D – which adds a Global Positioning System receiver, conformal front-end antenna and a two-way datalink to the weapon – has recently encountered problems during the transition from design work into the production phase, according to program officials at the Air Armament Center, Fla. The improvements are expected to boost the missile’s accuracy and range, a…

From Navy Times Navy official confident about LCS By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer Posted : Tuesday May 8, 2007 20:53:03 EDT The Navy’s top acquisition official was upbeat and positive May 7 about the troubled Littoral Combat Ship program, telling a Washington audience, “We’re back on track.” Earlier this year, severe cost overruns and manufacturer problems led the service to cancel plans to buy two more LCS ships in 2007 to pay for cost growth on the first ships. The construction contract for one of two LCSs being built by Lockheed Martin was cancelled, and in a touch of ignominy, a fire damaged the first ship late last month while it was under constr…

From Defense Aerospace CNO: 'LCS Will be the Workhorse of the Navy' (Source: US Navy; issued Jan. 16, 2008) MARINETTE, Wis. --- Marinette Marine Corporation, which is building the Navy's first littoral combat ship, USS Freedom (LCS 1), was the final stop, Jan. 14, for Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Gary Roughead on his eight-day tour of private and public shipyards throughout the U.S. Roughead received a progress report on the ship, designed to provide the U.S. Navy with greater flexibility and capability in operating in the littoral or "green water" coastal areas. "The Navy has a gap we need to fill in the littoral and that is what LCS is going…

From Air Force Times Reaper ready to deploy next month By Tom Vanden Brook - USA Today Posted : Tuesday Aug 28, 2007 6:23:41 EDT CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. — The Air Force next month will deploy a new generation of pilotless airplane with the bombing power of an F-16 to help stop the stubborn Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. The Reaper is an upgraded version of the Predator, which has become one of the military’s most sought-after planes since it first appeared in Afghanistan in 2001. The Reaper can fly three times as fast as a Predator and carry eight times more weaponry, such as Hellfire missiles, the Air Force said. The Reaper’s greater range and s…

Admiral: Diesel Subs OK for Others, Not U.S. Military.com Christopher J. Castelli | April 25, 2006 Diesel submarines have near-shore and stealth capabilities that may make them suitable for other countries but they do not meet U.S. requirements to project and sustain forces far beyond coastal waters, according to the Navy's submarine director, Rear Adm. William Hilarides. The Navy has long opposed acquiring diesel subs, arguing nuclear-powered subs are superior. The subject came up again when Hilarides briefed reporters about submarines at the Washington Navy Yard April 17. “If we were defending our coast from high-end ships, then a diesel submarine might m…

From Flight Global DATE: 02/02/09 SOURCE: Flight International US Navy starts next-gen jammer bidding war By Stephen Trimble The US Navy has selected four companies to participate in a four-year, $430 million competition to design the next generation jammer (NGJ) pod for the Boeing EA-18G Growler and Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). BAE Systems, ITT Corp, Northrop Grumman Systems Corp and Raytheon have each received a $6 million deal to begin developing their concepts for replacing the 38-year-old ALQ-99 pod. The USN favours a solution based on an active electronic array, but is not constraining any approach the bidders might take to …

From Aviation Week [excerpt]

From Aviation Week ARES Blog F-22 intercepting Tu-95 Bear near the Aleutians in November 2007 F-22 dropping external fuel tanks (pylons and all)