Raw Intel

F135 Engine Test (click to view full) Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney have successfully performed the first start of an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft test engine, using an integrated power package (IPP) that the functions traditionally performed by the auxiliary power system, emergency power system, and environmental control into a single system. The system was used to start a Pratt & Whitney F135 short-takeoff/vertical-landing (STOVL) engine at the company’s advanced test facility in West Palm Beach, FL. The IPP is a subsystem of the F-35 Power and Thermal Management System (PTMS). The JSF program has targeted the successful IPP engine start as a majo…

KC-390 refuels AMXs (click to view full) Global competition in the 20-ton air transport segment continues to intensify, with Brazil’s launch of its KC-390 program. Embraer figures reportedly place the global C-130 replacement market at around 700 aircraft. In response, it will develop a jet-powered rival to compete with Lockheed Martin’s C-130J, the larger Airbus A400M, Russia’s AN-12 and its Chinese copy the Yun-8/9, and the bi-national Irkut/HAL MRTA project. Smaller aircraft like the EADS-CASA C-295M, and Alenia’s C-27J, represent indirect competition. Embraer is extending its efforts and markets by crafting a jet-powered medium transport with a cargo capacity of ar…

In Italy vs. USA ... the Italians will beat us to the punch. Curious what they plan on doing? Swallow your pride and head on over to USNIBlog for the details. Note: there will be guns. Lots of guns. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=pDyEmQ5lUo0:nJNd84_fV2c:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=pDyEmQ5lUo0:nJNd84_fV2c:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=pDyEmQ5lUo0:nJNd84_fV2c:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=pDyEmQ5lUo0:nJNd84_fV2c:F7zBnMyn0Lo http://feeds.feedbu…

Americas L-3 Communications won a $38 million contract modification for contractor logistics support of the Air Force C-12 fleet. Originally developed by Beechcraft, the Raytheon C-12 is a short-range personnel and cargo lift aircraft for the US military. Powered by two Pratt & Whitney turboprop engines, the low-wing, all-metal aircraft is the military version of the civilian Super King Air 200 aircraft. The pressurized cabin is capable of an altitude of 35,000 feet and can be reconfigured to accommodate a mix of passengers, and cargo. The first C-12s were fielded to the US Army in 1974 and the aircraft has undergone a series of upgrades since then. Work will take pla…

MC-12 arrives (click to view full) Despite all of the high-tech fighter hours flown in theater, Hawker Beechcraft’s twin-propeller King Air 350 continues to gain traction as an affordable, long-endurance option for light cargo delivery in remote areas – and effective manned battlefield surveillance and attack. Iraq’s Air Force was the first to order them, and an initial 6-plane UC-12W order from the US Marines/Navy followed in July 2008. Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pushed hard to improve ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance) capabilities on the front lines, and one of those planned purchases involved about 30 King Air 350/ C-12 aircraft …

Our Navy would be such a more powerful force if we had kept with the mindset of the Aegis and Standard Missile evolution. Bit by bit, step by step, increment by increment, baseline by baseline, we got a stronger, more effective Navy. A few hiccups like in any long running program ... but the success is undeniable. The latest example; In a first-of-its-kind test, the United States has successfully used a small ship-fired missile to intercept a target Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), according to the Missile Defense Agency. The successful test shows the U.S. military now has another missile defense system capable of defending against North Korean ICBM’s…

Americas General Dynamics won a $23.1 million deal for additional fiscal 2021 development studies, design efforts and material for Virginia Class submarines. The contract modification provides additional development studies and design efforts related to Virginia Class submarine design and design improvements. The contractor will continue development studies, design efforts and procurement of material required to fully evaluate new technologies for Virginia Class submarines. The Virginia Class attack submarine is an advanced stealth multimission nuclear-powered submarine for deep ocean anti-submarine warfare and littoral (shallow water) operations. The US Navy awarded seve…

(click to view full) Northrop Grumman’s E-2C Hawkeye is a carrier-capable “mini-AWACS” aircraft, designed to give long-range warning of incoming aerial threats. Secondary roles include strike command and control, land and maritime surveillance, search and rescue, communications relay, and even civil air traffic control during emergencies. E-2C Hawkeyes began replacing previous Hawkeye versions in 1973. They fly from USN and French carriers, from land bases in the militaries of Egypt, Japan, Mexico, and Taiwan; and in a drug interdiction role for the US Naval Reserve. Over 200 Hawkeyes have been produced. The $17.5 billion E-2D Advanced Hawkeye program aims to build 75 n…

AIM-120C from F-22A (click for test missile zoom) Raytheon’s AIM-120 Advanced, Medium-Range Air to Air Missile (AMRAAM) has become the world market leader for medium range air-to-air missiles, and is also beginning to make inroads within land-based defense systems. It was designed with the lessons of Vietnam in mind, and of local air combat exercises like ACEVAL and Red Flag. This DID FOCUS article covers successive generations of AMRAAM missiles, international contracts and key events from 2006 onward, and even some of its emerging competitors. One of the key lessons learned from Vietnam was that a fighter would be likely to encounter multiple enemies, and would need …

Some of you are keeping an eye on the latest Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, so if I may, let me put down a few markers here: 1. The Caucasuss have never been in the American sphere of influence. 2. The Caucasuss are not even tangentially adjacent to American national security concerns. With that set up, here's the summary from Anders Åslund at The Atlantic Council; The big lesson of the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace settlement is that military power rules. In a matter of weeks, the use of force has achieved what decades of diplomacy failed to deliver. The only two relevant international players in the South Caucasus region are Russia and Turkey. The…

Americas Honeywell International won a $72.9 million deal for the repair of six weapon repairable assemblies in support of the V-22 aircraft. The V-22 Osprey aircraft, made by a joint venture between Boeing and Bell, is a multirole model designed for both vertical and short takeoff and landing. The V-22 operates as a helicopter when taking off and landing vertically. The nacelles rotate 90° forward once airborne, converting the aircraft into a turboprop aircraft. The Navy will use its annual working capital funds to finance task orders under the contract, as work runs through November 2025. Work will take place in California and Arizona. Estimated completion will by by No…

Tiger HAP & HAC (click to view full) Eurocopter’s Tiger had always had a very odd setup in that it came in two seemingly incomplete versions (HAP scout and HAC/UHT anti-tank), whose respective deficiencies severely limited multi-role flexibility and hence exports. The new Tiger HAD (Helicoptere Appui Destruction) variant fixes those deficiencies, and looks set to become the default version for new-build EC665 Tiger exports. The HAD project began in December 2005, as the EU’s OCCAR organization for armament cooperation signed a formal contract in Bonn, Germany and set out initial procurement numbers for Spain. This was followed by the French DGA’s announcing the res…

Fewer carriers are deploying more even as repeated warning lights have been going off that we are expending in peace what we will need in war when it comes to personnel and materiel in carrier aviation. How did we get here, where are we, and where are we going? Using her article, No Margin Left: Overworked Carrier Force Struggles to Maintain Deployments After Decades of Overuse, as a starting point and diving it to some of the additional insights she gained while writing it, Megan Eckstein from USNINews will be joining us along with Sam LaGrone this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern. Megan Eckstein is the deputy editor for USNI News. She previously covered Congress and the …

There is a moment when even a prisoner sees an opportunity to contribute to the war. Considering the nightmarish conditions experienced by prisoners of Imperial Japan faced in WWII ... the quiet bravery here is gobsmacking; A shipyard is a massive and highly complex industrial system. In 1943, before the age of computer automation, the basic production process could be roughly summarized as follows. A marine engineer would design, in blueprint form, drawings of a ship’s components. These parts would then be rendered into wooden moulds or templates that could be used to trace out the shape of each part on thick steel plate, which would guide the acetylene torches used t…

Americas The US Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Agile Combat Support Directorate started the process of replacing its existing inventory of High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), also known as Humvees, with the new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV). The service has a need for 3,230 vehicles and they will be bought via an Army contract with Oshkosh Corporation. However, not all HMMWVs will be replaced, the current process is to swap out the up-armored variant. Air Force units are expected to start receiving the new JLTVs starting from September 2021, after having mission specific equipment installed at Naval Information Warfare Center. Developed by …

Ultra APV demonstrator (click to view full) In an age of non-linear warfare, where front lines are nebulous at best and non-existent at worst, one of the biggest casualties is… the concept of unprotected rear echelon vehicles, designed with the idea that they’d never see serious combat. That imperative is being driven home on 2 fronts. One front is operational. The other front is buying trends. These trends, and their design imperatives, found their way into the USA’s Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program, which aims to replace many of the US military’s 120,000 or so Humvees. The US military’s goal is a 7-10 ton vehicle that’s lighter than its MRAPs and easier to…

(click to view full) In an exclusive June 2006 interview, Israeli Air Force (IAF) chief procurement officer Brigadier-General Ze’ev Snir told Israeli media that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was a key part of their IAF recapitalization plans, and that Israel intended to buy over 100 of the fighters to replace their fleet of over 300 F-16s. Since then, however, the expected cost of that purchase has more than doubled. Israel’s F-35 contract had to deal with that sticker shock, with issues like the incorporation of Israeli technologies and industrial work, and with major schedule slips in the core F-35 program. Israel was even contemplating delaying its purchase, which wo…

Americas A US Marine Corps AH-1W gunship now retired to Picatinny Arsenal. It will be used as a laboratory for the XM915 20mm Gatling gun. The Bell AH-1W Super Cobra was flown from NAS Joint Reserve Base New Orleans to Picatinny Arsenal by Marines Lt. Col. Mark Diss and Capt. Garrett Peirce. The US Army plans to fit the XM915 on its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft. The Super Cobra, a twin-engine attack helicopter, is the first aviation aircraft to be housed on post for research and development purposes at the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center, also known as DEVCOM. The US Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) procured a …

F-15S & weapons (click to view full) In October 2010, talks that Saudi Arabia was negotiating a $30-60 billion arms package with the USA were made official with a full multi-billion request that included 84 F-15 Strike Eagles to replace the Kingdom’s Tornado strike aircraft and/or F-15A-D fighters, upgrades for another 70 planes, about 132 UH-60 Black Hawk utility and AH-64 attack helicopters, and armaments to equip them. This article looks at those requests, their tie-ins, the issues that are part of these potential deals, and related follow-on requests. As is often the case with DSCA announcements, years can pass between the requests and the signed contracts, but…

Are you as frustrated as everyone else the inefficiency and petty squabbling in our natsec ecosystem? There are things that are due to change. I'm pondering over at USNIBlog. Come over and give it the smell test. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=81_K0132AiU:vrFhPdfGAV8:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=81_K0132AiU:vrFhPdfGAV8:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=81_K0132AiU:vrFhPdfGAV8:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=81_K0132AiU:vrFhPdfGAV8:F7zBnMyn0Lo http:…