The Latest Word On Trends And Developments In Aerospace And Defense
Bye, Bud. Rep. Bud Cramer (D-Ala.) announced last week he would not seek re-election to Congress next year. Cramer is a member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee and represents a district that includes the Army’s Redstone Arsenal, where the service’s aviation and missile development and purchasing efforts are based. The district also is home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center which develops space transportation and propulsion technologies.
Hello, Rob. Rep. Robert Whittman (R-Va.), who replaced Rep. Jo Ann Davis after her death, joined HASC last week. He will serve on the seapower and readiness subcommittees. That appointment prompted a shift for the committee’s other newest member, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), who will move from the seapower subcommittee to the air and land forces subcommittee. Lamborn will continue serving on the readiness subcommittee, according to a statement released last week by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the full committee.
Coming Soon. Navy Secretary Donald Winter told reporters last week that even though the first increment of the VH-71 presidential helicopter is “costing a bit more than we anticipated, I think we’ve got a good course of action in there.” Increment two is a bit different. Winter said the Navy is conducting a reassessment of that portion of the program. “We put funds in to make sure we can minimize the impact of that assessment,” he said. “We’ll just have to see what comes out of that analysis.” The study should be completed in the very near future, he added.
Task Force. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) and Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) are leading a task force on the tanker contract, supporting Boeing’sefforts to overturn the Air Force decision to award the work to NorthropGrumman. Tiahrt said the group is communicating and educating other members on procurement policies. The group focuses on pointing out that cost-accounting standards that American companies must abide by are waived when it comes to foreign companies, which provides them with an unfair advantage.
Times They Are a Changin’. Not only has the Navy’s submarine fleet changed, bringing on more advanced systems, but so have the sailors operating those systems, Adm. Kirkland Donald, director, naval nuclear propulsion, tells Defense Daily. Donald’s first submarine tour was on the USS Batfish (SS-310) back in 1977. “It was essentially a brand new ship…advanced for the time.” Compare that to today’s Virginia-class (SSN-774) submarines, and aside from all the new sensors and weapon systems, the one thing Donald points to is the “elegance of design and how well things are laid out.” He says the Navy has learned from previous designs. “Those changes can be very subtle. It can be the location of a valve, it can be the location of a piece of equipment so it can be easier to access for maintenance. It can be simplification of a system so it is not as complex for the operator to use and not as complex to maintain,” he says. “You see it throughout the ship.”
…Building A Better Sub. “The other thing that you see, is the improvement in the ability to manufacture ships,” Donald adds. “If you look at how we used to build them from the days of the Sturgeons (SSN-637 class), you basically built the hull and then cut holes in it and jammed stuff in it. The modular construction right now, you can see how it improves affordability, it speeds up the construction process, and it works out to be a more…efficient way of doing it. You can see how it’s built into the ship from the very beginning of the design. It really is. It is one of the things that will stand out to you as you walk around the ship.”
…It’s The People. The one constant throughout all of it though are the sailors, Donald adds. “We have some great folks out there operating these ships. They embrace the new technology. I see it particularly if you look at what we have done in combat systems, sonar systems going to COTS…the improved displays,” he says. “They are much more nimble at using that graphic user interface, that mouse driven PC-type of display…they are much more nimble at doing that. It comes to the instinctively. The more we can give them of that kind of thing, the benefits will be beyond anything we imagined. They will figure out ways to use this and use it in ways we never planned.”
On Schedule. The Navy has re-baselined all of the ships affected by 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, Allison Stiller, DASN RDA Ships, tells Defense Daily. “That took a long period of time working with [Northrop Grumman Ship Systems], but I think it was important we took that time. If we had done it right after Katrina we would have done it again just because we all needed to understand the implications to the workforce down there,” she says. “I feel pretty confident we have come through that and we did it in an integrated fashion so you just were not modifying one contract at a time. You certainly had to go in and individually modify contracts, but we looked at the overall picture. Are we stacking up deliveries? Are we going to stack up test events?”
…Execution. “We wanted to make sure we all thought we could execute to schedule, and I think we feel we have really good schedules now and they are executing to those schedules and so far we are on track, as far as I know, on all the programs that were impacted by Katrina,” Stiller says. “I think if we hadn’t taken the time to do the due diligence we would have probably been in another re-baselining mode.”
Keeping The 110 Sailing. The Coast Guard’s Mission Effectiveness Project (MEP) allows the personnel at the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Md., to maximize the efficiency of their work force, Ken King, project manager for MEP, tells Defense Daily. “They know what has to be done…[there is] a set funding stream, a set schedule, and they can really maximize their work force,” he says. “It’s the whole learning curve thing. They really are getting more efficient, [reducing] the cycle time on the 110s [110- foot cutters] from 12 to nine months…getting these things out on schedule and on budget.”
…Tender Project. King has a new project that he is trying to get up and running to replace the capabilities of the Coast Guard’s inland buoy tender fleet. “We have inland river tenders, construction tenders, and inter costal buoy tenders. A total of 36 of those. [The] average age is about 40 years. [We are] trying to get funding to replace those…the capabilities of those,” King says.
Sign O’ The Times? The Coast Guard last week hoped to put to rest ongoing rumors that delivery of its National Security Cutter had been delayed six months and that the ship was facing issues with information assurance. The rumors have persisted for months on Internet blogs and in a variety of news sources, but a recent article in the Washington Times led service officials to call together reporters to set the facts straight. Rear Adm. Gary Blore, the Coast Guards acquisition chief, emphatically denied that NSC-1 would be delayed due to the ship’s communication equipment. Additionally, Blore says the Coast Guard never refused the DD250, the document accepting delivery, for NSC. “There has not been a DD250 for the NSC.”
…Another On The Way. NSC-2, the CGC Waesche (WMSL-751), is scheduled for an April or May christening.
Four of A Kind. All four of the Navy’s Ohio-class SSGN guided missile submarines were underway at the same time last week, NAVSEA reports. The four submarines in the class, the: USS Ohio (SSGN-726), USS Michigan (SSGN-727), USS Florida (SSGN-728), and USS Georgia (SSGN-729), have been undergoing modernization and maintenance availabilities, training, certification and testing in preparation for their first deployments. Ohio is now deployed in the Pacific Ocean taking part in Exercise Foal Eagle involving U.S. Navy forces and the South Korean military.
Air Force Salesman. Barry McCaffrey tells people he’s an “unpaid shill” for the Air Force, the retired Army general joked during a speech at the Reserve Officers Association in Washington March 12, during which he said “we have grossly underfunded the modernization of the United States Air Force.” At the Air Force Defense Strategy Seminar breakfast, McCaffrey said, “If you look at air and naval power, to be blunt, the tool of choice to maintain the peace 20 years from now is the United States Air Force.” The former Army general called for setting an Air Force funding marker for the next presidential administration, and lamented the situation in Congress with “district-level politics on jobs and airframes.” McCaffrey outlined an Air Force operational assessment report he created, after visiting Nellis AFB, Nev., and Scott AFB, Ill., in August 2007. His after-action report outlines “seven imperatives for U.S. global air power,” which touts the importance of: Lockheed Martin’s F-22A Raptor, the Boeing-built C-17 Globemaster III; Air Force global unmanned aerial vehicles ISR and strike capability; Air Force space primacy; Air Force defensive and offensive cyber-warfare capabilities; the next-generation bomber; and ballistic missile defense.
… On The Record. McCaffrey quipped the next commander of U.S. Central Command, to replace Adm. William Fallon, should be “somebody a lot more cautious on interviews.” McCaffrey was responding to a question on who he sees succeeding Fallon, who announced his resignation and retirement the previous day; Fallon cited concerns about doing his job after an Esquire article portrayed him as at odds with the Bush administration on Iran policy. McCaffrey called Fallon “a good man,” and pointed out the outgoing CENTCOM chief didn’t write the magazine story. “He just talked to the reporter, who admired him enormously, which is appropriate,” McCaffrey said, adding: “I think it’s inappropriate for our senior officers to be publically at odds with our political leadership, period. And I don’t think he did that, but I think the appearance of that came out, which is really unfortunately, because he, I think, was adding a lot of higher-level balance to two ongoing wars.” McCaffrey suggested leaving Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey–who is shifting from being McCaffrey’s deputy to acting CENTCOM commander–in the CENTCOM role, after giving Dempsey a fourth star.
Birth of An Unmanned Squadron. The Air Force’s first operational test squadron for unmanned aircraft systems came to be on March 5, during a ceremony at Creech AFB, Nev. The 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron was stood up that day, following the inactivation of the 53rd Test and Evaluation Group Det. 4–whose airmen and equipment are transitioning to the new squadron–according to an Air Force release. “The new squadron will provide support to UAS operations worldwide, through force development evaluations, the development of training, tactics and procedures, systems expertise and meeting warfighters’ urgent need requests,” the service said. “The change also provides the unit with the efficiency and credibility to manage the increasing mission requirements of the UAS.” The new unit has three new MQ-1 Predators and expects to receive another by the end of the year. The unit also is slated to receive its first of four MQ-9 Reaper aircraft in 2010. The service said manpower is not immediately increasing for the growing squadron–thus creating some “obstacles.”
C-17 Buyers Still Wanted. The Air Force continues to look for foreign buyers of the Boeing-built C-17 Globemasters to keep the production line humming, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee March 12. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the panel’s ranking member, quizzed Wynne on what would happen to the C-17 line if Congress doesn’t add money for the aircraft, for which the Pentagon included no funding in its fiscal year 2009 budget request. “We have been really been working hard to get some international customers to extend that line, but as of yet many of them are still on the holdout status,” the secretary said. “What they want to do is they want to have the United States show enough empathy or ‘sticktoitiveness’ that they will come on board and they’ll be supported for the next 20 years. We’re trying to be convincing of them that they can do that.” The Air Force requested 15 C-17s in its FY ’09 unfunded requirements list, and lawmakers have talked of adding some of the planes in a forthcoming FY ’08 supplemental bill. Air service leaders have testified on Capitol Hill in recent weeks that changing times have increased the need for C-17s. Stevens predicted it will be difficult to add monies for C-17s this year, and asked Wynne to keep him abreast of potential foreign sales. “We have, I think, an overwhelming need for more C-17s,” the senator said, pointing the committee’s push in recent years to add cash for them. “We’ve sort of had a paternalistic feeling for C-17.”