NATIONAL PRESS CLUB: They get so big, so fast. Once a child-sized helicopter that could just collect reconnaissance imagery, the Navy’s MQ-8 Fire Scout has graduated to a bigger airframe that will also carry a maritime search radar and laser-guided rockets. The tentative plan is to kick off the competition for the new radar with […]
WASHINGTON: The first Future Vertical Lift Aircraft won’t fly until the 2030s but the Army, Navy, and industry are already at work on software standards. Those include a new “model-based” approach to software architectures that will require a culture change among programmers and defense bureaucrats alike. Why take on so much so early? Because FVL will […]
Knowing when to build on commercial systems and when to develop something new can be the difference between parity and information dominance.
The company that built the first workable helicopter rolled out a (potential) revolution in chopper technology yesterday: Sikorsky’s high-speed S-97 Raider. A year ago, Sikorsky made a splash at the huge Association of the US Army conference with just a life-size mock-up. Now, just in time to talk it up at AUSA 2014, they’ve built a working […]
WASHINGTON: It’s good to learn from your mistakes. It’s better yet to learn from other people’s. On Friday, I watched three battle-scarred acquisition experts — including the admiral who turned the F-35 around — advise a young officer from the Future Vertical Lift initiative, who was furiously taking notes. The panel’s theme: how FVL, which […]
A robot helicopter that can carry three tons of cargo, the Marine Corps K-MAX certainly has the cool factor. But does it have a future? After a six-month pilot project in Afghanistan got extended into a 33-month deployment that made 2,250 tons of deliveries, the two experimental aircraft have come home. Prime contractor Lockheed Martin […]
WASHINGTON: This hurts us more than it hurts you. That’s the essence of the regular Army’s message to the National Guard about the Aviation Restructure Initiative (ARI), a controversial cost-cutting plan that — among other things – strips the Guard of all its AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. Pain is on its way for all of […]
Standoff capability means warfighters stay connected and remain remotely located in a safer environment while making it harder for adversaries to target them.
WASHINGTON: When Americans were threatened during the civil war in South Sudan, Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys flew a Marine response force from Spain to Djibouti in a non-stop flight of 3,200 nautical miles – the distance from Alaska to Florida. That’s an extraordinary feat for an aircraft that can take off and land vertically like a helicopter. But […]
WASHINGTON: National Guard attack helicopter units just can’t be as battle-ready as full-time regular Army ones, Deputy Secretary of Defense Christine Fox has been telling the Hill. That’s why the Guard should give all its AH-64 Apache gunships to the active-duty force to replace older aircraft lost to budget cuts. “Combat elements must be in […]
SEA-AIR-SPACE: At least one important operating unit of the V-22 is sustaining impressive readiness rates “in the high 80s,” according to Col. Dan Robinson, the new program manager. But Robinson, asked by me and some of my colleagues, also said he didn’t have fleet-wide numbers and offered some unconvincing chatter about different units having different […]
“To be honest, we feel betrayed.” That’s what one National Guard gunship pilot told me when I asked him about the Army’s plan to strip the Guard of all its AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. That plan — still awaiting approval by President Obama before he includes it in his budget request for fiscal year 2015 […]
After manifesting 1,400 payloads aboard the ISS, Voyager is applying its mission management expertise to the next generation of space stations, ensuring uninterrupted mission readiness and success from the ground to space.
THE PENTAGON: The Marines say the V-22 tilt rotor aircraft has deployed and flown “with properly trained and equipped combat ready Marines and mission capable aircraft” over the last six years. That statement stands in stark contrast to the findings of a classified Pentagon Inspector General’s report released late Friday afternoon. In an unclassified summary, the […]
The story of what two Marine aviators did to be the first V-22 Osprey pilots awarded Distinguished Flying Crosses is simple, elegant, and and tactically telling. The double-DFC incident underscores how the Marines are using the unique tilt-rotor aircraft — which can take off and land like a helicopter, then fly long distances at high […]