Morning Coffee 7-21-11
The fifth Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II Short Take Off/Vertical Landing (STOVL) flight test aircraft delivered to the Marine Corps arrives at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River Saturday, July 16. BF-5 is the seventh F-35 delivered in 2011 and the third aircraft delivered to NAS Patuxent River this year. (Lockheed Martin photo by Liz Kaszynski)
A robust blend of news from Pax River, NAVAIR, the Pentagon and beyond:
- Alliant Techsystems gets $109 million to built Joint and Allied Threat Awareness System for Marine and Navy helos.
- Navy could drop below 10 big deck carriers.
- U.S. on hook to pay 70 percent of $1 billion in JSF production overruns.
- Senators want to know cost to kill JSF program.
- Why is the Pentagon underfunded?
- Ashton Carter, Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, on acquisition reform.
- McKeon, House Armed Services Committee Chair, won’t support Senate’s proposed $800 billion in defense cuts.
- First production P-8A Poseidon makes first flight.
- JSF supply chain contains dozens of Chinese microchips. (subscription required)
- Budget woes could sink AirSea Battle plans.
