Aging Aircraft Forces Trips to the ‘Boneyard’

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A troubling shortage of flyable combat aircraft — one military official recently called the air fleet the “smallest, oldest,” and least ready” in history — is forcing the military to go to its “boneyard” in the Arizona desert, CNN reports. The Marine Corps announced last month it was taking the extreme step of resurrecting 23 F/A-18 Hornets to meet fleet requirements until the new — and much-delayed — F-35 fighter is eventually delivered.

François Fillon, a former prime minister, said Wednesday he would commit France to spending 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense and also retain the airborne and submarine-launched nuclear weapons if he wins the presidential election next year, Defense News reports. Fillon, one of the candidates in the primaries of the conservative party Les Républicains, said the 2 percent figure “is important.” French defense spending has slipped to around 1.5 percent, below the 2 percent target set by NATO, as the national economy struggles to grow.

F-35 at Farnborough: watch the video showing the fighter’s capabilities, including a hovering demo.

The F-35’s appearance at Farnborough is two years later than planned. The JSF was originally to display at Farnborough 2014, but an engine failure three weeks prior to the show forced the USMC to cancel the trip, FlightGlobal  notes. This year, the F-35’s display includes high- and low-speed passes and a demonstration of its vertical hover capability, but without a vertical or conventional landing. Control laws prevent the F-35’s pilot from performing the crowd-pleasing “bowing” maneuver that was a trademark of its V/STOL predecessor, the McDonnell Douglas/BAE Systems Harrier.

The initial phase of land-based ski-jump testing for the F-35B short take-off/vertical landing variant of the Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter has been successfully completed at Naval Air Station Pax River, Janes IHS 360 reports. Briefing journalists at the Farnborough International Airshow, David Atkinson, BAE Systems’ F-35/QEC integration manager, said the flight trials were “critical to validate a lot of the work that has been done through modelling and provide the certification-quality evidence that’s needed to allow service pilots to operate from the ship.” BAE Systems is under contract via the F-35 Joint Program Office to perform the ski-jump trials work.

Following Tuesday’s ruling by the Hague that China cannot have territorial claims in the South China Sea, the region has instantly become uncharted waters for China and the United States, says a Time analysis. The ruling from the Netherlands, while legally binding, has no mechanism for enforcement. That means negotiations will be required to ease the growing territorial tensions in and around the South China Sea. If talks don’t happen, or go nowhere — and China continues to refuse to back down — a military clash could occur.

If at first. … The US Air Force KC-46 tanker refueled a C-17 cargo plane, something it had been unable to do, causing delivery delays, Defense One reports. Two Air Force officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed the successful test, which happened Tuesday night. The fix comes after the Air Force said in May that plane-maker Boeing would miss a key Aug. 17 deadline to deliver 18 tankers. At the time, Boeing said it would install new hardware that would enable the tanker’s refueling boom to gas up large aircraft, and the test used the new piece of hardware.

Contract:

Sodexo Management Inc., Gaithersburg, MD, is receiving $14,535,270 for modification P00070 under a previously awarded firm-fixed price, incentive and award fee provisions contract (M00027-11-C-0003). This modification provides for the following changes being produced under the basic contract: 1) increases the number of meals served quantity by 1,750,000 from 12,650,000 to 14,400,000 at a rate of $7.56 for a total amount of $13,230,000; 2) increases the quantity of fruit support by 25,000 from 160,000 to 185,000 for a total amount of $12,250; 3) increases the quantity of estimated repair parts and materials by 200,000 from 500,000 to 700,000 for a total amount of $200,000;  4) create two new sub contract line item numbers (SubCLINs) — SubCLIN 5009AD (period one) and SubCLIN 5009AG (period two) — to capture the estimated pricing for cooking oil for mess halls at Cherry Point, NC; Bogue, NC; and Camp Lejeune, NC, in the amount of $78,000 each; 5) increases the unit price of incentive award fee for period one for a total amount of $363,684 based on the above increases; and 6) increases the unit price of incentive award fee for period two for a total amount of $573,336 based on the above increases. This modification increases the basic value of the contract to $640,458,710. Work will be performed in Camp Lejeune, NC (50.15 percent); Parris Island, SC (33.44 percent); Quantico, VA (6.87 percent); Cherry Point, NC (5.04 percent); Beaufort, SC (2.3 percent); Washington, DC (1.29 percent); Norfolk, VA (0.78 percent); and Bogue, NC (0.13 percent). Work is expected to be completed by September 2016. Fiscal 2016, 1105 subsistence-in-kind funds in the amount of $14,535,270 will be obligated at the time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Marine Corps Installation Command Headquarters, Washington, DC, is the contracting activity.