March 28, 2024

F-35 Combat Ready by Mid-2015?

F-35B

Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River economic community. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Leader’s owners or staff.Morning Coffee logo

Lockheed expects the cost of the F-35 to drop to its target level by 2019 and still sees the first version of the aircraft combat ready by mid-2015, despite an engine fire which still needs a fix, reports Reuters. Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, head of the F-35 program office, said that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is on track to conduct trials aboard the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier in November, but there are still variables as to what may be tested, according to Navy Times. 

The FAA approved the limited use of unmanned aircraft as camera platforms for film and TV productions, opening the skies to swarms of small, camera-mounted planes and mini-helicopters over film locations across the country, reports Deadline. Unmanned aerial cameras are legal elsewhere in the world, but have been prohibited for commercial use in the US until now. The FAA said the exemptions are a safe, interim way to relieve demand while the government works out a comprehensive policy governing commercial UAV use.

Small Wars Journal examines the issues involved with designating the Navy and Marines as leaders of the American response to a possible Ebola pandemic.

The MQ-4C Triton UAV will likely not be equipped with a sense-and-avoid system until at least 2020 although deploying such a system remains a requirement for the program, according to National Defense.

The Navy turned a small quad-rotor UAV into a mine-hunter by equipping it with miniaturized, ultra-sensitive metal-detecting equipment, reports DefenseNews. The unmanned aircraft would be used to detect potential mines, whether buried, floating or underwater, and transmit their coordinates to a ground station.

The DoD is moving away from a two-year-old cloud services policy defining DISA as the department’s designated cloud broker, reports FederalTimes. The new guidelines direct military officials to provide the DoD Chief Information Officer with detailed business case analyses for cloud decisions, while also complying with acquisition requirements and evolving cybersecurity mandates.

Chinese and American officials held closed-door cybersecurity talks in Washington recently despite Beijing’s formal cutoff of talks on the subject after the federal indictments of Chinese military leaders, reports The Washington Times.

Undocumented immigrants will be allowed to join the military for the first time in decades under a new DoD policy unveiled last week, according to 13WMAZ. The new rules will expand an existing program allowing recruiters to target foreign nationals with high-demand skills, mostly rare foreign language expertise or specialized health care training.

Captain Stephen Tedford relieved Captain James “Jim” Donnelly as the leader of the Aircraft Launch and Recovery Equipment Program Office during a recent change of command ceremony at NAS Pax River, reports NAVAIR News.

The Navy successfully fired multiple Harpoon missiles as part of the joint military exercise Valiant Shield, demonstrating its effectiveness against modern day threats, reports NAVAIR News. Six Harpoon missiles, launched from  F/A-18 and P-3 aircraft and two surface ships, USS Stethem and USS Shiloh, detected, tracked and engaged their intended targets, during live fire events.

NAVAIR News provides video of a Marine from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 2 recovering a Blackjack unmanned aircraft system in Afghanistan. The small UAV returned from its first early operational deployment after flying nearly 1,000 hours in 119 days in theater.

Clark Energy Group LLC, Arlington, Virginia, is being awarded a $27,921,049 firm-fixed-price energy savings performance contract for the Naval Air Station Patuxent River Webster Outlying Field. The work to be performed provides for all labor, supervision, management, tools, materials, equipment, facilities, transportation, and incidental engineering and other items necessary to provide energy conservation measures (ECMs) at 71 buildings at Webster Outlying Field. Memorandum of Agreement was signed between NAVFAC Washington and Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division supporting a 22.7 year partnership, implementing five ECMs and guaranteeing 452,144 MBTUs (one thousand British Thermal Units) total energy savings over the performance period. This effort will reduce the annual energy consumption by 38 percent at Webster Outlying Field, and 2 percent across the entire Naval Air Station Patuxent River installation. Work will be performed in St. Inigoes, Maryland, and is expected to be completed by June 2036. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Navy), fiscal 2014 Navy working capital funds, and fiscal 2015 operations and maintenance (Navy) (subject to availability) contract funds in the amount of $656,000, are obligated on this award as a one-time payment, of which $500,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with 16 proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity (N40080-14-F-0362).

Diversified Service Contracting Inc.,* Dunn, North Carolina, is being awarded a $9,896,047 modification under a previously awarded firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N40080-11-D-3020) to exercise option three for base operating support at the Naval Air Station, Patuxent River. The work to be performed provides for all management supervision, labor hours, training, equipment and supplies necessary to perform base operating services to include, but not limited to, providing janitorial services, grounds maintenance services, base support vehicles and equipment, street sweeping/snow removal services, and pest control services. The total contract amount after exercise of this option will be $35,830,508. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland, and work is expected to be completed September 2015. Fiscal 2015 operations and maintenance (Navy), and fiscal 2015 Navy working capital funds contract funds in the amount $8,855,246, are being obligated on this award and are subject to the availability of funds for next fiscal year. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

NAVMAR Applied Sciences Corp.,* Warminster, Pennsylvania, is being awarded $8,180,100 for cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order 0002 against a previously issued Basic Ordering Agreement (N68335-11-G-0040) for work associated with a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research effort under Topics N08-023 Precision High Altitude Sonobuoy Emplacement, N92-170 LADAR Identification Demonstration, and AF083-006 Low-Cost Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. This order provides for the development, test, and evaluation of advanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sensors, as well as enhanced surveillance capabilities to the deployed warfighter that can be integrated into existing naval platforms to support U.S. Special Operations Command activities. Work will be performed in Lexington Park, Maryland (50 percent); Washington, District of Columbia (20 percent); Avon Park, Florida (10 percent); Yuma, Arizona (10 percent); Warminster, Pennsylvania (5 percent); and Ponca City, Oklahoma (5 percent), and is expected to be completed in September 2016. Fiscal 2014 research, development, test and evaluation, and fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Defense Wide) funds in the amount of $85,996, will be obligated at time of award, $14,409 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Lakehurst, New Jersey, is the contracting activity.

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