F-35 A No-Show at Farnborough Show
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.
Although the F-35 fighter fleet has been cleared to fly by air worthiness authorities, the Farnborough air show in the UK this week won’t be on the itinerary. DoD said the fighters have “a limited flight envelope which will remain in effect until the root cause of the June 23 engine mishap is identified and corrected.”
After breaking Lockheed Martin’s monopoly on F-16 upgrade work with a contract in South Korea, BAE Systems is now aiming to capture more than half of what it believes is a $10 billion market in upgrades on the fighter over the next decade, Defense News reports.
SecDef Chuck Hagel hosted Qatar’s Minister of State for Defense Affairs, Hamad bin Ali al-Attiyah, at the Pentagon to sign letters of offer and acceptance for Apache helicopters and Patriot and Javelin defense systems valued at $11 billion, DefenceTalk reports. The Pentagon characterized the U.S.-Qatar relationship as “critically important in the region.”
Aerospace and defense executives find growing allure in international strategies. Yet the rising tide in global defense spending is creating a much more competitive market than is currently appreciated. Industry leaders forecasting easy wins are setting themselves, and investors, up to be disappointed. Avascent and FleishmanHillard’s June 2014 survey of nearly 350 senior A&D leaders on global competitiveness highlights this rapidly shifting competitive landscape.
Israel’s anti-missile shield, Iron Dome, has provided a muscular response to rockets fired from Gaza, reports The Washington Post. The system is widely credited with allowing Israel to endure more than 1,000 rocket attacks in the past week without a single fatality until Tuesday, when an Israeli civilian was killed.
After a tidal wave of comments trying to beat a midnight deadline drowned its server Tuesday, the Federal Communications Communication extended the deadline for comment on net neutrality to midnight Friday, Politico reports. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s net neutrality proposal has sparked a firestorm for allowing Internet-service providers like AT&T and Verizon to charge companies for faster delivery of content.
After years of cyberattacks on the networks of high-profile government targets like the Pentagon, Chinese hackers appear to have turned their attention to more obscure federal agencies, such as the Government Printing Office and the Government Accountability Office, The New York Times reports. The intrusions puzzled American officials because hackers have traditionally targeted offices that have far more classified information. The sophistication of the attacks, including one on the Office of Personal Management, suggests an official Chinese agency is involved in what seems to be a fishing expedition.
Those demanding courses in university STEM programs pay off: while a paltry 16 percent of students took home degrees in science, technology, engineering or math, or STEM disciplines, those who did were paid significantly better — averaging $65,000 a year compared with $49,500 of graduates of other degrees, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, reported by U.S. News and World Report.
