Morning Coffee: UCLASS RFP Due This Summer
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The Navy plans to issue the long awaited X-47B follow-on request for proposal for an Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) system, reports Aviation Week. A draft is expected this month with the final version due out in the summer. Also this summer the X-47B unmanned stealth vehicle will face a new round of sea trials to match piloted aircraft performance by clearing an aircraft carrier deck in 90 seconds or less to earn deployment in 2020. The requirement is important to maintain a flow of manned and unmanned launches and recoveries.
Lt. General Chris Bogdan, head of the F-35 fighter jet program, plans to reach agreements with both Lockheed Martin and engine-maker Pratt & Whitney by the end of May for the next order of the stealthy fighter, according to Reuters. Gen. Bogdan expects Pratt to lower the cost of the engine it builds for the aircraft by more than the “weak” 2.5 percent reduction seen in the last contract and forecasts some “tough negotiating ahead.”
The Navy’s MQ-4C Triton continues its flight-test program, but still without a “sense-and-avoid” system to help avoid collisions with other aircraft, reports AINonline. NAVAIR still lists Exelis, Inc. as providing the radar subsystem that will help the Triton comply with an international requirement that military aircraft fly with “due regard” for the safety of other aircraft. The Navy revealed last summer it had directed Triton manufacturer Northrop Grumman to stop work on the due-regard radar while it considered other options.
The Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) migration, a Navy-Marine Corps Intranet follow-on, is pushing ahead after a contract-protest delay of more than three months, according to C4ISR & Networks. The migration process was originally scheduled to end this month but now the target deadline is the end of this calendar year. However, Navy managers are aiming at a September end date and could even finish up initial phases as early as June.
The decision to remove eight Boeing P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine warfare aircraft from the Navy’s FY15 budget request will not affect its plan to transition to a P-8 fleet, according to Flightglobal. However, Boeing says the order reduction would likely cause P-8 unit prices to climb. The Navy’s budget proposal, which still requires Congressional approval, calls for the service to buy eight Poseidons in FY15, down from the original plan of 16. The service now plans to acquire 109 P-8s through FY19.
A new Navy deployment plan announced at the Sea-Air-Space exposition Tuesday is designed to make Navy life easier on sailors and their families by providing more time in port than the six-month deployment model, reports Navy Times. The Optimized Fleet Response Plan would have sailors in port roughly 68 percent of the time during a 36-month cycle. The plan will begin with the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman later this year and will look to get each carrier strike group fully manned as they come out of their post-deployment maintenance cycles.
Navy and Marine Corps aircrews will soon be supplied with safer aircrew vests that provide more coverage of vital organs, a tighter fit and a better color, reports Navy Times. The vest worn over the flight suit is designed to fit different body shapes while reducing the fatigue that comes from moving around in a roomy vest. For comfort, the armored back plate can be removed while seated. The new color? “Coyote brown” matching forests and deserts both.
US defense prime contractors’ current record-high operating profit margins may continue for another year, possibly even three, but by 2020 those margins may come under pressure, according to an Aviation Week commentary. This scenario has to be considered on a company-by-company basis, but the author describes several federal contracting factors that could reduce margins by the end of this decade.
