Morning Coffee: X-47B Scheduled for Pax River Testing

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.

Shore-based tests of the X-47B are scheduled for NAS:Pax River, reports UPI. The unmanned combat air system testing will focus on air traffic control and  “co-use of airspace between unmanned and manned aircraft during day and nighttime operations.” The X-47B is scheduled for deployment in 2020, the tests lead toward sea trials this summer.

Defense One calls the Navy’s emphasis on a small intelligence gathering drone over a farther reaching, munitions carrying drone is a bad decisionand threatens the relevancy of a carrier fleet in the contemporary war theater. Congress apparently agrees that Navy drone requirements are strategically limited. The House recommends the secretary of defense review Navy UCLASS requirements with a focus on aerial refueling, weapons payload and stealth capability.

The House Armed Services Committee rejection of the Pentagon’s proposed personnel-reform plans could result in lawmakers plundering procurement accounts of hundreds of millions of dollars to keep military personnel programs whole, reports Defense News. That scenario is unlikely to occur in fiscal 2015, however, because only a small amount of the proposed personnel reforms would occur in 2015, meaning the amount to offset is relatively low.

The  Marine Corps CH-53K heavy-lift helicopter replacement program is gaining momentum as ground testing advances and a formal rollout is scheduled for this week, according to Aviation Week. Its first flight is planned for late this year with initial operational capability slated for 2019. The CH-53K is an all-new aircraft which has more than three times the lifting capability of the CH-53E it will replace. The helicopter is the US’s largest new rotorcraft program with the Marine Corps planning the procurement of 200 aircraft.

Either Boeing or Northrop could be forced out of military aircraft manufacturing as a result of the dominant F-35 program awarded to a single contractor, reports the Washington Business Journal. Boeing is competing for the long-range bomber program with Lockheed as its primary subcontractor and Northrop, manufacturer of the B-2 stealth bomber, confirmed its plans to compete as well. Whoever doesn’t win the bomber competition will “exit [manned military] aircraft manufacturing in some capacity,” said Mike Lewis, managing director of The Silverline Group.

Thousands of contractors are facing revenue decreases, contract award delays, and a slowed solicitation pipeline following October’s two-week federal government shutdown, reports Federal News Radio. Both large and small vendors say the closure’s trickle-down effect is still reverberating after the first government closure since 1995-96. The situation is expected to improve later this fiscal year with a rise in released RFPs, although there may be extended time frames for awarding resultant contracts.

Rep. Adam Smith, (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said last week that the Navy will have a tough time preserving the current fleet of aircraft carriers at 11, according to SEAPOWER Magazine.  “They will have a devil of a time keeping them at eight carriers,” said Mr. Smith, identifying sequestration’s return in fiscal 2016 as the determining factor. The Navy must balance building Littoral Combat Ships, Virginia-class submarines and destroyers along with refueling costs for aircraft carriers. Additional budget challenges will arrive when the Ohio-class submarine replacement program ramps up.

Federal worker bonus pay dropped nearly 50 percent as a result of budget cuts related to the partial government shutdown and recent caps on employee awards, reports USA Today. The federal government paid $176 million in employee performance awards, down from about $332 million in the 2012 fiscal year. Bonuses for federal workers have been on the decline since 2011 when government bonuses totaled $439 million.