NAVAIR Grounds T-45C Goshawks
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Discovery of an engine blade fault prompted NAVAIR to halt all T-45C Goshawk operations late last week. Chief of Naval Air Training RADM Richard Brophy said his decision was made “out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of our aviators.”Engineering analysis is underway, said RADM John Lemmon, PEO for Tactical Aircraft Programs. All relevant NAVAIR teams are working with the contractor “Rolls Royce to identify the root cause of the recent T-45 engine blade failure.”
The UK has issued an intelligence alert warning former and current military pilots against Chinese headhunting programs recruiting them to train the People’s Liberation Army, reports Stars and Stripes. Armed forces minister James Heappey said authorities will make it a legal offense for pilots to continue with such training activities. Sky News and the BBC reported that about 30 British former military pilots are currently in China training PLA pilots. The reports said the pilots are paid annual salaries of $272,000 to conduct the training.
The Washington Post reports key findings on veterans’ foreign jobs from an investigation completed after winning its lawsuit for the release of records from the armed forces and State Department. Key findings show: Hundreds of retired US military personnel have taken foreign jobs, most requests to work for foreign governents are largely rubber-stamped. Most are hired by countries known for human rights abuses, political repression. The UAE is the most popular foreign job market. Before serving former President Donald Trump, former DEFSEC Jim Mattis worked for the UAE. Former admirals are consulting with Australia on top-secret technology. Americans’ work for the Saudis expanded after the assassination of Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, the Saudi columnist for Middle East Eye and The Washington Post.
Lockheed reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue on Tuesday, helped by higher sales in its aeronautics unit, as demand for arms increases after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reports Reuters.
Lockheed making moves to increase production of its High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems to 96 per year reports Breaking Defense. In expectation of higher demand, Lockheed has already taken steps to expedite production from 60 to 96 systems per year.
NAVAIR has ordered $35.6 million of the newest version of the AGM-88 missile from Northrop Grumman. The AARGM anti-radar missiles are now compatible with the F/A-18 fighter bomber, EA-18G electronic warfare jet, F-16, and F-35, reports Military Aerospace Electronics.
Out of the Royal Air Force Lossiemouth, a Poseidon P-8 team, with the assistance of the crew aboard an Atlas A400M, saved a sailor battling 19-foot waves, reports PressandJournal.co.uk. Captured here on video, the Poseidon located the boat 700 nautical miles west of Ireland and oversaw a harrowing rescue.
USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker: Oct. 17, 2022.
The underwater Nord Stream pipeline blast ‘blew away 50 metres of pipe’, reports BBC. At least 164 feet of an underwater pipeline bringing Russian gas to Germany is thought to have been destroyed by a blast last month. Video shot by a Norwegian robotics company, posted by UPI, appears to show the massive tear in the Nord Stream 1 pipe. Danish police believe “powerful explosions” blew four holes in the pipe and its newer twin, Nord Stream 2. It is still unknown who or what caused the blasts amid suspicions of sabotage. Gas deliveries have been suspended since the September 26 explosions on the pipes crossing the Baltic Sea. The Kremlin has accused Western investigators of seeking to blame Russia for the damage.
A Chinese team syncs clocks over record distance using lasers, reports Nature.com. Led by Jian-Wei Pan, a physicist at the Univ. of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, the team of physicists devised a way to synchronize the ticking of two clocks through the air with extreme precision, across 70 miles, seven times the previous record distance. ). The feat is a step towards redefining the second; optical clocks are 100 times more precise than the atomic clocks currently coordinating universal time.
Half of the GOP vets running for Congress have challenged Biden’s 2020 win, reports Military Times. Republican veterans running for Congress are less likely than other GOP candidates to reject the results of the 2020 presidential election, but slightly more than half of the vets on the ballot this cycle still have questioned President Joe Biden’s victory.
Flesh-eating bacteria cases in Florida have surged in the wake of Hurricane Ian, with 65 cases recorded state-wide. reports Insider.com. Vibrio vulnificus can infect people who eat raw seafood or have open wounds exposed to seawater. Local authorities reported nearly six times more infections this year than last year.
‘We’re ignoring the problem’ of stressed US maritime infrastructure, says MSC Commander, reports USNI. The American defense maritime industrial base has atrophied to a point where the United States builds less than 1% of the world’s ocean-going fleets and has less than 4% of the world’s licensed mariners while China establishes itself as a maritime nation, according to Military Sealift Command’s top officer RADM Michael Wettlaufer. He says the entire US defense maritime “ecosystem is under stress” from shipbuilding, to recruiting and retaining mariners, to shipyards and ports.
The US Navy just loaned NATO a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, reports 19fourtyfive.com. The US Navy’s George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group went under NATO command at Oeiras, Portugal on Friday.
Investigation finds allegedly racist texts to Black airman were fake, reports The Air Force Times.
The Biden administration is expected to again tap oil reserves amid rising fuel prices and the OPEC+ cut, reports UPI. President Joe Biden is expected to announce, in the next few days, just weeks before midterm elections, that the United States will release between 10 million and 15 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Military Times reports, service members would be allowed reimbursement of up to $4,000 for the cost of transporting their household pets when moving to or from a duty station abroad, under a proposed amendment to the defense authorization bill, submitted by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ). The reimbursement would apply to each permanent change of station move to or from overseas.
Navy reports progress in clearing its pay and paperwork backlogs, reports Navy Times. Problems have included a glacial pace for processing separation and retirement paperwork. But, as of Friday, the Navy had cleared its backlog of sailors who separated before Sept. 30 and were still waiting on their DD-214, which summarizes a service member’s military career and is vital for attaining veterans’ benefits and transitioning into the civilian world.
Contracts:
National Industries for the Blind,** Alexandria, Virginia, has been awarded a maximum $9,074,847 modification (P00012) exercising the fourth one-year option period of a one-year base contract (SPE1C1-19-D-B043) with four one-year option periods for moisture wicking t-shirts. This is an indefinite-delivery contract. Locations of performance are North Carolina and Arkansas, with an Oct. 30, 2023, ordering period end date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2023 through 2024 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
