Opinion: F-35 Vital to Canadian Readiness

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 reflect opinions of the Leader’s owners or staff.

In an opinion piece for the Edmonton Journal, Canada’s former Chief of the Defence Staff argues that eliminating the F-35 from competition to replace Canada’s aging CF-18 fighters, as its Liberal government has vowed to do, “would be disastrous. Facing a future where fifth-generation fighters such as the F-35 and Russian and Chinese equivalents will dominate military aviation, Canada’s Air Force would be relegated to Third World status. Our nation’s ability to defend itself would be seriously degraded, and our status as a reliable ally severely diminished,” wrote retired general Paul Manson.

Lockheed Martin Corp.’s profit easily beat Wall Street projections even though the world’s biggest defense contractor had to foot some F-35 fighter-jet production costs as Pentagon contract talks dragged on, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday. Despite the problem with the latest Pentagon contract, Lockheed still is benefiting from faster deliveries of the F-35 Lightning II — distancing itself from early delays that plagued the fighter — and starting to reap the benefits of last year’s acquisition of Sikorsky helicopters.  FlightGlobal reports, Lockheed executives unclear if the company’s business relationship with Turkey, a longtime customer and in line to purchase the F-35, would be adversely affected by the coup.

The losing bidders on a $141 million contract to provide knowledge-based services to the Navy’s F-35 program office seem to be taking turns protesting the award, which was given to Booz Allen, Washington Technology reports.

The Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office is working with the Navy on “autonomy kits” that can be installed aboard a conventional vessel to let it operate unmanned. After the unmanned mission, the kit can be taken back off, if desired, to let the boat operate with a human crew again, Breaking Defense reports. The retrofitted craft can do less than a purpose-built robo-boat will, but they can do it now. Ultimately, by the time the thoroughbred robots do enter service, the Navy will already have years of experience with autonomy kits, creating a cadre of skilled operators and tacticians who can make the most of unmanned vessels.

As Turkey deals with the fallout of a failed coup, the country’s fragility and proximity to Islamic terrorism have raised questions about the safety of US nuclear weapons stationed there, CNN reports. Most experts believe that the US maintains 50 nuclear weapons in Turkey housed at the US air base at Incirlik, CNN says. The weapons are Cold War-era B-61 “gravity” bombs.

Pentagon officials say that Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Işık will not attend this week’s meeting of the coalition fighting the Islamic State hosted by DefSec Ash Carter at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland – another indicator of the turmoil within the military apparatus there, Defense News reports.

In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan prevailed in suppressing the coup, but at the price of the nation’s stability, Reuters says. “A massive and ugly crackdown” may finish off what’s left of Turkey’s democracy, The Wall Street Journal says.

A recent audit from the Government Accountability Office suggests the Pentagon’s IT consolidation and modernization effort lacks a management plan: defense officials can’t project what it might cost because of its complexity, and officials disagree over what is or isn’t included under the Joint Information Environment, NextGov reports.

Contract: 

The Boeing Co., Seattle, WA, is being awarded a $100,423,110 modification to a previously awarded firm-price-incentive-firm-target contract (N00019-14-C-0067). This modification provides for long-lead parts and efforts associated with the manufacture of four full-rate production Lot 8 P-8A Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft for the government of Australia under a cooperative engagement agreement. Work will be performed in Seattle, WA (82.6 percent); Baltimore, MD (6.2 percent); Greenlawn, NY (4.2 percent); North Amityville, NY (3.5 percent); and Cambridge, United Kingdom (3.5 percent), and is expected to be complete by June 2017. Cooperative engagement agreement funds in the amount of $100,423,110 are being obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, MD, is the contracting activity.