NAWCAD Commander Addresses Pax Force Reductions

Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the Internet concerning the Pax River economic community. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Leader’s owners or staff.

In a post on his blog at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division web site, Rear Adm. Randy Mahr stated, “the uniformed military drawdown has been ongoing and will continue” at Naval Air Station Patuxent River.

“Across NAVAIR, we have limited the government civilians we have to approximately the number we had at the end of Fiscal Year 2010; and across the federal government the annual pay scale adjustments have been greatly reduced,” Adm. Mahr wrote. “Finally, over the last several months we have responded to a number of OMB, DoD, and DoN directives, as well as mandates in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

“Based on what we know today, NAVAIR’s aggregate workforce will have a roughly 2 percent reduction from our FY10 levels,” Adm. Mahr continued. “As part of NAVAIR, NAWCAD will use a risk-based approach to Total Force Management, including reducing contract support service expenditures.”

And now back to your regular Morning Coffee:

AOL Defense reports that yesterday’s House sequestration hearing was marked by shouting and silliness. US News confirms the “screaming.” The Hill reports that OMB’s appearance fell flat. Administration officials provided more detail on how the automatic cuts would be implemented (paywall), according to Defense Daily. Time updates its countdown – five months to go.

National Defense quotes a Navy official at Pax River Tuesday as saying that the challenges of fielding an autonomous strike drone are not so much technical as fiscal. Meanwhile, AOL Defense was fascinated with the launch and recovery system for Insitu drones at Webster Field. FlightGlobal rounds up Capt. Smith’s comments on the Fire Scout crashes.

The Senate passes legislation supporting the Navy’s continued use of biofuels, according to Aviation Week.

PKL Services, Inc. gets $16 million more from NAVAIR for organizational level maintenance on Marine Corps helicopters.