WASHINGTON ― House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith on Tuesday criticized Lockheed Martin and other contractors over the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and its exorbitant lifecycle costs.
“There’s no question that everyone involved ― certainly Lockheed Martin ― could be doing a better job on getting sustainment costs down,” Smith, D-Wash., told the Defense Writer’s Group.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army continued its yearslong tradition of not funding the procurement of the latest variant of the CH-47F Chinook cargo helicopter in favor of future programs in its fiscal 2022 budget request, but House appropriators are pushing back.
Some…
WASHINGTON — Bell’s future vertical lift technology demonstrator, the V-280 Valor tiltrotor, has finished its flying career, according to a June 24 company announcement.
The demonstrator was built for the U.S. Army Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator program and…
LONDON — The high costs of supporting F-35s and a failure to quickly integrate the MBDA Meteor missile to the aircraft could slow British plans to buy more of the jets, defence secretary Ben Wallace warned June 23.
Wallace told Britain’s Parliamentary defence select committee that he had the budget to buy more than the 48 jets the military has already ordered, but wanted to see progress…
A U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook departs from Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, Dec. 27, 2009. (Francisco V. Govea II/U.S. Air Force)
Clear, concise decision-making. That’s what American citizens — and U.S. allies — expect from our government leaders.
WASHINGTON – One of the U.S. Navy’s first major projects under a 20-year shipyard modernization effort is facing cost-overruns and schedule slips, an unexpected circumstance which the Navy is hoping to learn from as it continues through the $20-billion Shipyard…
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is planning to field its first mobile medium-range missile battery no later than September 2023 with three more batteries to follow, according to FY22 budget justification documents.
Defense News was first to report that the Army was pursuing a Mid-Range Capability (MRC) to fill the gap in the service’s fires portfolio between the Precision Strike Missile’s…
More cost overruns are coming for Boeing as the KC-46 program logs another two technical deficiencies
June 18, 2021
WASHINGTON — Boeing will have to pay to fix two new technical problems afflicting the KC-46 refueling tanker, which the U.S. Air Force has designated as “category 1” deficiencies that rank among the program’s most critical issues.
The Air Force has discovered that…
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is set to begin development and integration of a high-power microwave capability to destroy small drone threats beginning in fiscal 2022, according to budget justification documents released with the financial request.
The service plans to…
Another Boeing-Airbus tanker war is coming soon
June 17, 2021
WASHINGTON — Boeing and Airbus could find themselves duking it out as early as next year to provide aerial refueling aircraft to the U.S. Air Force, reigniting a bitter battle between Boeing’s KC-46 and Airbus’s A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport.
The Air Force on Tuesday released a sources sought notice for a non developmental tanker aircraft known as KC-Y that would bridge the gap between…
