DefenseNews

Lockheed’s F-35 topples competition in Swiss fighter contest

WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has emerged victorious in Switzerland’s $6.5 billion fighter competition, beating out entrants from Eurofighter, Dassault and Boeing. Over the course of the program, Switzerland plans to spend up to 6 billion Swiss francs (U.S. $6.5 billion) to buy 36 F-35A conventional-takeoff-and-landing models to replace its aging Hornet fleet…
Read more
DefenseNews

Bell V-280 Valor tech demonstrator retires from flight

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 flew for the first time in December 2017. It spent the last three-and-half years proving out the service’s requirements for…
Read more
DefenseNews

Two reasons Britain could slow its purchase of the F-35

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…
DefenseNews

US Navy facing early challenges in modernizing dry docks for submarine maintenance

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 Infrastructure Optimization Program. Though the Navy is predominately in a planning phase of program, generating computer models of…
Read more
DefenseNews

US Army could soon have a high-power microwave to destroy small drone swarms

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 spend more than $50 million in FY22 to develop technology to counter small drones and is working jointly across the services to…
Read more