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Friday, March 20, 2009
STUAS/Tier II Unmanned Air System Lost at Sea - As Navy Surface Warriors dither, the Marines mark timeAs if the Pentagon needed another example of an acquisition program running aground, the Naval Air Systems
Command (NAVAIR) informed industry that the initial operational capability (IOC) of the Small Tactical Unmanned Air System/Tier
II program will slip a year to 2012. As the Marines’ Tier II program was originally conceived six
years ago, the Marines alone were to receive a new and far more capable tactical UAS to replace their ancient Pioneer system.
Then, two years ago, in what has become a commonplace occurrence in Naval Aviation for Marine acquisition
programs which are always at the mercy of ASN/RDA and OPNAV N-8 budgeteers, Navy officials decided to combine the Marines’
well documented and defined program with a shipboard-capable UAS program that Navy officers were only then in the early stages
of proposing potential employment concepts. Unfortunately, the continuing spectacle of Navy surface line
officers trying to nail down UAS requirements has begun to look like an episode of “House” without the possibility
of a happy ending.
As described in Aviation Week and in other industry media, NAVAIR has been trying
for years to release an RFI for the STUAS/Tier II program but Navy surface ship requirements officers are having as much trouble
determining what they want their new UAS to do for them as they are having trouble even determining what ships will be in
the fleet. Meanwhile, officials at HQMC and the Marine
Corps Systems Command at Quantico have been trying since 2005 to bring the Tier II UAS online to answer urgent operational
needs statements on UAS support from CENTCOM. Congress has gotten wind of this programmatic travesty, too,
but Navy officials have so far kept the denizens of the Hill at bay. But as time passes, the Marines, aviators
and grunts alike, are becoming more and more disgusted with the Navy Surface Warriors who can’t seem to understand that
while they dither, Marines die.
link
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
So NOW you tell us...?There’s
no such thing as coincidence. As Aviation Week’s Amy Butler describes, Boeing Company on Tuesday unveiled a stealthy version of its F-15
– the so-called Silent Eagle. The fighter, presumably aimed at the Asian and Middle Eastern
markets, leverages structural changes including internal weapons carriage and potential stealth coating application to deliver
a lower RCS airframe that the company hopes will sustain the production line for up to another 190 international orders.
U.S. skeptics of the over-budget, behind-schedule F-22 and F-35 fighter programs
– many of whom are now settling into new West Wing and E-ring offices - are
no doubt watching developments… and timing is everything.
link
Will Congress supplement the supplemental? Yes, we can!DSJ is hearing that the Obama Administration is ready to push its Fiscal
Year 2009 (FY09) emergency war supplemental to the Congress next week. When this request -- supposedly the last of its
type -- arrives on the Hill it will be set upon by a Congress ready to extend its scope to procurement far beyond the war
efforts. What is expected to be a modest $75 billion ask (btw, since when did $75 billion in additional DoD spending
seem modest?) Hill watchers believe is likely to grow by at least 25% and perhaps as much as 50% as the Congress adds
unrequested ships, vehicles, and aircraft, perhaps to include, according to Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John
Murtha (D-PA), money to kick-start a dual-buy KC-X tanker program. Despite what are sure to be Obama Administration
pleas for a "clean" passage of the bill -- and accompanying veto threats -- here's betting that the Congress
and the White House see their way through to some "stimulus" funding for defense procurement after all.
link
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