India steadily increases defense spending

September 13, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: England, India, Military Aviation, S&T, development program, logistics, production program 

The headline on this article in the Daily Telegraph is a little misleading once you read it. India is on a path to more then double defense spending in the next twenty years, where it will be higher then the current UK’s budget. For India to exceed Britain’s budget it would take the UK holding spending steady, and actually adjusted for inflation, reducing it. It is certainly possible to imagine that the UK, and the US for that matter, may have to reduce spending as the budgetary reality catches up to them regarding the cost of social services and deficit spending. The other point of the story the money that India is putting into updating and modernizing their military by moving to buying advanced Western weapons rather then relying on Russian and indigenous producers is probably more important then the amount of spending.

The article by David Blair and Thomas Harding can be found here.

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Canada starts over on Coast Guard upgrade program

August 24, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Canada, Proposal, development program, logistics, production program 

The Canadian Federal Government had to reject both proposals for a mammoth contract to upgrade their surface fleet. Canada had planned to build a new fleet of patrol vessels and support ships, but both proposals were considered too expensive. This means that the Government will either have to scale back their requirements or increase the planned budget. Give them credit, as usually an attempt to award a contract like this with a plan to get costs lower or under control would probably not work.

For more see GlobeandMail.com.

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House marks appropriations bill

August 3, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Bell, Boeing, Congress, Contract Awards, EADS, Federal Budget Process, Military Aviation, Northrop Grumman Corp., development program, logistics, production program 

The House Appropriations Committee marked the FY09 budget before taking their August recess.  See a story here. The Army’s struggling Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) program was marked to delete 13 aircraft, and the Navy’s Presidential Helo was also decremented. The House also ordered that consideration of jobs would be a criteria for the source selection of the KC-45 tanker. Boeing won its protest of the award to Northrop-Grumman and EADS and forced DoD to reconsider the contract. The Senate needs to also mark the bill and then there will be a Conference mark up as well.

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ARH in jeopardy

July 10, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Bell, Congress, Department of Defense, Federal Budget Process, Military Aviation, Restructuring, U.S. Army, development program 

The soaring costs of the ARH program have caused a Nunn-McCurdy Cost Breach. See a story here. The 40% increase in unit cost has caused the Army and DoD to rethink, again, proceeding with the contract. Nunn-McCurdy cost breaches were established in the 80’s as part of the overall reform of Congressional monitoring of programs. Read more

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Lockheed gets long lead contract for JSF

May 14, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Contract Awards, England, Lockheed Martin, Military Aviation, development program 

Lockheed Martin was awarded a $197 M contract for long lead items for 10 JSF aircraft. See the story here. These will be procured for the US Navy and the UK. These are the version capable of Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) operations. Ultimately they will replace the Harrier in service. Like many programs there are certain items that need to be purchased far in advance of delivery and these long lead items are usually funded incrementally from year to year. Aviation programs will receive Advanced Procurement in the budget to support these activities.

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Congress begins to debate KC-45 FY09 funding

May 9, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Congress, Contract Awards, Department of Defense, EADS, Federal Budget Process, GAO, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics 

As part of the beginning of the mark-up of the FY09 President’s budget by the various House and Senate committees Congress is beginning to debate the future of the KC-45. According to this article, Congressman Young from Florida has suggested that the US Air Force split award the tanker contract. This would mean half goes to EADS, the winner, and half to Boeing. While this may be a politically judicious solution it has many impracticable aspects. First the cost increase to the total program would be significant as there would now be two sources of parts and two training systems set-up for the different aircraft. Second the Air Force would have to revisit the whole concept of basing and deployment as you would now have a mix of larger and smaller aircraft. The basis for the whole program is a capability requirement that feeds from larger OSD requirements to support the actual warfight. The split might mean more then the current planned buy would be necessary - another cost increase. The DoD and USAF are taking a position of waiting for the GAO ruling in about 40 days before anything is decided. Congress would be advised to do the same.

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Even small contracts make a difference

April 6, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Contract Awards, U.S. Army, logistics, production program 

Here is a little article about the Army buying safety gloves. Even this small contract, no value given, will allow the company to hire more workers and invest in machinery. Of course the problem with these kind of contracts is unless the supplier can find new commercial customers or get a continuous stream of DoD orders the jobs will end in a set period of time. Read more

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