Navy orders training systems for the V-22

May 30, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Bell, Boeing, Contract Awards, Military Aviation, U.S. Navy, development program, logistics, production program 

The Navy ordered from the Boeing-Bell team manufacturing the V-22 Osprey training devices and related equipment today. The contract is worth about $78 M. See a story here. The Osprey has just finished a successful deployment in Iraq where it carried out heavy lift missions, usually for logistics purposes. The contract will pay for the development and production of training equipment.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marines order training devices

February 22, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Contract Awards, L-3, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Navy, logistics 

L-3 Communications won a contract from the Navy to provide video and audio capture devices. See the article at Forbes here. These will be used to support pre-deployment training at various sites in the US. The contract is worth $326 M. The devices are quite sophisticated as the price indicates.

Tags: , , ,