Economic Downturn Affects Canadian Modernization Plan

November 4, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Canada, Restructuring, production program 

The Canadian Press has an article describing the fear among the Canadian military that the recent worldwide economic downturn, call it a recession, will affect funding for their modernization. The Canadian forces have deployed to Afghanistan for years and have been slowly upgrading their equipment based on needs. While small the military has for years been starved of funds and had to make do with older equipment - this has been especially true of the ground forces. Now when it seemed some progress would be made to get them newer, modern equipment funding might be cut due to declining tax revenue and other pressures on government funding.

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Boeing sort of pushing CIA brief on EADS bribery

April 15, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, Federal Budget Process, GAO, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, development program, logistics 

According to The Hill Boeing is using its lobbyists to push Members of Congress to receive a briefing from the CIA on “foreign companies” using questionable means in their attempts to win contracts. See the article here. Of note the only two Congressman to talk on the record about this were Tiahart from Kansas, a vocal opponent of the deal and a former Boeing employee and Dicks from Washington. Both have been very supportive of Boeing in their attempt to throw out the KC-45 award to Northrop Grumman and EADS. Obviously Northrop Grumman is upset that Boeing would be stooping to this. The protest result will be announced in early June by the GAO. Congress cannot do anything but de-fund the program, something they are hesitant to do as it is important to the modernization of the Air Force.

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USCG Deep Water problems lead to end of Bell UAS program

February 15, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Bell, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security 

Bell was building a tilt-rotor Unmanned Aeriel System (UAS) for the USCG as part of the Deep Water modernization and upgrade program. The whole Deep Water program has been hit with problems and criticism from Congress to the point where the USCG is restructuring. As part of this they canceled the tilt-rotor UAS that Bell Helicopter was building for them based on V-22 technology. See a story here. Read more

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