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Jura said:

WHEN REPEAT WHEN THE NAVY GETS ITS SECRETARY?

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The Senate has confirmed the Trump administration nominees for the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer and the Secretary of the Navy, according to a statement from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Ellen Lord, the current CEO of Textron Systems, will soon be sworn in as the next Department of Defense undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics (AT&L). The position has been vacant since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Financier Richard V. Spencer will take the top Navy civilian job following former Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and acting SECNAV Sean Stackley who has served since Trump’s inauguration.

Spencer appeared before the

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and pledged an agenda of oversight, transparency and acquisition reform before the panel.

“We have to allow the people who have the education and the intelligence to make acquisitions and to face off problems to provide the solutions,” Spencer said during the hearing.
“And they have to know and be responsible for the outcome and be accountable for it. And I think that’s one of the biggest steps forward we make right off the bat.”

Lord will oversee the Pentagon’s acquisition and research and development efforts until the position splits into two jobs in February, as directed by the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.

After the spilt, Lord would serve as the under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment (USD(A&S)), according to a statement from the White House. An undersecretary for research and engineering (USD(R&E)) position would be filled at a later date.

“The Senate has been paralyzed by politics and partisanship, and it is unfortunate that it took so long to approve these qualified nominees for critical positions,” McCain said in a late Tuesday statement.
“I hope the White House will expeditiously send the Senate nominations for the many positions that remain unfilled at the Department of Defense. At a time when the threats to our country continue to grow, neither the White House nor the Senate can afford to delay any further in giving Secretary Mattis the leadership team he needs to defend our national security.”

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Army Chief Outlines Future Tank Features
The chief of staff of the U.S. Army discussed what he'd like to see in a future tank to replace the M1 Abrams. Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. last week. Chief of Staff Mark Milley mentioned railguns, a reduced crew or no crew at all, so-called active protection systems, and a super strong yet lightweight armor that could dramatically lower the weight of future tanks.

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Trump Wanted a Cheaper Air Force One. So the USAF Is Buying a Bankrupt Russian Firm’s Undelivered 747s

President Donald Trump said the projected cost of new Air Force One aircraft

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, so the U.S. Air Force found a way to lower it: by buying a pair of Boeing 747 jetliners abandoned by a bankrupt Russian airline.

Air Force officials are now finalizing a contract with Boeing for the two planes, according to three defense officials with knowledge of the deal. The Pentagon could publicly announce the deal as soon as this week.

“We’re working through the final stages of coordination to purchase two commercial 747-8 aircraft and expect to award a contract soon,” Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in a statement.

The Air Force is not expected to disclose the specific value of the contract, but officials said that the military is getting a good deal on the planes. Boeing lists the average sticker price of a 747-8 as

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; the actual amount paid by airlines and other customers varies with quantities, configurations, and so forth.

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“We’re still working toward a deal to provide two 747-8s to the Air Force — this deal is focused on providing a great value for the Air Force and the best price for the taxpayer,” Boeing spokeswoman Caroline Hutcheson said in a statement.

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On Aug. 1, 2017, USNI News spoke with sailors who manned Ford’s next-generation Advanced Arresting Gear and Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) for the first trap and catapult from the $13 billion carrier’s flight deck.

EMALS and AAG are two of five transformational technologies resident on Ford and are designed to be crewed with fewer sailors and be more gentle on aircraft.

EMALS uses the same electromagnetic technology that launches modern roller coasters and can specifically dial in the force needed to launch an aircraft rather than the older, less precise Mk 13 steam catapults on the Nimitz-class.

he AAG sheds the messy hydraulics of the Mk 7 for a paddle wheel system that places less stress on the aircraft and requires less crew and maintenance.

“Typically in our manned aircraft designs, you have to build an airplane that fits within the operating envelope of the Mk-7 arresting gear and the Mk-13 catapults. So you kind of start with an operating envelope that gets you sort of a design of aircraft like we have now – F-18 Super Hornet, Growler, Joint Strike Fighter,” Rear Adm. Michael Manazir, then the Navy’s director air warfare told reporters in 2015.
“The aircraft are structured that way, they’re strengthened … you build weight and structure into the airplanes to accommodate the violence of the arrested landing. With the Advanced Arresting Gear and the ability to land an airplane – it’s still a controlled crash, but relatively more softly, and to launch it relatively more softly, and so a graduated kind of force as the airplane goes up – you can now start to do things with aircraft design that you couldn’t do before. It might allow us some more margin in weight, in size, and in structure and capability.”

Most of the sailors involved operating EMALS and AAG have worked on the system since 2013 and the arrestment was a culmination of years of work to integrate the system with the aircraft carrier.

Likewise, test pilots have spent years testing the systems at Naval Air Systems Command’s facility at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

Both programs have been challenged and a target of public and legislative ire. Due to a major design flaw in the AAG from builder General Atomics, the Navy was considering ditching the system from future Ford-class aircraft carriers

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.

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, President Donald Trump expressed hard opinions on the system and a desire to switch Ford back to steam, but never formally engaged the Navy, USNI News understands.

Still, against the backdrop of criticism of both systems, Ford EMLAS operator ABE1 Jeremy Stoecklein told reporters on Tuesday that when test pilot Lt. Cmdr. Jamie Struck’s Super Hornet leave the deck on EMALS he was filled with powerful emotions.

“It was euphoric,” he said.
“After that, it was, ‘Let’s do it again’.”

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Bell/Boeing rolls out 350th V-22 Osprey tiltrotor Aircraft

Employees of the Bell Helicopter’s facility in Amarillo, Texas celebrated the 350th delivery of the V-22 Osprey which is manufactured under a 50-50 partnership with Boeing.

The aircraft reached initial operational capability (IOC) with the US Marine Corps on June 2007 which uses the MV-22B variant and has more than 360 in order. Fifty CV-22B are in use by the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) of the US Air Force.

“We recognize the quantum leap in technology that your team achieved…not a faster helicopter or a fixed-wing plane that could land vertically, but a blend of the two aircraft no one has seen before. We worked hand-in-glove with the Bell Boeing team over more than a decade, moving from drawing board to flightline, and together we have done great things for our Marine Corps, and for our nation.” – Jon M. Davis, Lieutenant General, United States Marine Corps.

The Bell Boeing V-22 is the world’s first production tiltrotor aircraft, successfully blending the vertical flight capability of a helicopter with the speed, range, altitude and endurance of an airplane. This unique combination provides the warfighter with an unprecedented advantage. This allows more effective mission execution and realization of missions previously unachievable in one aircraft. Comprehensively tested and currently in full-rate production, the Bell Boeing V-22 has proven to be a survivable and transformational platform in the most challenging environments on the planet.
Bell/Boeing rolls out 350th V-22 Osprey tiltrotor Aircraft

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FORBIN said:

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