Rapid Fire 2011-10-10: AgustaWestland | Service Slowdown
Oct 10, 2011 07:10 EDTRelated Stories: Daily Rapid Fire, Design Innovations, Financial & Accounting, Fuel & Power, Helicopters & Rotary, IT - Cyber-Security, Legal, Logistics, Medical, Surface Ships - Other, UAVs
- Finmeccanica’s AgustaWestland, following in BAE’s footsteps, will cut up to 375 jobs in the UK. The company’s plant in Yeovil manufactures AW159 Lynx Wildcats for the MoD. However, while AgustaWestland’s license to manufacture Chinooks as ICH-47Fs that led to sales in Italy also covers Britain, it lost to Boeing when the MoD decided to get more helicopters, so the job cuts were predictable. ADS, the UK’s aerospace & defense trade association, warns that there’s potential for significantly more cuts ahead.
- Closer, but no cigar. UAW workers rejected Oshkosh’s latest 5-year contract terms on Saturday. They don’t see eye to eye on temps.
- Stan Soloway, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council, reviewed US federal spending on services during the first half of the previous fiscal year (i.e. Oct 2010 to March 2011) and notes that for the first time in a decade, orders for professional, administrative and management services have been decreasing. According to Soloway the US Army alone accounts for a 3rd of the federal total and saw a 15% decline, at least based on preliminary data.
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- US Air Force Research Laboratory Propulsion Directorate came up with cheap vibration dampers to preempt much more expensive engine maintenance.
- Frank Kendall listed his priorities [PDF] as acting USD AT&L: rapid procurement and efficient logistics to support deployed troops, program affordability and acquisition efficiency, and strengthening the industrial base and the acquisition workforce. Sounds like a direct continuation of Ashton Carter’s policies.
- Attorney William Welch notes that at the US GAO they’re not big fans of redundant, frivolous protests. Speaking of the GAO, it states that logistical challenges remain in Afghanistan, including RFID tracking shortcomings, customs clearance slowdowns, and difficulties in collecting information on all incidents of pilferage and damage.
- According to Danger Room a virus has infected UAV ground control stations (GCSs) at Creech Air Force Base, ND, probably while map updates where loaded from removable drives. Some Wired readers countered: “psyops!” but the fact video from Predators was intercepted in the clear with cheap software less than 2 years ago is not reassuring. Once “wiped” from a computer network a virus is not supposed to “keep coming back” when you know what you’re doing.
- Meanwhile The Economist argues that the “future of air power belongs to unmanned systems” and calls for tighter monitoring of their use. The New York Times calls it an arms race.
- The US House of Armed Services Committee (HASC) will have a busy week with no less than 5 hearings: “future of defense” follow-ups, national Guard and reserve component acquisition and modernization, nuclear weapons modernization in Russia and China, and aerial refueling including KC-46A. Members of the recently-formed HASC Defense Business Panel visited Rock Island Arsenal last Friday to discuss how to increase small business participation in defense contracts. Finally, HASC Chair Buck McKeon (R-CA) stuck to his portrayal of reduced increases as “cuts” in the 1st video embedded below.
- Video of amazing cranial reconstruction work done by US Army doctors also embedded below. Warning in case you just had breakfast and don’t like the color red: it’s pretty graphic at times.
