Building the F-35
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At present, F-35 Lightning II/ Joint Strike Fighter production is led by Lockheed Martin, with BAE and Northrop-Grumman playing major supporting roles, and many subcontractors below them. F-35 main production and final assembly is currently slated to take place in Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, TX plant, though Italy and Britain may end up getting Final Assembly and Check-Out (FACO) plants of their own.

In order to cut F-35 production cycle time, and hence production costs, the team currently produces major sections of the aircraft at different feeder plants, and “mates” the assemblies at Fort Worth. This is normal in the auto industry, but it’s a departure from the usual fighter-building process which has raw materials and individual parts or small sub-assemblies feed into production lines, then rolls finished fighters out the other end. The precise tolerances required for a stealthy fighter, however, are much more exacting than even high-end autos. To cope, Manufacturing Business Technology reports that the team has turned to an integrated array of back-end IT systems in order to manage this new process, from CATIA CAD, to Visiprise MES, TeamCenter PLM, SAP ERP, and even a locally-designed Production & Inventory Optimization System (PIOS) for manufacturing resources planning and supply chain management.

This ‘digital thread’ has been very successful for the team, with part fits showing incredible precision, and successful coordination of plants around the end schedule for key events like the Dec 18/07 F-35B rollout. The system’s ultimate goal is to cut a plane’s production cycle time from the usual 27-30 months to about a year, and lead time from order creation to printed, matched manufacturing orders from 15-20 days to 6-8 days. Read MBT’s “Fly high on a thread” to learn more.

AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder

ThalesRaytheon’s AN/TPQ-36 and AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder weapon-locating radars automatically detect, track and locate enemy mortars, artillery and rocket launchers allowing friendly forces to counterfire with pinpoint accuracy. The TPQ-36 radar is specifically designed to counter medium range enemy weapon systems out to a range of 24 kilometers, while the TPQ-37 can locate longer-range systems, and even surface launched missiles, out to 50 kilometers. Michael Yon, embedded with 1-24 (“Deuce Four”) in Mosul, offered a first hand description of counter-battery radars’ effect on enemy tactics in 2005.

Thales-Raytheon Systems Co. LLC in Fullerton, CA received a $39.7 million firm-fixed price contract for 16 AN/TPQ-46 antenna transceiver groups and 15 each Spare AN/TPQ-36 Antenna Array Assemblies for the FIREFINDER radar program. Work will be performed in Fullerton, CA, and is expected to be complete by Nov 30/10. There was one bid solicited on Aug 7/07, and 1 bid was received by the CECOM Acquisition Center in Fort Monmouth, NJ (W15P7T-06-D-T001).

The U.S. Army Engineer District in Philadelphia has a background page about dredging that explains the rationale and the different options. It’s a frequent subject of military contracts, and is part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ efforts to maintain America’s ports.

Recently, Cottrell Contracting Corp. in Chesapeake, VA won a $7.5 million firm-fixed price, construction contract for maintenance dredging Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and Morehead City Harbor and Beaufort Harbor in Carteret County, NC. Work will be performed in Manteo (Shallowbag) Bay, NC, and is expected to be complete by March 31/09. There were 10 bids solicited on Nov. 19, 2007, and 2 bids were received by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Savannah Regional Contracting Center, in Wilmington, NC (W912HN-08-C-0017).

Western Marine Construction, Inc. in Seattle,WA won a $5.9 million firm-fixed price contract for harbor dredging in Chiguik, AK (the DefenseLINK release said “Ala.”, but mean Alaska). Work is expected to be complete by Jan 10/11. There were 3 bids solicited on Nov. 26, 2008, and 3 bids were received by the U.S. Army Engineer District,, Alaska at Elmendorf, Air Force Base, AK (W911KB-08-C-003).

KC-X contenders
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As the $35 billion KC-45 tanker purchase flies into the teeth of Washington’s political battles, the Lexington Institute think-tank discusses the relative ratings of each contestant in the USAF’s aerial tanker competition. This is a bit unusual, as even Boeing has yet to hear the official debrief – a fact that has them somewhat upset. DID would not normally consider a report of this nature credible, but the think-tank has a wide range of contacts in Washington, and has been focusing on this deal for some time. Their broad assessment also mirrors commenets made by Sen Richard Shelby [R-AL], so it is possible – but not certain – that their report is correct.

Lexington defense analyst Loren Thompson contends that the Airbus/Northrop Grumman proposal would be able to deliver 49 operational tankers by 2013, whereas Boeing would have been able to deliver just 19 aircraft within that timeframe. That’s an interesting calculation whose basis DID would be interested in viewing, but public access may be an issue as it was attributed to USAF reviewers. Beyond that, Thompson concludes that Boeing lost out on 4 of 5 key measures, and tied on the 5th. Of course, sharp-eyed DID readers will recall that they were 9 Key Performance Parameters listed in the RFP…

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KC-135 & RNoAF
F-16, Afghanistan
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While Team Boeing and EADS Airbus/Northrop Grumman duke it out for the USA’s $20-30 billion KC-X order of about 175 aerial tankers with secondary cargo capacity, the existing KC-135 fleet still needs to be maintained. Based on the 707 airliner’s initial designs, the KC-135s first entered service in 1954, and they were delivered until 1965. Despite their age, they remain the mainstay of the USA’s aerial tanker fleet as it helps fighters make long-distance flights, keeps US and foreign combat air patrols on station, refuels transports on their way to remote destinations, and generally makes long-range force projection possible.

Unforseen mechanical issues and the accompanying fleet groundings would create a crippling bottleneck in this defining array of American airpower capabilities, which is why KC-X was designated as the USAF’s highest procurement priority. Meanwhile, the KC-135s need to be well and carefully maintained in order to avoid that bottleneck. Which is why Boeing has just received a $1.1 billion, 10-year contract to maintain the USAF’s KC-135 fleet. It doesn’t follow the advanced “we pay for flying planes” model being implemented for Britain’s 707-based E-3D Sentry AWACS fleet, its VC10 aerial tankers, et. al.

Even so, this contract’s size, the American fleet’s importance, and the convoluted contract history that has led to the current GAO ruling, all make attention to its details worthwhile. Extremely unusual language in the GAO’s decision even raised questions of potential foul play. In the wake of the decision sustainbing the contract protest, the USAF has moved to award the contract to…

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Watts Constructors, LLC in Honolulu, Hawaii won a $46.9 million firm-fixed-price contract to build a Communications Center at Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station Pacific, for Naval Station Pearl Harbor. Work will be performed in Wahiawa, Hawaii, and is expected to be complete by March 2010. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured, with 57 offers solicited and 5 proposals received by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Pacific in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (N62742-08-C-1300).

DynCorp International LLC in Falls Church, VA received a $30.3 million firm-fixed price contract to design and build facilities for the Afghan National Army in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Work is expected to be completed by Jan. 25, 2009. There were 30 bids solicited on Dec 28/08, and 18 bids were received by the U.S. Army Engineer District, Afghanistan (W917PM-08-C-0033).

PAC-3 test launch
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Raytheon has announced an initial contract (amount undisclosed) for preliminary planning efforts aimed at integrating Patriot air defense/ABM missiles into South Korea’s national command and control structure. This work is in preparation for a Foreign Military Sale of the Patriot air and missile defense system to South Korea under its $1.2-1.6 billion SAM-X program. Raytheon says that it expects significant follow-on awards to complete the system integration and to provide command and control, communications and maintenance support equipment, as well as the training of Korean operators and maintainers and technical assistance to the deployed systems.

Under SAM-X, up to 48 fire systems of Patriot PAC-3 missiles would replace South Korea’s aged Nike missiles; Raytheon has been the only contender since Russia’s Rosvoorouzhenie (S-300/SA-20) dropped out of the race in 2000. While the S-300 has longer range, that isn’t South Korea’s priority. The capital city of Seoul contains 25% of the country’s population, and is within range of at least 11,000 short-range missiles and artillery tubes on the other side of the Demilitarized Zone. South Korea’s Defense Ministry had originally planed to award the SAM-X contract to Raytheon by the end of 2001, but the negotiation broke up over funding approval, and price and the payments timetable issues. An attempt was made in 2007 to buy second-hand Patriot PAC-2 systems from Germany.

KC-30 Concept
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The $35 billion KC-45 aerial tanker deal has attracted a lot of attention and commentary lately, as one might expect. It has also attracted a lot of lobbying dollars – again, as one might expect. While the Pentagon hopes it can keep a lid on the program’s planned costs, it’s an absolute certainty that the lobbying bill will grow quite a bit before all is said and done.

Taxpayers for Common Sense, who built that useful Congressional earmark database, offers some figures re: lobbying monies paid to date – and DID looks at the message in terms of the political system, and the industry…

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Sentinel radar
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The Thales-Raytheon Systems Co. LLC joint venture in Fullerton, CA received a $68.3 million firm-fixed price/ cost-plus fixed fee contract for life cycle support of its AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel air defense radars until Dec 31/11. There was one bid solicited on Aug. 9, 2007, and 1 bid was received by the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, AL (W31P4Q-08-C-0217).

The Sentinel radar has been in development for several years, and was first delivered to the US Army in April 2006. It is described by the manufacturer as “a highly mobile, three-dimensional, phased-array, ground-based air defense radar system that operates in the X-band. It automatically detects, tracks, identifies, classifies and reports airborne threats, including helicopters, high-speed attack aircraft, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.” One of its roles will be as the primary air defense radar for the SLAMRAAM air defense missile system, which was the recent subject of a Pentagon Inspector General report.