* The US Air Force is setting aside its Afghanistan Light Air Support contract to Sierra Nevada before the litigation initiated by Hawker Beechcraft even completes its course: “Since the acquisition is still in litigation, I can only say that the Air Force...
* No less than four congressional hearings are scheduled today to review the FY13 Pentagon budget. See our full schedule. Opposition to base closures continues with this letter [PDF] written by Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) and co-signed by 41 other members of Congress....
* Israel Aerospace Industries inks a $1.6B deal with Azerbaijan involving UAVs and missile defense systems. * The French DGA procurement agency released its 2011 activity report [PDF, in French]. Urgent operational purchase requests vastly decreased to just 20 million...
* Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Bob Pap made his annual State of the Coast Guard address [PDF]. On acquisition: “[T]here was a time when the Coast Guard operated 8 polar ice breakers. How did that happen? In 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed a...
* Turkey plans to proceed with its F-35 plans according to Reuters, while the US Defense Acquisitions Board (DAB) recently met to recertify the program because of its 2010 Nunn-McCurdy rule breach. See also the Feb. 16 update of the F-35 CRS backgrounder [PDF]....