* 2 months after its 1st request, the Pentagon asks for another 5 month extension, in order to negotiate a 3rd multi-year procurement deal for Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet family fighters. Tough sledding, or just bureaucrats stalling?
* BAE providing 16 RG-32M vehicles to Finland, upgrading 25 Norwegian M113 tracked APCs to M113E3 standard.
* Adapted ISR trend: Lockheed Martin showing its Gulfstream G3 “Dragon Star” ISR aircraft in the Middle East, will take it to Farnborough 2010.
* General Atomics submits navalized “Sea Avenger” to US Navy as carrier reconnaissance & strike UAV candidate. The jet-powered “Predator C” would implicitly compete against options like Northrop Grumman’s X-47B N-UCAS.
* Saudi Arabia upgrading its Black Hawk helicopters to UH-60L standard.
* US deploys 850 trainers to Afghanistan to fill gap in European effort.
* US nuclear weapon stockpile down to 5,113 warheads as of Sept 30/10, an 84% reduction since 1967, the Pentagon discloses [pdf].
* Strategy Analytics: Aegis Combat System to drive 5% annual growth in advanced electronics market demand.
* ATK gets $52 million order to supply 120mm training tank ammunition for the US Army’s M1A1/A2 Abrams main battle tank, including M865 kinetic energy and the M1002 multi-purpose anti-tank training rounds.
* CAE snags C$50 million in orders for helicopter and transport aircraft training and simulation support for the Germany, Dutch and Canadian defense ministries.
* US Navy to upgrade its Distributed Common Ground System with $72 million contract to BAE Systems.