Yes Mr. Stevens, er, Santa, I’d like a BRAC exemption
A tiff arising over where to place a slew of relatively non-controversial amendments and a stalled defense authorization bill has Senate majority committee chairs at loggerheads, stymieing both the authorization bill as well as a major defense appropriations amendment.
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Ted Stevens balked at Armed Services Committee Chair John Warner’s attempt to slip his defense authorization bill onto Stevens’ appropriations amendment. Stevens may object because his amendment would be laden with a bill that the senate leadership hasn’t agreed to allow onto the floor on its own. The bill has proven extra touchy in a time of BRAC base closures and a pelting of amendments from some senators for controversial additions, such as specifying how the Administration must treat its detainees.
Raytheon and its European partner EADS are hoping that the Army’s Future Cargo Aircraft program will be decided with an emphasis for cargo space – something their CN-235s and C-295s have in great abundance. Competitor L-3 Communications, along with its own European partner Alenia, is pushing its C-27J, a more powerful plane but one that is attached to a shorter cargo bay.
The Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB awarded a $10 million cost plus fixed fee contract to Enser Corp. of Pinellas Park (FA8650-04-C-5705), FL to create over the next six years a manufactory to produce cobalt disulfide base thermal batteries. Materials like cobalt disulfide have been found to be more attractive in producing thermal batteries – typically installed in munitions, cockpit ejector seats and other such applications – because they have lower melting points. Those lower melting points allow for the material to become liquid electrolyte more rapidly, activating the battery some tens of milliseconds quicker – a fraction of a second that can come in rather handy for short-hop missile launches and, perhaps especially, skidaddling pilots.
AFA reports on Gordon England’s upcoming new air power review that seems designed to provide the analysis needed to make further cuts in the F/A-22 and F-35 programs. England, who awaits confirmation to be deputy secretary of defense, hired Whitney, Bradley & Brown, the same consultants he employed when he was Navy Secretary to justify the reduction of the Navy’s goals for acquiring F-35C’s. That review lowered the Navy’s planned inventory of Joint Strike Fighters by 400.
Israel’s Globes reports that the Israeli police are investigating IAI executives for taking bribes to award exclusive sales territories. They allege that two procurement and marketing agents for IAI “heavily bribed” senior executives to secure larger commissions and exclusivities. One of the alleged bribers was said to be involved in military contracts worth about $150 million, including the star-crossed purchase of Russian Ilyushin Il-76’s, originally intended for China, but later re-routed to India after U.S. protests.
The Army awarded Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. $44 million in a firm-fixed-price contract to produce stabilator amplifiers. These are devices that increase the effects of aircraft stabilators; combined elevators and stabilizers fit onto the tail (see image). Work will extend over the next three an a half years in Sikorsky’s Stratford, CT manufactories. The U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, out of Fort Monmouth, NJ awarded the contract (W15P7T-05-C-F012).
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency awarded the American Institute in Taiwan (based in Arlington, VA) a reimbursement of $3,310,524 for activities supporting military and civil personnel assigned to Taiwan, as well as four one-year options to continue the services for a total of up to $18,787,197. (HQ0013-06-C-0002)
