Rapid Fire 2011-03-11: Pakistan’s Military

• Pakistan’s military wants more F-16s, plus Chinese submarines to go with its new French boats, and a joint submarine development venture. These plans are all being made against a backdrop of a serious domestic insurgency and widespread flooding damage, which have combined to create over 1 million internal refugees, and threaten the government’s medium term ability to maintain control of the country. Even as the state is very obviously fraying in other ways, and the military’s ability to play a constructive role is coming into serious question.

• “Weapons and the Art of Diplomacy” discusses WikiLeaks revelations and the role of American diplomatic staff in promoting arms buys and other transactions. Oddly, they included Thailand’s case, but left out Norway.

• EADS returns to profitability; A400M airlifter program gets new chief; Eurocopter snags 68 new helicopter orders.

Eyes Upgraded: USAF HH-60G Pave Hawks to Get AN/AAQ-29 Turrets

HH-60G, Afghanistan

March 8/11: Raytheon announces a $42 million USAF contract for additional AN/AAQ-29A day/night surveillance and targeting turrets. They’ll be installed in the US Air Force’s HH-60G Pave Hawk combat search and rescue helicopters, replacing earlier generation AN/AAQ-16 systems. Deliveries are expected to be complete by February 2013.

The AN/AAQ-29A is a lightweight, high performance FLIR that incorporates a 480 x 640 element, 3-5 micron wavelength indium antimonite detector and a three field of view telescope on a 12-inch diameter turret. Small and powerful, Raytheon’s Q-29A can support a variety of helicopter missions, from low-level navigation to high altitude long-range targeting. Previous contracts have installed the turrets in US Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallions, and they will also be installed on the forthcoming CH-53K. US Army UH-60Q and HH-60L MEDEVAC aircraft have their own contracts for surveillance turrets, but they chose FLIR Systems’ AN/AAQ-22 Star SAFIRE II.