Lockheed Martin Tapped For LCS-19 PSA | GE to Produce F110 Engines for F-16 Jets | Delivery of KM-SAM Block I to RoKAF completed

Americas

Lockheed Martin won a $13.1 million to provide engineering and management services for Littoral Combat Ship (LCS)-19 Post Shakedown Availability (PSA). LCS-19 is a Freedom Class Littoral Combat Ship. The Freedom Class are small and fast vessels, intended to operate in littoral zones, for example close to the shore. These are designed to combat with small craft, rather than equal warships. These ships are designed to have a shallow draft and operate at high speed. Work will take place in New Jersey, Florida, Virginia, Washington DC. Work is scheduled to be finished by September 2021.

Boeing won a $9.7 million contract modification provides engineering, manufacturing and development support to integrate BRR3.1 software to the Next Generation Jammer on Boeing EA-18G Growler carrier-based electronic warfare aircraft, resulting in BRR3.1 software initial operating capability. EA-18G Growler is an airborne electronic attack (AEA) aircraft, which operates from either an aircraft carrier or from land-bases. The Growler was developed as a replacement for the United States Navy EA-6B Prowler aircraft that entered service in 1971 and is approaching the end of operational life. Work will take place in St. Louis, Missouri, and is expected to be complete by December 2020.

Middle East & Africa

The United Arab Emirates’ first of potentially five GlobalEye swing-role surveillance aircraft has touched down in Abu Dhabi following a delivery flight from Linkoping, Sweden. Saab said that it had commenced deliveries of the Bombardier Global 6000 business jet-based platform that were contracted to the UAE Air Force and Defense (AF&D) under the Swing Role Surveillance System award from late 2015. Deliveries of the remaining two aircraft are set to run through to the end of 2021, while an anticipated contract for two additional platforms has not yet been signed. The ground systems had already been handed over to the UAE AF&D, ahead of the aircraft arrival. The GlobalEye is built around the Saab Erieye Extended Range (ER) radar that is housed in the same external dorsal ‘plank’ as the company’s original Erieye system. Equipped with Gallium Nitride (GaN) and other technologies, the Erieye ER is an active electronically scanned array (AESA) system that doubles the radar’s power efficiency compared with previous Erieye iterations. It has a range in excess of 650 km that can be extended by focusing the radar’s energy.

Europe

General Electric has won $707.3 million to supply F110 engines to power F-16 fighter jets of Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Taiwan. The contract includes F110-GE-129 engine production, provision of installs and spares and modernized engine management system computers. According to GE, the F110 powers more than 70 percent of the Air Force’s F-16C/D aircraft, and the 129 variant offers significant mission advantages, including significant additional thrust, for F-15 and F-16 aircraft. For Qatar, the engines will power the twin-engined Boeing F-15QT. Work will take place in Cincinnati and is expected to be finished by December 31.

German defense minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and her French counterpart, Florence Parly, have signed a framework agreement on the Franco-German Main Ground Combat System (MGCS), Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on its website on April 28, describing this as “an important signal for European defense co-operation”. The system will replace German Leopard 2 and French Leclerc main battle tanks (MBTs) starting in the mid-2030s.

Asia-Pacific

The delivery of KM-SAM Block I, developed by South Korea’s Agency of the Defense Development, to the Republic of Korea Air Force (RoKAF) has been completed. The KM-SAM, which is also known as the Cheongung, the first indigenously developed mid-range surface-to-air guided missile, is capable of striking a hostile aircraft at an altitude of up to 40 kilometers. Dubbed the “Korean Patriot,” the system has been deployed since 2015, after the Agency of the Defense Development completed its development in 2011, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration.

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