* The Pentagon’s Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP) has opened applications to its Acquisition Exchange Program (AEP) which opens up 3-12 months assignments at the GS-11+ level that span a number of DoD-wide acquisition policy issues such as international contracting or strategic sourcing.
* Can a prime contractor prevent the US government from sourcing parts directly from a subcontractor? A quick Q&A to brush up on FAR 52.203-6 [PDF].
* Textron’s shares took a drubbing in the stock market yesterday after the company announced its Q1 2013 results. Sales for the quarter where about flat but the outlook for the rest of the year is depressed, as demand for their business jets is soft. Sometimes commercial aerospace is not there to pick up the slack when the defense order momentum wanes. Bell’s backlog decreased by $386M to $7.08B.
* France’s Operation Serval in Mali has so far consumed 70,000 cubic meters of fuel (18.5M gallons), according to [in French] Ouest France’s Lignes de Defense. Aviation fuel is coming from France, while fuel for ground vehicles and generators is bought locally from suppliers who themselves source from neighboring Algeria. About 100 personnel from a dedicated service within the French military are managing the necessary logistics. They use flexible fuel tanks of up to 300 cubic meters (about 79,250 gallons) for on-the-spot storage.
* French defense manufacturers are taking a page from the American lobbying book, as their CEOs recently met with President Hollande to underline how vital their industry is. Here is their joint letter [PDF in French] which helpfully shows defense’s weight in terms of jobs per region. Surely someone must be working on a more granular job count down to the congressional district level. Hollande will receive France’s new whitepaper on April 29.
* Japan’s Ministry of defense says they scrambled fighter jets a record 306 times in response to intruding Chinese aircraft in the fiscal year ending last march.
