US Navy To Get UC-12W Military Transport Plane | Nigeria To Get 3 JF-17s In November | Australia Receives Final Hobart Ship
Americas
Textron Aviation won a $14.3 million contract modification for the production and delivery of one King Air 350C Cargo Slick aircraft modified to a UC-12W. The UC-12W, a modified version of the King Air 350 equipped with a cargo door and military required equipment, is a modern and improved version of the UC-12. The UC-12 is used by the Navy for personnel and cargo transport, range clearance, medical evacuation, and humanitarian assistance. The Navy operates UC-12B/F/M Huron as modified variants of the King Air B200 as well as the UC-12W Huron. Work will take place in Kansas and expected completion is in March 2021.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics won a $9.6 million delivery order, which procures program management support to execute the planning, procurement and delivery of initial aircraft spares in support of the F-35 Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, non-Department of Defense participants and Foreign Military Sales customers operational aircraft. The F-35 is considered a significant driver of the Pentagon’s budget: an August DoD report said the F-35 program grew by $25 billion in 2018 and was the primary reason the Pentagon’s budget grew by four percent that year. Work will take place in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be finished in December 2020. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
Middle East & Africa
The head of the Nigerian Air Force, Air Marshal Sadiq Abubakar, has revealed that three JF-17s, which the country ordered, will arrive home in November this year. He made the disclosure during the Passing Out Parade of the Basic Military Training Course 40 on February 15. In March 2019, Pakistan’s Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) announced that it had approved the sale of three JF-17s to Nigeria under a $184 million US contract. It is likely that the NAF will follow-up this contract with a follow-on order to fully replace its legacy F-7Ni and FT-7Ni fighters. Through the JF-17, Nigeria possesses one of Sub-Sahara Africa’s most well-equipped fighters.
Europe
Thales UK has been awarded contracts worth around $422.8 million to develop the sonar suite and above-water sensor systems for the new Royal Navy Dreadnought Class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). Previously known as Successor, the Dreadnought submarine program is planned to replace the RN’s four existing Vanguard Class SSBNs – one for one, from the early 2030s – to maintain a posture of continuous at-sea deterrence. Manufacture work on the first two 17,200-tonne displacement boats is under way at the BAE Systems Maritime – Submarines’ Barrow-in-Furness shipyard facility in Cumbria.
Asia-Pacific
Singapore-based unmanned maritime systems developer Zycraft has produced a logistics-optimized variant of the Dolphin rescue unmanned surface vessel (USV), the company announced on its official website on March 3. According to Zycraft president James Soon, the company has developed the BacPac sea transfer module to carry payloads of up to 10 kg between ships that are unable to maneuver alongside each other due to sea conditions or security concerns. The baseline Dolphin rescue USV measures 1,150 mm long, 800 mm wide, and 250 mm tall, and has a displacement of 13 kg. It can operate for up to 30 minutes between charges and is powered by a pair of electric waterjets that propel it at speeds of up to 8 kt. The USV can be deployed off the stern or sides of a vessel and recovered using a grapnel hook or line lift, although it can also be extracted from the water by hand if conditions permit. A weight transfer device enables the sea vehicle to be lifted out of the water without excessive induced motion.
Australia took delivery of the Royal Australian Navy’s third and final Hobart Class Air Warfare Destroyer, the future HMAS Sydney, at the Osborne naval shipyard in Adelaide on February 28. The third Hobart-class destroyer is expected to be commissioned in Sydney on May 20 and undertake work-up activities until the end of the year in preparation for up to six months of US Navy Combat System Ship Qualification trials. These will include firings over the Pacific Test Range off San Diego of the destroyer’s RIM-66 SM-2 Block 3B and RIM-162 Evolved SeaSparrow Missiles (ESSMs) air-defense missiles. First-of-class HMAS Hobart was commissioned in 2017 while the second, HMAS Brisbane , was commissioned the following year: each more than two years behind the original schedule, which itself was re-baselined three times.
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