By Debbie Gregory.

The U.S. Air Force has taken the initial steps to buy commercial, off-the-shelf aircraft for its light attack aircraft fleet by issuing a pre-announcement of solicitation bids in December 2018.

The awardee will be chosen in the fourth quarter of the 2019 Fiscal Year, which runs from July 1, 2019, to Sept. 30, 2019. The Air Force still has yet to say how many aircraft it expects to purchase

While the program would remain a full and open competition, Air Force officials said the most viable aircraft are the Textron Aviation AT-6 Wolverine and Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29 Super Tucano.

“LAA will provide an affordable, non-developmental aircraft intended to operate globally in the types of Irregular Warfare environments that have characterized combat operations over the past 25 years,” the notice explained. “Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) and Textron Aviation are the only firms that appear to possess the capability necessary to meet the requirement within the Air Force’s time frame without causing an unacceptable delay in meeting the needs of the warfighter.”

The Air Force and other branches of the U.S. military have evaluated these aircraft on no less than six separate occasions since 2007. The two single-engine turboprop aircraft were most recently part of the service’s light attack experiment at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico.

A fatal accident in June 2018 shut down the tests early, with the Air Force declaring it had all the data it needed. Navy Lt. Christopher Carey Short, of Canandaigua, New York, was piloting an A-29 when it crashed over the Red Rio Bombing Range in New Mexico.

Congress has added hundreds of millions into the defense budget in support of light attack aircraft projects, but the Air Force has suggested that a full light attack aircraft program that sees the purchase of between 200 and 300 aircraft in total could cost approximately $2.5 billion between the 2020 and 2024 fiscal years.

It should be noted that these aircraft are not a substitute for high-performance combat jets, but rather a complimentary capability with a smaller logistics footprint that helps reduce the operational and sustainment demands on those other fleets and their pilots.

By Debbie Gregory.

The Air Force wants a new missile warning constellation that would be more survivable against counter space weapons that are currently being developed by China and Russia. To that end, Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $2.9 billion Air Force contract for three missile-warning satellites known as next generation overhead persistent infrared.

The scope of the contract allows for analysis, design/development, hardware procurement, early manufacturing, and risk reduction efforts.

Known as Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Satellites (Next-Gen OPIR), the satellites will replace the current Space Based Infrared System, or SBIRS. Military officials had hinted for some time that the SBIR program was due for a correction. SBIRS has not been widely supported. Critics say it has become a poster child for military acquisitions that cost too much and take too long to produce.

The Air Force is the lead agency for procuring next-generation OPIR satellites.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Sunnyvale, California will manufacture three geosynchronous earth orbit space vehicles, to be completed by April 2021. Northrop Grumman was selected to develop the polar orbit satellites.

“As we develop these new systems, speed matters,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said in a statement. “We are focused on providing a missile warning capability survivable in a contested environment by the mid-2020s.”

The Air Force currently operates 77 satellites vital to national security that provide communications, command and control, missile warning, nuclear detonation detection, weather and GPS for the world. Legislation passed in 2016 gives the military license to expedite the procurement of next-generation satellites.

Lockheed Martin will be “working closely with the Air Force on the rapid development of next gen OPIR’s more advanced, resilient missile warning capability,” according to Lockheed Martin spokesman Chip Eschenfelder. “We understand the need to ‘go fast’ while improving our national security posture against emerging threats around the world,” Eschenfelder added.

The Air Force has said there will be a separate industry competition for the sensor payloads.

By Debbie Gregory.

Washington is stepping up its efforts to develop and field hypersonic weapons as it competes to retain America’s technological advantage. To that end, Lockheed Martin has secured a contract worth close to $1 billion to provide hypersonic cruise missiles to the U.S. Air Force.

Hypersonic weapons — ones that can fly five times faster than the speed of sound — are a top priority of Michael Griffin, the defense undersecretary for research and engineering.

The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract is for the “design, development, engineering, systems integration, test, logistics planning, and aircraft integration support of all the elements of a hypersonic, conventional, air-launched, stand-off weapon.”

“This effort is one of two hypersonic weapon prototyping efforts being pursued by the Air Force to accelerate hypersonics research and development,” service spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in a statement. “The Air Force is using prototyping to explore the art-of-the-possible and to advance these technologies to a capability as quickly as possible.”

The other prototyping program is the Air Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW).

“Design, development, production, integration and test experts from across Lockheed Martin will partner with the Air Force to achieve early operational capability and deliver the system to our warfighters,” said John Snyder, vice president of Air Force Strategic Programs at Lockheed Martin. “We are incredibly proud to be leading this effort.”

According to the Air Force, the ARRW effort is pushing the art-of-the-possible by leveraging the technical base established by the Air Force/Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) partnership.

Recent thinking from senior Air Force weapons developers had held that US hypersonic weapons might first be deployable by the early 2020s. Hypersonic drones for attack or ISR missions, by extension, were thought to be on track to emerge in the 2030s and 2040s.

But the aggressive new Air Force hypersonic weapons prototyping and demonstration effort is expected to change this time frame in a substantial way.

By Debbie Gregory.

UTC Aerospace System, one of the world’s largest suppliers of aerospace and defense products, is currently testing its next-generation short-wave infrared (SWIR) camera sensor in an effort to quickly identify friendly forces vs. targets of opportunity.

UTC’s multi-mode tracking sensor “can pick up designators as well as markers from friendly forces,” said Tara Martin, director of business development for UTC Aerospace Systems, ISR and Space Systems.

Sensors can pick up a wide range of markers on the infrared spectrum, but it’s the repetition/pulse rate that matters most, according to Martin.

“One thing that’s unique about our sensor is how fast it can operate. The faster the sensor can operate, the more different codes you can differentiate between,” she said. “We can tell if someone is pulsing at 4.99 hertz versus 5 hertz … and if you can verify you’re seeing that rate, that anticipated repetition rate, you can confirm with much more certainty you’re looking at the right person or the right target.”

An added benefit is that the enemy can’t pick up the laser on standard night-vision goggles.

While the sensors can be placed in handheld devices, tripods and ground vehicles, the units in the engineering and manufacturing phase will require further testing if the sensor is to be integrated into another system.

“There is always some modification or customization to the software that you tend to build for a particular program,” Martin said, adding that the sensor needs fewer optimization upgrades once it’s integrated.

“It’s … turn it on and let it run,” Martin said. “Some other sensors require a lot of fiddling with different parameters for each [mission] to make it work. This has a lot of automatic adjustment.”

In addition to the camera sensor system, UTC’s product range includes ejection seats, cockpit controls, fire protection systems, aircraft landing gear, rescue hoist, and even space suits.

The company is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.

By Debbie Gregory.

A new pack-frame design using ground-breaking technology could be a game-changer when it comes to reducing fatigue.

Lightning Packs, LLC has developed a patented pulley/bungee cord system that allows it to slide up and down on a mounting of metal rods. This reduces impact forces on the user by 80 to 90 percent, and reduces the metabolic energy requirement by 40-80 watts. This allows a wearer to carry an extra 8-12 pounds “for free.”

When people walk, their hips move up and down by as much as seven centimeters, which normally causes a backpack to bob up and down, too. That is bad news for the joints and back, because on its downswing the pack exerts added force on the wearer. A 50-pound load, for example, can slam down with 80 pounds of force when a person is walking and up to 150 pounds when running, says Lightning Packs’ founder Dr. Lawrence Rome.

A video on the company’s website demonstrates that when the pack is in the locked position, it bobs up and down as a normal pack would. But when the pulley system is activated, the pack appears to “float.” As a person’s hips rise, the mounting raises as well, but the bungee cords let the load dip down, limiting its movement.

“We first designed, built under contract, and delivered a series of ergonomic and electricity-generating backpacks for personnel of the United States Army and Marine Corps,” according to the company’s website. “The ergonomic benefits of our design have been field-tested and approved by soldiers themselves,” the website states.

What was originally designed for the military and rescue workers could be a game-changer for consumers, especially for parents who have long been concerned  about the effects on the spines of their school-aged children who carry heavy loads of school books.

The company will be launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise funding for the consumer version, the “Hoverglide,” sometime in September. The Hoverglide will be offered in several models for backpacking, commuting and light hiking. There will also be a tactical model which is about the size of a standard daypack or assault pack.