U.S. eyes V-22 aircraft sales to Israel, Canada, UAE

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Florida (Reuters) – The U.S. government is eyeing Israel, Canada and the United Arab Emirates as possible initial foreign buyers of the V-22 Osprey, a tilt-rotor aircraft built by Boeing Co and Bell Helicopter, a top U.S. Marine Corps official told Reuters.

Lieutenant General Terry Robling, deputy Marine Corps commandant for aviation, said U.S. officials were continuing to drive down the cost of the aircraft and hoped to sell it to allies overseas to keep the production line running past 2018.

U.S. officials plan to show off the aircraft, which flies like an airplane but tilts its rotors to take off and land like helicopter, at the Farnborough Air Show outside London in July. It also made appearances at the Dubai and Singapore air shows in recent months, Robling told Reuters aboard a military aircraft after a Marine Corps event at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

Bell Helicopter, a unit of Textron Inc, and Boeing issued a news release in December after the Dubai air show, saying the aircraft had received “significant interest” from potential customers, but it did not identify them.

Boeing and Bell have been trying to generate foreign interest for years, but potential buyers were holding back to see how the plane did in combat, and because of the relatively high price of buying and operating the plane — both of which are now coming down.

Washington is increasingly looking to foreign military sales to keep the cost of weapons systems from rising as the Pentagon cuts its own orders to strip $487 billion from its planned defense budgets over the next decade.

Robling said Israel, Canada and the UAE had expressed interest in the aircraft, but had not received formal pricing and technical information for the Osprey.

The Marines will ask lawmakers to approve a five-year procurement plan for 91 aircraft that will run through fiscal 2017 — 24 less than initially planned for the period.

But the service still plans to buy those aircraft and has not changed its overall requirement, Robling said, although he acknowledged that postponing production resulted in more uncertainty given the current difficult budget environment.

Marine Corps Commandant James Amos this month told U.S. lawmakers that the Osprey, which can cruise at 290 miles an hour — twice the rate of military helicopters — has performed “exceedingly well” since being put into operation. He said it gives U.S. and coalition forces a “maneuver advantage and operational reach unmatched by any other tactical aircraft.”

 

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Pentagon Grounds Lockheed F-35 Jets

The Pentagon announced on Monday that more than 15 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets are grounded. All the high-speed ground and flight operations of the fighter jet are temporarily suspended because of the parachutes under the pilot’s ejection seat. The parachutes were discovered to be improperly packed.

The grounding affects the flight testing of the six F-35 jets based in Edwards Air Force Base in California. It also halted the training program using nine units of the fighter jet in Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. It also affected the three planes that are nearly finished in the Lockheed factory in Texas. However, the eight F-35 fighter jets stationed in Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland; are spared from being grounded because they have older version of the ejection seat with properly packed parachutes. Lockheed said that it will probably take 10 days for the first set of properly packed parachutes to be available.

The grounding comes after Pentagon announced that the $382 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is due for a thridreconstruction. They are slowing down orders for the F-35 to allow more time for development testing in order to avoid costly repairs or modifications. Some sources think that the Pentagon will put-off procurement of the fighter jets for the next five years and will only resume on 2017.

According to Richard Aboulafia, defense analyst with the Virginia-based Teal Group, the improperly packed parachutes only adds to the negative news that F-35 has been getting lately.

“There’s a perception that they’re moving too fast on production before ironing out all of the problems, and this is going to reinforce that perception,” said Aboulafia.

The troublesome parachutes were packed by a UK-based Martin Baker Aircraft Corp, a private company, apparently due to confusing instructions.

source: http://www.reuters.com

Air Force to throw welcome party for F-35s

Eglin Air Force Base will host a welcome part for the F-35 on Friday. The event celebrates the arrival of two F-35 aircraft at Eglin. The first touched down at the base on July 14 and the second arrived about a week later.

The welcoming ceremony will be hosted by Gen. Edward Rice, commander of the Air Education and Training Command. Other guest speakers include Lockheed Martin executive Larry Lawson, general manager of the F-35 Program, and 33rd Fighter Wing Commander Col. Andrew Toth.

The F-35 Lightning II is a multirole fighter and attack aircraft that will be used by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as several foreign militaries. Eglin will be a primary training center for F-35 flight crew and maintenance personnel.

Eglin’s two F-35 aircraft have been grounded since Aug. 2 when engineers experienced a major engine problem with an F-35 test aircraft.

Source: pnj.com