Northrop Grumman has just received a new contract from DARPA to continue developing a means to accurately determine structural failures in advance. The effort—called Structural Integrity Prognosis System, or SIPS—has been underway for two years and last summer provided its first demonstration, predicting the results of live fatigue tests on components of a Navy EA-6B Prowler. The SIPS team currently is using SIPS to assess the fuselage of a retired A-10 Warthog. DARPA awarded $14.2 million for the first two-year effort, and the new two-year contract is worth $17.8 million. As Joseph Garone, Northrop’s director of advanced capabilities development, said, “The potential benefits from SIPS are huge.”
The U.S., South Korea, and Japan flew an unusual trilateral flight with two U.S. B-52H Stratofortress bombers escorted by two Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2s, and two ROK Air Force KF-16 fighters—both countries’ respective variants of the F-16—July 11. That same weekend, the top military officers of the three nations…