Daily Report

Sept. 26, 2012

Pentagon Faces “Serious Problems” under Continuing Resolution

The six-month stopgap spending bill that President Obama is expected to sign into law this week to keep the government funded into next fiscal year presents “serious problems” for the Defense Department, said Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale on Sept. 25....

Kwajalein Gets Fenced In

The Air Force will base its first Space Fence radar site on Kwajalein Island in the Marshall Islands, announced Air Force space officials on Sept. 25. Construction of this site is scheduled to start in September 2013 and take 48...

First Eglin Maintainers Certified for F-35 Engine Runs

The 33rd Training Wing at Eglin AFB, Fla., certified the first maintenance personnel to conduct engine runs on the F-35A strike fighter. Two Air Force crew chiefs and two civilians from Air Force Engineer Technical Services are now cleared to...

F-16s Visit Ellsworth for Training Exercise

South Dakota Air National Guard F-16s flew long-range strike sorties from Ellsworth AFB, S.D., dropping live ordnance over the Utah Test and Training Range last week. Six F-16s of the 175th Fighter Squadron deployed, along with 90 airmen, from Sioux...

Five Hundred Raptor Engines

Pratt & Whitney recently delivered the 500th F119 turbofan built for the F-22 Raptor fleet and is slated to wrap up production of the fifth generation powerplant by year’s end, announced the company on Sept. 25. The F119 also recently...

Flying WiFi Hotspot

The Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman a $20 million contract to add beyond-line-of-sight command and control functions on one of its E-11A communications-relay aircraft, announced the company. BLOS C2 allows the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node-equipped jet to spread “wireless Internet...

GPS III Program Thrusts Forward

Lockheed Martin delivered the propulsion core module for the first GPS III satellite to the company’s facility in Denver, representing the first major hardware delivery for the space vehicle, announced the company. The module, which arrived from Lockheed Martin’s facility...

Sequestration and Small Businesses

Nearly half of the estimated 2.14 million US jobs that could be lost in 2013 due to budget sequestration would come from small businesses, according to new analysis supported by the Aerospace Industries Association. This new research updates the AIA-chartered study released in July by George Mason University economist Stephen Fuller that projected the nationwide job losses due to sequestration's severe federal spending cuts. Fuller's new research estimates that 956,181 of the lost jobs would come from companies with 500 or fewer employees. "This is a crucial finding given the importance of small business job creation to the economy and their role as sources of innovation for national defense," stated Fuller in a Sept. 20 release posted at the website of Second to None, an AIA-funded public education and action campaign. "At a time when our leaders are calling for policies to help small businesses boost their capacity for job creation, sequestration threatens to drain the economy of a vital source of economic growth and innovation," added AIA President and CEO Marion Blakey in a Sept. 20 release.

World War II Memorial Dedicated in Britain

The British Princess Royal, Princess Anne, dedicated a memorial in Greenham Common, Britain, to the US airmen and troops who were based in the area during World War II and died during the conflict. The princess dedicated three memorial stones...