Author Archives: Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D
V-22 Osprey Production Is Headed For A Premature Shutdown If Congress Doesn’t Act (From Forbes) Boeing and Bell/Textron are approaching completion of their last CMV-22B Ospreys for the Navy. Unless Congress intervenes to buy more, the production line will shut down in 2025. There is good reason to believe the Navy has under-estimated how many [Read More...]
Why Leidos Believes It Is A Good Cultural Fit For The JADC2 Challenge (From Forbes) Under CEO Roger Krone, Leidos has fashioned itself as a different kind of defense contractor–not a hardware-centric builder of major weapons, but a software-centric product of the information age. The strategy has seemed to work well, and now the Pentagon [Read More...]
Oshkosh Protest Of Joint Light Tactical Vehicle Award Focuses On Price Realism And Risk (From Forbes) Oshkosh Corporation, the current manufacturer of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, has filed a protest of the Army’s decision to award a follow-on production contract to rival AM General. Oshkosh argues that the pricing in the AM General proposal was [Read More...]
Why GD’s Electric Boat Is A Pivotal Player In U.S. Security Plans (From Forbes) The Electric Boat unit of General Dynamics is a global leader in the design, engineering and integration of nuclear-powered submarines. That makes it especially relevant to U.S. security policy during an era of great-power competition. The Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, [Read More...]
Army Failure To Embrace Chinook Helicopter Upgrades Endangers Industrial Base (From Forbes) The Army continues to resist funding Block II upgrades to the CH-47F Chinook helicopter, even though there is no alternative waiting in the wings. Chinook is the Army’s only heavy lifter, and it is also the fastest rotorcraft in the [Read More...]
Pentagon Plan For Amphibious Warships Would Violate Law, Hobble Crisis Response (From Forbes) The Pentagon’s fiscal 2024 budget request calls for termination of one class of amphibious vessels and stretching out of another, while nonetheless retiring three aged amphibs. The end result is that the size of the amphibious fleet would fall to [Read More...]
Market Trends Signal Blue Skies Ahead For Boeing Commercial Airplanes (From Forbes) The commercial-transport unit of Boeing has escaped from the twin traumas of aircraft failures and a global pandemic to enter what looks to be a period of steady growth. Air travel is reverting to pre-pandemic levels around the world, and [Read More...]
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall Makes The Right Call On F-35 Fighter Propulsion (From Forbes) Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall disclosed on March 13 that his service will not pursue development of a new engine for the F-35A fighter. The case had been made that a more powerful engine was needed to support Block 4 [Read More...]
Amazon Presses For Level Playing Field On Which To Compete With SpaceX’s Starlink (From Forbes) Amazon is working on a constellation of satellites that would compete with SpaceX’s Starlink in delivering broadband internet to terrestrial users. This may be the best opportunity consumers have for fostering competition in an emerging market, demonstrating that big companies [Read More...]
Pentagon Needs To Complete Fielding Of DAIRCM Countermeasures System To Combat Helicopters (From RealClearDefense) Eight years ago, the Joint Chiefs of Staff identified an urgent need to equip combat helicopters in the joint force with effective countermeasures against portable surface-to-air missiles. Many light or medium helicopters still lack that protection, although a solution to [Read More...]