19 Mar 15. The Expected USAF Trainer Solicitation Is Out. USAF released a solicitation of questions and responses from industry for its Advanced Pilot Training Family of Systems program. More commonly referred to as the T-X, the program has garnered much attention from the likes of Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Saab, as well as General Dynamics and Alenia Aermacchi. The Air Force recently lowered the requirements for the new trainer aircraft, following the original notice in June 2012. (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Defense Industry Daily)
19 Mar 15. US Navy’s Next Generational Nuclear Submarine Fund has no money. The Navy and Congress have yet to find money for a newly created account designed to pay for the services’ fleet of next-generation nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines slated to begin service in 2031 – the Ohio Replacement Program. The special fund is a product of the concern from lawmakers and admirals that the cost of the Ohio Replacement program would bankrupt the rest of the Navy’s shipbuilding budget.
As a result, the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act established the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund – a special account created specifically to fund the Ohio Replacement program. However, Congress has yet to assign any funding to the account.
“We need to have some processes in place in order to make sure you are ready to go and there is money in this fund,” Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said Wednesday at a Senate Armed Services Committee’s Navy shipbuilding hearing.
Service leaders told lawmakers there are not enough funds in the services’ shipbuilding accounts to move any over into the new fund for the Ohio Replacement.
“We need to work with you all (Congress) to put this fund to work. Right now it is a framework without funding in it. What was authorized was to use other funds from shipbuilding to go into the Sea Based Deterrence Fund,” said Navy acquisition executive Sean Stackley. “Today, we don’t have other funds from shipbuilding to move into that fund –particularly to the magnitude needed for the Ohio Replacement program.”
Slated to serve through 2085, the Ohio Replacement program, a so-called SSBN, is scheduled to begin construction by 2021. Requirements work, technical specifications and early prototyping have already been underway at General Dynamics Electric Boat. Designed to be 560-feet–long and house 16 Trident II D5 missiles fired from 44-foot-long missile tubes, Ohio Replacement submarines will be engineered as a stealthy, high-tech nuclear deterrent. Production for the lead ship in a planned fleet of 12 Ohio Replacement submarines is expected to cost $12.4bn — $4.8bn in non-recurring engineering or development costs and $7.6bn in ship construction, the plan states. The Navy hopes to build Ohio Replacement submarine numbers two through 12 for $4.9bn each.
Detailed design for the first Ohio Replacement Program is slated for 2017. The new submarines are being engineered to quietly patrol the undersea domain and function as a crucial strategic deterrent, assuring a second strike or retaliatory nuclear capability in the event of nuclear attack. Vice Adm. Joseph Mulloy, deputy chief of Naval Operations, Integration of Capabilities and Resources, explained that undersea nuclear deterrence also relies on communication with the E-6 Mercury – a militarized version of the Boeing’s 707 civilian airliner that serves as a command and control platform for the Navy’s ballistic missile submarine fleet.
“We have 15 of them and they fly airborne national command post missions and they relay strategic communication from the President to the SSBNs in time of emergency,” Mulloy said.
The Navy’s most recent 30-year shipbuilding plan, called the “Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for FY2015,” breaks required funding for future ships into three ten-year blocks.
The plan specifies that the Navy will need to increase from $17.2bn per year to $19.7bn