LOCATIONS

LAND

28 Feb 14. A former London Underground tube station used during the Second World War as a command centre has been sold for £53m, Defence Minister Andrew Murrison has announced. The unique property at 206 Brompton Road was put on the market in September last year by the MoD. It is expected the property will now be used for a predominantly residential development and the money raised will be ploughed back into the Defence budget. The tube station, which was opened in 1906 and designed by English architect Leslie Green, closed in 1934 after London Underground decided it was no longer financially viable. The building was later taken over by the War Office and used as an anti-aircraft operations room.

27 Feb 14. Lockheed Martin broke ground for its Pike County Operations’ Long Range Strike Systems cruise missile production annex in Troy, Ala. The planned 62,000 square-foot annex will expand the existing 92,000-square-foot manufacturing facility where the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) is produced. The facility also produced test missiles for the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) development program. Construction is slated for completion by first quarter 2015. The expansion, a response to an increased demand for Lockheed Martin’s cruise missiles, is expected to increase employment by approximately 10 percent over the next few years. The facility employs approximately 300 full-time employees and over 100 contractors.

26 Feb 14. United Technologies Corp will build a new headquarters for its Pratt & Whitney jet engine division in Connecticut as part of a commitment to keep operations in the state, Governor Dannel Malloy’s office said on Wednesday. United Technologies has committed to keep its Pratt headquarters in Connecticut for at least 15 years and its headquarters for its Sikorsky helicopter unit in the state for at least five years, the governor’s office said. The company will also build a new Pratt engineering “center of excellence” in the state. (Source: Open Source Information Report/Reuters)

25 Feb 14. UPDF Air Wing to move main base. Uganda will begin moving its main air base from Entebbe International Airport just south of Kampala to Nakasongola in the centre of the country in March, the country’s New Vision newspaper reported on 23 February. It was revealed during Museveni’s visit to Entebbe that the UPDF has acquired a flight simulator to train its Su-30 pilots. President Yoweri Museveni expressed his approval of the plan during an air force graduation ceremony at Entebbe on 21 February. “A lion stays in the wilderness, not in town. If you see a lion staying in town, that means it is in a zoo. It is only proper that you move to Nakasongola,” New Vision quoted him as saying. Museveni added that the move would reduce the risk of accidents at Entebbe, which is also used as Kampala’s international airport and as the main hub for UN air operations in the region. Built during Idi Amin’s presidency in the 1970s, Nakasongola Air Base has a 3 km runway and taxiway, yet the Ugandan People’s Defence Force (UPDF) Air Wing currently has no aircraft stationed there. Satellite imagery shows the construction of the main hangar has been completed and another three buildings have been built nearby since January 2011, but more work needs to be done before it can operate Uganda’s Sukhoi Su-30MK2 multirole fighters. (Source: IHS Jane’s)

24 Feb 14. Amid India’s quest to modernize its deteriorating state-owned ordnance factories, it is seeking help from overseas companies — a move that’s putting domestic defense companies on notice. The modernization program, which was approved last month and slated to begin in April, will involve all of India’s 41 state-owned ordnance factories and will cost more than US $2.5bn, according to a source in the Indian Defence
Ministry. The five-year modernization program is expected to create stiff competition with domestic private-sector companies, forcing t