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26 Jan 15. Raytheon Files 3DELRR suit against Air Force. Raytheon has filed a suit against the US Air Force in hopes of blocking a service decision to reevaluate a major radar contract awarded to the Massachusetts-based company. The company seeks to prevent the service from revisiting its Three Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar (3DELRR) contract award, which was given to Raytheon on Oct. 6 of last year. “On January 26, 2015, Raytheon filed an action in the Court of Federal Claims seeking to preserve the Air Force’s contract award,” company spokesman Michael Nachshen wrote in response to a query from Defense News. “We believe the Air Force awarded the procurement to Raytheon in a properly conducted bid process and we remain confident in our 3DELRR solution.” The Air Force selected Raytheon over Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. Both competitors quickly filed protests with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), setting off a 100-day protest period in which the GAO investigated whether the Air Force properly selected its winner. Days before that 100-day window was to run out, the Air Force voluntarily announced it would reevaluate the contract award, a move that likely signified the service expected the GAO to side with one of the protesting companies. That reevaluation period is expected to take around four months, and could lead to a total recompetition of the program. However, if the Court of Federal Claims sides with Raytheon, it would maintain the decision to give Raytheon the contract. A spokesman for the Air Force did not immediately return a request for comment. The 3DELRR program will replace the service’s aging TPS-75 expeditionary radars with a planned 35 new systems. The radar was the first to be awarded under the Pentagon’s Defense Exportability Features Initiative, which aims to bake in exportability to defense programs at the early stages of development. (Source: Defense News)
28 Jan 15. Collision avoidance upgrade for UK Tornados delayed by developmental problems. The UK’s plans to field a new collision warning system (CWS) for its fleet of Panavia Tornado GR.4 strike aircraft are being delayed due to development problems, it was disclosed on 28 January. Answering questions in the House of Commons, Philip Dunne, parliamentary under-secretary of state for defence, said that trials of the system have shown that modifications are required to existing aircraft hardware and software in order to ensure compatibility with the Honeywell Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) II. “Work is continuing to resolve these issues and once further trials and testing has been completed we will be in a better position to determine when the full capability will be available,” he said, adding: “The Ministry of Defence [MoD] is committed to obtaining early beneficial use of TCAS II and is embodying the system in as many Tornado GR.4 aircraft as possible to operate, initially, in Traffic Advisory mode.” BAE Systems was awarded the contract to install the new CWS in December 2012, with the aim of fielding it operationally across the first of approximately 100 remaining Tornado GR.4 aircraft (of which some 58 make up the forward fleet) by the end of 2014. Two aircraft were delivered to the company’s facility at Warton in August 2013 for the trial installation of the modification, but at the end of 2014 Dunne conceded that the programme was behind schedule. According to Dunne, just eight aircraft had been equipped with TCAS II by 23 January, although it is not clear if these have had the hardware and software modifications needed for the system to function correctly. Questions relating to the installation of CWS systems on RAF aircraft were raised by Angus Robertson, shadow defence spokesperson for the Scottish National Party, whose constituency of Moray was th