DefenceTalkLockheed Martin has received a $71 million Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) modification contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to conduct air- and surface-launched flight tests and other risk reduction activities. Under this contract, an additional air-launched LRASM flight test will be conducted from a B-1B in 2013. There are already two […]https://www.defencetalk.com/lockheed-receives-long-range-anti-ship-missile-contract-from-darpa-47064/

DefenceTalkPatria delivered the first Patria AMV armoured wheeled vehicles to the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV). This was the first delivery of altogether 113 Patria AMV armoured wheeled vehicles to the Swedish Defence Forces, based on the agreement signed with FMV in 2010. The total value of the contract is approximately EUR 250 million. “The […]https://www.defencetalk.com/patria-delivers-next-generation-armoured-wheeled-vehicles-to-sweden-47062/

DefenceTalkThe U.S. Army’s Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft system recently completed a successful initial operational testing and evaluation at the Army’s National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. During the initial operational testing and evaluation, or IOT&E, the Gray Eagle platform was operated from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and employed in an operational and realistic […]https://www.defencetalk.com/gray-eagle-completes-initial-operational-testing-evaluation-47057/

DefenceTalkA huge helium-filled airship with military and commercial uses has been unveiled near Los Angeles. It is still experimental, but a full-sized working model should be finished in a few years. The prototype unveiled in this immense World War II hangar near Los Angeles is just half the size of the final working model. But […]https://www.defencetalk.com/giant-airship-could-move-huge-amounts-of-cargo-47052/

DefenceTalkLarge and sudden U.S. spending cuts and an unstable budget environment promise long-term damage to a critical segment of the defense industrial base, the Defense Department’s top maintenance official recently told a congressional panel. John Johns, deputy assistant secretary of defense for maintenance policy and programs, testified last week before the House Armed Services readiness […]https://www.defencetalk.com/budget-cuts-threaten-defense-industrial-base-official-says-47050/

DefenceTalkThree Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft are presently operational in the Indian Air Force (IAF). AWACS are meant as force multipliers for specific area cover and not for surveillance of the entire space of our country. All three AWACS are part of Network Centric Operations and are able to provide adequate coverage of […]https://www.defencetalk.com/india-to-develop-own-awacs-aircraft-47048/

DefenceTalkBeggars can’t be choosers. When a government accumulates trillion-dollar deficits year after year, eventually there is a day of reckoning. For the U.S. military, that day is now. Although the Pentagon continues to see a global landscape brimming with security challenges, it appears the political system has stopped listening. Or perhaps it just prefers the […]https://www.defencetalk.com/defense-downturn-which-missions-will-go-away-47055/

DefenceTalkA high-tech Mars Rover vehicle is operated by processors from the last century. In this respect, games consoles are head and shoulders above them. It was with this metaphor that EADS’s CEO, Tom Enders, confronted the participants at the opening ceremony of this year’s CeBIT trade show. Enders presented ‘Bridget’, the futuristic Mars Rover on […]https://www.defencetalk.com/eads-we-need-to-close-the-innovation-gap-between-aerospace-and-it-47059/

DefenceTalkChina’s national legislature declined to announce the country’s 2013 defence budget at a press conference Monday, in a departure from normal practice the day before its annual session opens. Fu Ying, spokeswoman for the National People’s Congress (NPC), which begins Tuesday, responded with frustration when she was asked about military spending at a press conference […]https://www.defencetalk.com/china-legislature-declines-to-reveal-defence-spending-47045/

DefenceTalkF-35 Lightning IIs were cleared for flight Feb. 28 following a temporary suspension after a cracked engine blade was found in a test aircraft earlier in the month. A .06-inch crack was discovered in a third-stage turbine blade in a test aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Feb. 19. Third-stage blades are located deep […]https://www.defencetalk.com/f-35s-cleared-to-resume-flight-47043/