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Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Air Force F-35 buy would be cut in half under Pentagon spending plan
The Air Force would cut its F-35A purchase for fiscal 2026 roughly in half under the White House's draft defense budget. The service typically buys about four dozen Joint Strike Fighters each year, with some years' purchases topping 60. But a budget document obtained by Defense News shows the service would procure 24 F-35s next year, for a cost of nearly $4 billion. That is less than the 44 F-35s, costing $4.8 billion, the Air Force is on track to buy this year, and the 51 jets worth $5.5 billion the service bought in 2024. And while the number of jets the Air Force plans to buy would drop by 45% between 2025 and 2026, the savings would lag far behind. The cost of the F-35 purchases in 2026 would drop less than 18% over the 2025 cost, suggesting economies of scale would suffer from the reduced buy. The slow emergence of budget documents and administration spending plans in this way is highly unusual, even for an administration in its first months. Proposed budgets for the upcoming fiscal year are often released formally sometime in the spring and accompanied by briefings explaining the spending plans. But President Donald Trump's administration has not rolled out its full budget proposal for fiscal 2026, though it has trickled out broad outlines of spending plans. The House Appropriations subcommittee on defense advanced Tuesday its own version of a Defense Department spending bill that looks closer to a typical F-35 purchasing plan. That bill would provide $4.5 billion for the Air Force to buy 42 F-35As, as well as another $1.9 billion for the Marine Corps to buy 13 short takeoff and vertical landing F-35Bs. Another $2 billion was included for the Navy and Marine Corps to buy the F-35C carrier variant. While the Air Force has sought to pare back some F-35 purchases in recent years, primarily due to dissatisfaction with delayed upgrades known as Technology Refresh 3, the apparent plan to slash purchases to this degree would be a surprise. Top Air Force leaders have stressed consistently that the F-35 is the centerpiece of its fighter fleet. Some have referred to it as a 'quarterback' that uses advanced data sharing capabilities to tie together multiple assets. The Air Force's fighter fleet is rapidly aging, and older F-15s and F-16s are retiring. Air Force leaders have often said the service needs to buy at least 72 fighters each year to modernize its aircraft and bring down the average age of its fleet. US Air Force warns of aging fighters, poor purchasing efforts Buying 24 F-35As, along with 21 F-15EX fighters also budgeted in the Pentagon's plan, would leave the Air Force far short of that goal in 2026. The Air Force's future budget plans, which it released last year, included proposals to buy 42 F-35As in 2026, 47 apiece in 2027 and 2028, and 48 in 2029. The service eventually wants to buy a total of 1,763 F-35As. Doug Birkey, executive director for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said in an interview that cutting F-35 purchases this severely would be disastrous to the Air Force and irrevocably set it further back in its effort to modernize its fighter fleet. 'There's no way the Air Force or the nation can afford to bring down the fighter buy rate,' Birkey told Defense News. 'The legacy [fighter] assets are rapidly failing due to age, and we need 72 fighters per year just to tread water ... We will never regain the time.' A reduction in F-35 purchases would also throw the supplier base for the jet into disarray, Birkey said, not just Lockheed Martin, but also the more than 1,900 other companies that feed its supply chain. Without consistent targets to work toward every year, the supplier base will get 'whiplashed around,' he said. 'Everyone says we need to rebuild the defense industrial base, but this is not how you do it,' Birkey said. 'The workforce, access to long-lead supply — everything that's required for maintaining the ability to produce [F-35s] and surge [when more production is necessary], you destroy it through cuts like this.' Birkey said the Pentagon is likely considering such drastic cuts due to rising expenses that are squeezing its budget, but he expects Congress will ultimately bring the F-35 buy rate back up to normal. Trump has spoken highly of the F-35 and its stealth capabilities in the past. Former Trump adviser Elon Musk has been a prominent skeptic of crewed fighters such as the F-35, calling them 'obsolete in the age of drones.' Musk has dramatically and publicly fallen out of favor with the administration in recent weeks amid his criticism of the president's signature spending bill. Lockheed Martin's stock dropped more than 6% after news broke Wednesday of the possible purchase cut, although the company has since pared back some of that loss. The Air Force did not respond to a request for comment.
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Leaning on civilian sales, Airbus pushes H145M helicopter in Poland
PARIS — Airbus Helicopters is looking to translate success in Poland selling rotorcraft for civilian and para-public markets into military orders, offering the H145M as a versatile option for light attack and training missions, the company's head of sales for Eastern Europe said. The twin-engine H145 can serve as an advanced training platform, bridging the gap to heavier helicopters acquired by Poland such as the Apache, while being agile and large enough to provide a multi-role capability, Ludovic Boistot, Airbus Helicopters vice president of sales Eastern Europe and CIS, told Defense News in an interview last week ahead of the Paris Air show. 'We are a key partner to Poland, but in the civil and para-public sectors,' Boistot said. 'We are trying to demonstrate that Airbus Helicopters is a good partner, also for defense.' The bid to sell the H145 light utility helicopter comes more than eight years after Poland scrapped a purchase of Airbus H225M tactical-transport helicopters, following a change of government, and prompting a legal fight by Airbus for compensation. Now the company is again looking to sell military helicopters to Poland, as the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk signals openness to closer security cooperation with European partners including on defense procurement. The Airbus Helicopters presence in the civilian market means the company has the setup to support Poland, according to Boistot. Airbus, Babcock and CAE signed a memorandum of understanding last month to partner on providing the Polish Air Force with H145M helicopters, training and simulation. The company strategy in Poland is to be a partner, and Airbus Helicopters has trained more than 130 engineers there that work on key programs, according to Boistot. With European countries looking to develop their sovereignty, Airbus wants to propose a solution where local Polish entities have all capabilities to perform maintenance on the H145 and can integrate components, he said. 'In terms of cooperation, we have always been here, even if the defense market was not yet successful for us,' Boistot said. The Polish Ministry of National Defence last year announced plans to buy 24 helicopters for pilot training that could partly replace the military's Soviet-era Mil Mi-2 rotorcraft. The Polish Armed Forces own less than 60 such helicopters, not all of them operational. Poland upgraded 16 Mi-2s in 2018, enabling the military to use them for training purposes. The H145 will be a 'key element' in Poland, and Airbus Helicopters is sizing up local partners to address the Polish needs 'in a structured way,' Boistot said. He said the approach to partnerships in Eastern Europe will vary from country to country, and the fact that Poland has local industry means working together makes sense. The time frame and technical specification for the potential purchase of training helicopters are yet to be disclosed, a spokesman for the defense ministry told Defense News. Separately, Poland's armaments agency on Friday announced that it cancelled a procurement process to buy an additional 32 Black Hawk helicopters. A previous government led by Tusk decided in 2015 to buy 50 H225M Caracal helicopters from Airbus, but the purchase was canceled the following year after the right-wing Law and Justice party took over power in Poland. As Poland ramps up defense spending in response to a threatening Russia, upgrading its helicopter fleet is one of the key modernization programs. In August 2024, Warsaw ordered 96 AH-64E Apache helicopters in a deal worth about $10 billion, with manufacturer Boeing scheduled to start deliveries in 2028. With the H145 a reference in Europe in the light utility-helicopter segment, the Polish military buying the model would allow for interoperability and create opportunities for inter-governmental cooperation, according to Boistot. Some competitors are offering to provide the entire helicopter and training package, whereas Airbus chose to work with Babcock and CAE rather than handle everything itself, something that Boistot said would have been difficult due to the complexity. Whereas Leonardo has a local manufacturing presence, Airbus Helicopters is counting on knowledge transfer and training engineers locally as a key selling point, according to Boistot. He also said the Leonardo offer may be less suitable for the multi-role capability. 'We are quite confident that the solution we propose would make sense, and I think it's also good for Poland at some point of time to work with Airbus Helicopters on defense,' Boistot said. Manned-unmanned teaming, combining helicopters and drones, is another key selling point for Poland and Eastern Europe more broadly, according to the executive. Airbus is 'quite advanced' on helicopters cooperating with drones, having performed multiple tests of crewed-uncrewed teaming, Boistot said. Countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia still operate hundreds of Soviet-era helicopter designs such as the Mi-8, Mi-17 and Mi-24, and will be a key growth market for helicopters, according to Boistot. Ukraine may also have to replace a lot of Mi-type helicopters, depending on how the war goes, he said. The Airbus Helicopter head of sales for Eastern Europe said his team is 'super busy,' with 'a lot going on for most of the platforms.' The H225 'remains a strong asset,' and prospects for sales in other countries look 'promising,' Boistot said, declining to comment on whether countries in Eastern Europe are interested in the model. The executive said Airbus does not currently have a campaign to sell the helicopter in Poland, but would 'happy to explain what our offer is now.'
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Back to basics: Army revamps flight school after deadly crashes
In the wake of a string of deadly military aviation accidents over the past several years, the U.S. Army is launching a major overhaul of how it trains new pilots that focuses on getting back to the basics. The overhaul includes rethinking the type of aircraft used for training, along with a likely shift to a contractor-owned-and-operated schoolhouse. 'I think I have one sacred responsibility and that is to deliver competent aviators to the government,' Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, commander of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence Command, said at an Army aviation conference in Nashville, Tennessee, last month. 'I'm not sure that I'm doing that in spades right now.' The fatal Jan. 29 collision of a U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet near Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., and a spate of Army aviation mishaps over the last several years have been at the forefront of the minds of Army aviation leaders as they attempt to rein in the crisis and improve aviation safety. In addition to other efforts to try to reemphasize a culture of rigorous training and safety, the Army began taking a hard look at redeveloping its basic training program at Fort Novosel, Alabama, fueled by the most mishap-heavy years in Army aviation history since 2007. The Army found inexperienced crews were 'out-driving their headlights, out-training the experience that was in their force at whatever level,' then-commander of the AACE, Maj. Gen. Mac McCurry, told Defense News on a 2024 trip to Fort Novosel, Alabama, home of Army aviation training. Now, the Army is in hyperdrive to reimagine how it trains aviators in an increasingly complex world where combat proficiency is waning and experience gaps at the highest levels are growing. The motivation to make changes was compounded by the Army's decision in 2013 to retire its TH-67 training aircraft and replace them with more expensive LUH-72A Lakota light utility twin-engine helicopters. The decision was a matter of necessity. The Army faced the choice of either needing to comply with congressional sequestration requirements that mandated cutting every program evenly across the board or making tough choices internally to avoid making salami slices across its budget. But critics worried the Lakota was too exquisite and pricey for basic training. 'It is a very good helicopter,' Gill told Defense News in a recent interview. 'But in some cases, it assists the student in things that we wouldn't want the student assisted in.' For instance, the automated flight control system 'will help you with heading control. If you jumped in a very simple aircraft … if you don't push the pedal commensurate with how you apply the collective, you will start spinning in a circle and then if you push too much, you go the other way,' Gill said. 'So that's the first time you learn to hover. It's a little bit of that dance. They don't have that challenge in the Lakota because it helps them.' Army aviators coming out of basic training now 'don't have that early struggle, where you really have to kind of learn to control the airplane,' he added. The easier-to-fly Lakotas are also turning out to be harder to maintain. Airbus, the Lakota's manufacturer, is headquartered in France. Calling in a company maintenance engineer when a fleet-wide issue needs to be addressed is sometimes up against the tyranny of distance, Gill said. A twin-engine helicopter also requires twice the components. 'You don't need to be a helicopter pilot or mechanic to understand that there are more things to maintain,' Gill said. 'Sometimes that means more things can break.' The Lakota has cost the Army roughly $3,000 per flight hour, which is nearly the same as the Army's UH-60 Black Hawk, Gill said. Some of the training aircraft that the Army is taking a look at now could potentially cost between $500 and $1,300 an hour. In 2020, the Army commissioned a study through Boston Consulting Group that determined the service could save 'hundreds of millions of dollars' by transitioning to a single-engine trainer. An additional study with a College of William & Mary MBA fellowship program determined that a contractor-owned, contractor-operated, or COCO, model would be preferable to the current government-owned and operated method. Boston Consulting has been rehired, Gill said, to dive deeper into a business case analysis for a basic aviator training COCO model. The Army is now running a pilot program with Robinson Helicopter that began at the beginning of April where it is sending some of its current flight students to Gainesville, Florida, to learn to fly using a Robinson R66 helicopter and to go through a Federal Aviation Administration private pilot training program. As part of the program, the students will log five solo flight hours. An FAA private helicopter certification requires 10 hours. 'I think that flying in that unsupervised fashion is just critically important to the development of the mature aviator that we expect we would generate out of the world's greatest flight training program. The FAA is doing it, why in the world wouldn't we do it with Army aviators,' Gill said. 'So the question is what's going to happen on the back end of that final program? Are we going to produce a less proficient aviator than I'm building at Fort Novosel in the UH-72,' Gill asked. 'I'm very interested in what this pilot program is going to tell us,' he said. Should the Army choose a COCO model to train its aviators, much of the daily headaches schoolhouse leaders face would transfer to the company hired to train them. 'The brilliance of the COCO model is that it's not my thing to worry about,' Gill said. 'Now all I say is, 'I want 1,350 pilots at the end of the year; you figure out how.'' The number of helicopters needed in the fleet, maintenance requirements, the number of instructor pilots and their experience levels and every other aspect of training aviators will be determined by an industry partner. Industry will need to come with the tools that produce solid aviators. 'The need for better stick and rudder skills is at the core of both battle readiness and even just safety,' David Smith, Robinson Helicopter CEO, told Defense News in a recent interview. 'We talk about a high degree of automation in some of these products that doesn't produce a great stick and rudder aviator.' Opting for a simpler helicopter, like the R66, will also 'drastically reduce the cost,' Smith said, 'because our products just don't have as many things that can fail, so they tend to be more reliable in service.' Textron's Bell is also looking to get back into the Army aviation training game after the service retired its TH-67 in favor of the Lakota. 'We fully intend to give them a turnkey contractor-owned, contractor-operated flight school solution,' Carl Coffman, Bell's vice president of military sales and strategy, told Defense News at the Army Aviation Association of America's annual conference last month. Bell is pitching its 505 Jet Ranger X as part of the package, but Coffman said, 'We're not trying to sell the Army an aircraft. I'm trying to sell you a service.' Lockheed Martin also announced last month it would be pitching a turnkey solution. The Army spends roughly $1.5 billion to run its flight school annually and produces 1,350 aviators, Gill said. To transition to a new flight program, the Army will have to, for a time, pay to keep Lakotas in the fleet, he acknowledged. 'The challenge for the Army is, in order to do this, it costs more money up front,' he said. The Army announced last month it would be ending some programs, consolidating commands and restructuring formations, including eliminating 11 air cavalry squadrons from the force. Gill sees opportunity in the elimination of those squadrons. Money freed from operational flight hours could potentially go toward training hours instead. Industry also has to be prepared to 'own a good amount of the risk,' in addition to the funding the Army would provide to establish the new training program, Gill said. The Army wants to move quickly to establish the program. Gill said the plan is to release a draft request for proposals this month. Another industry day will be held in July where companies can bring their capabilities for demonstration opportunities. Then the service will release a final request for proposal in the fall or winter of calendar year 2025 and evaluate proposals in 2026. 'I would like to get this thing going early in [fiscal] 2027,' Gill said. Companies have estimated they could likely get a program up and running within two years, but Gill said he has directed industry to try to truncate that timeline by half. 'We cannot do this fast enough,' he said.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Poland, Baltic states eye new submarines, attack boats to deter Russia
WARSAW, Poland — Poland and the Baltic states are accelerating efforts to acquire new submarines and vessels that will broaden their capabilities suitable for the sea's shallow waters. In Poland, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the country's deputy prime minister and defense minister, has said his ministry aims to order between three and four new submarines for the Polish Navy until the end of this year. The planned procurement, which is pursued under the Orka (Orca) program, is deemed urgent, as the country's naval forces rely on a single Soviet-designed submarine, the Kilo-class ORP Orzel, whose outdated technology and equipment makes it incompatible with the requirements of modern naval warfare. While a number of countries are competing to secure the potential order from Warsaw, the ministry has disclosed that its experts assigned the highest scores to the offers placed by Germany, Sweden and Italy. In 2023, Poland unveiled that 11 entities took part in a market consultation. Known competitors include France's Naval Group, German ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, Italy's Fincantieri, Spain's Navantia, South Korea's Hanwha Ocean and Hyundai, Sweden's Saab, and the U.K.'s Babcock. A spokesperson for the Polish ministry told Defense News that, while three offers have received the highest scores from the Polish Armaments Agency, the military's procurement arm, the remaining submarines have not been discarded amid ongoing talks with foreign governments. 'Currently, government-level talks are being held. Following the decision of the Technical Modernization Council, the Armaments Agency will take steps with the aim to acquire these submarines,' the spokesperson said. Meanwhile, Latvia and Lithuania have joined forces to buy multipurpose attack boats from Finnish shipbuilder Marine Alutech. Under the Common Future Multipurpose Attack Craft (CFMAC) program, the shipyard is to develop and deliver combat vessels based on the Watercat M18 design to the two Baltic States' militaries. 'This contract is the second step after the 2024 Technical Agreement between Latvia, Lithuania and Finland to strengthen regional defense. Under this contract, Lithuania will acquire two advanced Fast Multirole Attack Crafts from Marine Alutech,' the Finnish shipbuilder said in a statement. A spokesperson for the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defence told Defense News the two multirole attack craft that are to be built for the country's Navy will be integrated into the Coastal Defense Battalion. The acquisition 'will significantly enhance Lithuania's naval defense capabilities. These vessels will feature advanced combat systems, including Spike NLOS missile launchers and a remote heavy machine gun control system, which will enable them to engage both maritime and land-based targets effectively,' the ministry's representative said. 'Furthermore, the boats are specially designed for operations in shallow waters, allowing them to perform missions in areas such as the Curonian Lagoon, where conventional vessels may struggle. This unique design and propulsion system will ensure that Lithuania can maintain a rapid response capacity for a variety of threats, ranging from asymmetric warfare to traditional defense operations,' the spokesperson added. The vessels are scheduled to enter service in the Lithuanian Navy in late 2026. 'The Lithuanian Ministry of National Defence has plans to further expand and modernize naval capabilities in the coming years. Between 2030 and 2037, Lithuania is preparing for a progressive modernization of its naval fleet,' said the ministry representative. 'This initiative will include the acquisition of new multirole offshore patrol vessels, which will be equipped with advanced capabilities to address evolving security challenges.' Based in Teijo, on the Finnish Baltic Sea shore, Marine Alutech says that its shipyard has built more than 500 vessels since 1985.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Behemoth Golden Dome may face lackluster scrutiny in Trump's Pentagon
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's decision this week to cut more than half of the Pentagon's test and evaluation office personnel was driven, in part, by concerns over the office's plans to provide testing oversight for the Trump administration's $175 billion Golden Dome missile defense project, multiple sources told Defense News. In a memo released Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced plans to restructure the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, known as DOT&E, and reduce its 94-person staff to 46 — a mix of civilians, military personnel and one senior executive. The memo also put an end to all contractor support to the office. The decision sparked concerns from some congressional Democrats, including Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed, D-RI, who called the move 'reckless and damaging.' 'With staffing reduced to a skeleton crew and limited contractor backing, DOT&E may be unable to provide adequate oversight for critical military programs, risking operational readiness and taxpayer dollars,' Reed said in a statement. 'This kind of politically motivated interference undermines independent oversight and leaves warfighters and the public more vulnerable to untested, potentially flawed systems.' Hegseth said the reorganization is tied to the Pentagon's 'America First' strategy and was backed by an internal review that identified 'redundant, non-statutory functions' within the office. The analysis, he said, found that reducing personnel could save more than $300 million per year. But multiple sources familiar with the decision and granted anonymity to speak freely told Defense News the circumstances are more complicated than the scenario the secretary described in his memo. They pointed to perennial tensions between the military services and the office, stoked in recent months by an atmosphere of touting quick, programmatic successes that is antithetical to the exacting mission of verifying performance claims over time and under varying conditions. The sources also cited senior leadership's frustration with DOT&E's recent decision to add Golden Dome to its 'oversight list' as being the final provocation. 'It's a perfect storm,' one source said. The DOT&E office was created by Congress to provide independent oversight of major defense acquisition programs. Its leaders are required by law to approve testing plans and report results for all Defense Department programs whose total research and development cost exceeds $525 million —in 2020 dollars — or whose procurement is expected to cost more than $3 billion. The list of efforts under DOT&E oversight currently features over 250 programs, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Army's Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon and the Navy's Aegis modernization program. The office's role as an overseer means its recommendations are sometimes unpopular with military service leaders and major defense contractors alike. But the aim of its rigorous, and often arduous, validation is to prevent the department from fielding faulty systems that could put service members in harm's way. Golden Dome's cost — estimated at $175 billion over the next three years — and its complexity make it a clear candidate for DOT&E oversight, the sources said. The process for initiating DOT&E oversight of a program is fairly straightforward, but when DOT&E's Acting Director Raymond O'Toole notified senior leaders in a recent memo that he planned to add Golden Dome to the list, the decision drew an unusual level of scrutiny. Officials worried the office's involvement would slow the program down and drive up its cost. They eventually elevated their concerns to the White House. That extra attention appears linked to President Donald Trump's interest in the program, one source said, noting the office was told the program 'needed to be successful for Mr. Trump.' Golden Dome became the president's signature defense project early in his second term. In a Jan. 27 memo, he directed the Pentagon to draft a plan for a layered network of ground-and space-based interceptors and sensors to detect, track and defeat a range of missile threats. Initially calling the project 'Iron Dome for America' after Israel's missile defense system of the same name, Trump rebranded it to 'Golden Dome' — a nod to his vision for a 'golden age in America' and perhaps his own penchant for the precious metal. In an Oval Office meeting last week, flanked by Hegseth and a top Space Force general — as well as multiple images depicting a map of the U.S. covered in gold — Trump said the Pentagon would deliver 'the best system ever built' before the end of his term. While there is wide agreement among defense officials and outside experts that the U.S. needs a more focused investment in its missile defense architecture, Trump's schedule and cost projections have raised eyebrows. With actual details on the project still slim, some have questioned whether Golden Dome's biggest technological lifts are feasible and worth the long-term cost. 'I don't think we should read much into the $175 billion figure because no details or caveats were provided,' said Todd Harrison, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. 'I want to see something on paper that shows what's included, what's not included, and the time frame of the estimate.' This week's DOT&E cuts likely mean the office will be under-resourced to oversee all of the Defense Department's major programs, let alone Golden Dome. One source familiar with the office speculated the 'drastically reduced' staff could allow the Pentagon to get away with slimming down the office's oversight list. Reduced testing oversight could allow Golden Dome to move faster, but sources said it would be concerning for a program with such high-stakes ambitions to escape scrutiny. 'It would be hundreds of warheads coming in with all kinds of countermeasures, cyber attacks,' another source said. 'That's usually beyond the scope of a program and a service test office to be able to orchestrate all that.'
