This story has probably been posted elsewhere but anyhow….
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Boeing May Make Bid to Supply Fighters to Denmark
By andrew chuter
Published: 13 Mar 18:15 EDT (14:15 GMT) Print | Email

LONDON – Boeing is considering whether to make a late bid for Denmark’s upcoming purchase of fighter jets with the latest version of the F-18E/F Super Hornet.

Boeing may compete to replace Danish F-16s. (MC3 Ricardo J. Reyes / U.S. Navy) The U.S. company made a similar proposal to Nordic neighbor Norway late last year for its fighter contest but was told it was too late.

In a March 13 statement, Danish Defense Minister Soren Gade welcomed the Boeing move.

“More candidates sharpen the competition, thus increasing our possibility to be a good buyer,” he said.

Gade said the Ministry of Defense would soon meet with Boeing to clarify the requirements for Boeing to enter the competition.

A Boeing statement said MoD officials had requested the meeting.

“Denmark has requested information on the capabilities of the Super Hornet, which we plan to deliver later this month. We look forward to better understanding Denmark’s fighter requirements and will determine if an F/A-18E/F solution meets their key requirements following those meetings,” the statement said.

The Danish defense minister is in Washington this week. It is not known whether he will meet with officials from Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.

Denmark is running a competition to replace 48 F-16 fighters. The contest had winnowed to a head-to-head fight between Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter and a new development of the Gripen built by Swedish neighbors Saab.

The Eurofighter Typhoon had been a contender up until late 2007 when EADS suspended its fighter offers to Denmark and Norway. EADS said its decision had been prompted by changes to the bidding process.

Local media reports in Oslo said EADS felt the move had tilted the competition in favor of the U.S. aircraft.

The Norwegian government denied there had been any changes to the rules of the competition Denmark and Norway are both longtime partners in the JSF program.

A spokesman for the Norwegian F-16 replacement fighter project said the door would remain open for EADS to re-enter the competition until April 28, the final date for all three candidates to respond to Oslo’s request for binding information.

The spokesman said Boeing had briefed Norway’s Future Combat Aircraft Capability team Feb. 18 in an attempt to get the Super Hornet added to the bidders list.

“The feedback from the MOD and the project was simple and clear – you are too late. We have three equal candidates – Eurofighter, Gripen and JSF – and have no intention to change this,” he said.

A Eurofighter spokesman said nothing had happened to change its mind and the bids for both countries remain suspended.

Norway is expected to select a winning aircraft by 2009, followed later by Denmark.

The Gripen and Super Hornet could find themselves in competition elsewhere in the Nordic region by the end of the decade.

Finland is starting to consider its future fighter requirements. Buying new aircraft or upgrading the current F-18C/Ds are both options. No decision on how to proceed is expected before 2011.

Nice pic. impressions Tasman, it sets me dreaming of the day when we see the real thing,maybe even tooling up the Derwent. At the point of being a bit picky about the impressions ,both ships seem to be sitting square on the water but there is water in the docking wells. Ah well all that proves is that I have spent quite a lot of time drooling over them.
Tiddles

Senator Grills Allen on Coast Guard Budget
By philip ewing
Published: 6 Mar 16:00 EST (11:00 GMT) Print | Email

U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen went to Capitol Hill on March 6 to make his case for Congress to fully fund his $9.3 billion fiscal 2009 budget request. But the tales of worn-out ships and overworked Coast Guardsmen that Allen has used elsewhere seemed to earn him little sympathy from Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., chairwoman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee on oceans, atmosphere, fisheries and Coast Guard, who asked pointed questions about the lifesaving service’s $24 billion recapitalization portfolio, Deepwater.

In a wide-ranging session, Cantwell said she was worried about the potential for structural problems aboard the first national security cutter, the Bertholf; about the ship’s command and communications suite; that the Coast Guard might not be able to get a refund from its contractors if the cutter were to have endemic problems; about the Coast Guard’s capacity to operate in the Arctic; and that the Coast Guard was spending too much on its new HC-144A Ocean Sentry maritime patrol aircraft.

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“Given all the problems with Deepwater, given all the problems we still would tend to think we haven’t seen yet … we want to make sure that all the assets the Coast Guard is seeking have a proper amount of oversight and attention so we don’t run into the same problems with these assets as with the national security cutters,” Cantwell said of the Ocean Sentry and the other new Deepwater vessels and aircraft.

In each case, Allen acknowledged Cantwell’s concerns or explained that he thought Coast Guardsmen had taken the best measures to resolve the problems. He reiterated his enthusiasm for the Bertholf as a highly capable new ship, explained that the Ocean Sentry had played a crucial role recently in rescuing an Air Force pilot after two F-15s collided over the Gulf of Mexico and said generally that he thought the Coast Guard had turned a corner in managing Deepwater.

Stephen Caldwell, director of homeland security and justice investigations for the Government Accountability Office, said he mostly agreed that the Coast Guard was doing better in managing its acquisitions. He appeared with Allen and released a new GAO report on the fiscal 2009 Coast Guard budget at the subcommittee hearing.

During the hearing, Cantwell referred often to the Coast Guard “Alternatives Analysis” report, ordered last year after the previous wave of Deepwater criticism and finished in February, which suggests that if the Coast Guard picks a good design for its new Offshore Patrol Cutter, it might need two fewer National Security Cutters, which could cut costs. Cantwell told Allen she wanted his assurance that the Coast Guard would control the costs of the OPC project and make sure it retained the option to get money back from contractors if they made mistakes while building the ship.

The reason, she said, was that she worried about the Bertholf’s structural ability to ride in rough seas after earlier reports that the ship might be prone to stress problems or cracking. She told Allen she didn’t want the Coast Guard to go forward with what it knew was a “flawed design.”

Allen said he didn’t think the design was flawed, and he assured Cantwell that the design modifications to the Bertholf and the second NSC, the Waesche, were accounted for when the Coast Guard awarded the contract for the third ship, the Hamilton. Still, Cantwell said she was concerned that officials were “deferring a flawed design to a later year.”

Cantwell raised other points, including a worry that the Coast Guard wouldn’t be able to cope with a longer shipping season in the melting Arctic, that the Coast Guard wouldn’t be able to respond to an environmental event on the order of the Cosco Busan oil spill this fall in San Francisco Bay, and that the Ocean Sentry was too expensive and the “Alternatives Analysis” hadn’t mentioned other possible aircraft to do its job. Cantwell’s home state of Washington includes many plants belonging to aerospace giant Boeing.

“All these assets are going to continue to get the attention of this committee. We are seeing … various questions raised. We can’t afford to make any more mistakes. All the assets deserve a complete scrubbing to make sure we are acquiring the right assets,” she said.

Notwithstanding Cantwell’s questioning, when Allen spoke with reporters during a break in the hearing, he said he thought Congress would fully fund his budget request

“I need every dollar,” he said.

Back to the future KC…

USAF Tanker Award Points To Pacific

Mar 4, 2008

By David A. Fulghum and Amy Butler

One interesting outcome of the U.S. Air Force tanker decision is the further shift in U.S. national strategic priorities that it indicates – toward the Pacific Ocean.

In choosing the Northrop Grumman/EADS proposal, Pentagon leaders have opted for an aircraft that can fly the longer distances, and carrying more people and cargo, required for rapid, trans-Pacific Ocean deployments.
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Of relatively less importance is the traditional European, southwest Asia, South American and Middle Eastern missions that demand smaller, less-developed runways, as well as minimum footprint for accelerated through-put on less-developed forward airbases, and high-cycle rates for intense aerial combat. By contrast, the Pacific — nearly 156 million square kilometers, according to the CIA’s World FactBook — embodies the “tyranny of distance” that U.S. forces face in trying to respond or deploy to worldwide events.

About 16 months ago, the Air Force withdrew its tanker request-for-proposals — which included capabilities such as cargo, passengers and add-on mission like signals intelligence — to refocus it on the basic A-model task of in-flight refueling so that the primary mission would not be compromised.

When Northrop threatened to pull out of the competition altogether, U.S. officials again changed the competition to add features – including extra credit for cargo and passenger carrying capabilities that aren’t required for the refueling mission.

Those factors, which go toward providing the “more” as described by Gen. Arthur Lichte, Air Force Air Mobility Command chief, during the tanker-winner announcement, tipped the choice toward Northrop and EADS.

The Air Force’s move follows along with Army and Navy-Marine Corps build-ups in the Pacific as well, all of which followed the 2005/2006 Quadrennial Defense Review under Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon administration. That QDR announced a strategic shift from Atlantic to Pacific oceans, especially eyeing China, North Korea and potential hotspots triggered by Islamic extremists in Indonesia or The Philippines, for instance.

Although limited in overall fleet size, the Navy is moving and centering the bulk of its existing and planned forces in the Pacific. From aircraft carriers to submarines and Littoral Combat Ships, U.S. warships will become far more familiar with Pacific climes than in Cold War years. Meanwhile, the Army and Marines are re-stationing personnel and prepositioned forces throughout the vast stretch, including a major base in Guam.

These far-flung forces must be supported by the so-called “air bridge” that the Air Force provides, thus bringing the tanker choice back to the Air Force’s recent decision.

Can ANZAC class vessel operate such large type? If not, they still could go for AS565 Panthers.

Both the Anzacs & Perry Class can operate and store the Seahawk & would be able to do the same with the NFH90. The Perrys were lengthened after construction at some cost specifically to allow them to operate the Seahawk.
No chance of getting the Panther at all ,the NFH90 will be the front runner as 46 MRH90 are on order for the Army with a small number of those earmarked to replace the Seakings still in operation by the Navy [about 7 ,I think] the NFH 90 would help put in place the rationalisation of Helo numbers operated by the ADF which is now Defence policy. There is no chance for the Flynx as it is seen as among other things too small ,however many are now wishing the LYNX had been chosen instead of the Seasprite in the beginning & despite using 2 types on our Frigates both are vg helos & we would not be $1 Billion+ down the drain & stuck with 11 dogs that cant bark.
Tiddles

[QUOTE=ELP;1223719]Yeah… like I know what this says…. but it looks like the sales pitch for the Super Hornet is being tossed at Norway. OK ….where’s the drag chute?:diablo:

Hi Eric, I know that you are not a big fan of the SH, but realistically,anything would be better than the Gripen for Norway. I believe that they will still go with the JSF & so does the EF Consortium, but still IMHO the SH is the CURRENT next best thing to the JSF as a multi-role fighter, this excludes the F22 which is not available anyhow.
Tiddles