The U.S. Army has granted a $27.8 million contract to Airbus to modernise helicopters used by the Army National Guard’s Security & Support Battalion.
The contract aims to significantly enhance the technological and mission capabilities of the UH-72A Lakota helicopters.
The upgrade package, known as the Mission Equipment Package (MEP), will extend the helicopters’ operational effectiveness, allowing them to perform day and night missions. Among the improvements are an advanced moving map, enhanced digital interfaces, new monitors, and an airborne mission management system.
“This award provides pilots with significantly increased functionality and capability to carry out today’s demanding missions, further enhancing the Lakota’s value as an ISR asset for the National Guard,” said Scott Tumpak, Vice President of Military Line of Business for Airbus U.S. Space and Defense.
The upgraded MEP-equipped UH-72As will be tailored to perform a variety of National Guard missions. These range from domestic operations to counter-drug and border security activities.
The contract stipulates that up to 50 Security & Support Battalion helicopters will be retrofitted, adding to the existing fleet of 107. The modification work will be carried out at Airbus’ Columbus, Mississippi production facility, where the company has already delivered more than 480 UH-72A and UH-72B Lakota helicopters to the U.S. Army since 2006.
Airbus U.S. Space & Defense will manage the contract, operating under a Special Security Agreement to provide rotor and fixed-wing solutions that meet U.S. defense, security, space, and intelligence needs.
And in other news!
UK Peregrine UAS completes factory acceptance testing01 SEPTEMBER 2023
“Thales and Schiebel have successfully completed factory acceptance testing (FAT) of the UK Royal Navy’s (RN’s) Peregrine Camcopter S-100 rotary-wing unmanned aircraft system (UAS) integrated with Thales l-Master radar.
Announcing the milestone on 30 August, the two companies said the FAT approval marked an important step towards the final delivery of the Camcopter S-100 UAS Peregrine system, which is destined to provide RN Duke-class Type 23 frigates with enhanced situational awareness, principally in the Gulf region.
With the FAT approval in place, the Peregrine programme is set to commence its first deliveries “ahead of schedule”, Thales said.”
That’s good news. I especially like it saying frigates plural. Last I heard it was a contract for the gulf-based frigate (Lancaster) for a couple of years, with an option to extend. It’s nice to see that a level of optimism still runs through the communications, implying that it will eventually be more. Let’s hope we can get the unit price down and order many of these systems.
I tend to agree Jon, the more the merrier!
I’m currently reading up on the school fiasco regards the closing down over 100 schools days before the new term starts due to an issue with the concrete use. On looking into the matter not only did this issue first surface in 2018, but when the current government came to power in 2010 the then education minister (Micheal Gove) cancelled a program put in place by the previous Labour government to rebuild 675 schools at a cost of £1.9 billion.
Yesterday we saw the PM shoehorn Greg Shapps into the defence sec position (His 5th ministerial position in under a year) No doubt Shapps was parachuted in, in which to ensure requests for Military funding are kept as far away from him as possible , preferably before they hit the media.
The reason I bring up all of the above is the tender for the new Medium Helicopter which slipped from 1sr quarter, to mid quarter to the final quarter 2023, is supposed to be declared this month. Will
kevinGreg Shapps do as I suspect and either delay , reduce or even cut the program simply in which to save money for his bestie “Roland:https://i.postimg.cc/Y9jtsMW5/TELEMMGLPICT000347418886-16934772381070-trans-Nv-BQz-QNjv4-Bqp-Vlber-Wd9-Eg-FPZtc-Li-MQf0-Rf-Wk3-V23-H2268-P-Xk-Px.jpg
My take is it will start with’delay’ and steadily get worse, potentially ending up with ‘cut’! This lot are a complete bunch of clowns, actually difficult to think of a worse performing bunch in government!
Something is going to have to give Farouk…..