with companies that provide both
advice and products such as weapons.Cobham Work Up Down Under
Cobham’s new 12-year, $563 million
contract to provide an airborne search-
and-rescue capability for Australia
should add 1% to the British-based
company’s top line, RBC Capital Mar-
kets analysts said Oct. 24 after the dealwas unveiled. The Australian Maritime
Safety Authority’s contract, which
begins in 2016 and could be extended
through 15 years for more money, calls
for Cobham to buy, equip and support
four Bombardier Challenger CL-
special mission jets geared for search
and rescue over land and at sea, based
in Cairns, Melbourne and Perth.
“These aircraft will be... fi tted with
new-generation sensors, high-vision
windows and air-operable doors for
aerial delivery of lifesaving equipment,”
the company said.returns to shareholders and investors. A
revised cash-fl ow forecast came as part
of Boeing latest quarterly report Oct. 22,
spurring stock traders to push down the
share price a few percentage points. But
Boeing’s overall market-leading position
as a transport aircraft maker, weapons
provider and well-run business make up
for negative ef ects, according to raters.
Boeing plans to issue the notes in three
tranches: $250 million in fl oating-rate
notes due 2017, $300 million in fi xed-rate
notes due 2021 and $300 million in fi xed-
rate notes due 2024. Proceeds will go to
general corporate purposes, including
funding Boeing Capital.
Engility Buys Tasc
Engility and Tasc announced Oct. 28
that they will merge in a $1.1 billion
stock-and-debt deal, creating an
expanded and diversifi ed engineering
services company for U.S. government
customers. After the deal closes, which
is expected in January, Engility’s overall
defense market concentration will fall
to 48% from 64%, with 28% of total
business stemming from intelligence
agencies and the last 24% from the
Homeland Security Department, FAA
and NASA combined. The deal marks
a turnaround for systems engineering
and technical assistance business units,
which were discarded by many defense
prime contractors around 2010 as the
Obama administration acted on grow-
ing concerns over confl icts of interest
UTC Looking Better
Moody's Investors Service has reaf-
fi rmed its ratings for United Technol-
ogies, including the company's rela-
tively high debt ratings, and has lifted
its overall grade of the company to
“stable” from “negative.” “The rating
actions refl ect broad-based improve-
ment in the company’s credit profi le
since its near-fully debt-fi nanced
acquisition of Goodrich Corp. in [July]
2012,” said Russell Solomon, Moody’s
lead analyst for United Technologies.
The company added nearly $20 billion
of debt to acquire Goodrich at a “rela-
tively high multiple,” or premium, but
thanks to cash generated from asset
sales or retained versus automati-
cally turning it over to shareholders,
United Technologies has repaid about
$9 billion, according to the rating
agency.F-35 IOC Dates Likely To Slip
It is growing more likely that July 1, 2015, will not mark the initial
operational capability (IOC) declaration for the F-35B desired by the
U.S. Marine Corps, according to Pentagon procurement chief Frank
Kendall. Also in jeopardy is the U.S. Air Force’s ability to declare its
F-35A operational by Aug. 1, 2016, due to an impending shortfall in
maintainers to repair the single-engine, stealthy jet.
“It is going to be hard to hold to the July date,” Kendall tells Avia-
tion Week. “I am pretty conf dent we can meet the threshold by the
end of the year. And we will make it as close to July as we can.”
Pentagon off cials have stuck adamantly to the IOC plans outlined
in May 2013 to quell vocal skeptics targeting the $400 billion program
after its many cost overruns. The Marines have planned an “objective”
IOC for July 1, 2015, with a “threshold” date in December 2015.
“There has been a sequence of separate pieces of the IOC effort
that have moved out as late as October 2015, and to date we have
been able to create eff ciencies in the process that have pulled the
timeline back to 1 July,” says Capt. Dustin Pratico, a Marine Corps
spokesman.
Pratico says the current risk assessment for achieving the needed
aircraft modif cations and training workpoint to a mid-August IOC.
“This is not the farthest overshoot we have seen and today we have
a much better handle on what is required to manage the timeline,”
he says. Marine IOC includes the f rst squadron, VMFA-121, with
10-16 F-35Bs and enough trained pilots and maintenance off cials
to deploy for war. The f rst F-35B unit is slated for its initial deploy-
ment in 2017 to MCAS Iwakuni, Japan.
Work to modify all of the IOC jets to the same warf ghting
conf guration and testing for the 2B software are considered the
culprits for the potential slip.
Meanwhile, the Air Force’s in-service date is in jeopardy owing
to diff culty in f nding enough experienced pe rsonnel to undergo
the F-35 maintainer training regimen in time for the Aug. 1, 2016,
target. Roughly 1,100 maintainers are expected to be needed, 80%
experienced. And most of those personnel were to be drawn from
the A-10 program. But Congress has resisted the Air Force’s plans
to retire its A-10s by 2019.
Without congressional action to retire some of the A-10s—freeing
up maintainers for the F-35—the service would have to risk readiness
and draw technicians from legacy programs and/or understaff the F-
enterprise. Both options amount to a slip in IOC readiness , an Air Force
off cial says. Further confounding the ability to draw maintainers from
other programs are ongoing operations in Syria and Iraq against Islamic
State targets. Already a plan to move roughly 300 maintainers from
the B-1 program to F-35 this coming spring has been put on hold to
prioritize readiness for the bomber in foreign operations..The World
18 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/NOVEMBER 3/10, 2014 AviationWeek.com/awst
Correction: An article in the Oct. 27
issue (page 14) should have stated that
the Terrafugia Transition, on the road,
will deliver 35 mpg. at highway speeds.Correction: In a recent Up Front column
(Oct. 13, p. 16), Richard Aboulafi a misat-
tributed a quote to Boeing Senior Vice
President Tim Keating. The comment
was made by Ray Goforth, executive
director of the Society of Professional
Engineering Employees in Aerospace.圀漀爀氀搀䴀愀最猀⸀渀攀琀圀漀爀氀搀䴀愀最猀⸀渀攀琀
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