Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) recently celebrated moving the 10,000th mine resistant, ambush protected vehicle shipped via surface to U.S. Central Command.
“Though it’s impossible to take a full accounting of the impact of having these vehicles, we already have seen the impact of not having them,” said Major General Jim Hodge, SDDC commanding general. “Every one of you working on this program has a stake in the safe return of a servicemember to his or her family.”
Initially MRAPs, a class of armored vehicles that protects against improvised explosive device attacks, were delivered by large Air Force and commercial cargo aircraft.
The Air Force has moved more than 3,600 MRAPs via air out of nearby Charleston Air Force Base. MRAP sealift began in November 2007, greatly increasing the number of vehicles in the Central Command area of operations. One cargo ship can carry up to 200 times the weight of a C-17 Globemaster III, at a cost of about 10 times less.
Second-Generation Fuel Conversion
UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, has announced that it has launched Envergent Technologies LLC, a joint venture with Ensyn Corp., to offer technology and equipment to convert second-generation biomass into pyrolysis oil for power generation, heating fuel and for conversion into transportation fuels. The new company will offer Ensyn’s commercially proven rapid thermal processing technology to convert second-generation biomasslike forest and agricultural residuals to pyrolysis oil for use in power and heating applications. The joint venture will also accelerate research and development efforts to commercialize next-generation technology to refine the pyrolysis oil into transport fuels such as green gasoline, green diesel and green jet fuel.
Innovative Performer
The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) has selected Airgas National Welders as its Large Business Innovative Performer of the Year for 2008. The company was nominated for the award by the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC).
Airgas National Welders was awarded this distinction for its innovation in developing design solutions for safe, high-capacity and high-flow cylinder pallet delivery systems. To DESC’s customers, these pallet delivery systems are known as high pressure cylinder assemblies. The customized cylinder pallets are capable of transport in a variety of modes, such as aboard aircraft, suspended underneath aircraft, or on trucks. The company built, filled and delivered the pallets for DESC use in overseas deployments and was selected as a recipient of the performance award from a pool of thousands of suppliers.
Blue Force Tracking
Comtech Telecommunications Corp. has announced that its Maryland-based subsidiary, Comtech Mobile Datacom Corp., launched its next-generation Blue Force Tracking High Capacity (BFT-HC) solution for satellite-enhanced asset tracking and secure mobile data communications. Developed to meet the U.S. Army’s demanding requirements for its nextgeneration mobile tracking system, BFT-HC ensures the seamless flow of information across the battlespace, giving soldiers timely access to critical information.
The BFT-HC mobile tracking solution has three core components: advanced software defined radio transceivers, improved ground station equipment with adaptive multiuser detection signal processing technology, and enhancements to satellite communications network.
The BFT-HC solution frees the Army from pressure to immediately replace or retrofit legacy equipment in order to implement tomorrow’s technology today. With BFT-HC, the Army can leverage its existing BFT technology investment, continuing to use its 80,000-plus installed transceivers and worldwide support infrastructure while seamlessly transitioning to the next-generation BFT mobile tracking system. This lowrisk, high-return approach meets or exceeds all requirements mandated by the Army’s Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below-Blue Force Tracking (FBCB2-BFT) program for the nextgeneration BFT system.
The Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS), a field activity of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), is the Department of Defense activity responsible for the disposition of excess and surplus DoD property.
The primary focus of the DRMS mission is to protect national security by ensuring property is properly identified for reutilization and disposition and not released for public sale when to do so would jeopardize national security.
During the past two years, DRMS, located in Battle Creek, Mich., revised its processes to further ensure only appropriate items were made available for public sale. To strengthen current controls and to mitigate future security risk, DoD issued policy that prohibits the sale of military-unique items controlled by the Department of State through its munitions list.
Small arms cartridge cases are identified as a sensitive munitions list item and were held pending review of the policy relating to the category of items in which cartridge cases were included. Upon review, the DLA has determined the cartridge cases could be appropriately placed in a category of government property allowing for their release for sale.
The DRMS sales contractor has been notified of this decision and has begun the process of re-offering the cases that have been held pending completion of the policy review. As was previously required, buyers who purchase cartridge cases from the government must be approved to do so under Trade Security Controls.
Navy T-AKE Ship Building
General Dynamics NASSCO, a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics, has laid the keel for USNS Charles Drew, the tenth dry cargo-ammunition combat logistics ship in the U.S. Navy’s T-AKE program. Construction of the Charles Drew began in October 2008. The ship is scheduled to be delivered to the Navy in the third quarter of 2010.
On March 19, NASSCO began construction of USNS Washington Chambers, the eleventh ship of the T-AKE class with delivery scheduled for the first quarter of 2011.
NASSCO has delivered seven T-AKE ships to the Navy and is under contract to build five additional ships, including the Charles Drew and Washington Chambers. The Navy has also provided long-lead material funding to NASSCO for two more ships for a total class of 14 T-AKE vessels.
Helo Support
Bell Aerospace Services Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. company, has announced that it has begun work on a multiyear contract with a projected total value of $173 million, as a subcontract member of a team led by PKL Services Inc. of Poway, Calif. The team is currently providing selected organizational- level maintenance (reset) for Lot 3 and Lot 4 of U.S. Marine Corps rotary wing aircraft.
“We are very proud that U.S. Marine Corps has selected the team led by PKL Services for this crucial task of aircraft reset and field maintenance support,” said Randy Pilling, BellAero Support Services general manager.
This is also the first contracted opportunity for BellAero to prove our capability to support Boeing and Sikorsky platforms, and we are eager to show how well we can perform,” Pilling added.Mp> The primary goal of the USMC reset project contract is to optimize the material condition of U.S. Marine Corps aircraft. The reset project employs a program of conditional inspections and phased maintenance, which includes inspection, cleaning, corrosion treatment, servicing, disassembly, reassembly, repair and select mandatory replacement of parts.
A secondary goal of the reset project is to allow civilian contractors to reduce the maintenance burden on active duty Marine maintainers by performing scheduled and unscheduled organizational- level maintenance. ♦