EADS-Raytheon team sets its sights on U.S. Army's Future Cargo Aircraft pact

In another example of transoceanic partnerships seeking U.S. defense business, two teams—each featuring a European aerospace firm and a U.S.-based systems integrator—are squaring off in a competition for the U.S. Army Future Cargo Aircraft contract.

Raytheon and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. CASA North America last month said they had formed a strategic partnership to pursue the contract, potentially worth $1 billion. The pair will offer EADS CASA's C-295 and CN-235 aircraft for the FCA acquisition. The C-295 can carry a 20,400-pound (9,253-kilogram) payload, or 71 soldiers. The CN-235 carries a 13,600-pound (6,170-kilogram) payload or 51 troops. According to Defense Daily, Raytheon will be prime contractor for its team's FCA bid; EADS CASA would assemble and deliver the FCA in the United States.

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IN BRIEF

EADS unveils prototype refueling boom

European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., the parent of Airbus, recently unveiled a prototype of a critical piece of equipment—an extendable boom—it's developing in its effort to seek military refueling-aircraft contracts.

EADS must develop a boom, through which fuel would be transferred from a tanker aircraft to fighter jets and cargo planes, to compete for tanker pacts. Currently, Boeing is the world's only company that has a functioning refueling boom.

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U.S. Army official: Service must continue aviation modernization

U.S. Army aviation is on track to modernize and transform—but the momentum must continue, the service's top acquisition official said in a Helicopter News report.

"Everything seems to be on track, whether we're talking Chinooks, Black Hawks, Apaches, UAVs [unmanned air vehicles], heavy lift utility, light utility—all those things are on track either as requirements or in source selection. Where we're going to buy off the shelf, we're going to buy off the shelf," Claude Bolton, the Army's assistant secretary for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, told reporters May 11 at the Army Aviation Association of America symposium in Orlando, Fla.

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