CUBIC AND INDUSTRY PARTNERS AWARDED $200 MILLION

An ambitious plan is being proposed by the US Marine Corps (USMC) to convert all of its 79 KC-130J flight refuelling aircraft (FRA) into gunships, equipped with the Harvest Hawk weapons system. The package will also be added to the USMC’s MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor fleets and will allow both aircraft multi-mission capabilities. For the V-22, the most obvious ‘Osprey Hawk’ benefit is the much-improved strike capability, while the C-130J, would become a multi-mission craft, with a sensor ball allowing for route reconnaissance missions when needed. Cubic Global Defense (CGD) has announced on May 9, 2016, that it is part of the War-fighter Readiness Research Division Contractor Team that has been awarded a five-year, cost-plus-fixed-fee $200-million contract by the US Air Force Research Laboratory for research and evaluation of war-fighter readiness and training. The team, led by L-3 Communications Corporation’s Simulation and Training Division, consists of CGD, Ball Aerospace and Leidos. Under the contract, CGD and other defence industry experts will develop technology to create widespectrum readiness capabilities that are architecture, network and domain agnostic. The team will also create and validate an interoperable, secure training toolset to increase training fidelity, enable comprehensive cross-mission, performance-based debriefs and reduce training/exercise overheads for the US Air Force.