Dan Schere

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee, in the report accompanying its draft defense spending bill, has included an additional $60 million for the UH-60 M model Black Hawk helicopter above the Army's fiscal year 2025 request. According to the report, the additional Black Hawk funding is due to a program increase for additional UH-60M aircraft for the Army National Guard. The M model is a modernized version of the Black Hawk that features a new airframe. As part of the service’s...

A modification to a contract for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System will procure up to 215 additional launchers through fiscal year 2028, according to the Army.

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the fiscal year 2025 defense authorization bill would require the Army to submit a proposal for consolidating funding lines for small unmanned systems, according to a summary of the legislation released today. Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George has said for several months during congressional hearings that the Army needs more funding flexibility within the budget to develop a “portfolio” of capabilities, particularly in the areas of UAS, counter UAS and electronic...

The Army is targeting the second quarter of fiscal year 2026 to complete fielding of the initial Maneuver Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) systems to four air defense battalions, service officials said this week. The Army officially renamed the M-SHORAD the SGT STOUT weapon system Saturday, as the service celebrated its 249th birthday at Ft. Belvoir, VA. The platform is named for Sgt. Mitchell William Stout, a soldier who died during the Vietnam War on March 12, 1970...

The Defense Department awarded GE Aerospace a $1.1 billion multiyear contract last week for the procurement of T700 turbine engines, which will be used in Army helicopters, as well as for other services.

The Army issued a request for information this week focused on radio frequency/electronic warfare object detection and recognition, with the goal of identifying companies that will "support enterprise model training."

As the Army works to reduce risk in its design of the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, the service has included Naval Air Systems Command engineers that previously worked on the V-22 Osprey in the process, with the goal of incorporating lessons learned from the Osprey into FLRAA. The Army awarded the FLRAA contract to Bell Textron in December 2022 to develop its V-280 Valor aircraft as the eventual replacement for the Black Hawk. A protest by bid competitor Sikorsky...

The delivery of the first CH-47F Block II aircraft to the Army is expected to occur sometime in the next week, according to prime contractor Boeing.

Army acquisition chief Doug Bush said this week that the United States is on track to reach a production rate of 55,000 155mm rounds per month by the end of this summer.

The Army has accepted two T901 engines that will be integrated and tested under the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP), manufacturer GE Aerospace announced Thursday. The two engines will be flight tested on the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. The T901 engines will be used to power the Army’s Black Hawk and Apache helicopters in the future. The new engines provide 50% more power and 25% better fuel consumption, according to GE Aerospace. As part of the aviation rebalance announced in...