Pentagon Paused V-22 Osprey Flights Again

A US Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey lifts off from Naval Air Station Patuxent River during a successful biofuel test flight in 2011. The tilt-rotor aircraft flew at altitudes of up to 25,000 feet on a 50-50 blend of camelina based biofuel and standard petroleum-based JP-5 fuel. (US Navy photo by Steven Kays/Released)

Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River economic community. The opinions expressed here do not reflect opinions of the Leader’s owners or staff.

The Pentagon has paused non-essential flights of its fleet of Bell Boeing V-22 Ospreys once again, after initial investigations into the emergency landing of an Air Force CV-22 last month indicated a potential material failure in a component. Vertical Magazine reports the Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force confirmed their adherence to the recommendation. The pause is being implemented almost exactly a year after the last grounding of the V-22 fleet, which was put in place following the fatal crash of a Air Force Special Operations Command CV-22 near Yakushima, Japan.

Junior enlisted service members will get a 14.5% pay raise next year under a compromise defense bill expected to pass Congress this month, reports Military.com.

Military retirees and disabled veterans will receive 2.5% increases to their monthly paychecks for 2025, due to the annual cost of living adjustment tied to inflation. Military.com reports 2.5% is lower than recent COLAs of 3.2% (2024), 8.7% (2023), and 5.9% (2022), it’s still close to the average of about 2.6% for the past decade.

The proposed National Defense Authorization Act for FY25 was released Saturday and drops the number of F-35s the services can purchase in the year, reports Defense News. The Air Force could accept delivery of 30, down from 42; the Marine Corps and Navy would each get nine of the 13 appearing in the Pentagon’s original budget proposal for 2025.

A multi-billion shortfall in operation and maintenance coffers is hampering US Coast Guard operations with a steep cliff looming on the horizon, reports Breaking Defense. A parts shortage has the USCG regularly pilfering parts from three or four ships just to fix one. “… we’ve normalized taking good parts. When a ship comes in from patrol, you take the good part off, you put it on the ship across the pier, so that that ship can get underway. We call it controlled parts exchanges. That’s not okay,” she said.

Boeing laid off another 400 Washington workers in a second round of job cuts, according to a notice filed Monday with the state’s employment security department. Military.com reports that’s in addition to the 2,199 layoff notices Boeing delivered to Washington workers last month, bringing the total number of job cuts in the state to nearly 2,600.

Fox Business reports that starting in January Boeing will begin laying off more than 100 employees across Florida, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act letter. Locations include Titusville and the Kennedy Space Center, where Boeing, in 2023, spent over $1 billion with suppliers in Florida.

Boeing restarted production of its best-selling 737 MAX jetliner on Friday, about a month after the end of a seven-week strike by 33,000 factory workers, reports Reuters. Getting the 737 MAX production line moving again is essential to the heavily debt-burdened plane-maker’s recovery, and Boeing has about 4,200 orders for the jetliner from airlines eager to meet growing global demand for air travel.

Despite its troubles, Yahoo!Finance considers whether Boeing’s current, lowered stock prices, compared to the company’s overall strength, could make Boeing a compelling stock for long-term investors.

Last week, the FBI warned iPhone and Android users to stop texting and instead to use an encrypted messaging platform such as WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook Messenger. But Forbes reports the FBI also has a serious security warning for US citizens using those encrypted platforms, saying those apps need to change.

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the US Naval Academy can continue considering race in its admissions process, ruling that military cohesion and other national security factors mean the officer training school should not be subjected to the same standards as civilian universities, reports Military Times.

The US is sending Ukraine another $1 billion in long-term security aid, nearly half of the budget left in the Pentagon’s account, says Military Times. This $988 million package will come from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, through which the US buys new equipment for Ukraine rather than shipping it directly from American stocks. As of last week, the US had just over $2 billion left in the fund.

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday pushed Russian leader Vladimir Putin to act to reach an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine, reports AP News. “Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness,” Trump wrote on social media, referring to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In a television interview that aired Sunday, Trump also said he would be open to reducing military aid to Ukraine and pulling the United States out of NATO.

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk told his Cabinet on Tuesday that negotiations over Russia’s war in neighboring Ukraine could start “in the winter,” as his country prepares to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union on Jan. 1. AP News reports, Tusk said, he hoped that the “end effect” of Poland’s and the EU’s efforts will be peace in Ukraine.

New satellite photos from the Tartus naval base on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea show Russian Navy ships anchored off the coast of Syria after abandoning Moscow’s only overseas naval base, reports USNI. According to photos from satellite provider Maxar, three Russian Navy guided-missile frigates and at least two support ships were in port in Tartus on Dec. 5. On Tuesday, those ships had left port and at least two of the Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates were operating off the coat of Syria. The base had been home to two Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates, an Admiral Grigorivich-class frigate and an improved Kilo-class attack boat, according to Naval News.

The US has opened an investigation into whether NATO ally Spain has been denying port entry to cargo vessels reportedly transporting US weapons to Israel, reports AP News. The Federal Maritime Commission, an independent body charged with monitoring and evaluating conditions that may affect shipping and US international trade, said it had opened the probe after receiving information that Spain had refused to allow at least three cargo vessels into its ports.

Five veteran-focused nonprofits urged President Joe Biden this week to pardon thousands of veterans with other-than-honorable military discharges before he leaves the White House in January. Military Times reports Minority Veterans of America, the Black Veterans Project, Swords to Plowshares, the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center, and the Veterans Legal Clinic at Harvard Law School pleaded with Biden to issue the blanket pardon, arguing that thousands of veterans have suffered because of their discharge status.

The Navy Midshipmen football team brought home its first winning season since 2019, earning a spot in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl on Dec. 27 against the Oklahoma Sooners. But, reports Military.com, before Navy (8-3) takes on the Sooners, the Midshipmen must first set their sights on a rival Army team making its own bit of history. The US Military Academy at West Point cadets won the service academy’s first conference championship in program history on Saturday with a 35-14 victory over Tulane University.

Contracts:

SCI Technology Inc., Huntsville, Alabama, is awarded a $40,701,910 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to procure SCI Technology Inc. Tactical Operations Center Network Intercommunication System equipment to include: a minimum quantity of 15 power hubs, and a maximum quantity of 3,780 interface panels, 2,060 radio control and audio equipment, 730 speakers, 600 power hubs, and 8,800 cables in support of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), Webster Outlying Field, Special Communications Mission Solutions Division. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Alabama and is expected to be completed in December 2029. Fiscal 2024 other procurement (defense-wide) funds in the amount of $129,600 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the fiscal year. This contract was not competed. NAWCAD, Lakehurst, New Jersey, is the contracting activity (N6833525D0004).

BAE Systems Technology Solutions & Services Inc., Rockville, Maryland, is awarded a $33,383,969 modification (P00082) to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N0042120C0003). This modification exercises an option to provide continued engineering, technical, logistics, training, and testing support services to deliver fully integrated and tested command, control, computers, and intelligence system electronic radio communications systems for shipboard installation onboard Navy ships. Work will be performed in St. Inigoes, Maryland, and is expected to be completed in June 2033. Fiscal 2025 ship building and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount of $8,369,007 will be obligated at the time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The previously awarded contract was competed on a full and open basis with one offer received. Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. 

Academy of Applied Technology LLC (AAT), Fort Walton Beach, Florida (N66001-25-D-0016); Phoenix Technology Solutions LLC (PTS), Columbia, Maryland (N66001-25-D-0017); and Ultimate Knowledge Corp. (UKC), Scottsdale, Arizona (N66001-25-D-0017), are each being awarded a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, multiple award contract to provide technical training courses required to meet operational standards at national-level organizations providing support to cybersecurity missions. The contracts are valued at $34,617,104 for AAT; $30,833,404 for PTS; and $31,007,767 for UKC. Throughout the duration of the awarded contracts, the total obligated amount on orders for all the awarded contracts combined will not exceed $34,617,104. The courses will be aligned to compliment ongoing cybersecurity technological initiatives within Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command and U.S. Fleet Cyber Command. No contract funds will be obligated on the basic multiple award contract awards. It is anticipated that task orders will be funded with Navy working capital funds. Work will be performed in the greater Washington DC area (88 %); Fort Bragg, North Carolina (4 %); Tampa, Florida (4 %); and Scott Air Force Base, Illinois (4 %). Work is expected to be completed by November 2029. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. These contracts were awarded pursuant to full and open competition after exclusion of sources under a total small business set-aside, with eight offers received. The Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity.

Versar Inc., Washington, DC, was awarded a $31,769,572 firm-fixed-price contract to provide electrical and facility-related technical services. Bids were solicited via the internet with four received. Work will be performed in Washington, DC, with an estimated completion date of July 5, 2027. Fiscal 2025 operation and maintenance, Army funds in the amount of $6,488,418 were obligated at the time of the award. US Army Corps of Engineers, Huntsville, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W912DY-25-C-0003).

Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, McLean, Virginia, was awarded a ceiling $801,048,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for combat air forces distributed mission operations services. This contract provides for virtual, distributed training to Air Force trainers worldwide including daily team training to large scale exercises. Work will be performed in Orlando, Florida, and is expected to be completed by Dec. 11, 2034. This contract was a competitive acquisition, and three offers were received. Fiscal 2025 operation and maintenance funds in the amount of $5,526 are being obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Lifecycle Management Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8621-25-D-B001).

Technology Service Corp., Arlington, Virginia, has been awarded a $15,200,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee ceiling increase modification (P00001) to previously awarded (FA8651-24-D-B005) for low-cost seeker research and development. The modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $20,000,000 from $4,800,000. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Alabama, and is expected to be completed by April 18, 2029. No funds are being obligated at time of award. The Air Force Research Laboratory, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, is the contracting activity.

Leidos Inc., Reston, Virginia, was awarded a $987,000,000 firm-fixed-price, cost reimbursement, no-fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee, and indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for F-16 Foreign Military Sales (FMS) sustainment support. This contract provides repair and return, engineering and technical services, and analysis and resolution support for diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages. Work will be performed in Reston, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by May 31, 2034. This contract involves FMS to Taiwan. This contract was a competitive acquisition, and two offers were received. FMS funds in the amount of $1,599,225 are being obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is the contracting activity (FA8232-25-D-B001).

Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, has been awarded a $17,731,291 modification (P00007) to a previously awarded contract (FA8651-23-C-A023) for the Convergence Lab Initiative. The modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $26,724,010 from $8,992,719. Work will be performed in Richmond, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by Dec. 21, 2027. Fiscal 2025 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $8,865,847 are being obligated at time of award. The Air Force Research Laboratory, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, is the contracting activity.

Pond – Baker JV, Norcross, Georgia, is awarded an $83,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity modification to previously awarded contract N40080-22-D-0001 for architect-engineering services. This contract modification adds additional capacity for multi-discipline design and engineering services for industrial and research facilities. Work will be performed within the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) Washington area of operations and will be completed by May 2027. No funds are being obligated at time of the award. Future task orders will be funded using military construction and operations and maintenance (Navy) funds. NAVFAC Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.