New Zealand boosts defence spend to US$6.6 billion and vows increased closeness with Australia
This budget will be spent over the next four years and nearly doubles the country’s defence spending as part of GDP to 2%.
Cubic selected to enhance F-35 fighter jet ACTS
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics has awarded Cubic Corporation a series of contracts for creating and adding enhancements to the Air Combat Training System (ACTS) of its F-35 fighter jet. Cubic announced the news on 5 January.
Cubic has been selected along with the principle subcontractor DRS Technologies to produce additional P5 Combat Training Systems (P5CTS) for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Cubic is responsible for system engineering and development/integration/installation of the ground instrumentation subsystem. DRS Technologies is responsible for the P5CTS airborne instrumentation subsystem. Engineering work will take place in San Diego, California and Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
The JSF P5CTS features an internally mounted subsystem rather than wing-mounted pods, which were featured in fourth-generation fighter jets, allowing it to maintain its stealth characteristics while training. It uses the same datalink as the P5CTS/TCTS system used by the US Navy, Marine Corps, Air National Guard and Air Force, along with international partners. The datalink can receive and process information from any P5CTS/TCTS external pod, including unencrypted information from fourth generation aircraft.
Cubic will make two enhancements to the JSF P5 system. The first is to make the ground subsystem compliant to Microsoft Windows 7 operating system, and the second is to upgrade the system's encryption capability.
Dave Schmitz, president, Cubic Defense Applications, said: 'We are very proud of our selection and continuing support to the fifth generation community. This extends a solid record of delivering technology that enables a very sophisticated training environment. It also extends our long history dating back to fourth generation and previous aircraft. Our system assures the F-35 community an integrated and comprehensive ACMI debrief for mixed-aircraft training.'
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