EMMA HELFRICH, ASSOCIATE EDITOR

An advance in aircraft simulators, allowing F-35 pilots to link with pilots of other aircraft, was announced on Wednesday by Lockheed Martin. For the first time, Lockheed, the F-35 Joint Program Office, and the U.S. Air Force connected F-35, F-22, F-16, and E3 airborne warning planes in a simulated environment, according to Lockheed Martin.

AVIATION MAINTENANCE MAGAZINE

Ampex Data Systems (Ampex), a Delta Information Systems Company, announced the award of an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract in support of the Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) located in Patuxent River, Maryland. Ampex’s Full Rate Production Multiple Award Contract provides NAWCAD, and other United States Department of Defense organizations, production of mission system avionics, mission system computers/processors, displays, and signal distribution systems among other avionics.

EMMA HELFRICH, ASSOCIATE EDITOR

The German Air Force's Tactical Data Link Exercise, Timber Express, took place at Jagel Airbase in Schleswig-Holstein. This annual exercise focuses on testing and evaluating the interoperability of various systems using multiple tactical data links across the land, sea, and air domain. HENSOLDT participated with equipment and personnel from its Avionics division, demonstrating Tactical Data Link (TDL) integration into airborne mission systems.

LISA DAIGLE, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR

The Department of the Air Force has awarded a contract to Boeing -- worth nearly $1.2 billion -- for its first lot of eight F-15EX fighter aircraft, which uses open mission systems architecture to enable the rapid insertion of new technologies intended to keep the aircraft viable for decades to come.

LISA DAIGLE, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR

Collins Aerospace Systems (a unit of Raytheon Technologies) has won a contract with the U.S. government to further develop and build digital night-vision systems for U.S. Navy and Marine Corps rotary-wing and tiltrotor aircrews, the first of its kind, that will enable advanced night vision and display technology and help increase flight safety and mission effectiveness.

AVIATION MAINTENANCE MAGAZINE

Safety Management Systems: they seem complicated. But Aviation Maintenance Magazine is aiming to make them simple to implement.

LISA DAIGLE, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) has won a $12.1 million contract to upgrade MQ-9 Block 1 and Block 5 remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) and Block 25 Dual Control Module Ground Control Station (DCMGCS) and Block 30 Ground Control Station (GCS) for the Air National Guard (ANG).

LISA DAIGLE, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR

Mission-critical software provider DDC-I has been chosen to provide its Deos safety-critical real-time operating system (RTOS) for use in a communications subsystem destined for the Dream Chaser Cargo System, which Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) is building for NASA.

EMMA HELFRICH, ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Boeing delivered the first two F/A-18 Block III Super Hornets to the U.S. Navy for flight testing. One jet is a single-seat E model and the other is a two-seat F model.

LISA DAIGLE, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR

Ampex Data Systems -- a Delta Information Systems company -- has won a firm-fixed-price contract from the Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division (NAWCWD) at China Lake to produce the Ampex TuffCORD ruggedized network attached storage (NAS) device.

LISA DAIGLE, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR

Hughes Network Systems reports a recent successful in-flight demonstration of its HeloSat satellite communications (SATCOM) system from a Black Hawk helicopter; company officials say that the HeloSat transmitted consistent, real-time, full-motion video to a live global audience from the Black Hawk as it surveilled the landscape below.

LISA DAIGLE, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded contracts worth a combined $30.4 million to build payloads and platforms for DARPA's Blackjack program, a project that aims toprove the military utility of low-Earth orbit constellations and mesh networks of low-cost satellites.

MARK GROVAK AND CHRIS THOMSON, CURTISS-WRIGHT

Prototype designs for the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program, one of the U.S. Army’s most important and game-changing initiatives, are fully embracing the open architecture design philosophy for the next-generation helicopters that will replace its fleet of OH58 Kiowa Warrior, AH64 Apache, and UH60 Black Hawk rotorcraft.

AVIATION MAINTENANCE MAGAZINE

Global aviation software specialist Ramco Systems announced that it will implement its Aviation M&E MRO Suite V5.8 at Tactical Air Support, a defense contractor and aviation training and Adversary Air Support provider based in Reno, Nevada. With this partnership for digital transformation, Ramco now counts three of the top four defense adversary air operators in the United States as its customers.