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Demand for Unmanned Aircraft Systems continue to grow in the U.S.

MQ9 Reaper
The MQ9-Reaper Unmanned Aircraft

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are a hot topic for both the U.S. Military and the FAA. According to the FAA there are some 100 U.S. companies, academic institutions, and government organizations developing over 300 UAS designs. This unmanned aircraft industry is in its infancy; currently the majority of the users of these systems are military. Unmanned aircraft systems are part of the larger group of unmanned systems which include unmanned ground systems, unmanned maritime systems and their related technologies. The Department of Defense is aggressively developing unmanned systems and technologies and has slated plans out till the year 2034.

Unmanned aircraft systems have experienced an explosive growth within the DoD, providing highly capable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). While DoD is currently the primary user of these systems interest is growing within federal agencies, state and local governments. Potential uses such as law enforcement, firefighting and commercial real estate photography just to name a few. Sizes of current UAS’s range from only few inches to over 250 feet long, some can remain aloft for 30 hours or more.

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MQ-9 Reaper – Unmanned Aircraft System

The U.S. Air Force has procurement requests planned for 48 units per year over the next 5 years until 2015. The total budget request for UAS in fiscal year 2011 is $1,079,595,000 dollars. This procurement cost includes all components of the MQ-9 weapon system.

The MQ-9 Reaper is a fully operational UAS consisting of the aircraft, sensors, ground control station, (GCS) satellite link, spare equipment along with operations and maintenance crews for deployed locations.  A typical crew consists of a rated pilot to control the aircraft and command the mission and an enlisted aircrew member to operate sensors and weapons plus a mission coordinator, when required.

MQ9-Reaper_controls
MQ9 Reaper Control Room

The MQ-9 baseline system carries a robust suite of sensors for targeting including infrared sensor, laser-guided munitions, and synthetic aperture radar; color/ monochrome camera, laser designator and a laser illuminator.  Each MQ-9 aircraft system can be disassembled and loaded into a single container, transported in the C-130 Hercules or larger aircraft, for deployment worldwide.

This past May (May 27, 2010) the Army recognized a milestone of 1 million hours of flight for unmanned aerial systems.

Based on the numbers and reports it looks like unmanned aircraft systems are here to stay, providing opportunities to companies both large and small.

* Writers are free to paraphrase or re-publish this article as long as they credit bidlink.net and link back to the original.

Photo credit: MQ-9 Reaper_081103-F-8477M-991|Capt. Sam Allen operates the controls of a battlespace simulator in the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Fundamentals Course’s laboratory. Captain Allen is an instructor with the 563rd Flying Training Squadron and the UASFC director at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. (U.S. Air Force photo/Rich McFadden)

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Air force requests over 100 new aircraft for FY 2011

Beale Global Hawk deploys for first time
Beale Global Hawk deploys for first time

The U.S. Air Force requests for over 100 new aircraft with 13 different models in their Fiscal Year 2011 Budget.

On the top of the list by volume is the MQ-9 Reaper an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) with a total request of 48 units.  The basic MQ-9 system consists of the aircraft, sensors, a control station, communications equipment, weapon kits, support equipment, simulator and training devices, initial spares and training. The total cost for all 48 units is just over one billion dollars. The prime contractor is General Atomics-Aeronautical Systems Inc.

The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) F-35 is second with a requested quantity of 23 aircraft at a total cost of  4.5 billion dollars. The F-35 is the much talked about next generation strike fighter with Lockheed Martin as prime contractor, while Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems are principal partners in the project.

Air Force FY2011 Aircraft orders (top 6 by quantity)
Air Force FY2011 Aircraft orders (top 6 by quantity)

The Light Mobility Aircraft program is third with a requested quantity of 15 and a total program cost of 65 million dollars.  This program plans to acquire Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) aircraft to satisfy the USAF light mobility mission requirement. The new program has  no chosen manufacturer as of yet.  According to Government data there are currently 22 interested vendors.

The USAFA Powered Flight Program is requesting a quantity of 12 Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) aircraft for the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) in Colorado Springs, CO.  with a program cost of about 4 million dollars.

The RQ-4 Global Hawk is an unmanned aircraft system with a total procurement cost of just over 1 billion dollars for 4 units.  This aircraft is fully autonomous with a range of over 9000 nautical miles.

The CV-22 Osprey also on the list for a quantity and a cost of just over 500 million dollars for 5 complete systems.  The CV-22 is a Special Operations Forces (SOF) variant of the V-22 vertical lift, multi-mission aircraft.

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Top 10 States with highest percentage of Government contractors per capita

In a review of the latest data of Government contractors currently registered with the U.S. Government having an active CAGE code; the data shows that the District of Columbia ranks number one with the state of New York showing the lowest percentage of Government contractors per capita.

According to the most recent data tabulated by BidLink.net,  the associated chart represents the percentage of “Government contractors” (based on the number of CAGE codes) per state verses the population of the given state. The state populations used in these calculations are from the most recent extract of population estimates from U.S. census data based on state on residents 18 years or older.

Over 1.6 million organizations in the United States are currently active in the Governments database with an active CAGE code. Basically any company or organization wishing to do business with the U.S. Government, specifically military agencies such as the DoD, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines will have a CAGE code.

Highest Percentage of Defense Contractors (source: bidlink.net)

A CAGE code is a five (5) position alphanumeric code used to identify organizations that provide, manufacture, or control the design of items supplied to U.S. Government Military agencies. The CAGE code is an integral part of the military cataloging system and is shared with many of the automated data processing (ADP) systems throughout the military.

According to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation (DFAR) any organizations wishing to conduct business resulting in an contract award or any type of purchasing agreement must have their CAGE code active in the Central Contractor Registry (CCR). CCR registration must be updated on an annual basis to remain in the system. Currently a little over a third of the total organizations active in the CAGE database are active in the CCR database.

There are two basic types of CAGE codes Manufacturers and Non-manufacturers.

Of the total active U.S. CAGE codes only 11% of them are classified and Manufactures and 89% of them are Non-manufacturers.

The basic CAGE code data contains contact information such as phone and address information. There is a myriad of other relative data which is associated to a single CAGE code. Information such as part numbers and National Stock Numbers (NSN’s) manufactures, sources, contract numbers, procurement history etc.

BidLink.net provides vital information to defense contractors by mining its enormous and comprehensive database.  This data includes millions of defense contracts, procurement history, part numbers and vendor information.  This unique combination of resources allows BidLink to monitor and extract important information for the defense contracting industry.  BidLink.net, based in Washington, D.C., provides bid consolidation, searching and notification services, as well as part number (NSN) lookup services to many military activities and thousands of private companies around the world.