Boeing To Pitch V-22 Multiyear Offer To Pentagon

By JOHN REED

Boeing is preparing to offer the Pentagon another multiyear deal for the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotors used by the U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force, company officials announced.

"We're fully pursuing a second multiyear on the V-22," Boeing's V-22 program manager, Gene Cunningham, said May 4 during a news conference at a Navy League-sponsored conference in Maryland. "We're working with our industry partners to put together the right business case" so the offer could be considered for the 2013 budget.

The deal could include a foreign buyer or other U.S. government agencies, Cunningham said.

He gave no specific quantities of aircraft, but said the deal would likely include the last seven of the Air Force's 50 CV-22s.

The company is determining what impact these additional customers will have on the V-22 production line, which is gearing up to build 40 tilt-rotors per year for the Pentagon by 2014.

Boeing is in its third year of a half-decade multiyear contract for the V-22.

Cunningham also announced that Boeing's V-22 program will respond to the Pentagon's request for information (RfI) for the V-XX Marine One helicopter replacement program.

"We plan to respond to the RfI because it is a vertical program and that seem to have value in terms of the V-22," Cunningham said.

This comes as Boeing is working with the Marines and Air Force to find ways to improve the tilt-rotor's roughly 70 percent reliability rate. The firm is working with suppliers to redesign some parts that are wearing out faster than expected in harsh operating environments, Cunningham said.

NavAir hopes to reach an 85 percent reliability rate for its MV-22s by 2018, said Col. Greg Masiello, NavAir's joint V-22 program manager.

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Invasive BodyScans reveal "shortcomings"

(CNN) -- Full-body scanning machines may reveal a little too much, if an incident of workplace violence this week among Transportation Security Administration screeners is any indication.

A TSA worker at Miami International Airport in Florida was arrested for allegedly assaulting a co-worker who had repeatedly teased him about the size of his genitals.

The insults stemmed from an X-ray of the accused captured during a training exercise with the airport's full-body scanning machines, the report said.
Rolando Negrin "stated he could not take the jokes anymore and lost his mind," allegedly striking the victim with a police baton. According to the report, a witness heard Negrin say in Spanish, "get on your knees or I will kill you and you better apoligise [sic]."

In response to the incident, TSA said it has a zero-tolerance policy for workplace violence. "At the same time, we are investigating to determine whether other officers may have violated procedures in a training session with coworkers and committed professional misconduct," the agency said in a statement.

The incident puts the spotlight back on technology some privacy advocates liken to a virtual strip search.

"As far as I'm concerned, this really demonstrates exactly how detailed the images are, exactly how invasive the search is," said John Verdi, senior counsel with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based research center specializing in civil liberties and privacy issues. It receives much of its funding from private foundations.
Verdi said the Miami incident "... also demonstrates that this technology, and the way it's being implemented by TSA, is ripe for abuse."

The TSA screener scuffle is not the only recent case of workplace tension involving the technology. A security worker at London's Heathrow Airport allegedly made lewd comments about a female colleague who mistakenly entered a scanner, according to the UK's Press Association. The accused worker was given a police warning for harassment.

TSA officials stressed that the incident in Miami was internal and did not involve any member of the traveling public. When the technology is used in airports, one screener views the scan in a remote location and does not come into contact with passengers being screened. The images are permanently deleted and never stored, according to the TSA.

EPIC has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security under the Freedom of Information Act seeking details about the government's use of advanced imaging technology.
In April, DHS revealed in a letter to EPIC that it has 2,000 full-body scanning test images, "using TSA models, not members of the public," stored at its test facility. The agency is withholding the images, citing exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act for information pertaining only to internal personnel rules and practices and records that might "benefit those attempting to violate the law."

Verdi finds the idea that the images might be used to evade security "highly problematic."
"Because if merely publishing examples of the images that the TSA has generated during testing would harm security, that really calls into question the effectiveness of the machines," he said.

Examples the TSA says are consistent with what screening officers see in airports are available on the agency's website.

Aviation security expert Douglas Laird said it is "perfectly logical" for the TSA to withhold the 2,000 test images.

"If they were available to the public, then if you were trying to defeat the machine you would study the images to find the weak link, so to speak. I would think they would be crazy to release them," said Laird, who is president of aviation security consulting firm Laird & Associates.

There are shortcomings for any technology, Laird said.

Still, Laird said he believes body-scanning technology would have given officials at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport a much better chance of catching a Nigerian man who boarded a Detroit, Michigan-bound flight on Christmas Day with explosives concealed in his groin area.

The alternative pat-down, which U.S. passengers may opt for instead of body scanning, has to be very intrusive to be effective, and studies show people are less tolerant of physical intrusion than of intrusive technology, Laird said.

While advanced imaging technology doesn't involve direct physical contact, the screener training incident in Miami highlights some travelers' reservations about full-body scans.
"I really think it would give a lot of folks pause if they thought that TSA employees were mocking naked body scans of American air travelers," Verdi said.

Blast From The Past!

Click to enlarge:

Shahzad: incompetent and stupid!

New York (CNN) -- Faisal Shahzad made a practice run in Manhattan the day before he allegedly tried to blow up a car bomb in Times Square, according to a law enforcement source with knowledge of his questioning.

Last Friday, Shahzad drove his white Isuzu from Connecticut through Times Square, where he staked out potential locations for the following night's planned attack, the source said. He then parked the Isuzu several blocks away from Times Square, though the precise location was unclear, and took a train back to Connecticut, the source said.

On Saturday night, with his recently acquired Nissan Pathfinder loaded with his makeshift explosives, Shahzad drove southbound along Manhattan's East River on FDR Drive to the 49th Street exit, the source said.

Shahzad then pulled over and reached into the Pathfinder's rear compartment where he attempted to set into motion the process needed to set off the homemade bomb, the source said.
The source, who did not explain how Shahzad had attempted to set off the bomb, said he then took a number of turns and wound up entering Times Square by driving south down Seventh Avenue.

The source said Shahzad told investigators he turned right onto 45th Street toward Eighth Avenue because he saw a place to pull over.
It's unclear why Shahzad left the Pathfinder's engine running and hazard lights blinking.

But because of an incredible goof, Shahzad couldn't use his escape car. He had accidentally left the keys to that vehicle in the Pathfinder that he thought was about to blow up, the source said.
He apparently went to a train station, where he boarded a Metro North train back to Connecticut.

Another law enforcement source said investigators found a train receipt used by Shahzad that is stamped about 7 p.m., a half hour after a witness notified authorities that the car in Times Square was filing with smoke.

Sources say investigators believe he ran to catch the train that pulled out around 7 or 7:15 Saturday night.

The source added that police investigators have discovered a surveillance video of Shahzad walking in Shubert Alley -- which runs between 44th and 45th Streets just west of Broadway -- moments after witnesses saw the smoky SUV. In the video he is wearing a white baseball cap.

Aussie Vipers in Amarillo

Friend Dean Muskett ( an good friend and transplanted Englishmen in Texas) took some photos of some brand-spanking new FA-18Fs being ferried from the plant in St. Louis to California and eventually to Australia.

They shot a few touch & gos and then stopped for fuel before continuing on to down under.

Thanks Dean!