SOCOM LAUNCHES TWO PROJECTS TO LEVERAGE FRENCH TECHNOLOGY

摘要

U.S. Special Operations Command is launching two more "foreign comparative testing" initiatives this year that will leverage French technology to meet elite warfighters' needs.rnAlan Shaffer, the principal deputy in the Pentagon's defense research and engineering office, informed Congress about the out-of-cycle fiscal year 2009 new-start projects late last month. One project is for an airborne tactical extraction platform and the other for gunfire-detection system upgrades.rnAccording to an April 23 letter to lawmakers reviewed by Inside the Pentagon, SOCOM plans to evaluate an airborne tactical extraction platform made by the French company Escape International. The platform, which is used in rotary-wing rapid extraction of up to 10 people or 3,300 pounds of personnel and/or equipment. That would be an improvement over SOCOM's current capability. Existing evacuation systems are only capable of extracting three people from locations where rotary-wing aircraft cannot land, a "particular problem" in current overseas contingency operations, the letter states.