Subcommittee puts Emarss in a funding tailspin

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee has proposed cutting $524 million from a key manned aerial reconnaissance program operated by the Army, reports Aviation Week.

The cuts to the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System program is one of several creative ways that the subcommittee managed to trim nearly $9 billion from the president’s military budget for fiscal 2012.

The Boeing Co. program to furnish Hawker Beechcraft King Air 350s outfitted with communications-monitoring and other surveillance equipment has been slowed by contract protests, the media outlet reported earlier in the year.