Subscription Required

 

This content requires a subscription to one of the Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) bundles.

Schedule a demo today to find out how you can access this content and similar content related to your area of the global aviation industry.

Already an AWIN subscriber? Login

 

Did you know?  Aviation Week has won top honors multiple times in the Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards, the business-to-business media equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes.

 

 

Magazine Issue

Aviation Week & Space Technology - DT Edition July 21, 2014

Naval Architecture

article

Navies Promote Small Warship Tech Upgrades

Jul 21, 2014
As the U.S. Navy struggles to define a new variant of its Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), a smaller, better-armed, multi-role warship is in production. Analysts expect 50-60 of these to be built, while the LCS fleet has been cut to 32 from 52 pending approval of the modified version. Unfortunately for the U.S. Navy, the new and smaller vessel is Chinese.

Capital Ships

article

U.S. Navy Zumwalt Class Takes Shape

Jul 21, 2014
Adm. Harry Harris, U.S. Pacific Fleet commander, can’t wait for the USS Zumwalt, the Navy’s largest destroyer, to join the fleet and embark on its first deployment, to the Asia-Pacific region. “If Batman had a ship,” Harris is fond of saying, “it would be the Zumwalt.” After years of being a Power Point presentation, the Zumwalt has come together at Bath Iron Works in Maine, where the Navy and contractors are testing systems onboard the ship, christened April 12.

Business Strategy

article

European Land Forces Giants Eye Merger

Jul 21, 2014
Project Kant has nothing to do with philosophy, but everything with business. “Kant” in this case is an acronym of sorts for “Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter Together,” one way of describing the proposed merger of the German and French contractors that would form the world’s third-largest land-defense group by sales behind General -Dynamics and BAE Systems. The new entity will initially generate around €1.6 billion ($2.17 billion) of business annually and have 6,000 employees.

ISR

Tech Scan

article

Darpa Tests Guided Sniper Round

Jul 21, 2014
An effort by the U.S. military to develop a guided round for snipers that will hit a target with every shot is coming to fruition. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) announced this month successful tests earlier this year of its .50-caliber Exacto (Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance) round. A video of the test firings shows a shot being aimed wide of a target and the round correcting in flight to hit it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX8Z2MDYX3g).
article

U.S. Marines Want Laser To Destroy Enemy UAVs

Jul 21, 2014
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that track land forces are of concern to the U.S. Marine Corps, which wants a laser weapon that will enable light ground vehicles to kill the aircraft. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) launched the GBAD (Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-the-Move) program as part of its Future Naval Capabilities initiative, to develop an “affordable alternative to traditional firepower” that would track and destroy enemy UAVs.
article

Enhanced Sonar Improves Mine Detection

Jul 21, 2014
Work on enhancing synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) by Georgia Tech Research Institute and Pennsylvania State University could provide the U.S. Navy with a more accurate and timely method of detecting mines deep undersea. SAS is side-scan sonar with greater range and resolution than real aperture sonar (RAS), which is widely used in underwater imaging. Researchers upgraded the resolution and processing speed of SAS, thereby improving the identification of images it produces. The SAS has been tested on an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that descends almost 20,000 ft.
article

Darpa Seeks Brain Trauma Treatment

Jul 21, 2014
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is investing $40 million in its Restoring Active Memory program, whose goals include development of implantable wireless neuroprosthetics that will overcome memory loss caused by traumatic brain injury or disease. Darpa announced grants this month to the University of California, Los Angeles ($15 million), and the University of Pennsylvania ($22.5 million) for developing computational models (UCLA), studying neural activity (Penn), and other research.

First Person

article

Remaking The Status Quo

Jul 21, 2014
Nothing projects power better than an aircraft carrier. In the U.S. Navy, the officer responsible for maintaining that power is Rear Adm. Michael C. Manazir, air warfare director. Manazir recently toured the first-in-class carrier USS Gerald R. Ford at Newport News Shipbuilding Yard in Tidewater, Virginia. Naval Editor Michael Fabey caught up with him there and discussed the ship and the impact it will have on operations. Defense Technology: What makes the USS Ford vital to the Navy?