Defense

Western defense primes continue to play an important role in Turkish modernization plans, but Turkey will increasingly rely on domestic purchases, resulting in a 12% increase in the number of in-service Turkish military aircraft from 1,269 today to around 1,467 in 2035.

The architecture would comprise surface batteries in the homeland with launchers positioned inside of standard, 40-ft.-long shipping containers and silos, according to slides presented to industry.

Autonomous flight system developer Merlin is to go public through a merger with a blank-check company that values the Boston-based startup at $800 million.

Ukrainian front-line troops received the first 1,000 first person view drones less than two weeks after a newly launched online weapons marketplace started processing orders.

Poland accounted for more than half of the $11.9 million in export sales in Taiwan’s drone sector recorded in the first half of the year.

KBR hopes tech and tools developed for its Iron Stallion space domain awareness monitoring platform will enable it to play a key role in Golden Dome.

The Missile Defense Agency is targeting a new launcher for Golden Dome under layer interceptors to be operational within two years.

The U.S. Army has announced a standardized interface for UAS and launched effects to carry munitions or other attachments.

The country placed the foreign military sales order for 12 aircraft in 2022.

Switzerland’s government has instructed the country’s defense ministry to look at options after failing to find agreement with the U.S. on price.

Ursa Major and BAE Systems have completed static fires of the extended-range APKWS variant.

The MDA has released a solicitation for a new southern-facing radar to be operational within three years to support the Golden Dome for America missile shield.

Poland will spend $3.8 billion to upgrade its Lockheed Martin F-16 fleet to the Block 72 configuration, government officials have declared.

Elbit CEO Bezhalel Machlis has shed further light on the company’s work to turn the Iron Beam ground-based counter-drone laser system into an airborne application.

Global Technical Systems unveiled the unnamed missile in an Aug. 7 post on LinkedIn.

Aerial firefighting specialist Neptune Aviation Services is advancing its development plan for a next-generation air tanker based on the Airbus A319.

The U.S. Air Force faces a looming question with its plan to retire the E-3 AWACS and cancel the E-7 Wedgetail.

The U.S. Army is finalizing plans to buy a new medium-altitude uncrewed aerial system as it phases out its older MQ-1C Gray Eagle.

Even though the U.S. Army canceled the FTUAS program of record, the appetite remains to quickly field a similar system at the brigade level.

Castings and forgings have once again been fingered as the key limit on future large commercial and military aircraft build-rates.

Latvia says Russia is interfering with global navigation satellite systems from three sites, impacting flight navigation and airport operations in the region.

The cover of Aviation Week & Space Technology’s Sept. 1, 1975, issue featured a full-scale model of the proposed Air Force/Boeing Air-Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) built for integration studies.

The first serial production-representative AW09 single-engine light rotorcraft, codenamed S6, took to the air on Aug. 8 from Leonardo’s Vergiate manufacturing facility near Milan.

Vertical lift specialist Piasecki Aircraft plans to develop a larger-capacity version of the Kargo UAV.

China’s aerospace industry is attempting to spread its tentacles all over Africa, even if money for most governments is tight. That’s not a problem though for Beijing, because underwriting deals by taking a share of the customer’s natural minerals instead can always be an option. Alan Warnes reports.