Sky Rider, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) unit of Israel's artillery corps, is enhancing performance of its Skylark I-LE platform with improved takeoff, flight and imaging capabilities, including the ability to transfer aerial footage directly to a battalion. The system comprises a new version of Skylark, which is produced by Elbit Systems, and a new network operating system called Version 10. “The new version of the UAV will be substantially better,” says the Sky Rider commander, Lt. Col. Uri Gonen.
The U.S. Defense Department is at the mercy of the global supply chain when it comes to computers, routers, software, firmware and related electronic devices. Each has the potential to be compromised by malicious software and other vulnerabilities that could be used to hack classified information or sabotage operations. The notion that the millions of devices the department sources every year could be certified safe prior to use has been dismissed as impractical. But maybe not.
North Korea said last week it would conduct its third nuclear test and continue long-range missile trials designed to reach the U.S. just as the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) was gearing up for a long-awaited return to flight of the system designed to protect the U.S. homeland from such an attack. The vow came a day after the U.N. Security Council agreed to a Washington-backed set of sanctions for Pyongyang in response to its December rocket launch.
India's first C-17 has entered flight acceptance testing by the U.S. Air Force at Edwards AFB, Calif., as part of a fast-track foreign military sales (FMS) program that will see four other deliveries to India's Hindon Air Force Station near New Delhi this year.
The U.S. Navy wants its new unmanned underwater vehicle, the Knifefish, to do more than remove humans from the dangers of mine hunting. The Navy also hopes Knifefish will replace the use of dolphins. Knifefish, which was unveiled last year, is to be fielded in 2017 as part of the Littoral Combat Ship's mine-warfare mission module. After being launched, Knifefish will use a low-frequency synthetic aperture sonar to scan for mines. The Navy believes that capability will replace trained dolphins, which use their natural echolocation abilities to hunt mines.
When safety issues arise with products used by millions of Americans, Congress is often quick to exercise its oversight role. But for the most part, lawmakers are willing to let the FAA and Boeing take time to discover just what caused the 787 battery fires that have grounded the fledgling fleet (see page 30). Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee who plans to retire in 2014, is one exception. He had a brief outburst last week pressing for congressional inquiry into the matter.
ARLINGTON, Va. — As the production line looks to ramp down for the LPD-17 San Antonio-class amphibious dock ship, Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding unit is eyeing other possible variants for the ship that could perform such missions as ballistic missile defense (BMD), hospital work or sub tending.
A team of researchers working with Hungarian air survey company Interspect has unveiled what is claimed to be the most detailed geo-referenced airborne image to be acquired from an airplane, versus helicopters or low-flying ultralights. The image has a resolution of 0.5 cm, which the team says is five times what has been achieved in other countries; the same group produced a 1.8-cm resolution image in 2009.
LONDON — Airbus Military has marked the last delivery of Spain’s most successful indigenous aircraft— the C212. The company handed over the last C212-400 light transport to the Vietnam marine police on Dec. 28, marking the end of production of the type in Spain. The C212 was developed by CASA—now Airbus Military—during the 1960s and the type made its first flight in March 1971. Since then, 477 C212s have been built for more than 90 operators. Approximately 290 are still in service today.
The next U.S. aircraft carrier, CVN-78, the Gerald R. Ford, is 90% complete. The Newport News Shipbuilding division of Huntington Ingalls Industries recently added three units to the ship, including two sponsons—structures that project from the side of the hull and provide the space needed for flight-deck operations. One sponson is 140 ft. long and weighs 391 metric tons, one of the largest ever erected. In addition, shipbuilders have installed 3 million ft. of the total 10 million ft. of cable. Workers add 10,000 ft.
NASA's loss is Boeing's gain, as former space shuttle program manager John Shannon retires to head up the company's International Space Station program. “It is really great to be back in an operational program again,” Shannon says. Not so great for his space-agency bosses, who continue to see rising stars bail out while Congress and the White House squabble over NASA's future.
HBC REORG: Hawker Beechcraft is hoping to receive U.S. Bankruptcy Court confirmation of a reorganization plan to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week after receiving approval from key creditors. The company announced Jan. 25 that the key creditors have overwhelmingly approved the proposed joint plan for reorganization, and that the confirmation hearing is scheduled for Jan. 31. The company, which filed for Chapter 11 on May 3, hopes to exit bankruptcy protection in the second half of February.
Ceramic materials have become viable—even better—replacements for conventional metallic armor plates on tanks, personnel carriers and other armored vehicles. They not only resist penetration by most explosive projectiles encountered on a battlefield, but provide considerable weight savings, which in turn increase the agility and maneuverability of these multi-ton platforms. Ceramic plates, however, have one significant problem: weakness in the adhesive bond that connects them to their composite backing material, which reduces their effectiveness.
Seasons greetings from Iceland came early in 2012, carried aloft by seven jolly men in a newly upgraded Bombardier Dash 8 Q300. The aircraft, a maritime surveillance platform belonging to the Icelandic Coast Guard, flew for 8 hr. and 1,835 nm from Reykjavik to Moncton on Dec. 18 via a fuel stop in Goose Bay, Labrador. The goodwill mission aimed to help Toronto-based Field Aviation, the aircraft modification company that installed a new flight deck on TF-SIF, the Q300's Icelandic registration, in 2011.
NEW DELHI — India will test fly its Nirbhay subsonic cruise missile in February, a top defense scientist says. “Nirbhay is at a final state of integration and we hope to flight-test its capabilities, including stealth and accuracy, next month” says V.K. Saraswat, head of state-run Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). Nirbhay will be launched from Integrated Test Range at Chandipur in Odisha, in eastern India.
Angus Batey and Francis Tusa London and David Eshel Tel Aviv, Francis Tusa (London), David Eshel (Tel Aviv)
Infantry operations have evolved dramatically in the past decade, along with weaponry. The combat equipment that many soldiers now field reflects rapid advances in areas ranging from weapons design and precision firepower to battlefield networking.
As the Pentagon prepares for across-the-board cuts to government spending, the competition for scarcer dollars is already beginning. A union representing 270,000 Pentagon civilians worries that the Pentagon could wind up converting civilian jobs to contract ones as the civilian workforce shrinks but the workload remains. Last year, the Pentagon issued guidance against that practice, known as direct conversions, and the head of the American Federation of Government Employees has asked the Pentagon to repeat the message.
Lockheed Martin executives are expecting to finalize negotiations for multibillion-dollar contracts with the Pentagon for the next two lots of F-35s in the first half of 2013, after the last two thorny sets of production discussions each took a year or more to close.
The U.S. Air Force is studying how to gain better insight into the true cost of weapon systems produced year over year, with an eye toward reducing “windfall profit” for companies at the tail end of a production cycle, says Lt. Gen. C.R. Davis, The ultimate goal is to allow the government to share in the benefits when production processes and personnel become most efficient in building a weapon system and prices tend to substantially drop.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) plans to show that a robotic vehicle can remove the antenna from a retired spacecraft in graveyard orbit, and attach systems to it to rebuild a functioning geostationary communications satellite, in an orbital demonstration planned for 2016.
The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (Speea) has pushed back a vote on a new four-year contact with Boeing until Feb. 18 at the earliest, about two weeks later than originally planned. The 10-member Speea negotiating panel, however, still is expected to recommend a “no” vote on the contract and ask its 22,900 engineer and technical members at Boeing Commercial Airplanes factories in California, Oregon, Utah and Washington to authorize a strike.
