The Pentagon's long-awaited deal with Pratt & Whitney to build the seventh low-rate production lot of F135 engines for the multinational F-35 fighter has finally been signed, though officials have not yet outlined a clear path forward to address the design issue that led to an engine fire that grounded the fleet of single-engine aircraft this summer.
At 7,000 troops, the Peace Mission 2014 military exercise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was not large militarily. But its geopolitical importance was considerable: It was the biggest exercise to date for a budding anti-democratic alliance that includes two nuclear powers and could soon gain three more.
Pan-European cooperation in military Earth observation could see progress by the end of this year as France presses for allied contributions to the next-generation Optical Space Component (CSO) system in exchange for access to its high-resolution imagery.
Developments in next-gen wearable and handheld IT products to bolster soldiers’ gear has lagged at some companies, but not at Chemring Technology Solutions
This expanded issue of Aviation Week’s Defense Technology International edition is the first of a series planned to coincide with major defense shows worldwide. This week, the Association of the U.S. Army convention and show opens in Washington—an event that grew rapidly during the 2000s as the U.S. committed soldiers and weapons to the longest land conflict in its history.
With the evolution of modern satellite-based navigation, miniaturized inertial measurement systems, advanced electro-optical and laser sensors and powerful yet compact computing and advanced data links, robots are becoming smart enough to carry out autonomous missions as efficiently, or better than, their human counterparts.
Combining assets to defeat the rocket, artillery and mortar (RAM) threat has proven successful, but other traditional threats (aircraft/cruise missile) and emerging asymmetric ones (unmanned air systems) still have been treated separately. The RAM experience suggested an integrated approach to defeating these threats and to the acquisition process. This approach unites sensor, weapons and mission-command components with a standard set of interfaces using a standardized set of networks to communicate—a meta-system for air defense.
While the U.S. Special Operations Command has seen its force size and budget grow despite the current fiscal austerity sweeping Washington, it is looking not for new platforms but for ways of obtaining more data from its existing unmanned air systems, especially small ones such as AeroVironment’s man-portable, hand-launched RQ-11 Raven.
Over the past decade, Pentagon plans to replace the AGM-114 Hellfire have been scaled back from joint-service development of an all-new tri-mode missile for launch from rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft, fast and slow, to a dual-mode guidance section upgrade for the AGM-114R now carried by U.S. Army and Marine Corps attack helicopters. Delayed and descoped, the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) finally looks set to move into full development.
Momentum is solidly behind fielding manned-unmanned teaming technologies for Army aviation assets. Combining video feeds and weapons of manned and unmanned platforms provides significantly better situational awareness to troops on the ground and dramatically improved efficiency in focusing weapons to support ground elements.
