Jim Roche, deputy CEO of Pilatus Aircraft, explains how the Swiss company expects to expand its presence in both defense and general aviation markets in India, in an interview with AW&ST Contributing Editor Jay Menon. AW&ST: What are the short- and long-term business plans for Pilatus in India?
Two recent events epitomize radically diverging fates in the global defense industry. At the end of 2013, Singapore ordered Type 218SG submarines from German company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) for €1.6 billion ($2.2 billion). A month later, the French defense minister awarded a €1 billion contract for the modernization of Dassault's Rafale fighter aircraft (see photo). A good story for both companies? Not quite.
Sharing borders with China and Pakistan, both of which have undertaken their own weapons modernization efforts, and having borne the brunt of devastating terrorist attacks, India has undertaken its own military transformation. Without its own defense industrial base, India's modernization has been fueled by imports, and India now tops the list of global weapons buyers in the last five years (see map on pages 74-75). Despite procurement delays due to India's current political situation, the trend is expected to continue in the long term.
An audacious project to convert land-based helicopters for shipborne amphibious operations has been given the go-ahead by the U.K. Defense Ministry. The £330 million ($546 million) program, awarded to AgustaWestland in December but only formally announced on Jan. 29, helps to secure the U.K.'s amphibious power projection capabilities, which will become a key part of the country's ability to mount a Responsive Force Task Group (RFTG) on its future Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
As efforts to strengthen India's defense-industrial base have fallen far short of the country's self-reliance target, the military is continuing to look abroad for its defense hardware. That is encouraging to international equipment manufacturers from the U.S., Russia, France, Israel, the U.K. and Germany, which have been establishing relationships in India to sell aircraft, tanks, howitzers, unmanned aerial vehicles, combat vehicles, missiles, infantry weapons, submarines and support equipment.
“There is an awful lot of software on this program. It scares the heck out of me.” That was U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan's candid reaction to the F-35's dependence on yet-to-be-delivered software before he assumed the top spot overseeing the $390 billion program in December 2012. At that time, he was serving as the program's deputy and was just getting his head around the massive software effort behind various capability releases that would underpin the operational readiness of the three F-35 variants.
The high cost of training aircrews for the U.K.'s battlefield support helicopters is prompting senior officers to look at cheaper options to maintain crew currency. With types such as the CH-47 Chinook costing what commanders describe as in the “high teens” of thousands of pounds per hour to operate, officials from the U.K.'s tri-service Joint Helicopter Command (JHC) are drawing up ideas to potentially introduce a less expensive rotorcraft fitted with a comparable modern avionics suite to keep crews current.
After two years of contentious debate, the European Commission has a freshly minted budget of €10 billion ($13.7 billion) over seven years with which to complete and launch two new flagship space programs: the Galileo satellite navigation constellation and the Copernicus Earth-observation system. With some half-dozen spacecraft dedicated to the two programs set to launch this year, the EC's next task is to figure out how to use them.
The U.S. Air Force should restructure up to 10% of its active-duty force into either its federal reserve component or the Air National Guard, including aircraft, to save money and maintain optimal capability in a post-war era of austerity, a highly anticipated report said Jan. 30.
Lockheed Martin has demonstrated that electric fiber lasers can be spectrally combined to produce a high-power, weapon-grade beam. With the highest power yet achieved with high electrical efficiency and beam quality, the company says, tests of the 30-kw fiber laser are a key step toward tactical high-energy weapons.
The U.S. Navy’s shipboard Cobra Judy Replacement (CJR) mobile radar suite—used to monitor and verify missile treaties and provide ballistic missile test data—has overcome programmatic delays and other problems but still faces more obstacles, according to the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E). “The CJR program executed a compressed test schedule caused by programmatic complications and technical setbacks during the integration and developmental test,” DOT&E says.
CYBER CHIEF: U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Michael Rogers has been nominated to replace Gen. Keith Alexander as the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, director of the NSA and the chief of the Central Security Service. Rogers currently commands U.S. Fleet Cyber Command. This makes him the third person named Mike Rogers in a high-profile national security position. He joins lawmakers Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who leads the House Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), who leads a House Armed Services panel on strategic forces.
NEW DELHI — India has decided to use its Russian-made Mi-17 V-5 helicopters to transport important political leaders during the ensuing election campaigns, after authorities truncated an order for 12 AgustaWestland AW101 VIP transport helos over alleged corruption charges.
Civil Air Patrol – the U.S. Air Force auxiliary and the largest single operator of Cessna piston aircraft – is adjusting its annual aircraft buy to acquire 11 Turbo 206 aircraft after the airframer stopped producing avgas-fueled 182T Skylanes. “The aircraft buy was impacted when Cessna discontinued production of its avgas-fueled 182T and [decided] to replace it with the Jet-A-fueled Turbo Skylane JT-A,” CAP said in its 2013 accomplishments review, posted recently on its website.
While U.S. Navy officials have kicked off the development of their vaunted air and missile-defense radar (AMDR) and remain pleased about the proposed cost reduction anticipated for the program, the most recent report from the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) says more testing is needed for the system. The Navy also has to overcome test range limitations and prohibitions to properly assess AMDR, DOT&E says.
