LONDON — The French army will replace its Milan anti-tank missile with a new weapon developed by MBDA. The MMP (Missile Moyenne Portée) will be used by the French army from 2017 following the signing of a development and production contract from the DGA, the French defense procurement agency, announced Dec. 3. The deal, signed as part of the defense ministry’s military planning act, includes the development of the system, 400 launchers and 2,850 missiles. Around 175 launchers and 450 missiles will be delivered between 2014-2019.
Prototyping is still a vital tool for U.S. Air Force and Pentagon programs, but officials worry that its benefits may be misunderstood and downplayed, according to a recent prototypes workshop draft report released by the National Research Council (NRC). “Prototyping has historically been of great benefit to the Air Force and Department of Defense (DOD) in terms of risk reduction and concept demonstration prior to system development, both during austere budget environments and at other times,” the NRC report says.
LONDON — Airbus Military is close to finalizing the flight control laws to support air-to-air refueling on the Airbus A400M Atlas airlifter. Company test pilots in late November completed the first “wet” air-to-air refueling of an A400M from a French air force C-160 Transall in a set of sorties designed to verify the newly written flight control laws, known to the company as “Delta Six Romeo - Papa.” Until then, the aircraft had only conducted “dry” contacts from U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) Vickers VC10s and A330-200 Multi-Role Tanker Transports.
A large, classified unmanned aircraft developed by Northrop Grumman is now flying—and it demonstrates a major advance in combining stealth and aerodynamic efficiency. Defense and intelligence officials say the secret unmanned aerial system (UAS), designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, is scheduled to enter production for the U.S. Air Force and could be operational by 2015.
By making its announcement on Cyber Monday, Dec. 2, the biggest online shopping day of the year in the U.S., electronic-commerce giant Amazon was certain to get exhaustive and enthusiastic news coverage of its plans to use unmanned aircraft to deliver packages directly to customers. While Amazon has conducted test fights using a small quadcopter UAV to deliver a package, the realities of the FAA's regulatory requirements make it unlikely the delivery service, called Amazon Prime Air, will become available in 2015 as the company suggests.
While there is plenty to debate about where U.S. defense budgets could settle in 2014-15, there is no debate about the Pentagon's desire to continue to compete with cutting-edge technology. It expects defense advantages to be sustained through investment in new weapons and support systems that provide a generational lead over those fielded by adversaries.
While green shoots of economic recovery are beginning to emerge in Spain, deep cuts in public spending have had a dramatic effect on the country's armed forces. For the air arm, which was poised to undergo a major modernization, the cuts could not have arrived at a worse time. The service was preparing to introduce new helicopters and transport aircraft while continuing to integrate the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Amy Butler (Washington), Bill Sweetman (Washington)
In December 2011, Iran proudly displayed on state television a stealthy U.S. unmanned aircraft it claimed it had downed while conducting reconnaissance overflights. The trophy was a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, an aircraft publicly acknowledged by the U.S. Air Force two years earlier.
In an unprecedented move, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) is planning to resource its industrial base at a level beyond the number of rocket orders placed by the Pentagon.
To call launch market upstart Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) a change agent would not be an overstatement. The company is bursting onto the scene with the stated goal of CEO Elon Musk to break the monopoly for U.S. national security launches now held by the United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas V and Delta IV rockets. Air Force officials say they are already seeing ULA take measures to become more efficient and reduce cost (see page 43). And SpaceX is infusing the market with new manufacturing and design techniques.
For suppliers of defense equipment, selling a platform or a subsystem is just the beginning. The importance of what would be called “after-sales service” in the commercial market has increased as the global economic climate has worsened, but in certain sectors it has never really been about just selling a product. This is particularly true of electronic warfare (EW) systems.
When Marenco Swisshelicopter unveiled the mock-up of its radical-looking, single-engined light helicopter at Heli-Expo in 2011, critics were quick to pass judgment. They questioned the business model and the ability to keep costs low while building the aircraft in a country considered to be the most expensive in Europe.
London has held the responsibility for the defense of the British Isles since the Act of Union in 1707, but if Scots opt for independence on Sept. 18, 2014, that will come to an end, and Scotland will assume responsibility for its own defense.
European aerospace manufacturers are turning up the pressure on governments to develop a pan-European approach to the continent's medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned air vehicle requirements. But their protests appear to be falling on deaf ears as another European nation signs up to purchase the MQ-9 Reaper. The Netherlands announced plans Nov. 21 to introduce four General Atomics MQ-9 Reapers into full operational service by 2017.
Amy Butler (Washington), Bill Sweetman (Washington)
A large, classified unmanned aircraft developed by Northrop Grumman is now flying—and it demonstrates a major advance in combining stealth and aerodynamic efficiency. Defense and intelligence officials say the secret unmanned aerial system (UAS), designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, is scheduled to enter production for the U.S. Air Force and could be operational by 2015.
With the U.S. Senate expected this week to pick up its stalled version of the defense authorization bill for fiscal 2014, most headlines out of the Capitol will be about debate over sexual assault in the military, the Guantanamo Bay prison, the Iranian nuclear deal, budget cuts or the possibility that no annual law will be enacted for the first time in 52 years.
The Pentagon’s acquisition czar has a growing chart in his office of defense programs and their current and past managers, and it is just one of the subtle, albeit significant, personnel-oriented changes being pursued in what is dawning as a new era of acquisition reform. It is not quite Santa’s list of who is naughty or nice, but for the U.S. defense and space sector, it is close.
TEL AVIV — The Israeli Air Force (IAF) is conducting a first-of-its-kind multinational exercise at the southern training base of Ouvda that kicked off last week, where 60 aircraft from four nations are taking part in realistic air combat training, practicing how air forces from different nations can cooperate in a coalition under one command.
U.S. partners and allies in the Asia-Pacific region are set to invest heavily in shipbuilding defense programs over the next 10 years, according to an Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) analysis of data provided by Avascent Analytics, an online market analysis toolkit for global defense programs.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 501 successfully launched the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office’s classified NROL-39 mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 11:13 p.m. Pacific Time on Dec. 5.
Boeing and Saab have signed an agreement to jointly develop and build an all-new aircraft for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X trainer competition. Boeing will be the prime contractor, but both companies will invest in the new aircraft, which appears certain to be the only all-new candidate. Discussions between the two companies were reported in September but have been under way for “much longer,” a Saab source says.
The decision by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates to cap Lockheed Martin’s production of the stealthy, twin-engine F-22 will “prove to be one of the strategically dislocating decisions that we will suffer from” on security made in this era, according to Gen. (ret.) T. Michael Moseley, former Air Force chief of staff from 2005-2008.
Electronic components distributors can now get a one-of-a-kind DNA mark to authenticate their products. Applied DNA Sciences, a provider of DNA-based anti-counterfeiting and product authentication technology, is now offering unique electronic components plant-based SigNature DNA marks to specifically identify authorized distributors, to be applied to incoming components, or legacy inventory before shipment per customer request. The marked components will be absolutely identifiable as sourced from the authorized channel, the company says.
