In one of 16 forts built in the 19th century to protect Paris sits a discreet intelligence service, whose task is not only to protect and advise the French defense establishment but also to protect the technological know-how of French defense companies. It recently unlatched its doors to let DTI have a look inside.
Elbit Systems has expanded its portfolio of UAS payloads with the recent launch of a hyperspectral offering for intelligence capabilities for the Hermes 450 and Hermes 900 UAS. From the company's Elop unit, the hyperspectral technology enables simultaneous imaging of the targeted region at hundreds of different wavelengths. The payload captures the spectral signature of the imaged materials, unique to every material in nature, like a fingerprint.
The Air Force chief of staff has put a rough estimate on the cost of the Next Generation Bomber – $550 million per copy for up to 100 aircraft. If the total program cost does equal about $55 billion, that would make the bomber a major acquisition program, though it would still be dwarfed by the cost of the Pentagon’s most expensive weapon system, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. A recent Congressional Research Service report places the cost at $379.4 billion to develop and buy the aircraft.
On static display at February's Singapore air show were two U.S. fighters first developed under the Nixon administration. The only newer fighter was an F-35 mockup, which doesn't count. If you wanted anything newer, you looked for the Singapore air force's IAI-Elta Gulfstream airborne early warning aircraft or Elbit's Hermes 900 unmanned air vehicle, surrounded by sensor payloads covering the spectrum from visible light to VHF.
Wire strikes, which can down aircraft, are a constant threat to pilots, especially at night. Sandel Avionics of Vista, Calif., has developed a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) visual depiction and aural alert system called HeliTAWS ST3400H, designed to detect and warn helicopter pilots of impending threats from wires and transmission lines—as well as terrain—within a precalculated hazard proximity.
This month's Cutting Edge features six defense technology-related finalists from the second annual Suppliers' Innovation Challenge, a design competition run by Aviation Week. The winners (civil and military) will be announced later this month. For more information, go to AviationWeek.com
The issue of a 37-point agreement on security and defense on Feb. 17 confirmed that, despite public spats between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron, the U.K. and France have been quietly but surely moving to ever-closer defense and industrial ties. The two countries are more serious about cooperation in defense matters than they arguably have ever been before.
RADAR RECEIVERS: Raytheon Co. Space and Airborne Systems of Goleta, Calif., has been awarded a $77,267,880 contract modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract to exercise an option to purchase 89 full rate production Lot 14 AN/ALR-67(V)3 radar warning receivers and nine countermeasure signal processor weapons replacement assemblies, the Pentagon announced Feb. 29. The AN/ALR-67(V)3 enhances pilot situational awareness by providing accurate identification, lethality, and azimuth displays of hostile and friendly emitters.
The U.K. Defense Ministry has launched the development of the Sea Ceptor ship-based short-range air defense system intended to equip the future Type 26 Global Combat Ship and also modernize the in-service Type 23 frigates. MBDA recently received a system-demonstration phase contract to work on the system, also called the Future Local Area Air Defense System. Sea Ceptor is being designed to destroy aircraft and supersonic anti-ship missiles, including saturation attacks. The Common Anti-Air Missile (CAMM) is to be the interceptor.
A ground-breaking deal between Britain's Defense Ministry and BAE Systems has provided the financial foundation for the company's new munitions factory. The £75 million ($120 million) plant is already producing a range of shell casings ahead of the final transfer in June of remaining staff and equipment from the 97-year-old factory at Birtley, 2 mi. away.
Equipping the armed forces of one country during wartime is extraordinarily expensive. Equipping two—as the U.S. has since 9/11 in Iraq and Afghanistan—borders on the absurd. But that's exactly the world we've been living in over the past 10 years, and the bills are beginning to come due.
Maps are clearly a vital tool for any military commander, but the days when a two-dimensional, printed representation of an area will suffice have long since passed. Dynamic mapping of the battlespace is not new, but 21st century technologies are revolutionizing the collection, dissemination and analysis of tactical intelligence.
The U.S. Navy is considering a second round of concept studies for the planned Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (Uclass) system, after slipping service entry by two years to 2020 as part of its fiscal 2013 budget request. A solicitation notice posted on Feb. 24 says Naval Air Systems Command (Navair) is “considering the release of a competitive broad area announcement [BAA] for additional studies within the next 30 days.”
Antiship missiles and heavyweight torpedoes have been rarely used in combat against surface vessels in recent decades. But when they are, the result is so dramatic it rattles the nerves of navies everywhere, reminding them that cost-cutting in this area can be dangerous.
Indian Foreign Minister Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna's visit to Israel in January marked the arrival of the highest-ranking Indian official there in 11 years, and is all the more significant as the Indian governing coalition is now headed by the Congress Party, a faction that traditionally has paid close attention to Muslim sensitivities.
LONDON – Cost increases resulting from the U.S. decision to cut near-term F-35 Joint Strike Fighter purchases and defer procurement do not appear to be affecting the U.K.’s budgeting for purchase of its aircraft. “The resultant increases in aircraft costs are currently judged to be within the provision that the [Defense Ministry] has made in the current budget planning round and therefore will not impact upon the introduction into U.K. service in 2020,” the defense minister for equipment, Peter Luff, tells Parliament.
Israel Military Industries showed a new MPR-500 general purpose (GP) bomb at the Singapore air show last month. The MPR-500 was developed to improve the reliability and performance of MK 82 bombs used with laser and GPS guidance kits. IMI designed the MPR-500 to be functionally interchangeable with the MK 82 to keep it compatible with all aircraft types flying the bomb, as well as all MK 82 guidance kits, fuses and tools. A 250-kg-class weapon, the MPR-500 is supposed to offer better lethality, penetration and reliability than the 2,000-lb.
The U.S. Air Force talked until recently of just a 100-aircraft fleet of new bombers, but advocates are calling for more. Dave Deptula, the retired three-star general who headed reconnaissance programs for the armed service during recent wars, says that it's easy to get to a 200-aircraft bomber fleet—with one 12-aircraft squadron for each of 10 air expeditionary forces, and other aircraft to support strategic deterrence and cover attrition and depot maintenance.
Soldiers in the field may soon be trying out goggles that can literally read their unconscious thoughts. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System (CT2WS) incorporates an array of advanced vision technology, including the ability to detect the wearer's neural signals. The high-tech binoculars are on track for testing, but it “will be summer before a prototype is deployed and tested,” Darpa tells DTI.
Christina Mackenzie (St. Nazaire, France), Andy Nativi (Genoa), Bill Sweetman (Washington)
While the U.S. Navy wrestles with development and deployment of the fast and consequently expensive Littoral Combat Ship—and confronts the cost of building real missile defense into its next-generation combatants—the rest of the world is focusing on less glamorous craft that are reliable, practical and affordable.
FORT LAUDERDALE – The Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle program has made it clear that the vehicles it is sending to the White Sands Missile Range this spring for “non-developmental” technology assessments are not being considered as replacements for the two technology demonstration vehicles being built by teams being led by BAE Systems and General Dynamics. But the list of vehicles the Army wants to evaluate keeps growing.
As a very good friend who is internationally acknowledged as a guru in weapon systems testing said many years ago: “Clearing weapons out of and off the JSF is going to be both interesting . . . and exciting!” Those who have never done such work have little, if any appreciation, of what it entails and the risks involved. That goes for all clearance work—including subsonic [aircraft], as well as supersonic. —Horde
Home-grown “hacktivism”—network penetration by politically motivated groups or individuals—has long been recognized as an important element of what is routinely referred to in cybersecurity circles as Advanced Persistent Threat.
