LE BOURGET — Executives from Boeing’s defense unit say they expect to have a productive air show this week in Paris despite a smaller turnout than usual from the Pentagon in terms of personnel and hardware dedicated toward international sales campaigns. By contrast, says Jeff Kohler, vice president of business development for Boeing Defense, Space and Security, more Pentagon support in those areas would be critical for the company’s plans for the upcoming Dubai and Singapore air shows.
LE BOURGET — Aircrews and air transport aircraft from eight nations have been training together in Spain, in a bid to boost interoperability across Europe. European Air Transport Training (EATT) is a European Defense Agency (EDA) project designed to harmonize and enhance airlift procedures and processes across the European member countries. The exercise, taking place now at Zaragoza AB, Spain, involves 350 personnel and 11 aircraft from the eight participating countries.
Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall expects to begin increasing production of the stealthy Lockheed Martin F-35 beginning in 2015, marking a shift forward in the $400 billion program. “Unless there is a major surprise, I think we will be able to ramp up production,” he told reporters June 13 after conducting a CEO conference of major suppliers for the single-engine fighter. Ideally, Kendall says he would like to increase production by half each year.
The CMD3D1 air defence management centre deployed with the French Army's 54th Artillery Regiment on Operation Serval in Mali since January 2013 has proven its vital role in providing real-time coordination of airborne assets and securing the success of joint, combined-arms and allied missions in this type of conflict.
CIA SHUFFLE: President Obama is appointing Avril Haines as the next deputy director of the CIA. Haines a former deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president for national security affairs at the White House. She replaces Michael Morell, who resigned from his post at the CIA. Morell, who has worked on and off at the CIA since 1980, will continue to work with the administration as a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.
PARIS — Dassault Aviation hopes to finalize the sale of Rafale combat jets to India this year, a deal that could sustain current aircraft production levels as France prepares to cut defense spending over the next six years. Contract negotiations with New Delhi have been underway since February 2012, when India committed to purchase at least 126 Rafale combat jets. Talks have dragged on amid disagreement concerning the company’s liability for the aircraft to be built under license in India.
The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier CVN-77 USS George H.W. Bush completed the first aircraft carrier-borne, end-to-end, at-sea test of the Surface Ship Torpedo Defense (SSTD) system, the Navy confirmed earlier this month. While there has been recent heated discussion underlying concern about carriers’ potential vulnerability to Chinese-developed ballistic anti-ship missiles, submarines and torpedoes remain one of the biggest threats to the Navy’s largest ships.
U.S. House and Senate defense authorizers have set the parameters of their fiscal 2014 policy fights regarding defense systems, including missile defense and nuclear forces, while other issues affecting helicopters for Afghanistan and selling fighters to Taiwan could build more legislative consensus against the White House.
Beechcraft, which has lost its appeal to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to overturn the U.S. Air Force’s award of the Light Air Support (LAS) contract to a Sierra Nevada/Embraer team, is urging Congress to limit the scope of contract, worth up to nearly $1 billion, to the minimum requirements.
PARIS — Absent government backing, Dassault Aviation of France and Britain’s BAE Systems have shelved plans to jointly develop a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAV. But the two companies are forging ahead with the definition phase of a future unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demo that French government officials say could fly before the end of the decade.
SINGAPORE — Australian satellite operator NewSat acknowledges that one of the pitfalls in securing business from Australia’s defense department and other national militaries is that if NewSat were to ever be sold to a foreign party, Australia’s military may take issue.
LAUNCH FAILURE: When it comes to the space launch marketplace, Americans are too busy fighting themselves while losing ground to Russia and other countries in the global sector, says a key author of the Obama administration’s 2010 National Space Policy.
“This is a full-steam ahead transition, not a course correction. There is no change in direction,” says Kelly Ortberg, president of Rockwell Collins and the successor to CEO Clay Jones when he retires at the end of next month after 34 years. Jones was named president in 1999, and became CEO in 2001 after leading Rockwell through its initial public offering.
With tightening defense budgets and no concrete plan to develop a pan-European unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), France hopes to purchase U.S. General Atomics MQ-9 Reapers to meet urgent surveillance needs while forging ahead with a Franco-U.K. unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) development.
Aerospace companies in Europe are touting the operational experience of the Eurofighter, Gripen and Rafale since the 49th International Paris Air Show in 2011, seeking to secure exports in emerging markets that could sustain production despite declining government spending, and a potential end to manufacturing lines this decade.
Canada's acquisitions of search-and-rescue (SAR) aircraft and naval helicopters have been dogged by delays, but the country's defense minister appears confident that progress is impending.
While the Paris static line will be dominated by major U.S. and European companies and their big-ticket programs, indoor exhibits and a good deal of discussion will revolve around the increasing globalization of the industry. While the big four—Europe and the U.S., and Brazil and Canada on the regional side—continue to fend off competition in the commercial world, the defense market may be more fluid.
In the latest in a string of high-profile defense-industry corruption cases, a European official is charged with trying to pay bribes to prevent his company, Rheinmetall Air Defense (RAD), from landing on India's blacklist, where it was placed after a previous alleged instance of corruption.
