SHIP DEAL: The U.S. Navy awarded Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding unit a $2.4 billion, fixed-price-incentive contract May 31 for the detail design and construction of the multipurpose amphibious assault ship LHA-7 Tripoli. LHA-7 is the second America-class amphibious assault ship. Measuring 844 ft. long and 106 ft. wide, Tripoli will displace 44,971 long tons. Featuring a gas-turbine propulsion system, the ship can travel at speeds greater than 20 kt.
After years of complaints about the U.S. having no cyber-attack plans, policies, weapons or legal guidance, the White House and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) are both announcing new initiatives. Plan X is a broad program being launched by Darpa to create cyber-attack schemes, define their operational employment and deflect counterattacks. The program is expected to put $110 million into research over the next five years to support offensive military operations.
The German Bundeswehr in April ordered $6.4 million in direct methanol fuel cells to be delivered by the end of the year. About the size of a hardback book and weighing 3.5 lb., the cells can be kept running in the field by swapping out small fuel tanks, promising longer operating life for connected devices and less weight than batteries.
UAVs do not fly in commercial airspace or over populated areas for good reasons: They have no sense-and-avoidance systems to prevent mid-air collisions, and there is no way to make safe emergency landings a regular event. “In most cases they just drop,” says Luis Alvarez of the Australian Research Center for Aerospace Automation. Researchers there and at partner Queensland University of Technology are developing onboard systems to address these problems.
General Bertrand Ract-Madoux French Army Chief of Staff Age: 59 Birthplace: Saumur, France Education: Graduate of the Saint-Cyr academy for army officers; and alumnus of the Institut des Hauts Etudes de Defense National and the Centre des Hautes Etudes Militaires war college.
A flawless radome is vital to the integrity of aircraft communications. If the assembly, usually fabricated of polymer composite several centimeters (1 cm is 0.4 in.) thick, retains defects such as air bubbles, water droplets or contaminants during manufacture, cracks may develop that degrade moisture resistance, affecting signal integrity. At last month's Control exposition in Stuttgart, Germany, the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques of Kaiserslauten, Germany, displayed a prototype testing system that detects such flaws.
When I joined Defense Technology International in 2007, our goal was to expand the Aviation Week franchise into the world of global defense. Since then, I and other members of our team have piloted trucks through house-sized sinkholes, ridden MRAPs and Strykers through war zones and toured Dutch-designed, French-armed Indonesian warships.
Airbus Military and Cobham are modifying the hose-and-drogue refueling system for the U.K.'s A330-based Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA), to mitigate fuel-venting when working with Royal Air Force (RAF) Tornado and Typhoon fighters. A series of actions is being taken to reduce excess spraying during refueling. Already tested are improvements to the coupling and basket, with possible software fixes to the pod still to be examined.
Rafael's new “hard kill” technology marked an important milestone last September, demonstrating the kill of an incoming rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) at a safe distance from the protected platform. The new system, dubbed Fliker, was developed by the company's Manor Technologies Div. with support by the Israeli Defense Research & Development Directorate (DRDD). Fliker is designed as an add-on defensive layer, augmenting existing warning systems and countermeasures used on combat helicopters.
May was the cruelest month yet for the U.S. Air Force's F-22 Raptor, given the Lockheed Martin fighter's persistent problems with its oxygen-delivery system. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta placed restrictions on Raptor operations on May 15—including a noteworthy deployment to the United Arab Emirates—and ordered the Air Force to rush into place an automatic back-up system. The first retrofit is due in December, and starting in January, 10 aircraft will be retrofitted per month.
When you think of European robotics, Nexter does not jump to mind as a major player. But during this month's Eurosatory show in Paris, the French manufacturer of the VBCI and Aravis armored vehicles and the Leclerc battle tank, among others, plans to change that mindset.
The roar of jets being launched from aircraft carriers may be iconic, but the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) is looking for ways of reducing the noise generated by tactical aircraft, to protect the hearing of sailors involved with flight-deck operations. ONR's ongoing Jet Noise Reduction project, jointly funded by NASA, recently awarded more than $4 million in grants to six universities and two companies for development of noise-reduction technologies, as well as measurement and prediction tools and noise-source models.
Bill Sweetman (Washington), Michael Fabey (Washington), Christina Mackenzie (Paris)
“A revolution in air defense” is what Rafael Executive Vice President Lova Drori calls current trends in protecting ground and sea targets from all kinds of air-delivered threats
The increased use of UAVs and light aircraft is spurring development of smaller precision-attack weapons, designed to better meet payload limitations of the manned, light-strike aircraft and UAVs. Such weapons also will open new tactical dimensions for light rotorcraft, for which there is increasing demand, especially by a growing corps of special operations forces. So far, most available light scout helicopters considered for armed missions are underpowerd and lack payload capacity and only a new generation of light precison-attack weapons can fill this critical gap.
Finland has selected the Israeli-built Aeronautics Defense Systems Orbiter-2 mini-UAV system to be used in support of tactical ground forces. The acquisition of 55 systems is expected to be worth about $29.5 million. The Orbiter has already been exported to several customers, including Poland. The electrically powered, 3-meter-span flying-wing aircraft counts a maximum takeoff weight below 10 kg (22 lb.), is designed to stay aloft for up to 4 hr. and has a range of 30-80 km (19-50 mi.) at a ceiling up to 18,000 ft.
If special operations are the “point of the spear” in war, combat engineers are the ridges of the blade, eliminating hazards and obstacles for advancing infantry. The Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) combat engineering corps has added a number of technologies to facilitate this mission. Among those recently revealed by the IDF is a Puma armored personnel carrier (APC) that has been modified for mine-clearing operations. The Puma (see photo), which uses the chassis of a British Centurion tank, carries 20 missiles armed with thermobaric (i.e., fuel-air) explosives.
Dear Reader, Defense Technology International (DTI) was launched more than five years ago as an integrated media platform, with a promise to deliver unprecedented, cross-domain intelligence to connect defense professionals worldwide. As the information and technology needs of this complex industry became more demanding, DTI remained focused on its core mission and quickly became the market leader for providing seamless intelligence across land, sea and air.
After almost two decades in the making, NATO has finally awarded a contract to field an Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) system. The alliance has signed a $1.7 billion contract to acquire five Northrop Grumman Global Hawk Block 40s to address an operational shortfall first identified during the 1991 Persian Gulf war and validated during last year's Libya air campaign. An initial operational capability is due to be reached in 2016. The deal was signed during the meeting of NATO members' heads of government summit in Chicago last month.
As more users adopt cloud-based computing networks to achieve bandwidth efficiency, hardware reduction and other benefits, issues arise over the ability to access different operating systems in the cloud, host multiple domains, assure data resilience and, importantly, maintain security. Three companies have partnered to develop a system that they say is innovative in that it provides a secure, scalable, redundant platform for cloud networks in sensitive environments, including tactical military use.
