August 21, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Manned Marine helicopter refuels unmanned helo for 1st time
The hefty Super Stallion transferred approximately 700 pounds of fuel to the Fire Scout.
October 17, 2019 | International, Land
3 ways the Pentagon wants to make buying American weapons easier
By: Aaron Mehta
WASHINGTON — America sold more than $55 billion in weapons abroad in fiscal 2019, but the man in charge of those efforts hopes to increase sales as he continues to tinker with the security cooperation system.
Security cooperation has long been a foreign policy tool in America's pocket, but under the Trump administration, it “has been elevated to a tool of first resort for U.S. foreign policy,” Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper, the head of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, said during a panel at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference.
Since taking over at DSCA, Hooper has implemented a series of reforms aimed not only at speeding the process up, but shaving costs for potential buyers. He intends to keep that reform effort going in 2020. Here's how:
Continue to cut surcharge costs. In June, DSCA dropped a surcharge on American defense goods sold abroad from 3.5 percent to 3.2 percent; later that year, the agency also cut a transportation administration fee. Both those charges are used to support DSCA operations, but some in the security cooperation process had argued the increased prices for customers would lead potential buyers to look to cheaper Russian or Chinese goods in the future.
Hooper said that in 2020, DSCA plans to also cut the contract administration surcharge — applied to each FMS case to pay for contract quality assurance, management and audits — from 1.2 percent to 1 percent.
“This will reduce the overall costs of FMS and could potentially save allies and partners 16.7 percent in CAS surcharges in this coming year,” Hooper said.
Make it easier for customers to get custom weapon systems. The FMS system is set up to help sell weapons that are identical to systems already in use by the U.S. military. It's easier to move a package of Abrams tanks equipped with the same gear that multiple countries use than to push through a custom version with specific capabilities. But Hooper noted that partners are moving away from standard designs and are looking for systems “designed and tailored to meet their needs. Our system was not initially designed to process these types of systems, which increases time and cost in the U.S. response.”
To help deal with that, DSCA established an “interagency non-program of record community of interest,” which involves all the agencies that have a say in the process, to figure out ways to make moving custom systems more plausible. The goal is to have a new pathway for moving those capabilities by 2020, which Hooper says will “reduce the time it takes to review request for non-program of record systems, to facilitate industry ability to compete in this global market.”
Plan out commercial offsets. Many countries require offsets from industry for big foreign military sales. These offsets are essentially throw-in sweeteners for the buying country, put together from the industrial partner. In the past, these were often things like building a new library or school. But in the last two decades, some countries specifically requested high-end technologies or tech transfer to jump-start their domestic defense industries.
Because offsets are negotiated between the industrial partner and the customer nation, the Pentagon, which serves as the in-between for an FMS case, often finds out about offsets only at the end of the process. But with offsets becoming more technological, those now require more review time, and so a deal can slow down while the relevant agencies approve the deal.
Hooper hopes 2020 will see industry better inform DSCA of potential offsets early in the process so that last minute hangups can be avoided.
“We continue to encourage our industry partners to inform the U.S. of potential offset requirements early on so that we can begin the necessary technology security foreign disclosure and policy reviews as early as possible,” Hooper said.
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October 8, 2019 | International, Aerospace
Arms firms fret over delays in Franco-German fighter project
PARIS — France's Dassault Aviation and Europe's Airbus have stepped up pressure on France and Germany to agree the next stage of a planned fighter project, warning Europe's arms industry and long-term security could suffer from delays. The two companies are the leading industrial partners in a project to build a futuristic swarm of manned and unmanned warplanes, announced by the leaders of France and Germany two years ago and expanded earlier this year to include Spain. Dassault and Airbus won a 65-million-euro contract in January to develop the concept for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) but await a new contract to build demonstrators for interlinked fighters, drones and an “air combat cloud” by 2026. Dassault Aviation Chief Executive Eric Trappier told a conference of policymakers last month that the demonstrator contract should have been launched in September but this was now slipping towards end-year. He called it “indispensable” to avoid any further delays in order to maintain the 2026 deadline. No reason has been given for the delays. On Monday evening, Dassault and Airbus amplified those warnings with a joint statement. “If Europe does not move forward — and move forward quickly — on this program, it will be impossible to maintain the development and production capabilities needed for a sovereign defense industry,” the companies said. The warplane system is expected to be operational from 2040, with a view to replacing Dassault's Rafale and the four-nation Eurofighter, in which Airbus represents both Germany and Spain. The new project faces competition from Britain and its plans for a new combat jet dubbed “Tempest”. The fighter developments have split the current Eurofighter consortium and led to a shake-up of industrial alliances as Italy joins Eurofighter partner Britain on Tempest, turning its back on Germany and Spain, while Sweden has opened the door to abandoning its independent stance by co-operating on Tempest. The FCAS is also overshadowed by differences between France and Germany over export policy after Germany imposed a ban on arms exports to Saudi Arabia over the death of killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi a year ago by Saudi operatives. The ban, recently extended to March, has raised questions over a long-delayed Saudi border systems contract run by Airbus. Airbus Defence and Space Chief Executive Dirk Hoke called in a magazine interview last week for the export ban to be relaxed. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has said there is no reason for the moratorium to be lifted. France and Germany are expected to discuss the issue at ministerial meetings this week. AIRBUS SETBACK IN SPAIN Airbus meanwhile faces a battle to shore up its position as a top defense contractor in Spain after losing its place as the representative of Spain's interests on the upcoming fighter project to local defense electronics firm Indra Sistemas. Spain last month named Indra as contractor for the Spanish share of the Franco-German-led FCAS project, displacing Airbus from the Spanish coordinator role it had held on Eurofighter. Airbus officials have pledged to try to overturn the move but a Spanish defense source told Reuters there was no change in the decision. Indra declined to comment. Publicly, Airbus has said it was surprised by the decision but has pledged to continue to defend Spain's best interests. Dassault will meanwhile mark a long-awaited milestone on Tuesday when it delivers the first of 36 Rafales to India, the culmination of a fighter procurement process that lasted almost 20 years and involved the cancellation of a much larger deal. La Tribune reported on Monday that France and India were discussing a possible repeat order for 36 more Rafales. (Additional reporting by Emma Pinedo Gonzalez in Madrid, Tassilo Hummel in Berlin, Editing by Deepa Babington) https://business.financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/arms-firms-fret-over-delays-in-franco-german-fighter-project
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December 5, 2022 | International, Security
SpaceX forms âStarshieldâ business unit to focus on national security
Details on Starshield are light, but the company says the new unit will initially focus on Earth observation and communication capabilities.