Airbus completes midair automatic refueling trials with Singapore's F-16, preps for tests with F-15

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  June 30, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  South Korea to spend $2 billion on aircraft buy

  By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia – South Korea is set to acquire more airborne surveillance and intelligence gathering aircraft, as the U.S. ally seeks to bolster its capabilities in both areas. The country's Defense Project Promotion Committee approved last Friday plans to acquire an undisclosed number of airborne early warning and control, or AEW&C aircraft, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration or DAPA. The committee also approved plans to acquire more signals intelligence or SIGINT gathering aircraft. Approximately $1.3 billion has been earmarked for the acquisition of the AEW&C aircraft for entry into service by 2027 while a further $725 million has been set aside for the SIGINT platforms, which are expected to enter service in 2026. The announcement did not disclose the platforms being pursued for either program, but South Korea is almost certain to go with additional Boeing 737 AEW&C aircraft. The Republic of Korea Air Force or ROKAF is already operating four such aircraft, acquired from the United States under the Peace Eye program, since 2012. The Peace Eye 737s are derivatives of Boeing's 737 Next Generation airliners fitted with a distinctive dorsal radar housing containing a Northrop Grumman Multi-Role Electronically Scanned Array or MESA radar. The L-band radar is reportedly capable of simultaneous air and sea search, fighter control and area search, simultaneously tracking 180 targets and conducting 24 intercepts. The DAPA announcement said the acquisition of additional AEW&C aircraft will be to further minimize gaps in South Korea's air defence coverage. South Korea has in recent months publicised the intercept of Chinese and Russian military aircraft entering the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone or KADIZ. The new SIGINT aircraft will be used to replace four older platforms based on the Hawker 800 business jets. DAPA says the new aircraft will be equipped with indigenous systems and will serve alongside two Dassault Falcon 2000 SIGINT aircraft delivered to the ROKAF in 2017. The older Hawker 800 platforms were acquired in 1996 under the Paekdu project and were modified by E-Systems Incorporated for its SIGINT role. The aircraft were delivered in the early 2000s along with four other Hawker 800XPs modified for imagery reconnaissance with synthetic aperture radars and moving target indicators. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2020/06/29/south-korea-to-spend-2-billion-on-aircraft-buy/

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  March 2, 2020 | International, Naval

  The US Navy’s FFG(X) could be awarded sooner than expected

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON – The U..S Navy's next-generation frigate could be awarded within the next few months, earlier than expected, the service's top civilian said Friday. Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly told conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he had tasked Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition James Geurts to look at accelerating the award of the first ship, which was slated for this fall. “The plan was to try and do it in the latter part of this year,” Modly told Hewitt. “I've asked [Geurts] to try and accelerate that earlier, and he's looking into the possibilities for doing that. “But obviously, you know, we have acquisition rules, and we want to make sure that we do this in the proper way.” The competition has narrowed to bids from Huntington Ingalls Industries; a team of Navantia and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works; Fincantieri; and Austal USA. Navantia is offering a version of its F-100 design, which is in use by the Spanish Navy; Austal is submitting a version of its trimaran littoral combat ship; Fincantieri is offering its FREMM design; and Huntington Ingalls is believed to be offering an up-gunned version of its national security cutter. Lockheed Martin's version of the FFG(X), an up-gunned, twin-screw variant of its Freedom-class LCS, was pulled from the competition in May. The FFG(X) is supposed to be a small, multimission ship with a modified version of Raytheon's SPY-6 radar destined for the Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, Lockheed Martin's Aegis Combat System, as well as some point defense systems and 32 vertical launch cells for about half the cost of a destroyer. The first ship ordered in 2020 is expected to cost $1.28 billion, according to budget documents, with the next ship in 2021 dropping to $1.05 billion. The Navy expects it to take six years to complete design and construction of the first ship, which should be finished in 2026. Once construction begins, planners anticipate it will take 48 months to build. The second frigate is expected to be ordered in April 2021, and from there it should be delivered about five and a half years after the award date. That means that the first ship should be delivered to the fleet in July of 2026, and the second about three months later. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/02/28/the-us-navys-ffgx-could-be-awarded-sooner-than-expected

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  July 24, 2020 | International, Land

  U.S. Army Awards Distributed Common Ground System Capability Drop 2 to BAE Systems

  July 23, 2020 - The U.S. Army has awarded BAE Systems an initial order under its Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) Capability Drop 2 Program. The multiple award, Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity contract is worth up to $823 million, and provides enhanced intelligence to see and better understand threats and other relevant aspects of the operational environment. The company's solution for Capability Drop 2 is the Intelligence Knowledge Environment (IKE). It's a software framework of modular data and artificial intelligence analytic capabilities built to autonomously transform information into knowledge. “With a focus on a user-centric analyst experience, IKE rapidly transforms data into intelligence in an easy to learn and scalable manner,” said Dave Logan, vice president and general manager of C4ISR Systems at BAE Systems. “It helps analysts translate information into actionable intelligence using a collection of tools – some interactive, others that operate autonomously – to enhance the effectiveness of the analyst.” The Capability Drop development model allows the Army to rapidly insert new technology upgrades to DCGS by breaking requirements into small bundles, enabling agile and rapid acquisition. The company's Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance systems provide robust processing and exploitation capabilities that enable the analysis of intelligence data from a variety of sources, in any mission environment. BAE Systems developed the IKE framework at its site in San Diego, California. Ref. No. 068/2020 View source version on BAE Systems: https://www.baesystems.com/en/article/u-s--army-awards-distributed-common-ground-system-capability-drop-2-to-bae-systems