December 11, 2023 | International, Land
A former senior executive of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) told a House of Commons committee Monday he doesn’t believe the international financial institution can be reformed as long as China remains on its current geopolitical course.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/asian-infrastructure-investment-bank-china-canada-1.7056058
November 9, 2023 | International, Land
The soldiers piloting Ukraine's fleet of small, cheap assault drones are voicing concerns that, despite pioneering their use, they are now being leapfrogged by their adversary as Moscow pumps money and resources into its drone sector.
July 12, 2023 | International, Aerospace, Naval
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads to France on Thursday to deepen ties with New Delhi's oldest strategic partner in the West, with a slew of high-profile defence deals expected and a new joint plan to ensure stability in the Indo-Pacific.
February 28, 2020 | International, Aerospace
Steve Trimble ORLANDO—Lockheed Martin expects to complete the critical design review (CDR) on Feb. 27 for the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), the U.S. military's most technologically ambitious hypersonic weapon, an executive said. The key milestone, indicating an imminent design freeze, comes as part of an unusual development schedule imposed on the ARRW program. The technical complexity of ARRW stems from its high lift-to-drag profile, a shape the U.S. military has never tested successfully in flight. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) program, which shares the advanced ARRW profile, is intended as a risk-reduction measure for ARRW, but still has not completed a self-powered flight test. In fact, the CDR milestone for ARRW originally was scheduled to come after a first flight for TBG, but the Air Force has kept ARRW on its original pace even as schedules for the DARPA program have slipped. “The [original TBG and ARRW] schedules were more serial,” said John Varley, vice president of hypersonics for Lockheed's Missiles and Fire Control business. “As we're moving fast, things are merging together and becoming more parallel. If we waited until all that was done, we wouldn't be moving at the pace that the customer is looking for.” Indeed, Jeff Babione, president of Lockheed's Skunk Works, said last June that he expected the first TBG flight by the end of last year or early next year. But U.S. defense officials now say they expect the DARPA program to enter flight testing later this year, after a planned test of the Block 1 version of the Common Hypersonic Glide Body, a low-lift-to-drag shape for intermediate-range Army and Navy missiles. In other ways, ARRW is further along in development than most military acquisition projects at the CDR milestone, Varley said. “It's not the traditional way of doing it, because at CDR you wouldn't have hardware built, you wouldn't have [demonstration/validation] testing done. And this is very mature,” he said. https://aviationweek.com/shows-events/air-warfare-symposium/design-milestone-reached-air-launched-hypersonic-missile