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  November 2, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Japan names contractor to build its future fighter jet

  By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia — Japan has named Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as the prime contractor to build its next-generation fighter jet, with the Defense Ministry announcing earlier Friday that it signed a contract with the company. “We will steadily proceed with the development of the next fighter (F-X) together with the company,” the ministry said in a brief statement posted on it website. Local media is reporting Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said the country will select an overseas partner by the end of this year for collaboration on aircraft technology, with stealth technology being one area of focus. The selection of MHI as the prime contractor for the F-X program comes as little surprise, given Japan was determined to restart its indigenous fighter aircraft capabilities. The company is the only one in Japan with experience in this area. The firm took the 21st spot on Defense News' most recent ranking of the top 100 defense companies in the world. Reuters previously reported the contract for the aircraft is worth up to $40 billion. Defense News emailed the Defense Ministry's Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency for an update on the contract value but did not receive a response by press time. The Defense Ministry is also seeking more funding for F-X research and development in its latest budget request submitted to the country's Finance Ministry in late September. The Defense Ministry requested $555.8 million for the main program and an additional $113.6 million for R&D of fighter subsystems, such as radars and mission systems integration. The funding will allow Japan to continue its R&D work into fighter technology, which it has kept up over the past decade despite the end of production on the Mitsubishi F-2 fighter jet and the decision to buy the Lockheed Martin F-35. Work the country plans to continue includes the development and refinement of stealth designs and materials, active electronically scanned array radars, and afterburning turbofan engines. Toward that end, local engine manufacturer IHI is expected to continue work on its XF9-1 afterburning turbofan. Japan conducted a series of test flights of a locally designed and built fighter technology demonstrator from 2016 to 2018 to validate its work. The country used the data gleaned from the test program to further refine its indigenous capabilities. The ministry previously said it wants to launch the basic design process for the F-X airframe and engine before the end of the current Japanese fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2021. This would be followed by the production of the first prototype, which is planned to begin in 2024, with flight tests earmarked to start in 2028 following finalization of the design and production plans. Japan plans to replace its fleet of approximately 90 F-2 jets with the new fighter jet starting around 2035. The F-2 was developed in conjunction with Lockheed in the 1990s, and resembles a larger version of the American company's F-16 multirole fighter but is primarily equipped with indigenous systems. Japan also plans to acquire 147 F-35s, which will include 42 of the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing variants. That version, the F-35B, will operate from a pair of helicopter destroyers currently undergoing modifications to handle the jet. Japan also recently selected Boeing to upgrade 98 of its license-built Mitsubishi F-15J/DJ Eagle interceptors that will see the jets fitted with newer radars and integrated with standoff land-attack missiles. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2020/10/30/japan-names-contractor-to-build-its-future-fighter-jet/

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  September 23, 2020 | International, Land, Other Defence

  After munition worker deaths, Army floats $16 billion plan to modernize production

  Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― U.S. Army officials told lawmakers Tuesday they are seeking a new 15-year, $16 billion strategy to modernize and automate the military's aging munitions plants following nearly a dozen worker deaths and injuries over recent years. In Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee testimony, Army officials suggested workers who handle dangerous materials could be replaced by robotics and computers as part of their ambitious plan. The testimony came as lawmakers are deliberating over a proposed reshaping of the Pentagon's explosives oversight body, as part of the 2021 defense policy bill. “We're essentially making the explosives in a manner very much like we did in World War I in some cases, World War II in others,” Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Bruce Jette told lawmakers. “We literally have people standing under machines that are full of 1,500 pounds of molten explosives, drooling it into artillery shells to fill them up, and then they push the carts away. We don't have automation, we don't have robotics.” Lawmakers described the ammunition industrial base as fragile because of its dependence on foreign sources of materials and because its aging facilities need of safety upgrades. (Munitions production facilities are contractor operated, with some owned by the government.) Army officials largely agreed, saying they rely on 55 foreign suppliers for certain equipment and materials ― such as a TNT-replacement 2,4-Dinitroanisole, which comes from India ― because costs, environmental regulations and legal liabilities make many of them harder to develop in the United States. The Army even relies on a small volume of detonators and pyrotechnics from China, Jette said. The Army is studying how to wean itself from foreign suppliers. At the same time, Jette has not ruled out supplies from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere, if a surge is needed, adding that he personally visited a South Korean factory that once supplied the U.S. with bullets at .50 caliber and below. Calling safety a top priority, Army officials said human handling of the energetics, explosives and acids associated with munitions can be replaced with “process automation or other technology solutions, freeing the workforce to focus on technical oversight.” More than 80 percent of major mishaps at munitions facilities were caused by human error, they said. “Three deaths in the last ten years on our facilities, two of them were related to the manufacturing process: We don't need to have that happen anymore,” Jette said. “I do not want to be the ASAALT and get another phone call that there's another death on something I could have provided the improvement to.” Jette said the 2017 death of Lake City Army Ammunition Plant worker Lawrence Bass, 55, “should not have occurred,” and that Bass ― killed while handling an explosive component called tetrazine ― was performing his duties in accordance with procedures. “His death is in fact a catalyst in transforming our approach, as opposed to modernizing under current circumstances. He should never have been in that close proximity where that event could have happened,” Jette said. “Should it happen with a machine, I can buy another machine.” Still, modernizing in the way Army officials seek would require Congress appropriate roughly $1 billion per year for 15 years, which is more than twice what the Army has asked over the last three years. It's an open question whether Congress would be as inclined to support the munitions productions facilities, if they support fewer jobs. “The idea of making it safer for workers, there's no doubt about that, but because these plants have grown up since the '40′s," said Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee Chairman Donald Norcross, D-N.J. "You eliminate many of those jobs, there's potential of that support also going.” Asked what more industry could do to shoulder the cost of modernizing facilities, Jette suggested it would be better if the government made the investments upfront as industry would only pass the costs on later. “This is the United States military's industrial base for munitions. We need to own that, not have anything beholden IP-wise or any other way to the defense industry or any other supplier," Jette said. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/09/22/after-munition-worker-deaths-army-floats-16-billion-plan-to-modernize-production/

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  January 13, 2024 | International, Aerospace

  Airbus lands record orders in 2023, beats Boeing on deliveries