Chinese and Saudi firms create joint venture to make military drones in the kingdom

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  August 27, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Turkey’s New Akinci Drone Is Impressive, But It’s No Substitute For Modern Fighter Jets

  Paul Iddon The Bayraktar Akinci drone is the most sophisticated built by Turkey to date. However, Ankara cannot count on the Akinci to serve as a substitute for its air force either acquiring or developing a fifth-generation fighter jet sometime in the next decade. The second Akinci (Turkish for ‘raider') prototype completed a 62-minute flight test in August, according to its manufacturer. The Akinci has a 65-feet wingspan, and is designed to have an impressive 24 hours of endurance, a range of over 300 miles, and to fly as high as 40,000 feet. Ukrainian-built AI-450 turboprop engines will power the heavy drones. According to the Turkish press, the drone “has two 450-horsepower engines but can be equipped with 750-horsepower engines or locally made 240-horsepower engines.” The Akinci will carry a variety of weaponry, including the same Smart Micro Munitions (MAM-L) its predecessor the Bayraktar TB2 does in addition to general purpose bombs. It can also reportedly fire Turkish-built Bozdoğan (Merlin) and Gökdoğan (Peregrine) within visual range and beyond visual range air-to-air missiles. The Akinci can even launch Turkish-built Roketsan SOM long-range air-launched cruise missiles that can hit targets up to 150 miles away. All of this makes it a very impressive weapons platform. Perhaps even more impressive are the drone's indigenous radars. “Ankara sees the Akinci as its main aerial vehicle for intelligence-surveillance-target acquisition (ISTAR) and command-control-communication (C3) tasks in the next decade,” wrote Turkish military expert Metin Gurcan. “The drone will be equipped with indigenously developed systems, including a multi-role active electronically scanned array radar, a SAR/GMTI radar, a wide-area surveillance system, electronic warfare, an electronic and signal intelligence suite, and beyond-line-of-sight satellite communications systems, the sum of which makes the Akinci the best-ever ISTAR+C3 asset the Turkish military has had,” he added. This combination of advanced radars and the multitude of weapons the Akinci can carry certainly make it a highly formidable piece of military hardware. “This weapons system could be quite effective in detecting and destroying individual land targets, such as enemy howitzers or mortars, or special equipment like electronic warfare (EW) stations,” noted a Jamestown Foundation analysis. Turkey has made impressive progress in drone production in recent years. Turkish drones have also seen combat and proven themselves formidable opponents. Its Bayraktar TB2s and TAI Anka-S drones devastated Syrian regime ground forces during clashes in Idlib province in February-March 2020. Turkish drones also gave decisive air support to Turkey's ally in the Libyan Civil War and successfully guided airstrikes that assassinated senior PKK leaders over the last two years. Given this record, it's not at all surprising that Turkey is investing in bigger and more advanced drones like the Akinci since it will be well suited for the kind of conflicts Turkey is fighting and will most likely continue to fight for the foreseeable future. While certainly impressive, the Akinci is, nevertheless, no substitute for Turkey acquiring a fifth-generation fighter jet. As Gurcan noted, by building the Akinci, Ankara is “hoping to extend its military reach in the region and compensate, even if fractionally, for the loss of the F-35 new-generation jets.” Turkey got suspended by the United States from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program in 2019 for purchasing and taking delivery of Russian S-400 air defense systems. Also, Turkey's fifth-generation fighter jet project, the TAI TF-X, is unlikely to become operational until the 2030s for a variety of reasons. On top of these serious shortcomings, Turkey might even find it difficult to buy 4.5 generation aircraft in the meantime to serve as stopgap fighters that can gradually replace its aging fleet of fourth-generation F-16s and even older F-4s until Ankara can finally acquire a fifth-generation jet. So while the Akinci is an undoubtedly impressive achievement it's not the aircraft Turkey needs to substantially modernize its air force for the decades to come. https://www.forbes.com/sites/pauliddon/2020/08/25/turkeys-new-akinci-drone-looks-impressive-but-its-no-substitute-for-modern-fighter-jets/

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  June 1, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Aviation Week Forecasts: Western Attack Helicopter MRO By Family 2020-2029

  June 01, 2020 Aviation Week Network forecasts that annual MRO demand for Western-designed attack helicopters will increase 11.1% during this decade, from $4.2 billion in 2020 to $4.6 billion in 2029. Aviation Week defines attack helicopters as rotary-wing aircraft that are unable to carry cargo internally, are armed with a forward-firing cannon of at least 20mm, and which can carry and self-designate targets for anti-tank guided missiles. Ninety percent of MRO demand in 2020 will be generated by just two helicopter families: the Boeing AH-64 Apache and Bell AH-1 Cobra. The AH-64 will see an 8% increase in its MRO demand over the next 10 years from $2.9 billion to $3.2 billion. Overall, the AH-64 will generate 68.6% of the global MRO demand total. The AH-1's MRO demand will drop 12.3% in the next ten years. Despite the decline, the AH-1 still will generate 18.2% of total attack helicopter MRO. The Airbus Tiger will see the largest decline in MRO demand of any attack helicopter. With no probable future export orders on the horizon and an early retirement by Australia, the Tiger's MRO demand will fall 23.5% from 2020 to 2029. The Leonardo AW129 family of attack helicopters could experience a 22.1% growth in its MRO demand over the forecast if TAI and its T129 derivative manages to hold on to its hard won, but now in danger, export orders by securing a non-US export-restricted engine. Open requirements and competitions will produce over a billion dollars of MRO demand in the next decade, a significant boost to any program. Source: Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) 2020 Military Fleet & MRO Forecast For more information about the 2020 Forecast and other Aviation Week data products, please see: http://pages.aviationweek.com/Forecasts https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/z/aviation-week-forecasts-western-attack-helicopter-mro-family-2020-2029

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  August 29, 2024 | International, Land

  ‘Range of options’ ready for South China Sea aggression: US admiral

  Washington and Beijing have been on a collision course over China’s increasingly assertive actions to defend its territorial claims in the South China Sea.