Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - January 9, 2019

On the same subject

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  May 31, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Spanish defense contractors are itching to get a piece of FCAS

  By: Sebastian Sprenger MADRID — Spanish defense companies are chomping at the bit to get into the business of building Europe's next-generation combat aircraft, just as the government is about to formally enter the Franco-German project. While the extent of the Spanish industry participation in the Future Combat Air System program is still an open question, some of the companies at the inaugural FEINDEF defense expo in Madrid, Spain, are beginning to jockey for position. Brig Gen. Juan Pablo Sanchez de Lara, chief of the Spanish Air Force's plans division, told reporters at the expo that industrial cooperation is “essential for us.” “We are not new in the business,” he said. “Of course Spanish companies are very keen to participate.” Airbus, for example, which is already a prime contractor besides Dassault from France, is looking to bring into play its local work with the Spanish Air Force for the cockpit design of the future fighter aircraft. The Spanish air service presented an Airbus-made cockpit prototype — part futuristic lab, part test bed for additional design work — at its booth, pitching it as a contender for the FCAS program. The setup features a large, panoramic screen similar to that in the F-35, sprinkling in some traditional controls beside the pilot. Officials said the cockpit is the result of previous concept work, concluding that fusing information and commanding nearby drones, for example, are key requirements. Tests are ongoing based on operational vignettes crafted by the Air Force to see how pilots handle workload, stress and the torrent of information thrown at them during flight. When the first FCAS aircraft takes to the skies around 2040, “the scenarios will be more complex,” Ignacio de Castro Vidal, Airbus Defence and Space future capabilities program manager at the defense giant's Madrid location, predicted in an interview with Defense News. That is a reference to the expectation that warfare itself will be more complicated, but it's also an acknowledgment that the program is designed with so much networked technology that the task of flying the aircraft must be kept manageable. To increase the ease of use for pilots, the company plans to lean heavily on voice commands to operate the aircraft's systems, de Castro Vidal said. Spanish electronics specialist Indra is also eyeing work on elements of the next-gen fighter aircraft. “Indra is the second provider of avionic systems for the Eurofighter,” Pedro Barco, the company's director of platforms, wrote in a statement to Defense News. “The experience gained in this project allows us to play a key role as integrator of the system of systems for the FCAS. “In particular, we have a strong experience in electronic warfare systems, voice and data communications, and radar detection and identification systems.” Eurofighter Typhoon-maker Airbus has pitched upgraded versions of that jet as a gap filler until the new aircraft is developed and built, saying that the planned upgrades would serve as something of a sandbox to try new air warfare concepts. Spain and Germany fly that aircraft, while France has the Rafale. As for engines, ITP Aero, based north of Madrid, hopes to share development work with France's Safran and Germany's MTU. “ITP is looking forward to the next step of the program, and we want to be a part of it from the beginning,” Marta Gimeno Garcia-Andrade, director of the company's defense business unit, told Defense News. She said a key area of expertise for ITP Aero lies in low-pressure turbines and movable, “thrust-vectoring” nozzles. Several Spanish defense executives at the FEINDEF expo said expect Spain's formal integration into FCAS to take place at the Paris Air Show in mid-June. Officials in Germany, however, said earlier this week the exact sequence of extending the program's framework agreement to include Madrid was still in flux. That is because the German parliament has yet to greenlight funding for an ongoing study contract and because legal issues with the agreement text may not be fully sorted out in time. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/05/30/spanish-defense-contractors-are-itching-to-get-a-piece-of-fcas/

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  April 22, 2020 | International, Naval

  Pentagon, Industry Struggle To Chart Impacts Of COVID On Arsenal

  "I think a three month slow-down in program activity is an optimistic projection based on the level of damage the economy is currently sustaining." By PAUL MCLEARYon April 21, 2020 at 3:33 PM WASHINGTON: Defense industry and Pentagon leaders are struggling to assess what impact the COVID-19 pandemic will have on building and maintaining the global US arsenal, but early assessments agree there'll be some disruption and delay as the global economy teeters. How much, how long, and where those disruptions will occur are something of an open question. With massive supply chains across the globe that run from small mom and pop manufacturing shops to massive global conglomerates, there's no one formula to assess what will happen to the industrial base in the weeks and months to come. On Monday, Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord said she expects the largest programs to see three-month delays, but some analysts say that assessment could be too rosy. “I think a three month slow-down in program activity is an optimistic projection based on the level of damage the economy is currently sustaining,” said Andrew Hunter, former chief of staff to two heads of Pentagon acquisition. Hunter is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The designation of the defense industry as critical infrastructure has ensured that shipyards, factories, and shops have generally remained open, as workers stagger shifts and companies provide liberal leave and teleworking where possible. That has placed the defense industry in a good position relative to other parts of the economy. But the supply chain those companies rely on “is tightly interlinked with the commercial economy, especially the aviation and automotive sectors, and this will transmit a degree of economic disruption into defense in the coming months,” Hunter said. Lord singled out the aerospace sector, along with shipyards and space launch as areas most at risk of slowdown and disruption. So far, though, the Navy and its largest shipbuilder say they're mostly working through the issues, and are staying away from putting a specific length of time on any delays. “We do not have a list of programs that are delayed, but as Ms. Lord and [Navy acquisition head James] Guerts have both said, while it's too soon to identify specific delays, generally we are expecting and planning for program disruptions,” Navy spokesman Capt. Danny Hernandez told me in an email. Geurts has moved to accelerate funding for some work and parts supplies so industry can eventually ramp up once the entire workforce is back on the job. Speaking to reporters last week, Geurts said over the “next three four weeks we'll get a better view of the exact delay and disruption and then how we might mitigate that, or quite frankly, where do we have opportunities where we can accelerate things” due to some excess capacity in the supply base because it's not being consumed by commercial aviation or shipbuilding. At the country's largest shipbuilder, Huntington Ingalls, company executives told me recently they're not seeing significant reductions in the number of parts they're receiving. “We are working with a few critical suppliers that are having challenges, but I think for the most part are going to be able to get through that,” said Lucas Hicks, vice president of new construction aircraft carrier programs. “We have reached out to all the suppliers and are working with them to try to help them.” There will be some pain, though how much is up for debate. Analyst Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners said in a note Monday that a three-month impact might not force companies to drastically change their expectations for the whole year. Any slippages this spring “could conceivably be made up in subsequent months, but that may be a challenge. Contractors could sustain prior guidance and just call out COVID-19 as a risk for the full year, or drop guidance altogether. No one has a perfect crystal ball.” Hawk Carlisle, president of the National Defense Industrial Association, said on a Monday conference call organized by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America that the slowdown in the global economy “is going to cause things to cost more, whether it's service agreements or products and manufacturing capability.” He's looking to the next congressional stimulus package for an acknowledgment “that these programs are going to exceed budget,” he added, “because of this two to three months of delays, partial workforce, paying the workforce, inability to perform on contract.” But Hunter thinks, so far, the Pentagon has handled the situation as well as can be expected: “To the department's credit, they have been aggressively looking for issues in the supply chain, which means that Ms. Lord's estimate becomes a lot more likely if they succeed in staying ahead of these problems.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/04/pentagon-industry-struggle-to-chart-impacts-of-covid-on-arsenal

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  September 16, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Dassault Aviation, un modèle à toute épreuve

  HASSAN MEDDAH Le modèle de Dassault Aviation fondé sur la coexistence d'une activité militaire avec les Rafale et d'une activité civile avec les jets d'affaires a encore montré toute sa pertinence. Gr'ce à cette dualité, l'avionneur traverse la crise du marché de l'aviation d'affaires sans perdre une plume. Il vient d'annoncer de solides résultats financiers pour le premier semestre 2019. Son chiffre d'affaires progresse à 3,1 milliards d'euros (contre 1,71 milliard au premier semestre l'an passé), et son résultat net est en hausse de 54 % à 286 millions d'euros. Dans le domaine de l'aviation d'affaires, Éric Trappier, le PDG du groupe, a pourtant évoqué "un début d'année difficile et un semestre particulièrement plat" avec seulement sept commandes au 30 juin, contre dix-huit à la même période de l'an passé. Il peut toutefois miser sur le Rafale pour effacer cette contre-performance. Dassault a remporté le juteux contrat Ravel de maintenance de l'avion de combat passé par le ministère français des Armées. Cette prestation englobe le pilotage de toute sa supply chain et court sur dix ans. En matière de livraison, l'export a pris le relais à point nommé puisqu'aucun Rafale ne sera livré aux forces françaises en 2019. Depuis le début de l'année, Dassault a livré quinze appareils aux forces qataries. L'avionneur a même confirmé qu'il envisageait d'assembler des Rafale en Inde s'il était sélectionné pour livrer de nouveaux appareils au-delà des trente-six premiers commandés. https://www.usinenouvelle.com/article/dassault-aviation-un-modele-a-toute-epreuve.N882100