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  November 29, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  Bell pitches Viper attack helo to replace Japan’s Cobra copters

  By: Mike Yeo TOKYO — American company Bell is promoting its AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter at the Japan International Aerospace Exhibition in Tokyo as its entrant for Japan's attack helicopter replacement program. The East Asian U.S. ally is seeking a new helicopter to replace the approximately 70 Bell AH-1S Cobra helos currently in use by the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. The country had released a request for information in May seeking a new helicopter. Speaking to Defense News at the show, retired Lt. Gen. George Trautman, a former U.S. Marine aviator and commander of all Marine Corps aviation who now works as an adviser for Bell, said the company responded to the RFI through the U.S. government with 50 AH-1Z helicopters. John Woodbury, Bell's director of global military business development in the Asia-Pacific region, added that the RFI called for an attack helicopter with “marinization and shipboard compatibility,” with Trautman asserting that the AH-1Z can “operate onboard ships far better than the competition.” The representatives from Bell said there's more to marinization than additional corrosion protection from saltwater. They said this also includes foldable rotor blades and other measures that reduce the stowage footprint onboard the limited space on ships, as well as a design that minimizes electromagnetic interference. The requirement for the new attack helicopter to operate from ships suggests Japan plans to use them on Izumo-class helicopter destroyers or the smaller Hyuga-class of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, which are equipped with a long flight deck to operate multiple helicopters. Japan will likely require at least a degree of technology transfer and local production for the new helicopters. Bell's relationship with Japan reaches across 65 years, including the company's partnership with Fuji Heavy Industries (now Subaru) for production of Japan's AH-1S helicopters. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/japan-aerospace/2018/11/28/bell-pitches-viper-attack-helo-to-replace-japans-cobra-copters

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  January 29, 2024 | International, Land

  Rheinmetall Italia touts Ukraine deployment of Skynex air defense gun

  The company hopes that the system's use in combat will lend it credibility in the competitive counter-drone and missile-defense market.

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  March 29, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  DARPA: In the Sky and on the Ground, Collaboration Vital to DARPA’s CODE for Success

  On a brisk February morning in the Yuma, Arizona, desert, a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with DARPA's Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment system, or CODE, successfully carried out mission objectives, even when communications were offline and GPS was unavailable. One-by-one, six RQ-23 Tigersharks lifted off, fitted with an array of sensors onboard. Next to the runway at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground, the mission team inside a small operations center tracked the aircraft and as many as 14 additional virtual planes on an aerial map. The capstone demonstration paired program performer Raytheon's software and autonomy algorithms and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory's White Force Network to create a realistic, live/virtual/constructive test environment. During four demonstration runs, the team activated a variety of virtual targets, threats, and countermeasures to see how well the Tigersharks could complete their objectives in suboptimal conditions. “Exactly how the aircraft continue to work together in degraded conditions is the most challenging aspect of this program,” said Scott Wierzbanowski, the DARPA program manager for CODE in the Tactical Technology Office. “Current procedures require at least one operator per UAV in the field. Equipped with CODE, one operator can command multiple aircraft; and in a denied environment, the aircraft continue toward mission objectives, collaborating and adapting for deficiencies.” Before, if operators lost communications with a UAV, the system would revert to its last programmed mission. Now, under the CODE paradigm, teams of systems can autonomously share information and collaborate to adapt and respond to different targets or threats as they pop up. “CODE can port into existing UAV systems and conduct collaborative operations,” said Wierzbanowski. “CODE is a government-owned system, and we are working closely with our partners at the Air Force Research Laboratory and Naval Air Systems Command to keep each other informed of successes and challenges, and making sure we don't replicate work. In the end, our service partners will leverage what we've done and add on what they need.” The Tigersharks employed in the demonstration are surrogate assets for CODE. Each has about one-tenth the speed and performance of the aircraft planned for integration, but shows traceability to larger platforms. Constructive and virtual threats and effects presented by the White Force Network are appropriately scaled to the Tigersharks' capabilities. “It's easy to take the CODE software and move it from platform to platform, both from a computer and vehicle perspective. It could be a manned aircraft, unmanned aircraft, or a ground vehicle,” said J.C. Ledé, technical advisor for autonomy with the Air Force Research Laboratory. “The concept for CODE is play-based tactics, so you can create new tactics relatively easily to go from mission to mission.” The Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) will take ownership of CODE after DARPA closes out the agency's role in the program this year. It already has built a repository of algorithms tested throughout the development process. “What we're doing with the laboratory we set up is not just for the Navy or NAVAIR. We're trying to make our capabilities available throughout the entire DoD community,” said Stephen Kracinovich, director of autonomy strategy for the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD). “If the Army wanted to leverage the DARPA prototype, we'd provide them not just with the software, but an open development environment with all the security protocols already taken care of.” Kracinovich says NAWCAD has a cadre of people with hands-on knowledge of the system, and is ready to help port the capability to any other DoD entity. That ease of transition puts CODE technologies on a clear path to assist deployed service members by enabling collaborative autonomous systems to operate in contested and denied environments with minimal human supervision. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-03-22