COTECMAR and Damen signed a contract for the co-development of the Contractual Design for PES

On the same subject

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  November 11, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  UAE cleared for CH-47F Chinook buy

  By: Aaron Mehta and Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department has cleared the United Arab Emirates to purchase 10 CH-47F Chinook cargo helicopters, with an estimated price tag of $830.3 million. The potential deal was announced Thursday on the website of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, or DSCA. Such notifications are not guarantees of final sale; should the request be approved by Congress, quantities and dollar figures can change during negotiations. This request represents the 10th Foreign Military Sales request from the UAE since the start of fiscal 2017, for a total approximate worth of $10.5 billion. It is also the first Foreign Military Financing request cleared by the DSCA since the Trump administration declared a regional emergency in order to get several weapons packages pushed through Congress despite opposition on Capitol Hill, leading to bipartisan criticism of the move. The UAE bought its first lot of CH-47Fs — 16 aircraft for estimated total of $2 billion — in 2009. Boeing said earlier this year that it was relying on foreign military sales, including “30 helicopters or less” to the UAE, to shore up a delta between the production of its Block I version of the F-model and its Block II version. The company needs FMS deals like the one with the UAE even more now that the U.S. Army is planning not to buy the Block II version for the active force. The service still plans to produce Block II aircraft for Army special operators. Top Army officials have said they are working hard to mint FMS deals to help make up for the huge production gap left open following the service's decision to not buy Block II F-models for the active force. But Boeing told Defense News that it expected FMS deals would not lessen the blow and, so far, none of the anticipated sales are for Block II versions. The UAE's order, according to Boeing, was not for Block II, and the only other possible F-model sale to the United Kingdom is for extended range versions of the Block I version. It is unclear which countries might actually be interested in Block II aircraft, but the service won't be ready to offer those to foreign customers until after the variant's qualification testing is completed in 2021. The proposed sale “will expand the UAE's helicopter fleet,” per the DSCA announcement. “Further, it will enhance the UAE's operational and defensive capabilities to better defend U.S. and UAE national security interests in the region, and increase the UAE's contributions to any future joint or coalition efforts requiring helicopter support.” In addition to the helicopters themselves, the proposed package would include 26 T55-GA-714A engines; 24 embedded global positioning systems with inertial navigation system; 20 M134D-H mini-guns; and 20 M240H machine guns, as well as various transmitters and other equipment. Up to 10 U.S. government or contractor representatives will be needed in the UAE to help prepare the Chinooks for operations. Primary work will be done at Boeing's Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, facility, Honeywell Engine's Phoenix, Arizona, location, and Science and Engineering Services in Huntsville, Alabama. https://www.defensenews.com/global/mideast-africa/2019/11/08/uae-cleared-for-ch-47f-chinook-buy/

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  June 13, 2019 | International, Other Defence

  SOCOM wants a new armor piercing sniper bullet. Here’s one option engineers are developing

  By Christian Lowe As the U.S. military shifts its focus back to fighting more traditional, near-peer adversaries like Russian or Chinese troops, the services are building out plans to revamp their gear to deal with better-equipped forces backed by money and technology from world powers. That extends all the way down to the clothing and equipment each of these adversaries could be wearing into battle, including sophisticated body armor. That's why SOCOM is reportedly looking at replacing its decades-old armor piercing small arms round. “Snipers in USSOCOM units have a capability gap in their ability to penetrate enemy body armor, small boat engines and concrete barriers,” Crane researchers said in a slide presentation at this year's National Defense Industries Association Armaments Symposium. The current round uses a discarding sabot the shields a sharpened tungsten penetrator that'll beat most armor and hard targets. But that round is expensive at more than $10 per cartridge, can damage modern small arms accessories like suppressors and muzzle brakes and doesn't hold zero when switching from a traditional jacketed round to the AP round. That makes it difficult for snipers to go from one round to another and hit their target in the heat of battle. So researchers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana, are looking at a new way to make the rounds cheaper, easier on snipers' guns and more ballistically consistent with common, jacketed bullets. Dubbed “aeroshell” projectiles, the Crane engineers want to build and test bullets with a tungsten penetrator jacketed in a polymer shell. Federal Ammunition, a civilian ammo company, makes rounds with similar characteristics dubbed “Syntech." These rounds are typically used by competitive shooters who shoot many rounds in practice and at matches and want to preserve barrel life and diminish spawl from hitting steel targets. Crane researchers want to take the same thought process and apply it to a new AP round. The actual penetrator could have a slightly different shape than the current rounds, with more of a traditional bullet profile than today's needle-like AP round penetrator. Researchers plan to create about 150 rounds of this new aeroshell AP round in .338 Norma Mag, 300 Norma Mag and 6.5 Creedmoor. They plan to test the rounds against representative body armor at 100, 400, 800 and 1,000 meters. https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/gearscout/kit/2019/06/11/socom-wants-a-new-armor-piercing-sniper-bullet-heres-one-option-engineers-are-developing/

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  November 2, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  General Electric beats Rolls-Royce to power Turkey’s indigenous fighter jet

  By: Burak Ege Bekdil ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's aerospace authorities have chosen General Electric's F110 family of engines to power the prototype and an initial batch of what will become Turkey's first indigenous fighter jet, the TF-X. A senior procurement official confirmed the choice, saying that the twin-engine TF-X will be powered by the F110-GE-129 or the F110-GE-132 engine. “This is a stopgap solution until we have built our indigenous engine for the TF-X,” the official said. Under the deal, the first prototype of the TF-X and an unknown number of initial batches would be powered by the F110 engine. Turkey then plans to switch to an engine to be developed by TRMotor, a national engine consortium. But some aerospace sources say the F110 may not be the ideal engine for a fifth=generation fighter. “If the Turks go for the GE option, they will have to compromise on the stealth capabilities of the TF-X,” a Paris-based defense specialist said. Earlier this year, Turkey and Rolls-Royce came close to a strategic cooperation deal for the development and co-production of an engine for the TF-X. The British company and the Turkish government signed a letter of intent to finalize negotiations on the engine program by July 31, but the plan did not come to fruition. Turkish officials say the idea behind the GE deal is to rely on foreign technology to eventually in the long term build an indigenous engine to power the TF-X. Turkey wants to build the TF-X with know-how from BAE Systems. In January 2017, Britain and Turkey signed a deal worth more than £100 million (U.S. $128 million) to develop the Turkish fighter jet. Turkey hopes to have the first test flights of the aircraft in 2023. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/10/31/general-electric-beats-rolls-royce-to-power-turkeys-indigenous-fighter-jet/