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November 12, 2023 | International, Aerospace

Dubai to showcase demand for jets under shadow of Mideast tensions | Reuters

Dubai will stage its high-profile aerospace pageant next week against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza that is pushing up demand for weapons while closing airspace and making flights longer and more expensive for some airlines.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/dubai-showcase-demand-jets-under-shadow-tensions-2023-11-10/

On the same subject

  • Special Ops Budget Crunch Looms, But New Aircraft Demo Coming

    May 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace

    Special Ops Budget Crunch Looms, But New Aircraft Demo Coming

    And so what's really important to me is what the vendor brings to the table, in terms of their ability to integrate weapons onto a non-developmental platform," said SOCOM acquisition czar Jim Smith. By PAUL MCLEARY and THERESA HITCHENSon May 13, 2020 at 4:32 PM WASHINGTON: Like the rest of the Defense Department, Special Operations Command is preparing for flat to declining budgets in the coming years as the national debt spirals to $25 trillion and the economy flattens due to COVID-19 related shutdowns. At the moment, the command that trains, equips and sustains the nation's elite covert operators boasts a $13 billion budget, $7 billion of which goes directly into buying and repairing new gear, with another $800 million pumped into research and development. And that's the unclassified part of the budget. The command wants to protect those investments, Jim Smith, SOCOM's top acquisition executive, told reporters this morning. But fiscal realities being what they are, “right now, our planning assumptions are based on a flat budget out through the next seven years or so,” he said. “And then, if you take into account inflation, you might even have a slightly downward pressure on our overall budget.” Just recently, Defense Secretary Mark Esper suggested that the budget pressure might force his hand in cutting older, legacy systems earlier than planned to pull savings toward priority modernization programs like the $500 billion the DoD plans to spend on the refurbishment of the nuclear triad over the next decade. Earlier this month Esper declared, “we need to move away from the legacy, and we need to invest those dollars in the future. And we have a lot of legacy programs out there right now — I could pick dozens out from all branches of the services” that could be cut or curtailed. Asked by Breaking Defense if pressure on SOCOM budgets could lead to the command walking away from bigger and older systems, Smith said “SOF is a little different. There is a propensity for us to accept a near-[commercial] solution and get it into the fight very quickly. And for that reason, we tend not to sustain equipment or the 20-year, 30-year life cycles that you see in the services.” That's not to say “we don't have the same pressures,” as the services in finding savings, he added. “We're trying to divest in a force that you know likes to hold on to things. And so we have very rich dialogue at the command level, I can assure you, about trying to divest over some of our larger programs going on.” One area commanders want to grow is close air support and ISR in areas without large, improved landing strips via the Armed Overwatch program. Lt. Gen. Jim Slife, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, said in February at the Air Force Association's annual meeting that the aircraft would replace AFSOC's U-28s — and focus more on plane's close air support, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. Smith today explained that effort is standing on the shoulders of the Air Force's defunct Light Attack Aircraft effort. “We are on the backs of the Air Force's effort. We're using the same program managers and engineers,” Smith said. “Everything that was learned by the Air Force in their light attack experiment is being leveraged into ours.” The Air Force's long-running light attack aircraft saga — that at one point was expected to involve procurement of up to 300 airplanes — began way back in 2011, when the Air Force initiated a program to procure what it then called “light air-support” aircraft for use in insurgencies. In 2017, the program morphed into what the service called the Light Attack Experiment, aimed at developing a concept of operations that involved US allies as well as fleshing out an overall acquisition strategy. In 2018, then-Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said the service had set aside $2.4 billion in the fiscal year 2019 budget's five-year cycle to acquire agile, armed reconnaissance aircraft — once it had tested out its chosen competitors: Textron's AT-6 and the Sierra Nevada-Embraer team's A-29. In October 2019, facing a threat from Congress to strip the program from its control, the Air Force issued a request for proposal to Textron and Sierra Nevada to buy “two or three of both” companies' turboprops. Finally, in February this year, the Air Force threw up its collective hands and gave up the quest to buy light attack aircraft in quantity — purchasing only two each of the AT-6 Wolverine and A-29 Tucanos for continued experimentation. Several of the companies who originally fought it out way back in the day under the Air Force effort, as well as Textron and Sierra Nevada, are now throwing their hats in the SOCOM ring. Spokespeople for Air Tractor (which had formally protested the Air Force's contract award in the light attack competition), Sierra Nevada and Textron confirmed to Breaking Defense today that they are all in for the live-fly demonstration expected in November. The plan is for SOCOM to buy up to 75 of the aircraft over seven years, beginning with a $106 million request in the 2021 budget to kick things off. The Special Operations community is as interested in what it can put on one of these planes as it is in the aircraft itself. “At the end of the day, I'm going to deliver a weapon system,” Smith said. “And so what's really important to me is what the vendor brings to the table, in terms of their ability to integrate weapons onto a non-developmental platform. I think the Air Force, you know, there was a lot of focus on the actual platforms. I don't think you'll see that from SOCOM. We are far more interested in the integration capability of our eventual industry partners on the platform.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/special-ops-budget-crunch-looms-but-new-aircraft-demo-coming

  • Le numéro deux de Thales favori pour diriger Naval Group

    January 23, 2020 | International, Aerospace

    Le numéro deux de Thales favori pour diriger Naval Group

    EXCLUSIF Pierre-Eric Pommellet, directeur général de Thales, a été choisi par l'APE pour succéder à Hervé Guillou à la direction de Naval Group. Son nom doit encore être avalisé par l'Elysée. D'autres noms ont circulé, comme celui du directeur général adjoint de Naval Group Alain Guillou, celui du directeur des programmes Olivier de la Bourdonnaye ou celui de Marie-Pierre de Bailliencourt, ancienne DG du groupe, qui avait été un des grands artisans du contrat du siècle des sous-marins australiens. Le nom de Benoît Ribadeau-Dumas, directeur de cabinet d'Edouard Philippe et ancien de Thales et Zodiac, avait aussi été cité, au grand agacement de l'intéressé. Le scénario d'une prolongation d'Hervé Guillou a aussi été évoqué : celui-ci étant touché par la limité d''ge de 65 ans le 24 mars prochain, un tel projet nécessiterait un changement des statuts du groupe. Pierre-Eric Pommellet est tout sauf un inconnu pour le petit milieu de la défense. Né à Brest, ce polytechnicien affable, surnommé « PEP », a débuté à la Direction générale de l'armement en 1990, avant de passer deux ans à la DCN (Direction des constructions navales), l'ancêtre de Naval Group. Un passage en cabinet ministériel plus tard, chez Jean-Pierre Raffarin au ministère de l'artisanat, du commerce et des PME, il entre chez Thales dont il gravit peu à peu les échelons : directeur de l'usine du Haillan (Gironde), directeur des équipements militaires, directeur de la division aérospatiale, puis de celle des systèmes de mission de défense. Lors du départ du patron de Thales Jean-Bernard Lévy vers EDF fin 2014, Pierre-Eric Pommellet est un des favoris pour le fauteuil de PDG. Il peut même se prévaloir du soutien de Dassault Aviation, actionnaire à 25% du groupe. Mais le conseil lui préfère finalement Patrice Caine. Cette déception n'empêchera pas les deux hommes de bien travailler ensemble : Patrice Caine nommera même Pierre-Eric Pommellet directeur général en charge des opérations, en clair numéro deux du groupe. « L'entente entre les deux hommes est très bonne », assure un connaisseur de la maison Thales. https://www.challenges.fr/entreprise/defense/le-numero-deux-de-thales-favori-pour-diriger-naval-group_695054

  • Navy crafts new cyber rating, designator to streamline roles

    June 29, 2023 | International, Naval, C4ISR

    Navy crafts new cyber rating, designator to streamline roles

    The new rating and designator will predominantly be assigned to shore billets such as staff positions and leadership positions, and instructor billets.

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