German makers of Leopard 2 tank in legal wrangle over rights

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  November 19, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  NATO official warns EU force would be ‘unwise’

  By: Joe Gould HALIFAX, Canada — A top uniformed NATO official warned Friday the European Union army concept endorsed by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel would be “duplicative” and “unwise.” In an interview at the Halifax International Security Forum, UK Air Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, pointed to NATO's strength as a single set of forces, with a unique command and control network and planning process. “It's not rhetoric based. It's real planning based on real data,” Peach said. “And therefore, why would you wish to duplicate or replicate the strengths of an existing strong alliance.” The comments came after Merkel on Tuesday floated the idea of a “real, true European army,” to compliment NATO during a speech before a session of the European Parliament. Those remarks virtually echoed Macron's call a week earlier, in an interview with Europe 1. U.S. President Donald Trump called Macron's comments “very insulting” in a spate of Twitter posts as the two held a meeting last week in Paris. Trump himself has tested the strained bonds with some of America's closest allies by pressuring NATO allies to rely less on the U.S. and dedicate a greater percentage of their gross domestic products to defense. On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg alluded the proposal of a European force at a NATO conference in Berlin, saying he welcomed, “increased EU efforts on defense, because I think that can actually help to strengthen NATO.” European allied militaries can act without the U.S. so long as they use NATO command structures, Stoltenberg said. “It will be not a wise decision by all those nations who are members of both NATO and the European Union to start to have two sets of command structures, or duplicate what NATO is doing,” Stoltenberg said. On Friday, Peach referred to Stoltenberg's remarks, saying, “Of course, as chairman of the military committee, I agree with [Stoltenberg]. It's unwise to duplicate.” Peach emphasized that NATO has a, “single set of forces, and in our processes, those forces are trained, and assured and certified by NATO.” At the conference, Peach had a broader message that the alliance's 29 members member remain committed to it — and that it is adapting with the times. “Throughout the history of the alliance there have been inevitable tussles about how to go forward,” Peach said. “But throughout as a military alliance, we have adapted our command and control structure, responded to new challenges, embraced new members and continued to adapt to new types of warfare and new threats.” Separately, Finland and Norway intend to launch diplomatic discussions with Moscow over suspected GPS signal-jamming by Russia's military, which overlapped with NATO's Trident Juncture exercises, the largest maneuvers in the High North since the end of the Cold War. Peach on Friday would not confirm the interference took place, but called the principle of freedom of navigation, “very, very important, both to NATO and the International community.” “Freedom of navigation is not just freedom of navigation at sea, so we need to analyze claims with data. And anything that interrupts freedom of navigation is important to be reported," he said. How to manage and operate within the electromagnetic spectrum are important topics that deserve more attention, he said. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/11/17/nato-official-warns-eu-force-would-be-unwise/

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  May 16, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  The US Air Force Is Adding Algorithms to Predict When Planes Will Break

  The airlines already use predictive maintenance technology. Now the service's materiel chief says it's a “must-do for us.” The U.S. Air Force has started to use algorithms to predict when its aircraft will break, part of an effort to minimize the time and money they consume in the repair shop. The use of predictive analytics has been blazed by airlines, which monitor their fleets' parts in an effort to replace broken components just before — and crucially, not after — they break. “I believe it is a must-do for us,” said Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, the head of Air Force Materiel Command, the arm of the Air Force that oversees the maintenance of its planes. She spoke Tuesday at a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington. “We see this as a huge benefit.” If the Air Force could reduce the risk of unexpected breakage — and the attendant need to fly replacement parts and repair crews around the globe — it could reduce costs and boost mission effectiveness. It could also increase the usefulness of the current fleet by reducing the number of aircraft that need to be be held in reserve as backups. It starts with gathering data, such as the temperature of engine parts or the stresses on the airframe. “We are trying to leverage what we already get off of airplanes, as opposed to trying to go in and put instruments in places,” Pawlikowski said. “It turns out there's quite a bit that's there, but it may not be a direct measurement. In order to measure the temperature in this one particular spot, I'm getting information somewhere else.” Artificial intelligence and machine learning can then determine patterns. The general said the Air Force has been learning a lot from Delta, the world's second-largest commercial airline. “Delta has demonstrated the effectiveness of predictive maintenance in dramatically reducing the number of delays to flights due to maintenance,” she said. Over the past three years, Air Mobility Command — the arm of the Air Force that oversees all of its large cargo planes and aerial refueling tankers — has been organizing the data it collects on some of its planes. It has started using the predictive maintenance technology on its massive C-5 airlifters. The Air Force is also using the technology on the B-1 bomber. “The B-1 is an airplane that we actually bought with a whole bunch of data that we weren't using,” Pawlikowski said. “We started to take that data in and start to analyze it....We're very excited about this because we see huge potential to improve aircraft availability and drive down the cost.” She said she “was impressed when I saw some of the data that they were showing me.” The Air Force Lifecycle Management Center, which reports to Pawlikowski, has been funding these trials “by finding the loose change in the seat cushions,” she said. “As we have now shown some things ... we're seeing more and more interest in it and we're looking at increasing the investment in that to bring it further,” Pawlikowski said of the predictive maintenance. Last September, Gen. Carlton “Dewey” Everhart, head of Air Mobility Command, stressed his desire to use predictive maintenance, but warned it would cost money to get the datafrom the companies that make the planes. “In some cases, we'll be working this collaboratively with our industry partners,” Pawlikowski said Tuesday. “In other cases, we'll be doing it completely organically.” Air Mobility Command is also using predictive maintenance technology on the C-130J airlifter. The latest version of the venerable Lockheed Martin cargo plane — the J model — collects reams of data as it flies. In April, the Lockheed announced it was teaming with analytics firm SAS to crunch that data. “Everything we've been doing up to a certain point has been looking in the rear-view mirror with the data,” said Lockheed's Duane Szalwinski, a senior manager with his company's sustainment organization who specializes in analytics. “We're going to be able to look forward.” Lockheed is working on a six-month demonstration for Air Mobility Command; officials hope to be able to predict when certain parts will break before a flight. “If we're able to do that, it kind of changes the game in how you maintain and operate a fleet,” Szalwinski said. The data will give military planners a wealth of information about their aircraft that could help determine the best aircraft to deploy. “All those things you now know you have insights as to what you will need at the next flight, so you act accordingly,” he said. “Once we prove that we understand the probability of failure of these parts ... all things then become possible,” Szalwinski said. “Now it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And if you know when, you can start acting accordingly. It would be a gamechanger in the way you manage a fleet.” Lockheed also wants to use the predictive maintenance tech on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. “The beauty of this is that the toolsets that we're developing, the models, how we clean the data, how we build the models, how we build the algorithms, all of that is not unique to a platform,” Szalwinski said. Still, instituting predictive maintenance practices fleet-wide is not going to happen overnight, particularly as since it will take time to understand the data, Pawlikowski said. Using this technology will require a cultural shift among maintenance crews because they'll be replacing parts before they actually fail, Pawlikowski said. “One of the big benefits is the reduction in the amount of time the airmen on the flightline spends troubleshooting a broken part” because “we will take them off before they break,” she said. https://www.defenseone.com/business/2018/05/us-air-force-adding-algorithms-predict-when-planes-will-break/148234/

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  September 1, 2021 | International, Aerospace

  L3Harris Flies ARES Surveillance Aircraft Demonstrator

  The ARES demonsatrator will help the U.S. Army decide on how best to replace its fleet of aging RC-12 Guardrail aircraft.