Germany OKs buying howitzers to help replace arms rushed to Ukraine

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  February 13, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Le futur avion de combat européen franchit une étape décisive

  Les députés allemands ont validé, ce mercredi 12 février, le décollage du futur avion de combat européen, censé remplacer à terme Rafale et Eurofighter et donner une nouvelle dynamique à l'Europe de la défense. Mais avec certaines conditions. Les députés allemands ont validé mercredi le projet du futur avion de combat européen, censé remplacer à terme Rafale et Eurofighter et donner une nouvelle dynamique à l'Europe de la défense, mais avec certaines conditions. Au terme de plusieurs mois de rivalités politico-industrielles entre l'Allemagne et la France, les membres de la commission du Budget du Bundestag ont donné leur aval au déblocage de 77 millions d'euros de crédits pour lancer la première grande étape du projet franco-allemand, auquel s'est joint l'Espagne. Les élus de la majorité - conservateurs et sociaux-démocrates- ont voté pour, de même que l'extrême droite. Ecologistes, extrême gauche ont voté contre. Cette manne doit permettre de financer des études en vue de la construction d'ici 2026 d'un démonstrateur de l'avion de combat européen de nouvelle génération (dit NGF ou « New Generation Fighter »).Les montants en jeu sont certes limités par rapport à l'enveloppe globale du programme mais l'étape de mercredi était essentielle, un vote négatif risquant de tout remettre en cause. « Nous ne voulons pas détériorer les relations franco-allemandes » Selon plusieurs sources parlementaires, la commission va majoritairement approuver malgré des réticences les crédits. « Nous allons le faire car nous ne voulons pas détériorer les relations franco-allemandes, et ce juste avant la venue du président français Emmanuel Macron ce week-end en Allemagne pour la Conférence sur la sécurité de Munich », a expliqué le rapporteur du projet à la commission du Budget, Rainer Brandl. Mais les élus allemands, qui depuis le début craignent que les partenaires industriels français soient trop dominateurs dans le projet, comptent poser des conditions. Ils veulent en particulier qu'un autre projet militaire franco-allemand d'envergure, le programme de char MGCS (Main Ground Combat System), dont les Allemands doivent être chefs de file, progresse au même rythme que celui de l'avion du futur. L'avion doit entrer en action vers 2040 Les deux projets doivent avancer « en parallèle », indique leur projet de résolution, obtenu par l'Agence France Presse (AFP). « Le programme de l'avion de chasse, piloté par les Français, progresse vite, alors que celui du char est à la traîne », décrypte un parlementaire allemand sous couvert de l'anonymat. En cause notamment : les difficultés des industriels allemands du secteur de l'armement à se mettre d'accord entre eux sur la répartition du « g'teau ». Les députés demandent aussi des garanties pour que les intérêts des entreprises allemandes du secteur technologies soient mieux pris en compte dans le développement du projet. L'avion, qui doit entrer en action vers 2040, est la pièce maîtresse du programme SCAF (Système de Combat Aérien du Futur) associant en outre des drones et de futurs missiles de croisière. Le vote positif attendu ouvrira la voie à la notification des contrats aux industriels impliqués dans le projet, notamment Dassault, Airbus ou encore Thales. Et relancera un programme qui patinait. La ministre française des Armées, Florence Parly, a mis la pression le 5 février à Strasbourg sur les parlementaires allemands. Paris et Berlin ont la « responsabilité » de « construire cette Europe de la Défense », a-t-elle lancé, en soulignant que le vote des députés du Bundestag aura une importance décisive et enverra un « signal politique fort ». Un accord entre le Français Safran et l'Allemand MTU Le projet avait déjà franchi une étape importante en décembre. Un accord avait été trouvé entre les motoristes français Safran et allemand MTU sur la répartition industrielle des travaux de développement du moteur du futur avion. Les deux sociétés étaient notamment convenues de la création d'une société commune 50/50. Depuis la répartition des t'ches entre Safran et MTU, plusieurs acteurs côté allemand, dont des membres du Bundestag, ont cherché à revenir en leur faveur sur cet accord. « Derrière le nom barbare de 'SCAF' se cache le projet qui conditionne le futur de l'aéronautique de combat française et européenne, ainsi que l'affirmation d'une politique de défense pour renforcer la sécurité du continent », soulignait récemment Jean-Pierre Maulny, directeur adjoint de l'Institut des relations internationales stratégiques (Iris). Le sujet devrait être abordé samedi à Munich par Emmanuel Macron, qui vient de proposer que les Européens, Allemagne notamment, soient associés à la force de dissuasion nucléaire française, en participant par exemple à des exercices. https://www.ouest-france.fr/economie/le-futur-avion-de-combat-europeen-suspendu-au-vote-des-deputes-allemands-6732554

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  October 1, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  Boeing’s big month capped off with hat trick of new contracts

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — Boeing is the biggest aircraft manufacturer in the world, but the losses of the joint strike fighter program and Air Force's long range strike bomber still weigh heavily on the company's defense unit, and had prompted some in industry to wonder if the company's days of making cutting edge combat aircraft were numbered. Conventional wisdom held that Boeing needed to win either the Navy's unmanned tanker drone or the Air Force's next-generation trainer aircraft contract to keep its St. Louis, Mo.-based facility building tactical aircraft into the 2030s. a contract for the Air Force's Huey replacement helicopter was seen as out of reach as the service had formerly expressed a preference for sole-sourcing Black Hawks. But in a matter of weeks, Boeing racked up all three contracts, shocking the defense establishment. First came the MQ-25 Stingray award for the Navy's unmanned tanker drone on Aug. 30. An initial $805 million contract covers the design, development, fabrication, test and delivery of four Stingray drones, but Navy acquisition boss James Geurts said the entire program could be worth up to $13 billion for 72 aircraft. “It is a big win on a high-visibility competition/program and gives Boeing a franchise unmanned program,” wrote Roman Schweizer of Cowen Washington Research Group on Sept. 4. Boeing defeated Lockheed Martin and General Atomics to win the program — and that victory allows Boeing to cement its own status as the Navy's premier manufacturer of fixed-wing aircraft. “A Lockheed Martin win would have cemented its position as the builder of ‘next-gen' naval aviation platforms while Boeing would have been relegated to manufacturing fleet workhorses,” Schweizer said in his assessment of the award. “General Atomics would have a been a one-off, but we thought they would been a favorite for a low-cost, low-risk design.” Then on Monday, Boeing won another big competition — this time worth up to $2.38 billion — for the Air Force's UH-1N replacement helicopter. Boeing and Leonardo were immediately obligated $375 million for the initial four MH-139 helicopters, which will be built at Leonardo's commercial AW-139 production plant in Philadelphia. It was huge news for Leonardo, a large Italian defense contractor that had been attempting to break into the U.S. market with a major program for about a decade. But for Boeing, it was still a relatively small aircraft procurement program, with Byron Callan, an analyst with Capital Alpha Partners, writing that there were probably few opportunities for Boeing-Leonardo to sell the MH-139 to other users in the U.S. military. However, Boeing on Thursday won the major opportunity it had been seeking: the Air Force's T-X program. Boeing's clean sheet design beat out Lockheed and Leonardo to win a contract worth up to $9.2 billion. It's likely the actual program will be worth considerably less — Boeing would be obligated a total of $9.2 billion over time if the Air Force decides to execute all options on the contract for 475 training jets, and the services' program of record sits at 350 jets. But its importance to Boeing extends past the award's total contract value. Winning T-X was “possibly critical” for Boeing's St. Louis plant and for its defense business to remain a competitive player in tactical aircraft design, said Callan. “The MQ-25 win helps sustain production at that facility, which now builds F/A-18s and F-15s,” he wrote after the Sept. 27 announcement. “However, the F/A-18 and F-15 lines may end by the mid-2020s. T-X enables Boeing to keep that facility humming and therefore in the hunt for Penetrating Counter Air and other new military aircraft programs.” Analysts like Callan and Schweizer had speculated that Boeing would bid very aggressively to try to win the contract, but the question was whether the company could possibly offer a new purpose-built design at a significantly lower price point than competitors Lockheed Martin and Leonardo, which both proposed aircraft designs already in production and use by foreign militaries. It appears Boeing may have been able to do just that. Richard Aboulafia told Defense News in 2017 that the Lockheed and Leonardo trainers came with a price tag of about $25 million, although both companies were expected to bid lower than that to be competitive. Meanwhile, Jim McAleese of McAleese & Associates pegged the unit cost of Boeing's T-X at an “eye-watering” $19 million, far below the Air Force's $45 million per plane expectation. That low price “establishes an extremely high burden for disappointed offerors of Lockheed or Leonardo” to launch a successful protest with the Government Accountability Office, he stated in a Sept. 28 email, although Lockheed and Leonardo could potentially argue that the Air Force's cost and schedule risk assessments are too optimistic, given that Boeing offered a new airframe. Callan also pointed out that the MQ-25 and T-X wins could be advantageous to Boeing's commercial business. In the past, the defense sector has developed new materials that have later been adapted for use by the airline industry. With Boeing acquiring autonomy-focused businesses like Liquid Robotics and Aurora while investing in startups through its HorizonX organization, it is possible advances in military unmanned tech could give way to autonomous commercial cargo planes or other future concepts. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/09/28/boeings-big-month-capped-off-with-hat-trick-of-new-contracts

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  December 7, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Organizers Cancel Paris Air Show 2021 On COVID-19 Uncertainty

  Helen Massy-Beresford December 07, 2020 PARIS—The organizers of the Paris Air Show, the world's largest, have canceled the 2021 edition because of continued uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The board of directors of the Paris Air Show and the board of directors of French aerospace industry association GIFAS made the decision unanimously, describing it as inevitable in a statement Dec. 7. “This reasonable decision was agreed upon unanimously by the Paris Air Show board members in the context of a crisis that has had an unprecedented impact on the aerospace industry,” they said in a joint statement. The coronavirus crisis has devasted demand for travel, with many airlines grounding the majority of their fleets and relying on government bailouts to survive. IATA does not expect traffic to return to 2019 levels before 2024. The Paris Air Show is usually held at Le Bourget Airport, just outside the French capital, and in 2019 attracted over 316,000 visitors, split between civil and defense industry professionals and the general public, making it the largest air show in the world. Orders worth $140 billion—across the civil and military sectors—were announced at the 2019 show. The first Paris Air Show was held in 1909 and the event has taken place every other year since—with interruptions for the two world wars. The 2021 edition was set to be the 54th. “We are obviously disappointed not to be able to hold the 2021 edition of the Paris Air Show. After many months of all trade show activities being suspended throughout the world, the entire international aerospace and defence community was very much looking forward to being able to meet,” the International Paris Air Show chairman and Daher Group chairman Patrick Daher said. “We have already started work to ensure that the 2023 edition celebrates the resurgence of the aerospace industry on an international scale,” he added. The event had been due to take place from June 21-27 next year and the organizers said they would shortly announce the exact dates of the next edition, which will be held in June 2023. https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/aircraft-propulsion/organizers-cancel-paris-air-show-2021-covid-19-uncertainty