In data: is Denmark on track to lead Europe’s quantum tech revolution?

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  August 30, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land

  Berlin prône une consolidation du secteur de la défense européen

  JOUY-EN-JOSAS, Yvelines, 29 août (Reuters) - L'Union européenne doit renforcer les synergies en matière d'équipements militaires pour optimiser les dépenses de défense des Etats membres, ce qui passe notamment par une consolidation du secteur à l'échelle européenne, estime le ministre allemand des Finances, Olaf Scholz. Au-delà des progrès déjà enregistrés en matière de politique commune de défense et de sécurité, des mesures complémentaires sont nécessaires, déclare le vice-chancelier d'Allemagne, selon le texte d'un discours qu'il devait prononcer mercredi à l'université d'été du Medef, à Jouy-en-Josas (Yvelines). Cela passe par “une approche commune pour le matériel militaire, ce qui signifiera davantage de coopération et un processus de consolidation de l'industrie militaire européenne, y compris via des fusions”, dit-il. “Nous devons encourager les fusions pas seulement lorsqu'elles se font au bénéfice de nos propres champions nationaux”, poursuit-il. A ses yeux, cela permettra de mettre sur pied une politique de défense commune plus intégrée, à même de permettre à l'Union européenne de garantir sa sécurité mais aussi de devenir un “acteur sérieux” de l'architecture militaire mondiale. La France et l'Allemagne ont donné l'été dernier, peu après l'accession d'Emmanuel Macron à l'Elysée, un grand coup d'accélérateur à leur coopération dans le domaine de la défense en convenant de développer ensemble un avion de combat de prochaine génération, mais aussi de concevoir en commun des chars, hélicoptères et autres matériels. Toujours dans le domaine aéronautique, le bilan de l'avion de transport militaire A400M d'Airbus est pour l'instant mitigé, le programme européen ayant connu des années de dérapage des coûts, de problèmes techniques et de retards multiples. A rebours du discours volontariste du dirigeant allemand, la France semble adopter une position plus mesurée dans le projet de rapprochement auquel oeuvrent les groupes français Naval Group et italien Fincantieri. Le ministre français de l'Economie et des Finances Bruno Le Maire a assuré lors d'un déplacement à Rome au début du mois que la France et l'Italie partageait “le même désir de boucler la fusion STX-Fincantieri, qui donnera naissance à l'un des plus gros chantiers navals civils du monde”. Mais une source gouvernementale française, s'exprimant sous condition d'anonymat, avait déclaré que Naval Group (dont Thales détient 35%) ne pouvait pas être privatisé et précisé que certaines de ses activités, comme la construction de sous-marins nucléaires, constituaient des actifs stratégiques ne pouvant pas passer sous pavillon étranger. (Myriam Rivet, Leigh Thomas et Matthieu Protard, édité par Sophie Louet) https://fr.reuters.com/article/frEuroRpt/idFRL8N1VK2SM

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  March 26, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  FVL: Army Picks Bell & Sikorsky For FARA Scout

  The Bell 360 Invictus and the Sikorsky Raider-X will vie for the final contract to build FARA, with rival prototypes in flight by 2023. Bell and Sikorsky (with Boeing) are also facing off for the FLRAA transport. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR WASHINGTON: The Army has now narrowed its future aircraft choices to Sikorsky vs. Bell. This afternoon, the service announced that it had picked Sikorsky and Bell to build competing prototypes for Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), a high-speed optionally manned scout to replace the retired Bell OH-58 Kiowa. Just eight days ago, it picked the same two firms – plus aerospace giant Boeing, acting as Sikorsky's de facto junior partner – to compete for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), which will replace the Sikorsky's UH-60 Black Hawk as the military's aerial workhorse for everything from Ranger raids to medevac. The FLRAA transport decision was no surprise. The Army picked the two teams it had been funding for years to develop prototypes, the Bell V-280 Valor tiltrotor and the Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1 Defiant. There was more uncertainty over the FARA scout, because the service had given five companies Other Transaction Authority contracts to develop designs. Of those five, only Sikorsky had built and flight-tested an actual aircraft, the S-97 Raider, of which its Raider-X design is basically a super-sized version. Sikorsky and Bell now get to build FARA prototypes, while AVX, Boeing, and Karem have been cut. While AVX and Karem are design houses that have never built an actual aircraft, Boeing is a major aerospace player for which this is just the latest in a series of blows. Sikorsky and Bell have taken starkly different approaches to Future Vertical Lift. For both the FARA scout and the FLRAA transport, Sikorsky is offering its signature compound helicopters, descended from its record-breaking X2, that use a combination of ultra-rigid coaxial rotors and a pusher propeller to overcome the aerodynamic limits that cap the speed and range of traditional helicopters. No compound helicopter has ever entered mass production, but Sikorsky has built and flown two S-97 prototypes and, with Boeing, the much larger SB>1 Defiant: Raider-X will fall between the S-97 and SB>1 in size. Bell's marquee technology is the tiltrotor, most famously the widely used V-22 Osprey, using two massive rotors that tilt forward like a propeller for level flight and upwards like a helicopter for vertical takeoff and landing. It's a next-gen tiltrotor, the V-280 Valor, that Bell is flying for FLRAA. But Bell couldn't scale down their tiltrotor design – whose side-by-side rotors inevitably make for a wide aircraft – enough for the Army's FARA scout, which is meant to fly down city streets in urban warzones. So instead, their Bell 360 Invictus is, in essence, a streamlined conventional helicopter with wings: It has a single main rotor and a tail rotor, just like the old Kiowa, but it adds winglets to help with lift for high-speed fleet. Sikorsky argues their compound helicopter configuration is inherently much more efficient, pointing out that Bell's design requires more horsepower to achieve the Army's required speeds. Bell argues their time-tested single-main-rotor configuration will be less risky to develop, cheaper to buy, and easier to maintain. They each have three years to prove their case to the Army. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/fvl-army-picks-bell-sikorsky-for-fara-scout

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  November 13, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Airbus expects updated industry call for Germany’s Tornado replacement contest

  By: Sebastian Sprenger BERLIN — Airbus expects an updated industry solicitation for Germany's multibillion-dollar Tornado replacement program, for which the company will offer an electronic attack-capable Eurofighter. Wolfgang Gammel, the head of combat aircraft business development, said he learned about the impending update during conversations with Defence Ministry officials. A ministerial spokeswoman declined to comment beyond the official line that an announcement about the acquisition program is expected in the first quarter of 2020 and that Berlin is looking to quickly replace its aging Tornado fleet. The requirement for an electronic attack capability was absent from the original request for information when competitors placed their bids in the spring of 2018, Gammel told reporters Tuesday at the International Fighter Conference, a gathering of senior air force and industry leaders in Berlin. After Lockheed Martin and its F-35 were eliminated early this year, that left only the Eurofighter and Boeing's F-18 Growler in the race. An updated RFI presumably would reopen the competition between the remaining bidders as the acquisition process plays out anew on the question of electronic attack capabilities. Such a move would all but certainly result in a sizable delay, as German officials have been trying to be especially thorough in seeing the program through. Airbus said introducing so-called escort jammer pods to the Eurofighter fleet, to be carried under the belly or the wings of the aircraft, would require little effort because the proposed integration strategy is meant to piggyback on upgrade efforts already on the books. Complicating a pick between the Eurofighter and the F-18 is the requirement that Germany must keep a contingent of aircraft capable of carrying U.S. nuclear bombs under NATO's nuclear doctrine. That seemed to give Boeing's offering an advantage, German paper Süddeutsche Zeitung claimed in a report last month. For its part, the F-18 is known for its ability to counter enemy air defenses, an area where Airbus now seeks to lay down its own marker. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2019/11/12/airbus-expects-updated-industry-call-for-germanys-tornado-replacement-contest/