Back to news

November 7, 2019 | International, Aerospace

Leonardo sees market opportunity for M-346 attack variant in Middle East

By: Agnes Helou

Correction: Leonardo has corrected statements made about M-346 customers during a tour of one of its facilities by Defense News, and this story has been updated to reflect that.

BEIRUT — After the first order of its fighter attack variant of the M-346, Italian firm Leonardo is marketing the fighter jet in the Middle East, industry officials told Defense News, while noting that the training version was tested in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.

“M-346 has been tested in Kuwait under hot conditions, passing all the tests successfully, and then it was also tested with the Italian Air Force in November 2018 in Qatar,” a Leonardo official said.

Defense News spoke to the official during a tour of the company's facilities in Venegono Superiore, Italy. Leonardo would not identify the M-346FA customer or the contract value, despite inquiries by Defense News during and after the tour.

The deal comes in the wake of increased interest for trainer jets — both those solely used for training and those able to perform close-air support missions — from Mideast countries seeking to expand their respective fighter fleets.

“There is an increasing need for trainer jets in the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region as countries there work to expand their fighter fleets. The MENA nations have requirements for trainers also able to perform close‐air support missions," said Marco Buratti, Leonardo's senior vice president of international marketing and strategic campaigns.

“Among the most notable examples that have chosen Leonardo's training approach is the UAE's national aerobatic team, Al Fursan — widely recognized as one of the best in the world and considered as a UAE national pride — which uses the Aermacchi MB‐339 aircraft,” he added. “The Emirati pilots were trained in Italy and the UAE under the supervision of the Frecce Tricolori pilots using Italian aircraft and training systems.”

Leonardo offers its trainer customers the opportunity to send personnel to its International Flight Training School, where it trains pilots in four phases: primary training/screening; basic-advanced training; lead-in to fighter training; and an operational conversion unit.

Leonardo is a member of the Eurofighter consortium, which builds the Typhoon fighter jet. Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are among those in the Gulf region who have ordered the aircraft.

Meanwhile, in Europe, Italy has joined the United Kingdom's Tempest program for a next-generation fighter. Will the M-346 be the chosen trainer for that effort?

“M-346 demonstrated its capability as [a] trainer for Eurofighter and F-35. It is early to speak about Tempest program because we don't know yet how it will be inserted in the combat environment," a Leonardo official told Defense News. "First, we need to understand [the] Tempest combat environment, and then we evaluate the M-346 as a trainer for the Tempest, or if in 10-15 years from now Leonardo will have to evolve the training system towards a new combat environment that require[s] new training skills.”

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/dubai-air-show/2019/11/06/mideast-customer-orders-attack-variant-of-leonardos-m-346-trainer-jet/

On the same subject

  • Air Force begins to roll out special cyber defense teams

    December 31, 2018 | International, C4ISR

    Air Force begins to roll out special cyber defense teams

    By: Mark Pomerleau The Air Force is beginning to build specialized cyber teams across the service whose primary mission is to defend local installations and critical mission tasks from cyberattacks. These teams will ensure that a particular wing or smaller organization can complete their mission from a cyber perspective, Maj. Gen. Robert Skinner, commander of 24th Air Force/Air Forces Cyber, told Fifth Domain in a November interview. For example, Skinner said if a wing has an F-16 unit that's responsible for offensive counter air or defensive counter air support, mission defense teams will understand those weapon system and everything that goes into making those air sorties successful as a way to defend that mission from a cyber standpoint. As an example, an eight-man team at the 2nd Weather Group within the 557th Weather Wing monitors the network and recently discovered several “bogus” account requests. The commander, Col. Patrick Williams, said the team was able to figure out that many of the requests were either bots or foreign requests that “had no business being on that network.” By working with the Network Operations and Security Center to eliminate that activity, the number of requests dropped by 80 percent, a huge win, Williams said. He added this was done with just a nascent mission defense team given that the teams are just being filled out across the major commands now. Skinner said each major command is at a different point in activating the teams. In addition, Air Force leaders said the service hopes to achieve efficiencies within its entire IT and cyber defense enterprise. The officials pointed to the Air Force's “enterprise IT as a service” pilot, which examines what efficiencies can be gained by having commercial companies conduct the IT services as opposed to having airmen maintain the IT infrastructure. One benefit of such a move could be that it frees up personnel to spend more time on cyber defense. “Our core strategic theme is moving from IT focused delivery into mission defense teams,” Bill Marion, deputy CIO of the Air Force, said during a keynote presentation in early December. Skinner said the service will likely be able to “re-mission” workers from their IT positions and assign them to these more active defensive roles such as mission defense teams. These mission defense teams are different from cyber protection teams that the Air Force, and other services, provide to U.S. Cyber Command. “In my eyes the [mission defense team] is a [cyber protection team] lite,” Skinner said. "We're very proud of our cyber protection team training and I think that the more of that I can get with our mission defense teams, the more successful they'll be and then our cyber protection teams can be really focused on the high end, the big threats that we'll run into in a peer competition and peer adversaries.” https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/air-force/2018/12/27/air-force-begins-to-roll-out-special-cyber-defense-teams

  • Opinion: ‘Efficiencies’ Alone Cannot Solve U.S. Defense Budget Crunch

    October 23, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

    Opinion: ‘Efficiencies’ Alone Cannot Solve U.S. Defense Budget Crunch

    We are not going to “efficiency” our way out of the hard choices which the next administration will face fitting an already straining defense posture under a flatlined budget. Previously in the Up... More details on https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/budget-policy-operations/opinion-efficiencies-alone-cannot-solve-us-defense-budget

  • Belarus says it sends more troops, aircraft, armoury to border with Ukraine
All news