Leonardo trumpets Britishness of its UK medium-helicopter bid

On the same subject

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  September 5, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  T-X competition to end in September with selection of new USAF trainer aircraft

  2018-08-30 WILLIAM KUCINSKI Officials will soon award a 350-unit contract to one of three competing aircraft teams. According to officials, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) will select a new trainer aircraft by September 30 – before the end of the 2018 fiscal year. The aircraft will be one of the three remaining next-gen trainer candidates from the USAF's ongoing T-X competition, either the clean-sheet T-X from Boeing and Saab, the T-50A from Lockheed Martin and Korea Aerospace Industries, Ltd. (KAI), or the T-100 from Leonardo DRS. The USAF will replace its aging fleet of Northrop T-38 Talon supersonic jet trainers with 350 new aircraft from the T-X competition, spending approximately $16 billion to acquire and maintain the new trainers over the course of their service life – one of the largest USAF contracts in recent times. The seasoned T-38 has been in use since 1961, training nearly 50,000 pilots who would later fly aircraft like the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, McDonell Douglass F-15 Eagle, and Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. However, as the USAF transitions employs more and more cutting-edge technologies, a next-gen trainer is needed to better facilitate fifth-gen fighter aircraft pilot training for the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lighting II. The winning T-X aircraft will serve as a platform to acclimate pilots to aircraft with extreme agility, full-sensor fusion, integrated avionics, supercruise, and consolidated and integrated battlespace management technologies. Industry analysts currently favor the Lockheed/KAI T-50A – based on KAI's T-50 trainer used by South Korea's Republic of Korea Air Force and co-developed by Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the F-22 and F-35; and the Boeing/Saab T-X – which, as a completely new design – benefited from additional development time due to the T-X competition's repeatedly protracted award announcement. While speculation has floated that the T-X award announcement would occur during the Air Force Association's Air, Space & Cyber (ASC) Conference from Sept. 17-19, those close to the program hinted at a decision coming through the following week of Sept. 24. https://www.sae.org/news/2018/08/t-x-competition-to-end-in-september-with-selection-of-new-usaf-trainer-aircraft

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  March 8, 2021 | International, Aerospace

  U.S. General Says Unmanned Aircraft Need Too Many People

  U.S. Special Operations Command is looking at Reaper drones for the new Armed Overwatch role. But although the Reaper may be uncrewed, it takes a lot of people on the ground to keep it flying -- maybe too many to be viable.

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  December 10, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  3 priorities for the Marines' information directorate

  By: Mark Pomerleau The new head of the Marine Corps' nascent information directorate is focusing on three priorities: network modernization, putting new information-related units to work and gaining asymmetric advantage. The Marine Corps reorganized its leadership in 2017 to create a new three-star position, the deputy commandant for information, that would oversee all aspects of information war to include cyber, electronic warfare, signals intelligence and information operations. Over the summer, Lt. Gen. Lori Reynolds became the second officer to hold this new position. William Williford, executive director of Marine Corps Systems Command, provided an outline of various efforts to modernize the network during the Charleston Defense Contractors Association Defense Summit on Dec. 5. The initiative includes: broader adoption of Windows 10, creating a cloud cross functional team, starting a network cross functional team, fielding Tampa microwave terminals, protecting spectrum used for the F-35 and running a pilot program to help ensure GPS signals aren't jammed. Kenneth Bible, deputy director of the C4 directorate and deputy chief information officer, said during the same conference that the Marines still have IT solutions that date back to the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet days that have to be modernized The Marine Corps needs to divest of some of its legacy systems and modernize them, he said. He added that Marines are finding there are systems needed to get the network “up to snuff to go support that.” Additionally, he said, systems need to be capable of supporting the automation needed in order to make the network more effective. Regarding the second line of effort, the deputy commandant is focused on using the new Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups, or MIGs. These teams will work on all information related capabilities, providing commanders a clearinghouse of options including cyber, intelligence, electronic warfare and information operations. Bible said Marine Corps leaders are working hard to figure out how the groups can directly help commanders. Third, Bible said the Marines want to gauge whether they can create an asymmetric advantage. “How do we shape the conflict before we end up in a conflict,” Bible said. “A lot of this is going to merge in the information environment.” Some of the efforts related to providing an asymmetric advantage will involve Navy partners, Bible said. He discussed the need to for Marines to fight to get to the fight. “We're probably not going to have enough organic aviation assets to get all the Marines to all the different places that an advanced expeditionary base operations concept [and] very distributed operations” demands," he said. That will require partnering with the Navy in some regards. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/12/07/3-priorities-for-the-marines-information-directorate