L'Espagne rejoint la France et l'Allemagne dans le projet d'avion de combat du futur

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  October 5, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Avions de combat: Boeing passe à l’attaque

  Eric Felley La votation à peine digérée, le lobbyiste Thomas Borer invite déjà des parlementaires à une rencontre la semaine prochaine avec les Américains du Super Hornet. Malaise dans la commission. Les urnes sont encore tièdes d'une mince victoire pour l'acquisition des avions de combat que déjà s'active à Berne le lobbyisme pour influencer les élus sur le choix de l'avion: le Rafale de Dassault, l'Eurofighter d'Airbus, le F-35 de Lockheed Martin ou le Super Hornet de Boeing. Et les défenseurs de ce dernier ont semble-t-il tiré les premiers. En début de semaine déjà, certains conseillers nationaux, membres de la Commission de la politique de sécurité, avaient reçu une invitation pour venir se renseigner à propos de leur engin. Cette invitation leur est parvenue par quelqu'un de bien connu à Berne, l'ancien ambassadeur devenu lobbyiste de haut vol, Thomas Borer. Dans un courrier envoyé par mail, il invite certains parlementaires à rencontrer le directeur des ventes et du marketing des avions de combat à l'international chez Boeing, qui est responsable du processus d'achat en Suisse. Il semble que des élus de tous les partis l'ont reçu, même chez les socialistes et les Verts, opposés à l'achat. «Ils n'ont aucune pudeur, s'agace l'un d'entre eux. J'ai renvoyé aussitôt pour dire que je ne viendrai pas». Ancien pilote de F/A-18, le directeur des ventes de Boeing, Alain Garcia, «aimerait prendre le temps de parler avec vous sur l'offre de Boeing et de répondre directement à vos questions», écrit Thomas Borer. Les parlementaires pouvaient choisir entre mardi 6 octobre ou mercredi 7 octobre pour le rencontrer. D'après nos sources, la grande majorité d'entre eux ont refusé. S'abstenir de tout contact avec les avionneurs La Commission de la politique de sécurité, dans sa composition d'avant les élections de 2019, avait convenu que ses membres devaient s'abstenir de tout contact avec des avionneurs. Certains socialistes avaient été remis à l'ordre parce qu'ils étaient allés visiter un constructeur en Italie, pour chercher une alternative aux quatre concurrents qui sont en lice. La nouvelle commission, sous la présidence d'Ida Glanzmann-Hunkeler (PDC/LU), n'a pas encore pris de décision à ce sujet. Sa prochaine réunion a lieu les 26 et 27 octobre prochains. En interpellant les parlementaires seulement quelques jours après la votation, Thomas Borer est fidèle à sa réputation de fonceur. Mais au Parlement, ce n'est pas peut-être pas la meilleure façon d'agir. L'ancien ambassadeur a déjà troublé la quiétude des Chambres fédérales dans le cadre de ses activités de lobbyiste pour le Kazakhstan. Une enquête avait été ouverte contre lui par le Ministère public de la Confédération (MPC) et le conseiller national Christian Miesch (UDC/BL) suite à des soupçons de corruption passive et d'acceptation d'avantages. Mais l'affaire a été classée sans suite en juillet 2019. https://www.lematin.ch/story/avions-de-combat-boeing-passe-a-lattaque-426165817866

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  May 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Special Ops Budget Crunch Looms, But New Aircraft Demo Coming

  And so what's really important to me is what the vendor brings to the table, in terms of their ability to integrate weapons onto a non-developmental platform," said SOCOM acquisition czar Jim Smith. By PAUL MCLEARY and THERESA HITCHENSon May 13, 2020 at 4:32 PM WASHINGTON: Like the rest of the Defense Department, Special Operations Command is preparing for flat to declining budgets in the coming years as the national debt spirals to $25 trillion and the economy flattens due to COVID-19 related shutdowns. At the moment, the command that trains, equips and sustains the nation's elite covert operators boasts a $13 billion budget, $7 billion of which goes directly into buying and repairing new gear, with another $800 million pumped into research and development. And that's the unclassified part of the budget. The command wants to protect those investments, Jim Smith, SOCOM's top acquisition executive, told reporters this morning. But fiscal realities being what they are, “right now, our planning assumptions are based on a flat budget out through the next seven years or so,” he said. “And then, if you take into account inflation, you might even have a slightly downward pressure on our overall budget.” Just recently, Defense Secretary Mark Esper suggested that the budget pressure might force his hand in cutting older, legacy systems earlier than planned to pull savings toward priority modernization programs like the $500 billion the DoD plans to spend on the refurbishment of the nuclear triad over the next decade. Earlier this month Esper declared, “we need to move away from the legacy, and we need to invest those dollars in the future. And we have a lot of legacy programs out there right now — I could pick dozens out from all branches of the services” that could be cut or curtailed. Asked by Breaking Defense if pressure on SOCOM budgets could lead to the command walking away from bigger and older systems, Smith said “SOF is a little different. There is a propensity for us to accept a near-[commercial] solution and get it into the fight very quickly. And for that reason, we tend not to sustain equipment or the 20-year, 30-year life cycles that you see in the services.” That's not to say “we don't have the same pressures,” as the services in finding savings, he added. “We're trying to divest in a force that you know likes to hold on to things. And so we have very rich dialogue at the command level, I can assure you, about trying to divest over some of our larger programs going on.” One area commanders want to grow is close air support and ISR in areas without large, improved landing strips via the Armed Overwatch program. Lt. Gen. Jim Slife, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, said in February at the Air Force Association's annual meeting that the aircraft would replace AFSOC's U-28s — and focus more on plane's close air support, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. Smith today explained that effort is standing on the shoulders of the Air Force's defunct Light Attack Aircraft effort. “We are on the backs of the Air Force's effort. We're using the same program managers and engineers,” Smith said. “Everything that was learned by the Air Force in their light attack experiment is being leveraged into ours.” The Air Force's long-running light attack aircraft saga — that at one point was expected to involve procurement of up to 300 airplanes — began way back in 2011, when the Air Force initiated a program to procure what it then called “light air-support” aircraft for use in insurgencies. In 2017, the program morphed into what the service called the Light Attack Experiment, aimed at developing a concept of operations that involved US allies as well as fleshing out an overall acquisition strategy. In 2018, then-Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said the service had set aside $2.4 billion in the fiscal year 2019 budget's five-year cycle to acquire agile, armed reconnaissance aircraft — once it had tested out its chosen competitors: Textron's AT-6 and the Sierra Nevada-Embraer team's A-29. In October 2019, facing a threat from Congress to strip the program from its control, the Air Force issued a request for proposal to Textron and Sierra Nevada to buy “two or three of both” companies' turboprops. Finally, in February this year, the Air Force threw up its collective hands and gave up the quest to buy light attack aircraft in quantity — purchasing only two each of the AT-6 Wolverine and A-29 Tucanos for continued experimentation. Several of the companies who originally fought it out way back in the day under the Air Force effort, as well as Textron and Sierra Nevada, are now throwing their hats in the SOCOM ring. Spokespeople for Air Tractor (which had formally protested the Air Force's contract award in the light attack competition), Sierra Nevada and Textron confirmed to Breaking Defense today that they are all in for the live-fly demonstration expected in November. The plan is for SOCOM to buy up to 75 of the aircraft over seven years, beginning with a $106 million request in the 2021 budget to kick things off. The Special Operations community is as interested in what it can put on one of these planes as it is in the aircraft itself. “At the end of the day, I'm going to deliver a weapon system,” Smith said. “And so what's really important to me is what the vendor brings to the table, in terms of their ability to integrate weapons onto a non-developmental platform. I think the Air Force, you know, there was a lot of focus on the actual platforms. I don't think you'll see that from SOCOM. We are far more interested in the integration capability of our eventual industry partners on the platform.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/special-ops-budget-crunch-looms-but-new-aircraft-demo-coming

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  July 15, 2022 | International, Aerospace

  Lockheed Delivers First Jet-Mounted Laser Weapon to USAF

  Lockheed Martin delivered the smallest airborne laser weapon system ever built to the US Air Force in February.