May 20, 2022 | International, Aerospace
July 31, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
UK defense exports set new record in 2018
By: Andrew Chuter
LONDON — Sales of Typhoon jets to Qatar and F-35 related components to the U.S. were largely behind a record breaking year which saw British defense exports in 2018 reach £14 billion, according to new figures released July 30 by the Department for International Trade(DIT).
Export sales rose by £5 billion compared with 2017, boosting the British into second place in terms of global defense exports and pushing Russia and France into third and fourth place, respectively, for the year.
The DIT report illustrates how reliant Britain is on Middle East partners like Saudi Arabia and Qatar for its high performing exports business. The report shows that close to 80 percent of all British defense exports came from the region last year. Anti-arms campaigners in Britain are currently mounting a challenge against the legality of some previous defense exports to the Saudis.
Over the last ten years, the Middle East, North America and Europe have provided the biggest markets for the British, in that order.
The figures were provided by the DIT's defense and security arm, known as the Defence and Security Organisation (DSO). According to the DSO, the British took an estimated 19 percent share of the defense export market for 2018, compared with 14 percent by Russia and 9 percent by France.
As is the case every year, the U.S. arms industry continued to dominate the world market, with DSO figures putting the Americans in control of 40 percent of a global export market, at $100 billion for 2018, according to the government department.
The vast majority of British defense exports are from the air market sector. Around 96 percent of export sales last year were generated from defense aerospace, with the Typhoon sales to Qatar and an accompanying deal to purchase Brimstone missiles a major driver in Britain's good year.
The other major factor is the ramp up in the supply of items for the F-35 production line. Britain is the biggest overseas partner on the F-35 build program with BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce among a number of important suppliers.
This lack of diversification is a concern for London. France, for example, may not have done as well as the British last year overall, but a number of defense industry sectors contributed to what turned out to be a good performance.
French exports rose to €9.1 billion, a 30 percent rise from 2017. It's biggest customers last year were Qatar, including Rafale fighter jets and NH-90 helicopters; Belgium, with Griffon and Jaguar armored vehicles; Saudi Arabia, including patrol vessels; and Spain, for NH-90 helicopters.
“It is worth noting that the portfolios of major competitors to the UK, such as the USA and France, appear slightly less unbalanced than the UK's, and therefore, these supplier nations are less exposed to sector fluctuation,” noted the DIT report.
The good news for the UK: this year should go some way to redressing the balance between the British export sectors. The major maritime success of the Type 26 anti-submarine frigate, selected by both Australia and Canada, should starting appearing in the export data for 2019.
Security equipment exports also continued to grow last year, the DIT reported, rising 7.2 percent from 2017 and crossing the £5 billion barrier. Almost half the exports went to Europe, with the North American market accounting for 18 percent of the sales.
Cyber accounted for roughly 40 percent of those exports.
https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/07/30/uk-defense-exports-set-new-record-in-2018/
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US Air Force looks to accelerate artificial intelligence contracts
FARNBOROUGH, England — The Air Force is still not moving fast enough to recruit the software talent that it needs to harness emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, its acquisition head said Tuesday. "I don't think we're attracting enough people. Whether they're the right people or not, I think that's a separate question. I'm not sure that we'll be able to answer that until we're working with a broader set of the industry base that's working AI,” Will Roper, the Air Force's undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logstics, told reporters at Farnborough Airshow. “I contend that the companies driving AI are a different breed of company than those who drive evolution in hardware, especially companies that drove hardware that have gotten us to today's military. The paces are faster, turnovers are quicker. Software is done in month cycles not year cycles.” Over the past year, the Air Force has charted some successes and some failures in its attempts to integrate tech like AI and big data analytics with legacy hardware systems like fighter jets or air operations center. It has established the Kessel Run Experimentation Lab, a group of industry and airmen in Boston that are iterating new capabilities for air operations centers. Instead of rolling out a large software package, the coders focus on app-like updates that can more rapidly insert new functionality into the AOC. But it's also suffered setbacks — most notably, Google's stated intention to withdraw from future Defense Department projects after some employees objected to the company's work on Project Maven, a program would allow the Pentagon to use AI to review footage from drones. Some have worried that could have a chilling effect on future efforts. Roper said that a big focus of his job is changing how the Air Force approaches software. In the past, software was a product that could be bought in cycles, just like a physical product like a missile or aircraft. Now, it's a service that must be reworked constantly, he said. “You get a good set of coders in, they can push out so much code per month. You put them with the user that's going to use the code and together they're able to collaborate to make sure that the developer is creating something that the operator is using,” he said. “That's working very well for us in Boston, and we're looking to expand that. That's the basic mechanism to move towards AI. We're going to need people that are working with us that are software people that are working, tweaking algorithms with the users that use them, and it's probably a different company than have worked with us over the past 10 years.” The Air Force has to get those companies under contract faster, in weeks instead of months, Roper said. It's looking for opportunities to use contract vehicles specifically delegated for small businesses and to use AFWERX — its outreach arm to nontraditional contractors who are creating promising commercial technologies — to introduce startups to the service. But Roper acknowledged there was no easy answer to the problem. One possible way to inject AI into Air Force programs — although a mundane one — is to use it for predictive maintenance technologies that use sensors to forecast when a component will break, said Air Force Under Secretary Matt Donovan. “It's very exciting for us and I think it holds a lot of potential to reduce our sustainment costs,” he said, noting that sustainment makes up a whopping 70 percent of the life-cycle cost of any given product. Roper agreed that sustainment was a great area to begin employing AI, and that experience could help the Air Force begin to figure out how to use the technology for classified applications. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/farnborough/2018/07/17/air-force-looks-to-accelerate-artificial-intelligence-contracts