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  April 17, 2023 | International, Aerospace

  Israel’s Aeronautics to supply Orbiter 3 drones to Greece

  The agreement will see “dozens” of the drones supplied to the Greek Ministry of Defense, the company said in a statement.

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  September 13, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Lockheed To Migrate F-35 Backbone To Cloud Architecture

  Lee Hudson and Steve Trimble Lockheed Martin intends to migrate its F-35 digital support backbone, the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), to a native-cloud architecture by year's end and field it in 2020. A joint government and industry team tested an early version of the new framework in both lab and flight test environments in May, company spokesman Mike Friedman said in a Sept. 11 statement to Aerospace DAILY. “By moving all ALIS applications to a cloud-native, open architecture, we can rapidly develop and test pieces of ALIS without having to load the entire system for each upgrade,” he said. “And instead of aggregating many fixes over a 12- to 18-month period into a single upgrade, the new approach allows developers to create, test, receive feedback and implement fixes every few weeks while reducing development and fielding costs.” The new construct still must be tested in an operational environment so that developers can garner user feedback to refine their approach. Separately, the newest ALIS software release, 3.1.1, is saving pilots an average of 35 min. in report generation and review. The new software release also is saving maintainers 40 min. each day in report generation and several hours weekly in managing fleet directive reports, he added. “This latest release leverages the development work Lockheed Martin completed in 2018 with its internal investment funding,” Friedman said. “In 2018, Lockheed Martin invested approximately $50 million in ALIS and will continue investing approximately $180 million through 2021 to modernize ALIS and enhance enterprise sustainment systems.” Extrapolated across the enterprise of more than 425 aircraft flying today, it will save more than 20,000 manhours annually. Lockheed Martin has invested in additional time saving and efficiency ALIS automations and is working with the government on implementation and fielding plans, Friedman said. https://aviationweek.com/defense/lockheed-migrate-f-35-backbone-cloud-architecture

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  February 1, 2021 | International, Land

  Elbit signs tank, armored vehicle contract with Asia-Pacific country

  By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia — Elbit Systems will supply tracked light tanks and wheeled fire-support vehicles to an army in the Asia-Pacific region under an approximately $172 million deal, the Israeli company announced Tuesday. Elbit is acting as the prime contractor for the three-year program and will supply the Sabrah light tank, which is based on the tracked ASCOD platform manufactured by General Dynamics European Land Systems. Elbit will also supply the eight-wheel drive Pandur II vehicle manufactured by the Czech firm Excalibur Army. An Elbit news release said the 30-ton Sabrah “provides a unique combination of powerful fire capacity and high maneuverability.” Both the tank and vehicle platforms will be equipped with a 105mm turret as well as a range of subsystems, including electro-optical sights, fire control systems, Torch-X battle management systems, E-Lynx software-defined radios and life support systems. Elbit President & CEO Bezhalel Machlis said the contract “reflects the mutually beneficial strategic co-operation between Elbit Systems and GDELS, based on joint development and manufacturing of vehicle-turret solutions.” Elbit's news release did not reveal the numbers of each vehicle ordered nor identify the customer, although Defense News understands that the vehicles are destined for the Philippines. Previous unconfirmed reports suggest the contract will be for eight Sabras and 10 Pandur IIs, along with one command and one recovery vehicle. The Philippine Department of National Defense has not confirmed it is the end user for the tanks. But if it is, this would mark the latest success for Elbit in the Southeast Asian country, having previously upgraded the country's M113 armored personnel carriers. That upgrade included equipping the M113s with Elbit's battle management systems — the same ones that will be fitted to the Sabrah and Pandur vehicles in this new contract. The Philippines also previously acquired Hermes 450 and 900 drones from Elbit. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2021/01/29/elbit-signs-tank-armored-vehicle-contract-with-asia-pacific-country