When you should expect the Air Force to announce its next trainer aircraft

On the same subject

• 

  July 4, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  La disponibilité des aéronefs en 2018

  Helen Chachaty En réponse à une question du député François Cornut-Gentille, le ministère des Armées a publié les chiffres actualisés du taux de disponibilité des différentes flottes exploitées par l'armée de l'air, la marine nationale et l'armée de terre. Si certaines font figure de « bonnes élèves » et enregistrent une hausse constante ces trois dernières années, d'autres en revanche, continuent de plonger. Du côté des voilures fixes, la flotte de transport gouvernemental affiche une disponibilité au beau fixe, relativement constante depuis trois ans : Les A310/330/340 culminent respectivement à 73%, 81,5% et 88,7% de disponibilité, quand les Falcon 7X sont à 71,4% et les Falcon 2000 à 77,8%. Le dernier-né de la flotte, l'A330 MRTT, dont l'affichage du taux risque de disparaître avec son entrée dans le contingent dédié à la dissuasion nucléaire, il enregistre une disponibilité de 66,2% depuis son entrée dans les forces en octobre 2018. Toujours côté transport, les deux C-130J, réceptionnés fin 2017 et en 2018, affichent un score très respectable de 75,6%. La situation de l'A400M est certes loin d'être florissante, mais le taux de disponibilité est en hausse constante depuis 2016, passant ainsi de 13% à 25,6%, atteignant en 2018 un taux de 27,5%. Les CN235 restent constants sur les trois dernières années, autour de 50%, avec un léger rebond en 2018, pour atteindre les 53,7%. Quant aux C-130H, leur taux de disponibilité continue de baisser (19,4% en 2018), en attendant les effets bénéfiques du changement de prestataire de MCO. Côté aviation de chasse, les Rafale (air et marine) affichent un taux respectable de 53,6 et 53,7%, soit quasiment 20 points de plus que les Mirage 2000D, dont le taux de disponibilité est passé de 36,3% en 2017 à 33,8% en 2018. La flotte de MQ-9 Reaper, après avoir enregistré une baisse entre 2016 et 2017 en ayant chuté de près de 10 points (de 71,4% à 62,6%), est remontée en 2018 à 73,7% de disponibilité. Pour les voilures tournantes, ce sont la Gazelle et... la vénérable Alouette III qui tiennent le haut du pavé, affichant respectivement des taux de disponibilité de 46,2 et 44,7%. Ces flottes sont suivies de peu par les Dauphin (43,5%), le Caracal (40%), le Panther (39,9%) et le Fennec (38,65%). En bas de classement, le Lynx, qui atteint à peine les 15,5%. Quant au Tigre HAD (30,2%), il est légèrement devant la version HAD (28,1%). La version marine du NH90 se situe quant à elle cinq points en dessous (30,4%) de la version terrestre (35,5%). https://www.journal-aviation.com/actualites/42753-la-disponibilite-des-aeronefs-en-2018

• 

  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

• 

  May 28, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  "Prepare For Worst-Case Scenarios": Xi Jinping To Chinese Military

  Xi Jinping's comments came amid a face-off between the militaries of India and China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC). WorldEdited by Divyanshu Dutta Roy (with inputs from PTI)Updated: May 28, 2020 08:01 am IST Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday ordered the military to scale up its battle preparedness, visualising the worst-case scenarios and asked them to resolutely defend the country's sovereignty. Though he did not mention any specific threat, his comments came amid a face-off between soldiers of India and China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Xi, 66 who is also the General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) and head of the two-million-strong military with prospects of lifelong tenure in power, made the remarks while attending a plenary meeting of the delegation of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and People's Armed Police Force during the current parliament session being held in Beijing. Xi ordered the military to think about worst-case scenarios, scale up training and battle preparedness, promptly and effectively deal with all sorts of complex situations and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, without mentioning any specific issues that posed a threat to the country. Several areas along the LAC in Ladakh and North Sikkim have witnessed major military build-up by both the Indian and Chinese armies recently, in a clear signal of escalating tension and hardening of respective positions by the two sides even two weeks after they were engaged in two separate face-offs. The nearly 3,500-km-long LAC is the de-facto border between the two countries. China's military friction with the US has also been on the rise with the American navy stepping its patrols in the disputed South China Sea as well as the Taiwan Straits. Washington and Beijing are also engaged in a war of words over the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. On May 22, China, the second-largest military spender after the US, hiked its defence budget by 6.6 per cent to $179 billion, nearly three times that of India, the lowest increment in recent years amidst the massive disruption caused to the communist giant's economy by the COVID-19 pandemic. India has said the Chinese military was hindering normal patrolling by its troops along the LAC in Ladakh and Sikkim and strongly refuted Beijing's contention that the escalating tension between the two armies was triggered by trespassing of Indian forces across the Chinese side. The Ministry of External Affairs said all Indian activities were carried out on its side of the border, asserting that India has always taken a very responsible approach towards border management. At the same time, it said, India was deeply committed to protect its sovereignty and security. "Any suggestion that Indian troops had undertaken activity across the LAC in the Western sector or the Sikkim sector is not accurate. Indian troops are fully familiar with the alignment of the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border areas and abide by it scrupulously," MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said at an online media briefing last week. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/xi-jinping-to-chinese-military-prepare-for-worst-case-scenarios-2235615