Who Will Make India’s Next Fighter?

On the same subject

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  May 22, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

  BAE Makes Big Bet On Small Companies: FAST Labs

  By THERESA HITCHENS BOSTON: BAE Systems, the third-largest defense contractor in the world, is funding innovative small startups to get innovative technology quickly to its Defense Department customers. Through an initiative called FAST Labs, BAE is both providing seed capital directly to startups and funding a number of accelerators to widen the potential market. The standard tactics include simply buying a smaller company to gain its technology or investing in a startup in order to control the direction of its research. Instead, BAE's FAST Labs is attempting to serve as a middle man connecting startups with DoD customers and BAE's various units. “By giving [the startups] the feasibility money, we can expose them to those harsh requirements that exist in the aerospace and defense world, but we can also in turn do social engineering inside our company,” Jerry Wohletz, the vice president and general management of BAE FAST Labs, told me. The idea is to introduce the startups' designs to BAE's factory and engineering work force, he said, “because we need to get it out of R&D land and get it into those products and services” that BAE knows its defense customers are looking for. FAST Labs is focused on research related to next-generation electronics, intelligent autonomous systems, cyber, electronic warfare, and sensors and processing. Wohletz explained that BAE does in-house research on capabilities that are solely of interest to DoD and the Intelligence Community, but it is reaching out to startups in order to partner on products and services based on commercial market needs. “A lot of aerospace and defense companies have venture capital funds,” Wohletz said. “That's not what we are trying to do. This is not an equity play to drive bottom line performance. We talk here about innovation velocity. We want speed to market.” Therefore, BAE is also putting its money — but more importantly its time — into a number of technology accelerators, such as Techstars in Boston, Capitol Factory in Austin, Texas, and MASSChallenge with hubs in both cities. FAST Labs has a team of scouts whose job is to attend pitches all across the country. “This is not based on ownership. We leave them their freedom,” Francesca Scire-Scappuzzo, who heads the scout team, told me. “We want innovation not just to support our market, we want to support their own innovation” for the commercial market. “Other defense contractors are trying to get involved with venture capital, but they for the most part don't really get it. BAE was in early, and they had the benefit of being linked with us,” Lt. Col. Dave Harden, chief operating officer of AFWERX, the Air Force's innovation hub, told me during the Techstars Air Force Accelerator Demo Day here last Thursday. Indeed, BAE cosponsored the event, and put upfront investment in at least three of 10 start-up companies participating. Neither Wohletz or Scire-Scappuzzo would tell me the size of BAE's budget for startup investment, but Wohletz said “it's getting bigger every year.” Further, the company is using accelerators not just to help itself innovate, Wohletz said, but also to find foreign companies to partner with in bids where the buying country requires offsets, such as India. “It's a completely different way of looking at this than we have done in the past,” he summed up. https://breakingdefense.com/2019/05/bae-makes-big-bet-on-small-companies-fast-labs/

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  October 9, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  Le prix d'achat des prochains avions de combat destinés à l'Armée suisse devra être compensés à 100% par des participations industrielles de l'économie suisse

  OTS NEWS: Swissmem / Offsetbüro Bern / Swissmem / GRPM / Nouveaux ... Offsetbüro Bern / Swissmem / GRPM / Nouveaux avions de combat: coup d'envoi pour les participations industrielles suisses (DOCUMENT) Zürich (ots) - - Indication: Des informations complémentaires peuvent être téléchargées en format pdf sous: http://presseportal.ch/fr/nr/100053245 - Le prix d'achat des prochains avions de combat destinés à l'Armée suisse devra être compensés à 100% par des participations industrielles de l'économie suisse. Afin de permettre une bonne coopération entre les cinq consortiums d'avionneurs pressentis et l'industrie suisse, cinq journées de contacts seront organisées en octobre à Lausanne et à Berne par le Bureau des offsets de Berne, Swissmem / SWISS ASD (Aeronautics, Security and Defence) et le Groupe romand pour le matériel de défense et de sécurité (GRPM). Tant pour les avionneurs que pour l'industrie suisse, l'objectif des 100% de participations (ou offsets ou compensations) constitue une t'che exigeante et ambitieuse. Elle exige des contacts initiaux intenses ainsi que des échanges d'informations systématiques. D'une part les avionneurs doivent communiquer sur les opportunités de participations industrielles jusqu'au moins de janvier dans le cadre de leur réponse à l'appel d'offres et d'autre part les entreprises suisses doivent annoncer leurs compétences*. Les cinq avionneurs sont les suivants : Airbus (Eurofighter), Boeing (F/A-18 E Super Hornet), Dassault (Rafale), Lockheed Martin (F-35A) et Saab (Gripen E). Afin de lancer la coopération entre les avionneurs et l'industrie suisse, le Bureau des offsets de Berne associé à Swissmem / SWISS ASD et au GRPM organisent deux journées de contacts en octobre à Berne et Lausanne pour chaque avionneur. Chaque événement commence par une courte présentation du consortium de l'avionneur. La partie principale est constituée de meetings individuels (business-to-business) entre les entreprises suisses et les consortiums des avionneurs (avionneurs, fournisseurs, partenaires, etc). Plus de 80 entreprises suisses se sont annoncées pour chacune des manifestations à Berne et Lausanne. Les objectifs des participations industrielles suisses aux acquisitions de l'Armée suisse faites à l'étranger sont les suivants : - Maintien de capacités minimales et de savoir-faire technique dans des domaines relevant de la sécurité de la Suisse - Garantie de compétences-clés minimales pour l'entretien et le développement de matériels militaires et civils de l'Armée suisse - Participation à des programmes industriels internationaux, accès durable à de nouveaux marchés ainsi qu'aux chaînes d'approvisionnement d'entreprises internationales très compétitives - Transfert de savoir-faire étranger en Suisse - Conclusion de mandats supplémentaires, maintien et création d'emplois Les journées de contacts sont réservées aux entreprises inscrites. Pour de plus amples informations: * Domaines concernés : machines, métallurgie, électronique et électrotechnique, optique, horlogerie, construction de véhicules et wagons, produits en caoutchouc et matières synthétiques, secteur aéronautique et spatial, software-engineering, coopérations avec des hautes écoles et instituts de recherche Originaltext: Swissmem Dossier de presse digital: http://www.presseportal.ch/fr/nr/100053245 Dossier de presse par RSS: http://presseportal.ch/fr/rss/pm_100053245.rss2 Contact: Swissmem Jonas Lang Pfingstweidstrasse 102 CH-8037 Zürich j.lang@swissmem.ch GRPM Philippe Zahno Rue de Voignous 9 CH-2008 Delémont philippe.zahno@grpm.ch https://www.zonebourse.com/actualite-bourse/OTS-NEWS-Swissmem-Offsetburo-Bern-Swissmem-GRPM-Nouveaux---27384744/

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  April 23, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  COVID-19′s fiscal impact might ironically strengthen national defense

  By: Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis (ret.) As Congress and the White House cope with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic by passing multitrillion-dollar stimulus packages, many are already grappling with the thorny problem of how we'll eventually pay for the spike in spending. While no one ever wants to be a bill-payer, the defense industry is predictably first out of the blocks seeking immunity from any future cuts by trotting out its favorite weapon: fear. Don't be fooled by this tried-and-true tactic: The claim that any cuts to the defense budget will imperil defense is gravely mistaken. Without changes in the foreign policy we enact — and a rational reform of how we spend our defense dollars — our national security will continue to decay. First, the cold, hard economic reality: The damage done to our economy by the necessary measures federal and state governments have enacted to safeguard American lives has been breathtaking in its scope and severity. Some estimates suggest gross domestic product will contract this year by as much as 40 percent, and unemployment could balloon to 30 percent. To help stem the tide, Congress has already passed a $2 trillion stimulus package, with more yet to come. With an already massive national debt of $24 trillion, the combination of government spending and the loss of tax revenue is going to place serious pressure on future budgets for years to come. These bills will eventually have to be paid, and no area of the budget will be free from scrutiny — including defense. Though the Department of Defense should be funded to whatever level is required to ensure the ability of our armed forces to deter and, if necessary defeat any adversary that may seek to deprive our citizens of life or liberty, not all aspects of the status quo are helping keep us safe. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr recently co-wrote an article arguing that regardless of the financial strain imposed by the coronavirus stimulus bills, defense spending should be exempted. The reason, he says, is that the military today remains in a yearslong “free-fall” which “can't be fixed in a year or even four.” The last thing America's leaders should do when responding to the financial constraints imposed by the coronavirus, he concludes, is to “weaken the military.” His implications that military readiness has been in free fall because of inadequate spending and that any reduction in defense spending weakens the military are beliefs held by many — and are inaccurate for several key reasons. Clinging to forever wars might be the biggest. The DoD has to spend hundreds of billions annually to fight, maintain and prepare for subsequent deployments fighting the forever wars we've been waging for the better part of two decades. Congress has allocated more than $2 trillion in direct outlays since 9/11 to fight so-called emergency requirements of overseas contingency operations, or OCO, and we have incurred an additional $4 trillion in associated and long-term costs. For fiscal 2020 alone, we will spend upward of an additional $137 billion on these OCO wars. What is critical to understand, however, is that the perpetual continuation of these wars not only fails to improve our security — these fights negatively impact our ability to focus on and prepare for fighting adversaries that could one day pose an existential threat to us. The implications of this reality are considerable — and potential remedies can be of great help to our country. If President Donald Trump were to order an end to some or all of our unnecessary forever wars, we could instantly save more than $100 billion a year without cutting anything else in the defense budget. If we then conducted prudent and necessary reforms in how we manage research and development, procurement, and acquisition, and in shedding unnecessary or outdated expenditures, tens of billions of additional savings could be realized. Perhaps more importantly we could redirect much more focus and resources on training and professional education, which would enable the armed forces to better deter — and if necessary defeat — major opponents. Those two major changes alone would end the weakening of our military and materially contribute to strengthening its key capabilities — while lessening pressure on the federal budget. The financial pressures this coronavirus is already placing on our nation's finances is real, and its effects will be felt for years. We will have to make hard decisions in the days ahead on where we spend our limited resources. If we are wise, we can reduce how much we spend on defense while simultaneously increasing our military power. Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow for Defense Priorities. He retired from the Army in 2015 after 21 years in service that included four combat deployments. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/04/22/covid-19s-fiscal-impact-might-ironically-strengthen-national-defense/