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October 26, 2018 | International, Aerospace

Wing installation at Turkish drone maker signals progress on indigenous unmanned tech

By:

ANKARA, Turkey — A privately owned Turkish drone specialist has installed the wings on its unmanned fighter jet currently in development.

Selçuk Bayraktar, the chief technology officer at Baykar Makina, announced the progress on the Uçan Balık/Akıncı program (Flying Fish/Raider in Turkish).

Bayraktar shared photos of the Akıncı on social media after the assembly of the aircraft's wings. “It [the program] is progressing as scheduled,” Bayraktar said. Turkey's vice president, Fuat Oktay, visited the Baykar Makina production unit to inspect the Akıncı.

Bayraktar believes the platform's development foreshadows a more advanced version of itself down the road.

“We are hoping to have our first unmanned fighter aircraft by 2023. We are also hoping to fly our first unmanned aerial vehicle that can carry up to 1.5 tons of payload for strategic missions in 2019,” Bayraktar said.

Baykar is Turkey's leading privately owned drone specialist. It has supplied 58 unarmed and armed drones to the Turkish military that are mainly deployed in areas (southeastern Turkey, northern Syria and northern Iraq) where the country is fighting Kurdish militants. Fifteen Baykar drones are simultaneously on duty for counterterror missions. The company wants to raise that number to 50.

Baykar's TB-2, a drone that comes in both armed and unarmed versions, is mainly deployed in Turkey's southeast to combat Kurdish militants. The armed version uses the MAM-L and MAM-C, two miniature smart munitions developed and produced by state-controlled missile-maker Roketsan.

Industry sources say Turkey's industry also is developing BSI-101, a signals intelligence system, for the TB-2 to end the country's dependence on American-made SIGINT systems for drones.

The TB-2 can fly at a maximum altitude of 24,000 feet for up to 30 hours. Its communications range is 150 kilometers. The aircraft can carry up to 55 kilograms of payload.

“We (the world) are decades away from fully unmanned fighter aircraft. But for countries like Turkey that fight asymmetrical warfare, the gear built between full unmanned fighters and today's armed drones will be crucial,” a senior defense procurement official said.

Increasing asymmetrical threats on both sides of Turkey's Syrian and Iraqi borders have urged the country's military and procurement and industry officials to boost existing drone programs and launch new ones.

The Akıncı is the latest version of a family of drones Turkey thinks could best fight insurgency at home and abroad. In June, Turkish officials said a contract had been signed for the development and production of the 4.5-ton Akıncı. The first deliveries are scheduled for 2020.

The Akıncı features an altitude of 40,000 feet and a payload capacity of 1,350 kilograms, which it can carry for up to 24 hours. The aircraft is powered by two turboprop engines, each generating 550 horsepower. The engine is under development by Tusas Engine Industries, or TEI, a state-controlled engine maker of the PD170.

TEI has been working on the PD170 since December 2012 when it signed a development contract with SSM (now SSB), the country's procurement agency,.

The 2.1-liter, turbo-diesel PD170 can produce 170 horsepower at 20,000 feet, and 130 horsepower at 30,000 feet. It can generate power at a maximum altitude of 40,000 feet. The PD170 was designed for the Anka, Turkey's first indigenous medium-altitude, long-endurance drone.

The Akıncı has a 20 meter wingspan, and is 12.5 meters long and 4.1 meters high. It can be equipped with indigenously developed satellite communications technology; a common aperture targeting system FLIR; a wide area surveillance system; electronic and signals intelligence systems; an electronic support measure pod; a collision avoidance system; a multirole active electronically scanned array air radar; and a synthetic aperture/ground moving target indicator radar.

The Akıncı can be armed with a wide range of air-to-ground munitions including MAM-L, MAM-C, CIRIT, Mk81 and Mk82 general-purpose bombs, smart munitions (such as HGK, KGK and LGK) with various guidance kits, and SOM air-launched cruise missiles.

https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2018/10/25/wing-installation-at-turkish-drone-maker-signals-progress-on-indigenous-unmanned-tech

On the same subject

  • Coast Guard picks homeport for new icebreaker fleet

    June 18, 2019 | International, Naval

    Coast Guard picks homeport for new icebreaker fleet

    By: Navy Times staff They'll do much of their hardest work in a world that's icy white, but the Coast Guard's new fleet of Polar Security Cutters will be homeported in the Emerald City. “I am pleased to announce that Seattle, Washington, will be the home of the Coast Guard's new Polar Security Cutters,” said Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl L. Schultz in a Monday statement emailed to Navy Times. “The Pacific Northwest has been the home of our icebreaking fleet since 1976, and I am confident that the Seattle area will continue to provide the support we need to carry out our critical operations in the polar regions.” Coast Guard officials said that Seattle won out over other potential locations because of “operational and logistical needs.” Two months ago, the Navy and Coast Guard awarded Mississippi shipbuilder VT Halter Marine, Inc. a contract that could be worth as much as $1.9 billion to build three heavy icebreakers. The Polar Security-class vessels will be designed to conduct search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, environmental response and national defense patrols missions in areas often covered in heavy ice. A longtime resident of the Seattle suburbs, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell cheered the announcement in a prepared statement released Monday evening. “This is great news. Homeporting new icebreakers in Puget Sound shows the significant role Washington state has to play in securing our waters and protecting our environment in the Arctic. The Puget Sound region supports a cutting-edge maritime workforce, which is poised to meet the needs of these new world-class vessels,” said Cantwell, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, one of the panels overseeing the Coast Guard. “I am excited to welcome new polar icebreakers and their Coast Guard crews to Seattle in the near future.” Cantwell has long fought to maintain and expand the Coast Guard's icebreaker fleet, including sparring with President Barack Obama's administration over funding to build the new icebreakers. Construction on the first icebreaker is slated to begin in 2021 with delivery three years later, but there are financial incentives in the contract for early delivery, according to the Pentagon. Congress also indicated that it expects the heavy breakers and other vessels to spend more time in Alaska. Lawmakers earmarked $53 million to construct cutter support facilities in Alaska. That hasn't been the preferred destination for the Coast Guard's heavy icebreakers, which are down to one semi-working vessel and the skeleton of another that's used to harvest spare parts to keep the other one running. Commissioned in 1976, the Polar Star annually crunches a channel through miles of thick ice to reach McMurdo Station, the main logistics hub for the National Science Foundation's personnel in Antarctica, including researchers at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and remote field camps. Supply vessels follow behind the breaker, but by the end of Operation Deep Freeze, its 11,200-mile journey, it's usually so battered that it spends much of the rest of the year in dry dock, undergoing repairs. Last year, it caught on fire. During a May 28 meeting with reporters in Alaska, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan grumbled that the new breakers need to spend more time in the Arctic and less at the bottom of the world. “I write the Coast Guard bill. I chair that subcommittee; we'll see,” he was quoted as saying. Sullivan chairs the Security Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation panel. The Coast Guard's medium breaker Healy draws the nation's Arctic duties. During last year's 129-day deployment, it plied the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. Although it mostly supported scientific exploration during that tour, Healy also is used for search and rescue missions, escorting warships and other vessels through ice-jammed waterways, environmental protection and enforcing the law in an Arctic region increasingly under pressure from Russia and China. https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/06/18/coast-guard-picks-homeport-for-new-icebreaker-fleet/

  • Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - March 25, 2019

    March 26, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

    Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - March 25, 2019

    NAVY Gartner Inc., Stamford, Connecticut (N66001-19-A-0049); Forrester Research Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts (N66001-19-A-0050); and FEDmine LLC, Rockville, Maryland (N66001-19-A-0013), are awarded a multiple-award, firm-fixed-price Department of Defense (DoD) Enterprise Software Initiative (ESI) blanket purchase agreement (BPA) in accordance with the firms' General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule contracts. The overall estimated value of this BPA is $446,000,000. The three individual agreements are awarded in the DoD ESI category of Information Technology (IT) Research and Informative Services. The BPAs will provide commercially available technology in this category for the DoD, U.S. intelligence community, and Coast Guard activities worldwide. The ordering period will be for a maximum of 10 years, and the expected date of completion is March 24, 2029. This BPA is issued under DoD ESI in accordance with the policy and guidelines in the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement, Section 208.74. This BPA will not obligate funds at the time of award. Funds will be obligated as task orders using operations and maintenance (DoD) funds. Requirements will be competed among the awardees in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation 8.403-3(c)(2), and the successful contractor will receive firm-fixed-price orders. This BPA was competitively procured via the GSA E-Buy website among 679 vendors. Three offers were received and three were selected for award. Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity. Austal USA, Mobile, Alabama, is being awarded a $261,776,539 fixed-price-incentive (firm target) modification to previously-awarded contract N00024-19-C-2227 for the detail design and construction (DD&C) of the 13th and 14th Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) ships, and to definitize the long-lead-time material undefinitized contract actions for EPFs 13 and 14. This modification will award the DD&C effort for EPF 13 and EPF 14 and definitize and subsume the long-lead-time material undefinitized contract actions for EPFs 13 and 14. Note: the funding obligated covers the DD&C award and also definitizes the UCAs -- which results in a total greater than the face value of the award. The EPF class provides high-speed, shallow-draft transportation capability to support the intra-theater maneuver of personnel, supplies and equipment for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Army. This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $370,733,399. Work will be performed in Mobile, Alabama (54 percent); Novi, Michigan (13 percent); Fairfax, Virginia (7 percent); Houston, Texas (4 percent); Franklin, Massachusetts (3 percent); New Iberia, Louisiana (3 percent); Kingsford, Michigan (2 percent); Chesapeake, Virginia (2 percent); and Theodore, Alabama (1 percent), with other efforts performed at various locations throughout the United States below one percent (7 percent) and at various locations outside the U.S. below one percent (4 percent). Work is expected to completed by July 2022. Fiscal 2018 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $134,609,225; and fiscal 2019 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $161,815,453 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively solicited via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with one offer received. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity. Professional Contract Services Inc., Austin, Texas, is being awarded a $26,684,510 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract modification for the exercise of Option Number Four for base operations support services at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Virginia, and its outlying support sites all located in Virginia. The work to be performed provides for all labor, supervision, management, tools, materials, equipment, facilities, transportation, incidental engineering, and other items necessary to provide facilities maintenance and equipment repair services in support of Naval Medical Center Portsmouth and its outlying support sites. After award of this option, the total cumulative contract value will be $120,671,131. Work will be performed in Portsmouth, Virginia. This option period is from April 2019 to March 2020. No funds will be obligated at time of award. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance, (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $24,334,266 for recurring work will be obligated on individual task orders issued during the option period. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Mid-Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N62470-15-D-4009). Insitu Inc., Bingen, Washington, is being awarded a $17,452,196 firm-fixed-price delivery order (N6833519F0434) against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N68335-16-G-0046). This order provides for technical services, training, site survey and activation teams, and program management to sustain and support ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle sites in Afghanistan. Work will be performed in Afghanistan (95 percent); and Bingen, Washington (5 percent), and is expected to be completed in March 2020. Fiscal 2019 Afghan Security Forces funds in the amount of $17,452,196 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. 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Fiscal 2017, 2018 and 2019 other procurement, Army funds in the amount of $89,418,245 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, New Jersey, is the contracting activity. Alta Via Consulting LLC,* Loudon, Tennessee, was awarded a $22,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for cost management services. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of March 28, 2024. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is the contracting activity (W91CRB-19-D-0018). Advance Technology Solutions,* Augusta, Georgia, was awarded a $14,530,927 firm-fixed-price contract for services in the areas of military personnel actions, records processing and management, personnel manning, casualty management, transition and separations processing, personnel information systems management, and administrative processing of soldiers. 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The Defense Health Agency, Falls Church, Virginia, is the contracting activity. *Small business https://dod.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract-View/Article/1794949/

  • Germany makes a massive fighter purchase | Defense Dollars

    March 23, 2022 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

    Germany makes a massive fighter purchase | Defense Dollars

    Germany makes a huge pivot in plotting the future of its air force, putting in a bid to buy a fleet of F35s on this week's Defense Dollars.

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