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Le H160 d'Airbus Helicopters vient de décrocher son certificat de type auprès de l'Agence européenne de la sécurité aérienne (EASA), ouvrant la voie à sa prochaine mise en service. L'hélicoptériste européen prévoit que sa certification FAA suivra dans peu de temps, alors que la première livraison est destinée à un client américain qui n'a pas été dévoilé. Le nouvel hélicoptère biturbine multirôle de moyen tonnage d'Airbus se positionne comme le successeur direct de la famille Dauphin (SA365 à EC155). Il est motorisé par deux turbines de nouvelle génération conçues et produites par Safran Helicopter Engines. Journal de l'Aviation du 1er juillet 2020 – Les Echos du 2 juillet 2020

Sur Europe 1, le chroniqueur économique Axel de Tarlé estime que la récente commande de munitions à Thales par l'armée australienne est une bonne nouvelle pour l'ensemble de la filière aéronautique qui travaille de fait à la fois pour le civil et le militaire, comme le montre l'exemple des Rafale de Dassault Aviation et de l'Eurofighter d'Airbus. « Ces commandes militaires vont permettre à la filière de garder nos compétences, nos ingénieurs, et donc, l'excellence de cette filière », conclut Axel de Tarlé en rappelant que l'aéronautique représente le plus gros poste excédentaire du commerce extérieur français en 2019. Europe 1 du 30 juin 2020

Dans une tribune publiée dans le journal Les Echos, Cédric Perrin, sénateur (LR) du Territoire de Belfort, et l'économiste Bruno Alomar appellent à une relance économique de la filière défense. Les crises récentes et à proximité de l'Europe ont montré l'importance du rôle des armées et la nécessité d'un « Etat-puissance ». Une autre raison est économique. Les entreprises de défense sont « transverses » industriellement et sont réparties sur tout le territoire. Les armées représentent « également de formidables bancs d'essai pour de nombreuses entreprises de petite et moyenne taille qui trouvent dans le client militaire un outil de retour d'expérience, leurs matériels étant testés et éprouvés au-delà de toutes conditions ». La Base industrielle et technologique de défense (BITD) « n'assure pas seulement les besoins opérationnels de nos armées. Elle est très puissamment imbriquée avec les filières aéronautique et spatiale, au travers de la dualité des technologies, ainsi que de celle des compétences de pointe qu'elle mobilise ». Les Echos du 29 juin 2020

By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia – South Korea is set to acquire more airborne surveillance and intelligence gathering aircraft, as the U.S. ally seeks to bolster its capabilities in both areas. The country's Defense Project Promotion Committee approved last Friday plans to acquire an undisclosed number of airborne early warning and control, or AEW&C aircraft, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration or DAPA. The committee also approved plans to acquire more signals intelligence or SIGINT gathering aircraft. Approximately $1.3 billion has been earmarked for the acquisition of the AEW&C aircraft for entry into service by 2027 while a further $725 million has been set aside for the SIGINT platforms, which are expected to enter service in 2026. The announcement did not disclose the platforms being pursued for either program, but South Korea is almost certain to go with additional Boeing 737 AEW&C aircraft. The Republic of Korea Air Force or ROKAF is already operating four such aircraft, acquired from the United States under the Peace Eye program, since 2012. The Peace Eye 737s are derivatives of Boeing's 737 Next Generation airliners fitted with a distinctive dorsal radar housing containing a Northrop Grumman Multi-Role Electronically Scanned Array or MESA radar. The L-band radar is reportedly capable of simultaneous air and sea search, fighter control and area search, simultaneously tracking 180 targets and conducting 24 intercepts. The DAPA announcement said the acquisition of additional AEW&C aircraft will be to further minimize gaps in South Korea's air defence coverage. South Korea has in recent months publicised the intercept of Chinese and Russian military aircraft entering the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone or KADIZ. The new SIGINT aircraft will be used to replace four older platforms based on the Hawker 800 business jets. DAPA says the new aircraft will be equipped with indigenous systems and will serve alongside two Dassault Falcon 2000 SIGINT aircraft delivered to the ROKAF in 2017. The older Hawker 800 platforms were acquired in 1996 under the Paekdu project and were modified by E-Systems Incorporated for its SIGINT role. The aircraft were delivered in the early 2000s along with four other Hawker 800XPs modified for imagery reconnaissance with synthetic aperture radars and moving target indicators. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2020/06/29/south-korea-to-spend-2-billion-on-aircraft-buy/

Nathan Strout Following an Army-led assessment, the Defense Department will be narrowing the number of different counter-small unmanned aircraft system solutions deployed by the joint force from about 40 to eight. In November, the defense secretary delegated the Army to lead an effort to reduce redundancy in the development and fielding of various C-sUAS solutions by the services. The Army subsequently set up the Joint C-sUAS Office to conduct that assessment, and over the last few months the office has worked to narrow down the dozens of counter-drone systems fielded by the services. “Our goal is to align existing and future Counter-UAS technology solutions to best address operational needs while applying resources more efficiently,” Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, the JCO's first director, said during a media call June 26, one day after the assessment results were announced. “This is really why the organization was stood up — to eliminate the redundancy that was being fielded.” That assessment, which Defense Department leadership have approved, looked at approximately 40 systems, about 30 of which were primarily used for the C-sUAS mission, said the director. The assessment concluded that the joint force should move forward with fielding just eight different systems — a variety of fixed, mounted and dismounted solutions. “So essentially moving forward, we will focus our investments,” Gainey said. “The services have each been assigned sponsor of each one of those systems, so as we move this forward as a joint approach, it will coordinate the future upgrades to these systems and the contracting of these systems across the joint force.” C-sUAS systems that were not included in the final selection will be replaced by the approved systems, although JCO could not provide a timeline for how quickly this will take place, how much it will cost or how many units will need to be replaced across the services. Gainley noted that the services are currently conducting an analysis of how many systems will need to be replaced. Of the eight approved solutions, three are fixed, one is mounted and three are dismounted. The approved C-sUAS systems are as follows: 1) Fixed/Semi-Fixed Systems Fixed Site-Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft System Integrated Defeat System (FS-LIDS), sponsored by the Army Negation of Improvised Non-State Joint Aerial-Threats (NINJA), sponsored by the Air Force Counter-Remote Control Model Aircraft Integrated Air Defense Network (CORIAN), sponsored by the Navy 2) Mounted/Mobile System Light-Mobile Air Defense Integrated System (L-MADIS), sponsored by the Marine Corps 3) Dismounted/Handheld Systems Bal Chatri, sponsored by Special Operations Command Dronebuster, no sponsor, commercial off-the-shelf capability Smart Shooter, no sponsor, commercial off-the-shelf capability 4) Command and Control Forward Area Air Defense Command and Control (FAAD-C2), sponsored by the Army (includes FAAD-C2 interoperable systems like the Air Force's Air Defense System Integrator (ADSI) and the Marine Corps' Multi-Environmental Domain Unmanned Systems Application Command and Control (MEDUSA C2)) https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2020/06/26/army-selects-eight-counter-drone-systems-for-the-joint-force/

Nathan Strout The Space and Missile Systems Center has issued a $222.5 million contract to continue supporting the Defense Program Support constellation, a legacy system that helps detect ballistic missile launches, nuclear detonations and space launches. Since the first payload was launched in 1970, DSP satellites have contributed to America's missile warning architecture by using infrared sensors in geosynchronous orbit to detect ballistic missile launches all around the world. The final DSP payload was launched in 2007. Northrop Grumman was the prime contractor for all DSP satellites. While the constellation has been superseded by the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS), DSP satellites continue to operate on orbit. According to Northrop Grumman's website, the satellites have exceeded their design lives by 125 percent. And this new $222.5 million contract will help extend the constellation's lifetime even further. Under the decade-long contract, Northrop Grumman will provide “on-orbit satellite and anomaly resolution support, root cause analysis, mission threat analysis, mission test bed and space awareness and global exploitation,” which will help extend the lifetime of the constellation. Work is expected to be completed March 31, 2030. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/06/29/northrop-grumman-to-continue-supporting-legacy-missile-warning-satellites/

By Jon Harper Market opportunities for the Army's helicopter fleet will average about $10 billion per year over the next decade as the service modernizes its rotary-wing assets, according to analysts. The current inventory includes UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopters, AH-46 Apache attack helicopters, CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters and UH-72 Lakota light utility helicopters. All but the Lakota are still in production today. Meanwhile, future vertical lift is one of the Army's top three modernization priorities, and it is pursuing two new aircraft: an armed scout platform known as the future attack reconnaissance aircraft, or FARA, and the future long-range assault aircraft, or FLRAA. “The Army's effort to develop and field the next generation of vertical lift aircraft ... will have significant implications for the industrial base,” defense analysts Andrew Hunter and Rhys McCormick wrote in a recent report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Projections show that although there will be a drop-off in the procurement of legacy aircraft in the mid-2020s as FARA and FLRAA full-rate production starts to ramp up, there is still a roughly $8 billion to $10 billion annual addressable Army vertical lift market over the next decade,” they said in the report titled, “Assessing the Industrial Base Implications of the Army's Future Vertical Lift Plans.” FLRAA has an estimated program value of $40 billion, while FARA could be worth about $20 billion. In March, the Army announced it had selected Bell and a Sikorsky-Boeing team for the FLRAA competitive demonstration and risk reduction effort. The winner of that phase is expected to be selected in fiscal year 2022. The service also picked Bell and Sikorsky to continue on in the competition for the future attack reconnaissance aircraft. A “flyoff” for the FARA competition is scheduled for fiscal year 2023, with a production decision expected in fiscal year 2024. Both the FARA and FLRAA platforms are slated to enter production later this decade. Meanwhile, operation and sustainment costs will remain the largest source of Army vertical lift spending over the next 10 years, according to the CSIS report. “There's going to be opportunity [for industry] in kind of the aftermarket side because even as you start to produce the new aircraft, there will still be the enduring platforms that are out” operating as next-generation helicopters come online, said Patrick Mason, head of Army program executive office aviation. “We will still need spares and certain things done within the aftermarket side as this transition would occur,” he added during a recent press briefing. “That drives so much of the supply chain.” Some observers have questioned whether the Army will have enough money to buy high-ticket FARA and FLRAA platforms at the same time given future budget projections. There is also the risk that the programs might go off the rails. “FVL isn't the only game in town, but it is by far the biggest,” Loren Thompson, a defense industry consultant and chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute think tank, wrote in a recent op-ed for Forbes. “If production of legacy rotorcraft ceases to make room for new ones and then FVL fails to deliver, industry might not have enough cash flow to sustain essential skills and suppliers.” Hunter said problems with the future vertical lift initiatives would upend the CSIS market projections. “If you were to take one of those programs out of the equation, that changes the addressable market in two significant ways,” he said. “One is, it shrinks it obviously by pulling out ... multiple billion dollars of investment throughout the 10-year window that we looked at. The other effect that it has is it reduces the competitive opportunity for industry. Right now, you know you've got multiple companies gunning for two aircraft. And even if you went down to one [program] and you were still competing, that's much less opportunity for industry to win in that scenario.” https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/6/29/army-helo-market-pegged-at-$10-billion

By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia – The fallout from the global COVID-19 pandemic delayed the deliveries of new submarines and helicopters from Europe and the United States to Singapore. Deliveries of its F-35B fifth-generation stealth fighters to remain on track, however. Speaking to media via video conference during Singapore's annual armed forces day, Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said that the delivery of the first of four Type 218SG submarines from Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, which are also known as the Invincible class, will be pushed back from 2021 to sometime in 2022. Similarly, Ng confirmed that initial deliveries of the Airbus Helicopters H225M medium-lift and Boeing CH-47F Chinook heavylift helicopters for the Republic of Singapore Air Force or RSAF, which were due to start at the end of this year, will now take place in early 2021 instead. He attributed the delays to disruptions in global supply chains arising from the pandemic, although he expects the delivery of the first four of up to 12 Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters to be on track for a 2026 start. Training spooling up Ng also said that military training is getting back on track, after the suspension of basic training for the conscript army with enlistees sent home. Basic military training resumed in late May, and overseas military training is also expected to restart soon. This includes the participation in the upcoming Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC multinational naval exercise, which is due to take place in Hawaii in August. Singapore will send a frigate to the exercise, which will be taking place amid precautions and restrictions to limit to potential spread of COVID-19. The RSAF is also in discussions with Australia about resuming training. The two countries have agreements in place for Singaporean military aircraft to conduct unilateral training in northern Australia, utilizing the vast airspace, good weather and training ranges that are not available in Singapore. https://www.defensenews.com/coronavirus/2020/06/29/sub-helo-deliveries-to-singapore-delayed-by-pandemic

A Russian Su-57 stealth jet controlled a group of Su-35 front-line fighter in a teaming experiment designed to function as a ‘swarm' in a coordinated attack mission. "The experiment was carried out in real combat conditions. A group of Su-35 fighters was involved in the flock, the role of the command and control aircraft was performed by the Su-57," news agency TASS reported quoting sources from Russia's ‘military-industrial complex.' Sources explained to TASS that use of a "swarm” operating in a single information space, significantly increases the efficiency of combat missions. The place and date of the experiment was not specified. The report did not describe what ‘real combat conditions' meant. Whether the jet swarm was tested in simulated battle conditions at home or in Syria where Russia has previously conducted several tactical experiments involving the Su-57. Russia has a sizeable military presence in Syria and controls two military bases and has the skies protected by it air defence systems. In addition, foreign reconnaissance and fighter aircraft regularly fly in or near Syrian airspace providing ‘target aircraft' for a swarm experiment. During the experiment, information is exchanged between fighters in real time: the information-control system of each aircraft automatically processes data from its own sensors and sensors of other aircraft providing a comprehensive battle space picture. The command and control aircraft then guides the course of battle. While the Su-57 is not expected to be in Russian air force service till 2022, its manufacturer is ensuring that it offers topine features available in the best of Western made jets such as the F-35 and F-22 by the time it enters service. Another feature being studied is to have the aircraft control a group of drones. https://www.defenseworld.net/news/27298#.XvtaFihKiUk