Abu Dhabi's dilemma: Will the UAE ever operate the F-35?

Sur le même sujet

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  6 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Le GIFAS plaide pour un plan de relance européen pour soutenir la filière aéronautique

  Eric Trappier, président du GIFAS et PDG de Dassault Aviation, a lancé mardi 5 mai, lors d'une visioconférence, un appel à mettre en place un soutien dédié à la filière aéronautique. L'aéronautique française, après avoir marqué un léger temps d'arrêt pour organiser les mesures sanitaires, entre désormais dans une phase de remontée en puissance, a indiqué M. Trappier : «A ce jour, 30% des effectifs sont sur site, 25 à 30% des salariés sont en télétravail, 30 à 35% au chômage partiel. Les salariés reviennent petit à petit sur les sites de production». Le GIFAS a créé une task-force associant grands donneurs d'ordre, PME et équipementiers afin d'identifier les acteurs menacés et de mettre en œuvre des solutions de sauvetage, en liaison avec le ministère de l'Economie et des Finances et Bpifrance, qui «aura un rôle à jouer pour recapitaliser les entreprises en difficultés», souligne Eric Trappier. Le GIFAS, qui regroupe 400 acteurs et leurs 200 000 salariés, soutient l'idée évoquée par Bruno Le Maire de dédier «un ou plusieurs fonds à l'aéronautique» dans le cadre des plans de relance discutés en France et au niveau européen afin de «tenir et passer le cap». «Ces fonds doivent être suffisamment dimensionnés pour répondre aux besoins. L'unité de mesure, c'est le milliard», a insisté Éric Trappier. «Nous demandons à l'État de nous accompagner dans cette passe difficile, en particulier les plus faibles d'entre nous», a-t-il déclaré. M. Trappier plaide pour un plan de relance européen, notamment pour maintenir les efforts de recherche pour l'aviation «verte» de demain.

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  9 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Open source platforms, flexible airframes for new drones

  Kelsey D. Atherton Designing a drone body is about settling on the right compromise. Multirotor drones excel at vertical lift and hover, while fixed wing drones are great at both distance and wide-open spaces. In February, Auterion Government Solutions and Quantum-Systems announced a two-pronged approach to the rotor- or fixed-wing drone market, with a pair of drones that use the same sensor packages and fuselage to operate as either the Scorpion Trirotor or the Vector fixed wing craft. “As we started to develop our tactical UAS Platform, our plan was only to develop a VTOL fixed wing solution (like our Vector),” said Florian Siebel, managing director of Quantum-Systems. “During the development process we decided to build a Tri-Copter Platform as well, as a result of many discussions with law enforcement agencies and Search and Rescue Units.” Adapting the fixed-wing fuselage to the tri-copter attachments means the drone can now operate in narrow spaces and harsh conditions. Scorpion, with the rotors, can fly for about 45 minutes, with a cruising speed of zero to 33 mph. Put the fixed wings back on for Vector, and the flight time is now two hours, with a cruising speed of 33 to 44 mph. The parts snap into place without any need for special tooling, and Auterion recommends the drone for missions in rain or snow. Both platforms share a gimbal EO/IR with 10x optical zoom, 720p EO video, 480p IR video, laser illuminator, IR laser ranger. Common between modes is also a tactical mapping tool using a 21 megapixel Sony UMC R10C camera. For the scorpion, there's also the option of a gimbaled electro-optical camera with a 30x optical zoom. Both drones are designed to fit in rucksacks that a person can carry one at a time. While many features are common across Vector and Scorpion, the plan is not to include both rotors or wings in the same kit. Once a team packs into the field with a drone on its back, that's the mode the drone can be used in. Auterion intends to ship the drones by the fourth quarter of 2020, with preorders available. Designing a drone body is about settling on the right compromise. Vector and Scorpion are built on top of open source code. This includes an operating system capable of programmable autopilot , as well as machine-vision collision prevention and obstacle detection and avoidance. Software for the ground station and cloud data management of the drone are also built on open source code. The Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit awarded Auterion a $2 million contract last year to work on the PX4 software to help drive compatibility standards in the drone industry. As militaries across the world look to the enterprise sector for capable drones at smaller profile than existing military models, transparency in code and flexibility in airframe could become more widely adopted trends. In the meantime, there is Vector, and there is Scorpion. https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2020/03/25/open-source-platforms-flexible-airframes-for-new-drones

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  20 septembre 2018 | International, C4ISR

  DoD releases first new cyber strategy in three years

  By: Mark Pomerleau In its first formal cyber strategy document in three years, the Department of Defense said it would focus its cyber efforts on China and Russia and use the Pentagon's cyber capabilities to collect intelligence as well as to prepare for future conflicts. According to an unclassified summary and fact sheet released Sept. 18, the documents lay out a vision for addressing cyber threats and addresses the priorities of the department's National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, which focused on a new era of strategic great power competition. “The United States cannot afford inaction,” the summary reads. It notes that China and Russia are conducting persistent campaigns in cyberspace that pose long term risk. The documents also say that China is eroding the U.S. military's ability to overmatch opponents and that Russia is using cyber-enabled information operations to influence the U.S. population and challenge democratic processes. The DoD's strategy comes on the heels of other major movements in cyberspace from the department. These include the elevation of U.S. Cyber Command to a full unified combatant command — which affords new and exquisite authorities — the full staffing of Cyber Command's cyber teams, an update to DoD's cyber doctrine and new authorities delegating certain responsibilities from the president to DoD to conduct cyber operations abroad. The summary's lists five objectives for DoD's cyberspace strategy: - Ensuring the joint force can achieve its missions in a contested cyberspace environment; - Strengthening the joint force by conducting cyberspace operations that enhance U.S. military advantages; - Defending U.S. critical infrastructure from malicious cyber activity that alone, or as part of a campaign, could cause a significant cyber incident; - Securing DoD information and systems against malicious cyber activity, including DoD information on non-DoD-owned networks; and - Expanding DoD cyber cooperation with interagency, industry, and international partners. The strategy also describes the need to remain consistently engaged with this persistent adversary and to “defend forward” as a means of disrupting or halting malicious cyber activity at its source, including activity that falls below the level of armed conflict. While academics have criticized the U.S. response to Russian election interference, the strategy notes that the United States tends to view conflicts through the binary lens of war or peace while competitors such as Russia see themselves constantly engaged in a state of war. U.S. Cyber Command's new leader is taking a different tact. “We've got to act forward outside of our boundaries, something that we do very, very well at Cyber Command in terms of getting into our adversary's networks. That's this idea of persistent engagement, the idea that the adversary never rests, so why would we ever rest,” Gen. Paul Nakasone said during an August dinner hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. Nakasone also has described the notion of defending forward as enabling forces to act outside the boundaries of the U.S. to understand what adversaries are doing in order to better defend against them. https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/2018/09/19/department-of-defense-unveils-new-cyber-strategy