Air Force to name newest hypersonic weapon maker by September

Sur le même sujet

• 

  21 janvier 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Bell Boeing awarded $144 million for V-22 support

  Contract adds support for U.S. Navy CMV-22B variant to existing U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps customers Contract expands and advances work that Bell Boeing has performed since 2008 PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 18, 2019 – The Bell Boeing Joint Program Office has been awarded an estimated $143,863,184 firm-fixed-price requirements contract for performance-based logistics and engineering support for the V-22 platform. This is an 11-month base contract with four one-year option periods. Locations of performance are Texas and Pennsylvania for V-22 aircraft belonging to the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “As one of the most in-demand assets for the U.S. military, the V-22 needs a support team that understands the technical aspects of the aircraft as well as customers' operational needs,” said Pat Walsh, retired Admiral and Boeing vice president for U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Services. “Bell Boeing is excited to bring our OEM expertise to the V-22 fleet and deliver solutions that help ensure the aircraft are ready for any mission.” In July, Bell Boeing received a $4 billion contract that included the manufacture and delivery of 39 CMV-22B aircraft for the Navy; 14 MV-22B aircraft for the Marine Corps; and one CV-22B for the Air Force. Under this performance-based logistics (PBL) contract, which expands on work done since 2008 and now adds support for the Navy's CMV-22B variant, Bell Boeing will focus on improving aircraft maintainability and mission readiness for the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps V-22 fleets. The team's responsibilities include site activation, maintenance planning, training and trainer support, support equipment, and dedicated field personnel for all V-22 squadrons around the globe. Bell Boeing incorporates data analytics into maintenance efforts, yielding innovative approaches such as predictive and condition-based maintenance to improve aircraft availability and readiness. ”The Bell Boeing team is dedicated to providing the safest and most reliable aircraft to the warfighter,” said Chris Gehler, Bell Vice President for the V-22 Program. “We will continue to produce innovative solutions and deliver technical expertise, training, and maintenance to enhance readiness.” Operating as one of Boeing's three business units, Global Services is headquartered in the Dallas area. For more information, visit www.boeing.com/services. ABOUT BELL Thinking above and beyond is what we do. For more than 80 years, we've been reimagining the experience of flight – and where it can take us. We are pioneers. We were the first to break the sound barrier and to certify a commercial helicopter. We were aboard NASA's first lunar mission and brought advanced tiltrotor systems to market. Today, we're defining the future of on-demand mobility. Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas – as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Textron Inc., – we have strategic locations around the globe. And with nearly one quarter of our workforce having served, helping our military achieve their missions is a passion of ours. Above all, our breakthrough innovations deliver exceptional experiences to our customers. Efficiently. Reliably. And always, with safety at the forefront. CONTACT Jessica Carlton Communications Office: +1 256-937-5692 Mobile: +1 256-603-7137 jessica.m.carlton@boeing.com Felicia Carpenito Bell Office: +1 817-280-3936 Mobile: +1 817-235-1542 fcarpenito@bellflight.com https://boeing.mediaroom.com/2019-01-18-Bell-Boeing-awarded-144-million-for-V-22-support

• 

  11 mars 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  FVL: Attack Of The Drones

  Before manned aircraft enter hostile airspace, three different types of drones – long-range, tactical, and miniaturized – will rip open the seams in the enemy's defenses. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. WASHINGTON: As Russian and Chinese-made anti-aircraft weapons become ever more lethal, human pilots are, quite literally, the last thing the Army wants to send into harm's way. Before the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft makes its first probe into enemy airspace, and long before the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft carries troops deep into hostile territory, a whole array of unmanned aircraft will scout out the enemy defenses, deceive their radars, and strike vital points. In fact, much of this drone technology should be available years before the manned FARA and FLRAA aircraft enter production, which means it can help the Army's existing helicopters survive an increasingly dangerous world. “What we have to do is improve our stand-off and our survivability with the introduction of some technology that will be available prior to the actual FVL [Future Vertical Lift] platform,” said Maj. Gen. David Francis, the commander of the Army's Aviation Center at Fort Rucker, Ala. That includes a new Long-Range Precision Munition – the Army's buying the Israeli Spike missile as an interim solution, but that may not be the permanent one – and a whole family of mini-drones known as Air-Launched Effects (ALE), because they can be launched from the missile racks on both future and existing helicopters. “Those combined, we think, will keep us very, very competitive in that [air defense] environment until we get the increased speed and survivability of our Future Vertical Lift platforms,” Francis told me during an interview. Replacing Shadow & Predator Air-Launched Effects aren't the only drones the Army's Future Vertical Lift task force is developing. The most immediate effort is a competition to replace the aging RQ-7 Shadow, which requires a runway, with a new Future Tactical Unmanned Aerial System (FTUAS), which will take off and land vertically like a helicopter, from wherever soldiers need it. FTUAS also needs to be quieter, so the enemy can't hear it coming as easily, and to require less support equipment, so the Army can more easily deploy it to a war zone more and keep it working in harsh conditions. The service originally selected two companies to provide demonstration aircraft, then decided to double the number to four. This year, samples of all four types are going to operational Army combat brigades, which will try out the different designs and provide feedback that helps the service shapes its final, formal requirement. Three of the contenders – Arcturus UAV's Jump 20, L3 Harris Technologies' FVR-90, and Textron's Aerosonde HQ – share a similar configuration, something we've never seen on a full-size manned aircraft. Each of them has wings and a pusher propeller in back for forward flight, but also quadcopter-style mini-rotors for vertical takeoff and landing. The fourth, equally unconventional design is Martin UAV's V-Bat, a “tail-sitter” that has a single large fan for both vertical and forward flight, changing from one mode to the other by simply turning 90 degrees. Just as FTUAS will replace the Shadow, the Army also wants to replace its long-range Grey Eagle – a variant of the iconic but venerable Predator – with a new Advanced Unmanned Aerial System. The service has revealed very little about what it's looking for in the Advanced UAS, however. Air-Launched Effects & Missiles The most innovative of the Army's future drones, however, is definitely the Air-Launched Effects family, because ALE doesn't replace any existing unmanned aircraft. It's altogether new. As computers simultaneously shrink and grow more powerful, it becomes possible to build drones small enough for a person or another aircraft to carry – and to make them smart enough that they can operate largely autonomously, without a human being to provide constant direction by remote control. Those advances make possible a radically new kind of operation — a single manned mothership launching a flock of mini-drones to scout ahead and provide a host of what the military blandly calls “effects,” from decoying the enemy with fake transmissions to jamming their radars to blowing them up. That combination of new technology and new tactics, in turn, could dramatically improve the chances of Army aviators to survive and prevail in future wars. “When we look at ALE and Long-Range Precision Munition,” said Brig. Gen. Walter Rugen, the Army's FVL director, “what we're finding, in our modeling and our experimentation at Yuma last year, is you really generate that stand-off and overmatch against threats....We can stay outside their weapon engagement zone, and put effects on them.” In the time-honored military framework where you “find, fix, and finish” an enemy, Rugen told me in an interview alongside Gen. Francis, “Air-Launched Effects are what is going to find and fix these threats, and then what the long-range precision munition is going to do is finish that threat.” The Army's budget request for fiscal year 2021 includes $152 million to field Israeli armsmaker Rafael's Spike NLOS (Non-Line Of Sight) missile to three Combat Aviation Brigades. “We're currently projecting that it would be an FY'22 initial [operational capability,” Rugen told me. “But that's just our initial increment of the Long-Range Precision Munition. We will follow that on with more detailed requirements to fix some of the challenges that we see already with Spike [and] improve upon that capability.” To make all this work, however, the Army needs more than new missiles and mini-drones. It also needs a digital communications system that can rapidly pass data between manned and unmanned aircraft, not through slow and error-prone humans, but near-instantly from machine to machine. The electronic architecture to make that possible is the subject of the next story in this series. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/fvl-attack-of-the-drones

• 

  30 août 2023 | International, Terrestre

  Space Force responsive space mission enters ‘hot standby’ phase

  The mission is meant to demonstrate the ability to rapidly develop, integrate and launch a satellite — a capability the service wants to have by 2025.