Airbus reports $515M in first-quarter losses

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  30 mai 2023 | International, Naval

  Malaysia adds funds to troubled littoral combat ship program

  Malaysia has reduced the number of ships it will receive under a revised contract, from six to five.

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  8 février 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Opinion: Why The Future Will Not Be Virtual

  Steven Grundman The COVID-19 pandemic has accustomed us to living in the virtual world and hearing speculation about the ways in which our actual lives may never resume as before. Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently said he believes “over 50% of business travel and over 30% of days in the office will go away.” Explaining why the pandemic-induced surge in virtual house calls is likely to endure, Harvard's Dr. Thomas Delbanco concedes: “There are times when doctors, nurses or therapists really need to see you—no question about it. But there are also times when they really don't.” It was against the backdrop of such head-turning New Year's predictions that I spent the holidays reading about the Cold War and forming a nostalgic rebuttal to those prophesies of Zoom. At the start of my professional life, I led a surveillance platoon of the U.S. 1st Armored Division (1st AD), which was deployed to defend the “Frontier of Freedom” in the towns surrounding Nuremberg, West Germany. So it was that after cracking open Fulda Gap: Battlefield of the Cold War Alliances, I quickly thumbed forward to Chapter 7, “A Personal Perspective from Platoon Leader to Army Group” by Gen. (ret.) Crosbie Saint, who had commanded the 1st AD during my service in it. Saint's reflections transported me back to 1984 and the pastoral beauty of the Bavarian Oberpfalz, where we were actively preparing to fight a third world war. Prominent among the preparations Saint recounts was the terrain walk, a compulsory practice of every officer leading a maneuver unit regularly to traverse the ground where his troops would deploy, battle book in hand, mastering the contours of the landscape and envisioning his squads' movements in the General Defense Plan. Saint writes ardently about how “repetitive terrain walks at multiple command levels to analyze and become expert in exploiting the terrain for tactical purposes” gave the U.S. a decisive advantage over the vast armies of the Warsaw Pact. The still-clear memory of then-Lt. Grundman's own terrain walks along the monikered kill zones in my battle book—The Kemnath Bowl, Erbendorf Fire Trap, et al.—prompted me to wonder if the marvels of a virtual reality simulation would leave as indelible a mark. I doubt it. While the adoption of videoconferencing for commodity conversation is no doubt here to stay, the premium work of enterprise leadership must remain incarnate. Just as the experience of looking out from a ridgeline engages all the senses, strategic vision flows from an intuitive integration of time and space that no telemediation can fully activate. Beyond the battlefield lay other terrain walks affirming my conviction. In April 1993, just three weeks on the job as chief executive of an IBM teetering on insolvency, Lou Gerstner launched Operation Bear Hug, which directed each of the company's 250 most senior executives to visit at least five key customers over the following three months to learn why IBM had lost their trust. Years later, Gerstner wrote that Bear Hug made manifest what came to be the motive force of IBM's acclaimed transformation: “[W]e were going to build a company from the outside in and . . . the customer was going to drive everything we did in the company.” Gerstner invested this practice of deep listening to customers with the same strategic importance Saint attributed to a lieutenant's intimacy with the sight lines of his firing positions. Operation Bear Hug was a terrain walk. One of the trade secrets of my career as a business consultant to the aerospace industry is never to pass up an invitation to take a plant tour. No matter how near it is to your next flight's departure, when asked “Wanna see the shop?” the right answer is always “Of course.” When, a decade ago, I toured SpaceX's Hawthorne, California, headquarters and observed Elon Musk sitting at his desk among the busy cubicles of 30-something engineers gutting out their work in T-shirts, I instantly understood how the company's garage-shop culture could revolutionize the staid business of space launch. Years earlier, the clinical attention to workers' safety I saw at the bustling CFM56 jet engine plant in Villaroche, France, told me more about the success of the GE-Safran joint venture than even its impressive financials. So, too, did I need actually to feel the cavernous quietude in an antique defense factory to appreciate the true meaning of the sunk-cost fallacy. The aerospace plant tour is often a terrain walk. To all you leaders who, like me, find the progressively virtual world unsettling (and with apologies to a certain light lager's ad campaign), I say, “Find your terrain walk.” Once we again are free to move about, go physically to the crucible of what creates value for your enterprise and open your senses. Only from that vantage will you see truly into its future. The views expressed are not necessarily those of Aviation Week. https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/manufacturing-supply-chain/opinion-why-future-will-not-be-virtual

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  12 juin 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  AeroVironment Acquires VTOL UAS Developer Pulse Aerospace, LLC for $25.7 Million to Strengthen Family of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems

  Pulse's complementary Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) product family strengthens AeroVironment's leading family of fixed-wing small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) Acquisition expands total addressable market by increasing mission capabilities of AeroVironment family of systems Pulse Aerospace receives multi-year contract award with a maximum value of more than $13 million from undisclosed defense customer for Vapor VTOL unmanned systems, spares and services Acquisition expected to be accretive to AeroVironment earnings by the third full year of operations SIMI VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV), a global leader in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for both defense and commercial applications, today announced it has acquired Pulse Aerospace, LLC, a developer and supplier of small VTOL UAS, for $25.7 million in cash, including milestone-based earn-out payments of $5 million. AeroVironment financed the transaction entirely from available cash on hand. Pulse Aerospace is a leading developer of small VTOL UAS technology in the United States. Pulse's HeliSynth™ technology brings flight control, payload, and endurance capabilities to market at attractive price points for both defense and commercial end markets. Pulse recently received a multi-year contract award with a maximum value of more than $13 million from an undisclosed defense customer for its Vapor unmanned VTOL systems, spares and services. AeroVironment expects the transaction to be accretive to its earnings by the third full year of operations. “The talented Pulse Aerospace team has created a solution set that is unique and will expand our family of unmanned systems by addressing increasing demand from our customers for small VTOL solutions,” said Wahid Nawabi, AeroVironment's president and chief executive officer. “This transaction brings together two highly complementary companies in terms of products, markets and culture, and will better position AeroVironment to grow our share of the small UAS market. The team at Pulse Aerospace shares our focus on disruptive innovation and we welcome them to AeroVironment. Together, we will deliver even more capability to our customers in the United States and more than 45 allied countries around the world.” “We are excited to join together to realize the full benefits of this transaction as we employ key, future-defining technologies such as robotics, sensors, software analytics and connectivity. Additionally, we look forward to gaining access to the strong technical talent pool in the Lawrence, Kansas area to help achieve our long-term growth objectives,” Nawabi added. “AeroVironment's global market presence dramatically increases the reach of Pulse's VTOL UAS technology,” said Aaron Lessig, Pulse Aerospace, LLC's chief executive officer. “Pulse's offering expands AeroVironment's mission capabilities with increased payload capacity, which broadens customer use cases. We look forward to growing AeroVironment's share of the global unmanned systems market together.” In connection with the transaction, Pulse Aerospace's Lawrence, Kansas facility will become AeroVironment Innovation Center - Midwest, with a focus on small VTOL unmanned aircraft and mission planning solutions. About AeroVironment, Inc. (AV) AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV) provides customers with more actionable intelligence so they can proceed with certainty. Based in California, AeroVironment is a global leader in unmanned aircraft systems and tactical missile systems, and serves defense, government and commercial customers. For more information visit www.avinc.com. Safe Harbor Statement Certain statements in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are made on the basis of current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, economic, competitive, governmental and technological factors outside of our control, that may cause our business, strategy or actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, our ability to perform under existing contracts and obtain additional contracts; changes in the regulatory environment; the activities of competitors; failure of the markets in which we operate to grow; failure to expand into new markets; failure to develop new products or integrate new technology with current products; and general economic and business conditions in the United States and elsewhere in the world. For a further list and description of such risks and uncertainties, see the reports we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not intend, and undertake no obligation, to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190611005589/en