22 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Aviation Week Network forecasts that over the next ten years, 706 new Western-designed attack helicopters will be built, 588 will be remanufactured, and 193 will be retired. Aviation Week defines attack helicopters as rotary-wing aircraft that are unable to carry cargo internally, are armed with a forward-firing cannon of at least 20mm, and that can carry and self-designate targets for anti-tank guided missiles.
The dominance of the Boeing AH-64 in the attack helicopter market is clear, with 63.1%, of global deliveries over the forecast. The U.S. Army intends to continue to upgrade existing AH-64Ds to the AH-64E standard while procuring more newly built AH-64Es in the next decade as part of its plan to build up to the current program of record. The AH-64's future abroad is secured through continuing international popularity across Europe, the Middle East, and increasingly the Asia-Pacific in a second wave.
The advanced age of the Bell AH-1 is leading to several high-profile operators in the Asia-Pacific finally retiring their oldest AH-1s, making it the most retired type. However, the latest version, the AH-1Z, shows that there is life still left in the platform, with the second most deliveries. The U.S. Marine Corps will acquire more AH-1Zs this decade, along with several smaller militaries looking for a reliable, but cheaper, AH-64 alternative. The AH-1Z's prospects as a “thrifty” procurement are further bolstered by the fact that its chief non-U.S. competitor, the AW129-based TAI T129, continues to face difficulties in obtaining a U.S. export license for its engine.
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Source: Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) 2020 Military Fleet & MRO Forecast
For more information about the 2020 Forecast and other Aviation Week data products, please see: http://pages.aviationweek.com/Forecasts
8 juin 2023 | International, C4ISR
L3Harris will leverage its Rapidly Adaptable Standards-compliant Open Radio (RASOR™) to deliver resilient, protected, high-bandwidth, high-availability communications and data-sharing capabilities.
25 mars 2020 | International, C4ISR
The Pentagon's request to reconsider narrow technical aspects of the award to Microsoft, Amazon argues, ignores a wide range of fundamental flaws. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. WASHINGTON: Amazon Web Services has publicly denounced the Defense Department's latest legal maneuver in the months-long public battle over the JEDI cloud computing contract, awarded to Microsoft last year. No, Amazon said in a statement this morning, the Pentagon should not get to redo a particular piece of the award process the judge found flawed, because that was just one flaw among many and fixing it is a distraction from the larger issues. “We're pleased to see the DoD recognize the need to take corrective action,” the Amazon statement began, “but we're concerned that the proposed approach is not designed to provide a complete, fair, and effective re-evaluation.” “Both earlier in the adjudication process when we submitted 265 questions to the DoD that they refused to answer, and in our protest where we outlined numerous significant flaws in the evaluation, it's been clear that there were many problems with the DoD's initial decision,” the statement continues. “Instead of addressing the breadth of problems in its proposed corrective action, the DoD's proposal focuses only on providing Microsoft a ‘do-over' on its fatally flawed bid while preventing AWS from adjusting its own pricing in response to the DoD's new storage criteria.” “This attempt to gerrymander the corrective action without fixing all of the serious flaws pointed out in our complaint raises significant questions,” the statement concludes. The Pentagon's plan to consolidate many — but not all — of its 500-plus cloud contracts into a single Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI). Note the suggestion that the single “pathfinder” contract for JEDI might evolve into multiple JEDI contracts. An email circulated by Amazon went further: “DoD's proposed corrective action seeks to resurrect Microsoft's award eligibility and directly and unreasonably benefits Microsoft's deficient approach. DoD's proposed corrective action does not meaningfully address the numerous errors identified in AWS's protest. These errors were pervasive, impacting all six of the technical evaluation factors” — that is, not just the one the Pentagon is asking to redo. “From the President's order to ‘screw' Amazon out of the contract, to the Secretary halting the award for an 85-day ‘examination,' to the Secretary's bizarre recusal after an award decision had been made, to the numerous inexplicable evaluation errors, to the refusal to substantively address AWS's 265 post-award debriefing questions, to the blatant political interference which impacted the award decision – the history of this procurement casts serious doubt on the rationality and fairness of DoD's proposed correction action,” the email said bluntly. Some backstory might help in parsing all this. (Click here for more detail). On Feb. 13, the court had granted Amazon a preliminary injunction, saying the company would “likely” be able to prove the Department of Defense had erred in one particular portion of its process – an evaluation of the two companies called Price Scenario 6 – when it awarded the potentially $10 billion contract to Microsoft Azure. On March 12th, DoD responded by asking the judge to “remand” the case back to DoD so it could correct and redo Price Scenario 6, giving Microsoft and Amazon the opportunity to submit updated bids – albeit with very strict limits on those updates. “During the proposed remand,” DoD's motion said, “the agency potentially could make decisions that would moot this action, in whole or in part, and may obviate the need for further litigation in this Court.” In other words, the Pentagon is asking the judge: let us fix this one thing, and then there might be nothing left for Amazon to object to, and you can dismiss the case. Today, Amazon replied: We have plenty more to object to – and we think the judge will side with us. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/amazon-denounces-dod-jedi-do-over
27 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval
By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier-borne tanker drone, the MQ-25 Stingray, is preparing to head into the fall resuming test flights, this time with the crucial fuel store pod attached. The store pod — the same one integrated into the Navy's stalwart F/A-18 Super Hornet for aerial refueling — was recently integrated into the MQ-25 test article under the wing. “When we resume flight testing later this year, we'll have the opportunity to gather test points about the aerodynamics of that pod and the software commands that control it — all happening well before we deliver the Navy's first MQ-25 jet with the same pod,” MQ-25 program director Dave Bujold said in a statement from the aircraft's manufacturer, Boeing. “That early testing and early software development is a big part of supporting the Navy's goal to get MQ-25 to the fleet as quickly as possible,” he added. The engineers will primarily observe the aerodynamics of the pod mounted on the Stingray test article, then seeing how the hose and drogue behave while being dragged behind the airframe. Possible delays In June, Defense News reported that the MQ-25 could face a three-year testing delay if it doesn't get its designated test ships through the required modernizations on time, a possibility the Navy said was remote. Two carriers — Carl Vinson and George H.W. Bush — have limited windows to complete the installation of unmanned aircraft control stations, and if operational commitments intervene, the program could experience significant problems, according to Navy officials and a government watchdog report. “Program officials stated that, among other things, the Navy's potential inability to maintain its schedule commitments could require modifications to the contract that would impact the fixed-price terms,” the Government Accountability Office reported. “Specifically, the Navy faces limited flexibility to install MQ-25 control centers on aircraft carriers. “If the Navy misses any of its planned installation windows, the program would have to extend MQ-25 development testing by up to 3 years. According to officials, such a delay could necessitate a delay to initial capability and result in a cost increase.” The Navy's MQ-25 Stingray aerial refueling drone took its first flight Sept. 19, a historic step toward integrating an unmanned aircraft into the service's powerful strike arm. Navy officials say a three-year delay is “extremely unlikely”; however, the Navy has struggled in recent years to balance its modernization schedules with operational commitments, a problem that its “Optimized Fleet Response Plan” deployment rotation scheme was supposed to address. Ultimately, a delay would further push back the Navy's ability to extend its carrier air wing's range through unmanned tanking, critical to keeping the service's powerful strike arm relevant against long-range guided munitions. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/07/24/boeing-preparing-for-the-next-big-step-testing-the-us-navys-new-aerial-tanker-drone/