BAE Gets $493 Million Contract to Upgrade F-35’s Electronic Warfare Suite - Air Force Magazine

Sur le même sujet

• 

  7 novembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Airbus reveals classified LOUT stealth testbed

  Airbus Defence & Space has revealed a more than decade-long research and demonstration effort into very low observable (LO) technologies, conducted as a classified effort for the German defence ministry. Showing its LO UAV testbed – or LOUT – platform at Manching on 4 November, Airbus future combat air system (FCAS) programme manager Mario Hertzog said the company began initial concept work in 2007. This led to a contract award in 2010 to refine configuration and material choices, and the production of a diamond planform demonstrator was completed in 2014. Pointing to the company's long involvement with LO reseach, Hertzog says: “Bringing all our experience into one programme was a logical conclusion.” The chosen configuration used for aerodynamic and anechoic chamber testing since 2014 has a roughly 12m (39.3ft) wingspan and similar length, and is described as a 4t-class vehicle. The subsonic design would use a conventional engine concealed behind a diverterless inlet, and has twin intakes blended into its upper fuselage. A cockpit transparency and sensor apertures also formed part of the testing. The aircraft's exhaust nozzle also is shielded from beneath, with Hertzog noting that such a vehicle would be optimised for use against ground-based air-defence systems. This mission requirement also led the company to hone LO techniques for the vehicle's landing gear doors and centerline internal weapons bay, Hertzog notes. Focus areas have included testing LO materials, including a radar absorbent structure for engine intake ducts, and on assessing radar frequency and infrared signature performance. Modelling work has also been conducted to analyse the likely acoustic characteristics of such a design. Airbus confirms that it has completed contracted work on LOUT, but says additional activities could be conducted. However, Hertzog declines to say whether Berlin could seek a flight-test campaign with such a system. Lessons learned from the LOUT programme will be available for potential adaptation during a long-term evolution activity on the Eurofighter Typhoon, and on a proposed French-German-Spanish FCAS development, Hertzog says. "Stealth is and will remain an enabler for survivability," he notes. https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/pictures-airbus-reveals-classified-lout-stealth-tes-462003/

• 

  4 avril 2023 | International, Autre défense

  Macron sends $438 billion military budget plan to French parliament

  Gradual increases would see the 2030 annual defense budget top €60 billion, almost double from 2017.

• 

  15 octobre 2019 | International, Terrestre

  Soldiers to get a say in light tank competition

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — Two companies are competing to build the Army's new light tank for Infantry Brigade Combat Teams and, in order to win, their prototypes will be judged by the users themselves. Those tests will be part of an extensive evaluation beginning roughly a year from now, Maj. Gen. Brian Cummings, Army program executive officer for ground combat systems, told Defense News. BAE Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems were chosen in December 2018 to build 12 prototypes each of the Army's future Mobile Protected Firepower vehicle identified in the Army's ground combat vehicle strategy, released in 2015, as much needed capability the service lacked. GDLS will build a vehicle that takes the United Kingdom's AJAX chassis and combines it with an Abrams turret. BAE Systems will bring an M8 Buford Armored Gun System with new capabilities and components. The MPF is going to be critical for the infantry, according to Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman, who is in charge of combat vehicle modernization. “Looking in every war movie ever watched, the infantry has been pinned down and they have a machine gun nest or another enemy vehicle that's preventing them to get their objective,” Coffman said. “It takes an Audie Murphy-like character to go up and sneak around and take it out from the rear.” MPF is going to take care of those impediments to forward progression, he said, and is a “vital piece of equipment for our Army. Right now we are doing that with Humvees and Javelin.” The soldier vehicle assessment will take place at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Fort Stewart, Georgia, and will include live-fire tests and operating in IBCT formations, Cummings said. The assessment will not just cover how the vehicles perform operationally, but how they hold up when assessed against warfighting doctrine, organization, training, maintenance in the field, logistics and sustainment. “This will be different, even though we've done it in history,” Cummings said. A team will look at doctrine in terms of having a light tank in the formation as well as having mechanics, fuel and the ability to recover vehicles as part of the operational assessment. “It's important we learn that early on,” in the prototyping process rather than after choosing a winning vehicle, Cummings noted. The Army is now reviewing design maturity of the vehicles and is making sure that everything stays on track to meet the soldier vehicle assessment requirements. These prototypes have to be ready for prime time when they get into an operational environment toward the end of next year, according to Cummings. Cummings also has two groups working with each vendor that are firewalled from one another. Those groups will be working with vendors through the SVA and to eventual down-select to one vehicle around the second or third quarter of fiscal year 2022 to go into production. The prototypes are expected in the third quarter of fiscal 2021. The first units will get MPF by FY25. The Army plans build 26 vehicles initially with an option to build 28 more and retrofit eight prototypes. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2019/10/15/soldiers-to-get-a-say-in-light-tank-competition