Boeing, Marines, Navy Celebrate $115 Million V-22 Facility

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  19 février 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  New joint ventures hint at ‘burgeoning relationship’ between Israel and India

  By: Seth J. Frantzman JERUSALEM — Israel and India are deepening defense industry ties as Israeli companies seek long-term partnerships through India's efforts to encourage products to be locally produced under joint ventures. Earlier this month, Israel Aerospace Industries and India's Bharat Electronics Limited signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a new center for technical and maintenance support for India's air defense systems. In addition, IAI on Feb. 5 signed a strategic collaboration memorandum with Indian firms Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Dynamatic Technologies Limited to work on UAVs that will be made in India. Sales have historically surpassed more than $1 billion annually, making India not only a core country for Israel's defense sales, but also strengthening the bilateral strategic partnership. IAI deals in 2017 included a $2.5 billion deal for Barak 8 missiles and $1.3 billion for surface-to-air missiles, with further deals in 2018, according to the company. In the wake of the early February defense expo in Lucknow, India, IAI stressed that the Asian nation is one its main partners. “The important partnership is characterized by long-term collaboration, joint development and production, energy transfer, and technical support over many years,” according to Nimrod Sheffer, IAI's president and CEO. The sentiment was echoed in interviews across Israel's major defense companies. Elbit Systems sees India is a strategic market, noting that it is “involved in a range of programs across the Indian defense sector.” Rafael Advanced Defense Systems said it has been doing business in India for more than two decades “supporting the Indian Armed forces with state-of-the-art systems.” As part of bilateral relations, trade may be boosted to $20 billion in the coming decades from the $5 billion level at which it currently stands, according to the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. India has been a consumer of Israeli arms exports for several decades, accounting for 49 percent of Israeli arms exports from 2013 to 2017, according to one count at Israeli media outlet Calcalist. And India was Israel's largest purchaser of arms in 2017 alone, though purchases here decreased in 2018. India is one of the core countries involved in the International Defense Cooperation Directorate under Israel's Ministry of Defense. Known by its acronym SIBAT, the directorate in the government's outreach arm to the defense industry. Of $7.5 billion in defense exports in 2018, 46 percent went to Asia, Globes reported. Israeli companies have not divulged what percent of that went to India, but it is considered to be substantial. Last year's trade numbers are still being calculated, according to Israel's MoD. “My sense is that both India and Israel see this as a burgeoning relationship, not just arms trade," Jonathan Spyer, a research fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, told Defense News. "After Russia, Israel is India's second-largest source for defense [acquisition] — there is a strong sense of shared challenges in the area of terrorism.” Spyer, who has taken part in recent policy discussions and roundtables about India-Israel relations in Tel Aviv and New Delhi, says India admires Israeli defense companies' speed and lack of bureaucracy that has helped their growth in the the markets of air defense and UAVs. However, as the Center for a New American Security think tank notes, “India's weapons procurement is complex and slow in no small part because of India's desire to indigenize production.” ‘The sky is the limit' Still, the relationship between India and Israel is evolving. India's economic policy “Make in India” means that foreign companies wanting business in India must work alongside domestic companies and develop products locally. And Israeli companies have indeed partnered with Indian firms via joint ventures. For instance Elbit established a joint venture with Adani Defence in Hyderbad for the production of Hermes drones in 2018. Adani Defence noted that the 50,000-square-foot facility is the first outside of Israel for manufacturing the Hermes 900 medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV. Another joint venture with Alpha Design Technologies was also launched with Elbit in recent years, and the Israeli firm also works with Bharat Electronics in the field of electronic warfare and electro-optics. And IAI inked MOUs with three Indian companies this month. Bharat Electronics' marketing director said Feb. 5 that the collaboration would enhance its offerings and provide an immediate and optimized maintenance solution for air defense systems. “The sky is the limit,” said Ze'ev Mivtzari, IAI's corporate vice president of marketing for India. “It's a big change from five years ago.” Mivtzari, a former Israeli defense attache to India, pointed to the strengthening of bilateral ties seen in recent years. It's Israel's advanced technology that attracts India as it seeks to upgrade its armed forces. High-altitude and medium-altitude UAVs such as the Heron and multimission tactical Searcher could help India protect its border and sensitive sites. The same is true for air defense systems. India has acquired the Israel-developed Barak missile line for its medium-range surface-to-air missile requirement. Working with India's Defence Research and Development Organisation, IAI hopes to increase sales of the missile by setting up production lines in India. “If you want to work in India, you don't just sell products, you need to create your own ecosystem,” the Israeli firm said. It's that ecosystem that Israeli companies are targeting. The ecosystem for IAI now includes more than 100 local Indian companies with which it works. Like IAI, Rafael's interaction with India goes back decades and involves the Asian nation's Army, Navy and Air Force. Rafael's ecosystem is in Hyderbad, where it's focusing on missiles, air defense systems, communications technology and electronic warfare capabilities. “The common ground for all our programs, with the Army, Navy and Air Force, is modernization. Some of them are upgrades to existing equipment, some are procurement. The Indian market is big and will remain big,” Rafael has said. The company currently works with India on the SPYDER air defense system and Spike missiles, and it showcased its sea-based air defense system C-Dome, based on the Iron Dome, at a recent defense expo in Lucknow. Rafael is also discussing its Drone Dome system, which protects against smaller drones. A recent test showed the system can use lasers to simultaneously stop multiple drones. In the market of communications systems, Rafael seeks to increase sales of its BNET system is India, and it's also pushing its Typhoon remote controlled weapons system for naval platforms. UVision, an Israeli company that makes loitering munitions, also signed a deal this month with India's Aditya Precitech to set up a joint venture to manufacture the PALM (precision attack loitering munition) Hero system. UVision's company in India is called AVision. Pivot east Israel's MoD characterizes the bilateral relationship as meaningful and involving “vast cooperation” between the two defense industries. The deepening defense and strategic relationship is part of India's multi-decade political and strategic shift, as it moves away from its former link to the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and improves ties with Israel and the United States. This complement's Israel's pivot eastward. But there are differing security priorities between New Delhi and Jerusalem. India is more concerned about China, while Israel is wary of Iran. Though the bilateral relationship has still grown under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and their meetings in 2017 and 2018 that resulted in government-to-government agreements. The ecosystem built by joint ventures between Israeli and Indian defense companies is complex and involves sensitive defense technology, know-how from which India hopes to acquire to lessen its dependence on foreign defense imports. Spyer, the analyst out of Israel, said there is bipartisan consensus in both countries to advance the existing relationship. “It is a really important element of Israel's strategic stance and the broader pivot to Asia. No other burgeoning relationship, whether Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore or Japan, has the dimensions, depth and shared interests as India does for Israel.” https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2020/02/18/new-joint-ventures-hint-at-burgeoning-relationship-between-israel-and-india/

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  15 juin 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  U.S. Military Turns To Remote Pilot Training

  Lee Hudson June 11, 2020 Once the global coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S., the military moved to ramp up remote pilot training options. But it is unclear if the trend will continue after the contagion passes. Before COVID-19, the Air Force was developing immersive training devices that would help instruct students remotely as part of Air Education and Training Command's Pilot Training Next program, says Lt. Col. Ryan Riley, commander of Detachment 24. Instead of the pupil coming into the office, receiving an in-person brief, locating a training device and executing a mission, Riley's team was looking at how to conduct those events with both the student and instructor at separate locations. Army pauses to assess training options Air Force and Navy immediately pivot to remote instruction “What we wanted to see, prior to COVID-19, was how far [we could] push the bounds of remote instruction,” Riley says. The pandemic turned that desire into a need to provide students the same level of instruction remotely as they would in person. The Air Force and training companies were already working to develop virtual training systems when COVID-19 struck, and the pandemic seems to have accelerated adoption. “There are only so many places to train,” says Todd Probert, defense and security group president at CAE. Though the military was once reluctant to fully tap into distance training, the question has become: “Is there a way to centralize that instruction?” he says. Pilots more than 100 mi. from a training base would be required to quarantine for two weeks once they arrived. The technology, however, was “very glitchy,” Riley says. The main problem was latency. So the team got to work, disassembling hardware and issuing the newest equipment to students and some of the instructor corps. Another issue was the fact that the detachment's home-use devices were running off a laptop. The team discovered that various software programs such as remote screen-sharing were taxing the central processing unit (CPU) heavily, overwhelming laptops, says Lt. Col. Robert Knapp, Detachment 24 operations officer. “No matter how good a laptop you buy, they're just never going to run at the same speed as a desktop computer,” Knapp says. “We took some of our older desktop computers that were in the building and sent those home with students to replace the laptops, which opened up a lot more CPU bandwidth.” The students also were asked to plug their devices into their routers instead of using wireless home internet, which reduced latency and resulted in a more streamlined, less glitchy process. Meanwhile, the Army was tackling similar challenges at Fort Rucker in Dale County, Alabama, where the service produces pilots to fly the Boeing AH-64 Apache and CH-47 Chinook and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. In addition to training its own pilots at Fort Rucker, the service also assists with the training of foreign military aviators from as many as 47 countries annually at the base. The Army established a virtual instructor's course so that the instructor pilots could learn how to teach using a digital platform, says Maj. Gen. David Francis, U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Rucker commanding general. “COVID-19 has enabled us to really take a look at ourselves and how we're delivering training,” he says. Francis envisions a blend of in-person and virtual training once the crisis passes. As the pandemic took hold, the Navy, too, set up remote instruction with unprecedented speed. With 45 students per class, the service would not have been able to comply with social distancing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Lt. Tim Benoit, aviation preflight indoctrination instructor at Naval Aviation Schools Command located in Pensacola, Florida. So in just five days, the Navy created a digital classroom and launched classes for its student Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy pilots. Benoit had selected flight instructors to test the new digital system, and the next day he prepared a presentation to train the rest of the instructors. “We were able to adapt to this without missing any productivity targets,” Benoit says. The Navy does not plan to employ remote instruction after the COVID-19 crisis but views the technology as an alternative when a natural disaster such as a hurricane hits. The service is recognizing the advantages of remote learning, however, which include saving time and money. Students have access to each session's recording and associated course materials, and the technology would allow students not in Pensacola to take the courses. “It can also be used in conjunction with in-person training to prep students . . . and it's been used to enable guest speakers” in another city, Benoit says. “Those are some things that I think may persist beyond the pandemic.” https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/budget-policy-operations/us-military-turns-remote-pilot-training

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  12 octobre 2022 | International, C4ISR

  A focus on data is transforming Army makeup, says I Corps' Brunson

  "What is also really, really interesting about our Army as we go forward in this data-centric environment is people are going to do different things."