23 juillet 2024 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
"That is a recipe for failure," Boeing Defense, Space and Security president Ted Colbert told reporters at the Farnborough Air Show.
4 août 2023 | International, Naval
A U.S. Navy nuclear submarine arrived in Western Australia on Friday as allies Canberra and Washington deepen defence ties and prepare to transfer nuclear submarine capability to Australia.
30 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial
By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — Boeing must pay another $151 million out of its own pocket for the KC-46 program, but this time the charge isn't associated with technical problems that have plagued the tanker's development. While Boeing announced its second-quarter earnings Wednesday, it said the KC-46 charge was “primarily driven by additional fixed-cost allocation resulting from lower commercial airplane production volume due to COVID-19.” In short, because Boeing's commercial plane production has slowed down, it's costing more to produce the KC-46, a derivative of the Boeing 767 airliner that is manufactured on the 767 production line in Everett, Washington, and converted into a military tanker. Greg Smith, Boeing's chief financial officer, said with the ramp down of production on some commercial airliners, certain fixed costs have been transferred to other programs. “That's essentially what took place with tanker,” he told reporters during a media roundtable. “It was notable on tanker because of the margin that we're booking on, and therefore turned it into a reach-forward loss. There was impact on some of the other [commercial derivative] programs, but it was not really material at all.” Boeing is locked into paying any costs associated with the KC-46 that exceed the $4.9 billion firm fixed-price ceiling on its 2011 contract with the U.S. Air Force. The latest charge means Boeing will have spent more than $4.7 billion in company funds on the KC-46 program — almost equivalent to the Air Force's own investment in the program. But Smith pointed to the lack of performance-related losses for the KC-46 this quarter as a sign that the program is progressing. “We've still got a lot of work to do, but [we're] making good progress,” he said. Despite the tanker charge, Boeing's earnings for its defense and space sector were a bright spot for the company, which continues to grapple with financial distress caused by the coronavirus pandemic's impact on the travel industry and the ongoing grounding of the 737 Max. Boeing Defense, Space & Security logged $7 billion in new orders this quarter, including an award for three additional MQ-25 tanker drones for the U.S. Navy and 24 AH-64E Apache helicopters for Morocco. During a call with investors, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said the defense market remains healthy and that recent contracts “underscore the strength of our offerings.” https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2020/07/29/financial-pressures-on-boeings-commercial-biz-results-in-another-155m-charge-for-the-kc-46-tanker/
19 juin 2018 | International, C4ISR
WASHINGTON ― A new RAND report assessing the proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles suggests existing export controls for drones may hurt the U.S. more than it helps. Limiting U.S. drone exports has left a hole in the global market for the technology, especially in historically U.S.-dominated Middle East markets, which has been readily filled by U.S. competitors — specifically China and Russia. The Trump administration recently unveiled a new set of export policies regarding military technology in an attempt to facilitate the transfer of military technology, but the changes do not change the status of drones under the Missile Technology Control Regime, or MTCR. How does the MTCR work? The MTCR is a voluntary export control consortium of 35 nations designed to prevent signatories from proliferating longer-range cruise and ballistic missile technology. The arms control regime was extended to UAVs because early iterations of drones were considered a subset of cruise missile technology due to their active guidance system. The regime divides missiles into two categories. Category I items are capable of delivering a 500 kg payload more than 300 km. The sale of category I systems is restricted by a “strong presumption of denial,” meaning they are only exported in rare circumstances. The MQ-9 Reaper, RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-4 Triton are well-known unmanned systems that fall under this category. Over the past several years, U.S. partners such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia and UAE were denied requests to purchase American drones, and have since turned to China to purchase comparable systems. Trump administration officials have been attempting to alter the regime by adding new languagethat would drop any vehicle that flies under 650 kilometers per hour to category II systems. This would make all but the most advanced U.S. systems available for international sale. For example, the MQ-9 Reaper clocks in with a cruise speed of 230 mph or 370 kph, according to an Air Force facts sheet. Drone proliferation RAND found that 10 nations operate category I drones, and more than 15 operate near-category I systems that register just below the MTCR's payload and distance restrictions. The report says increased proliferation rates are due to a handful of countries, specifically China, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, who are not party to the MCTR. More countries are expected to procure drones, which pose a “growing threat to U.S. and allied military operations,” the report says. While category I systems can deploy missiles and other guided munitions, their main threat lies in “their ability to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations against U.S. forces prior to hostilities,” according to RAND. “Adversaries that would otherwise have difficulty detecting U.S. force deployments, monitoring U.S. operations, and maintaining targeting data on U.S. units can employ UAVs to maintain situational awareness of U.S. capabilities” The report identifies Russia, China and Iran as unfriendly nations that will seek to utilize drones to complicate U.S. military operations. For example, China and Saudi Arabia recently agreed to set up a UAV manufacturing plant in Saudi Arabia for up to 300 new UAVs, and Italy will receive 20 Hammerhead UAVs from the UAE. The coproduction of regional drone factories “could further exacerbate the proliferation of large UAVs to the degree that these systems are exported to other nations,” according to RAND, and that hurts U.S. industry. A U.S.-sized hole Voluntarily restricting U.S. drone exports have allowed competitors to establish themselves in a market Rand expects to “grow from about $6 billion in 2015 to about $12 billion in 2025.” RAND expect export controls to have a negative impact on the U.S. industrial base, something those in industry already know. “What you are enabling the competition to do is not just to sell some hardware,” Linden Blue, General Atomic's chief executive, told reporters during an Aug. 16, 2017 roundtable at the company's headquarters in Poway, California. “You're enabling it to build a customer base for at least 20 years, I would say. You're enabling them to build a logistics system. It will take them many years to get to where we are right now, but you're helping them start out. They should be very thankful.” https://www.defensenews.com/newsletters/unmanned-systems/2018/06/18/strict-export-regulations-may-be-costing-us-industry-billions-in-foreign-sales/