29 juin 2020 | International, Aérospatial
By Flight International 26 June 2020
For some, a time of global economic crisis might not feel like the perfect moment for nations to invest huge sums of money to develop a new class of combat aircraft only due to enter use around 2035-2040.
Currently, six European governments and their national defence industry champions are involved in the early phases of two competing – and comparable – projects to deliver such a capability.
In the opinion of Airbus Defence & Space chief executive Dirk Hoke, Europe's current trio of advanced fighters – the Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab Gripen – represent a wasteful replication of industrial effort – and all lose out by battling for the same orders.
Hoke is championing a future combat air system (FCAS) project now combining the resources and know-how of French and German industry, and also later incorporating Spain.
With its Tempest development having drawn interest from Italy and Sweden, the UK is not only turning away from its co-operation with Germany and Spain on Eurofighter, but applying the afterburners on their separation.
Key players behind both efforts are united in their calls to “avoid the mistakes of the past”. For some, that refers to compromised yet complex requirements, sprawling manufacturing and final assembly arrangements, and political interference during export activities, while for others, a simple lack of harmony was at fault.
Getting everyone to agree that having multiple final assembly lines for a fighter with a comparatively small production volume is an inefficient luxury is one thing – agreeing which will lose the strategic capability is quite another.
International partnering spreads a programme's investment burden, but elements of the Eurofighter set-up and the Airbus Defence & Space A400M airlifter serve as cautionary tales. Three can be a crowd, but a lack of agreement among four or seven involved nations can cause lengthy delay and spiralling costs.
Surely Europe can comfortably support two next-generation combat aircraft programmes? Indeed, those involved in FCAS and Tempest eye them as offering a real opportunity to power part of their nations' economic recovery in the post-coronavirus era.
For an alternative view should the projects eventually have to merge, a unified solution could serve all 27 EU member states, plus the UK. Such a prospect could make the US-led Lockheed Martin F-35 programme look like a bureaucratic cakewalk by comparison.
27 septembre 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval
Boeing delivered the first of 78 Block III F/A-18 Super Hornets to the U.S. Navy and will continue to deliver Block III capabilities to the Navy through the mid-2030s.
15 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Steve Trimble Lockheed Martin F-35 deliveries postponed by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the supply chain will not fully recover by the end of 2021, a company executive told Aerospace DAILY. In June, Lockheed announced that 18-24 F-35s in production Lot 12, which are scheduled for delivery in 2020, will be delayed, reducing the overall delivery target to 117 to 123 jets this year. Although Lockheed's final assembly plant in Fort Worth is now at full operations, the impact on the supply chain will drag out the recovery for another year, said Michelle Evans, executive vice president of Lockheed's Aeronautics business. “We're still looking somewhere between 15-20 aircraft that we will be behind by the end of the year,” Evans said in an interview. “It is going to take a while for the supply chain and, thus, Lockheed Martin to recover. So it will take us longer than next year. We'll probably be staring at two years to recover those jets.” Lockheed's supply chain is in recovery while the company continues negotiating separate deals with the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) for the next three years of airframe production and converting the annual sustainment contracts into a multiyear performance-based logistics (PBL) agreement. In October 2019, the JPO and Lockheed agree to an economic order quantity of 478 aircraft for lots 12-14, which are delivered from 2020 to 2022. The agreement includes a firm order from the U.S. government for Lot 12 aircraft, with priced options for Lots 13 and 14 resulting in an overall total of 291 F-35s. The international customers added orders for 187 aircraft under a related, three-year production order. A similar approach will be followed for the U.S. and international orders in Lots 15-17, which will include the first jets to receive upgraded Technical Refresh-3 hardware, Evans said. Separately, the JPO and Lockheed are continuing to negotiate a long-term PBL to sustain the F-35s, with an overall goal to reduce the cost per flight hour of the F-35A to $25,000 by 2025. Lockheed sees an opportunity to reduce sustainment costs by $18 billion or more over the term of the PBL, Evans said. Lockheed expects to make an initial investment of $1.5 billion in cost-saving projects once the deal is signed. https://aviationweek.com/shows-events/afa-air-space-cyber-conference/full-covid-19-recovery-f-35-deliveries-pushed-2022
1 février 2024 | International, Aérospatial
Charges on Boeing's five major defense fixed-price programs also totaled $1.6 billion throughout 2023.