CENTCOM chief: The future of warfare demands more cyber authorities

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  13 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Raytheon Technologies CEO On Riding Out The COVID-19 Crisis

  Joe Anselmo Michael Bruno July 10, 2020 When he was United Technologies Corp. chairman and CEO, Greg Hayes took a lot of heat for merging his company with Raytheon to create aerospace powerhouse Raytheon Technologies. But the critics have been silenced as defense has cushioned the company from the battering the commercial downturn has inflicted on its Collins Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney operations. Hayes spoke via videoconference with AW&ST Editor-in-Chief Joe Anselmo and Senior Business Editor Michael Bruno. AW&ST: How long will it take the commercial aviation industry to recover from the COVID-19 crisis? Initially, we thought this was going to be like the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002-03. We thought it was going to be relatively short-lived, where air traffic would go down for a little while but then gradually recover. I don't think any of us envisioned the morbidity or the scope of this pandemic and its impact on travel. I would say we're looking now at getting back to 2019 in 2023, maybe 2024. It is going to be a slow recovery. Raytheon chief looks ahead Commercial aviation recovery will take years Investing in hypersonics Game-changing technologies for a next-generation narrowbody The good news is we've got plenty of liquidity. We'll see our way through this, but it is going to be a tough road. We are hunkering down for a protracted recession on the commercial aero side. Our aftermarket orders are down 50%-plus at both Collins Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney. That's where a lot of the profits come from. The reason we can spend $2.5 billion a year on R&D for the commercial businesses is because we have this spares business that generates strong cash. When that goes away, it's tough. And as a result, we're going to cut R&D this year by $500 million on the commercial side. Unfortunately, the airlines are not in a position to weather this storm for probably more than another 12 months without government assistance. That's really going to be the key. Do governments in the U.S., Europe, South America and across Asia step up to support what is a critical industry in aerospace? Is the industry underplaying the severity of the COVID-19 downturn? A vaccine is the key, and it has to be widely available. The World Health Organization is working on that, but we're going to have hotspots with this pandemic for the next year or two. So even if the U.S. and Europe are completely vaccinated, what does that mean for travel to Africa, Asia, to the fast-growing markets? I'd almost bifurcate the aerospace industry between a narrowbody recovery and widebody recovery. The narrowbody is primarily domestic, whether it's Europe, the U.S. or even China. That will recover more quickly as people become confident-—there's either a vaccine or they've found new treatment options. But on the international side, we can't fly today into Europe, and we don't want the Europeans to fly to the U.S. We can't go to South America or China. Those routes are going to take much, much longer to recover. The fact is there are so many excess aircraft out there right now that we believe you're going to see more parting out of existing fleets before we see a resurgence. And that's why even when passenger traffic starts to come back, there's probably a full 6-12 months before we're going to see a return to normalcy in our aftermarket organization. Pratt supplies the PW1000G engine option for the Airbus A320neo. How much downside risk is there for -deliveries? We're planning for about a 40% reduction in A320 deliveries this year and next year compared with February 2020 production rates. Airbus would love to build more, but it's not clear to us that customers are going to be around to take more than that. The good news is our market share went from about 42% [of A320neo engines] to north of 50% in the last year. Customers are starting to believe in the geared turbofan because of the fuel efficiency. Do you see the market share between Airbus and Boeing shifting? The order book for the A320 is much stronger today, with all the cancellations that we've seen on the 737 MAX because of delays. We still think the 737 will get back in the air this year, and we continue to work with Boeing on software updates. We firmly believe it's a great aircraft. Keep in mind we have about $2.5 million of content per shipset on the 737. It's going to be a tough couple of years, but we ultimately have faith in the airframe and the certification process. Where are you focusing your future efforts with Boeing and Airbus? We were optimistically cautious about the [proposed Boeing] new mid-market airplane (NMA), but there is a lot of excess capacity now, and it's not clear another evolutionary design is going to be the answer. So our focus right now is the next-generation single--aisle. And we think that's probably been pushed out a couple of years, to maybe 2033 or 2035. They're talking about a 30% efficiency gain from the current single-aisle. Two-thirds of that gain has to come from engine design. At the Paris Air Show last year, we talked about a hybrid electric design [Project 804]. We're going to continue on that path. We're trying to figure out how you can have enough power at takeoff while having a much lower fuel consumption at cruise. And that's where hybrid electric comes in. It's going to take us at least a decade to prove that out. I don't know if hybrid electric is the answer. There are other things that we're working on. But obviously it's got to be something completely different than what we've been building in the past. Governments around the world are taking on huge debt to alleviate the coronavirus crisis. Are you worried that will put pressure on military spending over the long term? You would have to have your head in the sand to not understand what's going to happen to defense budgets over time. When [Raytheon CEO] Tom Kennedy and I first talked about this merger, it was, “What can we do together that we can't do separately?” And it really was bringing the technologies of the two companies together to solve customer problems in new and innovative ways. Defense budgets will go down, but I think the real question is where Defense Department spending is going. I remember talking two years ago with [then-Defense Secretary] Gen. [James] Mattis, and he said, “Bring us innovative solutions, not to fight the last war but to fight the next war.” And the next war, he said, is going to be fought in cyberspace and outer space. The capabilities of the legacy Raytheon business are second to none in space and are outstanding on the cyber side. You marry that up with the manufacturing and material science that Pratt & Whitney brings, with the communication systems that Rockwell Collins brings, and this is going to be a great play. The U.S. Air Force wants more software-driven capabilities, delivered in weeks or even days. How does that square with your businesses, which often involve long-term hardware evolutions? It's making sure that we're continuing to evolve our products. The missiles we're delivering today, such as the SM-3 [interceptor] or the SM-6 [anti-air/anti-surface/-ballistic missile defense] are state of the art, and we continue to find new uses for them. A lot of things will change over time in terms of how the weapons are deployed. Think about the Storm-Breaker missile that we just demonstrated, which has the tri-mode seeker. It can do things the last generation of missiles could never do in terms of going through smoke, fog, dust and sand. The LRSO [Long-Range Standoff nuclear cruise missile] is another example. And the Tomahawk is an established product that we will evolve as the needs of the battlefield change to meet new requirements. That's really what we want to focus on: How do we continue software-driven solutions but also find ways to redeploy and reinvigorate the product line and bring new capabilities to the warfighter? Are you making long-term investments in hypersonics? Hypersonics are a destabilizing technology. There's only so much we can talk about, but we know we're behind the Chinese and probably behind the Russians. I think in 3-5 years we'll be on a level playing field. Our focus has been on defensive systems, using space-based assets to track hypersonics. It's nothing that a ground radar could ever do because they move too fast. And then countermeasures that we could use to defend against hypersonics is the bigger market. We're obviously investing. We've got a program, the HAWC [Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept], which is an air-breathing hypersonic missile that we're working on. I think we'll flight-test that later this year. Also think about the materials science that Pratt brings. The key to hypersonics is how to keep the electronics from getting fried when you're operating at something like 5,000F. We're investing in cooling materials—that will be one of the big bets that we're going to have to make. Tom Kennedy saw the need to make these investments, and we're going to do that. The other piece is on the space side. There's not a lot that we can say, other than that we think space will be the frontier that will differentiate us—that is, the defense of space assets, as well as using space assets to detect, track and target hypersonic weapons. When the merger of United Technologies and Raytheon was announced, there was a lot of criticism from investors. Now they're happy about how well-positioned the combined company is to weather the COVID-19 storm. There was a lot of pushback from investors, especially from the hedge fund guys. They saw us taking a lower-margin business, and they didn't like the fact that the technology takes 5-10 years to pay off. I was roundly criticized. All I can say is I was an idiot a year ago and now I'm a genius, through no fault of my own. We did this for the long term, and it was completely fortuitous that the merger happened when it did. The commercial businesses won't make any money this year, and they are going to struggle for the next couple of years, but now we've got a rock-solid balance sheet and a lot of cash. And that defense business is going to grow 5-8% this year. We've got a good backlog. I'd like to say it was genius, but it really was just doing what's right for the long term. My goal is to leave this company better than I found it. You have reshaped this company, starting with selling Sikorsky to Lockheed Martin in 2015. Then you acquired Rockwell Collins and moved to break up the UTC conglomerate, and it looked like UTC was going to be a commercial aerospace company. Now comes Raytheon. Are you done, or is there more to come? I'm never done until I'm gone, but we don't need to do anything else big. The driving force [behind the Raytheon merger] was putting two big technology companies together with cyclical balance [between commercial and defense]. Tom Kennedy always felt he was at a disadvantage against the Lockheeds of the world because of the scale of Lockheed versus Raytheon. This gives us the scale to invest and compete head on with the Lockheed Martins and Northrop Grummans, as well as being the largest supplier to both Boeing and Airbus. We have some clout in the marketplace. We've got 700,000 different things that we deliver to customers: missiles, APUs, engines, communications gear. Some we really love; others don't have the returns that we want or require too much investment for a limited market. We hope to have a portfolio review done by the end of the year. And you'll probably see some divestitures, but not big pieces. We also continue to look for technology bolt-ons as we think about what's next in defense and the space and cyber spectrums. Longer term, the big question in my mind is what happens to Rolls-Royce, a great technology company that is facing challenging financial circumstances. We loved the partnership Pratt had with Rolls on International Aero Engines. Could we recreate that someday? Perhaps, but not now. Ian Davis, who's the chairman over there, is a good guy. We always say, “Look, we need to find ways to collaborate so we can take on GE Aviation.” Despite the fact that GE may be on its heels today, they've got over 30,000 engines out there. Their aftermarket will recover, they will get better, and they will be the formidable competitor for both Rolls and Raytheon Technologies for the foreseeable future. We're hearing from Wall Street that you're expected to sell off the Forcepoint business. Forcepoint is a commercial cyber business Tom Kennedy created when he brought a couple of companies together about five years ago. It has some great technology, but it clearly doesn't fit in the portfolio. We'll figure that out in the next six months. How is the integration going? Nothing went according to plan except the merger itself. We sent everybody home the week of March 12 [because of COVID-19], and we were still three weeks away from the merger. So we had to complete the merger and all of the integration remotely. And we had to spin off Carrier and Otis. All of that came to fruition on time and exactly as we had planned while working from home. The resilience and the ingenuity of our folks to figure all this out has probably been the most pleasing. There was some concern that the cultures at Raytheon and the commercial guys at Pratt and Collins would never come together. That is the last thing I worry about. Everything we laid out has gotten done. We're on track for synergies in cost, technology and revenue. The difference is I have yet to have a staff meeting in person. I've got 17 people who work for me, and we do everything on Zoom. Each one of our three board meetings since the merger has been done on Zoom. If you had told me 3-4 months ago that we would be working from home for a good deal of time, I'd have really panicked. But we figured it out. https://aviationweek.com/ad-week/ad-week-video-interviews/raytheon-technologies-ceo-riding-out-covid-19-crisis

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  29 février 2024 | International, Terrestre

  BAE Systems signs a 15 year support agreement for the Danish CV90 fleet

  BAE Systems has signed a framework agreement with the Danish Ministry of Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation (DALO) to provide repair and maintenance services for the Danish Army’s CV90s over...

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  20 avril 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval

  Major players pitch solutions for Navy’s next training helicopter

  By: Jen Judson NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Several major players in the helicopter industry pitched possible solutions at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space conference for the Navy's next initial-entry, rotary-wing training helicopter as the service signals stronger intentions to replace its aging TH-57 Sea Ranger fleet. The Navy has announced during recent congressional hearings that it plans to buy a new training helicopter in fiscal 2020. For years, the service has put out requests for information asking industry for training helicopter options with the latest coming out in October 2017. That RFI left some requirements open-ended such as whether the aircraft should have one or two engines, but has asked for the helicopter to be Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) certified, an obvious requirement when flying over sea or in reduced visibility environments. It's also assumed the Navy wants a commercial off-the-shelf aircraft. The TH-57 is more than reaching the end of its life, having first been fielded to the Navy's training fleet in the 1970s. So three companies — Airbus, Bell and Leonardo — all brought examples of possible training helicopters to the Navy's biggest trade show. Airbus H135 Airbus is keeping all of its options on the table for a Navy trainer because the service has yet to define all of its requirements, according to John Roth, senior director of business development for Airbus Helicopters Inc. “We have a broad product range that goes from light, single-engine into light, twin-engine to medium and heavy twin-engine platforms,” Roth told Defense News at Sea-Air-Space. “Our approach is we will evaluate those requirements and offer based on those requirements. However, given the nature of training and how the complexity of training has evolved over time, we do have recommendations for the Navy as it relates to having the best possible solution to accomplish all of their missions.” And one recommendation is the H135 light, twin-engine helicopter Airbus had on display at the show. “We believe this is certainly a very capable potential solution that meets all the Navy requirements as a commercial off-the-shelf product,” Roth said. The H135 is similar to the EC-145 helicopter that the Army now uses for its trainer, replacing its TH-67 Creek helicopters with LUH-72A Lakota light utility helicopters already in the service's inventory beginning in 2014. The Army's decision to retire the TH-67s and replace them with Lakotas was met with much debate as to whether it made sense to teach helicopter pilots basic skills in a more complex digital glass cockpit helicopter with twin engines. And the decision was even met with a lawsuit. Leonardo — then known as AgustaWestland — sued the Army over its decision not to compete for a new trainer but to instead sole-source a helicopter already fielded by the service. Leonardo initially won the lawsuit but the decision was overturned in the appellate court. The Army is still filling out its Lakota training fleet, but, Roth said, “from a qualitative perspective, we've got some very positive feedback that talks to capability of the aviators when they complete the training and having them more prepared for the advanced aircraft once they arrive at their advanced training stations.” The fact that both the Lakota and the H135 have advanced digital glass cockpits, four-axis autopilot and twin-engine capability with Full Authority Digital Engine (FADEC) controls “all prepared them for the type of vehicle that they are going to get in when they get into their advanced training,” Roth said. The Army has taken tasks normally taught in the more expensive advanced aircraft and brought those down to basic training, he added. “There has been a lot of advantages realized from that decision that we think the Navy will be able to take advantage of as well,” Roth said. The H135s, if purchased by the Navy, would be built at its Columbus, Mississippi, production line where commercial EC135s and Lakotas are built. The helicopter pitched to the Navy is also used by approximately a dozen countries with nearly 130 aircraft serving as a primary trainer worldwide, Roth said. Bell 407 GXi Bell would be the incumbent in a competition for a new Navy trainer, being the current manufacturer of the TH-57. The company plans to offer up its 407 GXi, according to Steve Mathias, Bell's vice president for Global Military Business Development. Bell has already built and sold 1,500 407s worldwide which have flown over 4.75 million hours, he said, so the helicopter is “very reliable, sustainable, maintainable glass cockpit, just a great overall aircraft,” Mathias said. And from a programmatic perspective, he said, choosing Bell's trainer offers “a lot less risk because it's very similar to the TH-57 that the Navy currently has, so a transition from a Bell product to a Bell product would be a lower risk, I would think, to the customer.” Bell also provides many of the helicopters the Navy and Marine Corps fly today such as the UH-1Y Venom, the AH-1Z Viper and the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor and therefore has a high level of experience working with the services on a day-to-day basis “so we very closely understand what the Navy requirements are,” Mathias argued. The company is hoping the Navy chooses to go with a single-engine aircraft because it would “be less costly to operate” and less complex to train, according to Mathias. He added that he believes the choice would offer the best value to the service. Leonardo TH-119 Italian company Leonardo is making a play for the trainer with plans to submit its TH-119, which puts them, like Bell, into the single-engine camp, according to Andrew Gappy, who is in charge of the company's government sales and programs. The helicopter is a variant of the AW119Kx, a single-engine, full-spectrum training aircraft and can be used for training from the basics like learning how to hover above the ground all the way to advanced tactics. And while Leonardo is a foreign company, all of the 119s worldwide are manufactured in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The 119 is also IFR certified to meet that Navy requirement. The helicopter is known for its significant power, which means the aircraft's training mission sets can grow and change over time without affecting its performance, Gappy said. It's important for the Navy to buy a new trainer now because, Gappy said, he trained on the TH-57 “a long time ago.” The aircraft averages roughly 70,000 flight hours a year and will become more and more costly to operate as it continues to age. “When I went through, the TH-57 had a lot in common with combat aircraft, how the aircraft flew and instrumentation training was really relevant,” he said. “It's so disparate now with glass cockpits and all of them are multi-bladed rotor systems that fly differently than the twin rotor system, so it's really resetting the baseline,” which allows the service to incorporate more advanced training into the basic courses that has migrated away from that training due to the loss in power margin, Gappy said. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/navy-league/2018/04/11/major-players-pitch-solutions-for-navys-next-training-helicopter/