18 décembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial
By: Zeina Karam, The Associated Press
BEIRUT — The use of armed drones in the Middle East, driven largely by sales from China, has grown significantly in the past few years with an increasing number of countries and other parties using them in regional conflicts to lethal effects, a new report said Monday.
The report by the Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI, found that more and more Mideast countries have acquired armed drones, either by importing them, such as Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, or by building them domestically like Israel, Iran and Turkey.
China has won sales in the Middle East and elsewhere by offering UAVs at lower prices and without the political conditions attached by the United States.
The Associated Press reported earlier this year that countries across the Middle East locked out of purchasing American-made drones are being wooed by Chinese arms dealers, helping expand Chinese influence across a region vital to American security interest.
It noted the use of Chinese armed drones across Mideast battlefields, including in the war on Yemen, employed by the Emirati Air Force. Iran has also violated Israeli airspace with armed UAVs from bases in Syria, provoking armed Israeli response on the suspected bases.
The RUSI report, titled “Armed Drones in the Middle East: Proliferation and Norms in the Region,” said that by capitalizing on the gap in the market over the past few years, Beijing has supplied armed drones to several countries that are not authorized to purchase them from the U.S., and at a dramatically cheaper price.
"China, a no-questions-asked exporter of drones, has played and is likely to continue playing a key role as a supplier of armed UAVs to the Middle East," it said.
The report explored where and how each of the states have used their armed drones and whether they have changed the way these countries approach air power. It found that Iran, the UAE and Turkey all changed the way they employ air power after they acquired armed drones.
For Turkey and the UAE, armed drones enabled them to conduct strikes in situations where they would not have risked using conventional aircraft, it said. Iran developed armed drones from the outset specifically to project power beyond the reach of its air force, which is hamstrung by obsolete aircraft and sanctions, the report added.
The report said it remains to be seen whether and how the loosening of restrictions on the export of armed drones by the Trump administration will alter dynamics in the region. The administration in April permitted U.S. manufacturers to directly market and sell drones, including armed versions, although the government must still approve and license the sales.
Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, who authored the report along with Justin Bronk, said proliferation of armed drones in the Middle East is unlikely to stop and could accelerate despite changes introduced by the U.S. administration.
“Over the past two years the sales have increased massively and they are likely to increase even more,” she said. “This kind of collaboration is just going to grow especially in cases where countries don't have the capacity to build them themselves.”
3 décembre 2021 | International, Aérospatial
C'est décidé, Boeing ne fournira pas le Canada en avion de combat. Lockheed Martin et Saab, eux, sont encore en lice. La décision devrait tomber en 2022., Mauvaise nouvelle pour Boeing. Le Canada a annoncé
8 mars 2021 | International, Aérospatial
U.S. Special Operations Command is looking at Reaper drones for the new Armed Overwatch role. But although the Reaper may be uncrewed, it takes a lot of people on the ground to keep it flying -- maybe too many to be viable.
22 mai 2020 | International, Sécurité
Rome, May 21, 2020 - The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) will upgrade to Leonardo's latest Osprey radar to support missions such as search and rescue, border protection, fishery and pollution patrols. The Osprey 30 radar will be installed on-board the two customised Beechcraft King Air aircraft provided to the UK MCA by UK-based aviation services company 2Excel. Currently, the UK MCA is operating Leonardo's Seaspray 7300E radar, which has been employed to great effect in support of regular fishery and pollution patrols around the UK. The radar comes equipped with Leonardo's patented small target detection capability, allowing it to spot shipwrecked individuals in the water at long range, even in the most difficult environmental conditions and sea states. Additionally, the radar provides the ability for MCA crews to identify oil spills and rogue polluters at very long range, day or night. 2Excel will build on this success by equipping the MCA King Airs with Leonardo's second generation Osprey radar, the latest entry in its range of E-scan surveillance radars. Osprey benefits from all of the capabilities of the Company's Seaspray family whilst also adding additional modes and optimized overland and coastal imaging capabilities. This makes the radar ideally suited to mixed environment operations, such as along the coast. Traditionally, coastguard aircraft have used radars with restricted fields of view and limited detection capabilities, making searches laborious and resource-intensive. Leonardo's radars solve these problems. The Company is a world leader in E-scan, also known as AESA (Active Electronically-Scanned Array) technology, which uses a matrix of hundreds of tiny radar modules to ‘steer' an electronic beam, rather than mechanically moving the radar to point at a target. With a Leonardo E-Scan radar, crews can lift off, scan in 360 degrees and almost-instantaneously detect, track and classify hundreds of maritime contacts, allowing crews to quickly task cooperating aircraft to deeply search an area of interest. Other E-scan advantages include extremely high reliability, as the radar can continue to operate effectively throughout a mission even if a number of its individual radar modules fail. Customers in 30 countries have selected Leonardo's E-scan radars including the Seaspray and Osprey families, with the US Navy procuring the Osprey 30 radar for its Fire Scout unmanned helicopter programme. View source version on Leonardo: https://www.leonardocompany.com/en/press-release-detail/-/detail/21-05-2020-uk-maritime-and-coastguard-agency-to-get-latest-radar-technology-from-leonardo