22 octobre 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
3 mai 2023 | International, Terrestre
May 2, 2023 - BAE Systems and KOVAL SYSTEMS a.s have signed a contract in support of the production of new infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), the CV90MkIV, for the Slovak...
17 décembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Terrestre
By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — Bell's technology demonstrator designed to show the Army the realm of the possible in Future Vertical Lift capability has flown 200 hours since its first flight three years ago, according to Keith Flail, the company's executive vice president for advanced vertical lift systems. The V-280 Valor tiltrotor parted ways with the tarmac for the first time on Dec. 18, 2017, at 1:59 p.m. CDT at a Bell facility in Amarillo, Texas. Defense News reported the flight as the aircraft was still in the air, but the aircraft logged roughly 15 to 20 minutes before returning to solid ground. Since then Bell's clean-sheet-designed aircraft has flown more than 150 sorties, Flail told Defense News in a recent interview, and the extensive effort has driven down risk for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft program for the U.S. Army. Valor hit the 200 flight hour mark on Dec. 4, Flail said. The Army wants to field FLRAA — an aircraft expected to fly twice as fast and twice as far as a conventional helicopter — by 2030. Bell is gearing up to compete head-to-head with a Lockheed Martin's Sikorsky and Boeing team, which built the only other flying technology demonstrator in the effort leading up to a program of record. The SB-1 Defiant coaxial helicopter flew for the first time in March 2019 after struggling with rotor blade manufacturing problems and working through other more minor kinks. Both companies have entered a competitive development and risk reduction phase awarded in March 2020 ahead of the FLRAA program. The Army announced this month that it intends to proceed into a competition between just Sikorsky-Boeing and Bell to produce FLRAA. Valor has been put through its paces, completing key performance parameters and continuing to prove out possible threshold and objective requirements for FLRAA. The aircraft had its first public flight in June 2018 where it reached cruising speeds of 195 knots and was put through its paces in hover mode. In May 2019, the aircraft completed low-speed agility maneuver testing — which made up the final key performance parameters left to prove out with the system as part of the technology demonstration phase. Valor flew autonomously for the first time a year ago. The aircraft performed an autonomous takeoff, conversion into cruise mode, precision navigation to various waypoints, loiter maneuvers, conversion into vertical-takeoff-and-landing mode, and landed autonomously. Other achievements include demonstrating an integrated system from Lockheed Martin that provides the pilots and aircrew a 360-degree view through the skin of the aircraft in the spring of 2019. And in early 2020, Bell also integrated the Tactical Common Data Link and transmitted information between Valor and the ground station to include basic flight data and showed it would be able to provide targeting information to help long-range precision fires weapons hit targets more accurately, according to a Dec. 17 company statement. In the same flight, Bell demonstrated sling-load capability, Flail said. “During a single sortie, the team performed multiple cargo lifts to demonstrate the procedure and coordination of ground crew, aircraft, crew chief, pilots and the behavior of the loads for the V-280,” the statement notes. Over the course of the technology demonstration period, Flail added, the aircraft was also able to show its reliability and availability. “This configuration of tiltrotor really shows how robust it is in terms of reliability and availability because one of the tricks with proving that is you have to accumulate enough data to show that you do have a reliable system,” he said. “A lot of your critical items, your gearboxes and your blades ... those are typical cost drivers downstream and today, we still have the original six blades and gearboxes on this aircraft.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/12/17/bells-v-280-valor-hits-200-hours-of-flight-time-3-years-after-first-flight/
9 mars 2020 | International, Aérospatial
On Friday, a missile fired by a Turkish drone destroyed a Russian-made Pantsir-S1 deployed by the Syrian Army in Idlib province. This video released by Turkish media, shows an active Syrian Pantsir being destroyed by a Turkish drone. According to Turkish media, the Pantsir radar was active when it was hit, indicating that the system failed to detect the incoming missile. The Syrian Air Defense Force reportedly has more than 30 $14 million Pantsir S1 (SA-22) air defense systems. Russia has also strengthened its Syrian Khmeimim air base with Pantsir systems to prevent air strikes. The systems were deployed in Khmeimim after a series of drone attacks in 2018. Combat unmanned aerial vehicles used by the Turkish military against the Syrian army led to Syria's largest losses, according to the Turkish Ministry of Defense. After Turkey started using drones against the Syrian Armed Forces, Assad's army has lost about a hundred units of armoured vehicles and several hundred military personnel. Russian news outlet Avia.pro writes that, for unknown reasons, Turkish drones are invisible to Syrian air defense systems. According to the news outlet, Pantsir radars are possibly “blinded” by Turkish electronic warfare systems. Reportedly, Turkey has been using it Koral jamming system built by Aselsan, to degrade the effectiveness of Syrian air defense radars. The Koral, which has a range of 124 miles, has support sensors designed to detect and classify other systems in the area, and an electronic attack element designed to jam, deceive and overload enemy sensors The Turkish drones are reportedly using MAM-C and MAM-L ‘micro-munitions'—70- and 160-millimeter rockets respectively, weighing only 14 and 48.5 pounds designed to strike targets illuminated by a laser. These can carry high explosive, armour-penetrating shaped charges, or (on the MAM-L) lung-rupturing thermobaric warheads, while remaining light enough to mount on relatively small drones. The larger MAM-L can also extend range from 5 to 8.6 miles by using GPS or inertial guidance. Syrian air defenses have managed to shoot down at least three Turkish Anka-S drones in February, and Damascus claims as many as six. As these are larger and newer drones, their loss may be keenly felt, but obviously less so than manned aircraft. https://www.uasvision.com/2020/03/06/turkish-drones-destroy-russian-made-air-defense-systems/