10 mars 2020 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
By: Joe Gould and Valerie Insinna
WASHINGTON ― The U.S. aerospace and defense sector is feeling the impact of the coronavirus, with companies limiting travel, defense trade events scuttled and contingency planning underway.
As stocks fell sharply Monday on a combination of coronavirus fears and plunging oil prices, defense firms were girding for the worst and looking to the White House for guidance. The comments came days after spread of the coronavirus forced the weeklong closure of two F-35 related facilities in Italy and Japan―a sign the outbreak had begun to impact operations within the American defense industrial base.
“The normal ways of doing business are definitely going to change,” said Aerospace Industries Association CEO Eric Fanning. “We're trying to get to the place where we're not reacting on a day-to-day basis to what's happening and getting in front of some of these things and maybe making some proactive decisions. But everyone is kind of looking to everyone else to take the lead on how to address this.”
Lockheed, Raytheon and Honeywell were among dozens of companies that pulled out of last month's Singapore Air Show, which is typically the largest defense trade show in Asia―and SXSW, a show AIA participates in, was cancelled. The two offer a glimpse into how fears of corona virus could impact other defense trade shows and conferences.
“It felt like a ghost town. It definitely was a strange experience,” Fanning said about the Singapore conference.
While it's easy to overstate the importance of trade shows in cementing major deals, the deals announced at the shows are often worked out in advance, Fanning said. Still, the shows are still valuable for face-to-face networking between international defense officials and industry.
As of Monday, the National Defense Industrial Association still planned to hold its Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, Fla., this May. Its 2020 Pacific Operational Science and Technology Conference in Honolulu was ongoing this week, with more than 700 attendees, a spokeswoman said.
At least one major defense firm, Boeing, has limited its employees to “business-essential” travel, and it has been rescheduling some events, reducing face-to-face meetings in favor of virtual meetings, enabling telecommuting when possible.
“These measures are temporary and aimed to prevent the spread of the virus, shorten its impact and ensure the health and safety of our employees as well as the general public," a Boeing spokesman said.
The virus has infected more than 110,000 people worldwide, and Italy on Sunday followed China's lead in quarantining a big swath of its country in hopes of corralling the spread. That sparked more fears in the financial markets that quarantines would snarl supply chains for companies even more than they already have.
While COVID-19's long term impacts on the defense aerospace industry may take time to manifest, they could be complicated by the uncertainty of the financial market and ongoing trade wars with China, according to Fanning and others.
“Supply chains are global, they're inter-related, they're incredibly complex. Having real good situational awareness into them is difficult to begin with, then you add any instability on top of it, it gets harder. And this definitely is added to that,” Fanning said.
The new coronavirus is now spreading on every continent except Antarctica and hurting consumer spending, industrial production, and travel.
As COVID-19 spreads around the world, many investors feel helpless in trying to estimate how much it will hurt the economy and corporate profits, and the easiest response to such uncertainty may be to get out. After initially taking an optimistic view on the virus — hoping that it would remain mostly in China and cause just a short-term disruption — investors are realizing they likely woefully underestimated it.
On Monday, the Dow Jones U.S. Aerospace & Defense Index was down 26 percent over the last month, lagging the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was down 18 percent.
“Defense should do relatively better [than consumer sectors], but it's not gonna be immune,” said Byron Callan, a policy research expert at Capital Alpha Partners. “It's gonna catch a mild fever where, you know, there are gonna be other parts of the U.S. economy that are gonna be in a critical situation."
“Buy-America” regulations and other controls mean the U.S. defense industry's supply chains may be less susceptible to disruption than some consumer sectors, where reliance on China-made components is more widespread―and few, if any supply chains are as globally linked as the F-35's, said U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Defense and Aerospace Export Council's president, Keith Webster.
“I would say in the U.S. defense sector's supply chain is less vulnerable than maybe a product in the commercial sector, but we'll have to see,” Webster said. “If this continues across the F-35 partner nations, with their industrial sharing, one could see an impact.”
On the flip side, China's weeks-long factory closures could eventually see parallels in the U.S., if the virus is not quickly contained. White collar employees may be able to telecommute, but if skilled laborers are forced to stay home, that could mean problems for the primes and their lower-tier suppliers.
“Are there parallels to China in the U.S.? We don't know,” Webster said. “The first step is containment, and the next step is mitigation. China went into mitigation very quickly, which is keeping everybody home. We're just beginning to see that thought process here.”
Short of factory closings, factory workers staying home for school closures or to care for sick relatives could trigger work slow downs, particularly at the lower tiers of the supply chain, especially the ones that rely on smaller pools of workers. Those companies could suffer too if they rely on the commercial side of the aerospace sector, which is expected to be harder hit, Callan said.
“You can see the ramifications on the pace of work, but it's not like the airline industry or the cruise ship industry where all of a sudden none of your customers show up,” Callan said, adding: “There could be a cascading effect from some commercial aerospace. Again, it's at very, very small level, but it's still a factor.”
The Associated Press and Aaron Mehta contributed to this report.
https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/03/09/coronavirus-shaking-up-americas-defense-industry/
21 janvier 2024 | Local, Aérospatial
In a degraded environment, Exercise Mobility Guardian gave AN RCAF airlift detachment the opportunity to test concepts of operations and Strengthen interoperability in a region CC-130Js and CC-150s rarely train.
11 juin 2018 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR
La France et le Canada ont décidé de rapprocher leurs armées en créant un conseil conjoint de Défense d'ici la fin de l'année, a annoncé mercredi à l'AFP une source gouvernementale canadienne. Ce «Conseil de défense conjoint ministériel sera convoqué d'ici la fin de l'année 2018» et permettra de mieux coordonner les actions des armées canadiennes et françaises, a déclaré à l'AFP ce haut responsable canadien. Cette annonce intervient à l'occasion de la visite à Ottawa du président français Emmanuel Macron, venu se coordonner avec le premier ministre Justin Trudeau en amont du sommet du G7 qui se tient vendredi et samedi au Québec. Intitulée officiellement «Conseil franco-canadien de coopération en matière de défense», cette structure doit permettre aux armées des deux pays de conduire davantage d'opérations conjointes, a précisé cette source. Il est notamment «envisagé» de mener à terme des opérations de maintien de la paix franco-canadiennes sous les auspices des Nations-Unies, a-t-on précisé. En outre, Paris et Ottawa «s'engagent à mettre en place un Conseil des ministres franco-canadien, autour du président de la République française et du premier ministre du Canada», selon une déclaration transmise à l'AFP. Ce Conseil des ministres se réunira «au minimum» tous les deux ans «pour faire un bilan de cette coopération renforcée et développer des actions conjointes», a ajouté le haut responsable canadien. La France mène déjà de tels Conseils des ministres binationaux avec l'Allemagne et le Québec. http://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2018/06/06/creation-dun-conseil-conjoint-de-defense-canada-france
8 mai 2019 | Local, Aérospatial
QinetiQ has been awarded a C$51m (c£30m) contract to deliver unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) that will drive enhanced situational awareness for the Canadian Armed Forces. The contract will be delivered from QinetiQ's state-of-the-art unmanned vehicle manufacturing and operational facilities in Medicine Hat, Alberta. The vertical take-off UAS will provide Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) services to the Royal Canadian Navy and Special Operations Forces Command, for both domestic and international operations. The system, based on the UMS SKELDAR V-200 UAS, will be equipped with a number of sensors including an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar and Electro-optic infrared (EO/IR) camera. Robert Aube, Managing Director of QinetiQ in Canada says, “We are delighted with this contract win to deliver critical over-the-horizon situation awareness to the Royal Canadian Navy and Special Operations Forces Command. This generates tactical advantages for commanders while minimising the risk to manned helicopters and personnel. As a result of the contract, we will be pleased to see a large number of jobs created in the Southern Alberta region where UAS repair and overhaul services will be carried out.” Aube continues, “We are dedicated to providing a world-class service for the Canadian Armed Forces and the information collected and used by a UAS system of this calibre will be critical for the men and women serving Canada, both domestically and abroad.” Iain Farley, Managing Director International Business at QinetiQ says, “International growth is a core part of QinetiQ's strategy and to facilitate this, we continue to make significant investments in our subsidiary businesses and complementary acquisitions. This contract provides an important proof point that this strategy is delivering. The investment we have made in Canada has helped secure our largest Canadian contract to date and provides us with a solid foundation for delivering further QinetiQ products and services into the Canadian market and beyond.” QinetiQ will work with four principal partners to deliver the ISTAR services: Canadian-UAV, Leonardo, UMS SKELDAR and Wescam: “This is an important contract win for us alongside our partners including QinetiQ and confirms our stated strategic commitment to working with global navies following our announcement last year with the German Navy,” explains Axel Cavalli-Björkman, CEO of UMS SKELDAR, the UAV joint venture between Sweden's Saab and UMS AERO GROUP of Switzerland. “With multiple systems to be delivered in Q3 this year, the Royal Canadian Navy have secured a maritime UAV platform that not only includes our heavy fuel engine manufactured by German-based Hirth Engines, but also has an ability to carry multiple payloads.” “L3 WESCAM is proud to have been chosen by QinetiQ, as it confirms our role as a trusted global supplier of advanced imaging technologies to the UAS market,” said Cameron McKenzie, Vice President, Global Sales & Business Development of L3 WESCAM. “In fact, this order marks many strategic firsts for WESCAM in the Canadian marketplace, including a first for our MX™ Series turrets to be used by the Royal Canadian Navy, a first order for our MX-8 and MX-10D in Canada and our first contract with QinetiQ in Canada.” Sean Greenwood, President, and CEO of Canadian UAVs says, “It's a privilege and an honor to be able to work with the Canadian Armed Forces and QinetiQ, especially on such a novel project. This is the foundational contract the Canadian UAV industry has been waiting for to become world-class in autonomous vehicle service delivery and technology development. QinetiQ's recognition of CUAVS' work to date with Transport Canada in developing advanced UAV operations and their commitment to supporting local SMEs has been fundamental to our growth and cannot be understated.” Wayne Smith, Head of Radar Campaigns from Leonardo says, “We are pleased to be a part of this project with QinetiQ. Our PicoSAR Active Electronically Scanned Array radar provides an unrivalled all-weather capability for Unmanned Aerial Systems. It delivers a high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar imaging and Ground Moving Target Indication capability that will allow the SKELDAR V-200 to easily acquire a true, all-weather ground mapping and surveillance capability.” https://www.suasnews.com/2019/05/qinetiq-wins-c51m-contract-with-the-canadian-armed-forces-unmanned-aircraft-system-service-program