26 décembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
By: Lolita C. Baldor, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The sooner-than-expected departure of Defense Secretary Jim Mattisshifts the focus to President Donald Trump's appointment of an acting Pentagon chief and plans for a permanent replacement.
Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan will take over as acting secretary on Jan. 1, Trump announced in a tweet Sunday. He had worked for more than three decades at Boeing Co. and was a senior vice president when he became Pentagon deputy in July 2017.
In the new year Trump wants to focus on streamlining purchases at the Pentagon, an issue on which Shanahan has already been working, a White House official said. The official asked not to be identified publicly discussing personnel matters.
U.S. officials said they didn't know if Shanahan would be Trump's nominee to replace Mattis. During a lunch with conservative lawmakers Saturday at the White House, Trump discussed his options. They were "not all military," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was among those attending.
Shanahan's biography on the Pentagon's website does not list military experience for the longtime Boeing executive. He earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Washington, then a master's degree in mechanical engineering as well as an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In addition to work in Boeing's commercial airplanes programs, Shanahan was vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems and of Boeing Rotorcraft Systems. In a March 2016 report, the Puget Sound Business Journal called Shanahan a Boeing "fix-it" man who was central to getting the 787 Dreamliner on track after production problems in the program's early years.
An acting defense secretary is highly unusual. Historically when a secretary has resigned, he has stayed on until a successor is confirmed. For example, when Chuck Hagel was told to resign in November 2014, he stayed in office until Ash Carter was confirmed the following February.
Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general, had been expected to retain his position as Pentagon chief through February. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, not the president, notified Mattis of Trump's decision to put in place Shanahan, said a senior administration official who insisted on anonymity to discuss personnel issues.
The sudden change stripped Mattis of any chance to further frame national security policy or smooth rattled relations with allies over the next two months. But U.S. officials said the reaction to Mattis' decision to leave — it sparked shock and dismay on Capitol Hill — annoyed Trump and likely led to pushing Mattis out.
"When President Obama ingloriously fired Jim Mattis, I gave him a second chance. Some thought I shouldn't, I thought I should," Trump tweeted Saturday, foreshadowing his displeasure and the Sunday announcement. He also fumed over the media coverage of his Syria withdrawal order, suggesting he should be popular for bringing troops home.
"With me, hit hard instead by the Fake News Media. Crazy!" Trump tweeted.
A White House official said Trump decided Mattis should leave the administration earlier than planned to avoid a drawn-out transition when someone on hand whom they consider a qualified deputy capable of running the Pentagon in an acting capacity. The official asked not to be identified publicly discussing personnel matters.
While Mattis' resignation followed Trump's announcement that he would soon pull all of the approximately 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria, officials said that the decision was the result of an accumulation of disagreements.
In a stunning resignation letter, Mattis made clear he did not see eye to eye with a president who has expressed disdain for NATO and doubts about keeping troops in Asia. Mattis was also unhappy with Trump's order to develop plans to pull out up to half of the 14,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Earlier Sunday, Trump's acting chief of staff said that Trump had known for "quite some time now" that he and Mattis "did not share some of the same philosophies ... have the same world view."
Mick Mulvaney told ABC's "This Week" that the president and his defense chief "just could never get on the same page" on Syria, adding that Trump had said since his presidential campaign that "he wanted to get out of Syria." Mulvaney said the president "is entitled to have a secretary of defense who is committed to that same end."
Asked whether Trump wanted a Pentagon leader willing to challenge him or someone in lock step with his views, Mulvaney said "a little bit of both."
"I've encouraged him to find people who have some overlap with him but don't see the world in lockstep with him," Mulvaney said.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., joined leading Republicans on foreign affairs in urging Trump to reconsider his decision to withdraw American forces from Syria and called it "a premature and costly mistake." They asked Trump to withhold a final decision for 90 days to allow time to study the impact of the decision, but Mulvaney told ABC that Trump wouldn't change his mind.
Just after tweeting the announcement about Shanahan, Trump said he had had "a long and productive call" with Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Trump said they discussed IS, "our mutual involvement in Syria, & the slow & highly coordinated pullout of U.S. troops from the area. After many years they are coming home."
Associated Press writers Robert Burns, Darlene Superville and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
2 juin 2022 | International, Aérospatial
The Chinook pick caps a yearslong saga for Germany to buy a new Schwerer Transporthubschrauber, or STH, as the heavy-lift chopper program is called in German.
16 décembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial
By Brian Garrett-Glaser ARLINGTON, Texas — Bell's offering for the Army's Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) contest, the 360 Invictus, is intended to offer the Army an insurance policy by presenting a lower-risk path to the capabilities it hopes to acquire as a “knife fighter” light attack helicopter to replace the retired OH-58 Kiowa Warriors. The Invictus, with its low-drag tandem cockpit design, draws from a lot of the development Bell has put into the 525 Relentless, a super-medium utility aircraft it hopes will be the first fly-by-wire rotorcraft certified for the civil market. Though Bell's FARA program is newer than some of its competitors, such as Sikorsky's S-97 Raider — Bell officials said the program had just three employees at this time last year and now comprises over 200 — the company believes its reliance on systems which it already has at a high technology readiness level due to work on the 525 will provide the Army with a compelling aircraft inside of its cost and timeline objectives. “It's still a very advanced aircraft. But by using technologies that we already had high TRLs in, or high manufacturing readiness levels in, we are ahead on that timeline piece,” Frank Lazzara, director of advanced vertical lift systems, told Avionics International during a press visit to the company's Flight Research Center here. The Invictus design meets or exceeds Army requirements in every area, according to Lazzara, due in part to the clean-sheet engineering that went into the Bell 525, including in the main and tail rotor systems. That aircraft has flown in excess of 200 knots without issue, despite being designed for 160 knots cruise speed. Bell intends the Invictus to cruise efficiently at 180 knots. “We flew [the 525] until we said we're done, but that rotor wasn't done,” said Josh O'Neill, senior manager for technology and evaluation on the Bell 525 program. “So we went not just 201 knots. It was a good bit more than that.” The 525 Relentless was the first aircraft Bell designed “totally in the 3D space,” O'Neill said, and the Invictus is similarly using a digital thread, enabling things like virtual reality maintaining exercises to provide design feedback without a physical product. “You have a digital thread, the same part that's used when you design your aircraft is used in the maintenance training, used throughout the product,” said O'Neill. “You design the aircraft in 3D, lay out all the systems and you're able to go in there with an actual maintainer. So we pulled [a line maintainer] and had him put the gloves on and go maintain the aircraft. And you can see in the 3D space, I need to reach around this piece, I need to turn my hand in a way that the human hand doesn't like to be turned. So we need to move that item.” As a fly-by-wire aircraft designed with a modular open systems architecture (MOSA) approach, Bell believes Invictus will provide the Army with an path to autonomy — or enable a single person in the aircraft to focus on mission functionality — similar to Bell's approach with the V-280 Valor, its offering for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) competition. Bell officials said they are currently introducing autonomous flight software and performing software regression tests for that aircraft and intend to begin autonomous flight tests within the next few months. In March 2020, when the Army narrows the FARA competition from five companies to two, Bell's team will be nine months into design. After that, two of the five designs — selected from Sikorsky, Bell, Karem Aircraft, AVX/L3Harris, and Boeing — will be selected to participate in a fly-off slated for the second half of 2022. The Army hopes to field the first FARA aircraft in 2028. https://www.aviationtoday.com/2019/12/15/bell-invictus-offer-army-lower-risk-path-fara-capabilities/
30 mars 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin, the world's largest defense contractor, announced a series of steps Friday to bolster the defense-industrial base to keep it humming along and to assist in the broader effort against the new coronavirus outbreak. In a statement posted on Lockheed's website, CEO Marillyn Hewson said the company recognizes “that the rapid spread of COVID-19 and its wide-ranging impacts have caused severe disruption across society and tragic loss of life around the world. We also recognize that the global pandemic has created a need for urgent action by government, business, communities and citizens.” “We will do our part to use our know-how, resources, and leadership as a company to assist our communities and our country during this period of national crisis,” Hewson wrote, before laying out a series of moves she called an “initial contribution” to the COVID-19 relief efforts. The company plans to advance “more than $50 million” to small and medium-sized companies in its supply chain to “ensure they have the financial means to continue to operate, sustain jobs and support the economy.” Pentagon officials and outside experts alike have raised concerns about risk to small companies in the supply chain. Lockheed is also dipping into a $6.5 million disaster relief fund to assist employees and retirees who are impacted by the disease, and will donate $10 million to nonprofit organizations involved in outbreak relief efforts, with an emphasis on veteran and military family issues. Additionally, Hewson pledged the use of the company's corporate aircraft and vehicle fleet for the delivery of medical supplies and for logistical support. She also offered the use of company facilities for “crisis-related activities including critical medical supply storage, distribution, and COVID-19 testing, where needed and practical,” as well as the company's technical and engineering skills if states or the federal government require assistance. The company plans to continue recruitment and hiring despite the current economic downturn, using virtual technology and other social distancing tools. Lockheed brought in more than $53.7 billion in revenue in fiscal 2018, 94 percent of which came from defense contracts, according to the annual Defense News Top 100 rankings. https://www.defensenews.com/news/coronavirus/2020/03/27/lockheed-offers-cash-to-supply-chain-use-of-private-jets-for-covid-19-fight