France to begin building new ballistic missile subs

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  3 octobre 2018 | International, Aérospatial

  Britain confirms talks with Boeing over potential $2.6B Wedgetail aircraft buy

  By: Andrew Chuter LONDON — Britain's defense secretary has revealed the government held discussions with Boeing over the purchase of a fleet of Wedgetail E-7 airborne warning and control aircraft. Discussions are also taking place with Australia about cooperating in the use of the aircraft, Gavin Williamson said. Williamson said the Ministry of Defence had undertaken market analysis and discussions with other potential providers, concluding “that the potential procurement of the E-7 represents the best value for money option for the U.K. against need, whilst representing a significant opportunity for increased defense cooperation and collaboration with our key ally Australia.” “The Wedgetail is the stand-out performer in our pursuit of a new battlespace surveillance aircraft, and has already proved itself in Iraq and Syria,” Williamson said. The MoD said in a statement that further discussions are set to take place prior to an investment decision. “If selected, U.K. industry could be involved significantly with the program, from modification work to through life support,” the MoD said. Said Williamson: “The MoD will work closely with Boeing to ensure [exploration of] how Britain's leading defense industry could also benefit from any deal.” One company expected to benefit from any E-7 deal is the Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group. Marshall already builds auxiliary fuel tanks for the Poseidon P-8 maritime patrol aircraft program, and industry sources say the Cambridge, England-based company is set to convert 737 aircraft to the Wedgetail configuration as part of the deal. The talks with Boeing about raising U.K. content on the aircraft are an effort to head off likely criticism over handing yet another major contract to the U.S. defense giant without holding a competition and with little in the way of work coming to local industry. Boeing Apache attack helicopters and Poseidon P-8 maritime patrol aircraft have both recently been purchased without a competition. The U.S. contractor is, however, trying to nullify criticism over growing its workforce here to 2,300 and spending a sizable sum of cash building Poseidon support facilities at the aircraft's main Royal Air Force operating base at Lossiemouth, Scotland. “We work with our U.K. supply chain, government and military partners to provide critical capability, U.K. content, U.K. exports, skills and value for money to our armed forces,” a Boeing spokesperson said. The intention to undertake two large, sole-source deals in the armored vehicle sector U.S. and German companies have fueled anger from a number of British defense companies over the country's procurement policy. Any British Wedgetail deal would be done with Boeing and not through the U.S. government's Foreign Military Sales route. Williamson did not provide details on cost and aircraft numbers, but up to six aircraft are expected to be procured to replace the Royal Air Force's aged Sentry E-3D fleet. The cost is likely to be in excess of £2 billion (U.S. $2.6 billion), putting more pressure on Britain's overcommitted defense budget. The likelihood of Wedgetail being purchased as a single-source procurement has provoked anger among potential rivals like Airbus and Saab. The two European companies discussed joining forces earlier this year in a move to offer a credible and cheaper option to the Wedgetail. In June, parliamentary Defence Committee Chairman Julian Lewis wrote an open letter to then-Defence Procurement Minister Guto Bebb, urging him to hold a competition to replace the Sentry E-3Ds. Williamson's announcement is also notable for the increasing depth of cooperation emerging between Britain and Australia. Australia already operates a fleet of Wedgetails, and a small number of British Royal Air Force personnel have been training on the aircraft since mid-year. “Our future with Australia will already see us operate the same maritime patrol aircraft [the P-8], Type 26 warships and F-35 jets. Wedgetail may join that formidable armory and help us work together to take on the global threats that we both face,” Williamson said. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/10/02/britain-confirms-talks-with-boeing-over-potential-26b-wedgetail-aircraft-buy/

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  9 octobre 2018 | International, Aérospatial

  As Army’s Shadow to fade from view, Textron looks to a successor

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — In the crowded exhibit halls of the U.S. Army's largest conference, a strange-looking drone — a small, flat, tailless, triangular aircraft with four flexible rotors — is suspended above a room full of giant wheeled vehicles and static helicopter displays. That aircraft, Textron's X5-55 demonstrator, hasn't been built for a customer or a particular mission, but the company believes that some of the technologies it plans to mature on the X5-55 could be spun off for future U.S. military requirements like a replacement to Textron's own RQ-7 Shadow. The goal is not to come to the services with a family of new products it can adopt, said David Phillips, Textron's senior vice president and general manager for unmanned systems. Instead, it plans to use the X5-55 as a test bed to mature new propulsion, rotor assembly and fuel cell technologies. “We're not going to say, ‘here's your product,' but we'll listen to them and we'll be ready,” he told Defense News in a Oct. 8 interview. “We know what our deployed customers want. Everything is about smaller, smaller, smaller, and doing more and [being] easier to operate and more agile and more flexible and quieter.” What sets the X5-55 apart from other drones is its vector thrust technology that allows it to take off vertically, hover, transition to normal flight and land vertically using the four electric rotors, whereas other drones that vertically take off but fly like an airplane — like the company's Aerosonde hybrid quad unmanned aircraft system — use electric-powered rotors for vertical flight and a heavy fuel engine to power their propeller during horizontal flight. “The logic allows the system, basically, literally to eliminate what we call flight control surfaces. So you won't see ailerons. You won't see flaps, you won't see servos and those things that control the elevation, climb and descend in normal flight,” he said. “That's all done with the vector thrust. We change how those electric motors and the props work in tandem to be able to climb or descend.” Textron unveiled the X5-55 this May at the Association for Unmanned Vehicles International Xponential conference, but the version shown this week at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference has already been modified with new propulsion pods and rotor assemblies that help enable vector thrust, as well as landing gear that protects the underside of the drone as it touches down. The demonstrator flies every several weeks at Textron's schoolhouse at Blackstone, Virginia. And over the next few months, the company plans to continue testing the drone's ability to move from hover to standard flight, as well as eventually work up to endurance flights that prove how long the UAS can remain airborne. Although the Army does not have a formal requirement for a Shadow replacement, officials have expressed interest in fielding one soon. Earlier this year, Brig. Gen. Wally Rugen, who runs the Army's Future Vertical Lift program, called a Shadow replacement an area where there is “potential, anyway, for a quick win,” and said that it should take a few years — not a full decade — to be able to field a new, runway-independent drone for the service. “We are talking much, much shorter, so when I'm talking ‘soon,' I'm talking just several years, not distant future,” he said. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2018/10/08/as-armys-shadow-to-fade-from-view-textron-looks-to-a-successor

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  7 juin 2023 | International, Naval

  France taps Naval Group for armed underwater drone study

  The unmanned vehicle is meant to bolster France's focus on seabed warfare as an increasingly important military domain.