General Electric beats Rolls-Royce to power Turkey’s indigenous fighter jet

Sur le même sujet

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  23 janvier 2020 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

  The Air Force tested its Advanced Battle Management System. Here’s what worked, and what didn’t.

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The first field test of the U.S. Air Force's experimental Advanced Battle Management System in December was a success, with about 26 out of 28 capabilities showing some semblance of functionality during a recent exercise, the service's acquisition chief said Tuesday. But the service will seek to be more ambitious during a second demonstration in April, which will focus on space and bring in elements from U.S. Space Command and U.S. Strategic Command, said Will Roper, the Air Force's assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics. "I am thrilled to say that 26 out of 28 things work. That is too high of a success rate at this point in time, but I'll take it. We should be taking more risk than that,” he told reporters during a roundtable. The three-day test took place at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, and involved a potential cruise missile attack on the United States simulated by QF-16 drones. Through the exercise, Air Force F-22 jets, Air Force and Navy F-35 fighters, the Navy destroyer Thomas Hudner, an Army unit equipped with the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, as well as special operators shared data in real time in ways the services cannot currently do in an operational environment. What will ABMS eventually look like? That's still a mystery, even to the Air Force, which wants to test different solutions for connecting platforms, crunching data and sending it to other assets with the goal of eventually fielding what works and abandoning what doesn't. “We gave the team the goals of: Pull what you can together in three and a half months to see how far we can stretch, how quickly we could achieve something,” said Air Force chief architect Preston Dunlap, who manages the ABMS effort. “We were quite happy actually, even with 10 percent solutions.” Here's a rundown of some notable successes so far, as well as major failures: The F-35 and F-22 were able to stealthily exchange data. Despite the two jets having advanced “sensor fusion” capabilities, the Air Force's two most advanced fighters can't really talk to each other. The F-35 uses the Multifunction Advanced Data Link, or MADL, to securely share sensitive information with other F-35s, while the F-22 has its own data link, the Intra-Flight Data Link, or IFDL. Even using a non-stealthy connection to share information has its limitations: While the F-35 can both transmit and receive data via the Link 16, which meets NATO standards, the F-22 currently can only receive data. However, the first ABMS test showed hopeful signs for fifth-generation fighter communication. The demonstration involved radio systems — built by F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin as well as Northrop Grumman, which manufactures key structures and mission systems for the aircraft, including MADL, Dunlap said. The demo also included Honeywell-made antennas built to speak across both MADL and IFDL, he added. Those systems were integrated onto a ground based rig that “look[ed] like a big piece of hardware with radios on it,” according to Roper. Then, the F-35 and F-22 flew over the system, exchanging data by bouncing it back-and-forth from the ground-based radios, Dunlap said. He noted that the test verified that existing technology can be used to overcome three obstacles: translating the F-35's MADL to the F-22's IFDL; moving data across the different frequencies; and securing the communication. "It was really herculean,” Dunlap said. "[The contractors] were excited by the speed of the acquisition team to get the ball going." During the next ABMS demo in April, the Air Force plans to stretch the capability by putting the translation system inside the unmanned Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie for flight-based testing. “I also challenged the team to expand the amount of information translated between the different platforms so they can take advantage of new information on the displays,” Dunlap said. An AC-130 gunship connected with SpaceX's Starlink constellation. Although Dunlap did not provide much detail on this element of the exercise, he confirmed that the AC-130 was able to pass data through the constellation of small, high-bandwidth commercial internet satellites. The Air Force has shown interest in connecting its platforms to commercial broadband satellites through its Global Lightning experiment. A demonstration with Starlink and the KC-135 tanker aircraft is in the works, and the service also plans to evaluate equipment from Iridium, OneWeb and L3Harris. The Air Force created a cloud-based application for command and control. Typically, the service performs command and control from air operations centers — physical buildings where analysts sit in front of computers with specialized software that provides data from multiple assets, Dunlap said. Changes to software don't necessarily happen automatically, and they may require assistance from information technology experts. In the ABMS exercise, the Air Force demonstrated a cloud-based battle management and situational awareness application for the first time. It used a “CloudOne” system to host data up to the secret level, which will be a formative system underlying ABMS, Dunlap said. Both Amazon and Microsoft are involved in standing up the CloudOne technology, but Roper said the Air Force could use the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract vehicle for CloudOne if JEDI winner Microsoft provides better rates. The robot dogs were a swing and a miss. U.S. Special Operations Command brought the robots that are capable of augmenting surveillance operations to the ABMS field test, but operators couldn't figure out how to connect them with the other platforms involved in the exercise. “We had some robot dogs — apparently those exist — that can go and do patrol. We were never able to patch their feeds in,” Roper said. There's hope for cybernetic canines becoming part of ABMS in the future though. Roper added that the ABMS team would be welcome to try to integrate the robots in future exercises. https://www.c4isrnet.com/air/2020/01/22/the-us-air-force-tested-its-advanced-battle-management-system-heres-what-worked-and-what-didnt/

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  1 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  COVID-19 News: Virus Hurting Army Small Businesses

  By Connie Lee The COVID-19 pandemic is putting particular stress on the Army's second- and third-tier suppliers, said the service's secretary April 30. The Army is racing to ensure its manufacturing supply chain is able to stay afloat amid economic challenges posed by the virus, said Ryan McCarthy. “Some of these are small companies [that have] 15,000 people, and you get a couple people sick, you shut the whole company down,” he said during a virtual event hosted by Brookings Institution. The supply chain will "be a challenge for us months and months ahead.” The pandemic is also hurting overseas manufacturing in areas such as Mexico, Europe and East Asia, where the Army has little influence, he noted. The service is working with the State Department to figure out how to keep overseas workers employed and keep the supply chain running, he said. “We are limited in our ability to affect them and get them back to work,” McCarthy said. “It presents challenges that are far beyond our reach and ... influence, so we're going to have some real heart-to-hearts with manufacturers going forward.” Despite these issues, the Army is continuing to prioritize modernization, he said. Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said the service is moving forward with weapons assessments, noting that it was recently able to conduct a successful hypersonic weapons test. As part of its plan to keep up with great power competition, the service is pursuing 31 new signature systems. “Over half of our procurement budget is going towards these new weapon systems,” McCarthy said. “We've got to put them into formation. Much of our iron is 50 years old. That probably is the prime area where we put the most energy.” Meanwhile, the Army is collaborating with other organizations in search of a vaccine. There are 10 to 15 top potential vaccine candidates worldwide that are in various stages of maturity, McCarthy said during a Pentagon briefing the same day. To speed up the timeline, the service plans on investing in the ones that seem to be moving the fastest, he noted. “We can double down and invest in the fastest horse, if you will, in this 15 candidate race, and then that compresses the timeframe that will ultimately get you to the answer and bring a vaccine to life,” he said. “You'll hear ranges on how fast it can go.” Some of these vaccines are currently in human trials, with the bulk of the work slated for summer and early fall, he noted. “It's moving faster than probably any point in history because of the extraordinary collaboration that's going on today,” he said. However, this may involve accepting some risks in the process, McConville noted at the briefing. “You can save time by taking risks,” he said. “You may get ready to produce something, and that horse may not get to the final race and that may not be the most efficient use of money, but by taking risks, you can really move things very, very quickly.” https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/4/30/covid-hurting-army-small-businesses

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  2 janvier 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Defense Spending In The Middle East Continues Strong Growth

  In 2018, major fault lines developed in the relations between the Middle East's largest power, Saudi Arabia, and its Western allies. For decades, Riyadh has been one of the major buyers of European and U.S. defense equipment, but there is growing uneasiness about how Saudi Arabia has been using it. International pressure increases on Saudi-led conflict in Yemen Middle Eastern nations grow combat mass and capability Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen was already controversial, but ... http://aviationweek.com/defense/defense-spending-middle-east-continues-strong-growth