17 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force will soon announce that the service can update an aircraft's software while in flight, the Air Force's chief software officer said Tuesday.
Nicolas Chaillan, the service's software czar, hinted at the announcement during a wide-ranging interview on a webcast hosted by C4ISRNET, but he declined to share which aircraft could handle the upgrade before the formal announcement is made. The update is part of a larger push by the Air Force to modernize its software practices.
However, Chaillan described the news as a “gamechanger” and offered insight into the challenges associated with updating software during flights.
“We need to decouple the flight controls, the [open mission systems], all the air worthiness piece of the software from the rest of the mission [and] capability of [that] software so we can update those more frequently without disrupting or putting lives at risk when it comes to the flying piece of the jet or the system,” Chaillan said.
A formal announcement could follow in coming days.
The Air Force is embracing agile development and DevSecOps in several of its programs to accelerate development time and deploy tools faster. Critical to this effort has been two Air Force environments — Cloud One and Platform One. Platform One, which was recently deemed an enterprise solution by the Department of Defense, is a software development platform that hosts a broad range of DoD components, including the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. The JAIC moved to the Air Force platform as it awaits the results of an ongoing court battle between Amazon Web Services and Microsoft over the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI cloud.
Chaillan said the F-35 program is also planning to move to Platform One soon. He added that he wants the platform to serve as a “software factory as a service.”
In the next 12 to 18 months, Chaillan said that he sees the service continuing to add artificial intelligence and machine learning into its systems at scale. Both Cloud One and Platform One will be critical to the development of those systems. Cloud One, a multi-cloud environment with Microsoft and AWS, will also be looking to add new vendors “down the road,” Chaillan said. The Air Force's decision to go the multi-award route over the single award structure like JEDI made sense because of the advancement of cloud technology taken by the Air Force, Chaillan said.
“When JEDI started, it did make sense to have a single award because cloud is very hard and very complex and it did makes sense to start there. Would I do that now? Probably not. I think technology changed,” Chaillan said.
23 avril 2024 | International, Sécurité
Businesses face massive disruptions from cyberattacks. From revenue losses to strained customer relations. Discover the hidden costs of cyber breaches
13 novembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial
by Charles Forrester Qatari pilots will soon be training at Italy's International Flight Training School (IFTS), following an agreement between the Qatar's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah, and Italy's minister of defence Lorenzo Guerini on 11 November. In a release by the Italian Ministry of Defence, Guerini said, “The partnership between Italy and Qatar in the defence sector is confirmed as having a high strategic value. I am here to renew our commitment to deepen the ongoing collaboration that embraces all sectors.” Part of the two countries' co-operation agreement would include the training of Qatar Emiri Air Force (QEAF) pilots at the IFTS, which is operated as a joint venture by Leonardo and the Italian Air Force at Lecce-Galatina, and the soon-to-be-opened facility at Decimomannu Air Base in Sardinia. Qatar currently operates the Pilatus PC-21 and PAC Super Mushshak aircraft in the training role. The country has also ordered nine BAE Systems Hawk Advanced Jet Trainers. According to Janes World Air Forces, in-country flight training is conducted at Qatar's Armed Forces Air Academy (also known as the Al Zaeem Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Attiyah Air College), established at Al Udeid in 2014. The establishment of the academy is seen as a tangible step towards bringing additional training capacity within Qatar's borders, rather than the heavy reliance upon foreign states and allies that Qatar has previously required. https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/qatar-signs-up-for-leonardos-ifts
16 mai 2023 | International, Autre défense
NATO member Denmark said on Tuesday that it aims to strengthen defence ties with other Nordic countries to protect critical infrastructure and counter the Russian threat both in the Arctic and the Baltic Sea region.