22 août 2024 | International, C4ISR

In a world of drones, Ukraine’s artillerymen rushed to defend Kharkiv

The tide is turning, thanks in no small part to donated Western arms like the venerable M777 towed howitzer, but their effectiveness has taken a hit.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/08/22/in-a-world-of-drones-ukraines-artillerymen-rushed-to-defend-kharkiv/

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  • Just hours before Biden’s inauguration, the UAE and US come to a deal on F-35 sales

    21 janvier 2021 | International, Aérospatial

    Just hours before Biden’s inauguration, the UAE and US come to a deal on F-35 sales

    By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON —The United Arab Emirates on Jan. 20 signed off on a deal to purchase up to 50 F-35 joint strike fighter aircraft and 18 MQ-9 Reaper drones from the United States. According to Reuters, which broke the news, the agreement was one of the final acts of the Trump administration, occurring just an hour before President Joe Biden was inaugurated. A source with knowledge of the situation confirmed separately to Defense News that the U.S. and UAE officials on Wednesday signed a letter of agreement, which solidifies the terms of a foreign military sale between two nations. The departments of State and Defense did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The agreement delineates the cost of the aircraft, technical specifications and the schedule for F-35 deliveries to the UAE, people familiar with the deal told Reuters. Those sources could not confirm when the first F-35 is due to be delivered to Abu Dhabi, but stated that an initial proposal stipulated 2027 as one possible date. The UAE deal was previously estimated at a $23.37 billion value, including 50 F-35A fighters worth $10.4 billion, 18 MQ-9B drones worth $2.97 billion, and $10 billion worth of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions. Those dollar totals are expected to shift around during further negotiations with F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin and MQ-9 maker General Atomics. It's unclear whether the incoming administration will seek to undo the deal. Biden's pick for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told reporters in late October that the sale is “something we would look at very, very carefully,” due to U.S. obligations to preserve Israel's qualitative military edge. In December, the Senate rejected an attempt to block the sale, with Republicans largely voting to preserve the deal. The first vote concerned the drones and munitions and failed 46-50, while the second concerned the F-35s and fell 47-49. Aaron Mehta and Joe Gould in Washington contributed to this report. https://www.defensenews.com/global/mideast-africa/2021/01/20/just-hours-before-bidens-inauguration-the-uae-and-us-come-to-a-deal-on-f-35-sales

  • RAF Waddington gets ready for new Protector drone testing trial

    24 août 2021 | International, Aérospatial

    RAF Waddington gets ready for new Protector drone testing trial

    A new shape coming to the Lincolnshire skies

  • Key piece of F-35 logistics system unusable by US Air Force students, instructor pilots

    12 mars 2019 | International, Aérospatial

    Key piece of F-35 logistics system unusable by US Air Force students, instructor pilots

    By: Valerie Insinna EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — The F-35 fighter jet's logistics backbone has proven so clunky and burdensome to work with that the U.S. Air Force's instructor pilots, as well as students learning to fly the aircraft, have stopped using a key piece of the system, Defense News has learned. The Autonomic Logistics Information System, built by F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin, was supposed to consolidate training, maintenance and supply chain management functions into a single entity, making it easier for users to input data and oversee the jet's health and history throughout its life span. ALIS has been a disappointment to maintainers in the field, with updates coming behind schedule and many workarounds needed so it functions as designed. But the Air Force's F-35A instructor and student pilots at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, and Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, were so disappointed with the performance of ALIS' training system that they bailed entirely, confirmed Col. Paul Moga, commander of Eglin's 33rd Fighter Wing. “The functionality in ALIS with regards to TMS — the training management system — was such a source of frustration and a time waste to the instructor pilots and the simulator instructors and the academic instructors that we at [Air Education and Training Command] in coordination with us [at Eglin] and Luke made a call almost a year ago to stop using the program,” Moga said during a Feb. 26 interview. Moga said the command's F-35 training squadrons are “not going to start using TMS again until it works.” So in the meantime, F-35A training squadrons have adopted a legacy system, Northrop Grumman's Global Training Integrated Management System. GTIMS is used by the Air Force, Army and Navy across a number of aircraft inventories to manage training schedules and cut the man-hours and costs associated with doing that work, according to a Northrop fact sheet. At this point, GTIMS provides a more agile, efficient user experience than ALIS' training management system, Moga said. But it doesn't sync with ALIS, so pilots and instructors must do “double data entry” so that each system has a record of flight records, currencies and qualifications. Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/03/08/key-piece-of-f-35-logistics-system-unusable-by-us-air-force-students-instructor-pilots/

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