Navy Exploring Options for Multi-Engine Training Aircraft to Replace T-44

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  29 novembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial

  Air Force awards Boeing $2.3B contract for 15 more KC-46s

  The award brings to 153 the number of KC-46s Boeing is on contract to build worldwide for the United States and allies.

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  9 août 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Royal Air Force Typhoon jets to receive key sensor upgrade

  By: Andrew Chuter WARTON — With a complex weapons integration program squared away, giving Royal Air Force Typhoon jets more punch, key sensors on the jet could see an upgrade. The RAF's test and evaluation squadron is already test flying the Litening 5 targeting pod in order to optimize its operation by Typhoon pilots. Work is also underway to update and improve the reliability of the jets Pirate passive infrared airborne track equipment, said Andy Flynn, BAE System's Typhoon capability director. Known as Project Centurion, the British late last year completed integration of MBDA's Meteor, Brimstone and Storm Shadow missiles on Typhoon in 47 months. At a cost of around £425 million, or $515.83 million, the program allowed the RAF to stand down the entire fleet of Tornado jets that had provided the primary strike capability. Flynn told reporters during a briefing at the company's Warton combat air site in northwest England Aug. 7 that the sensor work was “the next iteration of Centurion.” “Agile spiral development and keeping the aircraft relevant is the phase we are in. We have done the big leap and it's now about keeping it relevant,” he said. The Tornado was a two-seat aircraft, whereas the Typhoon is single seat. Flynn said the work on the Litening 5 was about easing pilot workload. “What we are doing now is getting the feedback from customer and operations teams on how to make that tasking simpler and really increase the cycle time on ops. We've already got Litening 5 pods up in the air as an iteration and we are seeking feedback from 41 Squadron [the test and evaluation squadron], ” he said. The plan is to get the enhanced capability “out to the front line by the end of next year,” said Flynn. Development phase work is also underway on a new iteration of Pirate as well improving the reliability and robustness of the sensor. “That work is in the development phase and we are doing that over the Autumn period. What we are doing on Typhoon overall is really enhancing the sensors capability as well making the workload easier for the pilot,” said Flynn. The sensor changes are a small part of a wider capability update on the Typhoon to keep aircraft relevant until they go out of service, currently set for 2040. On the horizon for the RAF is a new e-scan radar, known as Radar 2, which is being developed for the British by Leonardo; the new BAE Striker II helmet; and networked enabled weapons. But, Eurofighter, the Airbus, BAE, and Leonardo industrial partnership responsible for the development and production of the Typhoon, is also conducting a review of future potential updates to the fighter. Eurofighter announced at the Paris Air Show in June a deal valued at 53.7 million euros with the NATO Eurofighter & Tornado Management Agency, or NETMA, to undertake a long-term evolution review of the fighter and the EJ200 engine over the next 19 months. NETMA represents the British, German, Italian and Spanish governments. Flynn said there were more than 50 separate candidate technologies being considered by the evolution review. Some of those potential upgrades could also find themselves cross decking to the Tempest sixth-generation fighter now being proposed by the British. Clive Marrison, the industrial requirements director for Team Tempest, the industrial/government partnership leading the next-generation fighter work , said both jets could benefit from close development ties. “Typhoon could benefit from some of the technologies that Tempest is looking at and by the same token Tempest could benefit from some of the technologies that Typhoon is investing in,” said Marrison. For example: Some of the cockpit and helmet work BAE is doing might allow industry to offer some of those technologies back into Typhoon, said Marrison. While the BAE executives were looking into the future for British combat air capabilities, the Typhoon approaches a landmark of sorts to be celebrated. Sixteen years after taking delivery of its first Typhoon, the RAF is preparing to receive the final aircraft ordered for its fleet in the next few weeks, said Flynn. The final aircraft in a British order for 160 Typhoons made its test flight recently and is due to be handed over to the RAF in the coming weeks. Completion of the order leaves 24 aircraft destined for Qatar on the order book for BAE, although it is also building parts of the Typhoons sold to Kuwait by Eurofighter partner Leonardo. Three equipment sets have so far been completed at BAE's Samlesbury plant near Warton, destined for the Leonardo assembly site in Italy. Flynn said the Qatar build program was just getting underway. The 24 aircraft order will see deliveries start in 2022 with completion set for 2024. https://www.c4isrnet.com/global/europe/2019/08/08/royal-air-force-typhoon-jets-to-receive-key-sensor-upgrade/

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  23 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Trilateral Tempest Expands Industrial Base

  Tony Osborne Ninety percent of Britain's front-line combat aircraft are crewed, but British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace says he expects a “major reversal” of these proportions by 2040. Wallace's speech at the opening of a virtual Farnborough Airshow on July 20—a message reminiscent of the late Duncan Sandys' 1957 defense white paper that declared the manned fighter redundant and guided and ballistic missiles to be the future of Britain's defense—may hint at a radically altered Royal Air Force (RAF) with heavy fielding of swarming UAVs and other additive capabilities such as “loyal wingmen” dominating fleets. But Wallace's comments also touched on the trajectory for the UK-led Tempest Future Combat Air System (FCAS), which is targeted to begin to replace the UK's fleet of Eurofighter Typhoons from 2035. Air Chief Marshal Mike Wigston, chief of the Air Staff, said at the RAF's annual air power conference on July 15 that he intended any FCAS to be optionally manned. Sandys' defense plan sent reverberations through the UK aerospace industry, but the vision for the Tempest calls for a similar fundamental revolution. Saab spending £50 million on UK FCAS hub Technologies are being matured to support year-end business case submission BAE Systems says its factory of the future will subsume the need for heavy, fixed and long-lead tooling—halving production time compared with previous programs. And industry is looking to new players for cybersecurity technology from the banking world and materials technology from the automotive sector, companies from outside the typical defense industrial base. Two years since the announcement of Team Tempest—the industry consortium of BAE Systems, Leonardo, MBDA, Rolls-Royce and the British government's Combat Air Strategy that coalesced at the 2018 Farnborough Airshow—the group is growing for the first time, with the inclusion of Bombardier UK, Collins Aerospace, GE UK, GKN, Martin-Baker, Qinetiq and Thales UK. The additions to the team come in the form of a first wave of industrial agreements, with BAE hinting that more industrial partners will follow. Of the new partners, Collins announced it had been contracted by BAE to provide advanced actuation capabilities. Sweden's Saab announced also on July 20 that it is investing £50 million ($58 million) into the creation of an FCAS center in the UK. The facility will serve as a hub for the company's participation in the FCAS and represent Stockholm's first tentative steps into the venture. Saab does not name the Tempest specifically, with CEO Micael Johansson hinting that Sweden's involvement is focused more on the technology rather than the future platform. “Saab's FCAS strategy ensures that the technology is in place to support a long-term future air capability and also to support continuous upgrades of Gripen E for decades to come,” Johansson said. While the international partnership model for the Tempest has yet to be finalized, British officials have suggested that the partnerships could be agile and scalable. In other words, allowing nations to “partner in a way that suits them,” Richard Berthon, the UK Defense Ministry's Combat Air acquisition program director, previously told Aviation Week (AW&ST July 13-26, p. 52). Johannsson said nations looking to refresh their fleets with the current generation of fighters, like the Gripen or Typhoon, should not be concerned about the push to deliver the Tempest during the 2030s. “A strong joint partnership around a future combat air system will also guarantee Gripen and Eurofighter access to new technologies,” Johannsson said. Existing customers, he said, should see the FCAS as a “seal of approval as we safeguard continuous fighter development.” Until now, the work between the national partners had been on a bilateral basis. The aim was “to define our common objectives,” BAE Systems CEO Charles Woodburn says. But this work has now extended into trilateral studies that include “assessing how we can start to realize the huge potential for collaboration across our three nations,” Woodburn says. Although the talks are now trilateral in nature, the UK says it is still keen to see more international partners “join our flightpath to discovery,” Wallace adds. Industry is already beginning to think trilaterally, with GKN Aerospace in Sweden confirming it will work with Rolls-Royce in the UK and Avio Aero in Italy on feasibility studies for a future fighter jet engine. GKN states it was contracted in the first quarter of 2020 by Sweden's defense materiel agency, FMV, to conduct a study in collaboration with Rolls-Royce. Few details have emerged on the 60 technology demonstration programs currently being developed and matured by Team Tempest in support of the UK Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS TI). Michael Christie, BAE's head of Future Combat Air Systems, says work on maturing the technologies ready to support the business case submission to the British government at the end of this year has seen the partners “at least achieve or exceed” the maturity targets set, doing so “at great pace” and providing “fundamental evidence to the business case.” “Every one of these [60] projects will deliver a UK, European or world first,” says Cecil Buchanan, the RAF Rapid Capability Office's chief scientist. https://aviationweek.com/ad-week/trilateral-tempest-expands-industrial-base