Philippines hints at fresh fighter fleet amid negotiations with Sweden

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  28 septembre 2018 | International, Naval

  LOCKHEED MARTIN AND FINCANTIERI MARINETTE MARINE AWARDED CONTRACT TO BUILD LITTORAL COMBAT SHIP 29

  Construction will begin in first half of 2019 WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2018 – The U.S. Navy awarded the Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Fincantieri Marinette Marine (FMM) team a fixed price incentive fee contract to build an additional Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). LCS 29 will be built in Marinette, Wisconsin, at FMM, the Midwest's only naval shipyard, and is the 15th Freedom-variant LCS ordered by the U.S. Navy to date. The team will leverage capital investment and improvement in the shipyard and efficiencies created with serial production to maintain high quality at an affordable cost. "We are excited to continue our partnership with the U.S. Navy and FMM to build and deliver increasingly capable ships to the fleet,” said Joe DePietro, vice president, Lockheed Martin Small Combatants and Ship Systems. "With the Freedom-variant in serial production, we continue to enhance efficiency, incorporate capability while maintaining ship and program affordability." Since the LCS program's inception, Freedom-variant LCS production has injected hundreds of millions of dollars into local economies throughout the Midwest. The program supports thousands of direct and indirect jobs throughout the United States, including more than 7,500 in Michigan and Wisconsin alone. The Lockheed Martin and FMM team is in full-rate production of the Freedom-variant, and has delivered seven ships to the U.S. Navy to date, including two this year – the future USS Sioux City and the future USS Wichita. There are seven ships in various stages of construction at Fincantieri Marinette Marine. Lockheed Martin's Freedom-variant LCS is highly maneuverable, lethal and adaptable. Originally designed to support focused missions such as mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare, the team continues to evolve capabilities based on rigorous Navy operational testing; sailor feedback and multiple successful fleet deployments. The Freedom-variant LCS integrates new technology and capability to affordably support current and future mission capability from deep water to the littorals. For additional information, visit: www.lockheedmartin.com/lcs. About Lockheed Martin Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 100,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. This year the company received three Edison Awards for ground-breaking innovations in autonomy, satellite technology and directed energy. About Fincantieri Marinette Marine Fincantieri is the leading western shipbuilder with a rich history dating back more than 230 years, and a track record of building more than 7,000 ships. Fincantieri Marine Group is the American subsidiary of Fincantieri, and operates three Great Lakes Shipyards: Fincantieri Marinette Marine, Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, and Fincantieri ACE Marine. Fincantieri Marine Group's more than 2,100 steelworkers, craftsman, engineers and technicians in the United States specialize in the design, construction and maintenance of merchant ships and government vessels, including for the United States Navy and Coast Guard. About Gibbs & Cox Gibbs & Cox, the nation's leading independent maritime solutions firm specializing in naval architecture, marine engineering and design, is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The company, founded in 1929, has provided designs for nearly 80 percent of the current U.S. Navy surface combatant fleet; approaching 7,000 naval and commercial ships have been built to Gibbs & Cox designs. https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2018-09-27-Lockheed-Martin-and-Fincantieri-Marinette-Marine-Awarded-Contract-to-Build-LCS-29

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  21 décembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Here’s why the Valkyrie drone couldn’t translate between F-35 and F-22 jets during a recent test

  Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — Earlier this month, the U.S. Air Force embarked on a hotly anticipated test: Could it use a semiautonomous drone, in this case a Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie equipped with a special payload, to stealthily translate and send data between F-35 and F-22 fighter jets? Air Force leaders still think the answer is “yes,” but because of technical issues encountered during the test, proof that the concept works is still months away. During the Dec. 9 demonstration at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, the Valkyrie was outfitted with gatewayONE, a system capable of translating information from the F-35′s Multifunctional Advanced Data Link and the F-22′s Intra-Flight Data Link into a format that can be understood by other aircraft, all while maintaining a low probability of enemy forces intercepting that data. But “shortly after takeoff, the communications payloads lost connectivity,” leaving nine out of 18 test objectives incomplete, the Air Force said in a news release. Early feedback from the test team indicates that, during the rocket-assisted takeoff of the Valkyrie, some of the gatewayONE hardware came loose from where it was mated to the drone, said Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper. “We think we had a connector that came loose during it because the gateway itself was fine when the Valkyrie landed. So [it's] a thing we've learned from and we'll fix next time,” he told reporters Dec. 18 during a Defense Writers Group roundtable. “Next time we get out, flying in the next on-ramp, we'll probably check those soldering points more than one time.” Despite the setbacks, the Air Force still clocked in a number of wins during the exercise. Because the service had a second, land-based version of gatewayONE, it was able to use that system to pass targeting cues from an F-35 to an F-22 and exchange other data between the two aircraft. GatewayONE also pushed data that usually is confined to operations centers on the ground to the F-35 and F-22, while allowing those aircraft to send precise location data back through the translating system to the operations center. Although the Valkyrie couldn't transmit data between the F-22 and F-35, it still safety demonstrated that it could fly semiautonomously in operations with the two stealth jets for the first time ever. Aside from the inclusion of the XQ-58A, it's unclear how the Dec. 9 demonstration differs from ground tests of a similar system during the first Advanced Battle Management System on-ramp exercise in 2019. During that demo, the Air Force rigged together a number of radio systems built by F-35 and F-22 prime contractors Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman with antennas from Honeywell, and the aircraft flew over the test stand, exchanging data, officials said. As early as 2015, Northrop has touted its Freedom 550 radio as a translator for the F-35 and F-22, but it is unknown whether the technology is part of the gatewayONE system. The Air Force did not respond to questions from Defense News seeking more information about gatewayONE, such as a request to identify the manufacturer. During a phone call with reporters on Dec. 16, Air Force Chief Architect Preston Dunlap said the next opportunity for the service to experiment with the gatewayONE payload onboard Valkyrie is during the Advanced Battle Management System experiment slated for May 2021. Using a low-cost, expendable drone like the XQ-58 to transmit data between platforms is a contrast from the Air Force's usual approach for solving communications challenges among its assets, Dunlap said. Usually, as new data links or waveforms are developed, aircraft must be retrofitted with new radios and apertures — an expensive and time-consuming process that often leaves platforms out of the loop. “It's obvious to me that it's not a winning strategy and is a real estate problem on some of these platforms, but then it's a lost opportunity because when you have diversity of pathways, you have greater assurance,” he said. By creating a small, modular payload like gatewayONE that can be carried by a number of manned and unmanned aircraft, the Air Force will have more options for getting data into the cockpits of all of its planes. “The real big win — and we heard this from the pilots themselves — is being able to push information into their cockpits so that they have access to it in a way that is operationally relevant and useful to them,” Dunlap said. “It's not all the data they would want, but it has opened a door that's amazing. So we've got to keep pushing the technology.” The Dec. 9 test was carried out by personnel from the Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center and the 46th Test Squadron from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/2020/12/18/heres-why-the-valkyrie-drone-couldnt-translate-between-an-f-35-and-f-22-during-a-recent-test/

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  11 juin 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  C-130Hs to get avionics upgrade in half-billion dollar deal

  By: Stephen Losey The Air Force has awarded a $499 million contract to L3 Technologies to modernize avionics for the service's Guard and Reserve C-130H Herculesfleet. In a June 6 release, L3 said it had received the Air Force's C-130H Avionics Modernization Program Increment 2 contract, to design, produce and certify a plan to upgrade the 176 Hercules aircraft belonging to the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve. L3 said its upgrades will improve the Hercules' availability, reliability and sustainability, while lowering its costs to operate the transport aircraft. The aircraft will receive a commercial off-the-shelf avionics suite and L3 will provide training services, according to the release. The contractor will carry out the work at its facility in Waco, Texas. “L3 is committed to delivering innovative, cost-effective solutions to ensure mission readiness in support of the U.S. Air Force's modernization strategy,” L3 CEO and president Christopher Kubasik said in the release. “We are focused on providing an agile and low-risk approach to modernizing the Air Force's diverse fleet of C-130s, enabling these assets to operate well into the future.” The Air Force's C-130Hs are among the older transport aircraft in the fleet. In 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, the Air Force's 188 C-130Hs had an average age of 28 years. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/06/10/c-130hs-to-get-avionics-upgrade-in-half-billion-dollar-deal/