3 juillet 2024 | International, C4ISR
Air Force’s ‘WiFi in the sky’ provides a backbone for Gaza airdrops
The Air Force's E-11A airborne communications relay jets are providing a crucial backbone for humanitarian aid missions over Gaza.
14 août 2019 | International, Aérospatial
Precooler Technology Could Bring Advantages To Fighter Engines
By Tony Osborne
Technology developed by Britain's Reaction Engines for its SABRE (Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine) hypersonic powerplant is to be fitted on the Eurojet EJ200 engine from a Eurofighter Typhoon to understand if the technology can help transform the powerplant's operating envelope.
The £10 million ($12 million) project announced by the Royal Air Force (RAF) Rapid Capability Office (RCO) in July will see BAE Systems, Reaction Engines and Rolls-Royce engineers work to better comprehend Reaction's precooler technology and how it could be integrated for use on a jet engine—perhaps even the powerplant for Britain's future combat aircraft, the Tempest.
Two-year project will scope integration to better understand precooler potential benefits
Heat exchanger is an enabler for Reaction Engines' SABRE technology
The trials represent the first acknowledged application of the precooler technology
At high speed, jet engines struggle with a thermal challenge as air entering the intake becomes too hot, reducing thrust and limiting the ability to reach speeds beyond Mach 3. Reaction's precooler, essentially a highly efficient heat exchanger, already has proven its ability to quench megawatts of heat energy from the incoming air. Trials in the U.S. have shown the precooler technology to cool intake airflow from more than 800F (426C) to around 212F in just 1/20th of a second, helping to maximize performance.
Applied to a fighter engine, the precooler could allow it to work more efficiently at high speeds but also enable manufacturers to be less reliant on exotic, expensive and heat-resistant materials such as titanium. This could lead to lower costs in terms of purchase and maintenance, which are both key focuses of Britain's Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS TI). The goal of the FCAS TI is to research and develop new technologies that can be spiraled into Britain's Eurofighter Typhoons and Lockheed Martin F-35s, but also potentially featured in a combat aircraft to replace the Typhoon in the 2030s.
“This is Phase 1 of something more,” Air Vice Marshal, Simon “Rocky” Rochelle, chief of staff for capability and the brainchild behind the RAF's RCO, said at the Royal International Air Tattoo, where the contract was signed. “There is something here that needs to be explored, investigated, tested and tried.”
Over the next two years, engineers will study how the precooler can be integrated onto the EJ200. Once this is established, the engine and precooler will be ground-tested together.
“This isn't about a new market for EJ200. We are using existing assets to try and address that heat challenge,” Conrad Banks, Rolls-Royce's chief engineer for future defense programs, tells Aviation Week.
“If you can cool the intake air down, suddenly you can expand the flight envelope of your gas turbine and it introduces some exciting supersonic and hypersonic applications.”
There is no suggestion the UK is looking for a hypersonic fighter, especially with the high costs associated with the airframe alone. Nonetheless, the technology could enable higher supercruise performance—sustained supersonic flight without the use of afterburner, or more simply better fuel economy.
“What we will do on the testbed is assess the drop in temperature and then see how that affects the core of the engine, that then validates our model. . . . This is not about massively changing the engine,” Banks explains.
How the precooler could be fitted to the engine is also part of the scope of the study. One option could be a donut-like configuration around the intake, Banks suggests. The work also will consider how the introduction of a precooler affects the rest of the airframe and whether such an installation is affordable. The precooler fitted to the EJ200 will be “designed and scaled to the engine to match its performance,” says Banks.
As Banks describes it, the technology will not change the low-observability aspects of the platform such as the engine's infrared signature, pointing out that will depend on what is done on the back end of the engine. However, officials note such a heat exchanger also could be mounted to the rear of the engine.
For Reaction Engines, the trials build on its lightweight heat exchanger (HTX) experiments, which were conducted in Colorado and used a J79 engine from an F-4 Phantom to feed the precooler. The technology is key to the company's SABRE concept, which is targeted at air-breathing hypersonic and space access vehicles. In this role, the engine is designed to efficiently extract oxygen from the atmosphere for rocket combustion. In the fully integrated SABRE, the chilled air will be passed from the HTX to a turbo-compressor and into the rocket thrust chamber, where it will be burned with sub-cooled liquid hydrogen fuel.
Reaction Engines has raised over £100 million in the last three years from public and private sources. In addition, the UK government in 2013 announced a £60 million commitment to assist with the demonstrator engines. Strategic investments also have been made at BAE Systems in 2015 and more recently in 2018 by Rolls-Royce and by Boeing's capital venture arm, HorizonX.
https://aviationweek.com/defense/precooler-technology-could-bring-advantages-fighter-engines
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22 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Indian Air Force restructures $17 billion fighter jet program
By: Vivek Raghuvanshi NEW DELHI — The Indian Air Force is overhauling its plan to induct 114 medium-weight multirole fighters, with a senior service official saying the aircraft will be built in India with significant foreign technology transfer and no foreign procurement. The effort will cost about $17 billion under the Make in India economic policy. The Air Force official said the project is very much alive, but that the “final nitty-gritties have yet to be worked out, and that will take time because it will require manufacturing capability building in the country.” Daljit Singh, a retired Indian Air Force air marshal and current defense analyst, agreed that India must move quickly to create the capability to manufacture high-tech systems at home. “The main aim should be to extract the maximum [transfer of technology] from the OEM [original equipment manufacturer] and start manufacturing subcomponents through Indian companies," Singh said. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced Saturday that the government will create a separate budget for domestic procurement of weapons and equipment to help reduce the imports bill. A Ministry of Defence official said a formal budget allocation of about $17 billion for the multirole fighters project will be granted sometime next year, and will be launched under the Strategic Partners procurement policy. Under that policy, the multirole fighters will be manufactured by domestic private defense companies with one of the original equipment manufacturers approved by the government. The process for selecting contractors is yet to begin, but the MoD official said the businesses will be selected within three years. No private defense company in India has made fighter jets before, but several have expressed interest in participating in the program, including Tata Advanced Systems, Adani Defence, Reliance Defence, Mahindra Defence and Bharat Forge Limited. Reliance Defence has created a joint venture with France's Dassault Aviation, which currently manufactures components for Rafale fighters. Meanwhile, Tata Advanced Systems has teamed with Lockheed Martin, an American company that produces the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Adani Defence has announced a teaming arrangement Sweden's Saab AB, which makes the Gripen jet. Another Indian Air Force official said a request for information was sent in June 2018 to foreign original equipment manufacturers for the multirole fighters. Among those who have responded to the RFI are: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Dassault Aviation, Saab AB, Airbus Defence and Space, Russian Aircraft Corporation, and Sukhoi Company. The Indian Air Force plans to induct all 114 multirole fighters within 12 years after the contract is awarded. The official added that the RFI included the requirement for transfer of technology, including the transfer of design, development, manufacturing and repair expertise. It also included the requirement for the unilateral capability to integrate weapons, systems and sensors. The capability to upgrade the aircraft and a provision on exporting the aircraft is also part of the program. India is also seeking transfer of technology for stealth technology, active electronically scanned array radars, avionics, electronic warfare systems and engines. “The advantage of making a fighter aircraft in India is that the customer can select the types of sensors, EW equipment, avionics and weapons, as per operational requirements. Subsequently, the customer is assured of full logistic and upgrade support without any restriction. However, it is important to embed most of these systems in the aircraft design itself to ensure low observability and systems compatibility,” he said. However, Singh, the defense analyst, said any transfer of technology agreement would need to make business sense to the OEM. “Propriety Items could still be under the control of the OEM,” he said. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2020/05/21/indian-air-force-restructures-17-billion-fighter-jet-program/
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19 septembre 2018 | International, C4ISR
DIA announces winners in massive intelligence technology contract
By: Brandon Knapp The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) awarded spots on a contract worth up to $500 million to eight defense companies and one research organization as part of the agency's effort to buy research, development, technical, and engineering services for intelligence missions, according to an announcement from the Department of Defense Sept. 14. DIA selected AT&T, Booz Allen Hamilton, Harris Corp., KeyW Corp., Leidos Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp., Macaulay-Brown Inc., Northrop Grumman Corp., and Southwest Research Institute for the procurement program, known as HELIOS. The companies won five year contracts that include five additional one-year options. The award winners will have multiple opportunities to compete for task orders on the indefinite delivery / indefinite quantity contract in support of DIA Directorate for Science & Technology missions. Unclassified documents released in 2017 describe in part the scope of HELIOS as offering support services for “sensor technology focus areas including Measurement and Signature Intelligence” as well as “cross-cutting technology areas such as unattended remote sensing, robotics...and data processing, exploitation and dissemination.” Mission areas for HELIOS include space situational awareness, foreign counter space threats, the Internet of Things, data exfiltration, and rapid prototyping. The Virginia Contracting Activity received nine responses to their original open solicitation posted in Dec. 2016. All nine solicitors received a contract with a minimum award of $10,000. The HELIOS program has an estimated completion date of September 2028. https://www.c4isrnet.com/intel-geoint/2018/09/18/dia-announces-winners-in-massive-intelligence-technology-contract