29 octobre 2021 | International, Aérospatial

Raytheon CEO: Air Force may not be able to afford new F-35 engine

The proposed adaptive engine for the F-35A is intended to deliver better fuel efficiency and thrust by using a third stream of air.

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2021/10/26/raytheon-ceo-air-force-may-not-be-able-to-afford-new-f-35-engine/

Sur le même sujet

  • New Air Force leaders view plans for more virtual pilot training

    24 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial

    New Air Force leaders view plans for more virtual pilot training

    Stephen Losey The Air Force's new military leaders, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne Bass, made their first trip with Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett Thursday. The leadership team traveled to Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph in Texas, where they were shown Air Education and Training Command's plans to take lessons from its virtual reality and artificial intelligence-infused pilot training experiment, called Pilot Training Next, and incorporate them into a new version of undergraduate pilot training, which the Air Force is calling UPT 2.5. In a conference call with reporters Friday, Barrett said the leadership team was “celebrating innovation” and airmen during their trip. The trio also visited AFWERX, the Air Force's innovation hub in Austin, and saw some of the programs it is working on. One of those, Agility Prime, aims to improve logistics and transportation with “flying cars, very Jetsons-like,” Barrett said. Barrett said the Air Force expects virtual pilot training not only will produce pilots cheaper and faster, but also better. Brown, who became the 22nd chief of staff Aug. 6, said that taking care of airmen and their families, and ensuring their quality of service and quality of life remain high, are among his top priorities. That is why he, Barrett and Bass decided to come to Randolph for their first trip together, he said, to see how the Air Force develops its future leaders. “We start leadership development the first day they walk in the door,” Brown said. “That, to me, is important, particularly when you look at the dynamics of what we're dealing with, whether it's COVID, racial disparity, potential budget pressures, high-end fight.” https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2020/08/22/new-air-force-leaders-view-plans-for-more-virtual-pilot-training/

  • Switzerland names contenders in $8 billion ‘Air 2030’ program

    5 avril 2018 | International, Aérospatial

    Switzerland names contenders in $8 billion ‘Air 2030’ program

    By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — Swiss officials have unveiled details of their envisioned reboot of the country's air-defense complex, setting the stage for purchases of aircraft and ground-based missiles totaling more than $8 billion. The head of Switzerland's defense and civilian protection department, Guy Parmelin, on Friday unveiled a list of requirements for the “Air 2030” program that the neutral country wants to begin fulfilling in the mid-2020s to defend its skies and repel intruders. The existing fleet of decades-old F/A-18 and F-5 jets is considered too outdated for the task. New aircraft under consideration include the Airbus Eurofighter, Dassault's Rafale, Saab's Gripen, the F/A-18 Super Hornet from Boeing and Lockheed Martin's F-35A, according to the March 23 list of requirements published by the defense department. Ground-based weapons on the short list are the Eurosam consortium's SAMP/T system; the David's Sling missile shield from Israel; and Raytheon's Patriot system. Swiss officials want to protect an area of 15,000 square kilometers with ground-based weapons, which is more than one-third of the country. They also seek to intercept targets up to 12 kilometers high and 50 kilometers away. The envisioned concept of operations dictates that a fleet of roughly 40 aircraft will intercept those targets outside of the ground weapons' range. Officials want enough capacity to have four planes in the air at any given time during crises. Request for proposals for an acquisition program are expected to be published in the summer, Renato Kalbermatten, a spokesman for the defense department, told Defense News in an email Tuesday. Before a referendum is held about the project in the first half of 2020, ministry officials want to finish qualification of all potential vendors. That includes studying the data from a first round of proposals and collecting final offers from those still in the running at that time, according to Kalbermatten. Referendums are a key tool of the Swiss political process. Asked by a Swiss news agency this month if the country would still have an air force if the population voted against spending money on Air 2030, Parmelin responded dryly: “That's policymaking in Switzerland.” The Swiss won't be asked which type of aircraft the country should buy, only about the program as a whole. Government analysts would then decide which system is best suited for the task, Parmelin said. A 2014 plebiscite saw the acquisition of Sweden's Gripen defeated, a rare outcome for a referendum on security policy matters, Swiss national broadcaster SRF commented at the time. Notably, Germany's future TLVS air and missile defense system, a development based on the trinational Medium Extended Air Defense System, is missing from the lineup of candidate ground-based weapons. That is because the Swiss consider that system suitable only for short and medium ranges, according to Kalbermatten. “As Switzerland has not had a defense system for long ranges since 1999, the first goal is buying a long-range system,” he wrote. Exactly how much money will go to aircraft purchases and how much to ground weapons will depend on the interplay between the two program components ultimately picked, according to officials. However, previous estimates assume that $6 billion or $7 billion would be spent on planes. Winning bidders must agree to arrange for 100 percent of the program cost to flow back into the Swiss economy through so-called offset agreements. Those can be negotiated after final contracts are signed, according to the defense department. The government is looking for aircraft and missile hardware as is, meaning few to no “Helvetizations,” or Swiss-specific tweaks, would be made to the weapons, the new requirements document states. The ministry wants to purchase a single plane type under a “one-fleet policy.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/03/27/switzerland-names-contenders-in-8-billion-air-2030-program/

  • Budget strain pauses MC-130J amphibious project for special forces

    8 mai 2024 | International, Aérospatial

    Budget strain pauses MC-130J amphibious project for special forces

    U.S. Special Operations Command has paused an ambitious program to make its MC-130J transport plane capable of water landings and takeoff.

Toutes les nouvelles