31 mai 2019 | International, Aérospatial
MADRID — Spanish defense companies are chomping at the bit to get into the business of building Europe's next-generation combat aircraft, just as the government is about to formally enter the Franco-German project.
While the extent of the Spanish industry participation in the Future Combat Air System program is still an open question, some of the companies at the inaugural FEINDEF defense expo in Madrid, Spain, are beginning to jockey for position.
Brig Gen. Juan Pablo Sanchez de Lara, chief of the Spanish Air Force's plans division, told reporters at the expo that industrial cooperation is “essential for us.”
“We are not new in the business,” he said. “Of course Spanish companies are very keen to participate.”
Airbus, for example, which is already a prime contractor besides Dassault from France, is looking to bring into play its local work with the Spanish Air Force for the cockpit design of the future fighter aircraft.
The Spanish air service presented an Airbus-made cockpit prototype — part futuristic lab, part test bed for additional design work — at its booth, pitching it as a contender for the FCAS program. The setup features a large, panoramic screen similar to that in the F-35, sprinkling in some traditional controls beside the pilot.
Officials said the cockpit is the result of previous concept work, concluding that fusing information and commanding nearby drones, for example, are key requirements. Tests are ongoing based on operational vignettes crafted by the Air Force to see how pilots handle workload, stress and the torrent of information thrown at them during flight.
When the first FCAS aircraft takes to the skies around 2040, “the scenarios will be more complex,” Ignacio de Castro Vidal, Airbus Defence and Space future capabilities program manager at the defense giant's Madrid location, predicted in an interview with Defense News.
That is a reference to the expectation that warfare itself will be more complicated, but it's also an acknowledgment that the program is designed with so much networked technology that the task of flying the aircraft must be kept manageable.
To increase the ease of use for pilots, the company plans to lean heavily on voice commands to operate the aircraft's systems, de Castro Vidal said.
Spanish electronics specialist Indra is also eyeing work on elements of the next-gen fighter aircraft.
“Indra is the second provider of avionic systems for the Eurofighter,” Pedro Barco, the company's director of platforms, wrote in a statement to Defense News. “The experience gained in this project allows us to play a key role as integrator of the system of systems for the FCAS.
“In particular, we have a strong experience in electronic warfare systems, voice and data communications, and radar detection and identification systems.”
Eurofighter Typhoon-maker Airbus has pitched upgraded versions of that jet as a gap filler until the new aircraft is developed and built, saying that the planned upgrades would serve as something of a sandbox to try new air warfare concepts. Spain and Germany fly that aircraft, while France has the Rafale.
As for engines, ITP Aero, based north of Madrid, hopes to share development work with France's Safran and Germany's MTU.
“ITP is looking forward to the next step of the program, and we want to be a part of it from the beginning,” Marta Gimeno Garcia-Andrade, director of the company's defense business unit, told Defense News.
She said a key area of expertise for ITP Aero lies in low-pressure turbines and movable, “thrust-vectoring” nozzles.
Several Spanish defense executives at the FEINDEF expo said expect Spain's formal integration into FCAS to take place at the Paris Air Show in mid-June.
Officials in Germany, however, said earlier this week the exact sequence of extending the program's framework agreement to include Madrid was still in flux. That is because the German parliament has yet to greenlight funding for an ongoing study contract and because legal issues with the agreement text may not be fully sorted out in time.
11 octobre 2023 | International, Sécurité
Israel's northern border with Lebanon and Syria represents a potential flashpoint in the conflict that erupted over the weekend — one that experts say bears watching over the next several days because it could be a harbinger of a wider regional war in the Middle East.
16 juillet 2020 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — After decades of trying to break into the U.S. military aircraft market, Airbus is shifting course with a new strategy that prioritizes selling off-the-shelf sensors, data, space and intelligence capabilities that have been customized for U.S. government buyers. During a Wednesday discussion with reporters about the new direction for the business, Chris Emerson, the new chief executive of the Airbus U.S. Space and Defense division and formerly the president of Airbus Helicopters, said he wanted to move the company's focus in the United States away from the major fixed-wing platforms that are the company's bread and butter in Europe. Instead, he hopes to expand the company's presence in the growing space and intelligence markets, particularly with low-cost satellites like those made by its joint venture One Web, geospatial intelligence and imaging, and space-based sensors. “We know the Air Force needs an A400M, but I can spend 10 years trying to convince the Air Force and all the politicians that they should buy an A400M. And ultimately they will buy C-130s,” Emerson said. “So let me focus this energy, this great leadership team, on achieving something that is tangible today that the customer really needs. Yes, it's not traditional for Airbus, but it will bring the value and we'll have a better foundation if one day my successor says, ‘You know, I want to be a big platform competitor.' At least we'd have built up trust and proven that we could really meet the requirements that are demanded of it.” Although Airbus is a juggernaut in the international military and commercial aerospace market, it has always struggled to find its place among the U.S. defense prime contractors as major aircraft manufacturers. It famously lost the KC-X contract to Boeing in 2011 after a bloody and prolonged battle. Since then, the company's biggest procurement victory has been continued sales of its UH-72A Lakota helicopter to the Army. “I remember I spent eight years thinking we could bring real value on air-to-air refueling for the Air Force. But I spent eight years, and I'm frustrated because I look at it and we didn't succeed,” Emerson said. “I've asked the team, ‘Let's find a roadmap where we can actually make a mark with the customers.' And that means, I'm not going to go look at competing with Boeing and the Lockheeds and Northrop, but I'm going to look at other areas.” The U.S. customer is increasingly making investments into technologies that can augment or accelerate decision-making, he said. “That's where we start to look everything beyond an air breathing platform. We started to look at the data, the intelligence, that they need,” he said. “It could be intelligence that is geospatial-related, either Earth observation, or electro-optical, or synthetic aperture radar, or a blend that we're pulling in multi-source information.” Airbus already develops those types of capabilities in its commercial air and space businesses, and could quickly adapt them to U.S. demands, he said. When there are opportunities to offer Airbus aircraft to the U.S. military, the strategy will be to partner with American primes, Emerson said. For instance, last year Airbus and Lockheed signed a memorandum of understanding to market aerial refueling services to the U.S. Air Force using the Airbus A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport. Asked on Wednesday whether the two companies planned to compete for tanker leasing opportunities currently being considered by the Air Force, Emerson said Lockheed takes the lead on interactions with the U.S. military on aerial refueling. He added that UH-72s will continue to be manufactured alongside Airbus's commercial H125 helicopter in Columbus, Miss., but modifications, support and contracting will be performed by the Airbus U.S. Space and Defense. In addition to naming Emerson as head of the company's U.S. defense and space business, Airbus also appointed a five-person board of directors — which includes former National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency director Letitia Long and William Shelton, a retired Air Force four-star and former head of Air Force Space Command — aimed at deepening ties with the U.S. military, space and intelligence agencies. It also named a seven-person team of advisers made up of former national security officials. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2020/07/15/airbus-us-pivots-business-strategy-away-from-selling-big-platforms-to-the-pentagon/
11 janvier 2024 | International, C4ISR
The backpack now allows soldiers to detect and analyze nuclear sites without an eight-hour cooldown period.