The Air Force's entire A-10 Warthog fleet is getting a raft of lethal new upgrades

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  1 août 2018 | International, Aérospatial

  Air Force begins in-house JSTARS maintenance amid Northrop Grumman’s shortfalls

  By: Kyle Rempfer The Air Force began conducting its own depot maintenance for JSTARS July 17 at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, in an effort to field the Air Force's primary ground surveillance and battle management aircraft quicker, despite contractor shortfalls. Maintenance for the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft was previously done exclusively by Northrop Grumman at a facility in Louisiana, but the service has said the maintenance was too slow. Now, Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex will supplement the contractors to speed up the process. “Historically, the contractor has averaged about 400 days per aircraft,” Air Force Material Command spokesman Derek Kaufman told Air Force Times. “The driver has been to increase the number of aircraft available for operations and training. The Air Force intends to fly JSTARS into the mid-to-late 2020s, while the follow-on Advanced Battle Management System [ABMS] is developed," Kaufman said. The Air Force has not released exactly what the ABMS entails, but it will fuse information from satellites, drones, ground sensors and manned ISR aircraft. Because Robbins AFB is also playing host to the initial elements of the ABMS program, Kaufman said the base will continue to play a role in the command and control mission. In the meantime, maintenance delays for existing JSTARS must be streamlined, according to the press release announcing the push. “We've been focusing intensely for a couple of years on improving contractor-led depot performance, but aircraft are still remaining in depot too long,” said Steven Wert, the Air Force's program executive officer for battle management, who oversees these efforts. “We have to find ways to increase throughput and overall depot capacity, and we believe this option is well worth exploring.” The work done at the new facility will help the Air Force better understand the costs of performing JSTARS depot maintenance on its own. “Should this first organic induction prove successful, we currently plan two more JSTARS aircraft to be inducted, one per year,” Kaufman said. It's important to note that this maintenance plan is separate from efforts to retire the Air Force's fleet of 17 JSTARS. The 2019 defense authorization bill allocates funds for the ABMS program, but the Air Force will not be able to retire any of these planes until the second phase of that program is declared operational, according to Congress' bill. As a result, service officials are anxious to get more JSTARS into the air for operations and training while waiting to bring the ABMS program online. In addition to slow delivery, Northrop Grumman has had some issues with their maintenance in the past. An Air Force investigation released in March 2017 showed that contract maintainers left drainage holes covered on the bottom of a JSTARS' radome during depot maintenance between March 2015 and July 2016. This caused the radome to collect water and inflicted $7.35 million worth of damage to the aircraft. That damage was discovered on July 28, 2016, when the JSTARS aircraft assigned to the 116th Air Control Wing at Robins experienced radar failures during checks conducted by Air Force radar specialists. “When the specialists opened the radome for the radar, they discovered portions of the radar immersed in standing water with visible corrosion damage,” the report states. In the future, inducting more aircraft into the Air Force's own depot maintenance facility could offer some advantages, according to the service. The program office, operational wings, functional check flight crews and Air Combat Command's flight test detachment are all co-located at Robins. These locality benefits could help cut down on transportation costs. Additionally, start-up costs should be minimal because Robins already hosts the E-8C operational wings, according to the Air Force. “Our dedicated professionals and mission partners have extensive experience in overhauling and modifying large aircraft like the C-130, C-17 and C-5 fleet. I'm confident our team can leverage this experience and help the JSTARS community improve aircraft availability,” said Brig. Gen. John Kubinec, commander of Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex, in another press release. “Our team is excited about this opportunity and we stand ready to support this effort by working closely with the PEO and Northrop Grumman.” The Air Force still has an agreement with Northrop Grumman that runs through 2022, called a Total System Support Responsibility contract. The depot maintenance at Robins “would supplement, not supplant," the work being done by the existing contract, the Air Force clarified. “In fact, the Air Force will need Northrop's help to successfully execute this proof of concept,” according to the release. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/07/31/air-force-begins-in-house-jstars-maintenance-amid-northrop-grummans-shortfalls/

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  25 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Europeans propose siccing self-learning drone swarms on air defenses

  By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — A European consortium has pitched the idea of grooming intelligent drone swarms to confuse, disable and destroy enemy air defenses. The proposal is part of the Preparatory Action on Defence Research effort by the European Union to improve collaboration on among member states. Under the heading “Emerging Game Changers,” EU officials asked companies earlier this year to submit ideas for “promising breakthrough technologies” in the field of artificial intelligence for defense applications. The idea behind “SEAD Swarm” is to create the necessary algorithms that would enable a mass of aerial drones to inspect the characteristics of air defense systems, distribute the information within the swarm and derive a plan of attack against weak points. Actions taken could include blinding radar sensors, overwhelming anti-aircraft fire with kamikaze-type tactics, or attacking sites with explosive or electronic-warfare payloads. The acronym SEAD is short for “suppression of enemy air defenses,” military platforms that often expose pilots of manned aircraft to significant risk of getting shot down. The proposed project comes in the wake of Finland designating advances in AI a key objective for its six-month term leading the Council of the European Union. The idea is backed by a consortium of 12 private companies, national research institutions and universities from six countries, with Finnish company Insta as the lead. A decision from European decision-makers on the award of an approximately $2 million grant to start the project is expected in the next few months. Consortium officials stress that nothing would be built during the initial phase of the project. Instead, the idea is to incubate the necessary “swarm logic” and learning algorithms in a simulation environment, where scenarios can be gamed out and quickly adapted, Ari Kosonen, a senior systems engineer at Insta, told Defense News. Letting the drone swarm and air defense systems battle it out in a controlled cyberspace environment would yield patterns of problem-solving that can continuously improve both the attackers' and the defenders' performance, Kosonen said. In addition, thinking through the idea on a purely theoretical level would allow proper consideration for ethical and legal questions that arise whenever AI is weaponized, he added. If adopted by the EU, the participating countries of Finland, Germany, Slovenia, Estonia, the Netherlands and Austria would detail military officials to an advisory board to help ensure the planned simulations reflect real-world combat situations. That includes resisting the urge of crafting scenarios that are too clear-cut in allowing judgments about when to apply force and when to stand down, said Christian Brandlhuber, a senior adviser at consortium member Reply AG in Munich. “Does this work in an environment where our situational awareness is less than perfect?” Therein lies the novelty of the SEAD Swarm idea, Brandlhuber argued: Working through the rules of engagement first, only later considering requirements and finally establish concrete acquisition plans could help bring AI-enabled military technology into the EU-wide defense conversation. “There were heated discussions in the consortium about how pronounced the legal and ethical side should be,” Brandlhuber said. Dicey situations could arise, for example, when drones are cut off from communicating with human decision-makers in the final phase of an attack, while the prerequisite is to have a person in the loop for pulling the trigger. “There is a lot of uncertainty in this,” Brandlhuber said, though he argued analysts should strive to understand the complexity that comes with combining drones and AI in a military context. “You can't determine any of this a-priori.” Notably, the consortium includes sensor and hardware manufacturers, like Diehl Defence of Germany and Milrem of Estonia, that could be tapped to build prototypes if the SEAD Swarm project is selected to go forward. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/10/22/europeans-propose-siccing-self-learning-drone-swarms-on-air-defenses/

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  14 mai 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Turkish company reveals plans to develop a supersonic drone

  By: Burak Ege Bekdil ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's state-controlled aerospace powerhouse, Turkish Aerospace Industries, plans to develop the country's first supersonic drone, company executives said. TAI showcased its “Aksungur” drone (“gyrfalcon” in English) earlier this month at the International Defence Industry Fair in Istanbul. The Aksungur is a new drone that can reportedly reach a maximum speed of 180 kph. According to Temel Kotil, TAI's chief executive official, the Goksungur (“peregrine falcon” in English) will be a supersonic version of the Aksungur. The Goksungur is set to have a maximum speed of 380 kph. Kotil said TAI developed the Aksungur, a twin-engine-powered aircraft, in 18 months. The Aksungur has a maximum payload of 750 kilograms. He said TAI manufactured two Aksungur drones for test flights and will deliver them this year to the Turkish Armed Forces. After completing the Aksungur program, TAI engineers will set out to work on the Goksungur program. TAI designed, developed and built the medium-altitude, long-endurance Anka, Turkey's first indigenous UAV. It also developed the Anka-S, a satellite-controlled version. TAI manufactures aviation components for Airbus, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, with annual exports worth $500 million. It is a partner in the U.S.-led, multinational Joint Strike Fighter program that builds the F-35 fighter jet. The Turkish company also produces the T129, a helicopter gunship, under license from the Italian-British company AgustaWestland. TAI expects a 2019 turnover of $2.6 billion. https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2019/05/13/turkish-company-reveals-plans-to-develop-a-supersonic-drone/