7 août 2018 | International, Aérospatial
By: Valerie Insinna
WASHINGTON — The Air Force is preparing to begin buying light attack aircraft next year — and the winner is going to be either Textron's AT-6 Wolverine or the Sierra Nevada Corp.-Embraer A-29 Super Tucano.
According to a pre-solicitation posted on FedBizOpps on Aug. 3, the service will put out a final request for proposals to the two competitors in December with the hopes of awarding a contract by the end of September 2019.
However, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told Defense News on Monday that service leaders have not yet made a final decision on whether to green-light a program of record. Should that happen, the pre-solicitation will ensure that the service can move as quickly as it would like to eventually procure new planes, she said.
If the new weapons program moves forward, it appears the service will limit the competition to the two aircraft currently involved in the service's light attack experiment. The pre-solicitation states that SNC and Textron Aviation “are the only firms that appear to possess the capability necessary to meet the requirement within the Air Force's time frame without causing an unacceptable delay in meeting the needs of the warfighter.”
The Air Force's decision to only consider the A-29 and AT-6 had been foreshadowed by officials like Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, its top uniformed acquisition officer, who repeatedly stated that the service would likely limit a competition to those two participants.
Full Article: https://www.defensenews.com/air/2018/08/06/the-light-attack-aircraft-competition-will-be-down-to-two-competitors/
5 mai 2023 | International, Autre défense
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration plans to send $500 million worth of weapons aid to Taiwan using the same emergency authority that has been used more than 35 times for Ukraine, a source familiar with the plan said on Friday.
9 décembre 2023 | International, Terrestre
The resupply project encompasses a framework agreement for 50 DINGO 2 protected command and special-function vehicles (GFF) of the A4 variant.
7 décembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial
By: Christina Mackenzie PARIS – Spanish companies have unveiled a new system for simulating low-oxygen conditions that air force pilots may experience during flight. The technology, made by Indra, one of Spain's leading high-technology companies, and iAltitude, a Spanish company specializing in high-altitude sports training, is the latest proposal to cope with the symptoms of hypoxia, which can cause pilots to fall unconscious mid-flight. Air force pilots have a backup oxygen mask in case the oxygen levels drops too low but if the mask were to fail, pilots “must be able to identify the symptoms that precede hypoxia, a dangerous state that can cause loss of consciousness in a few seconds,” Indra said. The system, which the company claims is “the first of its kind in the world,” consists of normobaric hypoxia equipment made by iAltitude that Indra has integrated into the simulator for the C101 Spanish Air Force training jet at the Madrid-based CIMA (Aerospace Medicine Training Center). Whilst the pilots are training on the simulator, the system regulates the oxygen pilots get through their mask, reducing it progressively. Their responses are recorded and the data will be used by CIMA to design training programs tol alert pilots to pre-hypoxia symptoms. Until now, training in hypoxia was mainly performed in hypobaric and normobaric sealed chambers in which trainees could undertake exercises to help them detect loss of oxygen, but these could not be undertaken simultaneously with flight tasks. The new system means hypoxia tests are now integrated with flight training, as the capabilities of each pilot to complete flight procedures in low-oxygen conditions are being evaluated continuously. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/12/04/spanish-vendors-pitch-new-hypoxia-response-training-for-military-pilots