UK eyes alternative to Galileo satellite system as Brexit row widens

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  17 juin 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  GE Sees Military as Driving Next-Gen Technology

  John Morris PARIS - “Military is where the commercial business was 10 years ago,” says GE Aviation president and GEvice chairman David Joyce. With commercial now set after a decade of renewal (the CF6 replaced by the GEnx, GE90 by GE9X, CFM56 by Leap, CF34 by Passport, and the emergence of the Catalyst turboprop engine), hundreds of engineers and research and development resources are being tasked with creating future generations of military powerplants. Now that the commercial side has proved that new materials such as ceramic matrix composites and technologies such as additive manufacturing are viable, affordable and producible, the military has the confidence to lead the march into new territory. Technologies developed for commercial engines have enabled new military capabilities; in turn, military research and development will enable even newer commercial engines decades into the future. It's a virtuous cycle, Joyce explains. GE is on a roll: it has won the U.S. Army's ITEP competition to replace all T700 engines in Black Hawk and Apache helicopters with the ultra-fuel-efficient single-shaft ITEP next-gen helicopter engine, and it won contracts worth a billion dollars to develop its AETD three-stream adaptable fighter engine as far as demonstrating it on the ground in an F-35. Flight tests could follow, as could eventual reengining of the F-35 fleet. But in any case, GE will be ready with an engine for sixth-generation fighters. In addition, the ubiquitous F404/F414 is being upgraded and continues to win new competitions, including the USAF's new Boeing-Saab T-X trainer and several foreign future fighter programs; the T408 turboshaft powers the new Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion; and a team is working full time on competing to reengine the B-52 bomber. Business is growing “at really good rates” on both manned and unmanned “black” programs, says Joyce, and hybrid electric is being studied for future applications including UAVs, he adds. He believes GE already has the enabling technologies for the next decade, “but industrializing them is a different thing.” The company has already invested “billions of dollars” in developing a manufacturing and supply chain of materials and technologies for its commercial engines, and this will continue, “Additive manufacturing may be the most disruptive technology that I've seen in the industry in a long time,” says Joyce, “as it opens up a space for designers and for manufacturing that is on a different dimensional plane. It takes a long time to learn how to design with additive. It takes even longer to learn how to manufacture with additive at speed and high rate from a quality standpoint of view. “We are jumping in with both feet because the results on the back end when you get it right are extraordinary,” he adds. “It's going to pay off a whole load more in the next 20 years. This is going to be the best [real return on investment] that we've ever done.” https://aviationweek.com/paris-airshow-2019/ge-sees-military-driving-next-gen-technology

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  21 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  US Air Force may have accidentally revealed interest in hypersonic nuke

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force has issued, and quietly revoked, a solicitation to industry seeking technologies that would support a hypersonic glide vehicle capable of traversing intercontinental ranges, potentially signaling the military's interest in a hypersonic nuclear weapon. According to an Aug. 12 request for information first reported by Aviation Week, the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center sought ideas for potential upgrades to intercontinental ballistic missiles, including a “thermal protection system that can support [a] hypersonic glide to ICBM ranges.” The items listed as potential ICBM upgrades were all marked “unclassified/for official use only,” which notes information that — while not secret — is not normally released to the public. The RFI was then withdrawn after Aviation Week began inquiring about it, the report noted. Asked about the RFI on Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Richard Clark, the Air Force's deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, said the service's next-generation ICBMs — known as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent — will not be available as a hypersonic variant when it is fielded in the late 2020s. “With a weapon system that's going to be fielded until the 2070 time frame, it's hard to know exactly where we may go with that down the road,” he during an event hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “Right now, though, the threshold warhead does not include hypersonic glide vehicles. I think I can say that safely without talking too much about what the warheads will look like.” However, he noted that GBSD's open-architecture backbone makes it able to adopt emerging technologies. He did not comment specifically on whether a hypersonic glide vehicle was under consideration. As we bring the system online, we will ensure that we have the ability to roll different technologies in and to incorporate that into GBSD,” he said. “And that's one of the, I think, best features ... of GBSD, is that it's going to give us that flexibility. So that if we decide down the road that there's a particular technology that needs to be incorporated, we'll be able to do that.” As the sole bidder in the GBSD competition, Northrop Grumman is expected to win an estimated $85 billion over the life of the program. A contract award is slated to occur by September, although Northrop CEO Kathy Warden said in April that she expected a decision this month. https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nuclear-arsenal/2020/08/19/the-air-force-might-be-eyeing-a-hypersonic-nuclear-weapon/

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  5 novembre 2018 | International, C4ISR

  After Hurricane Michael, the Air Force moved Tyndall AFB’s contracting data to the cloud

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — After Hurricane Michael ravaged Tyndall Air Force Base in October, airmen took on an unusual mission: recovering the servers base officials used to write, release and award contracts. Reclaiming those servers — which contain data and contract vehicles used by Tyndall's two contracting squadrons to order everything for the base from supplies for the base to spare parts for aircraft — was a relatively minor victory when compared to the larger devastation faced by the installation. But the mission was an important one in that it allowed remaining base personnel to manage contracts in the wake of the disaster, Air Force officials told Defense News. “Obviously, the base is devastated ... but it's clear that there were open, existing contracts whether that was for simple things like cutting the lawn or delivering food to the chow hall on base,” said Richard Aldridge, the Air Force's program executive officer for business and enterprise systems. “Someone has got to either terminate them, or put them on pause or make sure vendors are getting paid for work that they had already done before the contract.” In the days after the hurricane, airmen from Gunter Annex in Alabama worked with the state's civil air patrol to fly into the Florida panhandle, obtain Tyndall's servers and transport them back to Maxwell Air Force Base, where Gunter is located. Then, the service transferred data from the legacy contract writing system into a new cloud-based system called CON-IT, short for Contracting Information Technology. The servers from Tyndall weren't necessary for base officials to use CON-IT, said Mike Allen, the Air Force's CON-IT program manager. But without them, contract officers would be left with no digital record of past contracts, and would be forced to draw up new contracts for mundane goods and services that would normally be bought through indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contracts that allow for multiple orders. "We were then able to migrate [the data from the servers] into CON-IT so that existing [indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity contracts] or ordering vehicles were available to them, and all of their existing contracts would be available to work with,” said Allen. “They weren't starting from a blank piece of paper.” And moving to a cloud-based environment means that Tyndall's contracting data will no longer be vulnerable to future disasters, Aldridge added. “It's ubiquitous; it doesn't matter where you are, you can access it,” he said. Allen and Aldridge said the program office was able to transition Tyndall's data and train users on the new system, but were unable to provide details on how Tyndall's contracting officers had since used the new system. The plan is to move all of the Air Force's current contract data from existing legacy systems to CON-IT by the end of 2019. The system, built by and originally developed by Appian for use by the Defense Information Systems Agency, has deployed to 1,100 users in 30 locations so far, Allen said. CON-IT will replace three legacy systems: the standard procurement system that supports operational users; ConWrite, which supports the weapon system acquisition and research and development; and the automated contract preparation system for logistics contracts. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/11/02/after-hurricane-michael-the-air-force-moved-tyndall-afbs-contracting-data-to-the-cloud