Un nouveau drone pour l'US Air Force

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  14 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  COVID-19 Affects U.S. Army Aviation Upgrades

  Lee Hudson The U.S. Army is aggressively upgrading its legacy AH-64 Apache, CH-47 Chinook and HH-60 Black Hawk fleets, but is encountering some delays in these efforts related to the spread of the novel coronavirus. These platforms will continue to be in the service's inventory for many years to come and the Army must continue making them relevant as the Pentagon pivots to Joint All-Domain Command and Control, Patrick Mason, program executive officer for aviation, told Aerospace DAILY. The majority of Mason's team is teleworking and monitoring COVID-19's effect on production, engineering work and supply chain flow. The Army acknowledges issues related to COVID-19 may not materialize until the summer or fall because the supply chain currently has sufficient inventory, he said. “Obviously, this is an incredibly unique and unprecedented time that we're dealing with right now,” Mason said. The Army intends to introduce the Gen III Day Side Assembly, formerly known as the Modernized Day Sensor-Assembly (MDS-A), into the Boeing AH-64E Apache Version 6 (V6) kit this fall. During operational testing users were impressed with the technology's clear picture for target acquisition and the ease of locating a designation site made possible through electro-optical/infrared fusion. “The good thing about the way we've architected this program is that the production line will be switched to V6, and then we'll also have the ability to upgrade any of the V4s into the V6 configuration,” Mason said. The service has not determined the number of aircraft that will be equipped with the new V6 kit off the production line or retrofitted. The V6 kit includes upgrades for a Gen III Day Side Assembly, fire control radar frequency interferometer, and an expanded manned-unmanned teaming capability. “It's just another example of the kinds of technology that we can insert into these legacy platforms,” Mason said. The service expects industry to integrate a multispectral targeting capability into Future Vertical Lift platforms, he added. The Army is also planning to outfit the Apache and General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle with air-launched effects in the mid-2020s. Mason's unmanned aircraft system program office is conducting a technology assessment while Army Futures Command is leading demonstrations, he said. The service funded the effort by issuing an other transaction agreement through the Aviation and Missile Technology Consortium. It will run through year's end. Mason anticipates by 2021 the service will have a better idea of which technologies will compose the initial increment for air-launched effects. The next upgrades on tap for the Boeing CH-47 Chinook are additional software loads for the digital flight control system and the common avionics architecture system. These are slated for June, but because of COVID-19 the timetable may shift, Mason said. “We're trying to monitor and understand exactly what we're going to be able to do as we get into June,” he said. The Army does not want to speculate on when these upgrades will wrap up because this is based on unit availability and the requirement not to interfere with operations and training. The service is still plugging ahead with Block II flight testing in Mesa, Arizona, to support the special operations community. “We have some disruption obviously due to COVID and the pandemic,” Mason said. The limited user test is scheduled to begin in March 2021 at Fort Bliss in Texas, but it may be delayed if not enough progress is made in flight testing. The flight testing in Mesa is not paused, but the team is not generating a sufficient number of sorties because of travel restrictions imposed on government workers in response to COVID-19. The crews comprise both government and industry personnel. The Army is reaping substantial cost savings by upgrading UH-60Ls to the V model for about $12 million per unit instead of buying a new UH-60V for roughly $21 million in fiscal 2020 dollars. Mason's team partnered with the Corpus Christi Army Depot to convert the aircraft and is completing the initial tranche intended to field the first unit next year, he said. The Army intends to upgrade 760 L models to the V configuration. “It's a very unique and cost-effective way to increase the capability of the L models,” he said. Mason's team is unable to conduct user assessments, which is delaying full-rate production. The Army anticipates the effort will enter full-rate production in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. This is two quarters behind the previous schedule because the team is experiencing travel restriction delays related to COVID-19. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/covid-19-affects-us-army-aviation-upgrades

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  11 octobre 2023 | International, Sécurité

  Israel anxiously watches its northern border for warning signs of a wider regional war | CBC News

  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.

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  2 octobre 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Future Defense Task Force: Scrap obsolete weapons and boost AI

  Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― A bipartisan congressional panel is recommending that the Pentagon must “identify, replace, and retire costly and ineffective legacy weapons platforms,” and prioritize artificial intelligence, supply chain resiliency and cyberwarfare in order to compete with China and Russia. The House's Future of Defense Task Force's 87-page report issued Tuesday echoed the accepted wisdom that the Pentagon must expand investments in modern technologies and streamline its cumbersome acquisition practices or risk losing its technological edge against competitors. The task force is co-chaired by House Armed Services Committee members Reps. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., and Jim Banks, R-Ind., who both signaled they'll champion elements of the report in future defense authorization legislation. While lawmakers are broadly in favor, efforts to retire specific platforms often meet resistance on Capitol Hill. On weapons systems, the task force offered some practical steps to this end. Congress, it said, should commission the RAND Corporation, or similar entity, and the Government Accountability Office to study legacy platforms within the Defense Department and determine their relevance and resiliency to emerging threats over the next 50 years. Then a panel should be convened, comprising Congress, the Department of Defense, and representatives from the industrial base, to make recommendations on which platforms should be retired, replaced or recapitalized, the report reads. Investments in science and technology research need to be prioritized nationally, and at the Pentagon level such investments should meet 3.4 percent of the overall defense budget, as recommended by the Defense Science Board. Funding ought to be expanded at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, national and defense research laboratories and partnering universities, the report says. The report recommended that each of the military services ought to spend at least one percent of their overall budgets on the integration of new technologies. The Pentagon must, the report says, scale up efforts to leverage private sector innovation, which is leading the government. The report calls for a tenfold increase in spending for Defense Innovation Unit, AFWERX, Army Futures Command and others ― and more collaborative opportunities like Hacking for Defense. The report calls for a Manhattan Project for artificial intelligence, saying DoD must go further than its increased investment in AI and Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to assist with the transition and deployment of AI capabilities. “Using the Manhattan Project as a model, the United States must undertake and win the artificial intelligence race by leading in the invention and deployment of AI while establishing the standards for its public and private use,” the report's authors wrote. (The Manhattan project is the U.S.-led World War II-era research and development effort that produced the first nuclear weapons.) The report calls for every major defense acquisition program to evaluate at least one AI or autonomous alternative prior to funding. Plus, all new major weapons purchases ought to be “AI-ready and nest with existing and planned joint all-domain command and control networks,” it says. Warning the country's supply chain is one of its “greatest national security and economic vulnerabilities,” the report calls for a national supply chain intelligence center under the Office of Director of National Intelligence and the elimination of single points of failure within DoD's supply chain. The task force, launched last October, includes several lawmakers with practical national security experience: Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., a former Air Force officer who studied technology and policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; as well as Reps. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and Michael Waltz, R-Fla., who have served in senior Pentagon policy jobs. HASC members Reps. Susan Davis, D-Calif., Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., and Paul Mitchell, R-Mich., also served on the task force. In a statement, Moulton said the bipartisan plan could be used, no matter the outcome of the Nov. 3 presidential and congressional elections. “America needs a plan to confront the dual threats of Russia's aggression and China's rise. This is it,” he said. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/09/29/future-defense-task-force-scrap-obsolete-weapons-and-boost-ai/