6 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial
by Gareth Jennings
The United States appears to have confirmed an expanded procurement by Qatar of the Boeing F-15QA Advanced Eagle combat aircraft, with recent Department of Defense (DoD) articles and notifications referring to a larger number than officially contracted.
The Gulf state is currently contracted to receive 36 of the latest-generation multirole fighters, with a deal signed in December 2017. However, since at least late-May the DoD has issued no fewer than three official statements in which it has referred to a buy of 48 aircraft. The US State Department initially cleared Qatar to buy 72 aircraft, so this expanded procurement would be in line with current Congressional approvals.
On 23 May the DoD disclosed that the US Army Corps of Engineers had contracted Doha-based company BAH-ICM JV to build facilities for the Qatar Emiri Air Force's (QEAF's) new fleet. In the notification, the department said; “The Foreign Military Sales (FMS) purchase of forty-eight (48) F-15QA aircraft improves the State of Qatar's capability to meet current and future enemy air-to-air and air-to-ground threats”. Janes noted this discrepancy in the numbers at the time, but as it was the first such occurrence this suggested that it may have been in error.
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/us-appears-to-confirm-expanded-f-15qa-buy-for-qatar
15 novembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial
Central European defence companies are negotiating new deals to sell more weapons, military equipment and related services in Africa as they seek to poach customers looking for alternatives to Russia, companies and government officials say.
4 décembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
By: Valerie Insinna ORLANDO, Fla. — Next year, U.S. Air Force F-35 pilots will be able to hop into a simulator and practice large-scale coordinated attacks with other F-35A users in simulators around the globe, Lockheed Martin's head of F-35 training said Tuesday. The capability, called Distributed Mission Training, will allow an unlimited number of F-35 simulators to be networked, enabling high-end training, said Chauncey McIntosh, Lockheed's vice president for F-35 training and logistics. “We've been testing to ensure that it's ready to go with our first customer at Nellis Air Force Base [in Nevada]. We've got hardware that's going up there this month and we're starting our test connections, and everything is looking very well [regarding] this product,” he said during a briefing at the Interservice/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference. “Essentially we're waiting just to get the accreditation from the government. We'll connect that [hardware] and then we'll start running tests on site with software. And then we'll go to our final delivery in spring of 2020," he told Defense News. Currently, F-35 bases can only link as many simulators as they have on site — usually as many as four. However, the Distributed Mission Training capability, or DMT, will allow every U.S. Air Force base to connect up to four of its F-35 simulators with those of every other air base, McIntosh said. At some point, F-35A simulators may also be able to regularly connect with any other aircraft simulator that can be supported on the same network. “Here at Orlando, in our labs, we've already connected to the F-22, the F-16, as well as to [E-3] AWACS [airborne early warning and control aircraft],” McIntosh said. “Almost every week we are writing test scenarios with additional platforms.” Lockheed is under contract to provide DMT to the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as to the United Kingdom. However, because all of those entities run their F-35 simulators aboard different networks, they will be unable to connect with variants from other services, McIntosh said. While Nellis is slated to receive DMT early next year, the F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed are still discussing the schedule for further deployments to other bases and services, McIntosh explained. “Our initial efforts are for the Air Force,” he said. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/itsec/2019/12/04/coming-in-2020-a-new-technology-that-will-link-f-35-simulators-across-the-globe
16 novembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial
Boeing Co said on Thursday it will partner with the U.S. government in a project aimed at addressing challenges faced by Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member countries in developing and scaling use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).