11 juin 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Sécurité
By: Aaron Mehta
WASHINGTON — “Platform agnostic.”
It's a term getting a lot of play from United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes and Raytheon CEO Tom Kennedy, in the wake of this weekend's surprise announcement that the two companies would be merging into a new firm,known as Raytheon Technologies Corporation.
Neither company works as a platform producer, eschewing the production of aircraft or ground vehicles and instead focusing on the technology that makes them work. It's a business model that has produced well for both firms, and in a Monday interview with Defense News, the two CEOs made it clear they see no need to deviate now.
“One of the first and foremost things we absolutely agree on is, we want to be platform agnostic,” Hayes said, noting that UTC sold off its Sikorsky helicopter unit almost five years ago because “we didn't like the programmatic risk associated with platforms.”
“We'll supply all the content and all the systems, all of the offensive, defensive capabilities necessary to make the system successful, but we really think it's important that we remain agnostic among the platform providers,” Hayes added.
Said Kennedy, “Neither of us essentially develop platforms or sell platforms. Why that's important is, really, the amount of capital that you have to go and spend in maintaining and creating these platforms kind of takes your eye off the ball relative to investing in technology moving forward. So that was a big feature, that both companies are platform agnostic.”
Instead, both men said the new firm will remains focused on developing high-end technologies which can be inserted on, or in, platforms developed by the other major defense primes. With that goal in mind, the company is preparing to spend $8 billion in R&D funds in the year following its merger.
When the merger is completed in early 2020, Kennedy will become chairman of the board, with Hayes serving as CEO. Two years later, Kennedy will step down, with Hayes adding the chairman title.
One area Kennedy highlighted as having good synergies is hypersonic weapons, a major interest for the Pentagon. Raytheon has already been working on hypersonic missiles, including the guidance and control systems, but UTC's experience with propulsion and materials science might be able to help deal with a specific challenge for Raytheon's weapon designers.
“It just turns out when you're flying at Mach 5, you really increase your temperature on all your surfaces," Kennedy said. "If you have a propulsion system, the air is coming in at such a high speed, that creates a significant amount of heat; it has to be dissipated in a very efficient way,” Kennedy said. “And one of the areas that the United Technologies has, really based in the Pratt & Whitney guys, is all the technology that they've developed over the years in working very high temperatures internal to their turbine engines,” he continued. “So not only do they have, I would call it the heat management capabilities, but also the material science to go implement those.”
Hayes identified two areas where shared R&D will have a near-term impact, and they underline the benefit of having a new company that will be roughly 50-50 defense and non-defense business.
The first is on aircraft control systems, where each company has technologies that can be brought to bear for the FAA's next-generation air traffic control networks. The second comes in the form of cybersecurity.
“I think Raytheon is second to none as it relates to cyber, and we view this as a core competency that can benefit the entire commercial aerospace ecosystem,” Hayes said. “Not just the connected aircraft, which is probably the first order of business, but the whole ecosystem. How do you protect passenger data, how do you protect the equipment that's on the ground? How do you protect the airplane while it's flying?
“I think we'll see that shortly in the marketplace.”
19 juin 2024 | International, Sécurité
The pilot project is part of a broader effort within the Army to identify both the pitfalls and the opportunities that come with widely adopting AI tools.
11 février 2019 | International, Naval, C4ISR
SYRACUSE, N.Y., Feb. 11, 2019 – Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) continues to support the U.S. Navy's aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and warships with advanced electronic warfare capabilities. The Navy awarded Lockheed Martin a $184 million firm-fixed-price modification to exercise options for full rate production of Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block 2 systems. “We are honored to continue to provide this critical fleet defense capability that our warfighters rely on while they perform their mission worldwide,” said Joe Ottaviano, Integrated Electronic Warfare program director, Rotary and Mission Systems. “Threats are changing and evolving faster with advanced technologies and the SEWIP system will give the U.S. Navy the advantage of remaining one step ahead of our adversaries.” SEWIP is an evolutionary acquisition and incremental development program to upgrade the existing AN/SLQ-32(V) electronic warfare system. SEWIP Block 2 will expand upon the receiver/antenna group necessary to keep capabilities current with the pace of the threat and to yield improved system integration. Under this full-rate production contract, Lockheed Martin will continue providing and upgrading the AN/SLQ-32 systems on U.S. aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and other warships with key capabilities that determine if the electronic sensors of potential foes are tracking the ship. The U.S. Navy awarded the company an initial $148.9 million contract for full rate production of SEWIP Block 2 systems in 2016 with four additional option years to upgrade the fleet's electronic warfare capabilities so warfighters can respond to evolving threats. Lockheed Martin has provided the U.S. Navy with SEWIP Block 2 development, production and engineering services since 2009 and has been delivering and supporting the installation of SEWIP Block 2 systems as the Navy upgrades electronic warfare defenses against anti-ship missile threats fleet wide. Additionally, AN/SLQ-32(V)6 Design Agent Engineering Services are being performed at the Electronic Warfare Center of Excellence in the Syracuse, New York, facility. For additional information, visit www.lockheedmartin.com/ew. https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2019-02-11-Lockheed-Martin-Awarded-184-Million-to-Continue-Providing-the
15 janvier 2020 | International, Aérospatial
By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — Lockheed Martin's Sikorsky and Boeing have submitted their proposals for the German military's envisioned heavy transport helicopter program, the companies announced. Sikorsky is offering a version of the CH-53K designed for the U.S. Marine Corps, while Boeing is pitching the H-47 Chinook. The offers, due on Jan. 13, come in response to a request for proposals published by the Bundeswehr last summer. Government officials will spend the greater part of 2020 analyzing the submissions, with a second and final request for offers pegged for the end the year. The multibillion-dollar STH program, short for Schwerer Transporthubschrauber, is meant to replace the German fleet of decades-old CH-53G copters. Deliveries from the winning bidder are slated to begin in 2024 and last through the early 2030s — that is if the program receives budgetary support from the government and lawmakers when the time comes for a contract next year. Both companies have assembled a group of German suppliers that would oversee areas such as maintenance, simulators and documentation in an effort to maximize domestic industry participation. The Bundeswehr initially wanted a no-frills, off-the-shelf cargo helicopter that would be easy on the defense budget. Notably, the Germans also want to use the STH choppers for combat search-and-rescue operations, with plans to raise that mission profile throughout the Air Force's ranks. But last year's solicitation came with an unexpected level of complexity, Frank Crisafulli, Sikorsky's director of international business development for heavy helicopters, told reporters during a company presentation in Bonn, Germany, on Monday. “Folks were caught by surprise,” he said. The added complications are due, for example, to the Bundeswehr's goal of having the helicopters certified in accordance with European civilian aviation regulations. In addition, German officials want a weather radar better than the one offered in the Marine Corps version of the CH-53K, plus a multilayered radio communications setup," Crisafulli said. As envisioned, the STH program would plunge the German military into a model of contractor-driven support popularized by the U.S. Defense Department under the moniker of performance-based logistics, or PBL. The idea is that the government can save money by dictating to contractors what level of readiness it wants for its hardware, and then letting vendors figure out how to meet those objectives within a given budget. Pentagon auditors previously affirmed the basic premise of performance-based logistics, with one key caveat: The government must have enough insight and clout in the programs to be able to set sensible performance benchmarks at rates favorable to taxpayers. According to Mike Schmidt, CEO of Rheinmetall Aviation Services, one of Sikorsky's key local partners, the concept is relatively new for Germany. At an STH industry day in 2018, “nobody knew what PBL was,” he said. At stake for the contractors is a 40-year relationship with Germany over the life cycle of the program. Boeing has portrayed its Chinook offering as a low-risk and low-cost option because more than 950 of the aircraft are already used by 20 countries. Sikorsky has played up the aerial-refueling capabilities of the CH-53K, especially in conjunction with the Lockheed Martin-made KC-130J tanker, to increase range. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/01/14/lockheed-boeing-enter-germanys-heavy-transport-helicopter-race/