French Mirage F1s

First new F-16s inbound; Contract for updated ECM. (Dec 5/11)

Morocco’s combat air force currently flies 2 squadrons of old F-5s, and 2 squadrons of only slightly newer Mirage F1s; T-37 light jets serve as key transitional trainers. Their neighbor and rival Algeria flies MiG-23s of similar vintage, but the Force Aérienne Algérienne also flies SU-24 Fencer and SU-25 Frogfoot strike aircraft, even more modern and capable MiG-29s, and is receiving multi-role SU-30MKs as part of a multi-billion dollar weapons deal with Russia.

Morocco can’t beat that array. Instead, they’re looking for replacement aircraft and upgrades that will prevent complete overmatch, and provide a measure of security. Initially, they looked to France, but key reversals have handed most of this modernization work to the United States…

• Slips & Shifts
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Why The F-16? DID Analysis – Dec. 2007
• Additional Readings [updated]
  Continue Reading… »

Eurofighter over Dubai

With the 2011 Dubai Airshow in full swing, the biggest question on site is: what’s happening to the UAE’s planned fighter deal? The United Arab Emirates’ interest in up to 60 Dassault Rafale fighters has seen years of negotiations, and the 2011 show was expected to be the clincher.

Instead, it has opened the door to Eurofighter GmbH, even as Boeing admits to giving classified technical briefings centered on its F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-15 Strike Eagle families. Unlike Eurofighter, Boeing hasn’t received an RFP, but other reports suggest that the UAE may be about to reduce its planned new jet order and buy more of its unique Lockheed Martin F-16E/F Block 60s, regardless of what happens next. The bombshell hit at Dubai’s 2011 air show…

USNS Sacagawea

T-AKE 13 christened by its namesake’s widow. (Nov 12/11)

Warships get a lot of attention, but without resupply, an impressive-looking fleet becomes a hollow force. The US Navy’s supply and support fleet has been aging, and needed new vessels. T-AKE is part of that effort, and the ships have also found themselves performing “naval diplomacy” roles.

The entire T-AKE dry cargo/ ammunition ship program could have a total value of as much as $6.2 billion, and a size of 14 ships, as the US looks to modernize its supply fleet. How do T-AKE ships fit into US naval operations? What ships do they replace? What’s the tie-in to US civilian industrial capacity? How were environmental standards built into their design? And what contracts have been issued for T-AKE ships to date? This FOCUS article covers the T-AKE program, and offers answers…

• T-AKE Ships: Mission, Listing & Capabilities [updated]
• T-AKE Ships: The Civilian Industry Angle
• T-AKE Ships & the Environment
• T-AKE Ships: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
  Continue Reading… »

APFSDS in flight

ATK recently announced a $77 million, 3-year contract, exercising an option to develop and qualify the USA’s new 120mm tank-killing round for use in the U.S. Army’s M1A2 SEP Abrams tanks. The M829E4 is called the Advanced Kinetic Energy round, and belongs to a class known as APFSDS-T: Armor Piercing, Fin Stabilized, Discarding Sabot with Tracer. As the picture shows, the shell casing releases a penetrator sabot dart, which flies at extreme velocity to punch through enemy tank armor. The tracer element makes it easy to see the round in flight.

While manufacturers like Rheinmetall use tungsten alloys for the APFSDS dart, American rounds use alloys of similarly-dense depleted uranium (DU)...

• Airbus Military and IAI Elta are developing a C-295 AEW turboprop, using an Elta AESA radar. Its likely price point, and C-295M/MPA commonality will make it a serious competitor to turboprops like the E-2D Hawkeye and Saab 340/2000 Erieye - as well as mid-tier jet options like Brazil’s EMB-145 AEW&C, or IAI’s own Gulfstream G550 CAEW.

• BAE Systems announces the creation of a new Electronics Systems Sector. The reorganization sees the consolidation of BAE’s Systems Electronic Solutions and Systems Platform Solutions sectors. BAE hope the reorganization will better serve its military electronics and information technologies and homeland security customers.

• EADS signs a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Turkish Aerospace Industries to boost collaborative opportunities for the UAV market.

• Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) also uses the Paris Air Show to unveil a prototype unmanned helicopter. The R-IHA is expected to achieve first-flight in 2012. TAI is also confident that the R-IHA will prove attractive to Arab and Southeast European markets.

• MBDA’s PARS 3 LR guided missile system has been shortlisted for the Indian Army’s helicopter future air-to-ground requirement. The announcement comes two months after three successful PARS 3 LR firings were conducted at Sweden’s Vidsel test range.

• Speaking at the Paris Air Show, the General Executive Manager of the Portuguese Aerospace Industry Association (PEMAS) says Embraer is the catalyst for the country’s emerging aerospace sector, but laments the decision not participate in the A400M program.

• Cobham’s Chief Executive tells Reuters at the Paris Air Show that the company is upbeat about further air tanker deals with the United States and Brazil.

• South Korea’s President meets with members of the National Assembly’s defense committee and asks for cooperation in gaining parliamentary approval for defense reforms. Plans focus upon making the military command’s structure more efficient and increased powers for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the Army, Navy and Air Force.

• The International Business Times outlines 9 ways the military is curbing its thirst for energy.

Leon Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee that his main objective as the new Defense Secretary will be to ensure that the United States continues to have the best trained, best equipped and strongest military in the world. Despite the Department of Defense’ efforts to cut $400 billion as part of deficit reduction measures Panetta also stressed to the Committee the United States does not need to choose between strong fiscal discipline and a strong national defense. Instead the challenge lies in designing budgets that eliminate wasteful spending while protecting those core elements deemed vital to national security.

Space Fence:
Mission Control Concept

Major article update; GAO report sheds more light on context, budgets, risks. (May 31/11)

Space is big. Objects in space are very dangerous to each other. Countries that intend to launch objects into space need to know what’s out there, in order to avoid disasters like the 2009 collision of 2 orbital satellites. All they need to do is track many thousands of man-made space objects, traveling at about 9 times the speed of a bullet, and residing in a search volume 220,000 times the volume of Earth’s oceans.

The US Air Force Materiel Command’s Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts leads the procurement for the USA’s Space Fence, which is intended to improve space situational awareness as legacy systems in the Space Surveillance Network (SSN) are retired. With a total anticipated value of around $6.1 billion over its lifetime, Space Fence will deliver a system of 2-3 geographically dispersed ground-based radars to provide timely assessment of space objects, events, and debris. Failure is not an option…

• Space Fence: Background [updated]
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources [updated]
  Continue Reading… »

• Pakistan’s military wants more F-16s, plus Chinese submarines to go with its new French boats, and a joint submarine development venture. These plans are all being made against a backdrop of a serious domestic insurgency and widespread flooding damage, which have combined to create over 1 million internal refugees, and threaten the government’s medium term ability to maintain control of the country. Even as the state is very obviously fraying in other ways, and the military’s ability to play a constructive role is coming into serious question.

• “Weapons and the Art of Diplomacy” discusses WikiLeaks revelations and the role of American diplomatic staff in promoting arms buys and other transactions. Oddly, they included Thailand’s case, but left out Norway.

• EADS returns to profitability; A400M airlifter program gets new chief; Eurocopter snags 68 new helicopter orders.

• Senate Armed Services Committee launches probe into counterfeit military electronic parts following Commerce Department study [PDF].

• GAO report [PDF] says key questions on the Army’s ground combat vehicle (GCV) program need to be answered, including how urgently the GCV is needed, the robustness of the analysis of alternatives, its cost and affordability, plausibility of its schedule, and whether mature technologies will be used. They aren’t the only ones asking questions.

• Frost & Sullivan says UK land defense market is expected to reach $1.5 billion in 2017, up from $834 million in 2010.

• Dutch Queen Beatrix in Oman to resume a postponed visit, and promote a potential corvette/OPV order from Damen Schelde. They make the Holland-class OPV, and the modular-build Sigma-class, ordered by Morocco (frigate), and Indonesia (corvette).

• Australian defence minister Stephen Smith is will use his current official visit to Europe to pursue the lease of RFA Largs Bay to the Royal Australian Navy. The Bay-class LSD was delivered in 2006, but is being mothballed under the recent SDSR. Australia had no amphibious ships on hand for disaster relief during the recent Cyclone Yasi.

• Japan’s JASDF security forces are preparing to assume a more forward security role, with training from their US Air Force counterparts.

• ATK gets $54 million order to supply 120mm training tank ammunition – M865 kinetic energy and M1002 multipurpose anti-tank training rounds – for the US Army’s M1A1/A2 Abrams main battle tank.

• Six aerospace and defense companies, including Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, and ITT, agree to pay close to $4 million to cleanup contaminated groundwater in the Los Angeles area.

• Forbes critiques Pentagon’s rush to bring military functions performed by contractors in-house.

• Union workers at Lockheed Martin’s Marietta, GA plant ratify a 3-year labor contract, despite calls from union leaders to reject it. The plant manufactures the C-130J transport aircraft and F-22 Raptor fighter.

• The global aerospace and defense market is projected to reach $1.2 trillion by 2014, a 29% increase over 2009 levels, according to Datamonitor.

• US State Department pulls deal to sell 50 refurbished armored troop carriers to Libya for $77 million.

• Taiwan lawmakers concerned about declining defense spending in the face of China’s buildup.

• India successfully tests its ballistic missile defense system against a Prithvi variant.

• The Pentagon must buy American-made solar panels, according to the FY 2011 defense authorization law; many of Nellis Air Force Base solar panels are Chinese made.

• Doling out justice: US DoJ charges former NASA employee with illegally exporting military infrared technology to South Korea without an export license; Army staff sergeant gets 7.5 years for aiding a government contractor in stealing $1.5 million in fuel from FOB Shank in eastern Afghanistan.

• South Korea installing underwater sensors near its border with North Korea. Better late than never, we suppose.

• BAE Systems thinks they’ve developed a viable anti-piracy laser weapon.

• Edwards AFB prepares to test the next generation of UAVs: Aerovironment’s Global Observer, Boeing’s X-45C Phantom Ray, and Northrop Grumman’s X-47B Pegasus N-UCAS.

• Boeing’s 787 and Airbus A380. What does their past decade teach us about requirements setting and engineering choices in other aerospace projects?

• Air France Industries and KLM Engineering & Maintenance, which joined forces following the Air France KLM merger, announce a contract with Boeing to install the French E-3F AWACS fleet’s modification kits.

• Lockheed Martin participates in joint US Navy-Royal Navy ARTIST research program to develop advanced naval radar systems.

• Up to $47 million to URS to provide software engineering services support to the US Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgen Division.