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Archives by category > R&D – Private (RSS)

Raytheon’s AGM-176 Griffin Mini-Missiles

Jul 03, 2018 04:54 UTC

Latest updates[?]: The US Special Operations Command is boosting its missile power. Raytheon is set to produce an un-specified number of Griffin missiles under an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract that is valued at $315 million. The contract also provides for related support for product improvements, operations and sustainment. Raytheon’s Griffin is a precision guided “mini-missile” and glide weapon that comes in three variants. The Griffin-A is currently in use as part of American roll-on armed kits for its C-130 Hercules transports. The Griffin-B is a powered missile can be a forward-firing weapon, and can be launched from land, naval, or aerial platforms. And the Griffin C attempts to compete against Lockheed’s Hellfire and MBDA’s Brimstone 2 by adding dual-mode laser/IIR guidance for a fire-and-forget missile that uses thrust-vectoring control for vertical launch compatibility, a datalink for retargeting in flight, and waypoint flight to maneuver around obstacles. Work will be performed at contractor facilities in Tucson. No completions date has been given at this point.

USS Typhoon launches Griffin-B

Naval launch

As UAVs proliferate, and the demands of counter-insurgency fights force militaries to look at arming new kinds of aircraft, a number of manufacturers and governments are looking to develop precision-guided “mini-missiles” and glide weapons. Raytheon’s 33+ pound, 42 inch long Griffin is a member of that class, and comes in 3 versions.

Griffin was privately developed, and Raytheon took pains to re-use components from existing weapons like the AIM-9X Sidewinder air-air missile and the Javelin anti-tank missile. The resulting weapon carved out a niche in the growing market for small and relatively inexpensive guided weapons, but Raytheon thinks it has more potential, and has been investing in new capabilities…

Continue Reading… »

MALE Performance Enhancement: Piaggio’s P.1HH Hammerhead UAV

May 24, 2018 04:52 UTC

Latest updates[?]: Italy’s Piaggio Aerospace has announced that it will deliver its first P.1HH Hammerhead unmanned aircraft system this summer. The first units will be delivered to the United Arab Emirates, the company’s launch customer. The P.1HH Hammerhead is based on Piaggio’s sleek, Ferrari-approved P180 Avanti II business turboprop. Rapid deployment inside larger aircraft is engineered by adding a quickly detachable joint for the outer wings, and the high aspect ratio laminar wings have been stretched to a 50’10” wingspan. The Hammerhead was initially designed as a surveillance only UAV, but there is more than sufficient space for weapons if customers choose this option. The only key limitation to equipping the drone is its 500 kg payload maximum. Piaggio is already looking in to the development of its next UAS, designated P.2HH. The P.2HH will bring about increased capability by way of key design changes, namely a larger fuselage structure for increased internal volume and all-new, wider-spanning composite wings for increased endurance. Deliveries of the new system are scheduled for early-2020.

Piaggio P.1HH Hammerhead concept

Hammerhead concept

At present, the USA and Israel have strong global leads in the UAV field, especially in the area of plane-sized Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) class or larger machines. That lead is eroding quickly, however, as new countries and firms decide that UAVs offer a useful niche with manageable development costs.

Poor US policy is also helping to drive this trend, and the new P.1HH “Hammerhead” UAV is a classic example. Italy is likely to become the initial customer for this high-performance UAV, but the platform itself and the Italian firm that makes it have strong connections to the UAE…

Continue Reading… »

Hydra, Awakened: Guided Air-Ground Rockets

Sep 05, 2017 04:59 UTC DII

Latest updates[?]: * General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems has been awarded a $60 million US Army contract modification to an earlier 2014 award for additional Hydra-70 air-to-ground rocket systems. The rockets will be for US combat aircraft and for customers of the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. The unguided 2.75"/70mm Hydra-70 air-to-ground rocket comes in a wide variety of warhead configurations and is used by a variety offixed-wing and rotary aircraft, including Apache and Cobra attack helicopters, F-16 Fighting Falcons and aircraft of other nations.
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DAGR test: truck

Boom.

Sen. Leahy’s [D-VT] worked in the mid-2000s to keep the Hydra 70mm rocket family alive through special appropriations, just in time for the Hydras’ potential on the battlefield to rise again. The key was the addition of low-cost precision guidance, which would expand the number of precision weapons carried by helicopters, aircraft, and even UAVs.

Over the last few years, the US Army’s 2nd attempt at an APKWS 70mm guided rocket had a near-death experience, before righting the program with Navy funding. Meanwhile, private development efforts are introducing new competitors into the precision-guided rocket space: Lockheed Martin, Thales TDA, and a raft of international partnerships involving major defense firms and partners in Korea, the UAE, Canada/Norway, and Israel. This DID FOCUS article covers the most prominent competitors within the guided rocket trend. Their products will sit between full anti-armor missiles like Hellfire, TOW, and Brimstone, and an emerging class of ultra-small precision attack weapons like Northrop Grumman’s Viper Strike, Raytheon’s Griffin, etc.

Continue Reading… »

Turkey’s TUHP: $3.5b for 109 T-70 Helicopters – and More

Mar 03, 2017 00:28 UTC

Latest updates[?]: Sikorsky has delivered an S-70i Black Hawk helicopter to be used as a prototype for the Turkish Utility Helicopter Program (TUHP). The delivery coincides with the signing of a “cooperation agreement” with Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), aimed at enhancing business between the two companies in the next 10 years. Sikorsky is collaborating with Turkish industry on developing its new T-70 utility helicopter, and later into Turkish-built Black Hawks, in a program that is worth approximately $3.5 billion. The delivered Black Hawk will now be equipped with a new avionics suite jointly developed with Sikorsky and TAI, with work to be carried out by Turkish arms manufacturer Aselsan. Ankara is initially planning to produce 109 T-70s but this could later reach a production total of 300 if the helicopter is rolled out to meet future Turkish requirements.
S-70i

S-70i

In 2011, the Turkish Utility Helicopter Program picked Sikorsky to continue providing its S-70 Black Hawk & Seahawk helicopters over the next 10 years. Turkey’s attack helicopter program wasn’t exactly a model procurement approach, and it should be no surprise that its TUHP contract would also come years after the initially-promised date.

The contract was finalized in February 2014, and its impact will be far-reaching. These “T-70” helicopters will equip every branch of Turkey’s armed forces, and some civilian organizations. As an added bonus, Turkish Aerospace Industries’ experience manufacturing components and assembling the S-70s will help them pursue a new light helicopter design of their own…

Continue Reading… »

India’s Rustom MALE UAV: A Step Forward – Or Back?

Nov 18, 2016 00:52 UTC

Latest updates[?]: The first flight of India's Rustom-II UAV has been successfully completed. Conducted by India's Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), the drone accomplished all main objectives during the test, including takeoff, bank, level flight, and landing. While this marks a good milestone for the program, officials maintain that a lot more evaluation and testing needs to be done before operational evaluation and eventual entry into service with India's military branches can take place.
ATK PGM

Rustom-H mockup

India has not been left out of the global UAV push. The country operates Israeli Searcher tactical UAVs, and Heron Medium Altitude, Long Endurance (MALE) UAVs, placing an additional Heron order in 2005. It has also undertaken development programs for a smaller UAV, the “Nishant”. With its “Rustom” program, however, India hopes to offer a UAV in the Heron/ Predator/ Watchkeeper class of MALE UAVs.

It had also hoped to begin to change a culture and tradition of wholly state-owned development of military hardware, which has not always performed well, or served India’s needs. A recent award has selected a winner, and moved the project forward. It may also serve as a reminder that bureaucracies are very difficult to change.

Continue Reading… »

AN-70 Aerial Transports Finally To Be Produced

Jan 29, 2015 12:11 UTC

Latest updates[?]: Testing is complete. Now, whom can you sell it to? Ukraine is now stepping up to order three of the heavy transports. A deal was reportedly signed on January 13.
AN-70

AN-70

Antonov’s AN-70 has had a long and difficult development history from its first studies and concepts in 1979. Roadblocks have included the dissolution of its sponsoring state in 1991, the crash of the initial prototype aircraft in a 1995 collision with its chase plane, and the selection of the EADS A400M development project as the basis of Europe’s Future Large Aircraft (FLA). Antonov’s project has been kept alive on a shoestring budget by the participating companies, who believe that they have a winner on their hands if they can just bring it into production. The A400M’s struggles and cost escalation, and the C-130J‘s 20-ton limitations, have validated that assessment – but assessments don’t meet payroll, or pay for equipment.

The FLA loss was indeed a bitter blow to a Ukrainian program that had already seen many setbacks. As the program inched along in limbo for many years, it even looked like the FLA loss might turn out to be fatal, consigning the AN-70 to “what if” status on par with Canada’s fabled CF-105 Avro Arrow fighter. Recent developments, more than 30 years after the project first began, have finally changed that status.

Continue Reading… »

NASA’s CCiCap: Can Space Taxis Help the Pentagon?

Sep 17, 2014 19:51 UTC

Latest updates[?]: CCiCap awarded: $6.8 billion to Boeing, SpaceX. SNC loses out, and has a choice.
CST-100 capsule

Boeing CST-100

With competition coming at last to American military satellite launches, civilian developments take on new importance. A NASA program called Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) is a major source of potential funds for key players in space launch and space vehicles, which could solve a civilian problem while improving the military’s options.

With the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, American manned missions to the International Space Station have mostly involved Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft, which costs about $63 million per seat. The lone exception has involved the commercial space innovator SpaceX, whose unmanned Dragon v1.0 capsule docked at the ISS in May 2012. NASA continues to pursue its own Space Launch System heavy rocket and Orion capsule for manned spaceflight, but in the mean time, its Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) program aims to spur development of lower-cost American options that could supplant or supplement Soyuz.

These “space taxis” will rely on heavy-lift rockets to make it into space. Their purpose isn’t military, but their configurations are very good news for the USA’s space industrial base…

Continue Reading… »

Raytheon’s Datalink: A New Naval Standard for the Standard?

Mar 14, 2013 14:04 UTC

Latest updates[?]: How far could a simple datalink go to widen the market for Raytheon's missiles, incl. the SM-3 for ballistic missile defense?
Type 42

Dutch HNLMS Tromp

As missile defense imperatives get stronger, and western defense budgets get weaker, one might expect both competition and cooperation to increase within this sector. That should be especially true around naval platforms, where multinational deployments are the normal operating mode. There are early signs that this is coming true.

In September 2011, Raytheon announced successful testing for a prototype dual-band datalink, allowing ships that use either Lockheed Martin’s SPY-1/ AEGIS system, or Thales Nederland’s APAR radars, to employ the full range of long-range Standard Missiles for air defense. That matters, because the SM-x family also includes a number of options with missile defense capabilities…

Continue Reading… »

Making CONTACT: France’s Billion-Euro Radio Program

Jun 24, 2012 20:18 UTC

FNS Tonnere

Early adopter.

In June 2012, France’s DGA began the 1st installment of its EUR 1.06 billion CONTACT(COmmunications Numeriques TACtiques et de Theatre) program, which will replace many of the French armed forces’ existing vehicle and personal radios. When it’s done, France will field an array of “software-defined” radios that offer much lower upgrade costs, as the backbone of its Army’s future tactical communications architecture.

Because ESSOR already includes France, Finland, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Sweden, radios created for CONTACT will have good export potential as replacements for existing radios. A defined equipment line will also help the ESSOR standard attract new customers, much as TETRA adoption has been driven well beyond Europe’s shores in the civil sphere.

  • SDRs, CONTACT and The ESSOR Standard
  • Contracts & Key Events
  • Additional Readings

Continue Reading… »

US Army Wants a Small Radar, for Small UAVs

May 29, 2012 15:11 UTC

NanoSAR

NanoSAR on ScanEagle

In May 2012, ImSAR, L.L.C. in Salem, UT received a $24 million firm-fixed-price and cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to build, test, and assess a lightweight ultra wide band synthetic aperture (ground-looking) radar for use on small unmanned aerial vehicles. Work will be performed in Salem, UT, with an estimated completion date of May 31/17. One bid was solicited, with 1 bid received by U.S. Army Contracting Command in Natick, MA (W911QY-12-D-0011).

ImSAR’s NanoSAR radar has already tested on Boeing’s popular ScanEagle UAV, and the company began offering it as an official payload option on Feb 23/10. The US Army doesn’t use ScanEagle UAVs, but they do have options like the RQ-7B Shadow that could benefit from a small radar that was light enough to add in addition to the existing surveillance turret. ImSAR can offer them an improved NanoSAR B, or their new Leonardo radar that’s well-suited to tasks like convoy overwatch and land-mine detection.

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