Rapid Fire 2010-05-24: 5th Gen Fighters

• For Gates’ future Pentagon blueprint, look to his past?

• Just say no: Pentagon chief wants president to veto defense spending bill if “unwanted” projects are funded.

• Air dominance challenges: US intelligence analyst predicts China will have J-XX F-22 Raptor-like fighter by 2018 – several years earlier than originally forecast. You can also watch this recent video of a 5th-generation Russian PAK-FA fighter test flight.

Sweden To Get RQ-7 Shadow as Its Tactical UAV

Shadow 200

Sweden is a neutral country with forces in Afghanistan, who serve under the ISAF-led UN mission. In May 2010, their FMV procurement agency signed a contract to replace their existing Ugglan (Sperwer) UAVs with more modern systems. To that end, Saab AB received a SEK 500 million (about $70 million) contract to deliver 2 complete systems, along with 3 years of system operation, training, and full maintenance.

After holding a competition, Saab AB picked Textron subsidiary AAI’s Shadow 200 UAV, which it will modify with its own technologies for Swedish use…

French Navy’s RIFAN IP Networking Moves to Phase 2

Encore…
(click to view – Francais)

France’s RIFAN Operation stage 1 (Réseau IP de la Force AeroNavale) equipped 46 ships and 6 nuclear attack submarines with an IP-based, broadband networking capability. Over the next 5 years, the EUR 240 million RIFAN stage 2 phase aims to roll the full framework out to the entire fleet: 116 ships, plus helicopters, and naval patrol aircraft. It will also set up up key back-end management capabilities.

RIFAN is part of the French Marine’s overall Information and Combat System effort, and will be operated by DIRISI (Direction Interarmées des Réseaux d’Infrastructure et des Systèmes d’Information). It allows broadband information exchange between onboard business applications, is open to onboard staff information systems, and covers all levels of security from unclassified to NATO classified. The net effect is to create an intranet for the fleet. On the back end, RIFAN stage 2 will reportedly allow CMR (Capacité de Management de Réseau) supervision and management for the complete network of ships and aircraft from 2 land-based sites…