BAE Systems To Develop New Cyber Tools For DARPA | Burkina Faso Orders C295W | France’s 16th A400M Arrived

Americas

The US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency awarded BAE Systems to develop new cyber tools designed to help prevent vulnerabilities in electronic files that can lead to cyberattacks. The development ist part of the DARPA’s Safe Documents (SafeDocs) program. Aim of the program is to more effectively identify and reject malicious data in a variety of electronic formats. Every day, individuals and organizations in military, government and commercial industries receive electronic content, such as Portable Document Format (PDF) and digital media files, from unauthorized or potentially compromised sources, which creates security risks. BAE Systems will create two cyber tools. The first tool seeks to recover, simplify, and automatically select safe feature subsets within electronic data formats to help encode the data safely and unambiguously, while the second is a toolkit to help software developers avoid vulnerabilities in the software they create to process complex electronic data.

Bell-Boeing delivered the first MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to go through the US Department of Defense’s Common Configuration Readiness And Modernization program back to the Marine Corps. The company announced on December 10 that the first of 129 Block B MV-22s to be upgraded to the latest Block C standard was delivered back to Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina, from the recently opened production line at its Philadelphia plant in Pennsylvania. As a Block B configuration, this MV-22 was originally delivered to the fleet in 2005. In 2018, the aircraft flew from Marine Corps Air Station New River back to the Boeing Philadelphia facility for modernization. The next CC-RAM delivery is expected in early 2020.

Middle East & Africa

The Israeli Defense Force inducted two configurations of Elbit Systems’ XACT family of Weapon Sights. The IDF recently selected the company to provide thousands of its XACT th65 and XACT th64 uncooled thermal imaging weapon sights to marksmen of both Infantry and Special Operation Forces. Last year, the company concluded delivery of 4,800XACTth65 weapon sights to the Australian Army. In a Clip-on or Stand Alone configuration, the compact XACT weapon sights enable effective operation in day and night. Featuring a high resolution colored OLED display, image processing capabilities and a Region of Interest algorithm, XACT weapon sights enable effective target engagement even under degraded visibility conditions.

Burkina Faso placed an order with Airbus for a single C295W transport aircraft, the company announced on December 11. No specific timeline for delivery was disclosed. The procurement comes under the Burkinabe Military Programming Law covering the period 2018–22, which the country’s parliament approved in 2017 with a budget of $1.2 billion to reform and re-equip the armed forces. The new aircraft will fill a long-standing capability gap within the Burkinabe Air Force, which has lacked a dedicated transport aircraft since its single PTDI NC235-220 was grounded several years ago.

Europe

The French Air Force’s 16th A400M arrived at Orléans-Bricy Air Base on December 4. The arrival followed its acceptance by the Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA). The aircraft was the first A400M capable of dropping a 16-tonne load and perform air-to-air refueling. A tactical military transport aircraft with a strategic range, the A400M Atlas has been operational since 2015 and allows the Air Force to carry out regular missions to all overseas operation theaters and overseas locations. It also played a key role during the 2017 airlift following hurricane “Irma.” It is designed to carry up to 37 tons of equipment and carry out all transport missions, including assault landing on semi-prepared strips, parachuting personnel and equipment, in-flight refueling and medical evacuations.

Asia-Pacific

South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) awarded local shipbuilder Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction (HHIC) a $264.5 million contract to build four additional Solgae (LSF-II) Class high-speed hovercraft for the Republic of Korea Navy (RoKN). The 90-tonne hovercraft, which have a top speed of 40 kt, will join four similar craft, two of which are already in service with the RoKN, with the other two currently being built at HHIC’s Yeongdo Shipyard in Busan under a $125.9 million contract awarded in 2016. The first pair of hovercraft was delivered in mid-2007 for deployment from RoKS Dokdo, the service’s first landing platform helicopter amphibious assault ship. The other two hovercraft, which are set to be delivered in 2021, are likely to be deployed from Marado , the RoKN’s second Dokdo Class LPH, which was launched in May 2017 and is set to be handed over to the service by the end of 2020.

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Airbus’ A400M Aerial Transport: Delays, Development, and Deployment

Airbus’ A400M is a EUR 20+ billion program that aims to repeat Airbus’ civilian successes in the full size military transport market. A series of smart design decisions were made around capacity (35-37 tonnes/ 38-40 US tons, large enough for survivable armored vehicles), extensive use of modern materials, multi-role capability as a refueling tanker, and a multinational industrial program; all of which leave the aircraft well positioned to take overall market share from Lockheed Martin’s C-130 Hercules. If the USA’s C-17 is allowed to go out of production, the A400M would also have a strong position in the strategic transport market, with only Russian AN-70, IL-76 and AN-124 aircraft as competition.

Airbus’ biggest program issue, by far, has been funding for a project that is more than EUR 7 billion over budget. The next biggest issue is timing, as a combination of A400M delays and Lockheed’s strong push for its C-130J Super Hercules narrow the field for future exports. This DID Spotlight article covers the latest developments, as the A400M Atlas moves into the delivery phase. Will Airbus’ 3rd big issue become its own customers?