“EADS Cassidian, Dassault Aviation and Finmeccanica Alenia Aermacchi, having a common view on the current situation in Europe regarding MALE drones, call for the launch of a European MALE program,” the companies said in a joint statement issued Sunday on the eve of the Paris Air Show.

“Such a joint program would support the capability needs of European armed forces while optimizing the difficult budgetary situation through pooling of research and development funding,” the statement said.

“EADS Cassidian, Dassault Aviation and Finmeccanica Alenia Aermacchi declare their readiness to coordinate on such a program supporting the security needs of our European governments and armed forces,” it added.

It lifted off from Toulouse Blagnac’s runway 32L at 10:01 on 14 June after a 24s ground run. The crew concentrated the flight pattern initially on a region to the southeast and east of Toulouse, around Carcassonne and Pamiers.

Some 30min after lift-off the aircraft, travelling at about 190kt, retracted its landing-gear for the first time.

Full Flight video

HAC OKs Bill With Weapons Cuts That Faces Opposition

(DEFENSE DAILY 13 JUN 13) … Emelie Rutherford

The House Appropriations Committee (HAC) approved a $512.5 billion defense appropriations bill Wednesday that trims $3.4 billion from the Pentagon’s proposed budget, faces opposition from the White House, and cuts programs including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The HAC’s bill for fiscal year 2014, which the House will consider next, is expected to be opposed by the President Barack Obama because it adheres to House Republican budget plans that he rejects. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said Tuesday that Obama could veto a different, policy-setting defense authorization bill now on the House floor, and declared in a statement: “As the administration indicated previously, the president’s senior advisers would recommend vetoing any appropriations legislation that implements the House Republican Budget framework.”

HAC Republicans and Democrats clashed during Wednesday’s markup session on the committee’s $512.5 billion defense appropriations bill. While it cuts $3.4 billion from the Pentagon’s base-budget proposal – according to Congressional Budget Office estimates – it adds $5 billion to the Pentagon’s request for the separate Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) war-funding measure, raising it to $85.8 billion.

HAC Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) tried unsuccessfully to delay consideration of the appropriations measure until House Republicans and Senate Democrats hold a conference committee, if they ever do, to reconcile their chambers’ clashing budget resolutions. The dueling House and Senate budget resolutions propose different ways to end the “sequestration” budget cuts facing the Pentagon. Those are the $500 billion in decade-long cuts, which started in March, intended to help balance the federal budget.

Still, Lowey said she will “support the overall funding level in defense because it was written as though Congress will turn off sequestration, as we should.” She said “to remain a global leader, we need a strong national defense and a strong economy.”

The HAC also quashed on Wednesday an attempt from Rep. David Price (D-N.C.) to replace sequestration with what he dubbed “a balanced approach to deficit reduction.”

Both the HAC bill and the Pentagon budget proposal do not reflect the sequestration cuts. Instead, they adhere to different, partisan plans for trimming the federal budget in other ways that lessen the blow to the Pentagon.

It remains to be seen how proposed weapons-program changes in the GOP House’s two defense budget measures – the appropriations bill approved by the HAC and authorization legislation before the House – fare with Democratic Senate and White House.

The HAC takes aim at some of the Pentagon’s largest programs.

Its bill cuts $617.8 million from Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program, while still calling for buying all 29 F-35s the Pentagon wants. The funding cut is intended to “address unjustified cost growth and unjustified concurrency estimates for the program,” HAC Defense subcommittee (HAC-D) Ranking Member Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) said.

HAC-D Chairman C.W. “Bill” Young (R-Fla.) said he wants to ensure the F-35 program succeeds.

“We support the F-35, although it does have some developmental problems still, but we think we’ve got to have the follow-on airplanes,” Young told Defense Daily. “Because now we’re going back to the F-18s, which are very old airplanes, (though) very good airplanes, fortunately for us.”

Overall, the HAC bill would cut the Pentagon’s request for research and development by $1.1 billion and weapons procurement by $750 million.

“You have a certain amount of money, you’ve got to do a certain amount of work with that money. That was our problem,” Young said. “I would say we don’t have a high enough number for defense.”

The HAC’s report on the bill highlights the panel’s concern that the Navy isn’t boosting the size of its fleet fast enough, and explains why it is adding funding for a second Virginia-class submarine.

The Navy requested authority to pay for the second sub in FY ’14 through incremental funding, a setup Young has resisted. So the HAC measure adds $950 million to the Virginia-class program to fully fund both FY ’14 submarines under a traditional setup.

“The committee does not understand why funding requested for this particular submarine requires violating the Department of Defense’s long standing full funding policy,” the HAC’s report on the bill states, referring to the request for incremental funding. “The committee is puzzled by Navy claims of billions of dollars in savings for the taxpayers as it is the committee’s understanding that these savings come from the fact that the program is conducting a multi-year procurement of 10 submarines and not from the fact that one of the submarines is incrementally funded.”

Additional increases for weapons programs in the HAC bill, above the Pentagon’s request, include:

.               $146 million more for buying eight additional UH – 60 Black Hawk helicopters;

.               a $135 million boost for UH – 72A Lakota helicopter purchases;

.               $68 million more for buying MQ – 9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles;

.               a $100 million boost for Humvee modernization for the Army Guard;

.               $75 million more for procuring M88A2 Improved Recovery Vehicles;

.               a $200 million increase for procuring MSE missiles for the Patriot missile system;

.               $2.2 million more for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; and

.               a $173 million a boost for Israeli Cooperative Programs.

Decreases the HAC seeks, below the Pentagon’s proposal, include:

.               $131 million less for buying EA – 18G Growler electronic attack aircraft;

.               a drop of $23 million for buying V-22 Osprey aircraft;

.               a cut of $11 million to MQ – 1 unmanned aerial vehicle procurement;

.               a $69 million decrease for the purchase of P – 8A Poseidon Multi-mission aircraft;

.               a $29 million cut to UH – 1Y/AH – 1Z helicopter procurement;

.               $10 million less for buying Evolved Expendable Launch vehicles;

.               a $37 million cut to development of the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical;

.               $100 million less for developing the Next Generation Jammer;

.               $15 million less for the Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft’s development; and

.               an $18 million decrease to development of the Global Positioning System III operational control segment.

Young said he does not know when the full House will take up the HAC-passed defense appropriations bill.

The Unpredictability of the Paris Air Show

Pierre Verdy | AFP | Getty Images

The French ”Patrouille de France” perform aerobatics at the Paris Air Show in 2011

Let’s face it, we are on the downside of a super cycle and often enough, super cycle down phases are problematic and tumultuous at best.

Next week in Paris, the world of commercial and defense aerospace meets again at the historical Le Bourget Field at the edge of the city of light surrounded by Gallic pomp and circumstance.

This seems appropriate to pay tribute to our hosts next week

© Airbus
Hi-Speed RTO

Allumage moteurs A350 by france3midipyrenees

WASHINGTON, June 3, 2013 – Sequestration spending cuts could continue into 2014, and the impact of the deep cuts will fall disproportionately on small business, the Pentagon’s top acquisition official told a Navy industry forum today.”It’s a reasonable possibility that we will go into 2014 with sequestration still underway,” said Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. “A lot of things we planned on doing we won’t be able to do.”Last month, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Defense Department employees he could not guarantee that the budget situation would ease next year. Kendall’s comments to the 2013 Navy Opportunity Forum in Arlington, Va., come three months into a budget sequester that is taking $41 billion out of the Pentagon budget this fiscal year, leading to cuts across the military in everything from operations and deployments to training and readiness. Furloughs are set to begin in July for about 85 percent of the Defense Department’s 767,000 civilian employees. In the sequestration environment, Kendall said, the department needs to be more proactive in taking care of the small businesses that contract with the military. “The cuts we are going to experience potentially will fall on small businesses,” more than on large military contractors, he said, adding that cuts in research and development worry him as well. “Potential adversaries are modernizing at a rate which makes me nervous,” he told the group, which included representatives of companies that produce advanced technologies funded by Navy programs.

Kendall said the department is about to conclude its strategic choices and management review, which Hagel ordered to provide department leaders with options given the current budget environment as well as the prospect of future spending cuts. “What would we have to do at the department if we had to take $50 billion a year out over the long term? That would be pretty devastating,” Kendall said, mentioning one such scenario being considered by the review.

In our opinion,  F-18E/F is one of the better cost/value/capabiilty compromise available to customers.  However,  it carries some baggage with it, which in many cases can be seen as problematic,  Boeing also generally lacks the more technologically attractive offset packages proposed by the Typhoon, Rafale or Gripen teams.

Here is the F-18 evolution from the Dew Line:

While it has been known for sometime that Boeing and the US Navy intend to fly a modified F/A-18F Super Hornet equipped with conformal fuel tanks (CFTs) and a weapons pod later this summer, some new details are emerging.

]]> http://g2globalsolutions.com/review/2013/05/25/f-18ef-to-rise-like-a-phoenix/feed/ 0 http://g2globalsolutions.com/review/2013/05/09/x-47-1st-trap/ http://g2globalsolutions.com/review/2013/05/09/x-47-1st-trap/#comments Thu, 09 May 2013 17:02:24 +0000 G2 Solutions http://g2globalsolutions.com/review/?p=6726

Read the 2013 Defence White Paper [PDF 3 MB ]

The White Paper considers in detail the implications of the changing strategic circumstances in our region for Australia’s national security and defence, including:

• The ongoing strategic shift to our region, the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean Rim, particularly the shift of economic weight to our region;
• The US re-balance to the Asia Pacific and Australia’s enhanced practical cooperation with the US pursuant to our 60-year-old Alliance relationship;
• The ADF’s operational drawdown from Afghanistan, Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands;
• Australia’s own Force Force Posture Review- the first in a quarter of a century; and
• The ongoing adverse effects of the Global Financial Crisis, which have continued to have a significant impact on the global economy.

Key points:

• Budget:  €364B  to 2025
  €179B for the period 2014-2019
• 2,300 strong Rapid Reaction Force capable of deployment within 7 days to distances up to about 2,000 miles
• Emphasis on special forces and cybersecurity
• 225 combat aircraft, 50+ transport aircraft,  7 AEW aircraft (4+3),  12 MRTTs,  12 MALE UAS, new light surveillance and reconnaisance aircraft and 8 SAM batteries
• Meteor integration,  NG LDP,  Mirage 2000D upgrades
• nEUROn maintained

First read:  is the French Air Force losing two TACAIR squadrons?    UK-France jointness critical to maintaining capabilities.  France may have to turn away from Germany and Southern European partners in order to maintain its traditional African/Mediterranean sphere of influence.

Ethiopian Airlines has become the world’s first carrier to resume flying Boeing Co’s 787 Dreamliner passenger jets, landing the first commercial flight since the global fleet was grounded three months ago.

“We have a full-scale mock-up,” says Robert Ruszkowski, Lockheed’s ….continue reading at Flight

]]> http://g2globalsolutions.com/review/2013/04/13/flight-lockheed-unveils-more-information-on-uclass-programme/feed/ 0 http://g2globalsolutions.com/review/2013/04/06/airbus-u-s-a320-family-final-assembly-line-groundbreaking-event-april-8/ http://g2globalsolutions.com/review/2013/04/06/airbus-u-s-a320-family-final-assembly-line-groundbreaking-event-april-8/#comments Sat, 06 Apr 2013 15:21:17 +0000 G2 Solutions http://g2globalsolutions.com/review/?p=6694  

India’s negotiations with France’s Dassault Aviation on a $12-billion deal for Rafale fighter jets have stalled due to disagreements over the production of the planes in India, a report said Friday.The defense deal, one of the biggest ever, was to see the manufacture of the first 18 of the jets in France, with the remainder to be produced under license by….continue reading at Defense News

It would be understandable if the more than week-long war-like rhetoric on the Korean peninsula had long ago spooked investors into abandoning the more successful of the two countries. Threats of nuclear strikes, combined with daily news reports of ever more powerful…. continue reading at The Diplomat

Jean-Cyril Spinetta and Leo van Wijk, who masterminded the first merger between two European flag carriers in 2004, are stepping down and handing over the reins of Air France-KLM Group to a younger generation.

The board of the French-Dutch group today appointed Alexandre de Juniac chairman and CEO of Air France-KLM Group and Peter Hartman deputy CEO, succeeding Vice Chairman van Wijk, as of July 1.