Defense Projects and News

Embraer delivered the first two SABER M60 2.0 version radars to the Brazilian Army, which will be used in their Anti-Aircraft Artillery Units. In addition to these two radars, Embraer announced a new contract that includes four additional radars of the same model, which was revealed in April this year.

Northrop Grumman release date for the B-21 Raider. On Friday Dec 2, Northrop Grumman will officially unveil the U.S. Air Force’s sixth-generation top-secret stealth bomber to the public. There are at least 6 B-21 Raiders in production and the first flight is expected to be in 2023 with full operational readiness by the mid-2020s. The USAF Bomber fleet in the future will be spearheaded by the B-21 Raider as well as upgraded and modified B-52s as the force looks to retire its B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit fleets

Yeah Kevin.

Australia is expected to be replacing their fleet of C130J with the Super Hercules. The country's Department of Defence and part of the Project Air 7404 Phase 1 requirement calls for an upgrade of the current C130J aircraft. All of this is subject to government approval which once happens will be next year potentially. The tactical airlift fleet currently relies on 12 C130Js and a fleet of C27J Spartan aircraft. No number has been given on the number of aircraft for the potential future contract.

The Airbus A330 MRTT has conducted and completed its first tests on 100% SAF. The example was a Royal Airforce 'Voyager'. The flight was a joint endeavour between the RAF, aircraft manufacturer Airbus, the UK Ministry of Defence’s Defence Equipment and Support agency, British aircraft leasing company AirTanker and engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce, with the fuel supplied by Air bp.

The Airbus A400M MSN4´s life cycle comes to an end. With more than 2,000 flight hours, 1,000 flights and many missions and campaigns completed, the Airbus prototype known as `Grizzly 4´ among the team, returns to Bremen after nearly twelve years of pushing boundaries to develop A400M capabilities to its maximum. With the pilots Michel Gagneux and Luis Daniel Sabariegos in the cockpit, the MSN4 performed its last flight to Bremen - number 1,000 and last one in its career - where it will be displayed from now on for a well-deserved retirement after nearly twelve years in service, and after its extraordinary contribution to the development of the A400M. Since its first flight on 20 December 2010, the team behind the MSN4 has taken on every challenge along the way, and now faces its retirement with pride on how this aircraft helped reimagine the future of military operations, turning the A400M into the mature, reliable and modern aircraft it is today.

First part of the video shows a C-5 Galaxy departing.

Unveiling of the B-21 Raider.

The United States Army appears to have selected the Bell Textron V280 Valor Tilt-rotor as its replacement for the UH-60 Black Hawk. Under the contract announced Monday, which is valued up to $1.3 billion should the service exercise options, the Army will replace approximately 2,000 Black Hawks.

The UK, Italy and Japan have announced that they will jointly develop an AI-driven stealth fighter.

News of a USAF B2 Spirit that caught fire after an emergency landing. The aircraft made an extra ordinarily hard landing at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri over the weekend and subsequently caught fire but the fire fighters at the base extinguished the fire in quick time. Investigations into what happened on Dec 10th are ongoing. The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit is an expensive piece of flying hardware and the USAF currently has around 20 in service. They cost a staggering 1.2 billion a piece. The new B-21 Raider is expected to replace the Spirit in the future.

Resulting from this incident, the United States Air Force (USAF) has grounded all of its B-2 Spirit bombers. A B-2 landed very hard at Whiteman Air Force Base and resulted in a fire. All bombers of the type will now go through further testing/inspection.

Austrian Ministry of Defense has taken delivery of its first of 18 AW169M LUH helicopters from defense builder Leonardo. Alessandro Profumo, Chief Executive Officer of Leonardo, commented: "We’re pleased to see the first helicopter in Austria and we welcome the decision to further expand the fleet. We look forward to providing an even greater contribution to meet the requirements set by the collaboration between the two governments. It gives us great pleasure to see the first AW169M LUH here in Austria and we welcome the decision to further expand the fleet. We look forward to providing an even greater contribution with the most technologically advanced and cost-effective solution to meet the stringent requirements set by the collaboration between the two governments. We’re committed to sustaining this important and growing programme."

Options for an additional 18 helicopters have been exercised in the framework of the Italy-Austria G2G initiative aimed at reinforcing the bilateral collaboration between the two countries and establishing a strategic partnership in the rotorcraft sector.

Unhearable drone?

Police in Michigan killed a 33 year old man who initially was pointing a green laser and then shooting a long rifle weapon at the Trooper 2 helicopter. Ground units were called to the location and the suspect shot at MSP police there which is when they killed him. "He might be armed, he almost looks like he's holding a long gun pointed at us right now…yeah, he’s shooting at us right now, " according to audio from the helicopter.

Airbus has signed a contract with the Belgian Ministry of Defence to provide tactical satellite communications services for a 15 year period. The Armed Forces will utilise channels of the Airbus UHF (Ultra High Frequency) military communications hosted payload on-board a commercial telecommunications satellite manufactured by Airbus. "With this new UHF payload, Airbus will be able to offer a new UHF communications service, scheduled for launch in 2024, to the armed forces, particularly those of European countries and NATO allies" said Eric Even, head of Marketing and Sales, Connected Intelligence, at Airbus Defence and Space. As the UHF frequency band is a relatively scarce orbital resource, this offering will make up for the capacity shortage around the world. Airbus has already signed several firm orders for this capacity, well ahead of the satellite’s scheduled launch.

Germany’s Bundeswehr, Airbus, the German Aerospace Center DLR, and German companies SFL and Geradts have jointly carried out the world’s first successful launch and operation of a Remote Carrier flight test demonstrator from a flying A400M. Multiplying the force and extending the range of unmanned systems will be one of the future roles of Airbus’ military transport aircraft in the Future Combat Air System (FCAS).

“The excellent collaboration with our German customer and partners on the A400M UAV Launcher campaign is further evidence of how the development of FCAS will take innovation and technologies to the next level,” said Airbus Defence and Space CEO Michael Schoellhorn. “FCAS as a system of systems is starting to take shape now.” The device for launching Remote Carriers from a flying A400M was developed in just six months. For the test flight, it was loaded onto the ramp of a Bundeswehr A400M, from which the Remote Carrier demonstrator, a modified Airbus Do-DT25 drone, was launched. After the release, the Do-DT25’s engines were started and it continued in powered flight mode. The crew on board the A400M then handed over control to an operator on the ground, who safely commanded and landed the drone.

Remote Carriers will be an important component of FCAS. They will fly in close cooperation with manned aircraft and support pilots in their tasks and missions. Military transport aircraft such as the A400M will play an important role: as motherships, they will bring the Remote Carriers as close as possible to their areas of operation before releasing up to 50 small or up to 12 heavy Remote Carriers. These will then join manned aircraft, operating with a high degree of automation although always under a pilot’s control.

• Boeing-Saab Weapon seen doubling Ukraine Himars Strike Range ...Rocket to be tipped with Small-Diameter Bomb that flies on own.

https://www.defensenews.com/pentago...longer-range-small-diameter-bomb-for-ukraine/