Cutting up Nimrods
- Thread starter Johnbr
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I guess it would be too embarassing to have one in a museum, stripped of all things sensitive. Too bad.
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The prime movers behind this are those who want the RAF to be forced to buy large UAVs for Maritime Surveillance. 2 billion Sterling in savings? [Grim laughter]
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Grey Havoc said:
Really?
The prime mover seemed to be desperate grasping around in the dark for savings, which are miniscule compared to total government spending, in a vacuum of genuine strategic thought.
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Well, the delays and cost overruns made the program a target. It's harder to justify eliminating a project that is hitting its cost and performance goals. Yeah, you can do it, but it's much easier to go after the stuff that's struggling.
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sealordlawrence said:
Maybe I'm reading too much into certain 'coincidences'. You could be right, and that the old saying 'never attribute malice...' should apply. It is interesting to note the targeted leak from the MOD in today's Sunday Times. Covering fire for the scrapping and it's advocates in government, although it could backfire. Certain claims and 'facts' in that article may not fare well in the cold light of day.
blackstar said:
It is ironic that a lot of those self same delays and cost overruns came about in the first place because of (mostly) New Labour attempts to find savings in the MOD budget, even if those 'savings' were anything but. The term, 'wholesale fraud' comes to mind.
Mike OTDP said:
That approach, while logical enough, especially given the P-8's shortcomings, might be about to encounter severe turbulence. (At the moment, mostly on the UAV side of things.)
red admiral
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Grey Havoc said:
One issue there is "what large UAVs?" Most are pretty slow and have good endurance, but not range performance. BAMS is the only option around and it's so horrendously expensive that it wouldn't be realistically considered. So what happens? Maritime Patrol gets incorporated into Scavenger - but then that drives performance to something that's more expensive and worse for other tasks. I'm not aware of a powerful UAV mafia inside MoD. Only the other day someone was talking about scrapping Reaper and Watchkeeper in an effort to keep costs down.
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red admiral said:
Talarion, which would appear to have major supporters within the current government, especially those in favour of closer European Defence integration. No matter that Talarion may be damaged goods. The fact that UK participation in the program yesterday is vital to avoid an embarrassing project cancellation is likely to be the clinching factor. Not to mention that Fox, who is not a fan of Talarion, looks like he's being increasingly outmanoeuvred on his own patch (look who just got parachuted into the MOD. Not exactly known as a defence Eurosceptic. And more privatisation and outsourcing, ye Gods!). Alas poor Mantis, we hardly knew you. Ditto Reaper.
red admiral
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You seem to have very high ideas about Talarion at the moment considering that the fibreglass mockup constitutes pretty much all of the design effort so far. I'm reasonably convinced that it's just a mechanism to fund EADS Cassidian's military arm. With Mantis, there is actually flying hardware, and was a way forwards to a final product. With increased UK-France cooperation I'd strongly suspect a vehicle based on Mantis being put into service in both services later this decade.
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Woops, my session timed out while I was replying to red admirals last post. I'll post what I had, and then I'll answer your post sealordlawrence.
Note I that said 'damaged goods', although to be fair, they have done a bit more work than just the mockups. Mantis does have potential, but I fear that this is going to be one of those all too frequent occasions where politics trumps common sense and logic. The fact that the MOD allowed the flight test program to end at five flights is not, IMO, a good sign.
BAE seems to be continuing to fund some follow on research, but there doesn't seem to any concrete plans to proceed the program as a whole beyond the completed Phase 1 (also known as Spiral 1). Spiral 2, which the company was originally intending to fund internally, was meant to provide, among other things, a more capable prototype/ testbed, much closer to operational requirements, both set and potential, than the initial tech/ flight demonstrator. However given the ongoing deterioration in it's home market and apparent loss of interest in Mantis development by the MOD, the full Spiral 2 seems to be on long term hold. Any current (notational) plans for further flights of the demonstrator seem to be solely as a testbed for systems and concepts from other projects, BAE and otherwise.
red admiral said:
Note I that said 'damaged goods', although to be fair, they have done a bit more work than just the mockups. Mantis does have potential, but I fear that this is going to be one of those all too frequent occasions where politics trumps common sense and logic. The fact that the MOD allowed the flight test program to end at five flights is not, IMO, a good sign.
BAE seems to be continuing to fund some follow on research, but there doesn't seem to any concrete plans to proceed the program as a whole beyond the completed Phase 1 (also known as Spiral 1). Spiral 2, which the company was originally intending to fund internally, was meant to provide, among other things, a more capable prototype/ testbed, much closer to operational requirements, both set and potential, than the initial tech/ flight demonstrator. However given the ongoing deterioration in it's home market and apparent loss of interest in Mantis development by the MOD, the full Spiral 2 seems to be on long term hold. Any current (notational) plans for further flights of the demonstrator seem to be solely as a testbed for systems and concepts from other projects, BAE and otherwise.
It's painful to see those aircraft cut up. It's easy to become emotionally attached; but in the end these are just tools, made of (expensive) metals, composites, et cetera. And there's actually a good case to be made that these craft have been obsolete for some time.
Granted, they have been hugely expensive up until now, but these are 'sunk cost'. So are these Nimrods effective tools for the task at hand and do these task warrant the cost that will have to be made in the future?
The conclusion has been made that this isn't the case. Hardly surprising considering the E-3 is already in the RAF's arsenal.
I do hope there's some thoughtfull consideration when it comes to scrapping Harriers though. Depending on the duration of the War in Afghanistan, they might come in handy some day.
Granted, they have been hugely expensive up until now, but these are 'sunk cost'. So are these Nimrods effective tools for the task at hand and do these task warrant the cost that will have to be made in the future?
The conclusion has been made that this isn't the case. Hardly surprising considering the E-3 is already in the RAF's arsenal.
I do hope there's some thoughtfull consideration when it comes to scrapping Harriers though. Depending on the duration of the War in Afghanistan, they might come in handy some day.
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Grey Havoc,
This is all available in the open source.
1) UK and france are cooperating on UAV procurement to occur in approximately 2015, it will be an 'open' competition (in the UK this is Scavenger). BAE and Dassault are working on a platform together to fulfill that requirement- it will use the Mantis/Taranis experience
2) Mantis / Taranis were technology demonstrators- the UK has done a massive amount of work developing this technology and it looks like it will be put to use in Scavenger
3) There is not near term requirement for a true UCAV- the requirement has now been pushed beyond 2030, so any postulating about hat is pointless.
4) Based on the public statements it increasingly looks as if Mantis would be too small to satisfy the Scavenger requirement so developing it further would be pointless if it does not meet what the MoD seems to be calling for; it is all about the BAE/Dassault effort now.
m1lkman,
I am confused by your post, E-3 has almost zero utility in undertaking the Nimrods role and MRA-4 was certainly not obsolete.
This is all available in the open source.
1) UK and france are cooperating on UAV procurement to occur in approximately 2015, it will be an 'open' competition (in the UK this is Scavenger). BAE and Dassault are working on a platform together to fulfill that requirement- it will use the Mantis/Taranis experience
2) Mantis / Taranis were technology demonstrators- the UK has done a massive amount of work developing this technology and it looks like it will be put to use in Scavenger
3) There is not near term requirement for a true UCAV- the requirement has now been pushed beyond 2030, so any postulating about hat is pointless.
4) Based on the public statements it increasingly looks as if Mantis would be too small to satisfy the Scavenger requirement so developing it further would be pointless if it does not meet what the MoD seems to be calling for; it is all about the BAE/Dassault effort now.
m1lkman,
I am confused by your post, E-3 has almost zero utility in undertaking the Nimrods role and MRA-4 was certainly not obsolete.
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Rats, can't finish my post, have to get back to this later. Quick reply. The BAE/ Dassault effort you're referring to is not even really a paper project yet, just a MOI and outline proposal to which the MOD seems to be giving a lukewarm response to so far. Get back to you soon!
red admiral
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Mantis Spiral 1 was a demonstrator and hopelessly underpowered for a actual platform. This was intended. The RR250 engines were essentially free from a RR shed. Only 5 flight tests - but they achieved the set objectives. Why do more when jet fuel is expensive (and keeping people out in Woomera). Quite a lot of the program was proving rapid prototyping capability. Spiral 2 is more of a grey area, with little in the public domain. Why? For MoD taking it's time deciding what it wants, and then the Scavenger program came in and turned it all upside down. I don't see any loss of interest in Mantis within MoD, it's simply that Scavenger and a general lack of near term funding has pushed it back a few years.
I really doubt anything off Taranis will be in there. Useful stuff from Raven, Corax, Herti etc. but Taranis is all about VLO. Scavenger is supposedly an "open" competition but we'll see what happens. The winner is very likely to be a MALE UAS, which pretty much means Reaper, Mantis+ or Talarion. Talarion doesn't really exist beyond a concept (and it's debateable how good that concept is). The UK is aware of the costs and performance of Reaper but I'd expect some risk to be adopted in favour of going the Mantis route for industrial sustainment and better relations with France if not performance.
Can I ask where you found that information?
Interesting that you think Mantis Spiral 2 would be too small. Any operational vehicle will likely be larger and massively more powerful than Spiral 1. Given that requirements aren't publically available, it's not possible to say what does or doesn't meet requirements. It'll be interesting to see what comes from the BAeS/Dassault effort, but I'd expect the Mantis heritage to be readily apparent in any product.
Would you care to elaborate on this? There's very little information publically available and the various press releases don't say a great deal. I'm interested in knowing where your information is coming from.
I really doubt anything off Taranis will be in there. Useful stuff from Raven, Corax, Herti etc. but Taranis is all about VLO. Scavenger is supposedly an "open" competition but we'll see what happens. The winner is very likely to be a MALE UAS, which pretty much means Reaper, Mantis+ or Talarion. Talarion doesn't really exist beyond a concept (and it's debateable how good that concept is). The UK is aware of the costs and performance of Reaper but I'd expect some risk to be adopted in favour of going the Mantis route for industrial sustainment and better relations with France if not performance.
Can I ask where you found that information?
Interesting that you think Mantis Spiral 2 would be too small. Any operational vehicle will likely be larger and massively more powerful than Spiral 1. Given that requirements aren't publically available, it's not possible to say what does or doesn't meet requirements. It'll be interesting to see what comes from the BAeS/Dassault effort, but I'd expect the Mantis heritage to be readily apparent in any product.
Would you care to elaborate on this? There's very little information publically available and the various press releases don't say a great deal. I'm interested in knowing where your information is coming from.
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Most of my information is from news reports and trade articles, although you have to dig a bit, due in part to there being a fair amount of confusion.
The first thing to remember is that the BAE/ Dassault joint venture is aimed at the bi-MALE (bilateral MALE) initiative announced last November at the Anglo-French Summit, not the UK MOD's Project Scavenger. While there has been talk of incorporating Scavenger into this new initiative, and separately, the outcome of one may well have a direct impact on the other, so far that's all it is, talk.
Note that the bi-MALE designation is an informal one; no formal designation has yet been announced or leaked. Also that there is currently no formal Project definition, nor contractual or treaty underpinnings of the program, such as it is (the Defence & Security Co-Operation Pact has not yet been signed and ratified, in fact it's still under negotiation).
At the moment, the only formal document relating to the bi-MALE initiative is the UK–France Summit 2010 Declaration on Defence and Security Co-operation of November 2, 2010. Specifically Item 16, Unmanned air Systems. That states that the intention is that a jointly funded competitive assessment phase will be launched (this year), with a view to be in a position to be able to take delivery of new equipment in the 2015 - 2020 timeline.
Item 16 can be taken as a statement of intent, rather than a formal project launch or even a Memorandum of Understanding. This view is backed up by the fact neither the British nor the French defence ministries have set up any dedicated administrative structures to support bi-MALE, nor shown any real sign yet of modifying existing structures towards the same aim. Ditto budgetary provisions. And even the statement of intent arguably only 'commits' the two countries to a competitive assessment program, not any actual procurement of the winning system, if any.
Now let us look at the BAE/ Dassault joint venture, such as it is. On November Second of last year, the same day as the Summit Declaration was issued, BAE and Dassault sent a letter to their respective governments, containing an outline proposal of a joint venture that could meet the next generation MALE needs of the two countries. Some reports imply that they sent the letter even before their own talks on the joint venture were concluded and a Memorandum of Intent (also known as a Letter of Intent) or equivalent was finalised. If true, this would be a case of putting the cart before the horse.
As of January 17th of this year, no Memorandum of Understanding between the two companies, putting the joint venture on a firmer footing, is known to exist. This is perhaps because the two companies are still waiting on a formal response to their November joint letter. Here we enter for a moment the murky realm of Politics.
Both BAE and Dassault are somewhat lacking in political firepower in regards to pressing their case for a joint venture. BAE Systems of course is currently being used as the whipping boy (not entirely unjustifiably) and scapegoat for the MOD's procurement and budgetary crises, and so doesn't have much political capital on hand at the moment. Dassault, while it has a well earned status in France, has traditionally come in second place, politically speaking, to EADS and certain of it's French predecessor companies e.g. Aérospatiale. And all that is with leaving out the EU level politics! :
As to the technical side of the joint venture, matters arguably get worse.
On the plus side, the joint venture can leverage Mantis and other pre-existing programs for technology and engineering expertise, perhaps even some flying hardware such as the Mantis demonstrator itself.
On the other hand, with regards to Mantis, they only have the demonstrator and some other odds and ends, not the full scale prototype and other hardware they would have if Spiral 2 had gone ahead. Also the new program will have to start from scratch with regards to formal documentation, both legal (incl. contracts) and project documentation. That gives their major competitor, EADS with it's Talarion project, a major headstart, even without the aforementioned political handicaps.
Another advantage that Talarion has, even with all it's manifest flaws, is that it actually is a defined project already in being. It has a structure, including the all important Project Management team already in place. Among other things, it has had valuable time, even with all the delays and related setbacks, to set initial program goals and to figure what resources are needed to meet those goals. To draft possible end user requirements and plan how to best develop the project's end product to meet those needs. To begin the development of both hardware and software to support those aims.
In other words, even without a prototype existing, much less flying, EADS will overall have a lot more to show potential customers/ funding sources than BAE/ Dassault has currently to hand.
The first thing to remember is that the BAE/ Dassault joint venture is aimed at the bi-MALE (bilateral MALE) initiative announced last November at the Anglo-French Summit, not the UK MOD's Project Scavenger. While there has been talk of incorporating Scavenger into this new initiative, and separately, the outcome of one may well have a direct impact on the other, so far that's all it is, talk.
Note that the bi-MALE designation is an informal one; no formal designation has yet been announced or leaked. Also that there is currently no formal Project definition, nor contractual or treaty underpinnings of the program, such as it is (the Defence & Security Co-Operation Pact has not yet been signed and ratified, in fact it's still under negotiation).
At the moment, the only formal document relating to the bi-MALE initiative is the UK–France Summit 2010 Declaration on Defence and Security Co-operation of November 2, 2010. Specifically Item 16, Unmanned air Systems. That states that the intention is that a jointly funded competitive assessment phase will be launched (this year), with a view to be in a position to be able to take delivery of new equipment in the 2015 - 2020 timeline.
Item 16 can be taken as a statement of intent, rather than a formal project launch or even a Memorandum of Understanding. This view is backed up by the fact neither the British nor the French defence ministries have set up any dedicated administrative structures to support bi-MALE, nor shown any real sign yet of modifying existing structures towards the same aim. Ditto budgetary provisions. And even the statement of intent arguably only 'commits' the two countries to a competitive assessment program, not any actual procurement of the winning system, if any.
Now let us look at the BAE/ Dassault joint venture, such as it is. On November Second of last year, the same day as the Summit Declaration was issued, BAE and Dassault sent a letter to their respective governments, containing an outline proposal of a joint venture that could meet the next generation MALE needs of the two countries. Some reports imply that they sent the letter even before their own talks on the joint venture were concluded and a Memorandum of Intent (also known as a Letter of Intent) or equivalent was finalised. If true, this would be a case of putting the cart before the horse.
As of January 17th of this year, no Memorandum of Understanding between the two companies, putting the joint venture on a firmer footing, is known to exist. This is perhaps because the two companies are still waiting on a formal response to their November joint letter. Here we enter for a moment the murky realm of Politics.
Both BAE and Dassault are somewhat lacking in political firepower in regards to pressing their case for a joint venture. BAE Systems of course is currently being used as the whipping boy (not entirely unjustifiably) and scapegoat for the MOD's procurement and budgetary crises, and so doesn't have much political capital on hand at the moment. Dassault, while it has a well earned status in France, has traditionally come in second place, politically speaking, to EADS and certain of it's French predecessor companies e.g. Aérospatiale. And all that is with leaving out the EU level politics! :
As to the technical side of the joint venture, matters arguably get worse.
On the plus side, the joint venture can leverage Mantis and other pre-existing programs for technology and engineering expertise, perhaps even some flying hardware such as the Mantis demonstrator itself.
On the other hand, with regards to Mantis, they only have the demonstrator and some other odds and ends, not the full scale prototype and other hardware they would have if Spiral 2 had gone ahead. Also the new program will have to start from scratch with regards to formal documentation, both legal (incl. contracts) and project documentation. That gives their major competitor, EADS with it's Talarion project, a major headstart, even without the aforementioned political handicaps.
Another advantage that Talarion has, even with all it's manifest flaws, is that it actually is a defined project already in being. It has a structure, including the all important Project Management team already in place. Among other things, it has had valuable time, even with all the delays and related setbacks, to set initial program goals and to figure what resources are needed to meet those goals. To draft possible end user requirements and plan how to best develop the project's end product to meet those needs. To begin the development of both hardware and software to support those aims.
In other words, even without a prototype existing, much less flying, EADS will overall have a lot more to show potential customers/ funding sources than BAE/ Dassault has currently to hand.
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There seems to be some progress at last on the bi-MALE front. How much of it is real however, remains to be seen.
Dassault, BAE press ahead with drone plan
by Staff Writers
London (UPI) Mar 21, 2011
France's Dassault Aviation has teamed with BAE Systems to collaborate exclusively on a plan to build self-piloting drones for use by both France and Britain.
The memorandum of understanding signed by the companies will see the defense manufacturers foot the bill for the development program.
The project follows an agreement by the British and French governments in November to proceed with the development on next-generation drones as part of the British government's plan to cut defense costs by purchasing more kit with other nations, London media reported.
The Daily Telegraph said the countries hope the deal would "lead to an order from the two governments within the year, to build a demonstrator unmanned aerial vehicle with the ability to fly itself as well as being operated remotely."
There was no indication by the companies or the governments on what the cost of the demonstrator would be. Still, the Telegraph said that BAE has spent in excess of $100 million building Mantis drones, designed for reconnaissance and surveillance missions.
Kevin Taylor, managing director Military Air and Information at BAE Systems the project would "ensure that the U.K. and France maintain their status as leading providers of aerospace capability."
"It will also ensure that both countries get the best return on the investment they have made in state-of-the-art technologies and UASs. We have a strong team in place that is ready to develop the future frontline UAS capability required by both the U.K. and France."
EADS, the parent company of Airbus, is purported to be working on a drone capable of challenging the BAE-Dassault offering. The company has had "exploratory talks" with France, Germany and Spain on developing the aircraft, which it calls Talarion.
Earlier this year, EADS Chief Executive Officer Louis Gallois warned against the existence of competing MALE UAV programs in Europe. He said European nations should "make a choice" about their future, claiming the co-existence of Talarion and Mantis programs would be a "risk."
Taylor said the drone under development by BAE and Dassault has yet to be given a name. It is being designed to fly as long as 36 hours depending on the equipment mounted on it.
That joint venture marks the biggest Anglo-French military project since the Jaguar fighter 40 years ago. Experts explain that the drone in development would be a rival to the Predator made by General Atomics of the United States. That model is widely deployed in Afghanistan.
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Dassault_BAE_press_ahead_with_drone_plan_999.html
Dassault, BAE press ahead with drone plan
by Staff Writers
London (UPI) Mar 21, 2011
France's Dassault Aviation has teamed with BAE Systems to collaborate exclusively on a plan to build self-piloting drones for use by both France and Britain.
The memorandum of understanding signed by the companies will see the defense manufacturers foot the bill for the development program.
The project follows an agreement by the British and French governments in November to proceed with the development on next-generation drones as part of the British government's plan to cut defense costs by purchasing more kit with other nations, London media reported.
The Daily Telegraph said the countries hope the deal would "lead to an order from the two governments within the year, to build a demonstrator unmanned aerial vehicle with the ability to fly itself as well as being operated remotely."
There was no indication by the companies or the governments on what the cost of the demonstrator would be. Still, the Telegraph said that BAE has spent in excess of $100 million building Mantis drones, designed for reconnaissance and surveillance missions.
Kevin Taylor, managing director Military Air and Information at BAE Systems the project would "ensure that the U.K. and France maintain their status as leading providers of aerospace capability."
"It will also ensure that both countries get the best return on the investment they have made in state-of-the-art technologies and UASs. We have a strong team in place that is ready to develop the future frontline UAS capability required by both the U.K. and France."
EADS, the parent company of Airbus, is purported to be working on a drone capable of challenging the BAE-Dassault offering. The company has had "exploratory talks" with France, Germany and Spain on developing the aircraft, which it calls Talarion.
Earlier this year, EADS Chief Executive Officer Louis Gallois warned against the existence of competing MALE UAV programs in Europe. He said European nations should "make a choice" about their future, claiming the co-existence of Talarion and Mantis programs would be a "risk."
Taylor said the drone under development by BAE and Dassault has yet to be given a name. It is being designed to fly as long as 36 hours depending on the equipment mounted on it.
That joint venture marks the biggest Anglo-French military project since the Jaguar fighter 40 years ago. Experts explain that the drone in development would be a rival to the Predator made by General Atomics of the United States. That model is widely deployed in Afghanistan.
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Dassault_BAE_press_ahead_with_drone_plan_999.html
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An interesting development.
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DATE: 12/05/11
SOURCE: Flight International
Turkey signs up as Talarion partner
By Tolga Ozbek
Turkish Aerospace Industries has signed a memorandum of understanding with EADS company Cassidian to become a part of its Talarion unmanned air system project.
Ankara has long been interested in participating in the European programme for a next-generation medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS, and its undersecretary of defence industries has now agreed to make a significant investment in the prototype phase. A team of Turkish companies led by TAI will participate in the effort, it was announced during the IDEF exhibition in Istanbul.
"Cassidian is very pleased and honoured to welcome TAI as part of the Talarion team," said Cassidian Air Systems chief executive Bernhard Gerwert. "With this industrial commitment we strongly believe that the potential customers will decide soon to support this unique product.
Talarion has been proposed to fulfil the future intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance requirements of France, Germany and Spain, with Turkey long cited as a potential additional partner. The system is designed to meet a range of military and civilian mission requirements, including border protection and anti-piracy tasks to be flown in civil airspace.
"We look forward to the progress of this programme, which offers the highest performance of its class, incorporating the most modern modular sensor suite and data links," said TAI general manager Muharrem Dortkasli.
Cassidian earlier this year requested an investment of €300 million ($424 million) to build a prototype of its Talarion system. With first flight scheduled for 2014, the company has established a so-called "plateau" phase, which currently involves around 160 engineers from main suppliers in France, Germany, Spain and Turkey.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/05/12/356554/turkey-signs-up-as-talarion-partner.html
Aircraft
You are in: Home › Aircraft › News Article
DATE: 12/05/11
SOURCE: Flight International
Turkey signs up as Talarion partner
By Tolga Ozbek
Turkish Aerospace Industries has signed a memorandum of understanding with EADS company Cassidian to become a part of its Talarion unmanned air system project.
Ankara has long been interested in participating in the European programme for a next-generation medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS, and its undersecretary of defence industries has now agreed to make a significant investment in the prototype phase. A team of Turkish companies led by TAI will participate in the effort, it was announced during the IDEF exhibition in Istanbul.
"Cassidian is very pleased and honoured to welcome TAI as part of the Talarion team," said Cassidian Air Systems chief executive Bernhard Gerwert. "With this industrial commitment we strongly believe that the potential customers will decide soon to support this unique product.
Talarion has been proposed to fulfil the future intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance requirements of France, Germany and Spain, with Turkey long cited as a potential additional partner. The system is designed to meet a range of military and civilian mission requirements, including border protection and anti-piracy tasks to be flown in civil airspace.
"We look forward to the progress of this programme, which offers the highest performance of its class, incorporating the most modern modular sensor suite and data links," said TAI general manager Muharrem Dortkasli.
Cassidian earlier this year requested an investment of €300 million ($424 million) to build a prototype of its Talarion system. With first flight scheduled for 2014, the company has established a so-called "plateau" phase, which currently involves around 160 engineers from main suppliers in France, Germany, Spain and Turkey.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/05/12/356554/turkey-signs-up-as-talarion-partner.html
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BAE Systems, Dassault Await UAS Requirement
Jun 1, 2011
By Robert Wall
Warton, England
One of the flagship programs underpinning the ambitious Franco-British effort to establish a 50-year strategic partnership in national security is several steps closer to being clarified.
France and the U.K. have committed to jointly address their medium-, long-endurance unmanned aircraft (MALE) requirement under the new defense agreement that was formulated in November 2010. But much of the program’s success will hinge on devising combined requirements and a cohesive acquisition strategy. Progress on both fronts is being made, and a definitive shape is likely in the next few months.
The French defense procurement agency, DGA, has already dispatched a cadre to Abbey Wood, home of the U.K. defense ministry’s defense equipment and support organization, to help run the project. The detailed acquisition strategy is now being defined.
Many industry officials in Europe are eagerly anticipating the outcome, but probably none more so than BAE Systems and Dassault—they have agreed to jointly pursue the program. Others, such as Thales, are still pondering a commitment and EADS Cassidian is mulling over building a proposal featuring its Talarion unmanned aircraft concept.
While BAE Systems and Dassault have agreed on the broad outline, details are closely coupled to the requirements document. Although the two national prime contractors appear strange bedfellows, Ian Fairclough, project director for strategic unmanned aerial systems (UAS) programs at BAE Systems, argues that the two firms offer “complementary capabilities.”
Fairclough suggests that open competition and a sole-source approach to the Franco-British industrial partnership are under consideration; European competition rules could influence the outcome.
Regardless of what course is taken, Fairclough argues, there are benefits to moving quickly beyond just preserving the notional 2015-20 fielding agenda. A prolonged competitive process jeopardizes design engineering skills, which would otherwise be idle during that time.
Detailed program definition between the partners is still being worked out. What is less clear is how specific that document will be and whether it will be sufficient to begin detailed design activity.
One matter still under discussion is whether the system would have to be certified to civil requirements, which would ease operations in civil airspace but add complexity and cost.
Industry also is waiting for word from both governments over their preference for final assembly.
The current plan calls for BAE Systems to be responsible for defining the aircraft and engine selection—turbofans and turboprops are still in the mix—while Dassault would focus on systems integration and testing, Eric Trappier, executive vice president/international at Dassault Aviation, said recently.
The concept would be an evolution of the Mantis flying demonstrator developed by BAE Systems. Many details, though, remain undetermined, including how many air vehicles will be featured in each system.
Another decision revolves around devising an exportable system. The two countries “would like to minimize ITAR content,” Fairclough says of equipment governed by the complex U.S. International Transfer of Arms Regulations.
The air vehicle would be designed to be able to both target and deliver ordnance.
Cost estimates vary for the program. Some put the development/production bill at €1 billion ($1.4 billion), which would be shared equally, although a U.K. defense ministry document cites a £2 billion ($3.2 billion) life-cycle cost for the U.K. alone. That assumes around 20 aircraft, although no number has been set.
For the U.K., the program would take on much of the requirement of the so-called Scavenger UAS requirement, although it remains uncertain whether all aspects would be covered by the Franco-British effort. The U.K.’s UAS document, developed by the defense ministry’s doctrine center, suggests “the U.K. will consider if other complementary components are needed to fully satisfy the U.K. capability requirement.”
Although the program is bilateral, so far, Dassault’s Yves Robins, a counselor to Trappier, says that if the two governments change course, industry would adapt.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/awst/2011/05/30/AW_05_30_2011_p35-328024.xml&headline=BAE
Jun 1, 2011
By Robert Wall
Warton, England
One of the flagship programs underpinning the ambitious Franco-British effort to establish a 50-year strategic partnership in national security is several steps closer to being clarified.
France and the U.K. have committed to jointly address their medium-, long-endurance unmanned aircraft (MALE) requirement under the new defense agreement that was formulated in November 2010. But much of the program’s success will hinge on devising combined requirements and a cohesive acquisition strategy. Progress on both fronts is being made, and a definitive shape is likely in the next few months.
The French defense procurement agency, DGA, has already dispatched a cadre to Abbey Wood, home of the U.K. defense ministry’s defense equipment and support organization, to help run the project. The detailed acquisition strategy is now being defined.
Many industry officials in Europe are eagerly anticipating the outcome, but probably none more so than BAE Systems and Dassault—they have agreed to jointly pursue the program. Others, such as Thales, are still pondering a commitment and EADS Cassidian is mulling over building a proposal featuring its Talarion unmanned aircraft concept.
While BAE Systems and Dassault have agreed on the broad outline, details are closely coupled to the requirements document. Although the two national prime contractors appear strange bedfellows, Ian Fairclough, project director for strategic unmanned aerial systems (UAS) programs at BAE Systems, argues that the two firms offer “complementary capabilities.”
Fairclough suggests that open competition and a sole-source approach to the Franco-British industrial partnership are under consideration; European competition rules could influence the outcome.
Regardless of what course is taken, Fairclough argues, there are benefits to moving quickly beyond just preserving the notional 2015-20 fielding agenda. A prolonged competitive process jeopardizes design engineering skills, which would otherwise be idle during that time.
Detailed program definition between the partners is still being worked out. What is less clear is how specific that document will be and whether it will be sufficient to begin detailed design activity.
One matter still under discussion is whether the system would have to be certified to civil requirements, which would ease operations in civil airspace but add complexity and cost.
Industry also is waiting for word from both governments over their preference for final assembly.
The current plan calls for BAE Systems to be responsible for defining the aircraft and engine selection—turbofans and turboprops are still in the mix—while Dassault would focus on systems integration and testing, Eric Trappier, executive vice president/international at Dassault Aviation, said recently.
The concept would be an evolution of the Mantis flying demonstrator developed by BAE Systems. Many details, though, remain undetermined, including how many air vehicles will be featured in each system.
Another decision revolves around devising an exportable system. The two countries “would like to minimize ITAR content,” Fairclough says of equipment governed by the complex U.S. International Transfer of Arms Regulations.
The air vehicle would be designed to be able to both target and deliver ordnance.
Cost estimates vary for the program. Some put the development/production bill at €1 billion ($1.4 billion), which would be shared equally, although a U.K. defense ministry document cites a £2 billion ($3.2 billion) life-cycle cost for the U.K. alone. That assumes around 20 aircraft, although no number has been set.
For the U.K., the program would take on much of the requirement of the so-called Scavenger UAS requirement, although it remains uncertain whether all aspects would be covered by the Franco-British effort. The U.K.’s UAS document, developed by the defense ministry’s doctrine center, suggests “the U.K. will consider if other complementary components are needed to fully satisfy the U.K. capability requirement.”
Although the program is bilateral, so far, Dassault’s Yves Robins, a counselor to Trappier, says that if the two governments change course, industry would adapt.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/awst/2011/05/30/AW_05_30_2011_p35-328024.xml&headline=BAE
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From defence-aerospace.com:
BAE Systems-Dassault Aviation Telemos Revives France’s UAV Wars
(Source: defense-aerospace.com; published June 16, 2011)
By Giovanni de Briganti
PARIS --- BAE Systems and Dassault Aviation have revived the latent French UAV wars by publicly renewing their offer to jointly develop a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft for their two governments as the deadline nears for France to decide how to meet another, more urgent short-term UAV requirement.
The French government is coming under increasing pressure from Parliament and the armed forces to acquire an armed UAV capability, and it must soon decide whether to buy the MQ-9 Reaper from the United States, upgrade and arm the Harfang UAVs that it currently operates, or both.
A decision on this short-term requirement would allow a more leisurely development of a future Medium-Altitude, Long Endurance (MALE) unmanned vehicle that would enter service in the latter part of the decade.
Among the obstacles to France’s possible Reaper procurement is the fact that they would have to be operated by French crews based at Creech Air Force Base, in Nevada, and this would sit ill with long-standing French principles of military autonomy. The Royal Air Force was authorized to set up a Reaper squadron in the U.K. only in mid-May; this will allow Britain for the first time to control its UAVs from its own territory, and not the U.S., from 2012.
While attention is focused on France’s short-term requirement, two industry groups are jockeying to win the contract to develop the more lucrative follow-on MALE program: BAE Systems and Dassault Aviation, with their newly named Telemos, and the Cassidian unit of EADS, which is offering its Talarion. Both groups understand that winning this program would set them on the way to dominate Europe’s UAV industry – and thus its military aviation - and this explains the intense maneuvering that is going on behind the scenes.
The ultimate prize, as current thinking goes, is the future contract to develop and produce an Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) that could be integrated with current fighters like Rafale and Eurofighter when they go through their mid-life upgrade, around 2030. This is especially significant since it would give European fighters a competitive edge over their foreign competitors because UCAVs would escort manned fighters and assist them in reconnaissance, coordinated strikes, suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) missions and more. But that is decades away.
“We currently operate four Harfang UAVs and two ground stations,” Gen. Patrick Charaix, deputy commander of the French air defense forces, said in a recent interview. “They are getting older, and this makes it harder to keep them operationally effective….We are nearing a critical threshold, and we must absolutely do something about it.”
Charaix added that a European-designed MALE UAV will not be available before 2020, “and there is a consensus that we cannot wait that long to acquire a capability that we already urgently need today….There are two alternatives for the next step: buy Reapers, like Britain, Italy and, soon, Germany, or to buy upgraded Harfangs in greater numbers.”
But Eric Trappier, Dassault Aviation executive vice-president, International, says that “even if France goes for an off-the-shelf procurement of an American system, our project should be launched so that, down the line, we will have an off-the-shelf system for the future.”
BAE Systems, Dassault Push Telemos UAV
The current BAE Systems-Dassault team formally submitted its unsolicited proposal to the British and French governments in July 2010. Each country would invest about 500 million euros, with some industry funding, to finance the development, production and operation of a small initial batch of a MALE aircraft they have now christened Telemos.
A key point is that the two companies’ agreement is exclusive; in other words, BAE will work on MALE UAVs only with Dassault, and vice versa. Since it is highly unlikely that the UK government would finance a company other than BAE, the team appears to have gained a head-start by virtually stitching up British funding.
While several European countries plan to procure UAVs at some point, and indeed are buying off-the-shelf systems or funding some technology demonstrator programs such as the Neuron unmanned combat air vehicle, Britain and France will play a leading role by virtue of their defense cooperation treaty, signed on Nov. 2, 2010, which commits them to cooperate in the field of unmanned aircraft.
Specifically, their joint Declaration on Defence and Security Co-operation states that “we have agreed to work together on the next generation of Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) Unmanned Air Surveillance Systems….We will launch a jointly funded, competitive assessment phase in 2011, with a view to new equipment delivery between 2015 and 2020.”
It adds that, “In the longer term, we will jointly assess requirements and options for the next generation of Unmanned Combat Air Systems from 2030 onwards….We will develop over the next two years a joint technological and industrial roadmap. This could lead to a decision in 2012 to launch a joint Technology and Operational Demonstration programme from 2013 to 2018.”
The only thing that is missing is the funding, but in this Britain and France differ little from other European countries, whose governments are trying to determine how best to meet their requirements and at what cost. Italy, for example, favors a wide-ranging international project similar in scope and philosophy to the F-35 Joint strike fighter, while Germany is currently focused on introducing its Heron UAVs, which have just attained Initial Operating Capability in Afghanistan, and probably buying or leasing Reapers.
EADS, Cassidian Counter with Talarion
The Cassidian unit of EADS counters that it has already carried out a risk-reduction study for a MALE UAV jointly funded by the French, German and Spanish governments, and has designed the Talarion to incorporate the three countries’ stated requirements. Furthermore, EADS has invested over 500 million euros of its own money in various UAV programs, says a Cassidian executive, thus amassing a volume of experience that is unmatched in Europe. Talarion could fly in 2014 with initial deliveries to follow in 2017, he said, and its full-scale development cost has been reset to 1.2 billion euros, or about 400 million euros per participating country.
Both programs, however, risk running into the cruel reality that, despite their ambitious plans, European countries have little spare cash with which to fund development of one MALE aircraft, let alone two.
One possible outcome is a merger of the Talarion and Telemos into a single program that would then be jointly funded by France, Germany, Spain, the UK as well as Turkey, which joined Talarion last month. Another is for the five countries to set up a straight, winner-takes-all competition between Talarion and Telemos.
Intense negotiations are taking place behind the scenes, and one source familiar with these talks says that major players are debating whether to aim for an outright win, or instead accept a merged program in which all major players would share.
Dassault’s Eric Trappier told reporters here June 8 that, “while BAE and Dassault are the locomotives” of the project, “that doesn’t mean that Italy or other partners will not be able to join the train” at some point, albeit in junior positions. “We will see what the ministries of defense will discuss and agree,” he added prudently.
Given a green light this year, Telemos deliveries could begin five years later. Telemos will have a maximum take-off weight of about 8 metric tonnes, and a wing-span of 24 meters. It will have an endurance of about 24 hours, and will be able to launch weapons such as precision-guided bombs. Its general configuration, with straight wing and two pusher turboprops, is quite similar to BAE’s Mantis demonstrator – and, indeed, to Cassidian’s Telerion, although this has opted for jet engines rather than turboprops.
A significant argument in favor of Telemos, says Trappier, is that it would be a fully independent, Anglo-French system entirely under national sovereignty – and not, by implication, under even indirect control of a third-party country. Peter Richardson, representing BAE’s military aircraft unit, adds that “you have to look at the fact that if governments felt they could meet their requirements by buying off-the-shelf, they wouldn’t have structured [their UAV cooperation] in this way.”
Trappier explained that “we are not competing with any short-term projects” that France is considering, but admitted that the problem of finding the necessary funding for both has to be solved by France’s defense ministry. He also said that, if there is a firm requirement to field a MALE before 2016, “Dassault has other options, with other partners, to respond to it.” He was referring to an offer that Dassault, together with Thales, made to the French ministry of defense last year to lease an UAV system based on the Heron TP air vehicle developed by Israel Aerospace Industries, with which Dassault concluded a teaming agreement in 2009.
Intriguingly, an earlier version of IAI’s Heron also forms the basis of the French air force’s Harfang UAV, but this time it is supplied by EADS as part of the SIDM (Système Intérimaire de Drone MALE, or Interim MALE Drone System). EADS was awarded the latest contract under this program in December 2009, for the acquisition of a fourth Harfang aircraft and a third ground station at a cost of 33.7 million euros.
EADS considers that, through Harfang and its own, company-funded projects like the Talarion and Barracuda UAVs, it has acquired such a level of expertise that it should win the French MALE contract hands-down. Company chief executive Louis Gallois has publicly stated on several occasions that only EADS has the complete know-how needed to develop such a UAV, from ground station to airframe to sensors, and argues that it makes no sense to duplicate such a capability by awarding a MALE contract to anyone else. Dassault and BAE may have sewn up UK MoD funding, but EADS’ lobbying and industrial clout should not be underestimated.
Ironically, before parting ways, Dassault and EADS had teamed with Thales to form what they described, in a joint June 2004 statement, as the “founding agreement, in the framework of the demonstrators launched by the Ministry of Defence, [that] covers all future activity in combat and strategic reconnaissance aeronautics.”
The stakes are high because whoever wins the French (or Anglo-French) MALE contract will dominate the future military aviation market in Western Europe, while the loser will, at best, become a subcontractor. The battle for the MALE is also the logical extension of the two companies’ rivalry in combat aircraft, where the Eurofighter and Rafale compete head-to-head, and are for example the only two aircraft left in the running for India’s $10+ billion MMRCA competition.
As a final twist, BAE is allied with EADS (and Italy’s Alenia Aeronautica) on the Eurofighter, while EADS holds the French government’s stake in Dassault, all of which adds extra spice to the MALE competition and its follow-up.
-ends-
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/cgi-bin/client/modele.pl?shop=dae&modele=feature&prod=126333&cat=5
BAE Systems-Dassault Aviation Telemos Revives France’s UAV Wars
(Source: defense-aerospace.com; published June 16, 2011)
By Giovanni de Briganti
PARIS --- BAE Systems and Dassault Aviation have revived the latent French UAV wars by publicly renewing their offer to jointly develop a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft for their two governments as the deadline nears for France to decide how to meet another, more urgent short-term UAV requirement.
The French government is coming under increasing pressure from Parliament and the armed forces to acquire an armed UAV capability, and it must soon decide whether to buy the MQ-9 Reaper from the United States, upgrade and arm the Harfang UAVs that it currently operates, or both.
A decision on this short-term requirement would allow a more leisurely development of a future Medium-Altitude, Long Endurance (MALE) unmanned vehicle that would enter service in the latter part of the decade.
Among the obstacles to France’s possible Reaper procurement is the fact that they would have to be operated by French crews based at Creech Air Force Base, in Nevada, and this would sit ill with long-standing French principles of military autonomy. The Royal Air Force was authorized to set up a Reaper squadron in the U.K. only in mid-May; this will allow Britain for the first time to control its UAVs from its own territory, and not the U.S., from 2012.
While attention is focused on France’s short-term requirement, two industry groups are jockeying to win the contract to develop the more lucrative follow-on MALE program: BAE Systems and Dassault Aviation, with their newly named Telemos, and the Cassidian unit of EADS, which is offering its Talarion. Both groups understand that winning this program would set them on the way to dominate Europe’s UAV industry – and thus its military aviation - and this explains the intense maneuvering that is going on behind the scenes.
The ultimate prize, as current thinking goes, is the future contract to develop and produce an Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) that could be integrated with current fighters like Rafale and Eurofighter when they go through their mid-life upgrade, around 2030. This is especially significant since it would give European fighters a competitive edge over their foreign competitors because UCAVs would escort manned fighters and assist them in reconnaissance, coordinated strikes, suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) missions and more. But that is decades away.
“We currently operate four Harfang UAVs and two ground stations,” Gen. Patrick Charaix, deputy commander of the French air defense forces, said in a recent interview. “They are getting older, and this makes it harder to keep them operationally effective….We are nearing a critical threshold, and we must absolutely do something about it.”
Charaix added that a European-designed MALE UAV will not be available before 2020, “and there is a consensus that we cannot wait that long to acquire a capability that we already urgently need today….There are two alternatives for the next step: buy Reapers, like Britain, Italy and, soon, Germany, or to buy upgraded Harfangs in greater numbers.”
But Eric Trappier, Dassault Aviation executive vice-president, International, says that “even if France goes for an off-the-shelf procurement of an American system, our project should be launched so that, down the line, we will have an off-the-shelf system for the future.”
BAE Systems, Dassault Push Telemos UAV
The current BAE Systems-Dassault team formally submitted its unsolicited proposal to the British and French governments in July 2010. Each country would invest about 500 million euros, with some industry funding, to finance the development, production and operation of a small initial batch of a MALE aircraft they have now christened Telemos.
A key point is that the two companies’ agreement is exclusive; in other words, BAE will work on MALE UAVs only with Dassault, and vice versa. Since it is highly unlikely that the UK government would finance a company other than BAE, the team appears to have gained a head-start by virtually stitching up British funding.
While several European countries plan to procure UAVs at some point, and indeed are buying off-the-shelf systems or funding some technology demonstrator programs such as the Neuron unmanned combat air vehicle, Britain and France will play a leading role by virtue of their defense cooperation treaty, signed on Nov. 2, 2010, which commits them to cooperate in the field of unmanned aircraft.
Specifically, their joint Declaration on Defence and Security Co-operation states that “we have agreed to work together on the next generation of Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) Unmanned Air Surveillance Systems….We will launch a jointly funded, competitive assessment phase in 2011, with a view to new equipment delivery between 2015 and 2020.”
It adds that, “In the longer term, we will jointly assess requirements and options for the next generation of Unmanned Combat Air Systems from 2030 onwards….We will develop over the next two years a joint technological and industrial roadmap. This could lead to a decision in 2012 to launch a joint Technology and Operational Demonstration programme from 2013 to 2018.”
The only thing that is missing is the funding, but in this Britain and France differ little from other European countries, whose governments are trying to determine how best to meet their requirements and at what cost. Italy, for example, favors a wide-ranging international project similar in scope and philosophy to the F-35 Joint strike fighter, while Germany is currently focused on introducing its Heron UAVs, which have just attained Initial Operating Capability in Afghanistan, and probably buying or leasing Reapers.
EADS, Cassidian Counter with Talarion
The Cassidian unit of EADS counters that it has already carried out a risk-reduction study for a MALE UAV jointly funded by the French, German and Spanish governments, and has designed the Talarion to incorporate the three countries’ stated requirements. Furthermore, EADS has invested over 500 million euros of its own money in various UAV programs, says a Cassidian executive, thus amassing a volume of experience that is unmatched in Europe. Talarion could fly in 2014 with initial deliveries to follow in 2017, he said, and its full-scale development cost has been reset to 1.2 billion euros, or about 400 million euros per participating country.
Both programs, however, risk running into the cruel reality that, despite their ambitious plans, European countries have little spare cash with which to fund development of one MALE aircraft, let alone two.
One possible outcome is a merger of the Talarion and Telemos into a single program that would then be jointly funded by France, Germany, Spain, the UK as well as Turkey, which joined Talarion last month. Another is for the five countries to set up a straight, winner-takes-all competition between Talarion and Telemos.
Intense negotiations are taking place behind the scenes, and one source familiar with these talks says that major players are debating whether to aim for an outright win, or instead accept a merged program in which all major players would share.
Dassault’s Eric Trappier told reporters here June 8 that, “while BAE and Dassault are the locomotives” of the project, “that doesn’t mean that Italy or other partners will not be able to join the train” at some point, albeit in junior positions. “We will see what the ministries of defense will discuss and agree,” he added prudently.
Given a green light this year, Telemos deliveries could begin five years later. Telemos will have a maximum take-off weight of about 8 metric tonnes, and a wing-span of 24 meters. It will have an endurance of about 24 hours, and will be able to launch weapons such as precision-guided bombs. Its general configuration, with straight wing and two pusher turboprops, is quite similar to BAE’s Mantis demonstrator – and, indeed, to Cassidian’s Telerion, although this has opted for jet engines rather than turboprops.
A significant argument in favor of Telemos, says Trappier, is that it would be a fully independent, Anglo-French system entirely under national sovereignty – and not, by implication, under even indirect control of a third-party country. Peter Richardson, representing BAE’s military aircraft unit, adds that “you have to look at the fact that if governments felt they could meet their requirements by buying off-the-shelf, they wouldn’t have structured [their UAV cooperation] in this way.”
Trappier explained that “we are not competing with any short-term projects” that France is considering, but admitted that the problem of finding the necessary funding for both has to be solved by France’s defense ministry. He also said that, if there is a firm requirement to field a MALE before 2016, “Dassault has other options, with other partners, to respond to it.” He was referring to an offer that Dassault, together with Thales, made to the French ministry of defense last year to lease an UAV system based on the Heron TP air vehicle developed by Israel Aerospace Industries, with which Dassault concluded a teaming agreement in 2009.
Intriguingly, an earlier version of IAI’s Heron also forms the basis of the French air force’s Harfang UAV, but this time it is supplied by EADS as part of the SIDM (Système Intérimaire de Drone MALE, or Interim MALE Drone System). EADS was awarded the latest contract under this program in December 2009, for the acquisition of a fourth Harfang aircraft and a third ground station at a cost of 33.7 million euros.
EADS considers that, through Harfang and its own, company-funded projects like the Talarion and Barracuda UAVs, it has acquired such a level of expertise that it should win the French MALE contract hands-down. Company chief executive Louis Gallois has publicly stated on several occasions that only EADS has the complete know-how needed to develop such a UAV, from ground station to airframe to sensors, and argues that it makes no sense to duplicate such a capability by awarding a MALE contract to anyone else. Dassault and BAE may have sewn up UK MoD funding, but EADS’ lobbying and industrial clout should not be underestimated.
Ironically, before parting ways, Dassault and EADS had teamed with Thales to form what they described, in a joint June 2004 statement, as the “founding agreement, in the framework of the demonstrators launched by the Ministry of Defence, [that] covers all future activity in combat and strategic reconnaissance aeronautics.”
The stakes are high because whoever wins the French (or Anglo-French) MALE contract will dominate the future military aviation market in Western Europe, while the loser will, at best, become a subcontractor. The battle for the MALE is also the logical extension of the two companies’ rivalry in combat aircraft, where the Eurofighter and Rafale compete head-to-head, and are for example the only two aircraft left in the running for India’s $10+ billion MMRCA competition.
As a final twist, BAE is allied with EADS (and Italy’s Alenia Aeronautica) on the Eurofighter, while EADS holds the French government’s stake in Dassault, all of which adds extra spice to the MALE competition and its follow-up.
-ends-
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/cgi-bin/client/modele.pl?shop=dae&modele=feature&prod=126333&cat=5
Just because it's topical, I have a foot-square piece of Nimrod fuselage in my collection, rescued in the early 90s from somewhere fairly inaccessible. Pride of place next to some Al I picked up in the Nevada desert last year using info from Peter Merlin's site.
pathology_doc
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I have a strong feeling we are going to discover one day that there is no maritime patrol aircraft like a manned maritime patrol aircraft, but it will be discovered when all those responsible are long out of power and cannot be punished for their foolishness.
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pathology_doc said:
[nods]
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'Get Your Houses in Order'
Can France Force Rival Firms To Cooperate on UAV?
By PIERRE TRAN
Published: 26 June 2011
PARIS - France is pushing off decisions on a medium-term UAV purchase as Dassault and EADS wrangle over what role - if any - the latter might play in an Anglo-French program that represents the sole major design effort on the horizon for European aircraft makers.
The British and French chiefs of staff will take 12 to 18 months to draw up common requirements for a medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) air system, one of the goals of last November's cross-Channel defense cooperation treaty, French Defense Minister Gérard Longuet told journalists June 21 at the Paris Air Show.
Pressed for more information on France's plans to acquire interim and medium-term UAVs, Longuet carefully avoided clear and simple answers.
That studied evasiveness reflected the bitter conflict between Dassault and EADS.
At the air show, a few movable fences and a stretch of tarmac separated the full-scale mockup of EADS' Talarion UAV from Dassault's similar Telemos model. But the family-owned French company, which wants to build the U.K.-French MALE UAV with BAE Systems, is raising far stouter barriers to a co-leading role for EADS.
The stakes are higher than mere sales revenue; with no plans for successors to the Eurofighter or the Rafale, the UAV work is the only apparent program that can help the big players hang onto their military aircraft design teams.
Longuet, an industry minister in the 1990s, said the state is playing various roles - shareholder, client/ operator and strategist - and said Paris wants to see Dassault and EADS working together "instead of sitting like bookends" at opposite ends of the shelf. He suggested the Anglo-French UAV program could "start off" as a bilateral program and open up to other partners.
"He's playing for time," said François Lureau, head of consultancy EuroFLconsulting and former chief of the Direction Générale de l'Armement (DGA). "The message was: Get your two houses in order."
'End the Wars'
Longuet spoke the day after President Nicolas Sarkozy delivered a dramatic speech at a hangar at the air show.
Declaring that the country's companies must work together to end the "Franco-French internal wars," the French president warned that if the firms did not voluntarily settle their differences, they would be instructed to do so.
Sarkozy did not name companies, but industry executives said his remarks were clearly aimed at chief executives of Dassault Aviation, EADS, Safran and Thales, sitting in the front row as he spoke.
One defense source said Sarkozy was specifically frustrated with Safran and Thales, which have been unable to agree on a proposed asset swap that Paris believes will strengthen both companies.
But because of the dispute between Dassault and EADS over the MALE UAV, Sarkozy was widely seen as pressing those two companies, the source said.
The French president cannot merely order the companies to cooperate, although he has big levers to move them. The French state owns large minority stakes in EADS, Safran and Thales, and an indirect stake in Dassault, which is 46 percent owned by EADS. The government can exert pressure through the board seats it occupies and through its leverage as a big customer.
"You can't ignore a client and large shareholder," Lureau said.
Yet Dassault, as a family-controlled business, is seen as strongly independent.
And Dassault executives appeared unmoved by Sarkozy's speech and Longuet's "bookends" remarks. As the air show continued, the Dassult view remained that EADS could act as a MALE equipment supplier, but BAE and Dassault would drive the program's locomotive.
Eric Trappier, international director for Dassault, said the Anglo-French project presented a chance to boost the company's military side.
"What we are interested in [with] UAVs is technology," Trappier said. "It is the capability to have design and development in our company. It is engineering in terms of military capability, integration of weapons, flight testing, which is really dedicated for military applications.
"We will compete [with BAE Systems] for existing aircraft, but at the same time, we prepare the future together, knowing that in Europe, we don't have finance to develop by ourselves this type of new vehicle," he said. "If we don't find the right partner, well, we could disappear from this field against the Israelis or the Americans. So we have a common interest, and this is business."
EADS CEO Louis Gallois has pushed hard for a leading role in the MALE program, saying Germany should have a role to avoid splitting European forces in this strategic sector.
If EADS is shut out, its executives have said, they will seek partners in Italy, Spain and Turkey and develop a competing MALE based on the Talarion.
Such a plan is likely EADS's "best working strategy," said Nick Witney, senior research fellow for the European Council for Foreign Relations, a pan-European think tank. "I think BAE and Dassault are pushing very hard to make it extremely U.K.-French."
Witney noted that Europe no longer has the appetite for complex defense cooperation such as with the A400M airlifter.
"Things have profoundly changed in the past couple of years since the financial crisis," he said. "Industrial policy carries less weight compared to keeping structures simple and going for relatively cheap options."
Moreover, the "clumsy, ineffective hand-holding" needed for multinational defense cooperation is out of favor, he said. "It hasn't worked."
The Anglo-French treaty, and the MALE project it will spawn, epitomize that simple bilateral approach, he said.
Lureau noted that a program with five countries - Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain - would be complicated to run.
"I wouldn't be surprised to see two MALE UAV programs in Europe," said Lureau, who estimated the true cost of a new UAV would likely be 2 billion to 3 billion euros ($2.8 billion to $4.3 billion), rather than the 1 billion estimated by Dassault.
Yet Gallois indicated he thinks running two UAV programs in Europe makes no economic sense and would repeat the sapping competition between the Eurofighter Typhoon - of which EADS is a shareholder - and the Dassault Rafale.
EADS isn't the only European giant put out by the Anglo-French UAV project. At the air show, Italy's Alenia Aeronautica announced it would seek partners to develop a 9-ton UAV.
"We had been working with BAE Systems on a MALE, but that ended when the U.K. and France signed their accord," said Giuseppe Giordo, CEO of the Finmeccanica unit.
Now Alenia is considering development of a new MALE UAV that would carry a payload of more than 500 kilograms and use the same diesel propulsion as its smaller Sky Y prototype UAV.
"The Italian government wants to go ahead with the UAV and is looking for new partners, which may be European or non-European," Giordo said. He also held out the prospect of teaming with EADS on Talarion, but said much would depend on the technological and industrial return.
Near-Term UAV?
The joint UAV studies put off a procurement decision until after next May's French presidential elections, sweeping one potentially thorny issue from Sarkozy's path to re-election.
But the delay may also help BAE-Dassault nail down its advantage in the MALE UAV program. A defense official said the joint studies are a way of pushing BAE and Dassault to deliver their proposed Telemos UAV ahead of the five-year schedule. An early shipment could eliminate the need for the interim UAV long sought by the French Air Force.
The interim UAV would improve upon the service's EADS Harfangs, which are flying surveillance missions over Afghanistan.
EADS has proposed an upgraded Harfang as the interim solution, keeping hope alive for its Talarion. Dassault has pitched a Heron TP air vehicle from Israel Aerospace Industries.
And the General Atomics Reaper has been a strong candidate - but deeply opposed by French politicians, including member of parliament Jean-Claude Viollet, especially after Washington chose Boeing over Airbus for the U.S Air Force's air tanker.
Longuet has said a short-term buy would be decided by the end of the first half of the year as the government wants to avoid a capability gap.
But an industry executive said a French procurement is unlikely before six months.
"We are not expecting a decision on the interim UAV soon," the executive said.
On an interim UAV procurement, French Air Chief Gen. Jean-Paul Palomeros noted the service's investment in training and skills in flying the Harfang in Afghanistan, where the UAV recently cleared the 7,700-meter Hindu Kush mountain range to provide ISR capabilities.
Lureau said the next big project, besides the MALE UAV, is the unmanned combat aerial vehicle, dubbed a long-term project by the Lancaster House treaty.
Stefan Zoller, CEO of Cassidian, EADS' defense and security subsidiary, said he thinks an operational UCAV will not fly any time soon after 2025, with the U.S. Air Force pushing back a service date.
Tom Kington contributed to this report from Paris.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=6929677&c=FEA&s=CVS
Can France Force Rival Firms To Cooperate on UAV?
By PIERRE TRAN
Published: 26 June 2011
PARIS - France is pushing off decisions on a medium-term UAV purchase as Dassault and EADS wrangle over what role - if any - the latter might play in an Anglo-French program that represents the sole major design effort on the horizon for European aircraft makers.
The British and French chiefs of staff will take 12 to 18 months to draw up common requirements for a medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) air system, one of the goals of last November's cross-Channel defense cooperation treaty, French Defense Minister Gérard Longuet told journalists June 21 at the Paris Air Show.
Pressed for more information on France's plans to acquire interim and medium-term UAVs, Longuet carefully avoided clear and simple answers.
That studied evasiveness reflected the bitter conflict between Dassault and EADS.
At the air show, a few movable fences and a stretch of tarmac separated the full-scale mockup of EADS' Talarion UAV from Dassault's similar Telemos model. But the family-owned French company, which wants to build the U.K.-French MALE UAV with BAE Systems, is raising far stouter barriers to a co-leading role for EADS.
The stakes are higher than mere sales revenue; with no plans for successors to the Eurofighter or the Rafale, the UAV work is the only apparent program that can help the big players hang onto their military aircraft design teams.
Longuet, an industry minister in the 1990s, said the state is playing various roles - shareholder, client/ operator and strategist - and said Paris wants to see Dassault and EADS working together "instead of sitting like bookends" at opposite ends of the shelf. He suggested the Anglo-French UAV program could "start off" as a bilateral program and open up to other partners.
"He's playing for time," said François Lureau, head of consultancy EuroFLconsulting and former chief of the Direction Générale de l'Armement (DGA). "The message was: Get your two houses in order."
'End the Wars'
Longuet spoke the day after President Nicolas Sarkozy delivered a dramatic speech at a hangar at the air show.
Declaring that the country's companies must work together to end the "Franco-French internal wars," the French president warned that if the firms did not voluntarily settle their differences, they would be instructed to do so.
Sarkozy did not name companies, but industry executives said his remarks were clearly aimed at chief executives of Dassault Aviation, EADS, Safran and Thales, sitting in the front row as he spoke.
One defense source said Sarkozy was specifically frustrated with Safran and Thales, which have been unable to agree on a proposed asset swap that Paris believes will strengthen both companies.
But because of the dispute between Dassault and EADS over the MALE UAV, Sarkozy was widely seen as pressing those two companies, the source said.
The French president cannot merely order the companies to cooperate, although he has big levers to move them. The French state owns large minority stakes in EADS, Safran and Thales, and an indirect stake in Dassault, which is 46 percent owned by EADS. The government can exert pressure through the board seats it occupies and through its leverage as a big customer.
"You can't ignore a client and large shareholder," Lureau said.
Yet Dassault, as a family-controlled business, is seen as strongly independent.
And Dassault executives appeared unmoved by Sarkozy's speech and Longuet's "bookends" remarks. As the air show continued, the Dassult view remained that EADS could act as a MALE equipment supplier, but BAE and Dassault would drive the program's locomotive.
Eric Trappier, international director for Dassault, said the Anglo-French project presented a chance to boost the company's military side.
"What we are interested in [with] UAVs is technology," Trappier said. "It is the capability to have design and development in our company. It is engineering in terms of military capability, integration of weapons, flight testing, which is really dedicated for military applications.
"We will compete [with BAE Systems] for existing aircraft, but at the same time, we prepare the future together, knowing that in Europe, we don't have finance to develop by ourselves this type of new vehicle," he said. "If we don't find the right partner, well, we could disappear from this field against the Israelis or the Americans. So we have a common interest, and this is business."
EADS CEO Louis Gallois has pushed hard for a leading role in the MALE program, saying Germany should have a role to avoid splitting European forces in this strategic sector.
If EADS is shut out, its executives have said, they will seek partners in Italy, Spain and Turkey and develop a competing MALE based on the Talarion.
Such a plan is likely EADS's "best working strategy," said Nick Witney, senior research fellow for the European Council for Foreign Relations, a pan-European think tank. "I think BAE and Dassault are pushing very hard to make it extremely U.K.-French."
Witney noted that Europe no longer has the appetite for complex defense cooperation such as with the A400M airlifter.
"Things have profoundly changed in the past couple of years since the financial crisis," he said. "Industrial policy carries less weight compared to keeping structures simple and going for relatively cheap options."
Moreover, the "clumsy, ineffective hand-holding" needed for multinational defense cooperation is out of favor, he said. "It hasn't worked."
The Anglo-French treaty, and the MALE project it will spawn, epitomize that simple bilateral approach, he said.
Lureau noted that a program with five countries - Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain - would be complicated to run.
"I wouldn't be surprised to see two MALE UAV programs in Europe," said Lureau, who estimated the true cost of a new UAV would likely be 2 billion to 3 billion euros ($2.8 billion to $4.3 billion), rather than the 1 billion estimated by Dassault.
Yet Gallois indicated he thinks running two UAV programs in Europe makes no economic sense and would repeat the sapping competition between the Eurofighter Typhoon - of which EADS is a shareholder - and the Dassault Rafale.
EADS isn't the only European giant put out by the Anglo-French UAV project. At the air show, Italy's Alenia Aeronautica announced it would seek partners to develop a 9-ton UAV.
"We had been working with BAE Systems on a MALE, but that ended when the U.K. and France signed their accord," said Giuseppe Giordo, CEO of the Finmeccanica unit.
Now Alenia is considering development of a new MALE UAV that would carry a payload of more than 500 kilograms and use the same diesel propulsion as its smaller Sky Y prototype UAV.
"The Italian government wants to go ahead with the UAV and is looking for new partners, which may be European or non-European," Giordo said. He also held out the prospect of teaming with EADS on Talarion, but said much would depend on the technological and industrial return.
Near-Term UAV?
The joint UAV studies put off a procurement decision until after next May's French presidential elections, sweeping one potentially thorny issue from Sarkozy's path to re-election.
But the delay may also help BAE-Dassault nail down its advantage in the MALE UAV program. A defense official said the joint studies are a way of pushing BAE and Dassault to deliver their proposed Telemos UAV ahead of the five-year schedule. An early shipment could eliminate the need for the interim UAV long sought by the French Air Force.
The interim UAV would improve upon the service's EADS Harfangs, which are flying surveillance missions over Afghanistan.
EADS has proposed an upgraded Harfang as the interim solution, keeping hope alive for its Talarion. Dassault has pitched a Heron TP air vehicle from Israel Aerospace Industries.
And the General Atomics Reaper has been a strong candidate - but deeply opposed by French politicians, including member of parliament Jean-Claude Viollet, especially after Washington chose Boeing over Airbus for the U.S Air Force's air tanker.
Longuet has said a short-term buy would be decided by the end of the first half of the year as the government wants to avoid a capability gap.
But an industry executive said a French procurement is unlikely before six months.
"We are not expecting a decision on the interim UAV soon," the executive said.
On an interim UAV procurement, French Air Chief Gen. Jean-Paul Palomeros noted the service's investment in training and skills in flying the Harfang in Afghanistan, where the UAV recently cleared the 7,700-meter Hindu Kush mountain range to provide ISR capabilities.
Lureau said the next big project, besides the MALE UAV, is the unmanned combat aerial vehicle, dubbed a long-term project by the Lancaster House treaty.
Stefan Zoller, CEO of Cassidian, EADS' defense and security subsidiary, said he thinks an operational UCAV will not fly any time soon after 2025, with the U.S. Air Force pushing back a service date.
Tom Kington contributed to this report from Paris.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=6929677&c=FEA&s=CVS
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From the Ares blog:
Post-Nimrod: Preserving the U.K.'s MPA Skills
Posted by Robert Wall at 2/29/2012 4:13 AM CST
The U.K. has dispatched 33 RAF aircrew overseas to help retain maritime patrol capability skills in the wake of the cancellation of the Nimrod MRA4 fleet.
As with its effort to retain its aircraft carrier operations skills, the U.K., in the MPA domain, is leaning on allies to help personnel retain their know-how to reconstitute its capabilities at a later date. The MOD says the so called Seedcorn initiative costs about £3.25 million per year, including travel costs.
What is unclear is how long the program will need to run. The MOD is still sorting out what its long-term Nimrod MRA4 replacement program will be.
There are other MPA bills that still have to be defined. For instance, other systems, such as the Sentinel R1, are to take on sea-surveillance roles. The Franco-British Telemos unmanned aircraft also is supposed to absorb some of the tasking in the next decade. What the cost will be to adapt these systems for the maritime surveillance task still needs to be fully defined.
Link
Post-Nimrod: Preserving the U.K.'s MPA Skills
Posted by Robert Wall at 2/29/2012 4:13 AM CST
The U.K. has dispatched 33 RAF aircrew overseas to help retain maritime patrol capability skills in the wake of the cancellation of the Nimrod MRA4 fleet.
As with its effort to retain its aircraft carrier operations skills, the U.K., in the MPA domain, is leaning on allies to help personnel retain their know-how to reconstitute its capabilities at a later date. The MOD says the so called Seedcorn initiative costs about £3.25 million per year, including travel costs.
What is unclear is how long the program will need to run. The MOD is still sorting out what its long-term Nimrod MRA4 replacement program will be.
There are other MPA bills that still have to be defined. For instance, other systems, such as the Sentinel R1, are to take on sea-surveillance roles. The Franco-British Telemos unmanned aircraft also is supposed to absorb some of the tasking in the next decade. What the cost will be to adapt these systems for the maritime surveillance task still needs to be fully defined.
Link
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Hobbes said:
With the current lot in power, who knows?
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A pre-show glimpse of the Telemos at the Dassault Stand at the Eurosatory Land Security & Defense show, taken yesterday (9th June), 48 hours before the show was due to open:
ORIGINAL TEXT: The Dassault stand is showing a model of Franco-British cooperation: the Telemos, based on a BAe designed and flown Mantis but the model shows for the first time three payloads on the underside of the unmanned air vehicle (UAV).
[IMAGE CREDIT: Christina Mackenzie/Ares]
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/defence/11859872/Lockheed-Martin-offers-up-Nimrod-replacement.html
