August 2010 Archives

Nothing fails to endear the defence industry to the anti-war lobby than a suggestion that continuing conflict is good for business.

That said, the hot topic of conversation in the unmanned air systems community - which has just been meeting in Denver at the annual Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International convention - is what happens when the USA and its allies pull out of Afghanistan.

The effect of the two big wars this decade on the unmanned sector has been likened to what World War One did for aviation. Before 1914 aviation had been a passion for wealthy eccentrics and garden-shed pioneers. By 1918 it was a fully-formed industry. But once swords were turned to ploughshares, there was no longer a demand for more than a handful of military, utility and early passenger aircraft and the industry did not recover until the pre-WW2 build-up in the late 1930s.

Could the same happen to UAVs? In the nine years since the invasion of Afghanistan, unproven new aircraft have been thrown into action, programmes have been accelerated and the Pentagon and governments militaries have been hungry for the latest technologies and capabilities. The result has been a boom in a sector that back in the 1990s was a tiny niche in military aviation.

Unmanned aircraft have been able to work wonders in the relatively empty skies over Afghanistan and Iraq without the challenge of having to co-exist in busy civil airways with other aircraft.

Once the USA withdraws, as promised, from Afghanistan, these advances will not go away and the military will be left with technologies that, had the wars not happened, may not have been developed for some time. However, demand for equipment will be substantially less than it has been for the past decade.

The great hope for UAVs has always been the civil sector. As in other fields, technologies proven in the battlefield can mature into those that serve us in peacetime, whether it be in the emerging crime-fighting and security sector, or even in the leisure business, filming sporting events or providing aerial photography.

But however successful this market becomes, it is likely to be worth substantially less than the billions spent by the Pentagon on UAV assets to tackle the Taleban and Iraqi insurgents.

We look at some of the issues in this week's Comment - the issue is out on 31 August - and also in our report of the AUVSI show.

Will the USA ever buy the A400M? The odds are stacked against Airbus Military and its US sister company EADS North America. For a start, with the C-130, C-17 and venerable C-5 Galaxy, currently being refurbished, the US Air Force is not exactly short of home-grown airlift capability. Secondly, the KC-X tanker contest provoked a storm of domestic protest about the US military choosing a European aircraft over an American competitor, with the World Trade Organisation's ruling on Airbus subsidies adding fuel to the fire. Thirdly, the A400M, whatever its virtues, has been a troubled programme and it is only thanks to the generosity of taxpayers in the European countries that have ordered it that the aircraft is being built at all.

That said, EADS firmly believes it can sell the Grizzly to the USA. Ultimately, while Congress can propose laws and apportions the federal budget, it does not run the Air Force. And EADS believes there are plenty of senior officers who think the A400M is an excellent piece of kit which fits a clear capability gap in the USAF inventory.

It's not quite selling fridges to eskimos, but a few decades ago people doubted that a new European upstart airframer could convince US airlines to buy airliners built in Toulouse.

In the next issue of Flight International, out on 31 August, Steven Trimble looks at the A400M's prospects in the USA. Meanwhile, our European-based defence editor, Craig Hoyle, asks whether all three of the Royal Air Force's transports, the A400M, C-130J and C-17, will survive the inevitable rationalisation of UK military assets and spending. There is plenty talk that the military should not have more than two types in any area, including fighters and transports.

The next issue but one of Flight International - out on 31 August - has a feature not to be missed. Our test pilot, Mike Gerzanics, has had a chance to fly the Boeing 787 - not in the sky, but the next best thing: on a CAE 7000 simulator. The simulator is the first the Canadian company has configured for the Dreamliner, and will be used by domestic launch customer Continental Airlines. Mike is one of the first pilots to get a chance to sample the cockpit and what Boeing's new "plastic fantastic" is like to fly.

Here's a short extract of his piece: 

My initial impression of the flight deck was that it was on par size wise with a 757.  Cockpit color is a bluish gray, which I found more refreshing than Boeing's previous light brown. The six flight deck windows have a combined area of 3.1m2, markedly larger the the 777's 2.5m2. Cockpit layout was classic Boeing, a space where any 777 pilot would feel right at home. Two welcome additions to the flight deck are the electronic flight bags, located on the side walls and the Rockwell Collins HUDs. The forward panel is high lighted by five large (15.1in/38.35cm diagonal) MFDs, two per side with one placed on the center console. Conventional control columns actuate the full fly-by-wire flight controls. The two thrust levers fall readily to hand. As with other Boeing offerings, the thrust levers are back driven, giving valuable feedback to the pilots when the auto-throttles (AT) are in use.

How has the downturn affected the size and shape of the world's airliner fleet? Next week's 24-30 August issue of Flight International has the answers, with our annual World Airliner Census. Compiled by Max Kingsley-Jones and using data from Flightglobal's ACAS  signature and long-running Flight International feature lists each airline's fleet by type and number of aircraft. There's also some top-line analysis of the fleet breakdown by region, manufacturer and type.