Recently in Defence with a 'C' Category

Morocco's decision to reject the Dassault Rafale in favor of the Lockheed Martin F-16 is stunning even a week after it was confirmed.

G2 Solutions Michel Merluzeau, unquestionably the best French-born aerospace analyst based in Seattle, does some detective work to attempt to discern how Dassault and France could have lost the contract.

In the best english-language deconstruction of the situation I've read, Merluzeau finds that a mixture of arrogance, political distractions and poor teaming between government and industry conspired to rob Dassault of its desperately needed first export customer.

Read all about it here: http://www.g2globalsolutions.com/blog.html

And read Flight International next week, where we'll identify Dassault's next possible opportunity after India to make a deal for the Rafale.

Major General Ng Chee Khern, chief of the Republic of Singapore Air Force, sent me an invitation to interview him when he came to Washington DC this week.

As the head of one of the most sophisticated -- and secretive -- air forces in the world, I was very glad to accept the offer.

I met General Ng in a meeting room at the Wardman Park Hotel at the end of a long day of the AFA convention. Dressed in civilian clothes, I found him surprisingly youthful, thoughtful and open to answer any question I asked.

You can read my full article in next week's Flight International magazine. But here are some notes from the interview. I know it's not exactly in proper journalistic narrative style, but I hope some of you find it useful.

F-5 replacement?

-- The Singapore Air Force has a requirement to replace F-5s by 2015.
-- The choice is between replacing the F-5s with a follow-on batch of F-15s or a new batch of F-35s
-- The US government will deliver the final configuration for the proposed Singapore AF F-35 early next year.
-- Singapore will study whether the final configuration meets its requirements or whether the F-15 would be more suitable
-- The ability to operate and to modify the F-35 with some degree of national sovereignty is a major consideration

Mobility

-- I mentioned that Boeing had briefed reporters earlier that morning that Singapore is considered a “business opportunity” for selling more C-17s
-- Ng said there is “not a whole lot” of interest in the C-17
-- Right now the C-130 is meeting its needs; the A400m and JCA will still be available in 10-15 years when the C-130 would be replaced

Advanced trainer

-- RFI has been released for advanced trainer
-- Singapore has already evaluated the 346 and T-50. An evaluation team will be sent to the UK in October to look at the Hawk.
-- The air force will shortlist to two aircraft and issue an RFP in early 2009
-- Major difference with Korea's requirement: Singapore wants synthetic electronic systems such as radar and electronic warfare, as opposed to the actual systems
-- The aircraft will be used almost exclusively as trainers. No operational role is expected.

Unmanned developments?

-- Singapore needs to replace or mid-life update Fokker 50 maritime patrol fleet by 2015
-- Unmanned systems are the likely replacement candidate, with the US Navy’s BAMS selection a major interest
-- Singapore received a briefing on Global Hawk in 2006; still awaiting clearance from US government for export, but no progress made so far.
-- Boeing’s manned/unmanned G550 “might” meet the requirement

The karma of defense acquisition scandal is a fickle beast.

For almost a year, Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky have made hay on the CSAR-X contract, forcing the US Air Force to return to square one and re-compete the contract they errantly awarded to Boeing last November.

This week, Lockheed is getting some of its own contract overturning medicine in Ottawa. Last March, Canada fast-tracked a contract award to Lockheed for the Sniper XR targeting pod despite the fact Northrop Grumman and Raytheon were offering pods already in service with F-18s.

It was even more of a coup because it was widely believed that Canada would follow the lead of Australia, which the year before had selected Northrop's Israeli-derived Lightning AT pod, which is usually described as the cheapest of the three third-generation targeting pods offered by the US for export.

Now, a tribunal in Ottawa has overturned Lockheed's $126 million contract, according to the Canadian press. The news reports say the tribunal sustained a protest by Northrop Grumman "in part", but do not describe any specific reasons for overturning the contract.

So Canada's weapons buyers will likely have to re-evauate the decision even as Lockeed goes on delivering pods to the CF-18 units.

Even in the US, the odd over-abundance of options for third-generation targeting pods has made for some awkward moments. I remember about three years ago when John Young, who was then head of the Navy's acquistion system, decided to re-evaluate the navy's contract with Raytheon for the Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) pod, suggesting that three different pods in-service with the US military was overkill.

Whether Young's real strategy was to kill off one or two pods or to negotiate a better price with Raytheon remains open for question, but the navy's re-evaluation died a silent death about six months after it began..

Sorry for the lack of new entries during my extended Labor Day holiday. Since I'm still a little bit in the vacation mood, let's talk about Brazil's defense industry for a change -- specifically, Embraer.

Several years ago, Embraer's highly-respected executive team felt the time was right to make a major play at the world defense market, seeking to grow defense revenues from the single-digits to 20% of corporate revenue. It all seemed to make so much sense at the time. International arms sales were galloping forward in the wake of September 11, 2001, and Brazil's air force was not least among the buyers.

The Forca Aerea Brasilia, or "the FAB" for short, was laying plans to 1) modernize its F-5BRs, 2) acquire a new batch of air superiority fighters, 3) upgrade its A-1 AMX attack jets and 4) buy a whole bunch of Embraer Super Tucanos, amongst other major purchases. Embraer figured to be the lucky beneficiary of each one of those big projects.

Several years later, Embraer's bullishness on defense was quenched by the force of reality. Its share of revenues from the defense market remains in the single-digits, and only items #1 and #4 have seen any major activitiy. The FAB's budget for item #3 was turned on only last week, despite the fact that the FAB awarded Embraer a contract to start working on the project about four years ago! Item #2 has been turned on and off more times than I can immediately think to count, and currently remains stuck in limbo.

On top of all that, the company's ambitions to enter the US defense market fell apart in 2006 when the army terminated Lockheed Martin's contract for Aerial Common Sensor, which would have used Embraer's ERJ-145 as the platform.

I sometimes hear US defense companies whine about the uncertainty of the Pentagon's acquisition system. It makes me wonder how the US defense industry would survive in almost any other country, where budgets are often the secret play-things of feckless generals and politicians and there is no 'Big Defense' lobby to push things through in a pinch.

Embraer may soon enough be back in the US market. The US Air Force is due to release a request for proposals on behalf of the Iraqi Air Force for a fleet of turboprop-powered "light combat aircraft". (The USAF previously called this a "counterinsurgency aircraft" fleet.) The Embraer Super Tucano is one of the prime contenders, and would open the door for the company to open a US assembly line in Jacksonville, Florida.

Thanks to my sharp-eyed, French-speaking colleague Aimee Turner, we now know that Connecticut-based Hamilton Sundstrand has moved its entire propeller business off-shore -- and to France, of all places.

Perhaps not surprisingly, you won't find a press release announcing the outsourcing move that affects about 100 US jobs on Hamilton's web site. Flight magazine's Aimee Turner, who is based in London, found out by reading a French language email sent by Hamilton's French subsidiary -- Ratier Figeac, the lucky beneficiary of Hamilton's 80-year-old heritage in the propeller business. Aimee's news story in this week's magazine is the only place you're likely to read about this truly historic aviation milestone in English.

Hamilton's propellers powered Charles Lindbergh's Ryan monoplane across the Atlantic in 1927, not to mention nearly all the fighter planes built in US factories for World War II. The company still is at the forefront of the technology, with the six-bladed NP2000 propeller powering Snow Aviation's refurbished C-130s and the Northrop Grumman E-2C, as well as a new, 8-bladed turboprop destined for the Airbus A400M transport.

That entire historical and technical legacy now resides with Ratier-Figeac in Southern France. Why? Most likely, it's because Hamilton Sundstrand realizes that's where the market exists for turboprop transports, with Sweden's Saab Aircraft, Italy's ATR and Spain's EADS CASA division now among the technological leaders.

If my hunch is correct, Hamilton's logic mirrors the recent trend by European firms to move wholesale manufacturing of helicopters and military transports to the US. And don't forget Airbus. I struggle to believe the proposed Airbus factory in Mobile, Alabama is intended solely for assembling 12 tankers a year for the US Air Force, especially when the company admits the facility will be sized to build 20 aircraft -- and with room to grow! In 10 years, Airbus will need to build a successor for the single-aisle A320, and sunny Toulouse may be no match for the non-unionized labor climate of the southeast USA.

"We'll always have Paris"(Source: DOD)

While the Iranian Air Force is reportedly pursuing a deal with Russia for a huge amount of Sukhoi Su-30s, the Iranian Army -- yes, the army! -- is apparently fielding the Azarakhsh (Thunder) and the Saeghe (Lightning), with both being bizarrely modified versions of the Northrop F-5E.

While it's clear that not even the US Air Force could spin the Azarakhsh as a reason to justify buying more F-22s, the fact that Iran is desperately seeking to create a fighter aircraft industrial base should raise some eyebrows.

Here's the news on the Azarakhsh reported this morning by the Iranian News Agency:

Iran has successfully tested a new fighter plane named Azarakhsh (Thunder), said Ministry of Defense Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar Monday morning.

'Thunder' has been manufactured in cooperation with experts from the Army, Defense Ministry and HESA aircarft manufacturing industries in the central province of Isfahan, the minister told reporters on the sidelines of a ceremony held on the eve of 'Journalist Day' (August 8).

"The Azarakhsh fighter plan is now at the stage of industrial production and its mass production will start in the future," said the minister.

He added that the fighter's successful test would lead to plans for "manufacturing of the fifth generation of Iranian aircraft." Army and Defense Ministry experts are currently working on the second type of Azarakhsh fighters called Sa'qeh (Lightning) which would be also tested in the near future, Mohammad-Najjar added.

Iran says here that it will soon unveil -- and fly -- its first domestically manufactured fighter jet.

(Source: Iran Defense Forum)

This is presumably a reference to a new version of the Northrop F-5F, potentially modified with the Russian RD-33 engine, Iranian radar and avionics, shoulder-mounted air intakes and -- most bizarrely -- a V-tail. I believe the program has been named Shafagh, but the new release calls it the Azarakhsh.

The program does not appear to demonstrate so much a leap in military capability but in domestic industrial prowess, assuming the aircraft can, indeed, fly.

Developing an indigenous aerospace manufacturing capability has become the hot new fad for countries on the US export control blacklist, with Iran leading the way. Last fall, Venezuela announced it was seeking to develop an indigenous industry to build military fighter trainers after the US blocked Brazil from exporting Super Tucanos to Caracas.

So the US Department of Justice has launched an investigation of BAE Systems over allegations that it bribed Saudi officials to buy Eurofighter jets.

Does this open cans of globalized defense industry worms or what?

First of all, what is DOJ's jurisdiction over a deal involving a sale by a British company to the Saudi government? BAE Systems PLC is based in London, while BAE Systems SSA is based in the US. Could the investigation be focused on the SSA's role? Or could DOJ be focusing on the case because it possibly involves the transfer of Eurofighter parts made in the US and subject to the export control regime? I don't know, but it's a question that doesn't appear to have a public answer at the moment.

Secondly, why just this deal. BAE Systems is being investigated around the globe in various ongoing bribery cases. What makes the Eurofighter scandal so special?

What about the Czech Republic, which is the scene of reports that BAE Systems bribed the government to buy the Saab/BAE JAS 39 Gripen fighter?

In Qatar, BAE Systems is being investigated for bribery in a transaction involving Pirahna armored vehicles.

In Romania, BAE Systems is under investigation for alleged bribery in the sale of frigates to that country.

Finally, in South Africa, the British government is inquiring about possible improprieties in the sale of BAE Systems Hawk trainer jets to Cape Town.