Political ties between Turkey and the United States have mostly recovered since a 2003 nadir over Iraq disputes, but this time serious problems are looming in the two allies’ traditionally close defense industry relationship.
Once a lucrative defense market for the United States, Turkey recently has become a trouble spot for America’s top manufacturers, with two critical procurement programs lost against European and other rivals in 2005 and an even gloomier picture in sight this year for two other major contracts.
In 2005 one U.S. manufacturer lost a key unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) contract to an Israeli competitor and two U.S. companies failed to bid for one of Turkey’s largest contests — for procurement of attack helicopters. This year, Turkey may withdraw from the Pentagon’s largest ever program to build fighters, and an American contender may be forced to refrain from bidding for a utility helicopter deal.
Source and more info: Turkish Daily News
India, using UAVs purchased from Israel, has formed its first UAV maritime reconnaissance squadron (the 342nd). The unit has eight Searcher II UAVs and four Herons. The Searcher II san stay aloft for 16 hours at a time, and is built to operate for 2,000 hours before a major system failure. The Heron is similar to the U.S. Predator, and can stay up for fifty hours at a time. The radar and vidcam sensors enable the UAVs to provide unprecedented coverage on short notice. Israel is also using a version of the Heron for maritime reconnaissance. Israel is particularly eager for these UAVs to succeed at maritime recon, for that would open up a huge market for Israeli made UAVs and sensors. Israel has been the leader in UAV technology for over two decades, and has been supplying India with UAVs to the Indian navy for three years now.
Source and more info: Strategy Page
The 172d Stryker Brigade Combat Team lost contact with a Raven unmanned aerial vehicle Jan. 4 during operations in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
The Raven is the Army’s smallest UAV weighing about four and a half pounds with a wingspan of approximately five feet.
The UAV was not recovered, and all recovery efforts have been suspended. If local residents of Mosul find the vehicle, they may return it to the nearest Coalition Forces facility.
Source: Multinational Force Iraq
Israel is now operating UAVs for maritime patrol. The United States is also experimenting with this, as it is pretty clear that UAVs are ideal for this job. Maritime patrol consists of many hours in the air looking for whatever among not much. Boring as hell for humans, but ideal work for robots. While the U.S. is experimenting with the large, and expensive, Global Hawk, Israel (which really only has to worry about coastal patrols) is using a new version of the old Heron, called the Mahatz I. One thing that makes UAVs for maritime patrol possible, or at least practical, is cheaper and more capable sensors. In the case of the Mahatz I, the radar used (synthetic aperture radar), works with onboard software to provide automatic detection, classification and tracking of what is down there. Human operators ashore, or on a ship or in an aircraft, are alerted if they want to double check with video cameras on the UAV. Also carried are sensors that track the sea state. For this kind of work, one of the most important things is reliability. While the Heron/ Mahatz I is a bit smaller (at 1.2 tons) than the Predator, it is still pretty expensive (over $5 million each.) You don’t want to lose them over open water. What the Israeli navy will be doing is finding out just how reliable the Mahatz I is when doing a lot of maritime patrol. These UAVs can stay up for 50 hours at a time, although initially they will patrol for far less than that.
Source: Strategy Page
Kestrel Aerospace’s Lancer vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned air vehicle was due to undergo tethered hover tests late last month at an undisclosed private hangar in the UK.
The VTOL UAV is an 80kg (175lb) vehicle able to carry a payload of up to 13.6kg with a mission endurance of 8h and top speed of 156kt (290km/h). Powered by two tilt-fan engines, the vehicle is being promoted for military and civil missions, including surveillance and power cable monitoring.
Source and more info: Flight International
The Israel Navy (IN) will deploy its first reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in January.
The IN has been allocated a few Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) Mahatz I (also known as Heron) medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAVs out of several dozen recently acquired by the Israel Air Force (IAF). Two UAVs will be operated jointly by the IAF and IN for maritime patrol missions.
The IN-designated Mahatz UAVs are equipped with EL/M-2022U UAV maritime patrol radars from IAI’s Elta subsidiary featuring automatic detection and tracking of maritime surface targets. Providing range signature and inverse synthetic aperture radar (RS and ISAR) imaging, combined with autonomous classification, the display video and data of the sea surface are transmitted via a datalink to the ground control station.
Source and more info: Jane’s
The European Defense Agency (EDA) has funded a small but unprecedented contract with industry for a technological analysis of long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The contract, worth about 700,000 euros ($840,000), marks the first time the agency has awarded a feasibility study in this area.
The EDA’s first such contract was awarded in April to NATO’s command-and-control agency to study battlefield and communications capabilities that the EU’s future peacekeeping force will need to manage crises.
The new UAV contract, awarded Dec. 14 to a consortium led by Finland’s Patria group, covers digital line-of-sight technologies and over-the-horizon data links using satellite or relay stations. Long-endurance UAVs are expected to play an increasingly strategic role in airborne surveillance and collection of intelligence.
Patria, along with Finnish co-contractor Instrumentointi Oy, has 20 years’ experience working with the Finnish Air Force’s data link program, and the two companies have collaborated on Finnish UAV systems and network-centric architecture, the agency said.
Source and more info: DefenseNews
