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Belesarius

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Hungarian AF buys 12 L-39NG. It's an expected thing because 51% of the company is owned by a Hungarian consorcium closed to the prime minister Orbán. What is interesting is that only 8 of them are to be usd as trainers, the other 4 are said to be reconnaissance variants (to be equipped either with a gimbal or a recon pod). 

 

At this moment there are firm orders for 30 L-39NG with the Vietnamese batch being in production. 

 

The Czech Omnipol consorcium which already owns 49% of Aero (or owns ERA, the producer of VERA-NG passive tracker) recently bough the company Aircraft Industries (former Let Kunovice) from its Russian owners. 

http://omnipol.com/cz/media/#6268fa44c75ba

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  • 1 month later...

DGA launched a request for the development and delivery of 10 aerial balloon equipped with an optronic ball for the French army.

The idea is to acquire a tool for area surveillance that would be as cheap as possible while still be very capable.

 

http://www.opex360.com/2022/06/01/la-dga-a-lance-un-appel-doffres-europeen-pour-doter-larmee-de-terre-dune-dizaine-de-ballons-captifs/

 

Beside being extremely cheap, balloons have the advantage to be very difficult to detect. They are obviously silent, have little to no heat signature, are difficult to see when high enough and can pretty much only be detected by radar.

 

Link to the request

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1 hour ago, Alzoc said:

DGA launched a request for the development and delivery of 10 aerial balloon equipped with an optronic ball for the French army.

The idea is to acquire a tool for area surveillance that would be as cheap as possible while still be very capable.

 

http://www.opex360.com/2022/06/01/la-dga-a-lance-un-appel-doffres-europeen-pour-doter-larmee-de-terre-dune-dizaine-de-ballons-captifs/

 

Beside being extremely cheap, balloons have the advantage to be very difficult to detect. They are obviously silent, have little to no heat signature, are difficult to see when high enough and can pretty much only be detected by radar.

 

Link to the request

 

There is a similar project ongoing here in Czechia with a name STRATOM. The aim is to have two semi-stationary baloons at an altitude of 25 km from where they can cover the whole country by electro-optical means. The horizont is at 570 km distance from that altitude which means that one such platform when used as communication relay can cover over 1000 km which is twice the size of Czechia. The baloon is said to be 32x12 meters large, 100 kg heavy with its own electric propulsion (using solar panels). The payload is modular. Part of the system is a software named MODES which shall be used for automatic search and tracking of various objects using machine learning. MOD signed a fixed contract in February this year but some development has been ongoing for several years. The price stated in the contract is less than 4 million Euro.  

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FCAS update (TL:DR Still in limbo) : https://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/feature/219110/<i>(free-access)<§i>-france-and-germany-waltz-around-the-ngf.html

 

Keep in mind that this website is based in France and is obviously quite (a lot) biased against Airbus. Some interesting titbits though :

 

Quote

On May 9, during their first meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz discussed the NGF. The German side proposed a joint-venture (50/50) on the flight controls which was declined by President Macron himself.

Quote

Several other technical and technological issues such as the flight controls, the functional architecture, stealth, man-machine interface and, of course, the IP background of all these fields remain undecided.

Quote

[...] the workshare is still contested by the German side, despite the fact that 68% of the fighter will be produced by Airbus Germany & Spain.

 

All in all the tone is that France has reach it's limits on the concessions they are willing to offer to the other partners (mainly Airbus Germany) :

Quote

All these points have been sum-up by the General Delegate for Armaments, Joël Barre, in a hearing before the Defence Committee of the French Senate:

"On this point, I defend the following position: there is an agreement between the two industrialists concerning phase 1B - which was to be started in 2021 and which we can hope to start by the end of 2022 if we manage to conclude the discussions - covering the period 2022-2025. Airbus must sign the contract that Dassault has offered.”

“I agree […] that we must be firm with the German side regarding the commitments that have already been made – in particular the industrial organization providing for clear responsibility for each pillar. You need a project manager and an architect for the plane. The best in the field must be designated in this case, namely Dassault France and not Airbus Germany. Finally, the balance between the two countries must be assessed in the light of all the cooperation programs”.

 

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https://www.uacrussia.ru/ru/press-center/news/oak-sukhoy-i-mig-obedinilis-v-odnu-kompaniyu

UAC, Sukhoi and MiG merged into one company

 

Quote

   Sukhoi and MiG Corporation merged with PJSC United Aircraft Corporation (PJSC UAC of Rostec State Corporation). On June 1, the corresponding entries were made in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Both affiliated companies are among the leaders in the global aircraft industry, have strong design competencies and a pool of promising developments, provide a full cycle of work - from the design of aircraft and its production to after-sales service and aircraft modernization.

 

    “The reorganization carried out completes one of the important stages of UAC's corporate transformation, which includes, among other things, the transition from a 3-level to a 2-level corporate governance structure. At the same time, the strong and world-famous Sukhoi and MiG brands will remain in the aircraft produced, and authoritative design schools will continue to develop. PJSC "UAC", thus, becomes not only the corporate center of the UAC Group, but also an operating company that directly manages production and design bureaus, implements aviation programs and develops advanced equipment," said Sergey Chemezov, General Director of Rostec State Corporation.

 

   The merger of UAC, Sukhoi and MiG was approved by the UAC Board of Directors in November 2021, and in January 2022 it was supported by the shareholders of the three companies. Previously, the management of companies was already centralized.

 

   “When UAC was formed in 2006, the main task was to preserve the potentials - personnel, scientific, production - that were possessed by scattered aircraft manufacturing enterprises. This task has been solved, it is time to take the next step - to become a single operating company. With maximum attention to the retention of designers and other valuable specialists, with an emphasis on the optimal use of design bureau capacities and production sites, follow the path of increasing work efficiency, creating aircraft of the future, including unmanned systems, hybrid solutions. The merger of UAC, Sukhoi and MiG should give a powerful impetus to the development of the entire industry,” said Yury Slyusar, Director General of UAC.

/.../

 

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Presentation of Embraer KC-390 Millenium to Czech MOD in Pardubice airbase including a short test flight with standard Pandur KBVP (IFV variant) onboard. According to the strategic plan of Czech army buying of a medium lifter is not planned prior 2025 however now with increased funding and the new very active MOD the purchase may come earlier. Since Aero Vodochody is heavily involved in the KC-390 project I don't expect any other plane to have a chance of being selected. 

 

https://mocr.army.cz/informacni-servis/zpravodajstvi/prezentace-letounu-embraer-kc-390-236151/ 

titulka_185.jpg

220606_c390_10b.jpg

 

Just for info parts of the plane developed and produced in Czech Republic by Aero Vodochody. 

all-cabin-door-types-2-.png

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Quote

  Kh29TD - "long arm" of the Su-34

 

   Kh29TD is a solid-propellant air-to-surface missile with a television guidance system. The missile operates on the principle of "fire and forget" and is designed to destroy stationary objects.

 

   Of particular interest to this missile is the range of this URVP. The standard Kh29L (with a laser homing head) and Kh29T (with a television homing head) have a maximum launch range of about 8-12 km.

   Modification Kh29TD, despite similar dimensions, has a significantly increased range (especially if used in the "hill" mode) compared to its predecessors. Modernization of the rocket design, as well as the software implementation of new flight modes, made it possible to increase the launch range to 30-40+ km. Prior to the start of "SMO", there was no documentary confirmation of the implementation of such ranges for this type of missile. Exclusive shots of the use of these products were presented.

 

   Photo above - presumably an image from the television head of the Kh29TD "Tubus-2" missile before launch (or the "Platan", Su-34 sighting system). FCS of the Su-34 with the “PR” index indicates the possibility of launching at a target at a distance of 30+ km.

 

   A significant limitation in the use of this missile is the ability of the crew to search for and recognize targets (as we can see, the Platan on Su-34 is still far from the quality of the Bayraktar optics and it is difficult to recognize the target at a distance of 30-40 km). In addition to the optical sight, the radar sight also works, which partially simplifies the search.

The use of Kh29TD allows tactical aviation not to enter the affected areas (or be in the far zone) of such complexes as "BUK-M1", OSA-AKM, MANPADS, etc.

 

The cost of the missile is about 18 million rubles at the time of 2019.

 

image

 

Spoiler

image

 

image

 

image

 

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45 minutes ago, Beer said:

Not yet official but it seems to be almost sure now that Czechia is going to buy 24 F-35A as a replacement for our 12+2 JAS-39C/D. The contract is expected to be signed this summer. 

To immediately replace the Gripen or to supplement them? IIRC Czechia has paid to lease them for a few more years still.

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13 minutes ago, watch_your_fire said:

To immediately replace the Gripen or to supplement them? IIRC Czechia has paid to lease them for a few more years still.

 

To replace them before the lease contract ends. They were leased from Sweden in 2005 (the airframes were newly built and have in average around 2500 hours now I think)) as a temporary solution due to the lack of money after countrywide devastating floods but as usually the temporary solution became permanent. The planes themselves are good and everybody is happy with their service record but the current leasing contract ends in 2025 (or 2027 as a 2 years long prolongation is possible per the contract) hence why it's necessary to order the replacement as soon as possible to get the new planes in time (everybody is ordering now). 

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2 minutes ago, Beer said:

 

To replace them before the lease contract ends. They were leased from Sweden in 2005 (the airframes were newly built and have in average around 2500 hours now I think)) as a temporary solution due to the lack of money after countrywide devastating floods but as usually the temporary solution became permanent. The planes themselves are good and everybody is happy with their service record but the current leasing contract ends in 2025 (or 2027 as a 2 years long prolongation is possible per the contract) hence why it's necessary to order the replacement as soon as possible to get the new planes in time (everybody is ordering now). 

Oh that makes sense, good to be proactive with fighter procurement.

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On 6/22/2022 at 7:41 PM, Beer said:

Not yet official but it seems to be almost sure now that Czechia is going to buy 24 F-35A as a replacement for our 12+2 JAS-39C/D. The contract is expected to be signed this summer. 

 

The Swedes try hard to change the course. Today they offered to hand over all the CzAF Gripens for free when the leasing contract ends under a condition that we modernize them and buy a second squadron of the new E/F. I think that it's sort of clutching at straws from them but on the other hand in the current difficult economic situation it may be hard for the military and MOD to push the much more expensive F-35 variant through the parlament. We'll see soon. 

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Given that big fires are becoming more common in Europe and the lack of available Canadair, airbus is testing a firefitgthing kit for the A400M :

 

 

Two tanks of 10 m3 each which can be refilled by two on-board pumps in 5 minutes after the plane landed. Combined whith the ability of the aircraft to land on short and unprepared runways, there may be some interest to it.

 

Even though a normal Canadair only carry 6 m3 of water, the fact that it doesn't have to land/stop to refill likely mean it is still able to deliver more water on target in a given time frame, so this kind of solution is only a backup at best.

 

Converting military cargo planes for firefighting has been done before (I don't know with how much sucess) but there is over 88 A400M in Europe and that number will keep growing, so a kit which could potentially be installed on any one of them would actually be a nice addition.

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5 hours ago, W. Murderface said:

Google thought this was relevant to my interests. Fair enough.

 

https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2022/08/04/drawings-of-a-russian-copy-of-the-b-2-spirit-bomber-surfaced/

Hopefully this works better than the current solution of strapping dumb bombs from the 50s on the Pak Fa

https://i.imgur.com/l7cRAIg.jpeg

Spoiler

https://i.imgur.com/WHk1BEh.jpeg

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, LoooSeR said:

LMUR on modernised Mi-28N, Army 2022 expo

A few years ago we had gotten this:

Jm1yYzj.png

 

This is clearly the same missile as the LMUR/Izd 305 (because of overall shape, range, capabilities). In this material, it was referred to as "Baikal". Might that be the actual name of the missile?

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43 minutes ago, alanch90 said:

A few years ago we had gotten this:

Jm1yYzj.png

 

This is clearly the same missile as the LMUR/Izd 305 (because of overall shape, range, capabilities). In this material, it was referred to as "Baikal". Might that be the actual name of the missile?

Izdelie 305 on pictures above designation is LMUR. Baikal is name of R&D for self-propelled ATGM vehicle.

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53 minutes ago, LoooSeR said:

Izdelie 305 on pictures above designation is LMUR. Baikal is name of R&D for self-propelled ATGM vehicle.

Yes but is ´LMUR´ its proper name? That would be a first for soviet/russian missile.

Same thing for naming a vehicle as ´Baikal´. Its immediate predecessor, the Khrizantema, like all artillery vehicles, is named after a flower. 

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10 hours ago, alanch90 said:

Yes but is ´LMUR´ its proper name? That would be a first for soviet/russian missile.

Yes, it's official name. Means Light Multipurpose Guided Rocket. Not sure why they named it "Light", heh. You can search this thread to find more on Izdelie 305/LMUR and 305E. 

 

Spoiler

KXdFKIB.jpeg

 

10 hours ago, alanch90 said:

Same thing for naming a vehicle as ´Baikal´. Its immediate predecessor, the Khrizantema, like all artillery vehicles, is named after a flower. 

Baikal is not an artillery vehicle. Example of ATGM carriers having non-flower names are Shturm-S and Konkurs.

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