EADS Urged by TCI Fund to Sell 46% Dassault Aviation Stake
Full story: The Washington Post
European Aeronautics, Defence & Space Co. should sell its holding in Dassault Aviation SA, maker of the Rafale combat jet, because the stake valued at about 4 billion euros is a poor investment, the TCI fund said.
'Setbacks' push Indian Rafale contract beyond FY13Rahul Bedi, Delhi -
IHS Jane's Defence Weekly 03 October 2013
India is unlikely to sign the deal for 126 Dassault Rafale fighters within Fiscal Year 2013 (FY13) - which ends in March 2014 - as the contract recently suffered "major setbacks", Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne said in New Delhi on 4 October.
Addressing a press conference ahead of the 81st anniversary of the Indian Air Force (IAF) on 8 October, ACM Browne said the sudden death on 2 October of Arun Kumar Bal, the Ministry of Defence official negotiating the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) purchase, would doubtlessly delay the deal.
Appointing Bal's successor and familiarising that appointee with the complexities of the MMRCA contract could take up to four months if not longer, ACM Browne admitted.
We have hosted the Chairman of SME Corporation Malaysia and four Malaysian SMEs to our Samlesbury and Warton sites in the north-west of England. Samlesbury is our world-class manufacturing facility where we manufacture components for Typhoon and Warton is home to the Typhoon final assembly facility.
Eurofighter Typhoon's New AESA Radar Starts System Integration
The new AESA radar for the Eurofighter Typhoon is entering the system integration phase. During a four-national programme review at Cassidian’s Ulm site the test and integration results of the CAPTOR-E Antenna subsystem were successfully presented to the representatives of the four Eurofighter core nations UK, Italy, Spain, and Germany.
“The test results achieved during the campaign were fully in line with the theoretical design and comply with the internationally agreed system specification by the four nations. The achieved results demonstrate the state-of-the-art performance and the high production standard of the Captor-E AESA antenna, the repositioner and the corresponding antenna power supply and control unit.” Cassidian said.
With the Captor-E radar system, the radar beam comes from several thousands, small transmit and receive modules instead of a central emitter, enhancing versatility while helping conceal the originating location of the beam.
In a next step, the antenna sub-system will go to Selex Edinburgh for integration and test with receiver and processor. Final integration of the CAPTOR-E radar into the industrial production aircraft (IPA5) is planned in springtime 2014.
The radar as a whole is being developed by the Euroradar consortium comprising Cassidian, Selex ES (UK and Italy), and Indra (Spain). The consortium already has developed and produced more than 400 mechanically scanning CAPTOR radars.
New active electronic scanned array radar for Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft is entering the system integration phase of development according to Cassidian.
The Storm Shadow, already in service with the Italian Air Force and Royal Air Force Tornados, is a conventionally armed, stealthy, long-range stand-off precision weapon designed to neutralise high value targets. The new weapons systems will add the capability to strike in day or night in all-weather conditions, well-defended infrastructure targets such as port facilities, control centres, bunkers, missile sites, airfields and bridges that would otherwise require several aircraft and missions. This is a new addition to the Eurofighter Typhoon’s potent simultaneous multi-/swing-role capabilities.
Powered by a turbo-jet engine, with a range in excess of 250 km, the Storm Shadow missile weighs approximately 1.300kg and is just over 5 metres long. It will be available to operators from 2015 when the Eurofighter Typhoon Phase 2 Enhancements become operational.
Korea’s decision to buy only 40 F-35 Lightning IIs leaves Boeing and the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) in competition to win a follow-up contract for 20 more aircraft.
EADS, touting its combat-proven Eurofighter Typhoon, is trying to be the first non-U.S. fighter in the Korean Air Force on the back of its attractive offset offer.
Boeing is promoting the Advanced F-15 for the Korean program after dropping its F-15 Silent Eagle.
Through the third phase of the F-X, Korea plans to replace its F-4s and F-5s, both of which are at the end of their operational lives, with new advanced warplanes.
Aviation analyst say that a split-buy can make sense because there is still some uncertainty about the software development timeline of the Pentagon’s most expensive defense program ever.
“The split-buy is necessary for budgetary reasons, but I think it makes sense because we have yet to see an F-35 actually enter frontline service,” said James Hardy, Asia-Pacific editor of IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly.
“Given the Korean Air Force’s pending capability gap owing to the retirement of older types and the arrival of the F-35 in 2018, I feel the Eurofighter and F-15 are key contenders for the 20 aircraft requirement,” said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor of FlightGlobal, an aviation and aerospace industry website.
According to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), the first delivery of the F-35 is due in 2018 and the deployment of the additional 20 aircraft from 2023 is likely to be decided in 2017.
Lee Hee-woo, president of the ILS Research Institute, said that Korea should have picked 20 aircraft that are able to be deployed immediately ahead of choosing 40 stealth jets.
“If I were the Air Force, I would select 20 non-stealth fighters first because it is in urgent need to bridge its structure gap with the F-4s about to retire,” he said.
“In terms of serving as an immediate threat, the Eurofighter has a better chance to get the contract for 20 additional aircraft.”
Richard Aboulafia, vice president of Teal Group, said that the F-15 would be a better choice.
“Buying another batch of F-15s would be a good way of hedging against possible F-35 program delays and of helping to bridge Korea’s fighter gap as the F-4 fleet retires,” he said.
Korea intends to take advantage of technology transfer and other offset packages from the F-X III in order to develop its indigenous fighter jet, codenamed KF-X, and there is speculation that the U.S. government is likely to restrict Lockheed Martin from transferring technology, raising the possibility that technical assistance will determine who wins the split-buy.
EADS, which offered a “sweet deal” for the F-X III, said in a recent interview that it will support the KF-X project should it win the 20-aircraft contract.
“As the F-35 will be sold through the U.S. government’s foreign military sales (FMS) process, there are concerns that we will not be able to receive much of a technology transfer. So, Korea should also consider the F-X in tandem with the KF-X and the Eurofighter offers a better deal,” Lee said.
Waldron said: “Of the three contenders, the Eurofighter is likely to be the most open to technology transfer, but this must be weighed against the Typhoon’s lack of commonality with the rest of the Air Force fleet.”
Eurofighter delivers 400th TyphoonDec. 6, 2013
MANCHING, Germany, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH says a milestone has been reached in its Typhoon fighter program -- delivery of the 400th production aircraft to Germany.
The delivery of the Typhoon to the German Air Force on Wednesday also coincided with the first flight of a Trance 3 Typhoon.
BAE Systems says Malaysia seeking fighter jet leasing bids
LONDON Thu Feb 20, 2014 4:15pm IST
Feb 20 (Reuters) - BAE Systems expects to submit a leasing proposal for the Eurofighter Typhoon jet to Malaysia next month, as its cash-strapped government mulls over renting, rather than buying fighter aircraft.
"The Malaysian government is openly saying they have some issues on finance, and while they're ending subsidies and bringing in new value added tax, it's unlikely there's an appetite to buy Typhoon at this point," BAE's Group Business Development Director Alan Garwood told analysts on Thursday.
"What they have done is solicit leasing proposals from every major aerospace company. We will be submitting a leasing proposal next month for Typhoon together with a purchase option and expect to have further discussions later in the year or maybe even early next year around that," he said.
Last year Malaysia, which had wanted to buy 18 combat aircraft by 2015, said it was choosing between Boeing's F/A-18, Dassault's Rafale, Saab's Gripen and the Eurofighter Typhoon which is built by BAE, Airbus and Italy's Finmeccanica.
Industry sources said in March that the purchase could run into billions of dollars. Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak told Reuters in October the purchase might be delayed.
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