04 Jan 05. Boeing commented on the proposed defense cuts, “We have said for some time that competing priorities would flatten future defense spending. The reports regarding F-22 and other program actions reference internal Department of Defense deliberations to which we are not privy. Should these reports prove accurate, it is testament to the very difficult choices the Department is making in trying to balance the requirements of the present with the needs of the future. Given Boeing’s current backlog and strong performance on our mix of development, production, and support programs, we continue to believe Boeing is very well-positioned for the future. To this end our focus will remain on providing our customers what they need, when they need it and doing so as affordably as possible.
11 Jan 05. For the first time over the past 10 years the Voronezh aircraft plant (VASO) has developed a five-year programme to build aircraft, Vyacheslav Salikov, the company’s general manager, told ITAR-TASS.VASO is to launch the production of Il-112B, a new military transport aircraft for the Russian air force, this year. The presentation and approval of draft design of the new plane has taken place at the Ilyushin aircraft corporation, Salikov said. A decision was taken to build the aircraft in Voronezh. The Russian air force is to receive the new plane in 2007. Also, the company is upgrading transport aircraft Il-76 and replacing engines. VASO, in cooperation with Ukrainian colleagues, has started mass production of the regional [passenger] aircraft An-148, which is to replace well-known An-24 and Tu-134 planes. The enterprise is also expanding the production of the airliner Il-96 and its cargo version for Russian carriers. A sharp rise in the aircraft production is in line with the programme of state support of the aircraft industry, Salikov said. The programme will make it possible to produce 100-150 planes in the next few years for domestic market and for export. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0634 gmt 11 Jan 05 © BBC Monitoring
10 Jan 05. A report from Forecast International says that Air-to-air missiles will generate $13.8bn in revenues over the next 10 years for the world’s top defense firms. More than 51,000 missiles will be produced through 2014. In the future, MBDA will begin offering the next-generation Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile. The firm hopes to break Raytheon’s grip on the medium-range segment of this market. Raytheon’s AMRAAM has out sold all its competitors. Raytheon and MBDA account for 46 percent of all sales in the air-to-air missile market. If certain non-competitive firms are eliminated from the rankings, the market share of these firms jumps to 64 percent.
11 Jan 05. Raytheon Systems Limited’s Paveway IV Precision Guided Bomb (PGB), which is being acquired by the U.K. MoD, has successfully passed another project milestone. As part of a risk reduction programme, a representative weapon has been subjected to a trial to determine the penetration and survivability of the warhead. This trial, conducted at the Energetic Materials Research and Test
Center in Socorro, New Mexico, used representative components including an inert warhead, guidance section and dummy fuze propelled down a sled track at some 300m/s at a finite thickness reinforced concrete target. The enhanced 500lb Mk82 warhead, incorporating design modifications to meet a number of challenging performance requirements, completely perforated the target with minimal damage (as predicted by hydrocode modelling) and with the fuze intact and undamaged, proving the ability of Paveway IV to penetrate a hardened target before detonating.
11 Jan 05. Norway’s Nammo will transfer technology free of charge and finance the ammunition production lines at the ZM Mesko armament plant. The project has already been accepted by the Offset Committee, said Deputy Economy Minister Krzysztof Krystowski. “It’s a very big pr