News Story: US Increases Number of F-16s To 18 In Afghanistan

The United States Air Force has increased the number of F-16 multi task Fighting Falcons to 18 from 12, two generals, quoted by Military.com said Tuesday at the Air Force Association's Air, Space and Cyber Conference.

In addition air refueling tankers are in Afghanistan for the first time in about five years, they said.

The Air Force now has 18 multi-role F-16 fighters in country, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, commander of US Air Forces Central Command, told reporters at the conference.

"We just plussed up our number of fighters. We had 12 F-16s; we now have 18," said Harrigian, who oversees missions at the Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar.

According to Military.com, Harrigian said: "Our close-air support role continues and, as you look at the strategy coming forward, we're actually right now working with [Commander of US forces in Afghanistan] Gen. John Nicholson's staff on how to best synchronize his advice-and-assist strategy going forward to optimize the placement of the air assets."

Read the full story at TOLOnews

News Report: Modi Confident in 'Convergence' of US, Indian Interests

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he is "confident in the growing convergence" between India and the U.S. as he prepares to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House.

In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Modi stated his optimism for economic growth and increased bilateral trade between the two countries.

"In an uncertain global economic landscape, our two nations stand as mutually reinforcing engines of growth and innovation," he wrote.

On Sunday, Modi met with top American business executives and members of the Indian diaspora on his first visit to the U.S. since Trump was elected president.

Meeting with tech leaders 

At a hotel meeting in Washington with leaders of some of the top American technology companies, the prime minister extolled the virtues of doing business in India where he said there was "minimum government," making it easy to do business in the South Asian nation.

Among those attending the meeting were Google's Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Shantanu Narayen of Adobe Systems, who are all Indian Americans. Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and Apple's Tim Cook also attended the meeting.

News Story: MQ-9B drone sale for India to be OK'd

MQ-9B Guardian (Image: Wiki Commons)

By: Aaron Mehta

WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department is in the final stages of clearing the sale of 22 MQ-9 drones to India, with an expectation that U.S. President Donald Trump will announce the sale during the upcoming visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

Modi, who will meet with Trump for the first time on June 26, is expected to discuss a wide range of topics, including terrorism and visas, but is poised to walk away with an offer to purchase the unarmed MQ-9B Guardian design produced by General Atomics. 

The Guardian design is a variant of the Predator B drone, equipped with several radar systems specifically useful for maritime searches.  

“We are pleased that the U.S. government has cleared the way for the sale of the MQ-9B Guardian to the Indian Government,” said Linden Blue, CEO of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, in a statement to Defense News. “Guardian provides the endurance and capability required to significantly enhance India’s sovereign maritime domain awareness in the Indo-Pacific. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is standing by to support the US and Indian Governments throughout this process” 

It is unclear how much the sale will be worth, nor what offsets were being offered to India. Modi’s Make in India initiative has emphasized production on the ground in India be part of weapon procurement from foreign suppliers. However, GA estimates the sale will create around 5,000 jobs in the U.S. through its supply chain. 

An industry source confirmed that General Atomics has been told the sale is being approved. A spokesman for the U.S. State Department declined to comment. 

But offering sales to New Delhi and getting them concluded are two very different things, with the Indian government notorious among defense circles for dragging out negotiations before cancelling them outright. 

Read the full story at DefenseNews

News Story: Senators press Mattis, Tillerson on India defense deals

CGI of the F-16IN developed for India's MMRCA Competition

By: Joe Gould

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan pair of key senators are pressing the Trump administration to approve two defense deals between the U.S. and India, arguing that U.S. jobs hang in the balance. 

Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Mark Warner, D-Va., jointly sent letters to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The lawmakers pressed, in one letter, to approve co-production of Lockheed Martin’s F-16 in India and, in the other letter, to approve the export of General Atomics’ Guardian, a nonlethal maritime version of the MQ-9 Reaper. 

The two lawmakers co-chair the U.S.-India caucus, while Cornyn is the No. 2 Republican in the Senate and Warner is vice chairman on the Senate Intelligence Committee. For the defense industrial base, the F-16 deal would help sustain the existing fleet, they argue, while the potential Guardian sale is worth $2 billion. 

Read the full story at DefenseNews

News Story: GA-ASI Goes Head-to-head with IAI for Australian UAS Contract

A US MQ-9B Reaper

by Mike Yeo

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) has described its proposal for Australia’s armed medium‑altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft system (UAS) requirement. The company displayed a Reaper UAV and a complete ground control station at the Avalon Airshow last week and introduced its several Australian partners. Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI)—the main rival for the Australian contract—also displayed its candidate UAV at the show, the Heron TP.

Project AIR 7003 is the name of the program to acquire the new MALE UAS. Australia’s 2016 Defense White Paper and accompanying Integrated Investment Plan (IIP) called for the procurement to “enhance battlefield intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.” It is not known how many aircraft or systems Australia is seeking, although the IIP allocated A$1-2 billion ($0.75–1.5 billion) for the project starting from 2018, with the selected UAS expected to enter Australian service in the early 2020s.

A Heron 1 in Australian service in Afghanistan

Team Reaper Australia comprises GA-ASI, Cobham, CAE Australia, Raytheon Australia and Flight Data Systems. AIN understands that the offer will be centered on General Atomics Certifiable Predator B variant of the Reaper. Cobham will offer through-life support and training while CAE, which provided a Reaper simulator for Italian Air Force, is expected to do the same for Australia. Raytheon will supply the electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) camera payload, and Flight Data Systems will supply the flight data recorder required by Australia. 

Read the full story at AINonline

News Story: GA-ASI forms team to supply Reaper drones to Australia

MQ-9B Reaper

by Richard Tomkins

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. has formed a team with Australian industry to support an Australian military program for remotely piloted aircraft.

The partnering, announced at the Australian International Aerospace and Defense Exposition is composed of GA-ASI, Cobham, CAE Australia, Raytheon Australia, and Flight Data Systems.

"General Atomics Aeronautical recognizes the importance of working with Australian established partners, and we are very pleased to be joined in this endeavor by Cobham -- our key partner in Australia -- CAE Australia, Raytheon Australia, and Flight Data Systems," said Linden Blue, chief executive officer of GA-ASI.

"We have been working closely with the Australian Defense Force to understand the operational needs of AIR 7003 and are confident that our RPA System solution will provide mature, persistent, interoperable support to Australia's warfighters."

Read the full story at SpaceDaily

News Story: General Atomics to launch ‘Team Reaper Australia’ at Avalon

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is set to officially launch an industry team for the AIR 7003 Phase 1 Medium Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Aerial System project at the Australian International Airshow.

Representatives of Cobham, CAE Australia, Raytheon Australia and Flight Data Systems are scheduled to attend the event on February 28.

Read the full story at Australian Defence Business Review

News Report: US Woman Sentenced in Scheme to Provide Military Equipment to China

Victoria Macchi

WASHINGTON — Before Wenxia Man was arrested for attempting to broker the $50 million sale of military equipment to the Chinese government, she knew the risks.

In conversations with an undercover federal agent posing as a dealer, the California woman admitted she knew smuggling three jet engines and a drone out of the U.S. would be illegal, according to federal court documents.

Yet she pressed on, communicating with the fake dealer and a Chinese "technology spy," Xinsheng Zhang, who was acting as an official agent for the Chinese government to import military equipment and technical data, authorities said.

Now Man, a 45-year-old married mother of two young children and vice president of a tech parts company in San Diego who also goes by the name Wency, will serve out a 50-month sentence for her role in the plot. A judge handed down the ruling in a south Florida U.S. district court last week.

Man stood to receive a $1 million commission on the deal if it had gone through but nearly year-long discussions stalled in 2013.

The U.S. has had an arms embargo against China since 1990; no defense items can be sold or transferred to the country without written government approval, and Man wasn't a registered broker. Man was arrested in September 2015 and pleaded not guilty to federal charges of Conspiracy to Export and Cause the Export of Defense Articles from the United States and unlicensed brokering of defense articles. A jury convicted her in June.

Man, who was born in China, has been a U.S. citizen since 2006.

"The potential for harm to the safety of our fighter pilots, military personnel and national security which would occur had the defendant been successful is immeasurable," the assistant U.S. attorney wrote in his sentencing recommendation. "It is beyond doubt that Man and Zhang were engaged in efforts to allow the Peoples Republic of China to increase its military capabilities and might."

News Story: China’s J-20 Vs. F-35? Meh, Says CSAF Goldfein; Pilot Crisis Noted

Chinese Air Force J-20

By COLIN CLARK

PENTAGON: I thought I could hear Air Force and allied F-35 pilots around the world smiling when the new Air Force Chief of Staff said today that comparing the F-35 to the Chinese J-20 “is almost an irrelevant comparison.”

The F-35, said Gen. David Goldfein, is “about a family of systems and it’s about a network — that’s what gives us an asymmetric advantage.” Instead of comparing the J-20 to the Joint Strike Fighter, Goldfein said, it made more sense to compare the J-20 to the F-117 he flew years ago. When he piloted the F-117 into combat, he pushed the wonderfully named “stealth” button and all his antenna withdrew and his seat dropped down to make the pilot a smaller target. The plane had no connectivity with other aircraft once it went into combat.

“That’s why when i hear about F-35 vs. J-20, it’s almost an irrelevant comparison,” Goldfein said. There’s been enormous amounts of speculation about the Chinese J-20 and J-31 but relatively little comment by American officials. The 2016 Annual Report To Congress about China offered this: “PLAAF leaders believe stealth aircraft provide an offensive operational advantage that denies an adversary the time to mobilize and to conduct defensive operations.”

Read the full story at Breaking Defense

News Story: Chinese National Convicted of Export Violations

MQ-9 Reaper

F-35 and F-22 Stealth Fighter Engines Targeted

Wendell Minnick

TAIPEI — A US federal jury in Florida has convicted Wenxia "Wency" Man of attempting to export defense items to China without a license.

Man, a Chinese national and naturalized US citizen, was arrested in September. She was found guilty June 9 of conspiring to evade “US export laws by agreeing to illegally acquire and send to China fighter jet engines, a highly sophisticated military drone,” said a US Department of Justice news release.

According to the news release, between 2011 and 2013, Man conspired with Xinsheng Zhang, now a “fugitive” living in China, to illegally acquire and export a variety of defense items, including Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-100 engines for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter; Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 turbofan engines for the F-22 Raptor fighter; General Electric F110-GE-132 engines for the F-16 fighter jet; and the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper/Predator UAV.

Man referred to Zhang as a “technology spy” who worked on behalf of the Chinese military and had a special interest in “stealth technology.”

Read the full story at DefenseNews

Think Tank: DWP 2016 - unmanned systems and the future ADF

MQ-9 Reaper

James Mugg

The 2016 Defence White Paper mentions ‘unmanned’ systems 15 times. The accompanying Integrated Investment Plan (IIP) [pdf] has 39 references. The government has clear ambitions to purchase UAVs for maritime surveillance and airborne strike, with unmanned systems for other roles evidently under consideration.

Starting with the most assured acquisition, the Triton maritime surveillance UAV has been under consideration for at least three years. The unarmed Triton will provide a high-altitude, high-endurance maritime surveillance capability in concert with the incoming (manned) P-8 Poseidon fleet and other assets. The RAAF is expected to acquire the Tritons from the early 2020s.

As has been flagged previously, the government will also seek to acquire a number of armed reconnaissance UAVs for the Army by the early 2020s. The IIP outlines a plan to acquire ‘armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance unmanned aircraft’ between 2018 and 2038 in Table 8. Until now, Australia has only operated unarmed UAVs like the RQ-7B Shadow, although ADF personnel have been training on US Air Force MQ-9B Reaper armed UAVs for at least a year. A purchase of something like the Reaper is a likely outcome.