The ministry listed 49 ongoing modernization and acquisition projects across the military. Here are some that stood out:

Land Forces

M60 tank: Two separate modernization projects are ongoing. The first will replace the existing fire control system with the new Volkan-M, as well as provide additional armor protection and protected crew seats to M60T tanks. The contract was signed in January 2023. The second bolsters the firepower, survivability and mobility of M60A3 tanks. Prototype development studies are continuing.

Leopard 2 A4 tank: The platform variant is undergoing modernization work through a contract signed in 2022 between the government’s defense program management agency SSB and local defense contractor BMC Otomotiv. Aselsan, another Turkish business, is providing the fire control systems; remote controlled weapon stations; command, control, communication and information systems; laser warning systems; driver vision systems; active protection systems; and close-range surveillance systems. BMC will integrate these systems into the tank and overhaul the chassis.

T-155 Firtina self-propelled howitzer: The next generation of the T-155 is under construction by BMC Otomotiv. The original contract covers the delivery of 130 units. As of the end of 2023, the company had delivered eight. BMC is also developing an engine for the weapon. Inspection and acceptance activities of the prototype engine concluded Feb. 24, 2023.

ACV-15 vehicle: Aselsan is modernizing the combat vehicle by providing the 25mm Nefer turret, among other systems. The Defence Ministry’s 2nd Main Maintenance Factory Directorate is conducting the repair and overhaul of the engine and the transmission of the vehicles.

Naval Forces

Milden submarine project: The Naval Forces’ design office is working on the country’s first indigenous submarine program. Construction is to take place at Gölcük Shipyard Command. A test block is to undergo construction this year, and efforts to build the first submarine are scheduled to start in 2025.

Reis-class submarine program: Hizirreis, the second submarine of the Reis project, which includes the production of six submarines, began May 25, 2023. Gölcük Naval Shipyard is carrying out the work.

Preveze-class submarine: After integration and testing activities ended on the TCG Preveze submarine, which acted as a testbed for the early delivery of the systems, the Gölcük Naval Shipyard started midlife upgrades for the TCG Sakarya in July 2022. That platform is the first submarine to receive the modernization features, and work is ongoing. The plan is to modernize all Preveze-class subs during maintenance and overhaul periods until 2027.

Barbaros-class frigate: Turkey is working on a midlife modernization project focused on the sensors, weapons and combat management systems of Barbaros-class frigates. The first ship to receive upgrades, the TCG Barbaros, is currently performing acceptance tests.

Air Forces

F-16 fighter jet: There are two separate projects for the Turkish Air Forces. The first one is the procurement of new F-16 Block 70 aircraft and the application of Viper modernization to the existing F-16 Block 40/50 airframes in service. The second is meant to extend the structural service life of F-16C/D Block 40/50 aircraft currently in service to 2050, and to strengthen them structurally. This project will take place in facilities run by the 1st Air Maintenance Factory Directorate.

Akinci and Anka-S drones: There are ongoing efforts to buy various types of Akinci and Anka-S drones. For both of these projects, Turkey considers the extension of their range via satellite as critical.

Hürjet aircraft: The primary goal of this project is to design and produce a single-engine, tandem-seat jet trainer with performance features that will play a critical role in training pilots for modern fighter aircraft. The prototype made its maiden flight in April 2023.

Hürkuş-B aircraft: This program for a new-generation basic jet trainer is meant to meet Air Force Command’s need for additional training aircraft. Ultimately, this is to improve the quality of combat readiness training and the effectiveness of flight personnel training. The first aircraft is scheduled for delivery in 2025.

The service plans to buy 42 Lockheed Martin-made F-35As for $5.9 billion and 18 Boeing F-15EXs for $1.8 billion next year. That would be a reduction from the 48 and 24 fighters, respectively, the service originally expected to buy.

The Air Force plans to stop buying F-15EXs all together after 2025 concludes, which will cap the entire line of Eagle IIs at 98 — six fewer than the 104 the service had been planning to buy. The Air Force’s expected total purchase of 1,763 F-35As remains unchanged.

The Air Force also wants to cut 250 aircraft in 2025, including 56 A-10 Warthogs, 65 older F-15 C and D Eagle fighters, 26 F-15E Strike Eagles with less-capable engines, 11 F-16 Fighting Falcons, and 32 Block 20 F-22A Raptors the service said would be prohibitively expensive to ready for combat. The service expects those retirements, if approved, would save more than $2 billion in fiscal 2025.

The Department of the Air Force’s fiscal 2025 proposed budget requests a total of $217.5 billion, an increase of $2.4 billion, or 1.1%, over its request from this year. Kristyn Jones, who is performing the duties of undersecretary of the Air Force, noted to reporters that the increase does not keep up with inflation.

The service asked for $188.1 billion, a $3 billion or 1.6% increase over its 2024 request. The Space Force’s requested $29.4 billion budget would be a 2% drop from the 2024 request.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters in a March 8 briefing the service “had to make some hard choices” to fit within the constraints of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act caps the government’s spending increases as part of a deal Congress struck last year to avoid a default on the nation’s debt. For the Defense Department, that limits its 2025 budget to $850 million, less than the $860 million the administration originally anticipated.

Kendall described the resulting budget as “acceptable,” and “essentially consistent” with the fiscal 2024 budget. But although he said it moves the department forward on key programs and strikes a balance between near-, mid- and long-term programs, he said he’d “like to be able to move faster.”

And more “tough choices” are ahead in fiscal 2026′s budget, he warned, including the first real effects of the LGM-35A Sentinel program’s severe cost overruns. The Air Force’s next intercontinental ballistic missile, slated to replace its aging Minuteman III nuclear missiles, has seen its costs ballon at least 37% and triggered a cost overrun process called a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach.

“Life gets a lot harder as you get past [20]25,” Kendall said.

The Air Force tried to strike a balance between mid-term procurement of more air frames and capabilities that have already been developed, and research and development of future advanced capabilities the service hopes will pay off in the long term.

“My priority is to get to a next generation of capabilities as quick as we can, because of what China’s doing in terms of their modernization,” Kendall said. He added later, “China is advancing very quickly, and they’re not stopping. So we really need, as a priority, to get to a next-generational capability. And you can’t even start to buy that until you’ve done the research and development.”

That resulted in a “tradeoff” in favor of R&D over procurement, Kendall said, to give future administrations options of new capabilities it can choose to buy as threats change.

The Air Force’s proposed procurement budget in 2025 is $29 billion, which would be down $1.6 billion from its 2024 proposal. And its proposed research, development, test and evaluation budget would rise from $36.2 billion in the 2024 proposal to $37.7 billion in 2025.

Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., warned at the March 7 McAleese Defense Conference in Washington that Chinese President Xi Jinping is preparing to make a move on Taiwan by 2027. Wittman said military strategies that depend on fielding capabilities by about 2030 will come too late, and the U.S. military must field shorter-term capabilities to be able to dissuade China from trying to take Taiwan by force.

“Anybody that uses a metric and says, ‘We’ll get this stuff done by 2030′ — wrong answer,” Wittman said. “2027 needs to be the metric. That’s how we will have the opportunity to deter” China.

In a gaggle with reporters at McAleese, Kendall said the Air Force has to take a longer view, and will need to counter China not just in 2027, but for years to come.

“It’s a risk balance over time,” Kendall said. “If you fixate only on 2027, you’re going to find that in ‘29, you’re in big trouble. And ‘29 is going to come.”

Squeezing costs

A variety of rising costs are squeezing the Air Force’s budget, Jones said, and led to the procurement cuts. The department expects to spend about $1 billion more in 2025 to keep the number of flying hours and weapon system sustainment on par with 2024 levels, and personnel costs such as military pay and benefits are also going up, she said.

R&D funding for Sentinel would remain flat from the 2024 request at $3.7 billion. And the service wants to spend $700 million on six construction projects for Sentinel in 2025, as well as another $70 million for planning and design, a major increase from the $140 million it requested for Sentinel construction in 2024.

Jones said some of the changes included in the “reoptimization for great power competition” reorganization the Air Force unveiled last month will help set the Sentinel program back on track. Those changes would include putting a three-star general in charge of the Nuclear Weapons System Center, and having a two-star general serve as a program executive officer for ICBMs. Jones said the Air Force is still studying the program’s requirements and looking for alternative strategies that could save money.

Overall funding for the B-21 Raider stealth bomber will remain fairly steady, although some funds will shift from R&D to procurement as the bomber continues in its low-rate initial production phase. R&D funding for the bomber’s engineering, manufacturing and development phase would dip from $3 billion in 2024 to $2.7 billion in 2025, while procurement funding would increase from $2.3 billion to $2.7 billion.

The Next-Generation Air Dominance program, the service’s future fighter system, would receive an additional $815 million to develop and test its air vehicle, mission systems and capabilities, bringing spending on that program to more than $2.8 billion.

The Air Force’s collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA, program would receive $559 million in R&D funding to continue development, prototyping and integration of its air vehicle, which would be a $166 million boost over 2024 levels.

CCAs are drones outfitted with autonomous software that could fly alongside crewed NGAD and F-35 fighters into battle and carry out missions such as strikes, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare operations. The service now has contracts with five vendors on this program — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics and Anduril — and plans to winnow the field to two or three in the months to come.

The CCA program would also receive another $116 million to test its autonomous capabilities and for experimentation programs such as Project Venom and the experimental operations unit. And the service said its proposed 2025 funding for CCAs would allow it to lock down the aircraft’s design, build production-representative test aircraft for the program’s first increment, begin testing and refine the concept for its second increment.

The Air Force also plans to buy 15 KC-46A Pegasus tankers for $3.1 billion and seven T-7A Red Hawk trainers for $233 million. And it would retire 16 KC-135 Stratotankers as it brings on new KC-46s.

The service plans to retire 22 T-1A Texan II training aircraft to free up more resources that can be invested in newer pilot training technologies.

And the budget would provide $13.7 million for the Air Force’s tanker recapitalization effort to serve as a bridge between the current wave of KC-46s and the service’s planned Next-Generation Aerial Refueling System, or NGAS. That choice will likely be between more Boeing KC-46s and a tanker from Airbus. The service expects to finish its acquisition strategy for that tanker this summer, and then release a request for proposal in 2025. The Air Force plans to start requesting procurement funding for that tanker in 2027.

The Air Force started conducting an analysis of alternatives study for NGAS in January, Maj. Gen. Michael Greiner, the Air Force’s deputy assistant secretary for budget, told reporters. The service wants to spend about $7 million on preparing for NGAS, including conducting modeling and simulation studies, so it can field an advanced tanker by the mid-2030s.

The service also wants to boost its purchases of AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAMs, Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles, or LRASMs, and Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range missiles, or AARGM-ERs. The LRASM and AARGM-ER purchases would increase considerably — from 27 in 2024 to 115 in 2025, and from 14 in 2024 to 128 in 2025, respectively.

Kendall said the Air Force is hoping to continue its strategy of multi-year procurement purchases for AMRAAM, LRASM, and the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range missile.

The Feb. 14 presidential election saw Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto garner nearly 60% of the votes, as of March 5. Since assuming the post in 2019, Prabowo has pushed for large-scale military modernization and increases in defense spending, despite the COVID-19 pandemic hitting Indonesia’s economy and partially reversing poverty-reduction measures, according to the World Bank.

Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the Singapore-based S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said Indonesia has consistently built up its defense since the term of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, first elected in 2004. And given Prabowo’s background, he will likely support continued military modernization efforts, Koh added.

“In some ways, one may argue that he might be more enthusiastic about it,” he said.

But given the country’s fiscal state and the scale of modernization the military requires, Prabowo might only be able to complete programs already in the works rather than start new ones, Koh added.

Prabowo was a lieutenant general and commander of the special forces known as Kopassus that were blamed for human rights abuses, including the torture of 22 activists who had opposed Suharto, the authoritarian leader whose 1998 downfall amid massive protests restored democracy in Indonesia.

Human rights groups have claimed that Prabowo was also involved in a series of human rights violations in Timor-Leste in the 1980s and 1990s, when Indonesia occupied the now-independent nation. Prabowo has denied those allegations. The alleged human rights abuses led to Prabowo being forced out of the military, and he was dishonorably discharged in 1998.

Orders and hiccups

Indonesia has pivoted toward naval and air modernization efforts. In 2021, it signed a deal with Airbus realted to A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport aircraft, anti-submarine and transport helicopters, and A400M transport planes. The helicopters are already in service, and the Defense Ministry finalized orders for two A400M aircraft in January. The A330 acquisition remains under discussion, company officials told Defense News.

In 2022, the government ordered 42 Dassault Rafale fighter jets for $8.1 billion, and it most recently completed orders for the last 18 jets in January 2024.

In August 2023, the government signed a memorandum of understanding with Boeing to acquire 24 F-15EX jets, and it also placed orders for Sikorsky S-70M Black Hawk helicopters.

The Defense Ministry also signed a contract to buy a $100 million submarine rescue vessel from the United Kingdom, and it’s reportedly in talks for two more Scorpene submarines from France’s Naval Group.

While President Joko Widodo last year approved approximately 139.3 trillion rupiahs (U.S. $8.9 billion) in defense spending for 2024 — a 20% increase from the prior budget — the government still needs more to meet its military modernization goals.

And the country appears to be falling behind. Under its Minimum Essential Force policy, the government is to complete a list of military upgrades and asset procurements the end of the presidential term, which is October 2024.

As of September 2023, the Air Force had met 51% of its goals, the Army 60% and the Navy 76%, according to Evan Laksmana, Southeast Asia military expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank.

The problem, Koh said, is that while Indonesia did list specific assets and capabilities under its policy, it had not provided enough specifications for planners to further the country’s goals.

Furthermore, Indonesia’s pivot to naval and air modernization might cause an uproar in the Army, which has traditionally received the lion’s share of the budget pie. The Army has been clamoring for artillery and land systems amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Koh said.

“The Air Force will have a tougher time these days and in the future when it comes to competing with funding with the Army,” he explained.

For example, Indonesia reportedly scrapped a deal to buy 12 used Dassault Mirage 2000-5 jets from Qatar to replace its retiring F-5 fleet. Public backlash pushed the government to abandon the plan days ahead of the Feb. 14 presidential election.

Indonesia is also behind on payments for a joint program with South Korea. The countries agreed to co-fund the KF-21 Boramae fighter jet program.

When asked for an update, Sangshin Park, a regional manager for KF-21 manufacturer Korea Aerospace Industries, told Defense News: “We also don’t know what’s going to happen, and we’re still waiting.”

Edna Tarigan and Achmad Ibrahim with The Associated Press contributed to this story.

The Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy will immediately start refreshing troops’ training and changing maintenance procedures as prerequisites for resuming normal operations, leaders from each of the services told reporters Wednesday.

But they acknowledged it will be months before the tiltrotor aircraft are fully back to flying real-world missions.

The Ospreys will receive no equipment modifications before they return to the air.

What is the Osprey, the aircraft at the center of multiple tragedies?

Marine Corps Col. Brian Taylor, the V-22 joint program manager, told reporters his office and the services “have high confidence that we understand what component failed and how it failed.” It’s still unclear why the part in question did not perform as intended.

Taylor and other service officials declined to say which component’s failure caused an Air Force Special Operations Command Osprey to crash into the sea during a training mission Nov. 29, killing all eight airmen aboard. They also declined to answer whether the aircraft would be restricted from flying under certain conditions or in certain areas due to the risk of a repeat problem.

The accident is still under investigation. The Air Force has shared its findings with the joint program office — which manages V-22 acquisition and maintenance for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — and the other services to better understand the material failure that led to the crash.

Because the wreckage of the Osprey sat under the Pacific Ocean for about a month before being recovered, the drive system is corroded such that engineers may never understand why the unnamed component failed, Taylor said. But investigators created a “fault tree” to map out potential causes, which are addressed in the services’ mitigation plan.

The main change will increase the frequency of an inspection that is already done on the aircraft — like upping the number of oil changes on a car, Taylor said. He said the change gives the component a greater “perimeter of safety” during operations.

Though Taylor repeatedly declined to offer information about the component, he said it is not the input quill assembly that attaches the Osprey’s engine to its proprotor gear box — the component that began wearing out early and caused a series of clutch malfunctions for Marine Corps and Air Force pilots in 2022. A portion of the Air Force and Marine Corps fleets were grounded in 2023 as those services studied how to mitigate the risk of so-called “hard clutch engagements” and when to replace worn-out parts.

NBC reported Feb. 19 the November crash may have involved “chipping,” where tiny pieces of metal wear off during use and can damage the engine. Taylor did not specify whether chipping played a role in the crash, but characterized it as a normal phenomenon for a mechanical system and said the V-22 has a sophisticated monitoring system that looks for small metal bits and alerts the pilot if any are detected.

Taylor made clear the November crash was unrelated to other previous V-22 mishaps.

“This is the first time that we’ve seen this particular component fail in this way, and so this is unprecedented” in the 750,000 flight hours amassed over the life of the V-22 program, he said.

Due to that long track record, Taylor said: “We are confident in the system.”

The ‘Gundam 22′ crash

The Nov. 29 accident was the deadliest Air Force mishap since 2018, and the fourth fatal Osprey crash in a two-year span. Twenty U.S. troops have died in Osprey incidents since March 2022.

The downed crew of “Gundam 22″ included Osprey pilots Maj. Jeff Hoernemann, Maj. Luke Unrath and Capt. Terry Brayman; medical personnel Maj. Eric Spendlove and Tech. Sgt. Zach Lavoy; flight engineers Staff Sgt. Jake Turnage and Senior Airman Kody Johnson; and airborne linguist Staff Sgt. Jake Galliher.

Six were stationed at Japan’s Yokota Air Base; two worked at Kadena Air Base. All were assigned to the Air Force’s 353rd Special Operations Wing.

The weeks-long, multinational search effort successfully recovered the bodies of all but Spendlove.

The U.S. military now flies hundreds of V-22s, largely operated by the Marines. The tiltrotor aircraft is known for its towering nacelles that allow it to launch and land like a helicopter, and speed forward like a fixed-wing plane. Troops use the unique aircraft to slip in and out of areas without established runways, where fixed-wing planes may not be able to land with troops and supplies.

The Marine Corps owns nearly 350 Ospreys; the Air Force and Navy operate smaller fleets at around 50 and 30 aircraft, respectively.

Beyond the safety and accident investigation boards studying the most recent crash, Air Force Special Operations Command is also conducting a deep-dive into its CV-22 Osprey program to determine whether it provides adequate training, resources and other factors to ensure airmen’s safety.

The Government Accountability Office and House Committee on Oversight and Accountability have also launched their own probes into the V-22. On Wednesday, Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who chairs the House oversight committee, said it had not yet received information from the military as it looks into the aircraft’s safety and performance.

“Serious concerns remain, such as accountability measures put in place to prevent crashes, a general lack of transparency, how maintenance and operational upkeep is prioritized, and how DOD assesses risks,” Comer said in a statement. “We will continue to rigorously investigate the DOD’s Osprey program to attain answers to our questions on behalf of American taxpayers and protect U.S. service members defending our nation.”

Marines prepare

As the biggest user of the V-22 platform by far, the Marine Corps has been most affected by the monthslong grounding. It relies on the Osprey to move people, supplies and weapons, and operates from ship decks and from ground bases.

Brig. Gen. Richard Joyce, the assistant deputy commandant for aviation, told reporters the Marine Corps has focused on keeping up troops’ proficiency on the Osprey since the grounding began in early December so the service could resume flights as quickly as possible.

“Our simulator utilization has been maximized to keep proficiency as much as possible in the virtual environment,” he said.

How the Osprey grounding affected a Marine unit in the Indo-Pacific

The service has gone as far as sending MV-22 pilots in Djibouti thousands of miles away to use simulators in Japan, and shipping MV-22 pilots who are deployed to the Middle East with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit back home to North Carolina for simulator training.

Now that the program office has cleared the aircraft to fly, the Corps’ most experienced pilots and aircrew will begin maintenance-check flights to get the Ospreys up in the air, then retrain on “core and basic skills,” Joyce said. Once those top personnel have brushed up on the fundamentals, they’ll pair with junior pilots and crew for additional basic training.

Joyce said it would take about a month for a squadron to get everyone back up to speed basic skills.

However, it will take more time for the personnel to retrain on more advanced skills and mission-specific tasks for combat assaults, transport flights and other missions.

The general said it would take until late spring or early summer to get back to pre-grounding readiness levels.

V-22 squadrons will go through more consumable parts, like filters, as they take on additional inspections and maintenance, he said. Those parts and training support will first go to deployed units, followed by squadrons with upcoming deployments, squadrons participating in key exercises or service-level training events, and eventually to test-and-evaluation units and those farthest from a future deployment.

The amphibious assault ship Boxer and the 15th MEU are set to deploy from California this spring, and Joyce said it’s not clear yet if they’ll be ready to bring the V-22 along. It’s one of the most pressing decisions related to resuming V-22 flight operations, he said.

Air Force’s ongoing studies

Airmen have done the work required to keep the Air Force’s Osprey fleet healthy during the three-month standdown, but “there’s only so much they can do with aircraft that are not flying,” Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind told reporters Wednesday.

He described a 12-week road map to getting the Ospreys back in the air that adds new maintenance requirements and allows experienced airmen to lead the way. The service will deviate from that plan as needed if work isn’t progressing on schedule.

Returning the aircraft to service begins with ground and simulator training that will include new safety controls and briefings, a review of aircraft maintenance records and refining squadron-level training plans to implement the new safety protocols, Bauernfeind said.

The Air Force did not elaborate on what new safety protocols will be introduced. AFSOC held an all-hands for Osprey crews Feb. 22-23 at Hurlburt Field, Florida, to explain the new safety protocols.

“We received very positive feedback that it was very beneficial to the crews,” Bauernfeind said.

The second phase will focus on returning air crews and maintainers to basic proficiency, initially targeted at senior aviators, instructors, evaluators and weapons officers. Simulator training has helped keep skills sharp during the standdown.

The phased approach gives the service time to absorb findings from the service’s initial safety investigation, an internal report meant to root out the cause of a mishap and prevent future occurrences. Bauernfeind received and accepted the findings of the safety board March 1.

He expects it will take the service more than three months to reach the level of proficiency it had on the Osprey before the Nov. 29 crash.

Bauernfeind said he’s confident in the service’s ability to safely resume Osprey operations before wrapping up two ongoing investigations. The Air Force has kept the families of the downed crew informed about the process, but has not told them the results of the recently completed safety investigation board.

“I have confidence that we know enough now to return to fly,” he said.

Navy’s path to at-sea missions

The Navy will take a similarly cautious approach to resuming its flights, putting only its most experienced personnel in the air first for basic flights in daytime-only conditions, Commander of Naval Air Forces Vice Adm. Daniel Cheever told reporters.

Those top personnel will then pair with junior sailors and eventually resume night operations and other, more complex training. The Navy will lastly resume training new pilots and aircrew at the fleet replacement squadrons.

But Cheever warned that returning to flight wasn’t the same as returning to mission: It may be several more months until the Navy sees its CMV-22Bs flying operational missions to haul cargo and people to aircraft carriers at sea.

Cheever said the Navy would avoid long, over-ocean flights until all personnel had built up sufficient proficiency. But when asked about any restrictions on the aircraft regarding duration of over-water flights, he deferred to NAVAIR. Taylor, from the V-22 program office under NAVAIR, declined to say whether there were or were not any operational limitations for the planes under the new return-to-flight plan.

Cheever highlighted the Navy’s flexibility and said all carriers at sea had fared well during the V-22 grounding. The Navy relied on its C-2A Greyhound, which is set to sundown in 2026 as it’s replaced by the CMV-22B, to resupply carriers at sea, including the Theodore Roosevelt deployed in the Indo-Pacific today.

He said the Navy also relied more heavily on its replenishment ship fleet and looked to load more goods onto carriers when they were in port.

But he noted the importance of getting the CMV-22 back to its mission, saying it can conduct medical evacuations and haul large F-35C engine components — unlike its aging predecessor.

The Aerospace Systems Directorate of AFRL, the service’s research and development arm, on Feb. 28 flew a General Atomics-made XQ-67A drone for the first time.

But what makes this aircraft different, said Doug Meador, the head of autonomous collaborative platform capabilities at AFRL’s Aerospace Systems Directorate, is that it was built on a chassis that could serve as the foundation for a variety of other drones.

This concept, which the automobile industry calls “platform sharing,” has been a standard practice there for decades, with carmakers mass-producing common underlying frames on which they build multiple vehicle models. Auto manufacturers say doing so saves time and money, improves a car’s reliability, and makes it simpler to keep a supply chain of parts flowing since models have fewer variances.

AFRL hopes the same approach will lead to a revolution in drone construction, allowing easier and greater mass production and driving down costs — potentially making it easier to create fleets of drone wingmen flying alongside crewed fighters.

“What if we built airplanes the same way the automotive industry built cars?” Meador said in a Tuesday interview. “What if we came up with a common chassis, or a framework around which you can put disparate performing types of aircraft, and what would that do [for] both being able to build the aircraft quickly and build them cheaper?”

The Air Force is focused on fielding a series of drones called Collaborative Combat Aircraft that could operate autonomously, in some cases serving as “wingmen” for fighters such as the F-35 and the in-the-works Next Generation Air Dominance platform. The Air Force wants these CCAs to carry out multiple missions, including strike, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare.

But if the CCA plan is to work, the Air Force will have to be able to field large numbers of them relatively inexpensively — a concept officials refer to as “affordable mass.” Meador hopes this common platform structure strategy could help the Air Force save on drone construction and achieve the kind of mass that is key to the CCA concept.

And the successful first flight of the XQ-67A, Meador said, showed this concept could work, even if the XQ-67 itself never transitions to a program of record. Only one XQ-67 has been built so far, but he declined to say if more are on the way.

“It’s an alternative [development option] that, to date, we have not had,” Meador said. “We’ve essentially validated it by flying the XQ-67.”

The XQ-67A is designed to carry sensors and have the potential to fly autonomously — though it now can only be flown remotely — alongside a crewed fighter to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Its first flight occurred at General Atomics’ Gray Butte Flight Operations Facility near Palmdale California, and was a relatively short, easygoing test, Meador said. More ambitious flight tests are planned in the near future, he said, to fully understand whether the XQ-67 can do what it was designed for.

“We still need to characterize some of the flying qualities and things like that [of the XQ-67] so we can turn it from a flight test program to a possible experimentation asset,” Meador said.

Other drones that could be built on the same underlying chassis in the future could carry out other missions such as conducting strikes on enemy targets, or electronic warfare, Meador said — but they would be an entirely different aircraft than an XQ-67.

“If we were to decide to go and build an off-board weapons station next, all the work that went into [building the XQ-67 sensor station] is already sunk, and we’ve already paid for it,” Meador said.

The XQ-67A grew out of a 2014 AFRL initiative called Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Technologies. Those ideas helped shape the Air Force’s CCA concept, and also led AFRL to explore the potential for its own platform sharing strategy.

AFRL worked with multiple vendors on the LCAAT initiative to figure out how to make a low-cost drone that could perform various missions, which evolved into a demonstration program that led Kratos Defense and Security Solutions to build the XQ-58A Valkyrie, he said.

Valkyrie experiments

The Valkyrie experiments showed it was possible to build a drone that can fly for long ranges, at high sub-sonic speeds, and with sufficient payloads for just a few million dollars, Meador said. So then, he said, AFRL set a more ambitious goal of building a drone that could share an underlying platform with other drones carrying out different missions.

This Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Platform Sharing program worked through a lot of questions along the way, such as figuring out what the common chassis should look like, how big it could be, and how many similar structures it could share to accommodate a variety of drones. AFRL chose General Atomics to build the XQ-67 in late 2022.

It’s now hard to say how much the XQ-67 might cost, Meador said, because only one has so far been built and prices on aircraft typically don’t stabilize until multiple units have been built.

But he hopes the cost-per-pound of the XQ-67′s air vehicle, without sensors or other additional capabilities, will be roughly in line with the smaller XQ-58 Valkyrie. The XQ-67 is about 50% heavier than the Valkyrie.

Having a common underlying structure could also make it easier and cheaper to develop subsequent generations of drones, Meador said. If the platform within a sensing drone is still up to date, for example, and only the sensors need to be modernized, Meador said that would simplify the new drone’s development.

“It’ll keep the cost down because we’re not going back and, from the ground up, redesigning everything from scratch,” Meador said.

Indra plans to lead consolidation of the Spanish defense industry, Chairman Marc Murtra told analysts during a March 6 presentation in Madrid. He cited the U.K.’s BAE Systems, France’s Thales and Italy’s Leonardo as examples of national defense champions that consolidated their home markets.

European countries have boosted defense spending since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to strengthen their militaries after decades of cost cutting. Purchases of defense equipment by NATO’s European members will rise 7% to 8% a year through 2030, with total procurement of as much as €950 billion (US$1 trillion) over the period, Indra forecasts.

“Europe is entering a new major defense investment cycle after more than 30 years, characterized by a significant shift in focus towards technology, a greater share of defense systems and the expansion of multi-domain capabilities,” Murtra said.

Indra seeks to transform its businesses from national to international, and become “the Spanish multinational of reference” in defense and aerospace, the chairman said. The company wants to become the Spanish coordinator in European land, air and cyberspace programs, and the main defense-system integrator in its home market.

The company has announced a number of cross-border deals in its defense business this year, including a radar joint venture with the Emirati defense-technology company Edge Group, and agreements with Thales and Lockheed Martin to jointly work on defense systems.

The EU has been pushing for consolidation and joint projects in the defense industry, with fragmentation and duplication between national markets estimated to waste billions of euros. The EU’s executive branch on Tuesday proposed a €1.5 billion plan to boost defense production and promote joint military projects among member states.

Indra is already involved in multinational European projects including the Future Combat Air System, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the A400M freighter.

“Some of our NATO allies within Europe, such as the U.K., Italy and France, have already made significant strides in consolidating defense and aerospace sectors,” Murtra said. “This process is crucial to achieve strategic autonomy in Spain, and to guarantee its influence at the global scale. With our strong positioning and capabilities, we aspire to lead the Spanish national ecosystem in less than 10 years.”

Spain’s defense budget is expected to outpace Europe, rising 11% to 12% a year to reach a target of 2% of GDP by 2030, Indra projects.

The company expects its defense sales to grow 42% organically over the next three years to €1.1 billion, excluding the contribution from acquisitions. Defense currently accounts for about a fifth of the company’s revenue.

Indra projects overall sales of €6 billion in 2026, including €700 million added through mergers and acquisitions. The company plans tol allocate more than 75% of its acquisition spending to defense and aerospace, with a focus on Spain, Western Europe, the Middle East and North America.

The company said it will concentrate M&A activity in its defense business on bolstering capabilities in the land domain, developing home markets in Western Europe and strengthening its business in sensors, avionics and counter unmanned aerial systems, or C-UAS.

Indra is simplifying its defense-product portfolio, moving more than 100 customized products into six technology categories, including radar, electronic defense, as well as command, control, computing and intelligence, or C3I.

Space division

The company is also setting up a new space division that will serve the defense and air-traffic management segments, with a goal of €1 billion in revenue by 2030. Indra wants to become a tier-one European player participating in the continent’s main space programs, Murtra said.

“Space is a segment that is becoming more and more relevant in Europe to guarantee its strategic autonomy and sovereignty over communications,” Murtra said “Satellite communications are becoming mission critical for governments in both both defense and non-defense applications.”

Indra will seek one or more shareholders for its information-technology business Minsait, though Murat said he plans to keep a “significant stake” in the unit, because of synergies with the defense and aerospace businesses.

Boeing and Spirit confirmed Friday they were in talks about a possible acquisition, following a Wall Street Journal report. The move, were it to happen, would reunite the two companies after nearly 20 years apart — and would come after a series of troubles with Boeing’s 737 MAX commercial aircraft, of which Spirit is a supplier.

“It’s kind of ‘back to the future,’ right?” defense industry analyst Byron Callan told Defense News on Monday. “You’re bringing back a part of Boeing that has really been” separate since 2005.

That was the year Boeing spun off what would become Spirit, when it sold its airframe manufacturing operations in Wichita, Kansas, and Oklahoma to a private equity firm.

Spirit AeroSystems is now a manufacturer and supplier for structural components that go into military aircraft such as the Boeing-made E-7 Wedgetail and P-8 Poseidon, the B-21 Raider stealth bomber built by Northrop Grumman, Bell’s V-280 Valor, as well as struts and nacelles for the B-52H Stratofortress. Its role in the defense industry is growing, with defense revenues reaching nearly $650 million in 2022 and a goal of hitting $1 billion by 2025.

Boeing on March 1 confirmed the potential acquisition and said the reintegration “would further strengthen aviation safety, improve quality and serve the interests of our customers, employees, and shareholders.”

The troubles with the line of MAX aircraft — most recently, the January blowout of a door on an Alaska Airlines flight — have generated new concern over Boeing and Spirit’s quality control.

But Callan believes there’s likely more motivating this possible acquisition, such as Boeing’s desire to keep a closer eye on its supply chain and manage rates of aircraft production, as well as address quality issues that have cascading effects.

“You don’t go buy a company because of one specific incident,” Callan said. “This is probably a broader set of instances. … They’ve recognized what happens when there are quality issues, delays, all the other things that were tripping up Spirit, that fundamentally impacts their ability to do business.”

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said Boeing could use its desire to increase quality oversight and exercise more control over its supply chain to support its case that federal regulators should approve a potential deal.

“That’s been somewhat problematic, especially now in light of these quality control issues, which arguably go back to Spirit in a lot of ways,” Clark said — though he also noted that “we’ve seen plenty of examples where Boeing’s quality controls” have fallen short.

Clark said a Boeing-Spirit acquisition would be an overall — albeit muted — benefit for the defense industry, by making it easier to improve their production facilities and methods.

Spirit has “started to use some new production techniques like additive manufacturing; they have a lot of experience with composites from the 787 Dreamliner,” Clark said. “Spirit’s got a lot of potential to be able to turn into this pretty high-tech supplier to a variety of programs. It’s just hard to do that as a standalone company, because you’re not dealing with a high-volume or high margin business.”

Acquiring Spirit would also “help stabilize Boeing in the defense space,” by allowing the company to contribute to more defense programs without being a prime contractor.

“As the DOD starts to shrink down the number of mainline manned aircraft programs … that means fewer and fewer opportunities for Boeing, Lockheed and Northrop to become the prime,” Clark said. “This way Boeing could be … through Spirit, a contributor to programs that they otherwise could have been locked out of.”

In the near term, Callan said, acquiring Spirit would give Boeing a piece of programs that company works on, such as the B-21 Raider stealth bomber — which Boeing lost to Northrop Grumman in 2015 — and the Bell V-280 Valor, the Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft.

Even if Boeing moves forward on its potential acquisition of Spirit, Callan said, it likely won’t boost Boeing on programs already in the works or nearing contract awards, such as the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance future fighter platform.

But when the military moves forward on subsequent aircraft programs — such as a future Air Force mobility aircraft to succeed the C-17 Globemaster or C-130 Hercules, or the replacement for the Army’s CH-47 Chinook — having Spirit in-house could bolster Boeing’s position, he added.

Callan and Clark said they doubt the Pentagon or government would object to a potential Boeing acquisition of Spirit, even though federal regulators objected to Lockheed Martin’s attempted acquisition of solid rocket motor manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne. Unlike the exceptionally narrow solid rocket motor market, they said, there are multiple air frame manufacturers to sustain competition if Boeing took over Spirit.

Spirit has somewhat branched out, Clark said, such as by becoming a supplier to Northrop Grumman for the B-21 and working with Airbus. But most of its business is still with Boeing, he said, and in many ways, “they stayed in Boeing’s shadow.”

Callan said the acquisition may be a boon to Spirit’s president and chief executive, Pat Shanahan, who also formerly served as acting secretary of defense and was an executive at Boeing before that. While Boeing’s chief operating officer, Stephanie Pope, is seen by many as a potential successor to current Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun, Callan said Shanahan’s experience could make him another contender.

“He would put a very different flavor to what we’ve seen in recent years,” Callan said.

But the big question, Callan said, is whether these hoped-for improvements in supply management and quality control will materialize, if an acquisition happens. It all will depend on how Boeing chooses to manage Spirit’s culture, standards and workforce, he said.

“If it’s really the beginning of a rejuvenation of their safety focus on engineering and manufacturing — that clearly somewhere along the way they lost, so if this helps that would be good,” Callan said. “But I wouldn’t say, ‘Boeing buys Spirit, all the problems go away.’ It’s too soon to tell.”

The officials said that Naval Air Systems Command, which grounded the controversial tilt-rotor aircraft about three months ago, will lift it and allow the services to begin implementing their plans to get the Osprey back into the air. Austin met with the top service leaders, including for the Navy and Air Force, on Friday morning, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans not yet made public.

Air Force knows what failed in fatal Osprey crash but not why

The Osprey has been grounded for almost three months following a Nov. 29 Air Force Special Operations Command crash in Japan that killed eight service members. The Japan incident and an earlier August Osprey crash in Australia that killed three Marines are both still under investigation. The Air Force has said that it has identified what failed in the Japan crash, even though it does not know yet why it failed.

The decision to end the flight ban is up to Naval Air Systems Command, but Austin had asked for an informational briefing on the matter because of the significant safety concerns and the fact that three of the services and a critical ally are involved in the program. While Austin does not have approval authority in the return to flight process, U.S. officials said his endorsement of the services’ plan was considered a key step.

In the months since, the services have worked on plans to mitigate the known material failure by conducting additional safety checks and establishing a new, more conservative approach to how the Osprey is operated.

The project is linked to the $9.6 billion jet procurement contract reached between Finland’s MOD and the American company Lockheed Martin in February 2022. The deal covers the delivery of 64 F-35s to the Finnish Air Force.

The building of the aircraft assembly facility forms part of the contract’s so-called stage one industrial component. The umbrella project required the signing of a lease for a suitable assembly plant development site. This was found near the town of Nokia. The site lease was signed in January between the Finnish Defence Forces and Defence Properties Finland, the state organization tasked with managing properties and assets owned by Finland’s defense administration.

Construction work on the engine assembly building is slated to commence during the second half of 2024. Under the terms of the industrial deal struck between Finland and Lockheed Martin, engine maintenance at the facility in Nokia will continue throughout the entire life cycle of the Air Force’s F-35 fleet.

“Industrial cooperation tied to the F-35 agreement will generate critical maintenance and repair expertise for Finland’s indigenous defense industry. This includes performance areas like reliability of maintenance. The agreement will also create significant know-how in Finland for F-35 engine assembly and testing,” Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen said.

The assembly plant will operate in close collaboration with the regional aircraft hub in Tampere run by Patria’s aviation division. An estimated 100 personnel will work in various assembly roles at the facility.

The government owns 50.1% of Patria, and the Norwegian company Kongsberg controls the remainder. Patria itself owns half of the Norwegian defense contractor Nammo.

The F-35s are set to replace the Air Force’s ageing McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet jets. These planes are scheduled to retire by 2030. The first batch of the F-35s on order are due for delivery and then deployment to Arctic air bases in Finland’s Lapland region by 2026.

The industrial cooperation component of the F-35 acquisition deal is expected to be scaled up in stages by 2030. The broadening of the industrial agreement may include the production or assembly in Finland of certain parts and systems used in the aircraft.

The Air Force has already tested the F-35′s suitability and adaptability to operate in extreme weather conditions, especially in Arctic areas of Finland during the country’s long winters that feature limited daylight.

In recent exercises, the service routinely used stretches of “closed highway” in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions as temporary airstrips. The Air Force is currently running such maneuvers as part of the weeklong Hanki drills in the north of the country, which are to continue until March 2.

The 74-page whitepaper, which the service unveiled during its annual symposium this week and which builds on a similar document published four years ago, details planned procurements out to 2037.

“The Air Force is aware of [the importance of] long-term development planning and spending of the national budget to achieve maximum value,” said the service’s commander, Air Chief Marshal Panpakdee Pattanakul.

Indeed, part of the whitepaper’s raison d’être is to stake claims for long-term funding as its aircraft inventories age. For instance, the 2020 version stated the fighter fleet had an average age of 26 years, a figure that continues to increase.

But the government’s procurement process is disjointed, according to Greg Raymond, an expert in Asia-Pacific affairs at the Australian National University. He cited factors like political instability, inadequate strategic planning, annual rather than multiyear budgeting measures, and weak civil oversight that allows each armed service to makes its own decisions.

In the latest whitepaper, the Air Force gives priority to a medium-range air defense system possessing a minimum 30-nautical-mile range from fiscal 2025 to fiscal 2028. Afterward, from FY33 to FY37, the service plans to carry out a second phase for a medium- or long-range air defense system.

From FY28 to FY32, the force plans to buy a short-range air defense system boasting gun-, missile and laser-based weapons. Credence is given to counter-drone systems, too, and a nine-year project to procure these is to commence in 2025.

The service is also eyeing 12-14 new fighters to replace the F-16 jets of 102 Squadron based at Korat. The procurement is scheduled to take place from FY25 to FY34, two years later than originally planned. The squadron’s F-16s from the late 1980s are to retire by 2028.

Two contenders have emerged for the aircraft requirement: Lockheed Martin’s F-16 Block 70/72 and Saab’s Gripen.

“We’re confident the F-16 Block 70/72 will complement the RTAF’s existing F-16 fleet and deliver the advanced 21st century security capabilities and performance needed to address Thailand’s most pressing defense requirements,” a Lockheed spokesperson told Defense News.

Thailand ordered its first Gripen C/D fighters in 2008. Following a January 2021 contract, the aircraft were upgraded to what the manufacturer calls the MS20 configuration.

Robert Björklund, who markets the Gripen to Thailand for Saab, told Defense News the existing fleet is integrated into the Saab-supplied Link T data system and that the aircraft provides its user with “a very wide range of weapon options, including its highly effective RBS15 anti-ship missile.”

A second fighter replacement project for 12-14 aircraft is slated for FY31 to FY35 to replace F-5E/F jets of 211 Squadron at Ubon that are to retire around the end of the decade. An identical number of fighters are needed to replace F-16A/Bs of 403 Squadron at Takhli from FY37 to FY46.

Thailand tries to maintain relations with several competing nations, including the United States, China, Russia and India, the whitepaper noted. Thailand previously purchase materiel from China, such as armored vehicles, air defense systems and a submarine.

Asked whether the Royal Thai Air Force would consider buying a Chinese fighter like the J-10CE, Raymond said the service values its relationship with the U.S. and likeminded allies too much to do so. He noted that Thai-U.S. relations have “largely stabilized,” despite the latter denying the former’s request to buy F-35A jets last year.

“They wouldn’t want to see themselves placed on the outer [circle] in terms of not getting invitations to things like [exercise] Pitch Black in Australia. I tend to think they’d be perhaps more careful about getting Chinese aircraft than the Thai Navy was about getting a submarine,” he said.

The whitepaper also detailed an effort starting this year to refurbish C-130H Hercules transport aircraft. The 2020 version recommended the service buy 12 replacements, but that idea was dropped.

As for pilot training, last year’s delivery of 12 T-6TH trainers allowed the Air Force to retire its Pilatus PC-9 fleet last month. New Zealand-built CT-4E trainers are to retire in 2031, so basic trainers will be needed from FY33. New lead-in fighter trainers are also sought from FY25, with Thailand already operating the South Korean T-50TH in this role.

The new whitepaper also emphasized unmanned technologies. One effort underway is the Thai-developed M Solar X solar-powered drone. Loitering munitions are also schedule for purchase by 2026, as are medium combat drones from FY26 to FY29 and high-altitude pseudo-satellites from FY24 to FY35.

The Air Force also mentioned procurement programs for micro- and nano-drone swarms from FY26, and a research and development effort for weaponized tactical drones from FY29.

And two Saab 340B Erieye airborne early warning aircraft are to receive enhanced command-and-control capabilities, with their dorsal-mounted radars to be replaced. This would take place from FY26 to FY29.

The government’s FY24 defense budget bill calls for a 198 billion baht (U.S. $5.5 billion) fund, of which $1 billion is for the Air Force. The service has already applied for an allocation of approximately $530 million for a first batch of four fighters.

A full-year continuing resolution that would keep fiscal 2023 spending levels through the rest of 2024 means the U.S. Army, for instance, would run out of operations and maintenance funding in the European theater as it trains Ukrainian soldiers to defend against Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country, which has entered its third year.

The financial strain is compounded by the lack of certainty over whether Congress will pass a supplemental funding package that would reimburse the Army for expenses incurred so far in bankrolling support to Ukraine.

The Army already spent $500 million in the European theater in operations and maintenance, and “we were counting on a supplemental to be able to sort of replenish us for that,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said at a Feb. 27 Defense Writers Group event. “What that means is probably by late spring, summer, we would have to make some difficult choices about other [NATO] exercises, for example, that our forces participate in.”

Additionally, the Army has been funding support to Israel to include deployments of units to the Middle East in the event they are needed, she added.

Army Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo told reporters Feb. 28 at the Pentagon that the service spent $100 million in U.S. Central Command’s area of operations as well as another $500 million to support the U.S. Southwest border security mission.

“I do worry. Our budget has been flat for the last couple years. We don’t have a lot of cash under the sofa cushions, and if we don’t get a budget and we don’t get a supplemental, we’re going to probably have to cancel some things,” Wormuth said.

The Army is prioritizing current operations, Camarillo said, which means it is “going to have to look to other areas of O&M spending where they “can potentially take some risk,” including “exercises and the degree to which we participate in some around the globe. We might have to scale some of that back in the absence of an appropriation this year.”

For the Air Force, Kristyn Jones, who is performing the duties of the service’s undersecretary, told reporters alongside Camarillo that in order to pay its personnel, training exercises would take the hit.

“Anything that’s already on a [Foreign Military Sales] case won’t have a dramatic impact, but all of the replenishment that we’re expecting in the supplemental is currently impacted. And even things like F-35 [fighter jet] training that we’re planning … with our allies and partners, that’s impacted by not having this appropriation as well.”

The Air Force is focused on trying to ensure flight hours are maintained, but it’s also important, Jones noted, that pilots receive training.

Despite the military’s experience in warfare, “we’re in a different strategic environment and we need to do the exercises, often joint and allied, to prepare for that environment. And the lack of our ability to do that doesn’t allow us to, again, to test the new techniques, the new military tactics that we’d like to have primarily for an Indo-Pacific fight,” Jones said. “That’s really where we need to stretch our muscles a little bit more.”

Learning from sequestration

With a possible extended or full-year continuing resolution, the service undersecretaries said the last time the military felt such a painful budget crunch was during the 2013 sequestration, where the services were required by law to make percentage cuts evenly across spending lines.

One of the fallouts of the 2013 sequestration was a rise in aviation mishaps because vital training flight hours were cut. Military Times and Defense News took a deep dive into aviation mishaps from FY11 through FY18 and uncovered the trend.

“Safety is always going to come first,” said Navy Under Secretary Erik Raven, “but we did look at the lessons of 2013 and sequestration, where we spread risk around the enterprise, and I think the concerns about maintaining ready and trained forces are part of the lessons that we’re using to inform if we get into this worst-case scenario where we don’t have our ’24 budget enacted and we are under a CR.”

“We’re not going to repeat that same peanut butter spread,” he added.

But trade-offs will be inevitable, he acknowledged, and “we’ll have to look across the board to see how to maintain the focus on current operations.”

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — The Indian government is closer to buying a multibillion-dollar package of cruise missiles, air defense weapons, surveillance radars and fighter jet engines following approval from the country’s highest decision-making body on security affairs.

At a Feb. 21 meeting, the Cabinet Committee on Security approved the four procurement projects cumulatively worth about 350 billion rupees (U.S. $4 billion).

According to local media reports quoting government sources, the approved items were BrahMos cruise missiles for the Navy, air defense guns for the Army, ground-based air surveillance radars and new engines for the Air Force’s MiG-29 fighters.

Approval by the committee, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi chairs, is a necessary step along the Defence Ministry’s contractual pathway.

Local media reported the BrahMos missile deal would be signed in March. The consolidated contract would include some 220 weapons to arm Indian frigates and destroyers — the largest-ever individual BrahMos order for India.

The contract will reportedly involve a mix of standard 290-kilometer-range (180-mile-range) and extended 450-kilometer-range (280-mile-range) BrahMos missiles, of which 75% is locally made.

“The BrahMos is expected to considerably enhance the potential for surface-to-surface attacks by Indian Navy ships, especially with extended-range missiles,” Rahul Bhonsle, a director of the New Delhi-based consultancy Security Risks Asia, told Defense News.

India is also exporting BrahMos missiles to the Philippines under a deal worth about $375 million signed in January 2022. Atul Rane, who leads the missile manufacturer BrahMos Aerospace, said last year the company has set a goal of exporting $5 billion worth of BrahMos weapons by 2025.

The committee also approved the purchase of Sudarshan air defense systems from private firm Larsen & Toubro — an acquisition worth approximately $844 million. The Army would use the systems, which feature radars and 40mm guns, to protect its installations and the country’s border areas.

The Sudarshan approval followed an October 2022 request for procurement seeking 141,576 ammunition rounds to accompany 220 guns, including pre-fragmented, programmable proximity fuses and smart rounds.

The Sudarshan is also competing in an Air Force competition for 244 close-in weapon systems.

“Air defense guns have assumed importance because of the overall weak air and missile defense profile with dated equipment, with the Indian Army in particular, and the add-on threat from drones,” Bhonsle explained.

The Indian Army relies on antiquated Bofors L/70 and ZU-23-2B towed guns, and their replacement has become urgent given the emerging threat of drones and loitering munitions.

Larsen & Toubro is also set to provide the air surveillance radars, worth about $723 million. India is prioritizing better radar coverage of its northern and western borders to guard against Chinese and Pakistani aircraft, respectively. Augmenting the existing radar network in phases, the Air Force will operate the new indigenous sensors.

And Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. is to manufacture new RD-33MK engines for MiG-29 fighters in collaboration with Russia, with the project worth about $639 million.

These projects underscore India’s attempts to maximize indigenous input. The Make in India economic policy seems to be gaining groud, Bhonsle said.

“However, it should be noted there is also considerable foreign collaboration involved in many of the projects, as up to 50% or more is permissible under existing rules for acquisition,” Bhonsle added.

In an interview with Defense News, Northrop Grumman executive Doug Shaffer said the company is on track to deliver those aircraft, newly modified into Range Hawks, to the Defense Department’s Test Resource Management Center by early 2025.

These two Range Hawks are the first to be modified from a batch of 24 Global Hawk drones the Air Force has retired in recent years and passed on to TRMC for a second life as flexible and airborne test data collectors.

In the past, the government has used sensors mounted on ships to collect test launch data for hypersonic systems. But moving those ships into the proper positions can be a lengthy and laborious process that requires a substantial number of people.

So in recent years, the Air Force, NASA and TRMC have been working on a concept called SkyRange to mount sensors onto Global Hawks that could more easily collect this data. The program’s first three adapted RQ-4s — which were older Block 10 models — in recent years have been supporting tests for programs such as NASA’s Artemis Moon exploration program and hypersonic vehicles. They are stationed at the Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

In an interview with sister publication C4ISRNet, TRMC director George Rumford said having those early Range Hawks allowed the Pentagon to conduct virtually back-to-back hypersonic flight tests in early 2023, 10 days apart over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Northrop Grumman said the first three Range Hawks performed so well that TRMC is moving to expand the SkyRange program. The two dozen Block 20 and 30 RQ-4s that are slated to be modified into the next several batches of Range Hawks are more capable than the older model.

Technology has advanced enough in recent years to be able to shrink the sensing equipment down enough to be mounted on a drone, said Shaffer, vice president of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting programs for Northrop Grumman’s aeronautics systems sector.

Shaffer said Northrop Grumman has started breaking down these first two RQ-4s at the Grand Sky facility near Grand Forks, North Dakota, and will start installing the new suite of sensors as parts come in. Once mounted on the Range Hawks, the sensors will be able to gather telemetry data on hypersonic launches such as speed and trajectory, he said.

These Range Hawks have now passed their critical design review, and the design process is now finished, Shaffer said. Northrop Grumman used digital design techniques, he said, which has sped up the process.

Northrop Grumman plans to modify the remaining RQ-4s in batches of four, Shaffer added, starting with the Block 30s. And with each RQ-4′s modification taking roughly eight months to complete, he said, updating the entire fleet could take several years. He cautioned that schedule will depend on whether the program continues to get enough funding.

Shaffer declined to say how much each updated Range Hawk will cost, but said later modifications will grow cheaper as work on the program progresses.

The Air Force now has nine RQ-4s left in its inventory and plans to eventually retire them. But in the latest National Defense Authorization Act, lawmakers moved to prevent the Air Force from mothballing the remainder of its fleet until after fiscal 2028.

The F-35A purchase would be on top of earlier orders for 12 F-35Bs from the American defense company Lockheed Martin.

Addressing Parliament during Wednesday’s budget deliberations, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said his ministry wants to take advantage of the competitive price of the F-35As, which are now “comparable” to Boeing’s F-15 jets.

“We may have to de-prioritize other projects for this opportunity buy, but we have done our calculations and we think that this is the best time to put in orders for the F-35As,” he said, adding that accelerating the F-35 acquisition plan will put the Republic of Singapore Air Force in the “premier league.”

F-35As are built for conventional takeoff and landing, have dependable endurance, can carry higher capacity payloads, and provide more operational flexibility, Ng explained.

Both the “A” and “B” variants are suitable for Singapore’s limited land spaces, the ministry has noted.

Singapore ordered four F-35Bs in a 2020 deal worth an estimated $2.75 billion, then added eight more F-35B units in 2023. The aircraft are on track to arrive during the 2026-2028 time frame.

If Parliament approves the current F-35A acquisition, Ng said the additional fighter jets would arrive by 2030, the same year Singapore’s military plans to retire its F-16 fleet. By the end of the decade, the Air Force would operate a combined fleet of F-15SG, F-35A and F-35B fighter jets.

The ministry has also proposed a SG$20.2 billion (U.S. $15 billion) defense budget — an increase from last year’s SG$17.98 billion (U.S. $13.36 billion) allocation.

For several years Singapore has steadily allocated around 3% of its gross domestic product for defense spending, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think tank. This consistency has allowed the country to upgrade its aircraft fleet as well as modernize existing platforms.

The military had undertaken a massive modernization push set to materialize in 2040.

“So today we are reaping dividends of the sums we put in steadily over the past 20 years [on defense spending],” Ng said.

Singaporean leaders during the budget deliberations expressed concerns over Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war, and economic disagreements between the U.S. and China.

“We are all concerned that the U.S. and China could clash over Taiwan. If that happened, it would be a very bleak Asia for a very long time,” Ng acknowledged. “I want to make clear here that if ever something similar happens to us here in Singapore, this government, [the Ministry of Defence and the Singaporean Armed Forces] do not plan on the basis that we can depend on another country to come to our rescue. "

But budget uncertainties and a possible 1% cut to funding levels could jeopardize the Air Force’s ability to set up a new Integrated Capabilities Command and other changes in time to have the right impact, Gen. Dave Allvin said at a Brookings Institution event.

“It’s not a matter to me of: this is an optional thing that we think is a good idea to do,” Allvin said. “The strategic environment compels us to do this. Otherwise, we find ourselves in a situation next year, then the year after and the year after that, where we fall further behind.”

Allvin, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, and other top officials unveiled the revamp — the service’s largest since the post-Cold War period in the 1990s — earlier this month at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Warfare Symposium. The shift is part of the service’s effort to better position to counter major adversaries, particularly China, and win a high-tech, modern war, all while dealing with budgetary limitations.

The creation of a new Integrated Capabilities Command is one of the biggest changes in the works for the Air Force.

Today, the Air Force often develops the future capabilities it will need partially within its major commands and piecemeal.

But the single, centralized Integrated Capabilities Command in the works will take charge of developing the Air Force’s future requirements into new systems or other capabilities and allow a more unified approach.

This new command “understands the impacts of modernizing one part of our Air Force with the other part of our Air Force, and it helps us develop a more cohesive and coherent force design into the future,” Allvin said. “We have to make quality decisions faster. And sometimes, when you diffuse the power structures and the decision-making authority across the functions, it’s very hard to get an enterprise solution on time.”

These changes might not be noticed outside of the Air Force, Allvin said, but he predicted they would have a significant effect internally.

The service is working on setting up the Integrated Capabilities Command as soon as possible, he said, so it can start changing the way it conducts long-term planning for the future force. But he acknowledged the full reorganization could be done in pieces and take years — and may not be completely finished when his tenure as chief of staff ends in four years.

“It’s all I’m going to be doing … from start to finish,” Allvin said. “If I do my job, and get the support and I’m able to build a team and build the advocacy, you’re going to see a drastically changed Air Force.”

He said it is too early to tell how much the reorganization might cost, though he doesn’t expect it to be “a large fiscal burden.” He believes the Air Force already has most of the resources and abilities it needs, and must start moving on these changes immediately.

“This Integrated Capabilities Command, I can’t tell you, to the airman, how many are going to be there,” Allvin said. “But we also can’t wait for that in order to get started. We need to know that we’re going to move forward and adapt on the fly.”

But with the fiscal 2024 budget languishing in Congress, the Air Force — like the rest of the government — is still operating on a continuing resolution funding it at 2023 levels. If lawmakers don’t pass this year’s budget by April 30, a further 1% cut will kick in.

That would not only jeopardize the Air Force’s ability to make these changes, Allvin said, it would also create “a more existential issue.”

“The one thing that we really lose is time, and our ability to be able to spend the precious resources on the things that we had planned on in order to keep pace,” Allvin said.

The U.K. expects to award a contract in 2025 to build the new helicopters, the ministry said. According to a March 2022 government document about major defense projects, the deal could be worth nearly £1.2 billion (U.S. $1.5 billion).

“The New Medium Helicopter will provide essential support to our military operations, and we’re pleased to have reached this next important stage of the program,” Defence Procurement Minister James Cartlidge said in the news release. “The program’s competition includes essential criteria that are key to securing vital rotary wing operational independence, allowing us to respond swiftly to emerging threats in a highly contested world.”

This program is expected to deliver up to 44 medium-lift support helicopters that can operate in all environments and perform up to five different jobs that were previously covered by different types of aircraft, the ministry said, including carrying out both combat and humanitarian missions. This is expected to streamline the U.K.’s vertical lift capabilities, providing more efficiency and operational flexibility, the ministry added.

The U.K. branches of Airbus Helicopters, Leonardo Helicopters and Lockheed Martin are expected to submit bids now that the British military has released its invitation to negotiate.

The potential to export these helicopters to other countries will be an important element the U.K. will consider as it evaluates bids, the ministry said. Other issues to undergo consideration include the helicopters’ design, production and manufacturing process.

“The New Medium Helicopter contract will secure the vital operational independence we require, as well as investing in U.K. skills for the long term, and demonstrates the U.K. government’s commitment to the Defence and Security Industrial Strategy,” the ministry said in its release.

The winner of this contract will replace the Army’s Puma helicopters, as well as the country’s aging Bell 412, Bell 212 and Airbus Dauphin helicopters.

Lockheed and its subsidiary Sikorsky plan to submit the Black Hawk helicopter for the New Medium Helicopter program. Sikorsky president Paul Lemmo said at the Paris Air Show in June 2023 that it was considering setting up a Black Hawk final assembly line in the U.K. to strengthen its bid for the program. A final assembly line on the European continent — likely Poland — is also an option, Lemmo added.

Airbus has teamed up with Boeing to pitch the H175M for the program, which it would build in Wales. The H175M would be a militarized version of Airbus’ commercial H175 helicopter.

Italian firm Leonardo is eyeing its AW149 helicopter for its own bid, saying the construction style allows for the aircraft to better survive small-arms fire.

South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration selected the C-390 in December under a $544 million Large Transport Tactical Aircraft II program. While the cargo plane had been raking in business from European and Middle Eastern countries in 2023, the order was the company’s first in Asia.

“The Korean decision was very important,” Embraer Chief Commercial Officer for International Business Federico Lemos told reporters during a security and defense briefing at the Singapore Airshow this week. “We are receiving a lot of interest and this is part of a greater opportunity.”

Embraer did not disclose target markets, but officials indicated that new customers may be revealed in the first quarter.

Officials said they plan to take the C-390 plane on display at the Singapore Airshow to other countries in the region before returning to Brazil.

Despite lacking a publicized order in Southeast Asia, the company signed a maintenance, repair and overhaul agreement with ST Engineering this week dedicated solely to the C-390.

Executives also said Embraer intends to leverage an existing partnership with Swedish firm Saab to explore new markets. The companies signed a production line deal for Saab’s Gripen fighters in Embraer’s Gaviao Pexioto plant in Brazil last May and ihave agreed to pitch the C-390 together to the Swedish Air Force.

Apart from the partnership with Saab, Embraer has engaged with domestic firms to offer the C-390.

Earlier this month, the company partnered with India’s Mahindra Defence Systems to offer the C-390 to the Indian Air Force. The IAF sought to replace aging AN32 planes and was reportedly planning to order 40 to 80 medium transport aircraft.

In December, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with state-owned Saudi Arabian Military Industries to pitch the C-390 to the Ministry of Defense and to establish a regional MRO hub and assembly line in the country.

North Korea has conducted six rounds of missile tests so far this year, most of them reportedly involving cruise missiles that typically fly at a low altitude to overcome opponents’ missile defenses. Analysts say that in the event of a conflict, North Korea aims to use cruise missiles to strike U.S. aircraft carriers as well as U.S. military bases in Japan.

South Korea’s air force said in a statement the drill on Friday involved fifth-generation stealth F-35A fighter jets from both countries and other fighter jets from South Korea. It said the U.S. F-35As were deployed in South Korea on Wednesday from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan.

North Korea has ramped up its weapons tests since 2022 in what experts call an attempt to increase its leverage in future diplomacy. South Korea and the U.S. have responded by expanding their military exercises and trilateral training with Japan.

On the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Rio De Janeiro on Thursday, the top diplomats from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan agreed to strengthen their joint response capability against North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats and coordinate to block the North’s financing of its nuclear program, according to South Korea’s Foreign Ministry.

This year, North Korea is expected to step up its testing activities and belligerent rhetoric as both the U.S and South Korea head into elections. North Korea is likely seeking international recognition as a nuclear state, a status that experts say the North thinks would help it receive relief from U.S.-led economic sanctions.

North Korea’s advancing nuclear arsenal has likely emboldened its stance, and there are concerns that the North may launch a limited military provocation against the South. Observers say a full-scale attack is unlikely as the North is outgunned by more superior U.S. and South Korean forces.

U.S. and South Korean officials have repeatedly warned that any nuclear attack by North Korea against them would spell the end of the North’s government, led by Kim Jong Un.

Indeed, both countries have experienced heavy losses in life and materiel during the war, which began when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. There’s now a growing sense this conflict has reached a stalemate, and that it will likely continue through the year, according to a report released this month by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The London-based think tank also recently updated its Military Balance+ database, which assesses the defense capabilities of militaries around the world. The following compares select system types and data points between Russia and Ukraine, based on data from IISS, with footnotes at the bottom of this article. The data is current as of November, meaning it accounts for nearly two years of war.

• Data as of November 2023.
• Armored Fighting Vehicles are armored combat vehicles with a combat weight of at least 6 metric tons.
• Artillery includes guns, howitzers, rocket launchers and mortars with a caliber greater than 100mm for artillery pieces and 80mm and above for mortars, capable of engaging ground targets with indirect fire.
• Surface-to-Surface Missile Launchers are launch vehicles for transporting and firing surface-to-surface ballistic and cruise missiles.
• Air Defense includes guns, directed-energy weapons and surface-to-air missile launchers designed to engage fixed-wing, rotary-wing and unmanned aircraft.

The two governments are now ironing out the final terms of defense cooperation based on a memorandum of understanding signed in June and ratified in September, the Philippines’ Defense Department explained in a Feb. 16 news release.

The arrangement is key to Sweden’s participation in the Philippines’ multirole fighter jet program, the department said, and the governments are to ink a deal at a meeting next month.

Negotiations had stalled while the Philippine military finalized its new defense acquisition program, dubbed Horizon 3 — the last phase of the government’s massive push to modernize its armed forces. In January, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. approved a 2 trillion peso (U.S. $35 billion) budget for the decade-long plan.

The Defense Department has not shared a specific list of assets and platforms it wants under the program, but Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro told reporters last month the budget will focus on building assets and capabilities to address threats to Philippine resources and vessels. Capabilities will focus on raising domain awareness; connectivity; maritime and aerial deterrence; command and control; communications; computer technology; and intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance.

The military previously told Defense News most of its assets and platforms are deployed to the country’s western and northern borders.

Following the approval of Horizon 3, the department said it had changed its requirements for the fighter jet and had not disclosed the total number it planned to acquire, nor the price tag.

The Philippines retired its fleet of Northrop F-5 fighters in 2005, and in 2013 it spent 18.9 billion pesos for 12 FA-50 light attack aircraft from Korea Aerospace Industries as fighter jet negotiations continued.

While the government has not identified the final choice for the fighter jet, the Swedish firm Saab’s JAS 39 Gripen was reportedly among the top choice.

The country had its eyes set on Lockheed Martin’s F-16 Fighting Falcon in the 1990s, but economic troubles and a lack of prioritization stalled negotiations.

In 2021, the U.S. approved the sale of 10 F-16C Block 70/72 and two F-16D Block 70/72 aircraft in a $2.43 billion package. However, the Philippines has only earmarked $1.1 billion for the acquisition.

Sweden instead proposed the JAS 39 Gripen in 2022.

Saab has not participated in negotiations thus far, according to Andrew Wilkinson, the company’s Gripen campaign director. Speaking to Defense News during the Singapore Airshow this week, Wilkinson said Saab will join the discussions once the bilateral agreement is signed and after the Philippines reaches a decision on its preferred fighter jet.

“We are at the very first phase, but right now there is no official decision, no requests,” he added.

Previous negotiations were over the aircraft, but Saab officials said there is an array of systems to provide a “holistic defense solution,” like the GlobalEye airborne early warning and control plane that can provide long-range air, sea, and land surveillance in real time.

“We have ground radars, airborne radars, other types of sensors, and you can fuse all this information to provide one aviation awareness picture that you can distribute to the navy, to the army, even to the coast guard,” Anders Dahl, who leads Saab’s branch in the Philippines, told Defense News.

The company has a history in the region. In 2008, Saab signed a $309 million deal to supply aircraft and surveillance systems to the Royal Thai Armed Forces.

After the Defense Acquisition Program Administration issued a request for proposals in November, companies had until Feb. 22 to submit their bids.

South Korea is taking on more self-defense responsibilities from the U.S., and the new quartet of AEW&C aircraft will supplement four Boeing E-737 planes delivered around the 2011-2012 time frame. The Defense Acquisition Program Administration said the new platforms would enhance the South’s “ability to monitor North Korean missiles and defend its airspace.”

Boeing is competing with a 737-based platform again, its E-7 having the advantage of aerial refueling to give on-station times stretching to 20 hours.

“Regarding the capability, the unmatched E-7 multirole electronically scanned array radar sensing and tracking provides the most powerful multidomain surveillance, communications and networked battle-management capabilities of any aircraft,” a Boeing spokesperson told Defense News.

The American company, which is the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world, said the E-7 “is production-ready and offers lower operating and sustainment costs, higher mission readiness rates, and unmatched interoperability.”

Boeing executives at South Korea’s Seoul ADEX defense expo last year claimed a 96% availability rate for the E-7. They also highlighted commonality with existing Korean E-737s. “In addition to crew training efficiencies, the E-7 offers life-cycle cost savings inherent with fleet continuity and a global, common logistics model.”

Saab’s GlobalEye is also competing, with the Swedish company proposing a Bombardier Global 6500 airframe.

Saab believes its design, which mounts an Erieye extended-range radar atop the fuselage, is ideal for South Korea’s Air Force. As well as a hot production line, Saab touted its willingness to transfer technology to enhance Korea’s strategic independence. It also highlighted rapid delivery and affordability.

Saab is the 33rd biggest defense contractor worldwide.

The other contender is American firm L3Harris Technologies in tandem with Korean Air and Israel Aerospace Industries. Its Phoenix solution also uses a Global 6500 and integrates Elta Systems-made conformal radars and artificial intelligence algorithms. L3Harris claimed its design will have low sustainment costs and at least a 95% operational availability rate.

L3Harris is the ninth-largest defense company in the world, while IAI lands at 29. The former noted that an initial two aircraft would undergo modifications in Texas before receiving radar integration in Israel. Korean Air would lead work on the two remaining aircraft in-country, as well as perform sustainment.

“Through L3Harris’ agreements with Korean Air, LIG Nex1 and Ace Antenna, and ongoing discussions with additional Korean partners, the team intends that the aircraft and mission system equipment will be fully supported in Korea,” a spokesperson for the group told Defense News. “This … paves the way for independent domestic research and development, and fostering excellence in aircraft system integration, upgrades and modifications, which will contribute significantly to the advancement of South Korea’s research and development program.”

The Defense Acquisition Program Administration declined to provide Defense News with further details. The agency is now proceeding with evaluations.

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — India is moving closer to buying 15 maritime patrol variants of the Airbus C295 aircraft, following permission from the country’s Defence Acquisition Council.

This initial approval from Feb. 16, called acceptance of necessity in Defence Ministry parlance, will see the Navy receive nine C295 medium-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft and the Coast Guard get six C295 multimission maritime aircraft.

Once a contract is signed, a joint venture between the French firm Airbus and the Indian business Tata Advanced Systems Ltd. would manufacture the aircraft in India.

The Air Force previously placed a contract for 56 C295 transport aircraft, of which the first 16 are under production in Spain and the remainder in Tata’s final assembly line in the Indian city of Vadodara.

Although Airbus offers a maritime patrol version of the C295 — Spain ordered 16 in December — the Indian Navy and Coast Guard platforms will receive locally made sensors such as an active electronically scanned array radars, identification friend or foe systems, data links, and electro-optic/infrared technology. The Centre for Airborne Systems, a branch of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, is developing this equipment as part of the government’s efforts toward greater self-sufficiency in defense production.

Medium-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft would help India monitor nearby waters as well as gather electronic and communications intelligence. The aircraft would supplement 12 P-8I aircraft used for anti-submarine warfare.

With around 11 hours of endurance, the variant would also provide longer-range capability than existing Dornier 228 aircraft. The Navy is also set to receive 15 MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones to boost maritime surveillance.

The Indian government has expressed concern about the Chinese military’s activities in the Indian Ocean, and the Indian Navy has carried out anti-piracy operations in the nearby Gulf of Aden since 2008.

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard’s C295 variants would conduct maritime surveillance, anti-piracy missions, pollution monitoring, search and rescue, disaster response, and fisheries protection.

The acceptance of necessity brings India’s formal requirement for C295 aircraft to 71.

M. Matheswaran, a retired Indian Air Force air marshal and head of the India-based think tank The Peninsula Foundation, told Defense News that there’s a potential for export opportunities.

“Joining hands with established majors like Airbus is not only [advantageous for] the domestic market, but [also helps it] become part of the global supply chain. Exports are extremely vital for that,” Matheswaran said, predicting Tata could produce 300-400 C295 aircraft.

The CEO of manufacturer Turkish Aerospace Industries, Temel Kotil, tweeted that the first flight took 13 minutes. The aircraft registered a speed of 230 knots and reached an altitude of 8,000 feet, he added.

Turkey initiated the combat aircraft development program in December 2010. A conceptual design contract was signed between the government and the company in August 2011. A development contract followed in August 2016.

The program aims to field a fifth-generation combat aircraft to meet Turkish Air Force requirements beyond 2030s, replacing the country’s F-16 fleet. Turkey aims to become one of the few countries possessing the entire value chain for making advanced combat aircraft, covering everything from technology, infrastructure, human resources and manufacturing capabilities.

With a wingspan of about 46 feet and length of 69 feet, the Kaan is equipped with two engines. The prototype is powered by two General Electric-made F110-GE-129 turbofan engines, which are to be used in early production batches. Turkey is now working on the development of an indigenous turbofan engine for the Kaan by local company TRMotor.

The fighter program is expected to incorporate most of the characteristics of a standard fifth-generation aircraft, such as low observability, internal weapons bays, sensor fusion, advanced data links and communications systems. The aircraft are to be in service until the 2070s.

The current contract covers the initial four years of the program, which will be concluded with the completion of the preliminary design phase. Until then, further testing and technology maturation activities are on the schedule.

In December 2022, the head of TAI said the initial delivery of Kaan was scheduled for 2028. After 2029, the aim is to produce two jets per month, totally 24 jets per year.

The jet that flew Wednesday was a ground test unit. Now, the manufacturer will make five more prototypes, for which the government bought 10 F110 engines.

In a TV interview last week, the Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey, Vasyl Bodnar, expressed interest in the aircraft.

And the service plans to make a Milestone B decision on the Commercial Engine Replacement Program by the end of the summer, which would allow it to move into its engineering and manufacturing development phase, officials said in an interview with Defense News.

These developments will mark critical milestones in the Air Force’s effort to upgrade its fleet of 76 Cold War-era B-52s with new engines, radar, avionics, and other improvements to keep it flying until perhaps 2060, about a century after the B-52H was first introduced. The planes’ 1960s-era TF33 engines are at the end of their working lives, and are to be replaced by Rolls-Royce’s F130 engine.

Col. Scott Foreman, B-52 system program manager who oversees the bomber’s sustainment and modernization efforts at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, and CERP program manager Lt. Col. Tim Cleaver said in the interview that the base is also taking several steps to prepare for the significant modernization work.

This includes plans to build a massive hangar at Tinker starting in 2026, which could house up to four B-52s and increase the amount of work that can be done on the bomber at any given time.

The Air Force wants to “get these H models converted to [B-52]J models as quickly as possible, because … the clock’s ticking on those TF33″ engines, Cleaver said.

The Air Force knows the F130 engine works, Cleaver said, since a version of it has powered the Gulfstream G650 business jet for years. But the F130s will be mounted differently on the B-52, and the Air Force needs to make sure there aren’t any surprises with the bomber’s twin-pod, under-wing configuration.

Rolls-Royce last year completed much of the initial twin-pod testing of the F130 engines at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, Cleaver said, and the last six-week test cycle there is expected to start in early March. Those tests will involve exposing the engine pods to cross-wind blowers, and seeing what happens if one engine in the pod has to operate at reduced power or is even inoperative.

More tests will follow, Foreman said. In April, the F130 will start sea-level performance testing on a stand at a Rolls-Royce facility in Indianapolis. Another engine will undergo durability testing through 2025, Cleaver said. And this fall, F130 testing will move to the Arnold Engineering Development Complex in Tennessee, where it will be subjected to simulated altitudes to produce more data on how it might behave in flight.

Once that round is done, they said, the F130 will have finished its qualification testing that ensures it would be safe to fly, and pave the way for test modifications to begin.

The first two test B-52s will be modified at Boeing’s San Antonio, Texas facility beginning in 2026. It will take a few years to upgrade these bombers for the first time, Cleaver said, and ground and flight tests will go from late 2028 to 2031.

After this year’s testing, Boeing will set up four systems integration laboratories to ensure adding the new engines onto the B-52 will go smoothly, Cleaver said. Three will be in Oklahoma City, near Tinker Air Force Base, and the fourth — focusing on the engines’ electrical systems — will be at a Boeing facility near Seattle.

“We have a mix of simulated functions and hardware … functions to make sure that our systems are working with each other, and that we’re not using the test aircraft as our place to find problems,” Cleaver said. The labs “will really prove out the design before we even cut into a jet.”

The Air Force is still awaiting cost estimate updates from Boeing — which originally built the Stratofortress and is the prime integrator on the upgrade program — before it can finalize its own cost expectations and make a Milestone B decision, Cleaver said. Boeing is expected to provide those updates around late spring or June.

In a statement, Boeing confirmed the Air Force’s statements about the need for updated cost estimates.

The engine contract with Rolls-Royce is worth $2.6 billion; when the development, integration, test and production of other major subsystems is factored in, the cost estimate is roughly $12.4 billion.

Tinker, where all production B-52Hs will be upgraded into B-52Js, is also preparing for its role in the massive modernization effort.

“It is a large scope of work, when you include things like the radar modernization program, the [engine upgrades], integration of advanced extremely high frequency communications, [and] other programs,” Foreman said.

Tinker’s workforce will install the engines, radar upgrades, and other modernizations on B-52s as they cycle through their regular depot maintenance that occurs every four years, Foreman said.

The Air Force sends about 17 B-52s through Tinker for major maintenance each year, and wants to conduct as many upgrades to the bomber as possible as it moves through the depot. But he cautioned some modernization programs are moving at different timelines and all may not be ready when some bombers go through.

“We have a master plan that goes tail by tail, that shows over the next 10 years where [a bomber] is going to get modifications along the way,” Foreman said. “So as we get into the late [20]30s, we have a fleet of 76 aircraft with new engines, new radar, new [weapons], communications, etc. … The plan is ever-evolving as we gain more and more information and individual [modernization] programs move left or right.”

But the upgrades will mean a lot more work, and require a lot more capacity at Tinker, Foreman said. So in 2026, Tinker will start building a massive structure known as the bomber agile common hangar that could house four B-52s and allow for more upgrading work to be done. That hangar will be ready at the end of 2030, in time for the upgrades of production jets to begin in early 2031.

“If you have aircraft that are using depot docks for a longer period of time, you need more docks, and that’s what the agile common hangar brings to us,” Cleaver said.

Foreman said it typically takes a B-52 between 220 and 260 days to go through depot maintenance, depending on parts availability and whether a bomber has any age-related stress fractures or corrosion that need to be repaired. The Air Force is still trying to figure out how much more time the upgrades might add to that schedule, he said.

Cracking and other structural issues are common on the six-decade-old B-52, Foreman said, and sometimes require components to be replaced. But the Air Force is used to catching and fixing those problems, he said, and the aircraft should be able last well into the 2050s — perhaps to 2060 — without more in-depth structural upgrades.

“We’re very disciplined about [structural integrity] inspections every time [the B-52] comes in” to the depot, Cleaver said. “That’s what’s allowed this aircraft to make it here into the 2020s. But he still has life to take her into 2050 and beyond.”

The move to concentrate air warfare capabilities at the remote American installation, located at the rim of the Philippine Sea, is part of a modernization plan proposed by the U.S. air service.

Over the past few years, North Korea has threatened a number of times to attack the small island, as was the case in 2017 when U.S. bombers took off from there to patrol the skies of ally South Korea.

“Andersen AFB is a strategic location used to project airpower and expand combat capability from the forward edge of the Indo-Pacific – our intent is to further resource this location,” a spokesperson for U.S. Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) told Defense News in an email.

“The purpose of the proposed action is to provide critical infrastructure that enhances U.S. posture west of the International Date Line,” the statement said.

The Singapore-related upgrades entail the bed-down and mission support of up to 12 Singaporean F-15SG aircraft, a variant of Boeing’s F-15 Strike Eagle, with plans to provide training facilities for pilots.

The changes, as detailed in a December U.S. Air Force statement, will also increase airfield and munitions infrastructure to address capability gaps and enhance how ground operations are carried out. The construction is expected to affect 209 acres and take place over a period of three to seven years.

There is currently no fixed date for when the work could begin. The Guam installation, one of ten bases under the authority of PACAF, is the only one in the western Pacific that can continuously overhaul American heavy bombers.

It is likely to have been selected by the U.S. Air Force for this project, as Guam is known to have a relatively unconfined airspace and has been deemed vital by analysts in the event of military action by North Korea.

Additionally, it is near the Farallon de Medinilla, a 1.75 mile-long (2.8 km) unoccupied island, used as a training bombing range from Andersen.

The U.S. air service “reviewed requirements for strategic capabilities within the Indo-Pacific region and identified Andersen AFB for enhanced capabilities, dismissing five other potential alternative locations within the Pacific Air Forces area of responsibility from consideration,” the PACAF statement said.

Singapore signed an initial $1.6 billion deal with Boeing in 2005 for the procurement of 12 F-15SG fighter aircraft, after which it ordered an additional 12 aircraft, resulting in a fleet of at least 24 fighters.

“The F-15SGs remain an important part of our fighter fleet – they have been serving us well since 2009 and they are expected to continue to meet our operational needs,” Maj. Gen. Kelvin Khong, chief of the Republic of Singapore Air Force, or RSAF, said in a statement ahead of the Singapore Airshow organized here from Feb. 20-25.

The RSAF has also been operating F-16s for several years, which began undergoing mid-life upgrades in 2016, as the city state plans to retire them from mid-2030 onwards and will soon receive its first F-35Bs from Lockheed Martin.

“The RSAF next-generation fleet will consist of F-35s and F-15SGs, and we expect to take delivery of the first four F-35Bs by 2026 and remaining eight in the following years,” Khong said.

The official added that the country plans to commence the training of its first F-35 pilots in the United States in order to enhance cooperation between the two nations’ fleets.