21st Century Air Capabilities

06/18/2011
By Dr. Robbin Laird 06/18/2011 - 21st century air capabilities are built around the three “M”s.  The aircraft need to be multi-mission and manufactured to be significantly more maintainable than 20th century aircraft. The Three "M"s (Credit: SLD) In today’s world, the acquisition of aircraft in financially stringent environments favors…

An Update on the A330MRTT Tanker: May 2011

06/17/2011
06/17/2011: Antonio Caramazana, Head of Airbus Military Derivatives Program, provided an update on the A330MRTT Tanker at the Airbus Trade Media event in mid-May 2011. The 2010 update can be found in an earlier article on the website https://www.sldinfo.com/?p=9376.  In this article, the basic capabilities of the tanker were highlighted…

An Update on the A400M Program

06/16/2011
06/16/2011: Cédric Gautier, head of the A400M program, provided an update on the program at the Airbus Trade Media event in mid-May 2011. [slidepress gallery='an-update-on-the-a400m-program'] Photo Credit: Airbus Military Gautier started by providing an overview on the aircraft itself.  He argued that this is “a new modern aircraft with modern…

An Update on the Evolution of the Tanker Boom

06/13/2011
Miguel-Angel Morrell Fuentes, Senior Vice President Engineering, provided an update of the evolution of the Airbus Military tanker technology during the Airbus Trade Media event in mid-May. 06/13/2011 - Although the company is working on elements for a next generation boom, the focus of the briefing was upon changes in…

Shaping a Services Approach

06/11/2011
06/11/2011 - At last year’s Airbus Military Trade media event, Richard Thompson, head of Airbus Military Services, provided an overview to the evolving services approach: In terms of concepts that we are developing, we’re moving from what has been for the last year’s traditional product support, all the usual things…

The C-235 in the French Air Force

06/08/2011
06/09/2011: During the Airbus Trade Media event in Spain in mid-May, Commandant David Spieles of the French Air Force provided an overview of how the French Air Force used the C-235 and their plans for the evolution of the fleet.  The core point really revolved around the relative ruggedness of…

The Indian Decision in the Fighter Competition

06/02/2011
A Conversation with Pravin Sawhney [caption id="attachment_19419" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="(Credit: SLD)"][/caption] 06/02/2011 - In Mid-May, Second Line of Defense sat down with Pravin Sawhney, editor of Force Magazine, the highly regard Indian monthly on national security and defense.  Sawheny provided his interpretation of the decision to downselect European aircraft and…