Draganfly's Commander 3 XL is operational in Ukraine. (Janes/Akshara Parakala)  Draganfly has been awarded a multi-year contract by Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs to develop training programmes for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operations.  Speaking to Janes, Draganfly's chief operating officer, Paul Mullen, said the five-week training programme will help UAV operators develop their intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) mission skills, as well as those for search-and-rescue (SAR) tasks.  The company has developed the tr...

Northrop Grumman's Stand-in Attack Weapon. (Northrop Grumman)  The US Air Force (USAF) has awarded Northrop Grumman a USD705 million contract to develop and test the Stand-in Attack Weapon (SiAW), an air-to-ground missile intended to strike high-priority targets, the company announced on 25 September.  SiAW is designed to be carried internally by the Lockheed Martin F-35, which cannot employ ground attack missiles currently in the arsenal. The missile will also be integrated with other USAF platforms, although the F-35 is scheduled to be the...

The Bundestag budget committee on 20 September approved a contract amendment for the procurement of 12 LUNA NG UASs for the Bundeswehr. (Rheinmetall)  The budget committee of the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, on 20 September approved a contract amendment for the procurement of the Luftgestützte Unbemannte Nahaufklärungs-Ausstattung Next Generation (LUNA NG) medium-range unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which is designated by the Bundeswehr as Hocheffizientes Unbemanntes System zur abbildenden Aufklärung mittlerer Reichweite (HUSAR). The Bun...

Japan's new medium-range AAM programme will assimilate research findings from the earlier Joint New AAM (JNAAM) project. (Japan Ministry of Defense/Janes)  Japan has said it will develop a new medium-range air-to-air missile (AAM) to arm its sixth-generation Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) fighter aircraft.  According to a spokesperson of the Japan Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA), development of the missile will begin in Japan fiscal year (JFY) 2024.  The spokesperson told Janes that the...

Romania intends to acquire 48 F-35s to be operated across three squadrons. (USAF)  Romania has firmed up its procurement plan for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), disclosing that it intends to acquire 48 aircraft across two acquisition tranches.  The Romanian Ministry of National Defence (MND) informed the country's parliament of its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) plan in a letter that was sent on 4 August and published on 26 September.  In the letter, the MND outlined a short-term Phase 1 acquisition of two squ...

Al Yah 1 and Al Yah 2 (pictured) developed by Thales Alenia Space and Airbus will continue to provide secure satellite services to the UAE government under a USD5.1 billion agreement with Yahsat until they are replaced with the new Al Yah 4 and Al Yah 5 satellites being built by Airbus. (Yahsat)  United Arab Emirates (UAE) company Yahsat has been awarded a major AED18.7 billion (USD5.1 billion) deal to provide satellite services to the UAE government, the company announced on 22 September.  Under the 17-year Authorisation to Proceed (ATP) agr...

A Polish Air Force F-16D touches down on a 2 km stretch of Route 604 on 25 September, marking a first for the type in national service and a return to roadway operations for the service for the first time in 20 years. (General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces)  Poland operated its Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon combat aircraft from a public roadway for the first time during exercises on 25 September.  The event took place on a 2 km closed-off section of the Route 604 national highway between the towns of Ruskowo and Przeździał Wielki in...

An image of Intel's Nervana Neural Network Processor. Development of advanced neural networking capabilities, coupled with those focused on nanocomputing and other edge network technologies, is part of the AFRL's new extreme computing initiative. (Intel Corporation)  The US Air Force (USAF) is soliciting emerging technology prototypes from industry, focusing on how to further enable adoption and integration of ‘extreme computing' systems and programmes into USAF operations.  Issued by the Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL's) information d...

An Autel Evo Max UAV and a DJI Matrice quadcopter flying above a General Dynamics Land Systems LAV700 vehicle at C-UAS TIE23. (Janes/Olivia Savage)  NATO will publish its first counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UASs) doctrine in 2023, which will lay the foundations for how militaries should standardise and operationalise countering UASs, Janes has learnt.  Along with informing members how best to plan and execute C-UAS missions, the high-priority document will address and outline the strategic environment, Senior Advisor for NATO's Science...

The completion of the mid-life upgrade of the Republic of Singapore Air Force's F-16 fleet increases the type's operational service life to the mid-2030s. (Getty Images/Suhaimi Abdullah)  The Republic of Singapore Air Force's (RSAF's) Lockheed Martin F-16C/D fleet has been upgraded for improved operational capabilities.  The enhancements are part of a long-standing mid-life upgrade (MLU) for the RSAF's F-16C/D/D+ Block 52/52+ fleet. Singapore first announced a plan to upgrade the fleet in September 2013. The RSAF is currently thought to opera...

At C-UAS TIE23, SAPIENT enabled the integration of companies' C-UAS sensory information into 12 different command-and-control applications. (Janes/Olivia Savage)  NATO will adopt the SAPIENT (Sensing for Asset Protection with Integrated Electronic Networked Technology) protocol developed by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) as a C-UAS (counter-unmanned aircraft system) standard, Janes learnt at NATO's C-UAS Technical Interoperability Exercise 2023 (TIE23) in Vredepeel, Netherlands, held from 12 to 22 September.  A year-long ratification proces...

The Luftwaffe intends to equip all its Eurofighter combat aircraft with the ECRS Mk 1 E-Scan radar. (Luftwaffe)  The German Luftwaffe will equip its entire fleet of Eurofighter combat aircraft with electronically scanned (E-Scan) radar sets, the government disclosed on 21 September.  Included in the Bundestag's Budget Committee approval list was the commitment to receive all newbuild Eurofighters with the European Common Radar System Mark 1 (ECRS Mk 1) E-Scan radar, and to retrofit the Luftwaffe's existing fleet of aircraft with Captor-M mech...

A still from the JAF's coverage of Exercise ‘Decisive Response' shows a soldier operating a JODDB counter-UAV jamming system. (Jordanian Armed Forces)  A Jordanian mechanised infantry brigade used various types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for the first time during a live-fire exercise viewed by King Abdullah II.  The television coverage of Exercise ‘Decisive Response' that was broadcast on 13 September showed a Schiebel Camcopter S-100 rotary UAV, an Al-Basheq vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAV, an armed multicopter, and smaller...

Grounded: the US Marine Corps' Lockheed Martin F-35Bs have lower mission-capable rates than their US Air Force counterparts; all types are well below their goals. (Lockheed Martin)  The Lockheed Martin F-35 is available to perform its scheduled missions 55% of the time, according to a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released on 21 September. The agency found fault in the Department of Defense's (DoD's) line and depot maintenance practices.  The report measured F-35 mission-capable (MC) rates through March 2023. The GAO attrib...

DARPA's Diverse Accessible Heterogeneous Integration effort is developing transistor-scale heterogeneous integration processes seeking to combine advanced compound semiconductor wafers with CMOS technology. Pictured here is a DAHI wafer. (Northrop Grumman)  The US Department of Defense (DoD) has officially announced the eight new research and development (R&D) hubs in the United States that will make up the department's new Microelectronics (ME) Commons.  The ME Commons initiative, funded through the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Sem...

Frequent use of the five surge Voyager tankers has caused the ONS to include them in the wider inventory of 14 aircraft in its latest report. (Crown Copyright)  The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is increasingly calling on the ‘surge' fleet of AirTanker-owned Voyager aircraft to help fulfil a heightened demand for aerial refuelling, Janes was told on 21 September.  A spokesperson for the ministry said that “frequent use” of the five ‘surge' aircraft had resulted in their being included by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the overall...

A new, flexible silicon-on-polymer semiconductor chip developed by the US Air Force Research Laboratory. (US Air Force)  The US Department of Defense (DoD) has inked a 10-year, USD3.1 billion semiconductor manufacturing deal with New York-based GlobalFoundries (GF), to produce critical microelectronics (ME) for current and future aerospace systems and weapons platforms.  GF will receive USD17.3 million up front, as part of the contract with the department's Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA), according to a 21 September company stateme...

A Royal Norwegian Air Force prepares to take off from a Finnish road, during the type's first dispersed operation that was recently logged on Exercise ‘Baana 23'. (Finnish Air Force)  The Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) has operated from a roadway for the first time during Exercise ‘Baana 23' in Finland.  A pair of Royal Norwegian Air Force (RoNAF) F-35As performed the milestone on 21 September, landing on and taking off from a dedicated stretch of motorway near the Finnish town of Tervo as part of a wider disper...

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Lockheed Martin F-35As are scheduled to receive the TR-3 upgrade, which requires additional cooling for some of the aircraft's subsystems. This photo shows an RAAF F-35A with Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) Boeing-Mitsubishi F-15Js during Exercise ‘Bushido Guardian' in September 2023. (Commonwealth of Australia)  Honeywell is developing a cooling upgrade to its power and thermal management system (PTMS) to support avionics enhancements for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fifth-generation fighte...

Slovenia has ordered an additional C-27J Spartan airlifter, with both to be in service by the end of 2024. (Janes/Patrick Allen)  Slovenia has acquired a second C-27J Spartan transport aircraft, with the country's Ministry of Defence (MoD) announcing on 19 September that an amendment to the original November 2021 procurement contract for a single airlifter had been signed.  The amendment was signed by the Minister of Defence of the Republic of Slovenia, Marjan Šarec, and the Minister of Defence of Italy, Guido Crosetto.  According to the anno...