Leonardo's SkyTender C-UAS software aims to optimise the deployment of C-UAS. (Leonardo)

Leonardo Canada – Electronics has debuted a new counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) planning and assessment tool designed to enable rapid site evaluation and optimisation prior to equipment deployment.

Known as SkyTender, the software toolset has been evolved from the outputs of a Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) contract awarded to Leonardo in March 2022 under the Innovative Solutions Canada programme. The company has subsequently ‘productised' this functionality.

C-UASs using radio frequency (RF) sensors and effectors to defeat UAS threats are increasingly being deployed to protect both military installations and critical infrastructures such as airports, power stations, and ports. However, establishing the optimum positioning of system equipment has traditionally required expensive and time-consuming site surveys.

Hosted on a laptop, SkyTender is a planning application designed to support pre-mission planning and enable optimum placement of C-UAS equipment. The tool is able to evaluate spectral environments and topography and simulate threats, sensors, and platforms, thereby allowing operators to optimise the detect, track, and identify functions of their C-UAS solutions, and quantify the effectiveness of deployed C-UASs against defined threats.

One of the last C-130Js in RAF service made its farewell flypast in June 2023. The MoD is continuing its search to find buyers for this and 14 other surplus airframes. (Crown Copyright)

The UK is continuing its search to find buyers for its fleet of retired Lockheed Martin C-130J/C-130J-30 Hercules airlifters, with the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) telling Janes that it has identified several potential buyers.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) retired one ‘short' C-130J (C5 in UK service) and 13 ‘stretched' C-130J-30 (C4) airframes on 31 March 2023 (with the type's final farewell flypast following in June 2023), all of which, along with an additional C5 aircraft carried over from the previous round of retirements in 2015, are now available to overseas buyers.

“The Defence Equipment Sales Authority (DESA) is managing the sales programme on behalf of the MoD and continues to actively pursue sales with a number of potential buyers,” the ministry said on 10 May.

Fujian , China's third aircraft carrier, seen here as it departs for its maiden sea trial on 1 May 2024. (VCG via Getty Images)

China has completed the maiden sea trials for its third aircraft carrier, which will be in service as CNS Fujian once it is commissioned. The vessel sailed off from the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai on 1 May and the trials were completed eight days later.

The trials focused on testing the “reliability and stability of the aircraft carrier's propulsion and electrical systems”, read a report from state-owned Xinhua News Agency, which was published to announce the trials.

Fujian was launched by Jiangnan Shipyard in June 2022. While it is slated to be the People's Liberation Army Navy's (PLAN's) third aircraft carrier overall, it is the country's first vessel to be configured for catapult-assisted take-off but arrested recovery (CATOBAR) aircraft operations.

Satellite images that have been analysed by Janes since 2021 support postulations that Fujian is equipped with electromagnetic catapults, given the presence of distinctive features along the track of the aircraft launching system.