Farnborough 2012 - MV-22 Osprey

Raytheon expects major AESA decision in coming months

Raytheon expects one of the world's major Lockheed Martin F-16 operators to make a decision about its choice of active electronic scanned array (AESA) radars in the coming months.

The US Air Force, Taiwan and South Korea are all in the "active acquisition stage" of choosing between the Raytheon Advanced Combat Radar (RACR) and Northrop Grumman's Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR), says Jim Hvizd, Raytheon's vice-president of international strategy and business development.

"In the coming months, we'll see some significant decisions regarding AESA," says Hvizd, speaking with Flightglobal at Raytheon's Farnborough chalet.

Hvizd declined to comment further on which country he feels will be the first mover.

An industry source familiar with the global F-16 upgrade market, however, tells Flightglobal that the first mover is likely to be Seoul.

It has been nearly one year since Seoul's Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) issued a request for proposals to Raytheon and Northrop with regard to AESA upgrades for 132 F-16s.

The RFP called on both bidders to offer a full suite of AESA radar modes, including the interleaving of air-to-air tracking and air-to-ground mapping. More advanced capabilities, such as electronic attack and electronic protection, could be added by South Korea in the future.

A key requirement for South Korea is an offset package worth 50% of the value of the contract. After the RFP, Raytheon says it would transfer some hardware production to the nation.

Hvizd reaffirmed this commitment at Farnborough. "A big percentage of our products can be made overseas. We are always looking for global suppliers."

And although rival Northrop was the provider of the mechanically scanned radars that have traditionally equipped the F-16, Hvizd feels this is a non-issue for Raytheon's RACR campaign.

Hvizd notes that Raytheon has successfully retro-fitted AESA radars in older fighter types such as the C and E variants of the Boeing F-15 operated by the USAF.

Boeing outrivals Airbus in new orders

Boeing has outpaced Airbus in the number of orders for the aircraft at this year's Farnborough Air show, booking potential deals worth more than double than its European rival.

Boeing said it took total orders and commitments over the past week for 396 airplanes, valued at around $37 billion. That is more than double Airbus' performance of $16.9 billion in orders and commitments for a total of 115 aircraft.

The past week provided some relief for Boeing, though it still has a long way to go to make up for last year's shortfall, when Airbus clinched $72 billion worth of orders, around $50 billion more than Boeing had secured.

Most of Boeing's business this week has been in response to the challenge presented by the Airbus A320neo. Its 737 airplane, particularly the new MAX variant, made a successful debut, especially when the company agreed to a firm $14.7 billion order from United Airlines.

United, the largest US carrier by revenue, agreed to buy 150 Boeing 737s to replace older planes that are not as fuel-efficient.

"We negotiated what we believe to be the best airplanes with the best engines at the best price," said Jeff Smisek, President and CEO of United.

United Airlines’ order includes 100 of Boeing's new fuel-efficient 737 Max 9s, which will start being delivered to United in 2018. United is also buying 50 of Boeing's current 737s and they are due to start arriving in late 2013.

However, total sales of 282 Airbus and Boeing jets at the Farnborough air show this week fell 36 percent from the 2011 expo in Paris. The decline in overall orders compared to the previous year is no surprise amid the current economic turmoil and the scale of government cutbacks around the world.

And though it’s still too early to draw a final line under the sum of the money raised by deals, as customers rarely pay the full price when ordering big, most commitments end up becoming firm orders.

Airbus has reportedly secured a strong commitment from Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific for its new A350 long-haul aircraft. On Thursday, Airbus wrapped up its air show with a series of deals worth $6.35 billion.

It revealed that Russian carrier UTair has ordered 20 short-haul A321s in a deal valued at $2 billion at list prices. Airbus also announced that Synergy Aerospace, a Latin American company, has firmed up a previous $1.9 billion order for nine long-haul A330 planes.

In addition, it said Middle East Airlines has signed a memorandum of understanding to buy 10 A320neo aircraft, worth $1 billion at list prices, and that Irish leasing company Avolon has committed to buy 15 A320neo aircraft, worth $1.45 billion at list prices.

Northrop Grumman to Supply Additional Airborne Mine Hunting Systems to Japan

Northrop Grumman Corporation has been awarded a series of follow-on contracts by the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) to supply three additional AQS-24A airborne mine hunting systems.

The contracts, which also include airborne electronics and ground-based support equipment, follow an initial contract awarded in October 2011 for Northrop Grumman to deliver Japan's first AQS-24A. The JMSDF will use all four complete AQS-24A airborne mine hunting sonar systems on its new MCH-101 helicopters.

The award of the airborne electronics work marks the culmination of a technology transition with Japan, which allows for certain components of the airborne electronics to be manufactured in Japan. The equipment support effort represents the initial establishment of in-country support capability and infrastructure for the AQS-24A, which will eventually enable the JMSDF to provide full logistics support for the AQS-24A systems. Additional follow-on efforts for more systems, electronics and support equipment are anticipated in 2013 and will continue until the JMSDF reaches its full operational inventory objective.

"These additional contracts further strengthen our relationship with the JMSDF," said Tom Jones, vice president of Northrop Grumman's Undersea Systems business unit.

The AQS-24A and its predecessors, the AQS-24 and the AQS-14, all built by Northrop Grumman, have been the only operational airborne mine hunting search systems used by the U.S. Navy for the past 27 years. The AQS-24A is a high speed mine-hunting system that is primarily towed from the MH-53E helicopter, but has been easily adapted to the JMSDF version of the EH-101 aircraft. With a track record of proven reliability and performance across the globe, the system's high-resolution side-scan sonar detects, localizes and classifies both bottom and moored mines in real-time at high area coverage rates.

The AQS-24A contains a laser line scanner that provides precision optical identification of underwater mines and other objects of interest. The AQS-24A allows for simultaneous operation of the sonar and laser, which significantly improves area coverage rate, shortens the mine clearance timeline and alleviates unnecessary maintenance cycles. Advanced navigation controls and processing provide highly accurate target positioning.

Northrop Grumman earlier this year contracted with the JMSDF to provide helicopter-mountable, laser mine detection systems. This was the first direct commercial sale of Northrop Grumman's Airborne Laser Mine Detection System to an international navy.

Indonesian Air Force Signs Sales Contract for Second Batch of A-29 Super Tucano Airplanes

The Indonesian Air Force has signed a commercial contract for a second batch of eight light attack and tactical training A-29 Super Tucano. The order also includes a flight simulator that will be used for instructing and training Indonesian pilots. In August 2012, Indonesia will receive the first four airplanes from the initial batch of eight aircraft ordered in November 2010. Deliveries of the second batch are scheduled for 2014.

“This decision shows the recognition given to the quality of the Super Tucano by the international market,” said Luiz Carlos Aguiar, President of Embraer Defense and Security. “We are pleased with the confidence expressed by the Indonesian Air Force, and we are confident that the performance of the Super Tucano will be effective and excellent in the missions for which it was chosen.”

The A-29 Super Tucano was selected by Indonesia to carry out a broad range of missions, including light attack, surveillance, aerial intercepts, and counter-insurgency.This acquisition is part of the modernization of the Indonesian Defence Force’s equipment for years 2009-2014. With more than 157,000 flight hours and over 23,000 combat hours, the A-29 Super Tucano makes excellent use of the most recent electronic, optical, infra-red and laser technologies, as well as secure radio communications with data-link, and an unparalleled weaponry capability, making it highly reliable and at a top-level cost/benefit ratio for a wide range of military missions, even operating from unpaved runways.

First Wildcat handed over at Farnborough

The first of 62 Wildcat helicopters for use by the British Army and Royal Navy has been handed over to the Ministry of Defence at the Farnborough International Air Show.

The Ministry of Defence is buying 34 Wildcats for the army and 28 of the maritime attack variant for the Royal Navy to replace existing Lynxes operating by the Army Air Corps and Fleet Air Arm.

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond received the first helicopter from manufacturer AgustaWestland and confirmed that Somerset-based compay has been awarded a £250m in-service training and support contract to be delivered via a specialist training centre at RNAS Yeovilton.

The contract, which will provide flight simulators and other training support, will sustain some 500 jobs.

The army Wildcats, which will largely be used for reconnaissance, are not expected to enter service until 2014, while the Royal Navy's maritime attack variant helicopters will enter service in 2015.

Both variants will carry a general purpose machine gun (GPMG) and heavy machine gun, while the maritime attack helicopter will also carry Sting Ray Torpedoes.

"Wildcat represents a considerable advance over the current Lynx helicopters, bringing greatly improved performance and capability," said Defence Secretary Philip Hammond. "The contract to provide training and support will keep them flying wherever they are needed.

"These helicopters will be a key part of the future equipment programme for the Armed Forces that will see £160bn spent over the next ten years. By balancing the budget, we can deliver the airframes and the millions of pounds of support they require."

Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Peter Wall said: "This is an excellent helicopter, which is very important to the Army Air Corps. We will be seeking to get it fully operational as soon as possible."

First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope said: "With state of the art sensors, equipment and weapons, it will be an outstanding asset that will maintain Royal Naval units at the cutting edge of worldwide maritime operations."

Terma Highlights F-35 Multi-Mission Pod

Denmark’s Terma is showing off, for the first time here at the show, the multi-mission pod (MMP) it has developed for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The MMP began life as the gun pod for the F-35, which Terma designed and developed on behalf of General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products, but the company has developed it into a more versatile pod that should prove attractive, in particular, to overseas operators of the JSF.

While the F-35A CTOL version of the JSF has an internal GAU-22/A four-barrel 25mm cannon, the U.S. Marine Corps F-35B STOVL and U.S. Navy F-35C CV employ podded weapons.

Terma’s gun pod is a full-monocoque carbon fiber composite structure. It has passed engineering test and qualification, and is now in low-rate initial production. The pod itself was first flown in February, carried by STOVL test aircraft BF-02 during a sortie from NAS Patuxent River, flown by Lockheed Martin test pilot Dan Levin.

Boeing CH-147F Chinook for Canada Successfully Completes 1st Flight

Flight validates airworthiness of rotorcraft’s new electrical system, cockpit

The new Boeing  CH-147F Medium-to-Heavy-Lift Helicopter for Canada is progressing ahead of schedule after making its first flight on June 24.

"Boeing and the Canadian Department of National Defence are focused on delivering the next generation of advanced vertical-lift aircraft to meet the needs of the Canadian military today and well into the future," said Leanne Caret, Boeing Vertical Lift vice president and H-47 Programs manager.

The inaugural flight lasted more than 80 minutes and confirmed the initial airworthiness of the aircraft, including its new electrical system and advanced Common Avionics Architecture System cockpit, which reduces pilot workload. After the Chinook's third flight on June 25, Boeing also completed the Limited Acceptance Test Procedure to validate aircraft performance and systems. The aircraft will continue to progress through ground and flight test activities in the coming months and soon will be joined by the second CH-147F, which is scheduled to roll off the production line later this month.

The Canadian H-47 Chinook, designated CH-147F by the Canadian Forces, provides advanced features that include a newly designed, modernized airframe with a long-range fuel system, upgraded electrical system, and enhanced fully integrated Common Avionics Architecture System cockpit and Digital Automatic Flight Control System. The aircraft also has improved survivability features, including a Directional Infrared Countermeasures system, internal ballistic protection, and crashworthy, armored pilot and co-pilot seats.

The Canadian government awarded Boeing a contract for 15 Medium-to-Heavy-Lift Helicopters and in-service support in June 2009. Aircraft deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2013.

Embraer Selects Boeing to Provide Weapons Integration for A-29 Super Tucano

Embraer and Boeing today at the Farnborough Airshow announced an agreement that further enhances the collaboration between the two companies and brings additional capabilities to Embraer's A-29 Super Tucano through new weapons integration developments to meet future customer requirements.

The new weapons integration capacity enhances the solution presented to the U.S. Air Force Light Air Support (LAS) program by not only meeting program requirements, but exceeding them in ways that are important to the customer.

"This new capability will take advantage of the versatility of the Super Tucano and will benefit our campaign in the United States," said Luiz Carlos Aguiar, president of Embraer Defesa & Segurança. "With more than eight years in service and more than 160 aircraft delivered, the Super Tucano is a proven platform. The aircraft's performance, operational effectiveness and costs to operate and maintain are well defined and documented."

Today's announcement follows the April signing of a broad cooperation agreement between Boeing and Embraer that established an important relationship between two of the world's largest aerospace companies to cooperate in ways that enhance aircraft efficiency and safety, research and technology and sustainable aviation biofuels to create value for both companies and their customers.

"This agreement enables integration of Boeing products on a highly affordable turboprop aircraft that offers unique close air support capabilities to customers worldwide," said Dennis Muilenburg, president and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security. "Boeing direct attack weapons are combat-proven and in inventory with the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and 27 international military customers."

On June 26, Boeing and Embraer announced a collaboration on the KC-390 program to share some specific technical knowledge and evaluate markets where they may join efforts for medium-lift military transport opportunities.

To date, the Super Tucano fleet has logged more than 157,000 flight hours, including 23,000 combat hours, with no combat losses. The aircraft also is certified for more than 130 munitions configurations. It has been selected by 10 customers around the world.

Hawker Beechcraft to Showcase Military Trainer, Special Mission Aircraft at Royal International Air Tattoo and Farnborough International Airshow

Hawker Beechcraft Corporation (HBC) today announced plans to highlight its military trainer and special mission aircraft at two upcoming events in the United Kingdom: the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) on July 6, followed by the Farnborough International Airshow, which begins July 9.

At RIAT, HBC will exhibit its T-6C Texan II military trainer and Beechcraft Multi-Mission King Air 350ER demonstrator.

At Farnborough, HBC will host guests at chalet J3, which will be open from July 9-12, and will feature the T-6C, the Multi-Mission King Air 350ER demonstrator, along with a King Air B200 and King Air 350, both outfitted with highly sophisticated Aerodata surveillance and flight inspection equipment.

“We have two proven platforms that are ideal for showcasing to military and special mission customers in this region of the world: the world’s most versatile and efficient training platform, the T-6C Texan, and our adaptable, durable and sustainable King Air,” said Russ Bartlett, vice president, Business Development, Hawker Beechcraft Defense Company. “Farnborough attendees will also see two modified King Air turboprops that demonstrate the aircraft’s ability to provide solutions for nearly any mission.”

In addition to the hard-point wing, the T-6C features an integrated glass cockpit and the advanced Esterline CMC Cockpit 4000 avionics suite that greatly expands advanced training opportunities. The systems are integrated with a Hands-On Throttle and Stick, providing the student pilot and instructor with a simpler interface to the digital cockpit. The CMC Cockpit 4000 avionics suite is the first in its class to incorporate a fully integrated and FAA-certified dual FMS/GPS navigation suite that meets the navigation performance standards required for current worldwide airspace operation. The open architecture design of the Cockpit 4000 provides the flexibility to expand capabilities and continuously meet current and future training needs.

The Beechcraft Multi-Mission King Air 350ER demonstrator aircraft is a standard extended-range airplane, which is capable of more than 12 hours endurance or over 2,500 nm range. The demonstrator has been fitted with a search radar radome with electro-optic/infrared (EO/IR) lift for surveillance missions, high density seating for military transport missions, and two medical sleds and a medical storage cabinet for air ambulance missions. All of these installations are certified by the Federal Aviation Administration and European Aviation Safety Agency, and available for immediate delivery on new aircraft from the factory.

The two additional aircraft on display at Farnborough are a maritime patrol/search and rescue King Air B200 operated by the Government of Malta and a flight inspection variant (FIS) of the King Air 350 – both outfitted with Aerodata equipment. The B200, which is used by the Mediterranean island nation for maritime border patrol missions, also incorporates search radar, EO/IR sensors and other mission equipment.

Piaggio to develop maritime patrol Avanti

Abu Dhabi Autonomous System Investments (ADASI), a subsidiary of Tawazun, has signed a deal with Piaggio Aero for the development of a new special missions surveillance aircraft, the Piaggio Aero MPA multirole patrol aircraft.

The comprehensive contract covers the complete development of the MPA aircraft, including the roll-out of two prototypes with first flight scheduled for 2014. Piaggio is part-owned by Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth investment company, Mubadala.

Sweden's Saab has been selected as the systems supplier, having joined forces with Piaggio to develop and integrate a full suite of sophisticated airborne sensors and surveillance systems. In a statement, the Italian company said Saab's proven experience in special mission equipment will allow Piaggio to deliver to ADASI the most advanced and cost-effective aircraft for surveillance missions.

The Piaggio Aero MPA is an evolution of the Piaggio Aero P-180 Avanti II platform. It will feature an enhanced airframe, increased maximum take-off weight, additional fuel tanks and a new aerodynamic configuration with a reinforced wing, providing an increased surface and higher aspect ratio. It will be able to fly up to 41,000ft (12,500m), with an endurance of 10 plus flight hours, a maximum range of 3,300nm (6,100km) and a cruise speed of 350kt (648km/h).

The MPA is powered by Pratt & Whitney Canada engines, with a loitering speed both at low and high altitude, coupled with a 350ktas cruise speed for maximum mission flexibility. Its operating ceiling of up to 41,000ft allows for high altitude operations with an endurance of more than 10 hours.

The aircraft will be able to perform surveillance of broad areas for more than 6 hours at low altitudes in coastal or offshore waters.

The MPA's first application, developed with Saab, will be dedicated to maritime patrol. A high-performance search radar and electro-optic/infrared sensors suite will be integrated into a mission management system to allow for a wide variety of missions.

US Navy's Super Hornet AESA radar retrofit enables legacy upgrade

As the US Navy retrofits its older Block II Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets with the Raytheon AN/APG-79 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, more APG-73 mechanically-scanned arrays will be available to replace the old APG-65s on legacy F/A-18A/B/C/D Hornets.

The USN intends to retrofit every Super Hornet down to the Lot 26 production run aircraft with the APG-79, says Capt Frank Morley, the USN's programme manager for the F/A-18 family. That means there will be a large number of surplus APG-73 radars available to retrofit older legacy Hornets that are still equipped with the APG-65 - both of which are built by Raytheon.

The navy is still working on new modifications for the APG-73, but the focus is on the APG-79.

But not every Super Hornet can be retrofitted with the APG-79. For older Block I aircraft, the USN could potentially retrofit them with the Raytheon Advanced Combat Radar AESA. "The option is on the table," Morley says.

However, he cautions, there may not be a business case to be made for retrofitting older airframes, although it could be considered.

V-22 Osprey a shape-shifter that has come of age

Derided as an unsafe ugly duckling during its development, the vertical takeoff V-22 Osprey aircraft has indeed blossomed into a swan. Now widely deployed by the US air force, this high-speed plane is attracting widespread attention, including from the UAE. David Black reports

Helicopters transformed the battlefield, moving troops and equipment directly to where they were needed at 150kph and depositing them vertically on a landing zone. The V-22 Osprey can do all of that - but travelling to its drop-off and pick-up points at a maximum speed of 463kph.

"It can do everything a helicopter can do," says Major Fernando Zapata, an operations officer in the 8th special operations squadron of the US air force. "Except you get there quicker."

Maj Zapata is out on the flight line at Hurlburt Field air force base in the Florida panhandle, home to the USAF's special operations command, which "has a requirement" for 53 of the CV-22 Ospreys.

The tanned, shaven-headed Maj Zapata is a helicopter pilot by trade, but from the evangelical language he uses to describe this unlikely looking aircraft, he is a convert. Obviously there is more to the Osprey than just being faster than a helicopter.

"It's the greatest fun to fly," he says. "Pretty much a dream. You get behind that stick and you know you're not flying a helicopter. You're not flying a fixed-wing [aircraft] either. It's a tilt-rotor, and I guess we're still finding out just exactly what that's going to mean."

The UAE Air Force is also keen to find out what it's going to mean. Since the Osprey's crowd-pleasing appearance at last year's Dubai Airshow, Boeing-Bell has been in discussions to sell the aircraft to the Emirates, India, Japan and Canada.

This week the Osprey is strutting its stuff at the Farnborough International Airshow in England. But it has taken a long time to get here.

The aircraft began life as a result of a US department of defence requirement issued in 1981 for a joint-service vertical take-off and landing experimental aircraft. It first took to the air in 1989, but it was to take two decades, four fatal accidents, a reputation for unreliability and several attempts by politicians to kill it off, before Boeing-Bell managed to turn this ugly duckling into a swan.

Now, despite having US$500 billion (Dh1.83 trillion) chopped out of its budget, the Pentagon is buying 360 MV-22s for the US Marine Corps in addition to its USAF special forces quota, and potentially, a further 50 for the US navy.

Yet seldom has an aircraft encountered so much public hostility. There were problems - leaking hydraulics, engine mounts that had a habit of catching fire and its rotor performance in certain flight configurations made the aircraft unstable. Three training crashes killed a total of 30 Marines.

In 2007, a Time magazine cover story labelled the Osprey "A Flying Shame" and in the past year The New York Times has described the V-22 as "accident-prone" and "unsafe".

But as Richard Whittle points out in The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey, his book on the development of this revolutionary aircraft, the engineers were working at the cutting edge.

The V-22 is a complicated aircraft, engineering-wise. It takes myriad hydraulic and fuel lines to tilt and drive almost 500 kilograms of 6,100-horsepower engine on each wing tip. And it is a shape-shifter, so the wing must take all the stresses as the rotors tilt at full-power and transform the aircraft from turbo-prop transport plane into helicopter.

The fuselage must also be tough enough to resist all the resulting structural stresses. Adding to the challenge, the engineers had to design rotors that folded to save space so the V-22 could operate from ships.

This was a new type of aircraft, with new kinds of challenges. Yes, there were engineering problems - but problems are what engineers fix.

DARPA aiming for Mach-20 hypersonic rocketplane 'by 2016'

Pentagon wild-card warboffin agency DARPA has plunged back into the hypersonics fray with a vengeance, announcing plans to build a "recoverable" rocket plane capable of Mach 20 speeds within four years.

Concept art showing the HTV-2's fairing opening after ascent through the atmosphere. 

A bit like this, but with its own rocket

The new project appears under the banner "Integrated Hypersonics", acknowledging that several new technologies will be needed to get aeroplanes flying at twenty times the speed of sound.

Ramjet and scramjet fans will be disappointed, however. DARPA seems to have accepted that there's no realistic prospect of using air-breathing engines at these speeds, and instead the agency envisages a plane which will be powered up to flying speed by a disposable rocket stack or "launch vehicle" and then enter a hypersonic glide. However the 2016 "Hypersonic X-plane", or HX, will also have its own onboard rocket which can be used to give it a further push in order to extend its range.

DARPA specifies that the HX itself will be "recoverable" - that is, it won't simply crash into the Pacific or wherever as a total loss after flight. However it's not clear at this stage whether it will splash down for subsequent recovery - perhaps under a parachute - in the fashion of a space capsule, or actually come in for a runway landing like a space shuttle or the X-37B robot minishuttle.

Though the HX is expected to build on discoveries made during the recent DARPA HTV-2 boost-glide tests, in which one-shot hypersonic gliders were fired aloft on space launch rockets, the new plane is all about flight within the atmosphere. Its custom launch rocket will be "a single, integrated launch vehicle designed to precisely insert a hypersonic glide vehicle into its desired trajectory, rather than a booster designed for space missions".

That said, those keen to see some proper spaceplanes - ones able to actually reach orbit without throwing most of themselves away, already - needn't feel too downhearted. The new class of hyperspeed rocket planes and craft will be used for a range of missions:

    The goal of the IH program is to develop, mature, and test next- generation technologies needed for global-range, maneuverable, hypersonic flight at Mach 20 and above for missions ranging from space access to survivable, time-critical transport to conventional prompt global strike.

"Space access" would seem to indicated that the spaceplane dream is not yet dead. "Survivable, time critical transport" is plainly a revisit to the long-touted idea of despatching not bombs or warheads but small groups of troops - most probably elite special forces ones - round the world extremely quickly, an idea long touted by enthusiasts in the US Marines.

"Conventional prompt global strike", however, is the near-term military hypersonics justification. The idea here is that you'd like to blow something up very fast - maybe a terrorist leader, rogue-nation head of state, a WMD, something of that sort - before it can move away or hide again and you lose your bead on it. It could take hours and hours to get a smartbomb or a cruise missile onto target: but a Mach-20 hypermissile could reach anywhere in the world in less than an hour.

Actually this can already be done, of course, by launching an ICBM - a space rocket which will despatch its warhead around the planet outside the atmosphere, so avoiding the vast technical challenges of hypersonics. However hypersonics advocates argue that an ICBM launch could trigger a nuclear war.

Naturally a hypersonic rocket could carry a nuclear warhead just as well as a conventional one, and frankly one big rocket lifting off would probably look much like another to a worried nuclear-armed enemy. (And indeed a subsonic bomber can take off, or a subsonic Tomahawk cruise missile can be launched, and either might be nuclear armed rather than conventional: yet Russia and China do not panic when these things happen.)

So the prompt-global-strike argument is rather unconvincing. But there are military reasons to want hypersonic aircraft all the same: Mach-20 missiles or bombers or special-forces insertion craft would all be very hard for an enemy to shoot down, for instance. This has led DARPA to claim that hypersonics could be "the new Stealth" for the US forces, a new tool making them more or less unstoppable in the skies (much though this has not turned out to make them invulnerable on the ground).

And then, space access and improved supersonic airliners would be nice to have even if one cares nothing for the Pentagon's problems. So we can probably all applaud the Integrated Hypersonics push for different reasons.

For now, all that's happening is that US arms'n'serospace behemoth Lockheed will be hired to modify a spare aeroshell remaining from the HTV-2 project and carry out another test flight. However once this has happened, the idea will be to release data from this trial and the earlier HTV-2 flights and have a competition to build the HX hyper-rocketplane for 2016.

As ever, the usual DARPA caveats apply. There's every chance that the new test will be a disaster (the HTV-2 flights were at best partial successes), or that sceptical politicians will refuse to fund the ambitious DARPA plans - as happened with the "Blackswift" plans to build a vastly enhanced version of the legendary SR-71 Blackbird ramjet spy plane.

It's good to see that the hypersonics fanciers of DARPA haven't given up, though

At the 2012 Farnborough International Airshow, MBDA is unveiling an innovative concept weapon system for 2030, CVS301 VIGILUS.

VIGILUS is a suite of future strike weapons for UAVs that provides a revolutionary close air support capability to battlefield UAVs.

Allowing the UAV to remain at a safe stand-off distance, VIGILUS offers a flexible targeting and strike capability against multiple time critical targets that can be directly controlled by ground troops.

 VIGILUS delivers persistent, proportional, precise and rapid effects that are beyond today’s capability and deployed technology, exploiting new technologies and novel designs.

The VIGILUS weapon system comprises an integrated launcher and communications unit, a scout missile, a family of effectors and an integrated weapon command system that together deliver greater situational awareness as well as proportional and rapid engagement of time critical targets.

VIGILUS gives the operator permanent real time visual contact with the target, an operational advantage provided by the scout missile, known as Caelus. Caelus can operate at low altitudes below the cloud base, providing accurate and precise targeting data when adverse weather conditions would limit target engagement directly by UAVs.

The VIGILUS weapon system has a flexible and adaptable command system. It can be co-ordinated directly by ground troops, giving them the ability to engage multiple, beyond line of sight targets in both urban and open areas. It can also be controlled by a weapon system operator located in the UAV ground control station.

Steve Wadey, Executive Group Director Technical and Managing Director UK, MBDA, said:

"Continuing the success of 2010 and 2011, Concept Visions 2012 shows MBDA’s continued commitment and desire to explore weapon system concepts beyond 2030. Through Concept Visions, MBDA harnesses the imagination and innovation of the European workforce through the creation of inspirational and ambitious concepts for future weapon systems. As in previous years, MBDA will use the concepts generated to stimulate our customers, suppliers, shape our markets and challenge our own assumptions about the possibilities for the future.”

CVS301 VIGILUS is the latest output from MBDA’s high profile Concept Visions project that has established the company’s leadership for envisaging how innovation in missile systems could dominate the future battlefield. Now in its third year, Concept Visions is a company-wide initiative aimed at identifying the key technologies and their integration into a weapon system to shape the future defence market in key domains beyond 2030.

MBDA's European workforce was challenged to provide concepts and technologies for weapon systems that could be integrated into future Unmanned Air Systems. Following assessment by an international panel, the winning concepts and technologies became the subject of intense workshops, utilising not only the technical expertise within MBDA, but also reaching out to UAV platform providers as well as current UAV users.

Through a rapid and iterative process, the international Concept Visions team has created the CVS301 VIGILUS weapon system.