Dockside: Bray's Blog
News and opinions from DEFSEC Atlantic 2009
September 11, 11:30
Crash course in UAV’s
Not many aircraft company executives have the nerve to show crash videos from the company archives in public, but at DEFSEC Atlantic, Northrop Grumman’s Dane Marolt was happy to roll tape of severely uncontrolled landings from the sixties. After all, it proved that his company has not only been in the UAV business for decades, it showed in spectacular fashion that the bugs were worked out of the software long ago. And of course it was just a set-up for today’s effortless, smooth launch and recovery of the company’s Global Hawk UAV, in service with the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We know how to build UAV’s,” he said. “We have been building them a long time.”
Marolt, the International Business Development director of HALE (High Altitude, Long Endurance) Systems for Northrop Grumman had a very interested Navy audience in Halifax, with a good contingent from HMCS Montreal, docked just a few feet away.
Over maps of Northern and Atlantic Canada, Marolt projected the impressive coverage range of a Global Hawk. “If you were to base two Global Hawks out of Greenwood, you could cover the entire Arctic, twenty-four/seven,” he said. “You could do it out of Winnipeg, no problem.”
Zeroing in on the details, Marolt showed how Global Hawks can scan, detect and track ships, with multiple passes that deliver detailed data on any suspicious vessel.
The single-engine Global Hawk has a bigger wingspan than a 737 and its single engine can take it to over 60,000 feet. Flying that high and fast, he said, “You can survey huge chunks of ocean.” The UAV can stay airborne for more than 36 hours.
A pilot himself, he praised the Global Hawk’s superiority over human-flown machines. With corrections to the flight surfaces sixty times per second, “It lands on centre line, every single time,” he said. When he argues with pilots about the relative merits of the UAV versus manned flight, he points to that level of control. “There is no fighter pilot who can do that. They always lose when they watch the video.” Today’s videos, of course, not the spectacular crashes from days gone by.
September 10, 3:30
Changes to ITARs on the way, US official says
When an American official stands up to talk to a Canadian defence audience about ITARs, International Trade in Arms Regulations, the reception can be chilly. Designed to control the import and export of defence technologies, the American regulations have been seen in Canada by some as unnecessarily restrictive, confusing and detrimental to Canadian companies.
So when Robert Kovac talked at DEFSEC Atlantic in Halifax on Thursday, the message from the acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense Trade at the State Department that things were going to change was a welcome one, even if he had to deal with scepticism right up front.
“It’s going to change,” Kovac said. “The first thing is, we do have a new administration.”
President Obama has announced an export trade control reform initiative. However, as Kovacs admitted, almost every incoming administration announces that there will be export reform. “There is a yawn associated with this.”
“Also, believe it or not, we are getting some helpful legislation out of the Congress. Don’t report that.” Oh, all right. “Hopefully you will think it is written in English.”
Kovacs walked the audience through some myth-busting about ITARs. He made the point that the export control regime does not preclude defence cooperation – it simply enforces United States law. And the United States is not the only country that imposes its laws outside its borders – extraterritoriality – because, in fact, some European countries have forbidden component exports to the United States because it is not a signatory to the Oslo Treaty, which puts limits on cluster bomb technology.
To the claim that it takes forever to get licensing agreements done under ITAR, he conceded that as recently as 2006, it took 43 days. “It’s two weeks today,” he said. “The guys are doing a good job.” It will work better in the future, he said, because the laws are going to change. In the meantime, he said, Canadian companies can do a better job of communication with their US trade partners. “I would like to think that every US company is smart,” he said. “I can’t.” The message to Canadian defence executives is, “Help them out,” Kovac said.
With change in the wind, Kovacs conceded that, “Any change will undoubtedly change our relationship,” he said. Canadian companies hope – with some apprehension – that the changes will be for the better.
September 10, 11:00
Fast movers on maritime patrol?
When Canadian defence buyers turn their attention to a new maritime patrol aircraft, the F/A-18 Super Hornet may not come to mind immediately – if at all – but it could play a supporting role to a bigger, slower aircraft.
The Boeing contingent at DEFSEC Atlantic in Halifax included Glenn Erutti, program manager for international business development for the beefed up F-18 who said, “It’s a Navy aircraft. It drops Harpoons.” Erutti made the point that F/A-18s can do mid-air refuelling from ‘buddy’ tanks to get on station quickly. Boeing has been talking to some international customers about using the Super Hornet in the anti-piracy role. As well as carrying long-range radar and its ability to network data with other naval assets to find and identify potential pirates, Erutti pointed out that the fighter has a 20 mm cannon to help enforce international maritime law, if wave-top passes by the supersonic Super Hornet is an insufficient deterrent.
