Saab has signed a supply contract with the Belgian MoD for the deliveries of training systems to the Belgian Army. The order value is approximately SEK 160 million and deliveries will take place in 2021.
The contract includes providing a complete training centre with infantry simulators, anti-tank simulators, vehicle systems and communication systems for controlling, monitoring and collecting training data to enable detailed analysis of exercises. The support contract will be negotiated separately later on.
One of the requirements was interoperability with NATO, and with Saab’s training system Belgium will be capable of participating in multinational exercises.
“This means Belgium will share the same standards as members in the Interoperability User Community (IUC). They can therefore take part in multinational exercises together with, among others, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK and the US 7thArmy,” says Åsa Thegström, head of the business unit Training & Simulation within Saab’s business area Dynamics.
“The Belgian Army has used our training systems for the last four years and have clearly seen the benefits of realistic training. This order strengthens our position as one of the world’s leading suppliers of solutions for combat training,” says Henrik Vassallo, head of the country unit France & Benelux within Saab’s market area Europe.
The business unit Training & Simulation develops, manufactures and markets advanced military training equipment, such as laser simulator systems, instrumented training systems and target equipment. It also provides service and maintenance for delivered systems.
53rd International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport
PARIS (Reuters) – U.S. arms makers say European demand for fighter jets, missile defenses and other weapons is growing fast amid heightened concerns about Russia and Iran.
The U.S. government sent a group of unusually high-ranking officials including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to the Paris Airshow this year, where nearly 400 U.S. companies were showcasing equipment as the United States and Iran neared open confrontation in the Persian Gulf.
Lockheed Martin, Boeing and other top weapons makers said they had seen accelerating demand for U.S. weapons at the biennial air show despite escalating trade tensions between the United States and Europe.
“Two Paris air shows ago, there weren’t a lot of orders,” said Rick Edwards, who heads Lockheed’s international division. “Now … our fastest growth market for Lockheed Martin in the world is Europe.”
Many European nations have increased military spending since Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014, bolstering missile defenses and upgrading or replacing ageing fighter jet fleets. NATO members agreed in 2014 to move toward spending 2% of gross domestic product on defence.
Eric Fanning, chief executive of the Aerospace Industries Association, said the NATO pledge and European concerns about Russia were fueling demand. “I do think it reflects the increasing provocations of Russia,” he said.
Industry executives and government officials say growing concern about Iran’s missile development program is another key factor. Tehran’s downing of a U.S. drone came late in the air show, but executives said it would support further demand.
“Iran is our best business development partner. Every time they do something like this, it heightens awareness of the threat,” said one senior defence industry executive, who asked not to be named.
Edwards said Lockheed’s F-35 stealth fighter, selected by Belgium, is poised to win another new order from Poland, while Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania are also working to replace Soviet-era equipment.
Edwards and other executives say they see no impact from the ongoing trade disputes between U.S. President Donald Trump and the European Union.
U.S. Army Lieutenant General Charles Hooper, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), said Europe accounted for nearly a quarter of the $55.7 billion in foreign arms sales his agency handled in fiscal 2018.
Hooper said the U.S. government was making concerted efforts to speed arms sales approvals and boost sales to help arm allies with U.S. weapons.
Ralph Acaba, president of Raytheon Co’s’s Integrated Defense Systems business, said the company was boosting automation and working to deliver the Patriot missile system and other weapons in half the five-year period previously typical.
“Europe is really big for us now, and that’s a big change in just the last few years and even the last 18 months,” he said.
In addition to wooing new Patriot customers, Raytheon is upgrading existing systems for customers like Germany, which is likely to finalize a contract worth potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to the company in coming months.
Thomas Breckenridge, head of international sales for Boeing’s strike, surveillance and mobility programs, is eyeing contracts wins for Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets in Germany, Switzerland and Finland.
“There’s a huge appetite in Europe for defence as a whole,” he said.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Jan Harvey)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Defense has a “handshake” agreement with Lockheed Martin Co to cut 8.8 percent from the price of its latest order of F-35A fighter jet, shaving a year from the time frame in which each aircraft will cost less than $80 million, a Pentagon official said on Monday.
The Pentagon said over three years the agreement will be worth $34 billion for 478 F-35 fighter jets. It is preliminary and a final deal is expected to be sealed in August for the 12th batch of jets, one of the most expensive aircraft ever produced.
The preliminary agreement details the first year, and lays out agreed upon options for two additional years. The options are there because official purchases cannot be made until the U.S. Congress approves an annual budget for those years.
This year’s agreement will lower the cost of each F-35A, the most common version of the aircraft, to $81.35 million, Under Secretary of Defense Ellen Lord said, down from $89.2 million under a deal inked in August 2018.
Under the options covering the second and third years of the purchase, the price of each jet will drop below $80 million, Lord said. In those later years production would be around 160 jets per year.
The F-35 program has long aimed at growing the fleet to more than 3,000 jets and bringing the unit price of the F-35A below $80 million through efficiencies gained by ordering larger quantifies.
“I am proud to state that this agreement has achieved an estimated 8.8% savings from Lot 11 to Lot 12 F-35A’s, and an estimated average of 15%” reduction across all variants from Lot 11 to Lot 14, Lord said in the statement. That savings exceeded expectations in a RAND Corp study.
“The unit price for all three F-35 variants was reduced and the agreement will include an F-35A unit cost below $80 million in Lot 13, exceeding the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin’s long-standing cost reduction commitment earlier than planned,” the Lockheed Martin F-35 program general manager Greg Ulmer said in a statement.
While being a major part of Lockheed’s revenue, the F-35 has recently been holding competitions to find less expensive subcontractors to help control costs.
The new pricing could encourage more foreign customers to join the F-35 program. Lockheed executives have said that any country with an F-16 jet, the predecessor to the F-35, is a potential customer. This could put the market size at about 4000 jets, Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson recently told an investor conference.
Vice Admiral Mathias Winter, the head of the Pentagon’s F-35 office, has testified to Congress, that “future potential foreign military sales customers include Singapore, Greece, Romania, Spain and Poland.”
Foreign military sales like those of the F-35 are considered government-to-government deals where the Pentagon acts as an intermediary between the defense contractor and a foreign government.
Other U.S. allies have been eyeing a purchase of the stealthy jet including Finland, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.
(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; Editing by Bill Rigby and David Gregorio)
FILE PHOTO: A Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II aircraft takes part in flying display during the 52nd Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport near Paris
Lettering used in Eero Saarinen’s 1960s TWA Flight Center at John F Kennedy International Airport in New York provided the cues for the branding of the new hotel in the terminal building.
Graphic design firmPentagram was enlisted to create the new typeface for the TWA Hotel at JFK in Queens, New York City, which is slated to open 15 May following an extensive renovation of the old terminal.
Called Flight Center Gothic, the new typeface was based on the branding and way finding that Finnish-American architect Saarinen designed for the airport building when it opened in 1962.
