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UAE Firm Plans to Help Turn Russian Helicopter Into Attack Drone | World | RIA Novosti

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MOSCOW, September 2 (RIA Novosti) – Defense firms in the United Arab Emirates and Russia are planning to develop an unmanned combat aerial vehicle based on Russia’s Berkut VL helicopter, that craft’s Russian developer said Monday.

Russia’s Berkut Aero design bureau and the UAE’s Adcom Systems are considering the Berkut VL helicopter as a model for a drone to be stationed aboard an aircraft carrier and fly to remote areas, Berkut Aero development director Dmitry Rumyantsev told RIA Novosti.

Adcom Systems representative Karim Badir confirmed to RIA Novosti that the company was considering the Russian chopper as a basis for a new attack drone.

The Berku VL is a superlight two-seat helicopter equipped with a Conver VAZ or Lycoming engine. It has a range of up to 600 kilometers.

Adcom Systems manufactures unmanned assault vehicles, radar systems and advanced communication systems.
 
Dubai Airshow 2013: Adcom Systems unveils Global Yabhon HALE UAV - IHS Jane's 360

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United Arab Emirates (UAE) defence company Adcom Systems publically unveiled its Global Yabhon high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at the Dubai Airshow on 17 November.

The carbon-fibre aircraft, which features Adcom's distinctive double fore and aft main-wing configuration, is still in its prototype stage, but will shortly begin flight trials, the company's chief execuitve officer and general designer told IHS Jane's .

"We will be doing wind tunnel testing this month," said Ali Al-Dhaheri, "with flight trials to begin in six months."

Measuring 18 m in length, with a height of 4.9 m and a wingspan of 25 m (the double wing configuration affords it a 70 m 2 lifting surface), the 3.5 tonne (empty) Global Yabhon is in the same class of UAV as the US-built Northrop Grumman Global Hawk. However, according to Al-Dhaheri, this is where the similarities end.

"With a maximum take-off weight of 10 tonnes and a payload of 6.5 tonnes, the Global Yabhon can carry considerably more than the Global Hawk. Whereas the Global Hawk [is equipped with] just two [electro-optic/infrared (EO/IR)] sensors and a synthetic aperture radar [SAR], our aircraft has [an EO/IR] sensor and 18 hardpoints," he said.

The prototype displayed at the Dubai Airshow was shown carrying two Adcom Systems Yabhon Thunder cruise missiles (240 km range), two Finmeccanica torpedos, and two Adcom Systems Namrod stand-off missiles. Its EO/IR sensor turret is mounted on the aircraft's chin. According to Al-Dhaheri, Adcom Systems has developed a wing-kit for the torpedoes that will give them a 70 km stand-off range when dropped from altitude (company literature gives the Global Yabhon a 50,000 ft service ceiling).

While the displayed aircraft was fitted with two turbofan jet engines (Adcom Systems is considering powerplants from General Electric, Honda, and Williams), Al-Dhaheri said a turboprop-driven version of the Global Yabhon was also being considered. The Global Yabhon's 6,500 kg fuel capacity gives it an endurance of 40 hours.

Also displayed next to the Global Yabhon was the company's Conex-style ground control station (GCS). While IHS Jane's was not permitted to view inside the GCS, Al-Dhaheri said the Global Yabhon was fully autonomous (including take-off and landing), although the operators had a safety-override capability.

While Al-Dhaheri declined to comment on potential customers, he did say that at least one operator had been signed up. Earlier in 2013, Russia announced that it was looking to acquire the company's United 40 Block 5 medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE), and so there could be synergy in fielding the Global Yabhon also. Al Dhaheri said Adcom Systems was not targeting the Middle East market, but was instead focusing its efforts on North and South America, and Europe.

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We should seriously consider this as an option for our needs ..........
 
France Cleared To Sell Falcon Eye Satellite to UAE | Defense News | defensenews.com

PARISThe White House has swept aside attempts by Lockheed Martin to overturn a French sale of military spy satellites to the United Arab Emirates, a senior French defense official said.

President François Hollande met President Barack Obama Feb. 10 on a three-day state visit, and the two leaders agreed that France would go ahead with the Falcon Eye satellite sale to the UAE, worth almost US $930 million, the source said.

“Lockheed Martin has put pressure” on the administration to cancel the deal, the senior French defense official said, adding, “there has been a political solution ... at the highest level.”

The UAE had chosen Lockheed’s Digital Globe satellite, but later opted for the Falcon Eye. However, the French needed US approval to sell the satellite because it contains US-made components.

Deepening political ties between Paris and Washington are believed to be the reason the US is allowing the French deal to go forward.

French media have widely reported US industry lobbied the government to slow down the contract for the satellite program, as the European manufacturers needed clearances for American components under the US international traffic in arms regulation.

A holdup under the rules threatened a completion of the contract due at the end of January, putting the deal under pressure, the reports said.

Now that there is political support, there is no contract renegotiation and no plan to change components, the official said.

“We are not going to renegotiate. It’s not a technical problem,” the official said.

No comment was available from the Elysée president’s office. The White House also declined to comment, and directed questions to the State Department. A State Department spokesman declined to comment.

Under the contract, signed July 22, the satellites will be built by prime contractor Airbus Defence & Space and payload-maker Thales Alenia Space.

After the UAE chose Lockheed’s satellite, intensive efforts by Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian with Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed won over the support of the deputy supreme commander, business website La Tribune reported.

Le Drian also urged Thales Alenia Space and the rival Airbus unit to field a joint offer, rather than pitch separate and competing products, the report said.

The two companies teamed up and pitched two satellites and a ground station based on the Pleiades system developed for the French military.

Thales CEO Jean-Bernard Levy declined to comment on the satellite deal due to client confidentiality rules in the contract signed in July. No comment was available from the Airbus space division.

According to Space News, Francois Auque, head of Airbus Defence & Space’s Space Systems division, discussed the issue during a Feb. 13 event here. He credited Le Drian with swaying the UAE.

The newspaper reported that Auque and Jean-Loic Galle, chief executive of Thales Alenia Space, disagreed on how the final export approval was obtained.

“There was a lot of bureaucracy and lots of paper, but at the end of the day, it was pretty much business as usual and followed the normal process,” Auque said, according to the paper.

A Lockheed spokeswoman also declined to comment, saying, “This is a matter involving the Falcon Eye program contractors.”

It comes as no surprise a US company lobbied the US government to get help in winning an export contract, a stock market analyst said.

“This type of reaction — to block a contract — is not unusual,” the analyst said.

A defense sector consultant agreed, and said it reflects a growing US-European competition in critical export markets.

The agreement between the Obama and Hollande teams at the summit signals a political closeness between the two administrations, the consultant said.

That perceived political closeness between the White House and the Elysée palace follows France taking a lead military role in Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic.

Hollande, alone in Europe, also offered to step up last year when it looked like the US would move against Syria, before Washington backed off on taking action.

Those French moves in sub-Saharan Africa, supported in logistics on the ground by American forces, come as the US geopolitical focus moves to the Asia-Pacific region.

“The cooperation between the French and US militaries is probably strongest today than at any point in recent memory. Similarly, the two countries’ top diplomats [Secretary of State John Kerry and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius] enjoy warm relations,” the consultant said.

“Hollande’s visit to the US, the first by a French president in nearly two decades, proved that a close working relationship is also possible at the highest political levels.”

Such an agreement sets a positive backdrop to Obama’s first official trip to the European Union this summer, the consultant said.

Obama visited here when he was the junior senator from Illinois on the campaign trail in the 2008 US presidential election, and he was received by then-President Nicolas Sarkozy. On that visit, the presidential candidate told the press the Afghanistan campaign should be the US military’s focus, rather than Iraq.
 
UAE Firm Plans to Help Turn Russian Helicopter Into Attack Drone | World | RIA Novosti

183123552.jpg


MOSCOW, September 2 (RIA Novosti) – Defense firms in the United Arab Emirates and Russia are planning to develop an unmanned combat aerial vehicle based on Russia’s Berkut VL helicopter, that craft’s Russian developer said Monday.

Russia’s Berkut Aero design bureau and the UAE’s Adcom Systems are considering the Berkut VL helicopter as a model for a drone to be stationed aboard an aircraft carrier and fly to remote areas, Berkut Aero development director Dmitry Rumyantsev told RIA Novosti.

Adcom Systems representative Karim Badir confirmed to RIA Novosti that the company was considering the Russian chopper as a basis for a new attack drone.

The Berku VL is a superlight two-seat helicopter equipped with a Conver VAZ or Lycoming engine. It has a range of up to 600 kilometers.

Adcom Systems manufactures unmanned assault vehicles, radar systems and advanced communication systems.

UAE can do JV with EU copter makers on that.
 
Soyuz rocket Carried astronaut Hazzaa Ali Almansoori the first United Arab Emirates, (UAE/ Emirati) to the International Space Station

 

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