Some aircraft are regarded as seminal, as having defined or shaped a market, as Boeing's 707 did for the jetliner and General Atomics' Predator has for unmanned aircraft. Such a status could be due the Lockheed Martin/Kaman K-Max helicopter as soon as unmanned cargo delivery becomes routine.
Airbus is at a crossroads. It needs to address its major twin-aisle product line disadvantage to Boeing, while simultaneously implementing organizational reforms that could leave the company with less cash for new product development.
Two recent events epitomize radically diverging fates in the global defense industry. At the end of 2013, Singapore ordered Type 218SG submarines from German company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) for €1.6 billion ($2.2 billion). A month later, the French defense minister awarded a €1 billion contract for the modernization of Dassault's Rafale fighter aircraft (see photo). A good story for both companies? Not quite.
The drag-reducing benefit of flying in formation has been known for decades—far longer if you are a bird—but making it practical is the challenge. Geese join up in V formations when they migrate, but all are headed in the same direction; finding opportunities for formation flying within military and commercial air-transport networks crisscrossing the globe is harder.
Barely a decade ago, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) demonstrated that driverless vehicles could navigate desert roads and negotiate city streets. Now car manufacturers from Audi to Toyota are promising that autonomous driving technology will make their vehicles safer by the middle of this decade.
The idea of recycling regional-jet winglets into bookshelves may raise a skeptical eyebrow, but manufacturers are talking seriously about how to manage the end-of-life for their aircraft and engines—however distant that may seem today.
While there is plenty to debate about where U.S. defense budgets could settle in 2014-15, there is no debate about the Pentagon's desire to continue to compete with cutting-edge technology. It expects defense advantages to be sustained through investment in new weapons and support systems that provide a generational lead over those fielded by adversaries.
Drag-reduction technology that has been under research for decades is moving toward reality as commercial aircraft developers search for ever-higher fuel efficiency. Aircraft vertical tails are the first target because of the payoff if their size and drag can be reduced, but the techniques being developed could find their way onto other aircraft surfaces.
Additive manufacturing has captured industry's imagination, but even as the first parts appear inside jet engines, the technology's possibilities are only just being realized.
Since he was appointed CEO of Thales earlier this year, Jean-Bernard Levy has repeatedly proclaimed that there is nothing wrong with the company's business portfolio, because all of its operational units are profitable, if only marginally. Unfortunately, this view is symptomatic of the way most European aerospace and defense (A&D) players fail to understand the value of dynamic business portfolio management.
