Saved Rounds 11.15.22

Saved Rounds

Here’s what we covered in our Sunday newsletter:

• Boeing’s MQ-25 tanker drone starts production
• The Air Force awarded a $17m contract to BAE to introduce AI into a gaming environment to help automate large force air operational planning
• Bulgaria approves $1.3b deal to buy 8 F-16 Block 70 fighters
• The Space Force is partnering with Johns Hopkins University as its graduate and postgraduate military school for officers, the first branch to leverage a non-gov university approach to education
• The Air Force announced its buying 2 Kratos XQ-58 Valkerie drones to stand up a new Autonomous Aircraft Experimentation team in Florida
• Portugal joined AIM-9X missile operators club as its 29th member
• Belgium received approval to buy 120 AIM-120C-8 missiles (yes, 120 120s)

And:

• Interesting: Turkey’s Roketsan signed a contract with Indonesia to supply Khan mobile missile launchers
• Compelling: Turkey’s Baykar is planning to equip its venerable TB2 drones with air-to-air missiles

Knowledge Bombs

Here’s all the we couldn’t squeeze into our Sunday newsletter:

• Podcast Tipper: A few Team Tempest executives talk about the UK-led FCAS (Future Combat Air System) 6th gen fighter program
• The Air Force received its 31st and final AC-130J Ghostrider gunship
• Rain Industries revealed its autonomous firefighting helicopter
• Tunisia received the first of eight T-6C Texan II turboprop trainer aircraft
• Agnikul Cosmos (India space-tech startup) successfully test-fired the world’s first single-piece 3D-printed rocket engine
• Inmarsat received a $410m Army contract to continue Blue Force Tracker network services through 2027
• Amazon unveiled its forthcoming MK30 delivery drone
• AeroVironment was awarded a $86m Army contract to support RQ-20 drone ops
• Oman was approved to buy up to 48 Raytheon AGM-154C Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOW) in a potential $385m deal
• South Korea flew the second KF-21 fighter prototype for the first time
• The Air Force awarded $79m in contacts to Leidos and Riverside Research to develop open architecture approaches and standards for existing and future weapons systems
• SES and Hughes demoed a high bandwidth multi-orbit Satcom capability on a General Atomics MQ-9B
• India has received 35 of 36 Rafale fighters from France