At the 2016 Farnborough Air Show, Sikorsky showed off a new upgrade to its popular Black Hawk helicopter with side weapons pylons and a chin sensor turret.

At the 2016 Farnborough Air Show, Sikorsky showed off a new upgrade to its popular Black Hawk helicopter with side weapons pylons and a chin sensor turret. Marcus Weisgerber / Defense One

Flexible Flyers: Companies Race to Equip Warplanes for Quick Modification

With innovation a new strategic imperative, aircraft builders are making it easier for planes to accept hardware and software improvements.

FARNBOROUGH, England — Pentagon leaders have long lamented insurgents’ ability to produce new weapons and tactics faster than the U.S. military could react. Now defense firms are responding with aircraft designed to evolve as quickly as the modern battlefield.

The trend, on full display at this week’s Farnborough Air Show, mirrors Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s push to develop new and surprising capabilities for existing U.S. weapons.

Take the the SPYDR, built by L-3 Communications. Based on the Beechcraft King Air, it resembles the C-12 intelligence plane, with ridged antennas and bulbous domes protruding from its body and wings. But while the Army and Air Force C-12s are generally built to collect specific types of intelligence and cannot be easily reconfigured, the SPYDR is designed to easily accept different types of cameras, antennas and radars — whatever the day’s mission requires. In theory, it could fly a signals intelligence mission to intercept enemy communications, land, have a radar bolted onto its belly, and then head off on a search-and-track mission.

“We can modify it based on what the customer wants,” said Craig Koziol, L-3’s vice president of ISR Systems. “It’s like buying a car with different options.”

The SPYDR is also designed to be part of a network; intelligence analysts on the ground (or in the plane) can remotely control its onboard sensors. And while the plane doesn’t carry any weapons yet, that’s in the works, L-3 employees said.

Meanwhile, weapons are the main focus of a new upgrade for the Black Hawk helicopter. At Farnborough, Sikorsky showed off a black-painted aircraft with rockets, guns, and Hellfire missiles mounted on side pylons and an intelligence camera on the tip of its nose. It takes about an hour and a half to install or take off the pylons, a Lockheed spokesman said.

Militaries use the Black Hawk to move troops and supplies around the battlefield and medevac soldiers injured in combat. The upgrades will allow the helicopter to also fly close air support for ground troops and assault missions, said Lorraine Martin, deputy executive vice president of Lockheed’s mission systems and training business.

While some countries already fly armed Black Hawks, this marks the first time it’s being offered as a factory option, built at a 1,500-worker Sikorsky plant in Poland. Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky’s parent company, is looking to market the armed chopper to cash-strapped countries that might not be able to afford different fleets of helicopters.

“There are a lot of nations around the world that would love to be able to use the tried-and-true Blackhawk, which has so much history and maturity behind it, but they can’t afford to have three or four different kind of helicopter types,” Martin said. “They want to be able to do multimission in a single helicopter and this armed Blackhawk gives them the opportunity to do that.”

These are hardly the only aircraft being built for flexibility. The Air Force has said its secret new B-21 stealth bomber, to be built by Northrop Grumman, will be built with an open-architecture computer system that will be designed to accept upgrades easily and far more quickly than possible with today’s bombers, which can require years to add new weapons or sensors..

In an interview, Leanne Caret, president and chief executive of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, spoke broadly about how you build an aircraft to evolve.

“Because what you want to do is provision an aircraft in such a way that, as technology evolves, you can change it out, and as mission sets change, you can change it out,” Caret said in an interview.

Secretary Carter has declared quick innovation to be a strategic imperative for the Pentagon — indeed, the only way the U.S. can retain its military superiority over enemies. Earlier this year, he shocked many within the defense community when he revealed the Navy’s Standard Missile-6 could sink ships. Built by Raytheon to shoot down planes and ballistic rockets, the missile became able to take on a whole new mission through a secret modification conceived by engineers in the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office.

The office’s goal is to modify existing weapons, giving them new capabilities, and reveal just enough to keep the enemy guessing — a delicate dance that SCO director Will Roper calls a “multi-variant calculus.”

Now the Navy has a missile that can handle offensive and defensive tasks — and that means packing more capability into a warship’s limited number of launch tubes, said Mitch Stevison, Raytheon’s vice president of air and missile defense systems.

The missile gives “the Navy that kind of flexibility in a much more rapid timeframe than would normally have happened through the normal evolution of our acquisition system, which can at times be very slow,” Stevison said.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.