Thursday, December 31, 2009

E-networking revolution highlighted 2009

Posted by John McHale

At Military & Aerospace Electronics in 2009 we dived right into social networking or as we like to call it e-networking. We have a fan page on Facebook, a group on Linkedin called the PennWell Aerospace and Defense Media Group, and gather our news content on Twitter under #milaero and avionics content on #avintel.

It's been a fun and successful way to push out our online news stories to new readers and start discussions. We've found the most interactive outlet to be on Linkedin, which started out as a professional networking site whereas Facebook was focused on more social or personal networking.

Although, yesterday I read a story in the Wall Street Journal that basically stated Linkedin needs to get more creative to keep-up with Facebook. According to the piece Facebook kicks Linkedin's rear in total members. However some analysts in the story say that lopsided memebrship numbers are misleading as Linkedin is strictly a professional networking service whereas Facebook is geared more toward professional and social communication.

I have also found that many people I talk to in the defense and aerospace industry say that their employers do not let them use Facebook or Twitter, but are more flexible when it comes to Linkedin because of its professional nature.

Twitter is its own animal. I've done quite a bit of tweeting while at trade shows. It provides immediate coverage -- albeit in 140 characters or less. I typically will tweet as I'm leaving a booth or sitting in a press conference or luncheon. Twitter allows me to not only push links to articles on our websites but get out little tidbits of info that would not typically make it into the print magazine or on a web story.

Also, much like with our blogs, Twitter allows us to take a different, sometimes lighter spin on current events than traditional news coverage.

What really seems to impress our audience about Twitter is its instantaneous nature.

For example at the MILCOM show this fall in Boston, I attended the first live demonstration of an OpenVPX system run by engineers at Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing in Leesburg, Va., and Hybricon in Ayer, Mass. I tweeted about the demo on my Blackberry while watching it. They were excited because they were videotaping the moment and placing it on youtube -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2_4B9uPKLk -- but got quite a kick out of the fact that I was immediately online with their news.

One person in attendance commented that the age of instant reporting is here.

E-networking media has definitely changed the way we do things at Military & Aerospace Electronics. I remember when all we used to have was a magazine. Now we still have the magazine, two websites, four conferences, webcasts, three e-newsletters, dedicated pages on Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook.

So be sure to check us out wherever you find yourself on the web in 2010.

Happy New Year!

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Tiger Woods: please, just make it all go away


Posted by John Keller

As Americans we confront vigorous debates on how to deal with unemployment, how to finance real estate in a down market, government's role in health care and private business, and whether "global warming" is a legitimate threat or an elaborate hoax. So what dominates the front pages?

Tiger Woods.

For those of you just back from extended vacations on Saturn, Tiger Woods plays golf, and gets a lot of money for doing so ... okay, so he doesn't just play golf; he's the best of his generation, and one of the all-time greats, and this gets Tiger Woods a LOT of attention.

He gets so much attention, in fact, that big companies that make Nike shoes and Gatorade beverages have Tiger Woods selling their products -- for which the golfer also gets a lot of money.

Lately it's become known that Tiger Woods cheated on his wife with a lot of different women. Mr. Woods and his cuckolded wife, by the way, have small children, which makes his extramarital affairs that much worse.

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I don't play golf, have absolutely no skills in golf, don't watch golf on television, and consider golf to be irrelevant to my life. I know people who are enthusiastic golfers, like to talk golf, and get a lot of enjoyment and personal rewards from golf, and I think that's just great ...

... but do I have to wake up every morning to Tiger Woods, hear about Tiger Woods on TV and radio, see his face on countless Internet pages and newspapers?

I'm tired of Tiger Woods. Unless he has something to do with me and mine, I don't want to hear about him anymore. I don't want to see his face anymore, I don't want to know how many mistresses he's had (I've already run out of enough fingers and toes to count).

Here's the deal -- what Tiger Woods has done, is doing, or will do, is none of my business, and I'd be grateful to keep it that way ...

... so no more. Please.

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Monday, December 7, 2009

Vengeful American fighter pilots get their pound of flesh at Pearl Harbor


Posted by John Keller

Consider a couple of young hotshot fighter pilots on their dream assignment in Hawaii. Short work days, plenty of sun and sand, and parties ... think of the parties ... rooftop dinner-dances at Waikiki beachfront hotels, big bands, pretty girls, endless rum and tropical fruit drinks -- and always a poker game to be had in the wee hours.

Ah, that was the life, and it belonged to George Welch and Kenneth Taylor, second lieutenants in the U.S. Army Air Corps on their first deployments flying P-40 Warhawk single-engine fighters out of Wheeler Field near Pearl Harbor in early December 1941. Welch was 23. Taylor was two weeks short of his 22nd birthday.

So where else would you expect to find these guys on a balmy Saturday night, but at dance party near the beach, and a late-night poker game with buddies thrown in for good measure. The last poker hand was dealt as the day's first faint glow came in the east that Dec. 7, 1941. After having been up all night, the young pilots were thinking of a lazy morning in bed, with maybe a Sunday morning swim first to soften their hangovers.

Before they could get settled, however, they heard the first ominous sounds that would change their lives -- and the lives of a nation -- forever. Explosions, gunfire, the roar of aircraft at Wheeler field. Fighters and bombers with the distinctive red-ball markings of the Japanese Empire shrieked over the base, firing machine guns and dropping bombs in the beginning of the Japanese attack on U.S. military bases in and around Pearl Harbor.

Welch grabbed a telephone to call an auxiliary airfield at Haleiwa -- 16 miles away by winding road -- where their P-40 fighters were parked. They told ground crewmen at Haleiwa to get their fighters fueled and warmed up; He and Taylor would get there as soon as they could.

They drove in Taylor's car at speeds sometimes reaching 100 miles per hour up winding roads, dodging strafing from attacking Japanese aircraft several times. They might not have known it, but the battleship USS Arizona and many other U.S. Navy ships docked at Pearl Harbor were burning and sinking behind them.

Finally Welch and Taylor reached their fighters idling beside the grass strip at Haleiwa. Without much of preflight inspection, the two pilots jumped into their cockpits, strapped in, and streaked into the air, where almost immediately each pilot shot down a Japanese bomber. Taylor saw another Japanese plane heading out to sea, went after it, and shot it down.

Meanwhile, Welch's plane was hit, yet he maneuvered through a cloud, broke out, and pounced on an Aichi D3A dive bomber and shot the Japanese attacker down. Taylor and Welch both had already shot down two Japanese planes apiece, and were running low on fuel, but they weren't through for the day.

Despite continuing attacks, the two pilots landed at stricken Wheeler Field beside the smoking wreckage of the ships at Pearl Harbor to refuel from an undamaged gasoline truck. Ground crewmen ran into a burning hangar to get them ammunition, and soon Welch and Taylor were airborne again.

They climbed through a cloud of Japanese planes on the second-wave attack, and each shot down one more. By the time they landed for good that day, Welch had four confirmed kills, and Taylor two. Most likely the two pilots probably shot down at least 10 Japanese attackers between them.

Now consider this: The Japanese lost only 29 aircraft in their attack on Pearl Harbor. Welch and Taylor probably accounted for one-third of that. Both pilots won the Distinguished Service Cross for their actions at Pearl Harbor. For his heroism that day Welch was denied the Medal of Honor -- if you can believe it -- because he took off without orders.

Welch had other hard luck in his life. He probably broke the sound barrier in 1947 while flying an XP-86 Sabre jet fighter two weeks before Chuck Yeager did it in the X-1, but Welch's plane was in a dive, and didn't have reliable speed-measuring equipment, so it didn't count. He was killed as a test pilot at age 36 in the crash of an F-100 Super Sabre jet fighter.

Taylor fared better. He retired from the service as a brigadier general in the Alaska Air National Guard. He died in Tucson, Ariz., in 2006 at the age of 86.

Today is Pearl Harbor Day. Welch and Taylor were not the only heroes in the Japanese attack that happened 68 years ago today. There were plenty of heroes. Please take a moment today to remember them all.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

IITSEC not as busy this year but the technology is as cool as ever


Posted by John McHale


Traffic at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) in Orlando, Fla., this week is a little less and the exhibit floor is a little smaller – seems like a whole hall is missing – than last year, but the technology showcased is as cutting edge and just as plain cool as it always was.

Traffic at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) in Orlando, Fla., this week is a little less and the exhibit floor is a little smaller -- seems like a whole hall is missing -- than last year, but the technology showcased is as cutting edge and just as plain cool as it always was.

The annual trade show focuses on technology for training the warfighter such as flight simulators, avionics trainers, vehicular simulators, training systems for avoiding and detecting improvised explosive devises (IEDs), flight displays, image generators, rugged laptops, etc.

While many exhibitors say that traffic is slower than in years past, the market is still strong as military funding for training systems continues to remain steady for new systems as well as retrofits.

Highlights for me at the show aside from my fun with the Rockwell Collins heads-up display pictured here, included a demonstration of manned and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) teaming from L-3 Communications.

L-3 engineers showed that a UAV teamed with a Stryker unit, a rescue helicopter, and an attack helicopter can effectively work together on a mission through streaming video that all have access too. They can train either in the same room or thousands of miles apart.

The L-3 concept will enable warfighters to get this type of team training much earlier than in the past, better preparing them for when they deploy, L-3's Michael Rapavi, told me.

The concept that intrigued me the most was the COMBATREDI portable training system for dismounted soldiers from Cubic in Orlando. The system is worn by the soldier -- run by a computer on his back -- and uses sensors located on his body to determine if he is running, crouching, jumping, etc. Sensors also detect the position of his weapon. The sensors communicate wirelessly with in the system.

Soldiers can use it anywhere even in their living room if need be.

Another thing that I learned in my meeting with Cubic was a new military acronym … just when I thought I heard them all.

I asked whether or not the COMBATREDI system will be able to update its scenarios with real-time intelligence from the field and was told that that will be a P3I, which stands for pre-programmed product improvement ... in other words new capabilities that will be added later.

I heard a story once that an engineer once wrote an entire paragraph using only acronyms ... verbs and all.

I believe it.

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

IITSEC not as busy this year but the technology is as cool as ever


Posted by John McHale.

Traffic at Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) in Orlando, Fla., this week is a little less and the exhibit floor is a little smaller -- seems like a whole hall is missing -- than last year, but the technology showcased is as cutting edge and just as plain cool as it always was.

The annual trade show focuses on technology for training the warfighter such as flight simulators, avionics trainers, vehicular simulators, training systems for avoiding and detecting improvised explosive devises (IEDs), flight displays, image generators, rugged laptops, etc.

While many exhibitors say that traffic is slower than in years past, they see the military simulator the market as strong with military funding for training systems continuing to remain steady for new systems as well as retrofits.

Highlights for me at the show aside from my fun with the Rockwell Collins heads-up display pictured here, included a demonstration of manned and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) teaming from L-3 Communications.

L-3 engineers showed that a UAV teamed with an Army Stryker unit, a rescue helicopter, and an attack helicopter can effectively work together on a mission through streaming video that all have access to. They can train either in the same room or thousands of miles apart.

The L-3 concept will enable warfighters to get this type of team training much earlier than in the past, better preparing them for when they deploy, L-3's Michael Rapavi, told me.

The concept that intrigued me the most was the COMBATREDI portable training system for dismounted soldiers from Cubic in Orlando. The system is worn by the soldier -- run by a computer on his back -- and uses sensors located on his body to determine if he is running, crouching, jumping, etc. Sensors also detect the position of his weapon. The sensors communicate wirelessly with in the system.

Soldiers can use it anywhere even in their living room if need be.

Another thing that I learned in my meeting with Cubic was a new military acronym ... just when I thought I'd heard them all.

I asked whether or not the COMBATREDI system will be able to update its scenarios with real-time intelligence from the field and was told that that will be a P3I , which stands for pre-programmed product improvement... in other words new capabilities that will be added later.

I heard a story once that an engineer once wrote an entire paragraph using only acronyms... verbs and all.

I believe it, the military industry has an acronym for everything.


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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Guest blog: Navy demonstrates value of military cloud computing during recent naval exercise


By Kevin Jackson

In October as part of the U.S. Navy's annual Trident Warrior exercise, Dataline LLC demonstrated that a standard shipboard communications infrastructure could be used to manage a commercial cloud computing infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform.

Presented during the fall Trident Warrior '10 (TW '10) lab period, Dataline's secure cloud computing experiment used a simulated shipboard infrastructure to demonstrate secure access to selected collaboration and geospatial information service (GIS) applications. The purpose was to validate the ability of a commercial Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform to support Navy requirements for military cloud computing in terms of global connectivity, server failover, and application access.

For this portion of the exercise, Dataline used the Amazon EC2 IaaS platform. The experiment also used SecureParser as part of the Unisys Stealth architecture to provide data-in-motion security. Dataline also used included Oracle Beehive, ERDAS Apollo and the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) developed Transverse collaboration suite.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Caroline Lahman, the officer in charge of Navy FORCEnet San Diego, says she was pleased with the results, and says she wants to continue these cloud computing experiments as part of the spring lab period. Cloud computing typically involves dynamically scalable and often virtualized computer hardward and software resources as a service over the Internet.

Robert Carey, Navy Chief Information Officer, also says that cloud computing offered real value to the Navy. Citing that the Navy Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) and Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) programs will use cloud computing, he envisions a future day when gray clouds within a ship's hull would eventually switch to clouds within the battle group.

The increased IT efficiency delivered through cloud computing also would make more resources available for investment into Navy ships and aircraft. Carey says he sees ready access to authoritative data from the cloud as an important enabler to a real-time/near real-time decision making process, saying that the cloud delivers the ability to have a ubiquitous computing environment and interoperability.

After observing the experiment, representatives from the U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San Diego voiced similar sentiments, saying that the Navy is considering cloud computing technologies as part of its Naval Networks Enterprise-2016 strategy.

Trident Warrior '10 is scheduled to continue with a second lab period in the spring 2010 and an at sea demonstration period after that. For further information on the Trident Warrior lab based experiments, contact Lt. Cmdr. Caroline Lahman by e-mail at caroline.lahman@navy.mil.

Kevin Jackson is a vice president at cloud computing specialist Dataline LLC in Norfolk, Va., and is retired from the U.S. Navy, where he served with the National Reconnaissance Office, Operational Support Office, providing tactical support to Navy and Marine Corps forces worldwide. His "Cloud Musings" blog at http://kevinljackson.blogspot.com focuses on cloud computing.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Heat is buckling the flight decks of Navy ships; this looks like a job for the thermal management experts


Posted by John Keller

Every now and then I run across things that although they have little, if anything, to do with aerospace and defense electronics, still stop me in my tracks. Here's one I tripped over this morning: did you know the hot exhaust from the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft is buckling the flight decks of the Navy's big-deck amphibious assault ships?

I didn't either, but this phenomenon hasn't escaped the attention of thermal management materials experts at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va. (story continues below video)



It seems the V-22 "has resulted in ship flight deck buckling that has been attributed to the excessive heat impact from engine exhaust plumes," according to a broad agency announcement (BAA-10-10) issued this week from the DARPA Strategic Technology Office.

I suppose Navy leaders could deal with hot gas plumes from the V-22; what really worries them, however, is the future deployment of the vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) versions of the future F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which experts say could really cause some problems on the decks of aircraft carriers and the big-deck amphibs.

Too muck buckling caused by the V-22 and the F-35, and these flight decks are going to fail. DARPA has a nice way of explaining this.

"Navy studies have indicated that repeated deck buckling will likely cause deck failure before planned ship life. With the upcoming deployment of the F-35B Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), it is anticipated that the engine exhaust plumes may have a more severe thermo-mechanical impact on the non-skid surface and flight deck structure of ships," according to today's BAA.

Worse, nobody knows what to do about this problem, except to build new flight decks, which would be expensive, to say the last.

Instead, DARPA is looking around industry to see of anyone knows how to use thermal-management technologies and materials to build a non-skid, heat-resistant veneer that could fit over the flight decks of the carriers and amphibs to mitigate the effects of hot spots created by the exhaust from vertical-and-short-takeoff aircraft like the V-22 and F-35.

The primary candidates for this kind of thermally resistant flight deck applique are the Wasp- and America-class amphibious assault ships.

Okay, all you thermal-management experts: any takers out there? If so, drop an e-mail to DARPA at DARPA-BAA-10-10@darpa.mil. More information about this project is online at https://www.fbo.gov/spg/ODA/DARPA/CMO/DARPA-BAA-10-10/listing.html.

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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Trends: another embedded software supplier snapped up by a computer hardware company


Posted by John Keller

Well, it's official: microprocessor hardware maker Cavium Networks is acquiring MontaVista Software. This is the second time in a year that a hardware company is acquiring an influential embedded software company.

You might remember last June when Intel bought Wind River Systems. We're seeing a trend here. In both instances, the hardware company is going after the software company to position itself for the lucrative handheld electronic device market. We can expect to see more of this in the coming year.

These acquisitions have kicked over the embedded systems anthill. Device manufacturers are scurrying for cover, and software companies are looking to reap the spoils. No one wants to be the one left standing when the music stops.

The software companies, in both instances, can say whatever they want about staying independent and supporting several different computer architectures. The fact is that Wind River for the last six months has been fighting to convince its customers that it won't eventually be swallowed up by Intel and disappear.

Meanwhile, Wind River's competitors gather at the bar and talk about how they're going to carve up Wind River's market share. MontaVista can expect to see the same.

This kind of thing happens in cycles. Hardware and software companies are looking to join forces in a down market to achieve the critical mass necessary to survive and grow.

I reckon they'll find, as companies have in the past, that bigger isn't necessarily better. As hardware companies buy up the software talent, they create an opportunity for the next wave of software technology developers. When the economy picks up, I suspect we'll see some new software providers emerge.

Some of these new software providers will prove to be vicious competitors, ready to devour their predecessors when the time is right.

MontaVista Chief Technology Officer James Reddy realizes this perhaps better than most. He led what was the leading real-time embedded software company 20 years ago. That company was called Reddy Systems.

When the economy went bad in the early '90s, Reddy Systems eventually lost its market share to a tenacious little software startup called Wind River Systems.

... and so it goes.

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Wednesday, November 4, 2009

COTS, COTS, COTS, COTS


Posted by John McHale

Nearly everyone I speak to at avionics or defense trade shows or for interviews over the phone brings up the COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) procurement term in some way. They make COTS products, use COTS practices, or think COTS is the worst thing in the world.

Nearly everyone I speak to at avionics and defense trade shows or for interviews over the phone brings up the COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) procurement term in some way. They make COTS products, use COTS practices, or think COTS is the worst thing in the world.

Everyone seems to have different definitions or different acronyms for COTS. I've heard GOTS -- government-off-the-shelf; ROTS -- rugged-off-the-shelf; MOTS -- military-off-the-shelf; NOTS -- NATO-off-the-shelf; or my personal favorite: KOTS -- kinda-off-the-shelf. A few industry friends tell me they see a lot of SHOTS or "sh "-off-the-shelf. I'll let you fill in the rest ... we are a family web site ya know.

Seriously though, COTS is a procurement term that is supposed to embrace technology standards, but lacks any standard definition itself.

We like to think of COTS as being anything that is available out of a company catalog, even if it is tweaked or adjusted for a specific program. On the other hand custom would be anything that the government or end-user pays a supplier to develop from the ground up.

We've been talking about COTS for 15 years now. We've had shows about it and dedicated sections of our magazine to it, but many of our readers still differ on its meaning.

Some think the original intent of the Perry memo was to embrace commercial practices rather than a decree to run out and buy gadgets right off the shelf at Radio Shack or Fry's. In other words, to create standard product lines of MIL-STD components that can be bought off the shelf.

Many companies do offer such solutions, but just as many will buy a totally commercial component that does not meet military specifications and put it in a rugged enclosure.

Using COTS also cuts down on development time, which is very important to DOD program managers who want to get technology into the hands of the warfighter in Iraq or Afghanistan as fast as possible. DOD funding has been diverted from long-term programs to solutions that can be deployed near term to the warfighter.

Regardless, of how COTS is deployed or used, its dark side -- obsolecscne remains. No matter how you define it, designers still have to manage how they will support programs with components that will be obsolete in a few months or years.

Desginers of the avionics for the Orion spacecraft -- the proposed replacement for the space shuttle -- at Honeywell told me in January that managing obsolescene is one of their biggest challenges, but they cannot reach many of their performance golas without making use of COTS electronics and standards.

A decade and half after the Perry memo COTS has become a household word to those in the defense industry, it remains a kind of procurement wonder drug with wonderful benefits and occasionally some nasty side effects.

What does COTS mean to you? I would love to hear your COTS definition, your COTS success, or even a COTS horror story.

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Thursday, October 29, 2009

COTS, COTS, COTS, COTS

Posted by John McHale.

Nearly everyone I speak to at defense electronics trade shows or for interviews over the phone brings up the COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) procurement term in some way. They make COTS products, use COTS practices, or think COTS is the worst thing in the world.

Everyone seems to have different definitions or different acronyms for COTS. I've heard GOTS -- government-off-the-shelf; ROTS -- rugged-off-the-shelf; MOTS -- military-off-the-shelf; NOTS -- NATO-off-the-shelf; or my personal favorite: KOTS -- kinda-off-the-shelf. A few industry friends tell me they see a lot of SHOTS or "sh "-off-the-shelf. I'll let you fill in the rest ... we are a family web site ya know.

Seriously though, COTS is a procurement term that is supposed to embrace technology standards, but lacks any standard definition itself.

At our magazine we like to think of COTS as being anything that is available out of a company catalog, even if it is tweaked or adjusted for a specific program. On the other hand custom would be anything that the government or end-user pays a supplier to develop from the ground up.

We've been talking about COTS for 15 years now. We've had shows about it and dedicated sections of our magazine to it, but many of our readers still differ on its meaning.

Some think the original intent of the Perry memo was to embrace commercial practices rather than a decree to run out and buy gadgets right off the shelf at Radio Shack or Fry's. In other words, to create standard product lines of MIL-STD components that can be bought off the shelf.

Many companies do offer such solutions, but just as many will buy a totally commercial component that does not meet military specifications and put it in a rugged enclosure.

Using COTS also cuts down on development time, which is very important to DOD program managers who want to get technology into the hands of the warfighter in Iraq or Afghanistan as fast as possible. DOD funding has been diverted from long-term programs to solutions that can be deployed near term to the warfighter.

Regardless, of how COTS is deployed or used, its dark side -- obsolecscne remains. No matter how you define it, designers still have to manage how they will support programs with components that will be obsolete in a few months or years.

Desginers of the avionics for the Orion spacecraft -- the proposed replacement for the space shuttle -- at Honeywell told me in January that managing obsolescene is one of their biggest challenges, but they cannot reach many of their performance golas without making use of COTS electronics and standards.

A decade and half after the Perry memo COTS has become a household word to those in the defense industry, it remains a kind of procurement wonder drug with wonderful benefits and occasionally some nasty side effects.

What does COTS mean to you? I would love to hear your COTS definition, your COTS success, or even a COTS horror story.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

We're not playin' around: E-networking means business, not socializing


Posted by John Keller

All of us conducting business on E-networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and the others are running into a problem: a growing number of companies and other organizations are coming up with policies that ban the use of so-called "social networking" while at work. While it's difficult to characterize the depth of this mistake, we have ourselves at least partially to blame.

Why us? Because we use the poisonous term "social networking," which to the uninitiated means socializing, not working. We've all seen the cute stories in the press about Twitter, Facebook, etc., and with that kind of media play, who could blame many in the business community who perceive activity on these sites as play time, not work time?

Well, it's time to put a stop to this, and the first thing we can do is quit using the term "social networking" when describing the use of E-networking sites like Twitter and Facebook for business. Start using a term that means business, like E-networking, business networking, or even B-netting. Personally, I use E-networking to describe how I push out editorial content and commentary related to Military & Aerospace Electronics on Twitter and Facebook. I won't use that other term that contains the "s-word."

I wish I had started doing this earlier, because there are distressing trends on the horizon. Our own internal audience-development research here at Military & Aerospace Electronics indicates that companies we serve with information every day have policies in place, or are contemplating policies, to prevent their employees from using E-networking tools while at the office.

I also run into stories like this one in the online edition of The Daily Mirror newspaper in London, headlined "Twitter and Facebook cost firms millions as employees waste time (http://bit.ly/11cAVw)," and this survey of 1,400 chief information officers that indicates 54 percent of companies block the use of Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace at work (http://bit.ly/42XuA9).

This is all based on the false assumption that time spent on E-networking is wasted time. Nothing could be further from the truth. Companies might be able to fight E-networking for a while, but doing so is a lot like the last dinosaurs eating the first mammals. You might prevail today, but time is not on your side.

I understand that it can be exhausting conducting business today in a world that changes not just daily, but hourly. E-networking is a profoundly disruptive technology; it's upsetting, frustrating, and bewildering, but it also will take us to the next step in electronic communications. We don't have much say in the matter; this is the way it's going whether we embrace E-networking or not. I think the experts are right who predict that conventional e-mail will be obsolete within the next decade, replaced by E-networking technology and whatever it leads to.

If we're going to keep pace, then the time to get on board with E-networking in the workplace is now -- not tomorrow. Our business allies and competitors are amassing large followings of important contacts in E-networking. These lists of E-networking contacts are every bit as important as our customer e-mail and subscriber lists. As we gather a critical mass of important business contacts as followers, friends, fans, whatever, we can control our business communications like never before.

This has tremendous implications for publishing, public relations, retail, and all kinds of business-to-business ventures; any business that must communicate with its customers to succeed will rely on E-networking technology, if not now, then eventually. If business fails to get on board now, their learning curve will be very steep once they finally realize what they have to do. Companies that are holding back on E-networking must understand that their competitors are not ...

... which leads me back to this notion of banning E-networking in the workplace. It's kind of like banning the telephone because of its potential for abuse. Just like a telephone, E-networking is a critical business tool today, and will grow even more so in the future.

E-networking represents a fast-moving stream of often-crucial business information that is available to whomever dips into it. It just doesn't make any sense to keep this information source away from employees who potentially could make the best use of it. You can bet your competitors aren't, and your customers are going to notice.

If you're tentative about E-networking, come on in; the water's fine.

John Keller is chief editor of Military & Aerospace Electronics, a PennWell publishing franchise consisting of an active Website, e-newsletters, print magazine, and trade shows, which is based in Nashua, N.H. Contact Military & Aerospace Electronics online at www.milaero.com, on Twitter at @jkeller1959 and #milaero, and on Facebook at http://bit.ly/1VGM0Q. If you're hopeless, you could even e-mail John Keller at jkeller@pennwell.com.

A special thanks to Chris Burke, president of BtB Marketing Communications, who helped me brainstorm for this piece. Chris tweets on Twitter at @CBurkeBtB.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

DOD contracting: it's quiet out there; too quiet


Posted by John Keller

There seems to be a lull in technology-related contracting at the U.S. Department of Defense over the past week. A scan of the bluetops shows days on end with just one or two awards of consequence to the aerospace and defense electronics community. Makes me a little nervous.

Not a lot to report out there. The Navy's about to pull the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise out of the water to scrape off the barnacles and repaint the hull. If you're looking for excitement, that's about it.

It's not to say nothing's going on; there are a few solicitations out there. The Air Force is looking for ways to keep UAVS from crashing into each other. DARPA wants a UAV that stays up for five years. The Coast Guard wants a WMD-detecting radio network, and the Army wants a vehicle-mounted sensor that tells where the enemy snipers are.

Still, the lack of contract volume seems strange.

Makes me wonder what's going on -- or not. Doesn't seem like a normal lull in contract activity to me. That usually happens with a gradual slowing of contracting, not a sudden dropoff like we saw this past week.

Walk out away from the campfire at night, you usually hear crickets and other night sounds, not silence. When the crickets stop chirping and an ominous silence descends, then it's usually time to pay attention; something's about to happen. Could be good, could be bad, but you had better keep a clear eye, nonetheless.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a flurry of activity come up soon. Then again, might this be the beginning of a long-term slowdown? I wish I could tell you for sure. All I can advise is we had better pay attention.

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Thursday, October 22, 2009

David Jensen joins Avionics Intelligence


Posted by John McHale


I am quite thrilled to announce that veteran aviation journalist David Jensen has joined our staff as a contributing editor. He will be writing one feature and news article a month for the Avionics Intelligence website and e-newsletter.
I am quite thrilled to announce that veteran aviation journalist David Jensen has joined our staff as a contributing editor. He will be writing one feature and news article a month for the Avionics Intelligence website and e-newsletter.

David is also serving on the advisory boards for our Avionics Europe and Avionics USA conferences and exhibitions. He was a co-founder of the Avionics Europe event held each March in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

David, the former editor-in-chief of Avionics Magazine and Aviation Maintenance Magazine, has more than 25 years experience in aviation journalism. He was also managing editor and then editor of Rotor & Wing, covering the helicopter industry. Briefly, he also served as editorial director for the Magazine Group at Phillips Publishing, now Access Intelligence.

David's first article for us will be on DO-254 certification issues for avionics hardware and will appear next month on our website and e-newsletter.

I'm looking forward to working with David, his in-depth experience and knowledge of aviation and journalism will be a huge asset to Avionics Intelligence.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

OpenVPX interoperability standard hands off to VITA in another step toward ratification

Posted by John Keller

Well I'll be jiggered! They did what they said they were going to do, when they said they were going to do it.

I'm talking about the OpenVPX committee, whose members passed the OpenVPX interoperability draft standards over to the VITA 65 committee of the VITA Standards Organization on Monday, on time, on budget, and on the ball.

It's refreshing, in this day and age, to see folks say they're going to do something, and then do it. Thank you to everyone who participated in the OpenVPX process to lay down guidelines that ultimately will help major systems integrators choose the VITA 46 VPX switch fabric interconnect with good assurance that it will work when they put their systems together.

Now the OpenVPX standards go to the VITA open standards organization in Scottsdale, Ariz., for final ratification -- not only as a VITA standard, but as an ANSI standard as well. The OpenVPX name will live on as a brand name for the VITA 65 interoperability standards for the VPX interconnect.

This process has been different in many different ways. First, the speed at which the OpenVPX committee agreed on interoperability standards acceptable to the big systems integrators like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman is unprecedented -- at least in recent memory.

Put a bunch of engineers in a room and ask them to agree on technical standards is usually a recipe for a time-consuming food-fight, with different camps fighting over the most minute details. Not this time -- not with OpenVPX.

The folks on this committee had a real sense of urgency. They knew that if they didn't come up with a draft standard, and quickly, that the prime systems integrators would go elsewhere for their switch fabric interconnects -- possibly to proprietary, closed-system approaches. Now that's probably not going to happen.

Second, the OpenVPX standards this group is handing over to the VITA 65 committee will be considered a "living specification," not set in stone, and with accommodations for upgrades and other improvements as time goes on.

Last, and perhaps most important, is this standard probably has more buy-in from the prime systems integrators, from the get-go, than most standards have had in the past. These so-called "lead systems integrators (LSIs)" were there to ride herd on the techno-purists and make sure the job got done.

Rest assured, furthermore, that the big systems integrators will keep an eye on the process as the OpenVPX interoperability standard goes through the VITA 65 committee because "they already have so much skin in the game," says Mark Littlefield of Curtiss-Wright Controls

Friday, October 16, 2009

Editor at large

Posted by Courtney E. Howard

Wow, upon writing the headline, a flood of fat jokes popped into my head, but I will fight the impulse (which is also a good dieting tactic). It just goes to show you: I should never write a blog on a Friday night.

I had an incredible week, traveling about Oregon visiting with knowledgeable, charismatic, and passionate executives at technology firms serving military and aerospace customers.

Here's where I went, who I saw, and what I learned (in a nutshell anyway):

FLIR -- David Strong, vice president of marketing, FLIR Government Systems, and Angel Bennett, a new hire for the company but a seasoned mil-aero veteran, treated me to a tour--sans camera phone. It is good that the receptionist requested my phone; I noted a few times when I would have wanted to snap a photo or two. Great stuff in forward-looking infrared, lasers, thermal imaging, and more.

Mentor Graphics
-- James Price, a marketing manager and all-around man in demand at Mentor Graphics, set aside some time to sit down with me and discuss electronic design automation, product lifecycle management, requirements tracking, and more. The company's IESF, a free mil-aero forum, takes place in little more than a week in Dallas. Price also announced an impressive list of speakers for the event, which includes Northrop Grumman, IBM, Teal Group, Patmos Engineering Services, and of course, Mentor Graphics. Moreover, he revealed that Q2 of 2009 was a record quarter for Mentor Graphics. Kudos! I would certainly love to hear more good news like that about the industry.

Tektronix -- Sophie Fauveau, worldwide marketing communications program manager, and Todd Baker, senior manager, discussed the company's latest advancements. The company has announced its highest-performance mixed signal oscilloscope. The new MSO70000 series offers integrated digital and analog analysis to system integration debugging.

RadiSys -- Happily, it was my first visit with RadiSys that did not take place hurriedly on a trade show floor. Lyn Pangares, director of marketing communications, and John Long, product line manager, sat down with me and discussed the company's history and its future. The company has, I have learned, an interesting back story. RadiSys was delivering commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions (COTSS? Sorry, I digress) that met the stringent requirements of the medical market. RadiSys and its products, therefore, caught the eye of engineers serving the mil-aero market. Customers were saying "we want your product in the mil-aero environment" and essentially pulled RadiSys into the community. The relationship enabled mil-aero customers to "access a level of technology not previously available" and "dip their toe into COTS," according to a representative.

Engineering Design Team -- I have heard nary a peep from Engineering Design Team in months, but, as I found out, it does not mean they aren't up to something. In fact, the company offers solutions well suited to advancing the state and use of digital video on the battlefield. As I learned at NAB?s Government & Defense Summit earlier this year, officials in the Department of Defense are actively seeking advanced technology for acquiring, processing, sending/receiving, viewing, and storing multiple terabytes of digital video captured by various sensors on the battlefield.

VersaLogic -- In a serene, farmland setting sits VersaLogic, a longtime provider of rugged embedded computers for mil-aero applications. In fact, VersaLogic has been making solutions such as its line of single-board computers (SBCs) for roughly 30 years. The company "has been very busy" and introduced three new products recently, and four or five others are due in Spring 2010, says a representative.

The economy is down and travel budgets are tight, but as long as my decade-old sedan will carry me, I will be out and about learning all I can from the welcoming and impassioned mil-aero community. See you soon!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

DVT: Not just in M-ATVs

Posted by Courtney E. Howard

An editor at Military & Aerospace Electronics for a few years now, I have covered a wealth of topics and I have a few favorite "beats." Among them are vetronics, or electronic systems and devices employed in and on combat vehicles on land.

I enjoy writing an annual feature article on vetronics for Military & Aerospace Electronics. In covering the topic, this year especially, I became privy to photographs of the interior of combat vehicles employed in the field -- as well as replicas of those on the field which are currently being studied and the vetronics of which are being adapted by engineers at such technology firms as General Dynamics. In fact, General Dynamics management opened last month its EDGE Innovation Center that concentrates on combat vehicle electronics.

In any case, space within combat vehicles is at a premium. Today's vetronics are critical to mission success and soldier safety, and command a great deal of space, making for a cramped interior in which o ne or more soldiers must sit for extended periods.

Images of combat vehicle interiors caused me to remember David Bloom, a rising star at NBC News who traveled from the White House to become one of the most frequently-seen TV reporters on the Iraqi desert, according to an NBC representative.

The network was shocked when the 39-year-old Bloom died suddenly in Iraq, not from a battlefield injury but from an apparent blood clot that caused him to collapse and never regain consciousness.

Bloom was about 25 miles south of Baghdad and packing gear early Sunday to travel with the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division when he was stricken. He was airlifted to a nearby field medical unit and pronounced dead from a pulmonary embolism, said Allison Gollust, a spokeswoman for NBC News.

NBC News had built a special vehicle, dubbed the "Bloom-mobile," to send strikingly clear pictures of him riding atop a tank through the Iraqi desert.

Bloom told the Post. "You're sleeping with your knees propped up around you."

That may have been a risk factor: blood clots frequently form in legs when they've been immobilized and travel through the body, said Dr. Harold Palevsky, chief of pulmonary critical care with the University of Pennsylvania health system.

I, like others, cannot help but wonder how many soldiers have suffered the same fate, as a result of cramped quarters for days, weeks, and months at a time. Soldiers on the battlefield are not the only people falling victim to blood clots that start in their legs and travel to their lungs. Virtually anyone who spends excessive time at a desk also run the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT). DVT is defined as the formation of a blood clot (thrombus) in a deep vein.

Last week, I learned that a fellow editor had developed a clot in an artery in her leg that would have traveled to her heart and killed her, had she not gained the proper medical attention when she did. Had she waited a week to see if what she thought was a leg cramp subsided, she likely would have suffered a pulmonary embolism.

Her doctor told her that her only risk factor was that she spent significant time seated at a computer. That solitary factor could have led to her demise. She simply worked too long each day/night.

I know she is not the only one. Given today's economic climate, chances are good that you, too, must spend long days (and 0nights) in front of the computer, perhaps in order to do the work of three men.

Being inundated with work might be unavoidable, but DVT is avoidable. Be certain to stretch your legs every 15 or 20 minutes. Rather than send an internal e-mail message, perhaps deliver the message in person. Drink a lot of fluids at your desk, so your body will force you to make a trip to the lavatory periodically throughout the day. Something, anything to get the blood flowing through those legs. You too are a soldier, and we need you on the front lines.

Friday, October 9, 2009

It's official: Nobel Peace Prize now has no value whatsoever

Posted by John Keller

We have American soldiers dying in Afghanistan, bereft of top leadership as President Barack Obama dithers day after day. We have Iran speeding toward developing nuclear weapons as Obama sits on his hands. We have terrorists apprehended in war zones basking on Caribbean beaches instead of in cells in Guantanamo Bay.

... and for this Obama gets handed the Nobel Peace Prize. Why, you might ask? For "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

Obama joins other Nobel Prize winners, who include climate change, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, and Yasser Arafat -- leading lights, all.

Evidently he made these worthy contributions for mankind within 11 days of taking office last Jan. 20., too, because the deadline for Nobel Peace Prize nominations was on Feb. 1.

Barack Obama's winning the Nobel Peace Prize is a travesty and an outrage -- as if that even needed to be said. Countless others have done more to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples than a one-term U.S. Senator and career "community organizer" who had been president of the United States for less than two weeks.

The the Norwegian Nobel Committee shouldn't be just be ashamed. It should be disbanded.

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Thursday, October 8, 2009

The #milaero online community and the stream of Twitterness -- it's all about you


Did you know there's a Military & Aerospace Electronics online community on Twitter? Neither did I until yesterday. It's happening, organically, every day, through a nifty, yet powerful, Twitter tool called the hashtag.

Welcome to the wonderful world of ad-hoc social networking, Twitter style, in which groups of people with similar interests like us form spontaneously around industries, Websites, trade shows, hobbies, tourist destinations -- anything, really.

Our hashtag looks like this: #milaero

It's quick and easy to take part, and you don't have to register for a thing -- except for a Twitter account (http://twitter.com/).

To be part of our community on Twitter, simply write the hashtag #milaero anywhere in your tweet. Twitter does the rest, in part, by making the #milaero hashtag a hotlink in your Twitter entry. Then to call forth the entire #milaero community from the vastness of Twitter, either type #milaero in the Twitter search bar, or just click on the #milaero hashtag in any tweet where you see it.

Presto. There's the community stream right on your screen.

Don't take my word for it; let me show you how easy it is. Call up a new screen or pop a new tab, and log on to http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23milaero. That's right, do it right now. I can wait ...

Back already? Did you see that? It's the entire Twitter conversation string by and for the folks who have a common interest in aerospace and defense technology -- or not. It's not just about the magazine, or the Website, or the e-newsletters and Webcasts. It's about you, and your participation in this community. The key to the clubhouse is #milaero.

When you go there, you'll find all of my most recent #milaero tweets (jkeller1959), as well as those of staffers John McHale (JMcHaleIII)and Courtney Howard (coho). From out in the field, from keeping in touch with those in our aerospace and defense community, we'll be pushing out important tidbits to you every day as we learn about them.

We'll also be updating you on the latest stories we're putting up on the Military & Aerospace Electronics Website (www.milaero.com), our Avionics Intelligence Website (www.avionics-intelligence.com) directions on how you can register for our latest Webcasts, how you can access our on-demand Webcasts, and the latest inside skinny about how our Military & Aerospace Electronics Forum, Avionics USA, and Avionics Europe conferences and trade shows are shaping up.

We'll also tell you what we're working on for upcoming news and features, and ask for your help and input. Our sales folks also will tell you about advertising and promotional opportunities and deadlines -- but not too much.

It doesn't always have to be about aerospace and defense, either. See something funny? Share it with the group. Feeling sad or mad? We want to know. Sorry, but we can't promise not to gossip about you later.

Most of the time we'll be talking about what interests all of us, as well as commenting on the issues of the day. You'll see lots of flip, irreverent comments as well; we just can't help it. We want to hear your flip comments, too. Like Dorothy Parker said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me."

Like or don't like something in the magazine or on the Website? Let us know. Tell McHale to get back to work and quit flirting with the ladies. Ask Courtney to tweet more; we like it. You can always grab an opportunity to tell me to just go to hel ... well, you get the idea.

With our #milaero community on Twitter, it's easy. Get a Twitter account if you don't have one (that's REALLY easy at www.twitter.com), and get that #milaero hashtag in your tweets. With that community URL, http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23milaero, you update yourself and get updated any time, anywhere, even from your mobile phones.

Something else you can do; you can put an RSS feed to the #milaero community on your own Websites, if you like. Here's the URL for the #milaero RSS feed: http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%23milaero.

So join us on Twitter. We can't wait to hear from you what's going on.

#milaero


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-- Posted by John Keller, jkeller@pennwell.com. www.milaero.com.

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Very cool helicopter avionics technology showcased at AUSA


Posted by John McHale


New helicopter technology was definitely creating a buzz at the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) annual Meeting in Washington this week, as Boeing released its new AH-6i helicopter and Sikorsky parked a version of its Light Tactical Helicopter between the convention center and the Renaissance Hotel.
New helicopter technology was definitely creating a buzz at the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) annual Meeting in Washington this week, as Boeing released its new AH-6i helicopter and Sikorsky parked a version of its Light Tactical Helicopter between the convention center and the Renaissance Hotel.

I took a seat in the LTH and learned that the primary objective of the aircraft is speed. Sikorsky is looking to eventually approach 250 knots while at the same time being a fully functional helicopter. They did not have a full avionics system in the model at AUSA, because they are still developing the cockpit systems, which could end up as a traditional cockpit display or have all the functionality placed in a head-up avionics display.

Boeing's AH-6i uses much of the avionics software and avionics hardware from the company's Apache Block III upgrade, which is still being developed with another test flight scheduled later this fall.

Boeing hopes that the AH-6i will be what the Army is looking for as it resets its Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter requirements. The first ARH program -- that was under development with Bell Helicopter -- was canceled a year ago.

In the cockpit demonstrator that Boeing had at their booth they were showcasing avionics technology still in development such as voice control. Essentially Boeing engineers are designing an avionics system that allows pilots to control communications, targeting, etc., all with their voice.

It lets pilots focus more on what's outside the cockpit, rather than having to push various buttons on the display, company officials told me.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Russian T-95 main battle tank: could this combat vehicle be more formidable than we thought?



Posted by John Keller

I wrote about a new Russian main battle tank (MBT) more than a year ago, the T-95, in a blog headlined "New Russian battle tank: it's beginning to look a lot like the '80s." In this blog I wrote of a chilling sense I had about what felt like a return the bad old days of the Cold War between the United States and the then-Soviet Union. This T-95 tank which is supposed to enter service this year with its advanced vetronics, appears to be one of the most advanced war machines ever produced.

This blog generated some comment, particularly from an alert reader who calls him or herself NERO. This reader says, with some authority, that the introduction of the Russian T-95 main battle tank could be worse for Western powers than originally thought, and could bode ill for the West on a variety of military issues. You can see the original blog for NERO's initial comment. For now, I'll let NERO speak for himself:


"Hmmm! As an earlier post of mine keeps being re-quoted in the dialogues of a number of forums, you may as well have a look at this as well. I notice with amusement, the reference to General Dynamics Land Systems and TACOM in your article.

Back in the days of the Crusader System Project, both TACOM and United Defense Systems (now part of BAE Systems) were approached regarding this powering technology -- before the Russian military indicated they wished to evaluate the technology.

Like all other American institutions and manufacturers, nobody wanted to know about this work. Interestingly all of the work-ups that were provided to the Russians were based on the Crusader self-propelled artillery system and the M1A1 Abrams tank -- the original systems for which land warfare applications had been configured.

The Russians simply had to cross platforms to their smaller-chassis systems. At 1,500 horsepower, even the power level of the T-95 is the same as that which had been proposed for the Crusader and M1Al Abrams.

As I recall, during the existence of the Soviet Union, the massed tank forces of the Soviet Union, were one of the greatest concerns of NATO. Not realised at that time, but as confirmed by subsequent testing post the Soviet era, NATO had no weaponry capable of penetrating the combined ballistic and ERA armor of a Soviet tank of the period; this remains the case to this day and with the upgraded form of ERA, not even the projectiles of the guns of the various marks of Abrams MBT of the USA Army, are capable of improving this situation. This situation is the same for depleted uranium projectiles and tungsten penetrators, there is simply nothing out there that can be fired at a T-95 on the move, that will knock it out; unless you wish to consider a tactical nuclear weapon.

Consider the implications of a new Russian tank force, with an un-refuelled range better than three times that of any previous equivalent MBT, that cannot be countered by conventional weaponry. Perhaps you will then understand why Mr. Putin moved to withdraw from the Conventional Forces in Europe, accord. The Next Generation Equipment of the Russian Army is specifically a trump card situation. With the existence of this equipment, any conflict in which NATO openly confronts Russian land warfare forces, must be a nuclear action and as this equipment is specifically performance oriented, with deployment directly from a barracks situation, any attacking force would be well into the bordering European states, before NATO could react. What European government is going to authorize NATO to undertake a nuclear action within it's own territory. Russia is going to retake it's former satellite states, one way or the other; if for no other reason than to remove the threat of NATO missile strikes from within those states.

One day, in the not too distant future, Russia may publicly demonstrate the superiority of the T-95 MBT and the balance of the associated next generation equipment of the Russian Army's land warfare equipment and pointedly, the inability of NATO to counter this equipment with non-nuclear weaponry. At this point, Russia need only announce it's annexation of it's former border states and simultaneously, deploy these advanced combat systems within these former Soviet satellites, and there will be little that can be done about it. Ask yourself this question, will the various European governments risk nuclear war with Russia, to preclude the return of these former Soviet territories, to the Russian sphere of influence?

I think not.

And something you should also know, much of the land warfare component of the next generation equipment of the re-armed Russian Army, is going to be in the form of very advanced land warfare combat robotics. At this point it is salient to mention, the T-95 is both the most advanced MBT ever built, and the most formidable land warfare combat robotic ever deployed. Development of equivalent or superior systems, is the only non-nuclear counter to Russia's introduction of these systems, and the key to this is the development of the power plant and power-train system that is the enabling component of all these next generation land warfare systems. The opportunity to develop the equivalent powering system, is the first step down the path to countering the dominance of Europe by Russia; what Russian interests remain unaware of is the ability to produce a far more fuel efficient and powerful power plant, based on the system they are already aware of. This is much more than a commercial opportunity. Gentlemen, feel free to raise this matter with Angela Merkel, it holds the potential to counter Russia's dominance over Europe. Have no doubt of this: the era of computer-game-style robotic conflict is already upon us. Don't let Europe fall too far behind in this, or you may never get a chance to recover the lost ground.

For the record, in a less hostile time, I not only provided the original powering concept for what has become the T-95 MBT, but also wrote the original concept papers on it's mode of operation, within a range of combat scenarios; these have also been adopted by the Russian Army and the early production versions of the T-95 MBT have been deployed to operational training units, to refine these integrated procedures.

You should also be aware, the re-armed Russia is going to be re-aligned as a very much high tech military. Long gone are the days of reliance upon conscripts and massed formations; or hasn't anybody noticed the shift in policy, regards the priority, previously given to ballistic missile systems? Russia is rapidly developing a first strike capability, based upon supersonic cruise missiles and in the near future, you can expect the Brahmos joint venture to roll out the first hypersonic cruise missiles. There is a new arms race, but somehow, most observers seem to be missing the indicators and the implications of the shift in policy, as does NATO and the military of the former Western alliance.

NERO"


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-- Posted by John Keller, jkeller@pennwell.com. www.milaero.com.

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Monday, September 28, 2009

Can commercial software-defined radio replace JTRS? One reader points out why not


Posted by John Keller

I wrote a story earlier this month headlined, Air Force plan to cut its JTRS military radio program may acknowledge developments in private industry, in which I suggest that commercial radio communications developments in software defined radio (SDR) technology may be surpassing the U.S. military's Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), and that commercial SDR might eventually render the military's JTRS developments obsolete.

Today I received an astute e-mail from a Military & Aerospace Electronics reader that takes me to task with several solid points, which I'd like to share here. This reader's message speaks for itself, and I thank him or her for bringing these points to our attention.

There is an assumption that the commercially developed software-defined radios (SDR's) could replace the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS). This is not true, if the military requirements stay as they are today.

Everyone forgets that the military wants everything small, powerful, with all the bells and whistles, and oh, by the way, you have to pass the NSA security requirements and it needs to fit into this small space.

I once heard a four-star general ask, "Why is my cell phone smaller than my wallet, it is nearly free, and I can talk around the world with it?" That type of ignorance is exactly what gets programs like Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) cancelled.

I would like to have said (but didn't), "but sir, you are communicating through cell towers that have thousands of pounds of equipment, your cell communications are not secure, your cell phone will not operate in extreme conditions, your cannot drop your cell phone from six feet onto concrete and expect it to work, you can't drop your cell phone in a bucket of water and expect it to work afterward, you cannot select the method of communications, good luck using it in the mountains of Afghanistan, and your cell phone is not "software defined," your cell phone can't communicate to other cell phones without going to a cell tower (good luck installing cell towers in every hostile area), your cell phone puts out very, low power (not 100-plus Watts), and finally, it can't communicate to any legacy radios currently in service."

Other than that the four-star had a good point.

The government levies thousands of requirements (in the case of JTRS 40,000 requirements) and then asks why the device is so expensive, costs so much to develop, and then complains when it's late (plus, let's change the requirements continually along the way).

Just a couple points for consideration.


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Thursday, September 17, 2009

Electronic flight bag -- a taboo phrase?


Posted by John McHale

During conversations I've had recently with several experts on avionics systems on our Avionics Europe Conference Advisory Board and with electronic flight bag (EFB) designers, I've learned that EFB is more and more becoming a bad word with airline procurement managers.
During conversations I've had recently with several experts on avionics systems on our Avionics Europe Conference Advisory Board and with electronic flight bags (EFBs) designers, I've learned that EFB is more and more becoming a bad word with airline procurement managers.

Apparently avionics engineers at airlines are having a hard time justifying purchase of EFB Class 1 and Class 2 products just to enable a paperless cockpit.

Bill Ruhl, marketing manager for Astronautics in Milwaukee, Wis., told me that this hurts the retrofit market. The FAA is allowing new functionality such as airport moving maps on Class 2 EFBs has helped in this area, but it is becoming more of a competitive and cultural problem than one of capability, he said. The larger airlines do not want their pilots to be able to take the EFBs -- loaded with sensitive company data -- off the airplane, Ruhl said.

This is also why EFB designers have been adding more capability top the products, Ruhl said. They have evolved beyond the original EFB concept. He noted that Astronautics likes to call their systems single processor or dual processor solutions as opposed to EFB, because they go beyond the original concept in terms of capability.

During our Advisory Board meeting last week the members echoed these comments and for next year we decided not to have a stand alone session just on EFBs, but rather one called "Cost Efficient Avionics -- EFBs and Beyond."

Yes, we left EFBS in there because quite frankly it was one of our best attended sessions last year in Amsterdam -- despite the fact that we placed it the end of the conference, when attendance can lag.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Test and measurement systems designers leave rugged computers to the experts


Posted by John Keller

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- There seems to be a trend in portable electronic test and measurement equipment that involves commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) rugged laptop and notebook computers. Seems the test and measurement folks want to leave the rugged computer portions of their systems to the real experts.

This trend was in evidence as I prowled the aisles of the AutoTestCon test and measurement trade show this week at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, Calif.

Many pieces of test and measurement equipment, such as spectrum analyzers, oscilloscopes, and systems that integrate these and other instruments in one box, need some sort of computer to run software that controls test parameters, inputs, and the like. This is part of an overall trend known as "virtual test," which trades knobs, dials, and rudimentary displays for computer-based control.

Some of the latest test instruments, however, are contained in a solid electronics enclosure that instead of screens and buttons have a standard docking-station connector compatible with rugged laptop and notebook computers like those made by Panasonic.

One company taking this approach is Astronics DME Corp. of Orlando, Fla. Officials say Panasonic and other rugged computer manufacturers already have designed their systems for shock, vibration, EMI, and other demanding environments.

Why, they ask, should their engineers have to bother with the computing portion of test instruments when the computer companies can do it better, faster, and cheaper?

Sounds like this is what the COTS movement is all about.

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