Joint solutions to German, French, and wider European defense requirements were a key theme of the ILA Berlin Airshow this week. Grand declarations were made about the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) and the Euro-MALE drone. But two purely German needs were also debated: replacements for the Tornado strike jet and the CH-53G heavy-lift helicopter.
The Pentagon brought two U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II fighters to the show, as Lockheed Martin promoted the stealth jet to the German Air Force (GAF). At The International Fighter Conference in Berlin last November, outgoing GAF chief Lt. Gen. Karl Muellner made no secret of his preference for the F-35 to replace the Tornado from 2025. This plan was not well received by some of his German political masters. On the eve of the ILA show, both Lockheed Martin and Eurofighter submitted offers.
“The Eurofighter is already the backbone of the German Air Force and is therefore the logical option,” said Bernhard Brenner, head of marketing and sales at Airbus Defence and Space. Volker Paltzo, CEO of Eurofighter, claimed that his jet could perform every mission that the GAF requires. But the GAF already operates 130 Eurofighters, and may still press for a different platform to replace the 90 Tornados. Jack Crisler, Lockheed Martin’s vice president of F-35 business development, told journalists at the show that the unit cost of the F-35 would fall to $80 million by 2020, and that the company is working to reduce sustainment costs.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky presented their rival candidates to replace the German Army’s large fleet of Sikorsky CH-53Gs. Both companies revealed their German partnerships at the show. Boeing is pushing the CH-47F or MH-47G versions of the Chinook and said it had reached long-term support and training agreements with CAE, Diehl, Honeywell, Liebherr, Rockwell Collins, and Rolls-Royce. Sikorsky proposes the CH-53K King Stallion that is now in production for the U.S. Marine Corps. Liebherr and Rockwell Collins also appear in the Sikorsky support partnership line-up, which is led by Rheinmetall and includes Autoflug, Hensoldt, Hydro Systems, Jenoptik, and ZF Lufahrttechnik.
France and Germany are trying to craft a joint program to replace their aging maritime patrol aircraft (MPA). With this in mind, Kawasaki brought two P-1 MPAs to Berlin, supported by the Japanese Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency. But any Franco-German requirement will be long-term since both countries have spent money to upgrade their existing ATL2 and P-3 Orion MPA fleets in recent years. Only last October, Lockheed Martin secured a second contract worth $158 million to upgrade the mission processing suites on eight of Germany’s P-3Cs.
Hensoldt CEO Thomas Mueller reviewed a successful first year for the company that was created when Airbus Defence and Space sold off its avionics, optronics, and sensor business. He said that Hensoldt had secured orders worth €1.2 billion, while revenues increased to almost €1.1 billion. It employs 4,300 and while primarily focused on defense, the company has some commercial business, notably ATC identification and radar systems. The company gave a live demonstration of its “Twinvis” passive radar system for detecting stealthy or non-cooperative targets and unveiled a compact and deployable version of its “Xpeller” counter-UAV system.
