time. Backed completely by the US government in typical SAE style, this initiative has seen its first full integration in the form of the massively significant JDAM missile system. The JDAM is billed as the future ordinance of choice for multiple platforms in the same way as we thought of Cruise Missiles during the first Gulf War. Coming in a variety of sizes, 500 down to 20lb bombs can be supported with the JDAM and UAI configuration. When Eurofighter comes to integrate this weapon, UAI will become a necessity, so why not plan ahead now. My fear is that UK plc will lose traction in a global defence market that does not forgive latecomers, whilst government budgets invariably face pressure, the power players in the private sector dominating UAI implementation will monopolise in the same way as the American dominance in Space. UAI offers one day implementations that could otherwise take up to two years, this is not a theoretical but a proven fact in the case of the massively significant JDAM missile on the F-35. No-one’s saying this is the end of weapons integration but it could be a significant step in that direction, re-directing funds and political agreement back towards the success of the platform itself, an altogether better employment of resources.
The UAI presentation was given by David Neel of Lockheed whilst his colleague Senior Engineer Monique Purdon presented on stores optimisation in the F-35 program. Great interest was given by the Grippen group from Sweden, who continue to astonish with their Corporate based alternative providing an holistic solution to platform and weapons integration. Quietly the rumours circulate that Grippen firepower out performs many NATO initiatives, remaining nameless for the purposes of my own liberty, just the inside track right now favours the choice of Grippen weapon systems on a certain NATO war bird in favour of munitions from stakeholders.
The single largest obstacle to weapons integration is the reluctance of governments to share data with the private sector, given the success of private sector companies you would think it should be the other way around. Yet again and frustratingly, the Americans lead the world in the declassification of what can really only be called test data. Quietly these numbers filter through the virtual world like the Mil-standards sites where they are hoovered up by eager SAE working groups which form the organic cross-industry ties that support the official consortium developing UAI. In four more years this will look and feel less like a Macro and look more like an OS (Operating System) to deliver what is so long overdue, a digital interface like Windows to replace all that unnecessary analogue and bespoke digital hardware. Sneak preview pictures of the systems running the UAI on the F-35 reveal the terrifying truth about the future of aeronautics: arrays of mother boards, chip sets and hard drives in all too familiar configurations built from COTS (Components-Off-The-Shelf). I’ve been an advocate of it for years. The UAI methodology is shaving years off the turn around time of Integration and the UAI hardware platform is looking less Cold-War and more like the all too long awaited military counterpart to Microsoft.
More to come online at www.DefenceIntegration.org, the dedicated Military-Aerospace site from SAE-UK.org
