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L'Usine Nouvelle consacre un article détaillé aux bouleversements induits par l'intelligence artificielle (IA) dans le secteur de la défense. Le magazine rappelle que le ministère des Armées a publié fin 2019 un rapport dédié à l'intelligence artificielle, et qu'il a fait de l'IA une de ses priorités, avec un investissement de 100 millions d'euros par an durant la période 2019-2025. « L'IA doit permettre le combat collaboratif », souligne L'Usine Nouvelle, qui relève que Dassault Aviation et Thales « préparent les évolutions du cockpit du Rafale : l'avion de chasse pourra communiquer avec les drones pour adopter des stratégies innovantes de pénétration des défenses antiaériennes, fondées notamment sur des trajectoires d'évitement intelligentes et réactives ». Dans les domaines naval et terrestre, Naval Group et Nexter développent également leurs capacités gr'ce à l'IA. Marko Erman, directeur scientifique de Thales, souligne : « l'un des défis est d'avoir des algorithmes explicables en temps réel et dans des termes compréhensibles par le soldat en mission ». L'Usine Nouvelle du 17 septembre

By Courtesy As the Army explores the potential of some advanced manufacturing methods and 3D-printed parts to maintain and sustain its aviation fleet, recently published guidance aims to strike a balance between safety, improvements to readiness and escalating costs. Advanced manufacturing refers to new ways of making existing products and the production of new products using advances in technology. Advanced manufacturing includes additive manufacturing, a process of joining materials to make parts from 3D-model data. Additive manufacturing differs from the traditional subtractive process that cuts away material to shape and produce parts. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command recently published a policy memorandum addressing advanced manufacturing for Army aircraft parts, components and support products. “Evolving technologies create a unique challenge as we determine the airworthiness of parts when the data is immature, incomplete or even non-existent,” said AMCOM Commander Maj. Gen. Todd Royar, who serves as the Army's airworthiness authority, responsible for ensuring the safety of the service's aircraft components. As enduring aircraft, like the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, continue in service, the supply system with face challenges with obsolescence, meaning parts that are difficult to acquire or receive no bids from potential vendors to manufacture. As the Army keeps pace with technology, advanced manufacturing creates opportunities to optimize long-term sustainment efforts. The Army established a partnership recently with Wichita State University's National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) to create a “digital twin” of an aging Black Hawk model. “One of the primary tasks in this effort is to convert all legacy 2D drawings of this aircraft into modern 3D parametric models,” said John Tomblin, senior Vice-President for Industry and Defense Programs and Executive Director of NIAR at Wichita State University. “This will allow the Army to source parts that are out of production as well as use advanced techniques, such as additive manufacturing, to produce parts.” The digital twin opens a door to the 3D modeling and more opportunities to use parts made through additive manufacturing. The NIAR project is not the Army's only effort. Army Aviation is already using advanced manufacturing methods and 3D-printed parts to solve specific challenges. When several CH-47 helicopters experienced structural cracks at a certain portion of the frame assembly, an initial solution was to replace the entire frame assembly. “Replacing the entire assembly is a time-consuming task that also poses logistical challenges because replacements are difficult to obtain,” said AMCOM's Aviation Branch Maintenance Officer, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Michael Cavaco. Instead, engineers designed a solution to restore the cracked frames to their original strength by creating repair fittings using Computer-Aided Design models. “After five iterations of 3D-printing prototypes, test fit and model adjustments, a final design solution was achieved,” Cavaco said. Additionally, 3D printers have created several tools and shop aids that have benefitted the field. Many of these stand-alone items that support maintenance operations are authorized within Army technical manuals, depot maintenance work requirements or similar publications. While too early to predict overall cost and time savings, the advantages of advanced manufacturing are significant. The use of advanced manufactured parts will eliminate wait time on back-ordered parts that, ultimately, delay repairs. A key focus of AMCOM's AM policy is on inserting evolving technologies into enduring designs that have relied on traditional manufacturing processes throughout their acquisition lifecycle. However, future Aviation are benefiting as well from advanced manufacturing. The Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) includes a number of advanced manufacturing elements. “ITEP benefits from advanced manufacturing include reduced cost, reduced weight, increased durability, and enhanced performance when compared to traditional manufacturing methods,” said Col. Roger Kuykendall, the project manager for Aviation Turbine Engines. “The benefits of AM stem from the unique capability to produce more complex hardware shapes while simultaneously reducing part count.” The fine details of airworthiness expectations asserted in this policy were crafted by a team of engineers at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation and Missile Center, led by Chris Hodges, the current acting associate director for Airworthiness-Technology. Hodges said the new policy was drafted after his team collaborated with stakeholders from across the aviation enterprise, reaching across Army organizations and out to sister services and the Federal Aviation Administration. “We considered a lot of input and ultimately organized expectations and requirements by category, spanning from tools and shop aids to critical safety items,” Hodges said. “The resulting policy sets a solid foundation with room to grow and fill in details as the story evolves.” For Army aviation applications, advanced-manufactured parts and components will be managed under six categories that range from articles that support maintenance operations to those aviation critical safety items, whose failure would result in unacceptable risk. The designated categories prescribe for engineers and manufacturers the allowed materials and appropriate testing methodology for each particular part. The new guidance is not intended as a replacement for other existing policies that address advanced manufacturing. “We intend to be in concert with Army policies and directives that pertain to readiness, maintenance and sustainment,” Royar said. “Our policy provides a deliberate approach to ensure airworthiness and safety while determining where research and efforts may best supplement the supply chain and improve performance while balancing cost.” AMCOM Command Sgt. Major Mike Dove acknowledged the methodology must continue to mature in multiple areas before confidence grows in the ability to measure airworthiness qualification requirements for advanced-manufactured parts. “We fully support the maturation requirements for advanced-manufacturing technology, but not at the expense of flight safety,” Dove said. As Army aviation continues to pursue and include advanced-manufacturing methods, Royar noted the potential impact as the technology evolves. “Advanced manufacturing touches units, depots and the broader supply chain,” Royar said. “As we sustain our enduring aircraft and look to future systems, it is important that we keep pace with this and other emerging technologies for the sake of the warfighter.” https://www.army.mil/article/238868/new_policy_addresses_3d_parts_for_army_aircraft

9/8/2020 By Yasmin Tadjdeh Over the past few years, the Navy has been hard at work building a new family of unmanned surface and underwater vehicles through a variety of prototyping efforts. It is now standing up an integration lab to enable the platforms with increased autonomy, officials said Sept. 8. The Rapid Integration Autonomy Lab, or RAIL, is envisioned as a place where the Navy can bring in and test new autonomous capabilities for its robotic vehicles, said Capt. Pete Small, program manager for unmanned maritime systems. “Our Rapid Autonomy Integration Lab concept is really the playground where all the autonomy capabilities and sensors and payloads come together, both to be integrated ... [and] to test them from a cybersecurity perspective and test them from an effectiveness perspective,” Small said during the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International's Unmanned Systems conference, which was held virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Robotics technology is moving at a rapid pace, and platforms will need to have their software and hardware components replaced throughout their lifecycles, he said. In order to facilitate these upgrades, the service will need to integrate the new autonomy software that comes with various payloads and certain autonomy mission capabilities with the existing nuts-and-bolts packages already in the unmanned platforms. “The Rapid Autonomy Integration Lab is where we bring together the platform software, the payload software, the mission software and test them,” he explained. During testing, the service will be able to validate the integration of the software as well as predict the performance of the unmanned vehicles in a way that “we're sure that this is going to work out and give us the capability we want,” Small said. The RAIL concept will rely on modeling-and-simulation technology with software-in-the-loop testing to validate the integration of various autonomous behaviors, sensors and payloads, he said. “We will rely heavily on industry to bring those tools to the RAIL to do the testing that we require,” he noted. However, the lab is not envisioned as a single, brick-and-mortar facility, but rather a network of cloud-based infrastructure and modern software tools. “There will be a certain footprint of the actual software developers who are doing that integration, but we don't see this as a big bricks-and-mortar effort. It's really more of a collaborative effort of a number of people in this space to go make this happen," Small said. The service has kicked off a prototype effort as part of the RAIL initiative where it will take what it calls a “third-party autonomy behavior” that has been developed by the Office of Naval Research and integrate it onto an existing unmanned underwater vehicle that runs on industry-made proprietary software, Small said. Should that go as planned, the Navy plans to apply the concept to numerous programs. For now, the RAIL is a prototyping effort, Small said. “We're still working on developing the budget profile and ... the details behind it,” he said. “We're working on building the programmatic efforts behind it that really are in [fiscal year] '22 and later.” The RAIL is part of a series of “enablers” that will help the sea service get after new unmanned technology, Small said. Others include a concept known as the unmanned maritime autonomy architecture, or UMAA, a common control system and a new data strategy. Cmdr. Jeremiah Anderson, deputy program manager for unmanned underwater vehicles, said an upcoming industry day on Sept. 24 that is focused on UMAA will also feature information about the RAIL. “Half of that day's agenda will really be to get into more of the nuts and bolts about the RAIL itself and about that prototyping effort that's happening this year,” he said. “This is very early in the overall trajectory for the RAIL, but I think this will be a good opportunity to kind of get that message out a little bit more broadly to the stakeholders and answer their questions.” Meanwhile, Small noted that the Navy is making strides within its unmanned portfolio, citing a “tremendous amount of progress that we've made across the board with our entire family of UVS and USVs.” Rear Adm. Casey Moton, program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, highlighted efforts with the Ghost Fleet Overlord and Sea Hunter platforms, which are unmanned surface vessels. The Navy — working in cooperation with the office of the secretary of defense and the Strategic Capabilities Office — has two Overlord prototypes. Fiscal year 2021, which begins Oct. 1, will be a particularly important period for the platforms, he said. “Our two Overlord vessels have executed a range of autonomous transits and development vignettes,” he said. “We have integrated autonomy software automation systems and perception systems and tested them in increasingly complex increments and vignettes since 2018.” Testing so far has shown the platforms have the ability to perform safe, autonomous navigation in according with the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, or COLREGS, at varying speeds and sea states, he said. “We are pushing the duration of transits increasingly longer, and we will soon be working up to 30 days,” he said. “Multi-day autonomous transits have occurred in low- and high-traffic density environments.” The vessels have already had interactions with commercial fishing fleets, cargo vessels and recreational craft, he said. The longest transit to date includes a round trip from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast where it conducted more than 181 hours and over 3,193 nautical miles of COLREGS-compliant, autonomous operation, Moton added. Both Overload vessels are slated to conduct extensive testing and experimentation in fiscal year 2021, he said. “These tests will include increasingly long-range transits with more complex autonomous behaviors,” he said. "They will continue to demonstrate automation functions of the machinery control systems, plus health monitoring by a remote supervisory operation center with the expectation of continued USV reliability." The Sea Hunter will also be undergoing numerous fleet exercises and tactical training events in fiscal year 2021. “With the Sea Hunter and the Overlord USVs we will exercise ... control of multiple USVs, test command-and-control, perform as part of surface action groups and train Navy sailors on these platforms, all while developing and refining the fleet-led concept of operations and concept of employment,” Moton said. https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/9/8/navy-testing-new-autonomy-integration-lab

Marc Boucher July 31, 2020 Business, News Leave a comment An email was recently circulated from the U.S. Embassy in Montreal regarding a new competition jointly organized by U.S. and the UK called the International Space Pitch Day that is open to “space entrepreneurs” around the world. The registration questionnaire deadline for the International Space Pitch Day is Wednesday, August 19, 2020 7:00 a.m. EDT (12:00 p.m. BST). Proposals must then be submitted by 7:00 a.m. EDT (12:00 p.m. BST) on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2020. The email provides the following information: The International Space Pitch Day is a joint U.S. – UK initiative that aims to find, fund and fast-track innovation and technology that gives advantage to military operations in space. The competition is open to innovators from all over the world and delivered through the UK Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA). The endeavour is jointly funded by the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), Royal Air Force and the U.S. Air Force. A grand coalition of Dstl, DASA, Royal Air Force, UK Strategic Command, the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Space Force, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has been assembled to find, fund, and fast-track the best ideas from start-up innovators to the front line. The competition is seeking solutions to six challenges set by the U.S. and UK Space teams: Visualisation of key events and information for combined space operations with allies and commercial partners. Understanding current satellite systems relevant to the operations of a particular commander. Understanding the present and potential impact of space weather on users across all domains. Provision of training against realistic threats and opportunities, incorporating live data, and integrating space across multiple domains. Enabling common and user-defined operational pictures to support multi-national space domain awareness and command and control. A verification and comparison tool for Space domain awareness, which can take orbital observation data from a variety of sources and in a variety of formats and produce a single, reliable operational picture. £800k (approximately US$1M) is available to fund up to 15 proposals, with a maximum value of £53k (approximately US$67k) each. The duration of each of the funded projects is to be no longer than 3 months.

AGILITY PRIME The Air Force recently launched Agility Prime, a non-traditional program seeking to accelerate the commercial market for advanced air mobility vehicles (i.e., "flying cars"). Leveraging unique testing resources and revenue generating government use cases for distributed logistics and disaster response, the government plans to mitigate current commercial market and regulatory risks. Agility Prime also aims to bring together industry, investor, and government communities to establish safety and security standards while accelerating commercialization of this revolutionary technology. This program will create a unique opportunity for manufacturers with various capabilities, to become part of the supply chain for the major primes for the air mobility vehicles. Innovative Capabilities Opening, below, establishes a rapid contracting mechanism beginning in 2020 with a “Race to Certification” series to drive government procurement of operational capability by 2023. If you are interested and believe your organization has the ability to participate in the air mobility market please click on the link: http://www.agilityprime.com/#/sttr Questions about this program contact: Dave.Nestic@wright.edu Questions about OAI programs contact: kimholizna@oai.org

Le groupe d'armement britannique BAE Systems vient de dévoiler une nouvelle «smart factory» à Warton, au Nord-Ouest de l'Angleterre, pour fabriquer l'avion de combat furtif de sixième génération Tempest. BAE Systems souhaite produire 30% des composants gr'ce à l'impression 3D, et réaliser plus de 50% de l'assemblage gr'ce à des robots intelligents, selon Les Echos. L'objectif est de réduire fortement les coûts et les délais du programme. Les Echos du 23 juillet

By: Andrew Chuter LONDON – The U.K. and U.S. governments have turned to startups and inventors in a competition to adapt commercial technology solutions to answer pressing challenges in the military space sector. The two countries have jointly put up £1 million, or $1.3 million, to tap into potential new ideas in six technology areas from small companies, innovators and others around the world. The finalists will face a beauty parade in front of senior British, American and NATO military officials at a space conference scheduled to take place in London in November. Up to 15 proposals will be selected to go forward with further work on what is being called International Space Pitch Day. Launching the scheme, the U.K.'s first-ever, recently appointed director for space matters, Air Vice-Marshal Harv Smyth, said the initiative is “all about fast-tracking innovation and cutting-edge technology to the front line quicker than ever before, and fresh ways of working with industry to make sure we stay ahead of our shared adversaries and the threats they pose.” Smyth will be one of the judges at the conference, which will be held virtually if the live event is cancelled. The format will be the first international collaboration of its kind between two allies, the Ministry of Defence said. Organizations who make it through to the space conference final will be in contention to secure a $66,000 contract from the judges to speed up development of what is expected to be mainly commercial innovations and technology. The effort, run by Britain's Defence and Security Accelerator organization, is funded by the U.K. Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the Royal Air Force and the US Air Force. The aim is to find, fund and fast track innovations by tech startups and other experts in order to accelerate the development of commercial space technology s to solve problems in the defense space sector. This year's competition is seeking solutions to six challenges set by the U.K. and U.S. space teams: Visualization of key events and information for combined space operations with allies and commercial partners. Understanding current satellite systems relevant to the operations of a particular commander. Understanding the present and potential impact of space weather on users across all domains. Provision of training against realistic threats and opportunities, incorporating live data, and integrating space across multiple domains. Enabling common and user-defined operational pictures to support multinational space domain awareness and command and control. A verification and comparison tool for space domain awareness, which can take orbital observation data from a variety of sources and in a variety of formats and produce a single, reliable operational picture. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/07/22/us-uk-launch-military-space-competition-for-startups

Because open-source software lacks the same kind of cyber certification that comes with more sensitive information, it is fertile ground for start-ups looking to work on military data, provided each service makes an open-source library available. By KELSEY ATHERTONon July 20, 2020 at 7:01 AM ALBUQUERQUE: Venture capitalists want the Pentagon to be a good market. But for an industry that makes many unsuccessful bets in the promise that just a few pan out spectacularly, marketing software exclusively to the Pentagon poses an almost unacceptable risk. To ease startups into contracting, investors suggest the Army should provide unclassified, open-source data as the Air Force already does. Near the top of his investors' wishlist, says Stu Solomon, CTO of intelligence provider Recorded Future, is removing “a lot of the friction necessary to get innovation into the government without having to be directly aligned or affiliated with the big solution integrators.” Hitching new technology to a company already firmly ingrained in the Pentagon's ecosystem is a popular way to shepherd new software through the acquisitions process. It is also partly explains how, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in military contracts going to Silicon Valley companies, tech adoption seems as slow from the Valley as elsewhere. Solomon's remarks came during a panel at AFCEA's 2020 AFCEA Army Signal conference. Recorded Future was founded in 2008, received early funding from IN-Q-TEL, received a contract from DIU in 2017, and a contract from Cyber Command in 2020. Much of Recorded Future's product is built on ingesting open-source information and offering analysis. As a feature, that meant the company could sustain itself in the commercial market, selling enterprise software, while still planning long-term to contract with the military, DHS, and intelligence services. “If you think this is eventually going to be a market that matters to you, you're not going to be able to wait four years for the procurement process to mature as your product matures,” said Elizabeth Lawler, founder of Founder of AppLand. If a startup's focus is solely on processing classified data, the capital investors need to be aligned directly with that goal to fund it since getting certified to handle classified material is one of the major sources of cost and friction. “My current startup, focused on providing real-time up-to-date software images, works on things that are less sensitive as a starting point,” said Lawler, “for example, some of the code bases in the Air Force's open source code repository.” Because open-source software lacks the same kind of cyber certification that comes with more sensitive information, it is fertile ground for start-ups looking to work on military data, provided the service makes an open-source library available. “When it comes to this Valley of Death, I really view what we do when we start companies as an awful lot like a really difficult special forces mission,” said Andy Palmer, co-founder and CEO of data management company Tamr. “When you go in, you drop onto the ground to start a company, with a small team of people, and limited resources, and what oftentimes feels like an unreasonable objective. It's hand to hand combat for much of it, it's not pretty. The goal is survival.” So, if the Army wants to bring new data tools to the battlefields of the future, it could start by creating open-source environments that allow companies to solve problems, at a smaller scale and without the hurdles of classification, suggested several panelists. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/startups-need-free-data-to-work-with-army-venture-capitalists/

Jens Flottau July 14, 2020 Guillaume Faury became CEO of Airbus Group in April 2019 after just over a year as president of the company's commercial aircraft business. With only one year in the job behind him, the 52-year-old has to steer Airbus through the worst crisis commercial aviation has ever faced, cutting costs where possible while protecting substance where needed. Faury met with Aviation Week Executive Editor for Commercial Aviation Jens Flottau at Airbus headquarters in Toulouse. With air travel all but impossible throughout the spring, it was their first in-person meeting in several months. AW&ST: You cut production by around 40% to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. When do you expect a recovery? We don't think we'll see 2019 delivery rates again before 2023 to 2025. We made a very early [production cut] in the beginning of April because we had to. There was a lot of guessing and assumptions, but it turned out we were not too wrong. We still will be making minor adjustments, as in normal times. We have growing clarity for the short term—2020 and 2021. It's more difficult to assess when the recovery will come. The single-aisle market will recover before the widebodies. So your initial guess was pretty accurate? For the short term, yes. We still think that 40 narrowbodies per month is the right rate for 2020 and 2021. It might change a bit, but not significantly. I am not suggesting I know where it will be in 2024. I don't. We have models and are preparing to be able to ramp up again. It is likely that the recovery will see massive demand, so the ramp-up will have to be steep. I see that in 2022 or 2023, a bit later for widebodies. But we have to be super-humble. The shape of the traffic recovery itself is still to be seen. There should be a relatively stable recovery in the summer and the second half for domestic flights, and long-distance travel should have largely recovered by the middle of next year. This is the kind of timeframe we need on the traffic side for us to resume 2019 deliveries between 2023 and 2025. Are you assuming a second coronavirus wave in your models? There will be small second waves, but we are not assuming a major second wave next winter as big as 2020 in terms of impact on traffic. As long as there is no vaccine, there will be ups and downs, small confinements and reopenings. You plan to eliminate 15,000 positions within one year. To what extent is there a danger that Airbus is losing substance and experience that it needs once the demand returns? We cannot escape the developments affecting the airlines and the industry as a whole. This crisis is unprecedented, and its scale requires us to adapt quickly to the new market environment to secure the future of our company. Going through this transition, we will work with our social partners in order to limit the social impact of our COVID-19 adaptation plan. We will rely on the full set of measures available while retaining our skills, competences and know-how as much as possible so we can be ready to meet our customer demand when the market recovers. You are still in the middle of deferral discussions with your customers. We are working with all customers. There are as many different situations as we have customers, and it changes almost every day. The situation is extremely difficult. Any new agreement will be painful but has to be acceptable for everyone. That is the balance we need to strike. There was a point in time when the customers really had difficulties defining the way forward. They were grounded; some of them had no liquidity for the coming months. They had to go through their own crisis management. The timing differed, depending where on the globe they were based and when they were impacted by COVID-19. Some now have a defined battle plan, and others are still negotiating the situation. Sometimes we have intermediate agreements with them to gain more time. We are getting more visibility, and everyone is betting on a certain speed of traffic recovery. But we are still negotiating with a lot of uncertainties in front of us. EasyJet recently negotiated a very precise agreement with you that detailed the new delivery sequence. Is that the kind of blueprint deal that you are trying to achieve with every customer? Yes, that is what we are trying to achieve with airlines—new contractual agreements that give visibility to the customer and to us. Given reduced production rates, is the current industrial footprint with assembly lines in five different locations sustainable? We will not invest money now to restructure when we know that we have a setup that works. It's more complex than our competitor's, and that comes with benefits that will be very important in a more fragmented world. Being very American in the U.S. in Mobile, Alabama, and being a strong partner in China in Tianjin will have value. Airbus has learned over the years to manage complexity. It is one of our strengths. We have to live with less revenue in the short term, but in the long term aviation will come back. Although Airbus has cut the A330neo production rate to two a month, Faury has confidence in the program in the medium and long term. Credit: H. Gousse/Airbus Speaking of the short term, small aircraft seem to be benefiting from the lower traffic volumes. Do you think that there will be a behavioral shift—with airlines no longer focusing on unit costs but on trip costs and thus smaller aircraft? The business model of airlines is mainly fixed costs and variable revenues. When you are in a stable environment, you are more interested in costs per seat-kilometer. When there is risk, you have to minimize your exposure, therefore you focus on cost per trip and smaller modules. I think that is what we will see for the next few years. Smaller planes on the same routes, point-to-point as much as possible. Small modules with long range are likely to be a winner, at least for a certain period of time. The A220 and the long-range versions of the A321neo should really make a lot of sense, along with the A350 for longer distances. Airbus has cut the A330neo rate to two a month. Its biggest customer, Air Asia X, is facing difficulties, and the in-service fleet is relatively young. Is the program now in question? No. The rates are lower, but some of the production slots are for military variants, which de-risks the program. The A330neo is not more impacted than others. It's an aircraft with good economics. That we had to cut rates now doesn't say anything about the medium and long term. We'll stick with that product, to be very clear. On top of COVID-19, Boeing is also facing the problems with the 737 MAX. Will that lead to a permanent shift of market share in Airbus' favor? We have seen so many changes since the end of 2018, when Boeing was unreachable, that we have to remain humble. We are focusing on our customers and not really thinking about market share for the moment. Obviously, today's market share reflects the grounding of the MAX, but Boeing is working on getting it back into service, and when it is, the picture will change again. Are you concerned that Boeing might somehow find the money to launch a clean-sheet successor to the MAX sooner than expected? That question was on the table before COVID-19, but the pandemic is pushing it off the table. I don't see anyone launching a new plane with this level of uncertainty on so many fronts, in particular a competitor [focused on] returning the MAX to service. It is for them to say what they intend to do, but I think their priority is somewhere else. How much will Airbus benefit from the termination of Boeing's deal to acquire a controlling share of Embraer's commercial aircraft business? It depends on what happens. They will have to find a way forward. Their previous plan was to sort of mirror what we did with the A220, and it made sense from my point of view. Events have led to a different situation. This raises questions for Boeing probably to a bigger extent than for Embraer. The French and German governments released financial support packages for the industry that are tied to technology targets. Will these force the industry to accelerate innovation? We played a role in the discussions with the government. [The package] is designed to develop the technologies to prepare for the next generation. Obviously, the post-COVID-19 world will be even more focused on the environment. We're not being forced; it is an opportunity. It is not designed to launch programs and therefore not related to your question about a new plane. It is designed to prepare the launch of a new plane at a later stage with a package of technologies that does not exist today and that we need to develop and mature. COVID-19 is in some respects slowing us down [in making] big investments for which you need certainty and visibility. But it is an accelerator when it comes to increasing your agility and flexibility to adapt to future trends. So, it seems the first target is a regional aircraft? Ah, people are trying to give different names to what we are doing. We are focusing on technologies, designed for the next generation of planes. It has not been decided what will be the first program. It will probably be at the low end of the market, but I can't tell you where. But there is a timeline the French government has defined? Ask them. I can tell you what we discussed with them and what we think is reasonable. It is the entry into service of the first fully decarbonized plane by 2035. It is really something I believe in because it means launch of the program in 2027 or 2028. We have to mature the technologies by 2025; then you have two years to prepare the launch, consult the suppliers, define the general architecture and work the business case. Will the aircraft cover the whole range of the narrowbody segment, from the A319 to the A321XLR? Probably not. Single-aisle is now a very broad segment. Our competitor wanted to cover it with a MAX and the [new midmarket airplane]. We would be wrong to try to think of the aircraft of the future by looking at today's structure of the market. There seems to be a push toward hydrogen technology rather than electric flying. Yes. However, the two are not opposed. A hydrogen car is an electric car with the energy stored in hydrogen instead of batteries. The difference is not the powerplant, but in energy storage. When we go to hydrogen in aviation, we have two different ways to use it on board. One would be to burn hydrogen and the other to run on a fuel cell, which is like a car or train powerplant on a plane, with many more constraints. Airbus and Rolls-Royce launched the E-Fan X demonstrator project in 2017 to explore electric propulsion, but Airbus ended the project in late April, saying it “has developed a more focused roadmap on how to progress on our ambitious decarbonization commitments.” Credit: Airbus Which option do you prefer? We don't know yet. They probably don't have the same timeframe, complexity or investment requirement. That's why we're looking at different routes. We can accelerate [the process] by looking at all of them at the same time. There is more investment going into innovation now and not only in aviation. There is cross-fertilization with other means of transport. We are on the hydrogen council with many other industries including cars, shipping, energy—everybody is there. Without COVID-19 and the government initiatives it triggered, would you have talked about entry into service in 2035? We were already on the 2035 assumptions. I think I said a year ago that in order to reach our target to halve emissions by 2050, we needed entry into service around 2035 of planes that are significantly decarbonized. The acceleration is probably around the idea that we are pursuing several paths in parallel, which is not necessarily what we had in mind six months ago. How hopeful are you that European defense cooperation is going to stabilize your military business? Eurodrone is going in the right direction and paves the way for the [Future Combat Aircraft System (FCAS)], which is going from a German-French cooperation to a German-French-Spanish project. These are real European defense projects in which Airbus plays a big role. I think we have the DNA to make them successful. Europe feels the need to prepare for the sovereignty of the future, which includes the air and space power to protect your territory from the skies. I am very happy and optimistic that this is moving forward. What is happening [politically with the U.S.] unfortunately accelerates the fragmentation of the world, leading to the need to protect ourselves—to ensure the security of Europe with European means and tools and systems. It makes a lot of sense for us to be in defense, space and helicopters. A year ago, I made a firm statement that we are an aerospace group that is not only about commercial aviation. This crisis proves that it is very important to have different pillars and maybe grow defense and space more than before. Life in France is slowly returning to normal after the COVID-19 lockdown. How has your daily routine changed? We all went through the same experience, adapting week by week. What was particular to Airbus is that we are exposed to the rules of the many, many countries in which we are operating. One of the many challenges we had to face when we put together a crisis group to handle the situation was getting access to all the different rules. We have a very complex and synchronized supply chain, and with countries introducing lockdowns at different times and with different rules, it was super-complex. We largely had to work remotely. One of the big risks during the lockdown was losing control of the production system. Were you mainly in Toulouse? I was stuck in Paris at the very beginning, then I was in Toulouse, and then I started to commute. We had to organize private aircraft so we could bring the management team together. Now we are traveling again on commercial airlines. https://aviationweek.com/ad-week/video-interviews/airbus-ceo-faury-sees-huge-uncertainties-market-recovery