70 | Flight International | 11-17 June 2019 flightglobal.com
PARIS
Special report
As national defence grows ever more reliant on exotic technologies and non-traditional
concepts, legacy aerospace contractors are under growing pressure from innovative rivals
New-age warfare
DAN THISDELL LONDON
W
hile visitors to the Paris air
show naturally focus much of
their attention on aircraft – big
and shiny or black and stealthy,
thundering, manoeuvrable and headline-
grabbing – much of that attention is misplaced,
at least in the realm of military aviation. In
short – and it is an argument that has been
heard for some years now – the platform
matters little; the electronics are what count.
And, if systems superseding aircraft is a long-
running trend, it is a trend that is accelerating.
That is an inescapable conclusion from a
report recently published by PwC. The latest
in the consultancy’s chief executive survey
series, Aerospace and Defence Trends 2019,
describes defence companies as “facing a
crisis that they cannot afford to ignore”.
That crisis is felt, concludes PwC, globally
- because, everywhere, “defence ministries
are revising their military capabilities and
doctrines for the 21st century – and focusing
on new technologies for complex weapons
platforms and cybersecurity protection”.
Moreover, defence departments are attracted
to innovation because they are looking for an
edge from exotic technologies that do not
translate into traditional airpower properties
like speed, range, stealth or payload. Think
instead “artificial intelligence, connected
devices, novel power systems, autonomous
platforms, virtual reality and synthetics”.SHIFTING BALANCE
What the aerospace industry needs to grapple
with, then, is the fact that “the latest break-
throughs and the most adaptable advances in
these technologies are typically driven by and
available from non-aerospace and defence
companies; namely, the innovation clusters
that are expanding their influence in virtually
every large global seat of power”.
This trend towards focusing big expecta-
tions on high-tech innovation is seen clearly
in China – where technology companies are
“compelled to work with government agen-
cies to develop cyberweapons and informa-
tion systems that could proactively upsetenemy intentions”. In Russia, notes PwC,
heavy spending on artificial intelligence mili-
tary programmes is being channelled through
the country’s top technology companies.
In the USA, meanwhile, “brand name
American technology companies like Micro-
soft and Amazon have had numerous con-
tracts with the military in recent decades”.
Likewise, Oracle and IBM are competing for a
“massive” 10-year, $10 billion enterprise
cloud project for the Department of Defense
(DoD). “Tellingly,” advises PwC, “none of the
providers of cloud-based services to the DoD
or UK Ministry of Defence are part of the lega-
cy defence contractor base”.
And, concludes PwC: “Over the foreseeable
future, defence companies will continue to
face increased competition from non-tradition-
al commercial entrants.” Much of the impetus
for this trend is the increasing viability of
dual-use technologies. One prime example is
access to space; both SpaceX and Blue Origin- Amazon boss Jeff Bezos’s rocket company –
are suppliers to the US Air Force (USAF).
US practice aerospace and defence leader
Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin has emerged
as a non-traditional USAF supplierBlue Origin/Via Zuma Wire/REX/Shutterstock