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IDEX 2017: Pro-active support offer for high tempo Patriot
21st February 2017 - 12:00by
Tim Fish in Abu Dhabi
The increased use of the
Patriot air defence system by Middle East countries means that the maintenance and sustainment requirements become more urgent.
Therefore system manufacturer Raytheon is putting together a support package that can keep the Patriot operational and upgrade it if required.
Joseph DeAntona, VP of business development for Integrated Air and Missile Defence at the company told
Shephard at IDEX 2017 that an example of normal Patriot usage is about 600-1,000 hours a year – whereas some customers have a much
higher operational tempo of about 4,000 hours – a four-fold increase.
'This will put on demand issues in sustainment. These are to do with supply, repair parts, upgrades/modifications and the training associated with modifications,' he explained.
'We are putting this into a formal capability but looking at the specific requirements of a customer country and how they are using their Patriot system and tailor a package for them.'
Patriot operators in the Middle East include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. Existing methods of sustainment are reactive, which means when a problem occurs it will get fixed by ordering the parts to be delivered and for the work to be done in field or by taking the system back to base.
What Raytheon is proposing is to make this arrangement more pro-active by assessing the mean time before failure (MTBF) of elements of the system under their increased operational tempo. The system can therefore be maintained in advance to meet the support demands and preventing failures, keeping it in the field and available for operations for longer.
DeAntona said that Middle East countries are leading the Patriot sustainment effort with the company validating its package for these customers and is in discussions.
He added that any Patriot developments are fed into the 13 nation partnership of Patriot operators who all contribute to the pool and benefit from new advances. Contributions are based on the number of fire units a country operates and there are about 220 out there at the moment.
One of the upgrades available is the addition of AESA Gallium Nitride (GaN) radar technology offering 360° surveillance capability. DeAntona said that the air-breathing threat is increasing, which means that an attack from a variety of platforms – from cruise missiles to aircraft to unmanned systems – can come from a variety of different directions and this needs to be countered. He said that the ballistic missile threat is also continuing to grow.
'As an operator, it means you can see farther and wider and defend more airspace at lower cost,' DeAntona said.
He said that the AESA radar with GaN technology improves redundancy with changes to the cooling system, power supply and takes out 21 of 25 items that could impact the readiness of the Patriot system. Raytheon makes its own GaN at its foundry in Andover guaranteeing security of supply.
Raytheon is in discussion with its Middle East customers, which are interested in the latest capabilities and are the 'most valuable' to the company as they are the ones that can usually afford to implement the latest advances. DeAntona said there was 'unanimous interest' and that the US Government has given permission for AESA GaN technology to discussed with customers.
https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/...017-pro-active-support-offer-high-tempo-patr/
