Defense Technology International - October 2007 - (Page 63) What this means is that the antenna array, processing and other components of the Ground Master 400, the first of our new line of land-based air defense radars, will have a high degree of commonality with those of the new Sea Master. The last is, however, a non-rotating system comprising four fixed, staring arrays in an integrated sensor mast designed and developed by Thales. I expect that the Royal Netherlands Navy will be the launch customer, as it has selected the design for its ocean patrol vessel. The first unit of the Ground Master 400 has been ordered by France, and will be deployed by the air force for operational evaluations in mid-2008 and qualification by early 2009. This will be a transportable, rotating 3D air defense radar with a range of 400 km. (215 naut. mi.). Should a customer want a 200-km. or 100-km. version, we would only need to scale down the number of solid-state power blocks in the transmitter, the number of receivers and the processing. How much is Thales investing in the new radar line? Development of the Master family is supported by our French and Netherlands customers. For example, we’ve benefited a lot from the M3R technology demonstrator we’re building for the DGA, as well as from the ballistic missile defense early-warning capability that we demonstrated on the Smart-L long-range radar in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, it was critical that we invest a significant amount of funding and resources ourselves. Thales has committed €70 million ($100 million) of its own money to the development through 2009, and after that we intend to continue the effort by investing €15 million per year to keep our technology state-of-the-art. How will this program affect Thales’ position in the air defense systems market? We aim to be the market leader in Europe and No. 2 worldwide, behind one of the major U.S. companies, by 2010. The market size globally is around €2 billion, of which up to €1-1.5 billion is accessible to Thales. Our target is to achieve €400-500 million in sales every year just for surface radar. This should be possible with the new Ground and Sea Master family plus the legacy products that will continue to be marketed, such as Herakles and Smart-S Mk 2. The naval market is dynamic and THALES AIR SYSTEMS we’re forecasting enormous growth in the land-based air-defense systems market in the next 5-8 years. In France and many other NATO countries, the large air-defense radars that make up the NATO air-defense ground environment need to be replaced—most date back to the early 1970s and 1980s. There is also major interest in the Gulf region, where oil-producing nations are sitting on key assets that must be protected. In China and India we see a major market building for air-defense sensors, air operations centers and for associated networked surface-to-air missile systems. The Master family will produce significant rewards in terms of profitability, but also because it is a key subsystem around which we can sell our integrated multilayer ground-based air-defense systems, air-defense centers and ship combat systems. In land applications, this would see the long-range Ground Master 400 working in a network-centric system that also includes the new Shikra land version of the Smart-S Mk2, new engagementcontrol stations derived from the French army’s Martha system and SAMP-T, Crotale/VT1 and Starstreak surface-to-air missile batteries for medium-, short- and very-short-range engagements. How would you describe Thales Air Systems’ position in the air-traffic management and control market? Outside North America, we are by far the No. 1 player. We have around half of the Asian market, nearly a third of the market in Europe and we’re a major player in Africa and Latin America. We have seen roughly 30% growth per year from the low point of 2003. We’re seeing continued dramatic growth in the sector everywhere, especially in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, where there is an enormous need to control the skies due to the large numbers of aircraft that are being ordered in these regions. Thales has equipped the three main regional centers in China—Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai. In the Gulf region, we are present in every center except Dubai. We are also heavily involved in the new ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) technology, which is being installed in several countries, including Australia, Germany, Italy and now the U.S., through an important contract awarded to an ITT-led team in which Thales participates. The Thales share in that $1.8-billion FAA contract is €135 million. For us it means a major inroad into the U.S. market, which we hope will lead to more business. I 63 www.aviationweek.com/dti OCTOBER 2007 DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL http://www.aviationweek.com/dti
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