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Israel’s aerospace and defence sector has been brought into sharp global focus by the most recent conflicts in Gaza. The Middle Eastern state’s continued existence is a constant exercise in political willpower and defence technology prowess, but hardly before has its technical superiority in the air looked so convincing.
Israel is the country that invented unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and is today the world’s top exporter of the systems, now used by air forces around the world for both spying and “delivering payloads”.
The other preeminent example of Israeli expertise is the Iron Dome missile shield. The ground to air system, detects, intercepts and destroys rockets and artillery fired between 4 and 70km away from populated areas. The system’s effectiveness is hotly contested by experts, but the Israeli government says it neutralised more than 86% of rockets fired into its country from the Gaza Strip during the recent conflict.
This constant threat of bombardment and a succession of conflicts have directed Israeli engineers to develop some of the world’s leading defence and security technology. Companies such as Israeli Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems and Aeronautics have built a fearsome reputation for innovation and quality, thanks mainly to close partnerships with Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF). These firms export the majority of their products. According to recent figures, 80% of Elbit’s products are sold outside of Israel, mainly to Europe and the US. UAV-maker Aeronautics sells 90% of its products in five different continents.
Elbit Systems is known best for its electronics and optical products. But while UAVs and homeland security systems dominate the headlines, the company has also quietly advanced its competencies in the manufacture of civil aerospace components to a market leading position.
Elbit Systems' Hermes UAV is one of the best-known UAVs in the world
Indeed, engineers from the firm’s Cyclone division are proud of the composite winglet they show me, which is 30% lighter, stronger and more flexible than existing designs, and also has the option of having a built-in leading edge made from composite material.
Furthermore, by integrating more of the structures and assembly, Eithan Cohen, senior director of Business Development and Marketing, says the firm can slash labour costs for the part by almost a third.
The winglet is made in two pieces and co-cured outside of the autoclave. The frames aren't riveted - the upper and lower layers are locked into each other and the stiffeners integrated into the skin. This eliminates the need for a honeycomb structure in the composite with metal in-between the layers.
Cohen says: “We cold cure the stiffening and fastening elements together with the skin. It's in-autoclave technology and requires very sophisticated tooling to make the two pieces. To cold cure together takes some know-how. The IP is all in the manufacturing process.”
The winglet can be used in both the civil and defence markets and Elbit is working with one of the major aircraft OEMs at integrating the winglet.
Similarly the company has developed an aileron that is cured using resin transfer moulding and is 30% lighter than the original composite aileron. The aileron has composite hinges, where only the bushing inside is metallic. The hinges are cold cured separate to the main structure, and then locked into place using a patented geometric structure and cold cured together. Cohen says that in torsion tests, the hinges are around 10 times stronger than in the original part - the screw in the hinge breaks before the hinge. “There are no rivets to disrupt the airflow. Aerodynamically the smooth surface is better,” he says.
Most innovation in Cyclone is around improving its manufacturing capabilities because around 90% of its work is build to print supplied by aircraft OEMs. Despite this, the company has a growing competency in design. A recent example is the development of Elbit’s Dircam system, which was made topical last month after Flight MH17 was tragically shot down in Ukrainian airspace. Dircam is a countermeasure mounted onto aircraft for ground to air missiles, such as shoulder-launched Manpads (Man-portable air-defense systems). The system has been a mandatory requirement by the Israeli government on all the Israeli commercial aircraft since 2002, when terrorists attempted to blow up an Israeli aircraft in Kenya.
The Cmusic Dircam system has been fitted to several commercial aircraft
Working with Elbit Elop, which developed the electrical optical solutions, Cyclone has installed Dircam on eight different derivatives of Boeing, Airbus and ATR aircraft. Dircam works by directing a laser beam at the missile's heat-seeking detection sensor to draw the weapon off-course. Cyclone designed the composite pod and integrated it mechanically and electrically, and recertified the aircraft. Cohen says one of the major challenges was aerodynamics: “To add something like that to the belly of an aircraft you add drag. The system was adding about 5% of drag to the aircraft. Our engineers aerostructurally reduced the drag to 0.5%.
“We have major capabilities in aerostructure design, mostly composite. We're less involved in metallic structure design, because we can manufacture composites in-house and we have a lot of the know-how. We are not a typically engineering company. When we design it we are doing it through the eyes of a manufacturing company.”
The Dircam system would not have helped Flight MH17, but like UAVs, it is another area where advances made in Israel because of its volatile situation environment, create technological advances that benefit the global aerospace sector. The world may look on with horror at the repeated series Israeli-Gaza conflicts, but it also reaps the technological rewards.