00:00Hello and welcome to this new roundup of summer aviation, defense and space news.
00:05On the menu this week, the A350 braking distance records the Chinese winning more and more
00:11export contracts for their fighter jets, the flight of the world's largest electric plane
00:15and SpaceX braking records.
00:17But first, let's start with the combat drone projects that are multiplying all over Europe.
00:22First, Saab has just unveiled for the first time a full-scale model of its combat drone
00:28currently called the A300-1.
00:31The idea is to develop an aircraft capable of accompanying the Gripen on the most dangerous
00:35missions, such as electronic warfare, suppression of enemy air defense systems, but also precision
00:41strikes.
00:42And it's aiming for entry into service around the mid-2030s, so we're seeing the future
00:46combat ecosystem that would accompany the Gripen with this low-observable, highly autonomous
00:51drone becoming increasingly clear.
00:53The second story in this section is about the British with BAE systems and the British
00:58authorities who have unveiled the Brantanax, which literally means the King of Thunder.
01:03It's a prototype combat drone, the aircraft is about the size of a Hawk fighter, and it's
01:08meant to quickly test new air combat technologies in order to increase combat mass at a lower
01:12cost, while avoiding exposing crews on the most dangerous missions.
01:17So we have four competing projects in Europe.
01:19The one from Airbus, which I made a video about, the successor to the French Neuron, which is
01:23also expected to arrive in the mid-2030s, this Swedish project and this British project.
01:28But the difference with the Brantanax is that here we're not just looking at an artist's
01:31impression.
01:32The prototype exists, and its first flight is scheduled for 2027.
01:36And the goal here is to have a drone with an open and modular architecture, to make it
01:41a platform that will be scalable and able to adapt, with different sensors, weapons, and
01:46different missions to be able to accompany the Eurofighter Typhoon as quickly as possible, and then
01:51later with a 6th generation fighter, the J-CAP, which is currently a project mainly organized
01:55by Great Britain, in cooperation with Japan and Italy, but which is currently gaining new support
02:02with an additional partner through Canada, which is officially obtaining observer status.
02:07While both Australia and India have officially expressed their interest in the project,
02:12and so we see a group foaming around the British and GEP, a very heavyweight player
02:17that could have a significant impact in the field of 6th generation fighter jets after
02:212040, we're switching to a completely different category, and now looking at China with the
02:27company Coolfly, which has just unveiled the Urban.
02:30It's a small electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft designed for individual flight,
02:34and its unique feature is that you pilot it standing up.
02:37And according to the manufacturer, it only takes about 10 minutes to learn how to use it,
02:42and since it's classified as an ultralight, it wouldn't require a pilot's license in most countries.
02:48The propellers are shrouded to improve safety, and unlike many EVTOL projects, the goal isn't
02:54really to make it a flying taxi for commuting, because Coolfly is primarily targeting the leisure market.
02:59We're staying in electric aviation with a record with the first flight of the X61 from Hurt Aerospace,
03:04which took place on August 12th, and it's the largest battery-powered electric airplane ever to fly,
03:10with a wingspan of 32.3 meters and a takeoff weight of over 11.3 meters.
03:15The aircraft flew for 27 minutes up to about 1,100 feet in altitude, with electric propulsion
03:21developing over 1 megawatt, so this demonstrator is mainly intended to prepare for the development
03:25of the ES-30, which is a 30-seat hybrid electric regional aircraft, and Hurt Aerospace is planning
03:30flight tests of the pre-production aircraft as early as 2028, followed by certification for entry
03:35into service in 2031. And since we're talking about new developments and first flights,
03:39well, it has to be said, Kepler, the Kepler 72, the water bomber aircraft we've been following here
03:44on the channel, the first prototype made its maiden flight in Toulouse, this French project,
03:50to convert ATR-72s into water bomber aircraft, to quickly support the Canadairs and Q400s used by our
03:57firefighters, but which are not available in sufficient numbers today. And so, this first flight is a
04:02particularly important step for this project, as we are gradually moving from the design phase to the
04:06phase of real-world demonstration. And now the aircraft will be able to be modified to receive
04:11its drop system, which is being developed with the fluid dynamics lab. Because it's not just about the
04:16plane, the drop system is also super important for achieving good efficiency. If we now go to the other
04:21extreme, we go to Airbus with the Airbus A350. Ultra long range, which just completed a spectacular flight
04:29since the MSN 707 aircraft flew directly from Melbourne to Toulouse, which is more than 12,460
04:36nautical miles. And it's a flight that lasted, hold on, 24 hours and 24 minutes. This flight is part of
04:43Qantas's project Sunrise, the Australian airline, which aims to operate commercial routes. These flights last
04:4821 hours and 40 minutes, but they need to be able to fly for 23 hours, including safety margins. And
04:54Airbus was able to test fuel management over an extreme duration, the cabin's air conditioning,
04:59as well as the new crew rest compartments. And to achieve this feat, the A351,000 ULR is equipped
05:05with an additional rear central tank of 20,900 liters. And that, of course, is one of the essential
05:10developments needed to make the Sunrise project a success. And while Airbus is pushing its limits in terms
05:16of distance, the Chinese are also making progress on their side with their Comac C919 for the first
05:22time, which is making its first international commercial flight with a route between Beijing
05:26and Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, knowing that since it entered service in May 2023, it had only operated
05:33domestic flights within China. So this is its first international flight. And the Chinese obviously are
05:38relatively slow. Now they've already delivered about 40 of them, which represents in more than two years,
05:43less than a month's production for a manufacturer like Airbus or Boeing. So they're ramping up
05:48production very, very slowly. But still, we need to keep an eye on them and see how far they're going
05:52to progress. And the Comac is an aircraft that's more or less the size of the A319. Now, let's move
05:58on to space. First with SpaceX, which continues to break records. Because there have already been,
06:03in 2026, as of August 30th, 101 successful Falcon 9 launches, including 78 missions that were entirely
06:10dedicated to deploying the Starlink network, which now has more than 11,000 satellites in orbit.
06:16And there are also records in the reuse of components. There's a Falcon 9 first stage that
06:21has already completed 37 flights and therefore 37 successful recoveries. The second space story
06:27comes from China, where the Chinese have, for the first time, reached a new milestone in the race to
06:32catch up with SpaceX with the company Landscape, who for the first time managed to bring back and land
06:38vertically the first stage of the Sun Chi 3 rocket. And it's the first orbital class booster to be
06:44recovered in this way by a Chinese commercial company. And what's impressive is that it was
06:49only the second flight of this rocket. And what if the Chinese managed to turn this recovery into a
06:54sustainable operational capability and quickly reuse their stages? They could also start to reduce some
07:00of the significant lead that SpaceX had gained in terms of costs, launches, and obviously their launch rate.
07:07We'll finish with some news about fighter jets. And once again, we are staying in China because
07:11there's a lot of news this summer, especially with the Chinese J-10s. Because China continues to chip
07:17away at a market that was historically dominated by Russia. In the region, it's about fighter jets
07:22intended for countries that don't buy Western equipment. And Uzbekistan has received its first J-10s,
07:28this Chinese aircraft, with a fleet that could reach up to 24 units. And it's not an isolated case,
07:34since Bangladesh has also reached a preliminary agreement to acquire around 20 J-10s while the
07:38aircraft had obviously already been sold to Pakistan. And Indonesia is currently budgeting
07:43for the purchase of these aircraft. And so it's obviously a particularly interesting revolution,
07:47because it goes far beyond the commercial success of a single aircraft. China is gradually taking
07:52Russia's place among the former Eastern Bloc and former Soviet countries, and so on. And so,
07:58once again, it's bad news for Russia in the industrial sector. I hope you enjoyed the return
08:03of the press reviews. In any case, we've been talking about it for a long time and I've been
08:07saying for a while that we were going to start doing them again. If you like it, if it's successful,
08:11we'll keep doing them every two weeks or every month. We'll see depending on the news. That way,
08:15we'll keep doing it. All the traditional topics that interest you, Ukraine defense innovation.
08:20And that way, we'll have our little regular press review. I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you very
08:25soon.
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