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UMEX 2022: Despite the United Arab Emirates withdrawing its letter of acceptance on a US weapons package that included 18 MQ-9B SkyGuardian unmanned aerial vehicles, General Atomics remains hopeful that a deal can still happen. The goal, a top company official said Wednesday, is to get the larger Foreign Military Sales (FMS) package broken up into individual offerings, which would split the GA drone sale from the F-35 joint strike fighter package the latter of which has emerged as a flashpoint as the US tries to get the UAE to abandon a 5G deal with China. “We are here to display the aircraft and keep the negotiations moving forward,’ David Alexander, GA’s president for aircraft systems, told Breaking Defense Wednesday at the Unmanned Systems Exhibition and Conference (UMEX) in Abu Dhabi. “We are at a stage of negotiations where we are going over the configurations that they (UAE) want, because this can be configured in so many styles to do various missions and so it comes wi ....
UMEX 2022: Insitu is engaged in discussions with a number of Arab Gulf nations with eyes on joint research and development projects, including proposals to build building on the capabilities of some of its current unmanned aerial vehicles in service in the region, particularly the Integrator. “We are well into discussions with our numerous partners among our customer base in the region to ensure, first, that we understand what their localization requirements are,” David Fluker, Insitu’s international business development executive, told Breaking Defense Tuesday at the Unmanned Systems Exhibition and Conference (UMEX) in Abu Dhabi. “We are working diligently with our customers that require localization to make sure that we can achieve” company goals, Fluker added. While he declined to name the countries Insitu is talking with, ScanEagle customers in the region include Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Lebanon. Insitu displayed two of its UAVs, the ScanEagle, and its new Integrator ER (Ex ....