"Hey, Rocko, Help the President Find His Checkbook!"
Our friend Amy Butler over at Aviation Week reports the following:
U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne says his push to garner an extra $20 billion per year to boost the service's procurement plans is "beginning to get some traction" with the White House.
Wynne and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley have consistently told Congress that the extra funding is required to pay for aircraft -- including the F-22, Joint Strike Fighter, future refueling tanker and next-generation combat search and rescue helicopter -- in higher quantities and at lower per unit costs.
"We are actually starting to hear a little bit of melody," on this initiative, Wynne told an audience Nov. 28 at the Aerospace & Defense Finance conference . . .
Mount a mini-gun on a hard SUV and what do you get? I'm not sure but it sure does have a high rate of fire. Heads up, Code Pink bad people who could be viewed as a threat to state officials . . .
-- Ward
BREAKING!!! F-15s Grounded Again
We just got this breaking news at Military.com in a few minutes ago and I wanted to get the word out to DT readers...
An informed DT reader told me this afternoon the Air Force had re-grounded its fleet of F-15s after they were returned to flight last week.
Military.com reporter Bryant Jordan got the details...
Barely more than a week after returning the F-15 Eagle fleet to flight the Air Force is once again grounding most of the planes, Military.com has learned.
F-15 models A through D -- a total of 442 planes -- were ordered grounded by Air Combat Command,Langley Air Force Base, Va., late on Nov. 27, ACC spokesman Maj. Thomas Crosson said in an interview.
The latest problem is with cracks in the planes' metal support beams, called longerons, that run the length of the aircraft, and make up the sill on which the canopy sits, Crosson told Military.com.
The entire F-15 fleet was ordered grounded in early November after the break up and crash of a Missouri Air National Guard Eagle. The Air Force began lifting the restrictions on the fleet Nov. 19 - starting with F-15E Strike Eagles - following aggressive inspections of the planes.
ACC called for the new groundings after metallurgical analysis of the planes suggested there could be possible cracking problems with the longerons.
Officials now are working at Warner Robins Air Force Base, Ga., to develop an inspection list that will be sent out to F-15 maintainers across the Air Force.
Crosson said the list should be completed in a day or two, and will include a timeframe for how long the actual inspections should take.
He could not say how long it would before the latest restrictions would be lifted from the entire fleet.
-- Christian
Iraqi Spooks Come in from the Cold
From Today's Front Page at Military.com:
The top American official responsible for training the new Iraqi intelligence services said Tuesday that country's spies could be ready to go it alone by the end of next year.
After years of fits and starts, the Iraqi military and ministry of defense intel services are up and running, and, with coalition help, scoring some significant wins against insurgent groups, bombers and cross-border infiltrators.
"I would say by this time next year they would be likely self-sufficient to the extent that within the capability they have, both technical and human, that they can, in fact, collect, analyze and disseminate information to provide support to the Iraqi ground forces," said Dan Maguire, the senior American trainer for Iraqi intelligence services, in an interview with military bloggers Nov. 27.
Maguire said in and around Baghdad the number of targets Iraqi intelligence personnel develop has jumped from less than a dozen per week before this year's troop buildup to an average of 50 to 60 targets per week.
Moreover, Iraqi intel services are now able to go after about 90 percent of the bad guys they finger, where before the surge few targets had hard enough intelligence to nab.
Check out more intel news at Norman Polmar's Spy Corner.
The new intel services have been able to develop their own information, analyze it and grab insurgents using Iraqi military and police forces about 30 percent of the time, "so they are right now on par in terms of going after targets and having success on that with the rest of the coalition forces," Maguire said.
But that doesn't mean Iraqi intelligence services don't have some work to do before the U.S. can cut the cord.
Maguire said his pupils are short on basic signals intelligence technology that can help them intercept enemy communications, there are too few Arabic-language intelligence analysis software options - which hampers the exploitation of the information gained from sources - and there's a lasting suspicion among military commanders that their intelligence personnel are simply spying on them.
"Many commanders view the tactical intelligence organizations in a division as being there to spy on the commanders, because that's their experience or their knowledgeability from the Saddam era days," Maguire explained. "We are working very hard to rectify that by direct interface with division commanders, by recruiting and putting in place G-2s at each of those division levels and working closely with them so that the commander and the G-2 build a bond and a trust so that they can, in fact, utilizes the resources effectively."
At the higher levels, however, Maguire likes what he sees.
"Their joint staff [intelligence officer], and his staff are a very, very competent group of individuals," Maguire said. "We have a new [chief intelligence officer] that's only been in place now for about a month and a half, who is a former officer in the Saddam era, was an instructor at their National War College equivalent institution, a very, very balanced individual, very knowledgeable, very, very good at leading and mentoring his staff. And they are really starting to get it and put it together."
Developing intelligence services from scratch is no easy task, especially with a tough counterinsurgency roiling the country. That's led to an over emphasis on tactical intelligence gathering and exploitation at the expense of strategic spooking.
"They really don't have any resources external to the country that they can rely on to give them what we would expect in our intelligence community, a strategic view of what's going on around them." Maguire said, adding that they have a hard time focusing on how tactical events can have strategic implications.
Maguire said he's put in place a rigorous vetting process, including polygraphs, to make sure no militia or terrorist elements infiltrate the services, and he's working hard to banish the practices of Saddam's dreaded Mukhabarrat from ever returning.
"Our focus has primarily been on developing the tools to collect and analyze, and at the same time taking away or not allowing the tools of suppression to be part of the intelligence institutions," Maguire said. "Now I can't say there's a guarantee. But I think that as we have developed and worked with them over the years now, and we see both the leadership that they have and the manner in which they're conducting the business, that we have a high degree of insurance that they're not going to fall back to their old ways."
NATO is desperately short of attack and transport helicopters that can support its International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, senior sources in NATO Headquarters say. In recent weeks, the alliance has been examining multiple options to correct the shortfall.
Proposals on the table range from improved training and logistic support for deployed helicopters, to a commonly funded modernization of 20-odd Russian-built, Czech-owned Mil Mi-8 Hip transport helos that could then be used to form a multinational transport pool for Afghanistan-type operations.
Representatives from several NATO nations will be discussing these options at a seminar in Brussels, a senior European diplomat in NATO Headquarters tells Aviation Week & Space Technology.
"I believe the U.S. will also shortly come forward with specific proposals to help solve this problem," he adds.
The helicopter shortage is the "single biggest operational problem" that is hampering the day-to-day operations of ISAF, a 41,000-strong multinational mission led by NATO and comprising troops from 38 nations, including 14 that are not members of the alliance.
"We’re beseeching, begging, doing everything we can to convince nations to contribute more rotary-wing aviation assets, both transport helicopters and attack helicopters," a Canadian NATO official says.
"It’s not that NATO nations don’t have helicopters. The problem is that they’re very expensive to ship to Afghanistan and to operate and maintain them there. I think there are several nations that prefer to keep their helicopters at home for this reason."
At the Shephard Heli-Power conference in The Hague, operational commanders stressed that ISAF is struggling with a "constant imbalance of demand versus availability of both attack and transport helicopters."
"Without helicopters, operations in southern Afghanistan are not possible. There’s a lack of road infrastructure and a high threat of improvised explosive devices and ambushes by Taliban and other opposing militant forces," says Maj. Gen. Ton van Loon of the Royal Netherlands Army. He returned from Kandahar earlier this year after having commanded ISAF’s Regional Command (RC) South.
Read more about NATO's helo woes from our Aviation Week partners at Military.com.
Moderate temperatures, nearly perpetual sunshine, flat landing areas and subterranean resources make the rim of the Shackleton Crater -- situated within the solar system's largest impact crater -- an ideal location for a lunar homestead, down near the moon's south pole. NASA hopes to send the first pioneers there by 2020.
"Hardscrabble" was what future president Ulysses S. Grant named his ramshackle homestead on the pre-Civil War Missouri frontier. That might be an apt title for NASA's planned lunar outpost, for its residents will find the moon a harsh place to settle. Survival will depend on their ability to evade micrometeoroids, extract oxygen from rocks and even, like Grant, grow wheat.
The space agency announced its strategy to return to the moon last December. Instead of emulating the series of six Apollo landings, it chose as its initial goal the establishment of a single lunar outpost. Using the new crew exploration vehicle, Orion, NASA plans to send four astronauts to the moon as early as 2020 ("Mission: Moon," March '07). Eventually, four-man crews will rotate home every six months. Their goal will be to live off the land, extend scientific exploration and practice for an eventual leap to Mars.
The moon, says NASA, is the place to get our space-suited hands dirty. "The lunar base is part of an overall plan that has legs, that makes sense," says Wendell Mendell, chief of the Office of Lunar and Planetary Exploration at Johnson Space Center. "We're moving the human species out into the solar system."
Learn how NASA plans to build a Moon colony at Military.com.
British army Apache attack helicopters in Afghanistan are the only Apaches in the country that fly with the mast-mounted Longbow radar installed -- and that is giving them a distinctive edge in the NATO-led operations against Taliban and other opposing militant forces, the commander of the unit says.
Lt.Col. Jon Bryant, commanding officer of the Apache-equipped No. 3 Regiment (Army Air Corps) at Wattisham, Suffolk, says that the Longbow radar is "extremely useful in airspace deconfliction terms."
"When on patrol, we are sharing the airspace with other Apaches, Chinooks, Lynxes, fixed-wing aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles," says Col. Bryant, who recently returned from a tour as commanding officer of Britain's Joint Helicopter Force (Afghanistan) at Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan.
Especially at night, the radar helps pilots to build up situational awareness and to prevent getting dangerously close to other aircraft during tactical maneuvers.
See the rest of this article from our Aviation Week partners at Military.com.
-- Christian
PowerSwim May Make SEALs Superhuman
America's underwater special forces ops might not like it at first, but this dolphinlike device, PowerSwim, will let them reach targets fast -- and without having to catch their breath. The device is compatible with standard scuba gear, as well as the front-mounted rebreathers (artist sketch, above) used by special operations personnel to avoid telltale bubble trails.
Humans are terrible swimmers, converting roughly 3 percent of their kicks, strokes and general underwater exertions into forward motion. We can boost our efficiency to 10 percent by adding fins, but dolphins, by comparison, can turn 80 percent of their energy into thrust. Not to be outdone, the Pentagon's research wing, DARPA, is developing a contraption that lets Navy SEALs and other combat divers swim faster, and with less effort.
Instead of kicking, PowerSwim calls for a kind of undulation as its hinged foils pivot up and down. Similar to the way a dolphin or tortoise pumps its fins, this motion generates both lift and thrust. And while artificial fins operate within the swimmer's own wake (they form a kind of expanding cone, starting at a swimmer's shoulders), the PowerSwim's lead foil -- or propulsor foil -- sweeps through the water just outside that wake.
Here's an interesting story we're running at Military.com today. The use of UAVs on an increasing number of Naval platforms is remarkable in its own right. But it seems to me also that as this continues, the size of the platform from which UAVs operate could get smaller and smaller.
Guided-missile destroyer USS Oscar Austin (DDG 79), completed a robust testing phase of the ScanEagle, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), Nov. 17, en route to the Central Command area of operations as part of the ongoing rotation to support Maritime Security Operations.
"ScanEagle is an incredible asset not only for this ship, but the Navy too," said Oscar Austin's Commanding Officer, Cmdr. Eric Weilenman. "It gives me great [subject awareness] on what's around the ship and allows me to keep my visit, board, search, and seizure teams aware of their environment because the UAV provides positive identification on vessels of interest, which allows me to pass accurate security information to my Sailors as they prepare to board."
While in flight, ScanEagle provides live, high-quality video that helps develop and maintain a Recognized Maritime Picture and further enhances Maritime Domain Awareness.
It seems to me that you could walk down this logical path to the Army's Future Combat Systems concept. As the launch and recovery methodologies get more deployable, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine tanks and APCs carrying their own UAVs to survey the road ahead and recover back to the tank.
Contractors operate the UAV while Navy intelligence specialists and flight deck crew work side-by-side with the civilians.
"ScanEagle is launched by a pneumatic wedge catapult launcher and flies off pre-programmed computerized files or operators (like myself) to initiate the mission," said Hamann.
"When retrieved, we use what is called a 'Skyhook' system, where the UAV catches a rope that is hanging from a 50-foot high pole," Hamann added.
The last ship that deployed with ScanEagle, USS Carter Hall (LSD 50), completed 19 missions and 933 flight hours.
The software and back-end technology are there, but maybe it's the bandwidth and launch/recovery phase that are still the sticking points (and money and complexity, ya ya ya...).
Our friends at Av Week have this story so wired, I couldn’t wait to post this update. And, as you well know, I’m a bit obsessed with it.
It now seems that one of Israel’s first shots in its raid into Syria in September was a fusillade of 1s and 0s.
From Aviation Week:
The U.S. was monitoring the electronic emissions coming from Syria during Israel’s September attack; and—although there was no direct American help in destroying a nuclear reactor—there was some advice provided beforehand, military and aerospace industry officials tell Aviation Week & Space Technology.
That surveillance is providing clues about how Israeli aircraft managed to slip past Syrian air defenses to bomb the site at Dayr az-Zawr. The main attack was preceded by an engagement with a single Syrian radar site at Tall al-Abuad near the Turkish border. It was assaulted with what appears to be a combination of electronic attack and precision bombs to enable the Israeli force to enter and exit Syrian airspace. Almost immediately, the entire Syrian radar system went off the air for a period of time that included the raid, say U.S. intelligence analysts.
There was “no U.S. active engagement other than consulting on potential target vulnerabilities,” says a U.S. electronic warfare specialist.
Elements of the attack included some brute-force jamming, which is still an important element of attacking air defenses, U.S. analysts say. Also, Syrian air defenses are still centralized and dependent on dedicated HF and VHF communications, which made them vulnerable. The analysts don’t believe any part of Syria’s electrical grid was shut down. They do contend that network penetration involved both remote air-to-ground electronic attack and penetration through computer-to-computer links.
“There also were some higher-level, nontactical penetrations, either direct or as diversions and spoofs, of the Syrian command-and-control capability, done through network attack,” says an intelligence specialist.
These observations provide evidence that a sophisticated network attack and electronic hacking capability is an operational part of the Israel Defense Forces’ arsenal of digital weapons.
Despite being hobbled by the restrictions of secrecy and diplomacy, Israeli military and government officials confirm that network invasion, information warfare and electronic attack are part of Israel’s defense capabilities.
And the cool thing was that it seems that Israel was able to do this cyber attack from the air.
That ability of nonstealthy Israeli aircraft to penetrate without interference rests in part on technology, carried on board modified aircraft, that allowed specialists to hack into Syria’s networked air defense system, said U.S. military and industry officials in the attack’s aftermath.
Network raiders can conduct their invasion from an aircraft into a network and then jump from network to network until they are into the target’s communications loop. “Whether the network is wireless or wired doesn’t matter anymore,” says a U.S. industry specialist.
And it seems the Syrian government’s self-imposed secrecy was partly to blame for the shut-down.
“The raid on Syria was a strategic signal, not a threat,” says a retired senior military official who flew combat in the region for decades. “This [raid] was about what we perceived are their capabilities [for developing weapons of mass destruction] and about deterrence more than creating damage.”
He contends that Syrian procedures even contributed to the successful bombing raid.
“Part of the vulnerability of the Syrian facility was that they kept it so secret that there weren’t enough air defenses assigned to it,” the official contends.
Be sure to read the rest of this fascinating story and really kick ass reporting HERE.
I got forwarded a little number the other day that I thought DT readers would get a kick out of. I gotta tell you, I still have a thing for the SR-71. I mean, it conjures up all kinds of images of pirated space alien technology, super secret dealings, Cold War spying and raw, unadulterated speed...Shelby Cobra-type speed.
One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. ‘Ninety knots,’ ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. ‘One-twenty on the ground,’ was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was. ‘Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground,’ ATC responded.
The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter’s mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, ‘Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground.’ We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.
And another...
Odd are the thoughts that wander through one’s mind in times like these. I found myself recalling the words of former SR-71 pilots who were fired upon while flying missions over North Vietnam. They said the few errant missile detonations they were able to observe from the cockpit looked like implosions rather than explosions. This was due to the great speed at which the jet was hurling away from the exploding missile.
Just an opportunity to get inside one of these jets in a literary way satisfies my curiosity. Any former Blackbird drivers out there that can add anything to this?
Here's an excerpt from a story running in Military.com's headlines today:
Now that violence in Iraq is abating and other issues are consuming more of the presidential debates, political activists are wondering if the war will prove to be the defining issue that Democrats have long assumed.
Some Democrats say frustrated voters have given up on altering President Bush's handling of the war, and will make Republicans pay in 2008. Others say Democratic candidates are stubbornly and dangerously out of step with an improving situation, and their most promising campaign issue may prove far less potent by next November.
Polls show clearly that most Americans have soured on the war, causing Bush's second-term approval ratings to plummet as congressional Republicans anxiously eye the next election. But it's less clear how many voters are so unalterably angry that they cannot be influenced by other campaign issues, assuming Iraq does not take another dramatic turn for the worse.
While the Iraq situation is somewhat fluid, the top Democratic presidential contenders are locked in their Iraq-is-a-disaster message because anti-war voters play such a huge role in the party's primaries, several politicians said. It's possible the message will sound a bit off-key by mid-2008.
"The Democratic Party has become emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq - reluctant to acknowledge the progress our troops are now achieving," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, a hawkish independent from Connecticut who was the Democrats' vice presidential nominee in 2000. "If Democrats don't take off their ideological and partisan blinders," he said, "they risk compromising our national security and losing next year's election."
So I'm reading this along with stories like this one suggesting we've turned a corner of sorts in Iraq and I'm wondering whether the war will ultimately be the deciding issueof the 2008 election.
An inside source over in Iraq shot me a note yesterday with a link that shows a Marine-produced video telling the story of their assistance in securing routes for Iraqis traveling to the Haaj.
But in it - about half way through - is the first known footage of the Osprey on a deployment. It's just a quick shot, but we'll call it a "proof of life" that the MV-22 is indeed deployed to Iraq and can land safely in the desert (sarcasm).
Also, my bro in Iraq joked with me that he took a ride on an Osprey the other day to the town of Qaim. It was his first time in an Osprey and he was a serious skeptic. On his way back to base, he had to fly aboard a CH-53 and he told me he kept thinking to himself "what the hell is taking so long..." The Osprey's performance changed his mind, as it did for me when I took a ride in one.
Enjoy the footage as you rest up from yesterday's thanksgiving feast.
Here's a little intrigue to wrap your head around while you're waiting for the turkey to cook. Dave Fulghum at Ares Weblog reports the following:
There are new details of Israeli's attack on Syria that suggests the U.S. had knowledge of the event and perhaps some back-channel involvement. The Pentagon was monitoring the electronic emissions coming from Syria during Israel's Sept. 6 attack and, while there was no active Pentagon engagement in the operation to destroy a nuclear reactor, there was advice provided, say military and aerospace industry officials.
An update on the India/Russia 5th gen fighter development from the Dubai air show.
Via RIA Novosti:
...Unfortunately, Russia has so far failed to master production of the purely experimental Su-37, built by Sukhoi at its own expense. Nevertheless, the plane's lay-out makes it possible to streamline various engineering solutions under the Advanced Tactical Aircraft (PAK FA) program.
The United States and Europe spent over $20 billion on the F-35 JSF program. Therefore, experts believe that Russia should team up with a foreign partner in order to develop a fifth-generation fighter. It will take $600-800 million to design the engine, the most expensive element, and another $1.5 billion to launch serial production.
Moscow considered China and India to be the best partners. However, Beijing prefers to develop its own aircraft engines, and India is more interested in state-of-the-art designing methods and does not want to manufacture "ready-made" planes.
Russia and India started negotiating on the joint fifth-generation fighter program in 2003. New Delhi insisted that the new plane be developed from scratch. Moscow was not very happy about this because it implied another highly expensive project.
Apart from outstanding achievements, bilateral military-technical co-operation has been marked by major setbacks and even conflicts. And this explains why it took India so long to get involved in the new fighter program.
Both countries have faced serious problems such as upgrading the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier. Under a bilateral contract, the Indian Navy was to have received the warship in 2008. However, the Admiral Gorshkov will only conduct its trial run from 2010 to 2012.
Moreover, Russian bureaucrats have failed to approve the preparatory documents of the Multi-Role Transport Aircraft (MTA) project during last two years and have nearly stopped it. New Delhi has already said that it could withdraw from the project and develop the MTA together with Brazil or the EU.
Tatyana Shaumyan, head of the Centre of Indian Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Oriental Studies, said Russian red tape, the inadequate fulfillment of contracts and delayed shipments had impaired many aspects of bilateral relations. This is why India is trying to protect itself from such negative developments.
For instance, the national air force floated a global tender for 126 combat jets worth $10 billion. Eighteen of the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) will be purchased in flyaway condition and the remaining 108 manufactured in the country under a transfer of technology (TOT) agreement with the chosen supplier.
The 211-page request for proposal (RFP) has been sent to the manufacturers of six aircraft: the U.S. F-16 and F-18 Super Hornet, the Swedish Gripen, the French Rafale, the Russian MiG-35 and a European consortium's Eurofighter.
Indian engineers and technicians who know all about the Russian aircraft production process will quickly master the relevant technologies.
The Indian leadership seemed inclined to co-operate with the United States and to obtain F-35 JSF know-how. However, Washington, which refuses to share technologies even with its closest allies, offered some rather harsh terms to New Delhi.
This October, Russia and India agreed to jointly develop the fifth-generation fighter and to manufacture it at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Sukhoi Military Aviation Complex plants.
India's Defense Minister A. K. Antony said the agreement heralded a new stage in bilateral co-operation aiming to develop new-generation weapons and military equipment. This will become one of the most ambitious Russian-Indian military programs.
The fifth-generation fighter must retain in-flight stability and control at 90-degree-plus angles of attack. The United States, which faced similar problems, eventually preferred Stealth characteristics and supersonic cruise speeds to super-agility.
The future Russian-Indian warplane would probably out-maneuver any other similar aircraft because the F-22's maneuverability is similar to that of the revamped Su-27 Flanker featuring vectored-thrust engines. This Russian plane features AL-37-FU engines with round rotatable nozzles and can attain supersonic cruise speeds. Its combat efficiency has been enhanced because the Su-27 can bank sharply at high angular speeds and along short trajectories in every plane.
In addition, the fifth-generation fighter will be fitted with advanced avionics, long-range weapons and other radio-electronic equipment for hitting any conceivable target. The Indian electronics industry will provide an invaluable contribution to developing automated electronic counter-measures (ECM) systems, secure data-exchange networks and fire-control systems for long-range tactical missions.
(Gouge: NC)
-- Christian
Congress Flies First Class
With exquisite timing, Boeing chooses a travel weekend that could go down in the annals of airborne horror to deliver a top-of-the-line Boeing Business Jet that will be assigned to Congress -- those folks who have charged billions in air travel taxes over the decades and left us with 1930s blind-landing technology. The jet took off from Seattle this morning for its base at Scott AFB in Illinois.
Midwest and East Coast -- check out this yesterday's Seattle weather in the picture, because it's headed your way.
The C-40C, jam-packed with 40 seats by luxury-jet specialists at Greenpoint Technologies, is the third and last of a batch ordered in 2005. They will be operated by the USAF reserve to carry Congressional delegations around the world.
Funny how nobody in Washington ever mentions these $70 million jets as an example of wasteful defense spending. Or as an example of an unjustified Air Force mission that doesn't support our soldiers on the ground.
From our friends at Aviation Week, now hosted at Military.com.
-- Christian
More Ospreys in Action
In spite of what the Marine Corps has labeled as "an aggressive media silence" around VMM-263's performance in Iraq (couched in "force protection" terms), photos are trickling out that provide evidence of the following:
- The "Thunder Chickens" are flying.
- The area they're flying over is light brown without much, if any, vegitation.
- For some of the sorties the Ospreys are outfitted with a ramp-mounted gun.
To add anything else would be conjecture and journalistically irresponsible. (And you know we hate that.) So just enjoy the cool photos.
(Gouge: KS)
-- Ward
An Explosion of Cost in SARs
In case you all didn't catch this, the Pentagon released its latest Selected Acquisition Report data on pricey defense programs that are likely to bust costs.
You'll find some likely suspects on the list, including the much-maligned Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter, Excalibur shell, the EA-18G Growler and the ever-struggling WIN-T.
Take a look:
ARH (Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter) – The SAR was submitted to report a unit cost increase of approximately 20% higher than the current baseline estimate, which resulted in a “significant” Nunn-McCurdy breach. Program costs increased $1,009.1 million (+18.7%) from $5,390.2 million to $6,399.3 million, due primarily to an increase in airframe manufacturing labor and material costs (+$345.5 million), higher System Development and Demonstration (SDD) costs (+$290.9 million), and implementation of an upgrade to the main rotor system (+205.5 million).
Excalibur – The SAR was submitted to rebaseline the report from a Development to a Production estimate following approval of Low Rate Initial Production (Milestone C) for the Increment Ia-2 in July 2007. Program costs increased $161.6 million (+7.0%) from $2,302.8 million to $2,464.4 million, due primarily to additional funding to support a higher Army Cost Position for the revised Acquisition Program Baseline approved at Milestone C.
WIN-T (Warfighter Information Network-Tactical) Increment 1 – This is the initial SAR for WIN-T Increment 1 program. Following a Nunn-McCurdy breach certification in June 2007 that restructured the original WIN-T program, the WIN-T Increment 1 program (formerly Joint Network Node (JNN)) was initiated in October 2007.
Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) Increment 2 – This is the initial SAR for the WIN-T Increment 2 program. Following a Nunn-McCurdy breach certification in June 2007 that restructured the original WIN-T program, the WIN-T Increment 2 program (Initial Networking on the Move) was initiated in October 2007.
EA-18G – The SAR was submitted to rebaseline the report from a Development to a Production estimate following approval of Low Rate Initial Production (Milestone C) in July 2007. Program costs increased $321.5 million (+3.8%) from $8,368.0 million to $8,689.5 million, due primarily to a quantity increase of five aircraft from 80 to 85 aircraft.
RMS (Remote Minehunting System) – The SAR was submitted to report schedule delays of more than six months. That is, Operational Evaluation (OPEVAL) slipped 15 months from June 2007 to September 2008, because the only Navy platform capable of performing RMS OPEVAL (DDG-96) is unavailable due to the ship’s deployment schedule. There were no cost changes reported.
C-5 RERP (Reliability Enhancement and Reengining Program) – The SAR was submitted to report a unit cost increase of more than 25% to the current baseline estimate and more than 50% to the original baseline, which resulted in a “critical” Nunn-McCurdy breach. Program costs increased $6,168.3 million (+54.4%) from $11,337.9 million to $17,506.2 million, due primarily to a revised program estimate based on an analysis of prime contractor production proposal data, System Development and Demonstration (SDD) actuals, and commercial pricing data.
EELV (Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle) – This will be the final SAR submission for the EELV program, because the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics placed the program into sustainment and removed it from the active Major Defense Acquisition Program (MDAP) list. There were no cost changes reported.
MPS (Mission Planning System) – The SAR was submitted to report schedule delays of more than six months. Specifically, the start of System Development and Demonstration (SDD) (Milestone B) for Increment IV slipped 10 months from February 2006 to December 2007. Program costs decreased $7.0 million (-0.4%) from $1,589.5 million to $1,582.5 million, due primarily to a revised estimate to complete development.
Army logistics used to be "bullets, beans and bandages" but now adds a fourth B, for batteries. The Army estimates that unless something is done, soldiers will been to carry 20 pounds of batteries in their kit, and has launched a Wearable Power competition to solve the problem.
Now, Idaho-based startup Motion 2 Energy says that it has a solution to the problem: a generator/battery combo, scalable from vehicle-mounted power down to the micro- and nano- machine level, that generates power from movement or even vibration.
The technology is similar in principle to the Seiko Kinetic watch or the "shaker" flashlight. A magnet inside the power cell is free to move within a coil, and does so as the cell itself moves. But business development manager Regan Rowe says that advances in magnetic materials and design and control technology do two things: they generate power more efficiently and do so from smaller movements. Power gets produced even if the coil moves through one wire in the coil. The "boffin" behind the technology is Eric Yarger of the Idaho National Laboratory.
Overall, the system is three to seven times more efficient than earlier motion-based generating systems, and M2E believes that in normal movement, a hip-worn M2E battery will provide as much output as a conventional battery, but will not have to be replaced and recharged.
So far, prototypes have been treadmill-tested. M2E is building customized prototypes for military testing, early next year. Rowe says the company has not decided whether to enter the Wearable Power competition, because its goals are written around fuel-cell and similar systems. However, the company's strategy is to aim at the high-cost, low-volume military market first - and then move into commercial markets.
Read the rest of this story from our friends at Aviation Week on Military.com.
-- Christian
Reaper Drops First Combat GBU
The highest-tech equipment used in probably the lowest-tech war...
From the USAF:
The MQ-9A Reaper demonstrated it's unique precision strike capability as a hunter-killer attack platform by dropping its first precision-guided bomb Nov. 7.
"The beauty of the MQ-9 Reaper is that we're able to synchronize and integrate unmanned aerial attack platforms over the skies of Afghanistan, allowing us to persistently and consistently track the enemy and ensure that we place the appropriate ordnance on target when required, and maintain that persistent presence after weapons release," said Lt. Gen. Gary North, U.S. Central Command Air Forces commander.
The Reaper, the Air Force's unmanned aerial attack vehicle, was operating over the Sangin region of Afghanistan on the hunt for enemy activity when the crew received a request for assistance from a joint terminal attack controller on the ground. Friendly forces were taking fire from enemy combatants. The JTAC provided targeting data to the pilot and sensor operator, who fly the aircraft remotely from Creech Air Force Base, Nev. The pilot released two GBU-12 500-pound laser-guided bombs, destroying the target and eliminating the enemy fighters.
The ability to carry bombs, in addition to AGM-114K Hellfire missiles, is just one of the features that set the Reaper apart from its smaller brother the MQ-1 Predator.
"The MQ-9 gives us an incredible addition to the arsenal," General North said. "It's larger, carries an increased payload and is able to fly longer, higher and faster. It's an incredible addition to our attack capability in the CENTAF force lay-down."
The Reaper has flown 49 combat sorties since it first began operating in Afghanistan Sept. 25. It completed its first combat strike Oct. 27, when it fired a Hellfire missile over Deh Rawod, Afghanistan, neutralizing enemy combatants.
I'm sorry, I just never tire of the idea that there's a JTAC on the ground, under fire, who calls in for CAS to a pilot in a trailer in Nevada, who sends a command to a robot plane buzzing overhead, which drops the bomb perfectly, which kills the enemy, which saves the JTAC and his unit.
For everyone who says China is surpassing a complacent and distracted US, all I have to do is point them to this kind of operation conducted in the most austere, uncontrolled laboratory in the world and think to myself that the US is pretty far out ahead when it comes to this kind of net-centric technology and capability.
-- Christian
State Dives Into the Blog Boiling Oil
We all know how the popularity of blogs has exploded over the last few years, and we’re all also tired of hearing how some corporate fat cat has decided it makes for good business to jump into the “blog world” with his or her own ruminations.
No one reads those blogs. Why? Because they’re not credible.
Well, here’s another one for you. And I’ve got to say, I’m torn on whether this is a good idea or not.
According to a short story by Walter Pincus in the Washington Post, the State Department has a small crew of Arabic speakers whose job is to zorch around the internet and dive into Islamic and mid-East-oriented blogs when they take a nasty, anti-American turn.
The State Department, departing from traditional public diplomacy techniques, has what it calls a three-person, "digital outreach team" posting entries in Arabic on "influential" Arabic blogs to challenge misrepresentations of the United States and promote moderate views among Islamic youths in the hopes of steering them from terrorism.
The department's bloggers "speak the language and idiom of the region, know the culture reference points and are often able to converse informally and frankly, rather than adopt the usually more formal persona of a U.S. government spokesperson," Duncan MacInnes, of State's Bureau of International Information Programs, told the House Armed Services subcommittee on terrorism and unconventional threats on Thursday.
"Because blogging tends to be a very informal, chatty way of working," MacInnes said, "it is actually very dangerous to blog." So State has a senior experienced officer, who served in Iraq, acting as supervisor and discussing each posting before it goes up. "We do not make policy," MacInnes added.
The State Department team's approach is to join a blog's conversation, often when it turns to the motivation for U.S. policy toward Iraq, and when others are claiming that the U.S. occupation is meant to help Israel or to secure oil. "Our job is to address that motivation issue and show them that that's not the motivation," MacInnes said.
But it seems to me State’s internet commandos are well aware that they could be raked over the coals, and they’re careful in how they approach the blogosphere.
Even though the State Department employees were not going into hard-core terrorist sites, the worry, MacInnes said, was that after identifying themselves and using their own names, "we would be, in the parlance of the Internet, 'flamed' when we come on" -- meaning their entries would be subjected to intense attacks.
They were not, and there were such posts as, "We don't like your policies but we're sure glad you're here talking to us about it," MacInnes said. As a result, State is expanding the team to six speakers of Arabic, two of Persian and one of Urdu.
To prove that it, too, can plug into the modern media world, the Pentagon's Central Command has a blogging operation at its headquarters. Its Joint Forces Command also has the capability and has even written a brochure on how to do it. "It's an area we're moving into," Navy Capt. Hal Pittman, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for joint communications, told the House panel. He added that Central Command may not be using its own Arabic or Farsi speakers, but rather contract personnel. "We're sharing with State and trying to, you know, better our knowledge on how to do it."
The State-Defense communications approach is also turning to a more sophisticated message, one that moves away from trying to change perceptions of the United States, focusing instead on the self-perceptions of its target audiences. "Our core message must outline an alternative future that is more attractive than the bleak future offered by the terrorists," said Michael Doran, deputy assistant secretary of defense for support of public diplomacy.
Seems to me State has the right to do what they’re doing. And It might just turn a few opinions. But whether they’ll be considered credible when unmasked as agents of the U.S. government is another thing entirely.
-- Christian
The Sunday Paper
Regardless of your politics, you should give yourself a couple of minutes to hear what Newt Gingrich had to say at a recent National Press Club appearance. It's a sobering assessment of what we're really doing (or not doing) to fight the threat of radical Islam.
Of course, the former Speaker of the House is the same guy who fonged away the "Contract with America" back in the '90s, so he doesn't necessarily have all the answers. But regardless of his political track record, he makes some interesting points here.
Lockheed Martin has been handed another $134 million contract to develop a "partner version" of the JSF "that meets U.S. National Disclosure Policy, but remains common to the U.S. Air System, where possible." That's on top of $603 million awarded for the same basic job four years ago.
That's pretty close to the billion dollars that USAF Lt.Gen. Jeffrey Kohler, head of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, said would be needed to create a sanitized F-22 for Japan.The Delta SDD program mentioned in the contract documents is an interesting beast. Look at papers from the Netherlands from 2004 -- when opposition politicians asked after the 2003 contract whether it meant that the Netherlands were getting a less-stealthy JSF. They stress that the Delta SDD covers things like nationally required features (for instance, Norway wants a braking parachute) and nationally specific weapons -- if someone wants IRIS-T, for example.But that clashes with the bald statement in the Pentagon contracts that the $737 million program is about security and protecting US technology, by delivering air vehicles that are different from US air vehicles -- "as common as possible". Also, features such as nationally required weapons wouldn't be covered in SDD, which has a defined set of weapons to be cleared for the Block 3 configuration -- the endpoint of SDD.Does this mean that there are two or more versions of the JSF, with differing uses of sensitive technology -- meaning, in most people's eyes, stealth? It's certainly possible, because key LO features -- such as the edges of the wing and chine and surface coatings -- are built in secure facilities and added after major assembly -- as can be seen in an unpainted F-22.
The decision on whether to release stealth technology is also not up to the JSF program office, but to a high-level group called the LO/Counter-LO Executive Commitee (LO/CLO-Excom). Read the rest of this story from our friends at Aviation Week on Military.com
“This holiday season, America Supports You is giving you a new way to send your thanks to the troops - by text message! When you send your message of thanks to 89279 (TXASY) between November 17th and 22nd, you’ll receive a special thanks in return. Also, we’ll be displaying those messages on our ASY Giving Thanks widget far and wide across the internet. Just another way that you can support our brave military men and women serving in 177 countries around the world.”
Click on the widget above to link to the ASY site. And Happy Thanksgiving to all of those serving the nation away from home this year.
Extraordinarily keen observation by a British Royal Navy officer narrowly averted a potentially tragic friendly fire engagement using a Predator or Reaper UAV.
The UAV operator had been given clearance to engage the targets -- a group of 7-10 men -- in an operational theater. The men had been identified as hostile forces.
The navy officer, believed to be working as part of a joint US-UK UAV force operating from Creech AFB, Nevada, noticed that the men, while dressed in local attire, did not actually walk in the same manner.
This single observation led to the potential engagement being called off. The group were in fact special forces.
Well, it looks as if the story of F-15 groundings has taken a new turn today.
Air Combat Command headquartered at Langley Air Force Base, Va., lifted flight restrictions on newer F-15E Strike Eagles after the service grounded the fleet Nov. 3.
Air Force officials are taking steps to lift the grounding orders on at least part of its F-15 fleet.
Air Combat Command, headquartered at Langley Air Force Base, Va., has cleared the way for F-15Es, the newest of the supersonic fighters, to return to action if they pass a detailed visual and non-destructive inspection.
The fleetwide grounding - affecting 676 aircraft - was ordered Nov. 3 following the crash the day before of an older F-15C near Salem, Mo. The Air Force has 224 E models of the F-15.
How long the remainder of the fleet will be grounded was unclear Wednesday.
Robins Air Force Base officials were not immediately available to comment on the latest action, although F-15 flight testing was conducted at the installation Wednesday.
The Warner Robins Air Logistics Center at Robins provides worldwide management and support and periodic overhaul for the twin-engined Boeing-McDonnell Douglas aircraft.
Our readers caught the issue early on, suggesting a structural flaw with the aircraft that could have contributed to an F-15C crash in Missouri Nov. 2 – though we were off a bit in the location of the structural problem.
According to a tapped in source who contacted Defense Tech, the Av Week story we posted a couple days ago was correct on the general location of the structural failure. More specifically, our source tells us the separation occurred behind the “ECS bay” and could have been the result of a faulty repair years ago.
The notion that the F-15 crash and subsequent grounding stems from a known structural problem with the Eagle, however, isn’t right, our source tells us.
Fortunately, it’s the F-15E that’s the version being employed in Afghanistan and Iraq. So when shooters call in for support from the air, Strike Eagle can now make the hop to help.
I suspect the lifting of flight restrictions on E model F-15s will not undercut the case for more F-22s, since the “A” in “F/A-22” was added later, and the threat the Air Force keeps using to sell the plane is advanced-generation fighters in the hands of enemy regimes. We’ll stay on top of this story; and please keep me posted on what you all are hearing.
BAE Systems of the U.K is developing Britain's first unmanned fighter-bomber for the Ministry of Defence.
The Taranis project, forms part of the U.K's Unmanned Air Vehicle program and will cost the government 124 million pounds.
BAE Systems is working with military staff and scientists to develop and fly Taranis.
The jet will be designed with a bat-wing and will be able to think for itself, independently tracking and destroying enemy aircraft and targets.
But BAE has assured defence personnel that human authorisation will always be required before Taranis can use any of its weaponry.
Ground testing is expected to take place in early 2009, and the first flight trials are scheduled to take place in 2010. Taranis could be fully operational within 10 years.
I know, I know, this might be old news to some, but it's news to me. And I am curious to know from our international readers what the status of this project is right now. As you know, I'm a huge fan of combat drone development, and I want to make sure we have the latest on all efforts here.
Bring it!
-- Christian
MDA Pressing Ahead with Euro BMD
Lt. Gen. Henry (Trey) Obering, U.S. Missile Defense Agency director, says the $85 million funding cut to his plans for radar and interceptor installations in Eastern Europe is "not as bad as it could have been.""I do believe that this is something that we can live with," Obering said during an interview with Aviation Week & Space Technology. The cut was recently approved by a House-Senate conference committee on Fiscal 2008 appropriations.The reduction could result in at least a six-month delay in plans to establish a site for interceptors in Poland and a sophisticated tracking and targeting radar in the Czech Republic.
Obering wants the interceptors in place by 2013 and the radar operating by 2011 to counter ballistic missile attacks from Iran that threaten the Middle East and most of Europe. Despite Russian opposition to the plans -- the Russian government says the system poses a threat to its security in the region -- the U.S. is moving forward. Obering maintains that the Russian radar in Gabala, Azerbaijan, will not provide the midcourse discrimination necessary to target missiles from Iran.Russia proposed the Gabala radar as an alternative to the sensor planned for the Czech Republic. MDA plans to relocate a midcourse tracking radar from the Pacific region to the site in the Czech Republic.Obering spoke with AW&ST from Kiev during one of a series of visits to explore opportunities to expand industry cooperation between the U.S. and Ukraine, which provided hefty technical expertise for the Soviet ballistic missile fleet.Already, cooperation exists with Boeing on the Sea Launch program and other efforts are under way with Lockheed Martin. The Ukraine is also thought to have conducted development work for the countermeasures incorporated into Soviet and now Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Read the rest of this story and see others from our Aviation Week partners at Military.com.
-- Christian
LUH Taking Fire
The Associated Press has a critical news report on the UH-72A Lakota, which is the army's new light utility helicopter [LUH] based on the Eurocopter EC145.
The report focuses on the aircraft's lack of an air conditioner, but this should be an easily fixed problem.
More interesting is the comment by Representative Duncan Hunter, an outspoken US protectionist, who says the Lakota should be replaced by a US made helicopter. Says the AP article:
"In my view, we would be well advised to terminate the planned buy of 322 Lakota helicopters and purchase instead additional Blackhawk helicopters," Hunter said in a letter this week to Army Secretary Pete Geren."
Interestingly, Sikorsky had the same basic idea nearly four years ago, just as the LUH requirement was coming into focus. Here's my article published in Flight International on February 11, 2004:
Sikorsky is planning to compete for a US Army requirement for a light utility helicopter fleet with a lower-cost version of the UH-60L. Freshly marketed as the LUH-60 Black Hawk, the helicopter uses the UH-60L engine and transmission, a UH-60M digital cockpit and adds a health usage monitoring system. Sikorsky officials say the design can be competitive for LUH at $3 million per aircraft and operate at under $1,000 per flight hour. The engines would be operated at 80% maximum power.
Sikorsky's bid is based on refurbishing UH-60As to the LUH-60 configuration as the older models begin to phase out of the service rapidly over the next few years. Other advantages, says Sikorsky, are a shared training, logistics and personnel structure with the rest of the army's Black Hawk fleet, and the ability to deploy the aircraft in combat.
The army intends to buy a commercial helicopter for light support missions in a strictly non-combat environment. Other candidates include the Bell 210, as well as potential offerings from AgustaWestland and Eurocopter.
The UH-60A idea was shot down by the army's requirement for an FAA-certified helicopter. (Sikorsky eventually teamed up with the UH-72A team to offer aftermarket services.)
But that requirement remains the target of a debate both within and outside the army. Should a combat service buy a fleet of helicopters that is intentionally designed to be unworthy of combat conditions? Proponents say the army saves a lot of money, but opponents argue that the troops need more flexibility from their equipment.
EADS North America, the LUH prime contractor, is not blind to this debate, and has already suggested that the UH-72A could eventually be tweaked to become a combat-capable aircraft.
In a recent feature article on LUH, I quoted EADS VP Randy Hutcherson, who says:
"If you're going to put soldiers in this aircraft in an environment where they're going to be shot at, our aircraft is not ready to do that and it's not the right thing to do for the soldiers," Hutcherson says. However, it remains possible that this part of the LUH experiment may not survive the duration of the programme. When asked if the army will eventually require a military-unique variant of the UH-72A for LUH, Hutcherson replies: "I do. But I think it's a ways away."
High-altitude balloons, filmy bags of helium floating at altitudes that no known airplane can sustain, have attracted increasing attention as the US Air Force has looked at "near space" -- above air traffic, with long lines of sight -- as an operating regime. One snag: balloons go whither the wind blows, payload and all.
A USAF-sponsored project to deal with that problem, Talon Topper, has been under way for several years, and a critical demonstration has just been disclosed. Contractor Near Space Corporation -- based in Oregon -- has successfully tested a Payload Return Vehicle (PRV), a radical lifting-body glider that can safely descend from very high altitudes to a controlled landing, returning an instrument package to a desired location.
Alert readers will instantly recognize the PRV for what it is -- a close relative of the Facetmobile, the all-flat-surface personal aircraft designed and test-flown by Barnaby Wainfan, who is employed in civilian life as as an ace aerodynamicist at Northrop Grumman.
Important aspects of the design include the ability to stay under control in a Mach 0.98 dive (don't try that with a conventional glider design), very light weight (useful for something carried by a balloon) and a shape that readily accommodates large payloads and antennas. It also has a very low stalling speed for easy and safe recovery. Faceting is not there for stealth but to make the aircraft easy to build.
See the entire entry from Aviation Week's Ares blog at Military.com.
They are to be used and abused, to accomplish the mission or die trying.
I’ve been through several multi-tools (on average I break one a year) and pocket knives come and go (they get loaned out, lost, or break) but the one knife I have always had unwavering faith in (up until the time I had to quit using it) was the Ka-Bar USMC fighting knife.
As I mentioned in a previous post, a good utility knife is indispensable in the field. Pocketknives like the Buck 110 are great for light work, but sometimes you need something with leverage. Whether it was cutting open MRE cases or prying the wire off of crated ammunition, my Ka Bar took it all in stride. In a perfect world a bayonet would have done just as well for most things, had I been able to draw one from the arms room when we went to the field, but sadly this was not the case, which made the Ka-Bar all the more valuable.
Moreover, the Ka Bar’s design alone made it superior to the bayonet. The all-leather grip worked wonderfully wet or dry, hot or cold. The blade was thick enough that you could pry with either the point or the flat without undue fear of it snapping, and the big steel endcap, combined with the knife’s own mass, made for a fair field expedient hammer.
It didn’t bother me in the least that I was in the Army and I was using a Marine Corps knife. That Ka-Bar was a tool, and one I deemed best available to do the jobs I needed doing. I reasoned that since the Marine Corps used the same rifles, ammunition, artillery and armor that the Army did, it was perfectly acceptable to use “their” knife.
Silly me. Eventually, someone vastly more knowledgeable in trans-service etiquette than I explained to me the magnitude of the military faux pas I was committing. No, it simply would not do to be caught out of doors with such an icon of Marine Corps tradition prominently displayed on my LBE. As a Soldier and an NCO, I should have known better. Need to bust open those crates of MG ammunition? No problem – smash them on the ground or kick them, or use a stick (a good NCO always carries a good stick with them for just such a situation.)
The bottom line was that Ka-Bar was a Marine Corps “thing” and it simply had to go. No amount of pleading, reasoning, or rationalizing could resolve the situation. I just had to learn to do without.
Of course, ten years later I’m back to carrying a non-issue “fighting” knife, but now it’s made in Nepal, not Olean, N.Y. so I guess that makes it ok...
I want to give our savvy DT readers a collective pat on the back for your excellent discussions on the recent F-15 grounding.
Though I absorb quite a few barbs from you at times – and deservedly so, in very few cases (sarcasm) – it is one of the greatest pleasures editing this blog to see how smart, involved and dialed in our readers are. The issue with grounding the F-15s is a perfect case in point.
Our boy Byron Skinner pegged it right off the bat when he spoke of known structural problems with the F-15:
Welcome to the original air frame structural design flaw discovered in the F-15 in the late 90's. In short the tail section wants to fall off. The F-15E's had already gone into production and the AF didn't want to invest any money in an aircraft designed in the 1970's so it was let go.
Without 9/11 they may have gotten away with it but with the Homeland Security over flights and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq missions putting excessive hours on the flawed F-15 airframes it's only a matter of time before more fall out of the sky and an aircrew is lost...
...The design defect is in the aft part of the air frame where the tail fins connect to the fuselage. If it's a material problem or a structural design failure it still being debated. It was estimated that since it appeared that the F-15's were good for about 20 years before the airframes via fatigue and other stresses would be come an issue that with the restrictions the F-15 was serviceable with in the operational environment before 9/11.
The AF decided to roll the dice and not correct the problem and made permanent the operational restrictions on the F-15's...
Then our friends at Aviation Week (I wonder if they were tipped off by our comments) put together a story on the problem. Here’s what they found:
F-15 operations were suspended pending review of a Nov. 2 crash. “A possible structural failure” was involved in the Missouri Air National Guard F-15C crash, which could have larger implications about the integrity of the entire F-15 fleet, say USAF officials.
Aerospace industry and USAF officials say the fuselage broke in two immediately behind the cockpit during a 2.5-3.5g maneuver. The aircraft had been delivered to USAF in 1982.
In a statement, the pilot said his first warnings were smoke and fumes in the cockpit. Almost immediately he was in the aircraft’s slipstream. He ejected and suffered flailing injuries.
Our boy Byron also brought up the BRAC issue...
Let us not forget that they were facing declining budgets, the Soviets were gone, the public was EXPECTING a PEACE DIVIDEND, BRAC and an administration who never really understood the military.
And Av Week, found something similar:
Also, investigators are looking at maintenance practices to see if problems could have been generated by closing down the unit as part of the base-realignment process. An initial USAF analysis found that it was a unique problem with a single aircraft, not a fleet-wide problem.
But worries me most is the idea that the Air Force is using this grounding to push Congress for more F-22 funding. I’m not a huge proponent of conspiracy theories, but it seems so tempting to me that the Air Force can’t help but use the grounding to say “see, we told you the F-15s are old and need replacing.” And they know that brining up BRAC issues have particular resonance among lawmakers starved for Pentagon pork in their districts – no matter how antiquated the base may be.
Again, Av Week:
USAF and industry officials say fleet groundings sometimes occur every few months for various safety issues. They say senior USAF leadership is using this grounding to push for a larger F-22 force. And while USAF was grounding its F-15s, military officials briefing an international fighter conference in London said that the F-15Cs wouldn’t be retired until 2025-30, and that the F-15E will serve beyond 2035.
“The accident in Missouri could be unique to that [one] aircraft,” a veteran F-15 squadron commander says. “And if it’s not, there are lots of fixes you can make to keep them flying. The pitch for more F-22s is what’s going on.”
And this was not lost on our DT readers either.
What worries me most is that at some institutional level, in E-Ring Air Force offices in the Pentagon, the decision was made to make a bigger issue of these seemingly isolated crashes than should have been so that a better case for F-22s could be made. Again, I don’t want to think this, but when a service makes a decision to define its future with one piece of very expensive hardware like the F-22, it’s almost too tempting a Devils Bargain to avoid.
But if Byron’s right, and there is a long-term structural problem with the F-15, it’s our duty as a nation to fix the problem or replace the planes as soon as possible. I just don’t know enough about the engineering side of this debate. That’s what I’ve got our readers for.
Thanks to everyone for your input. And keep up the good work.
When the U.S. Navy deploys a battle fleet on exercises, it takes the security of its aircraft carriers very seriously indeed.
At least a dozen warships provide a physical guard while the technical wizardry of the world's only military superpower offers an invisible shield to detect and deter any intruders.
That is the theory. Or, rather, was the theory.
American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific exercise and close to the vast U.S.S. Kitty Hawk - a 1,000ft supercarrier with 4,500 personnel on board.
By the time it surfaced the 160ft Song Class diesel-electric attack submarine is understood to have sailed within viable range for launching torpedoes or missiles at the carrier.
According to senior Nato officials the incident caused consternation in the U.S. Navy.
The Americans had no idea China's fast-growing submarine fleet had reached such a level of sophistication, or that it posed such a threat.
One Nato figure said the effect was "as big a shock as the Russians launching Sputnik" - a reference to the Soviet Union's first orbiting satellite in 1957 which marked the start of the space age.
The incident, which took place in the ocean between southern Japan and Taiwan, is a major embarrassment for the Pentagon.
The lone Chinese vessel slipped past at least a dozen other American warships which were supposed to protect the carrier from hostile aircraft or submarines.
And the rest of the costly defensive screen, which usually includes at least two U.S. submarines, was also apparently unable to detect it.
According to the Nato source, the encounter has forced a serious re-think of American and Nato naval strategy as commanders reconsider the level of threat from potentially hostile Chinese submarines.
It also led to tense diplomatic exchanges, with shaken American diplomats demanding to know why the submarine was "shadowing" the U.S. fleet while Beijing pleaded ignorance and dismissed the affair as coincidence.
Analysts believe Beijing was sending a message to America and the West demonstrating its rapidly-growing military capability to threaten foreign powers which try to interfere in its "backyard."
This sounds like a a similar incident that occured last year, where another Chinese popped up a little too close for comfort next to the Kitty Hawk.
What gives? I mean, Pentagon chief Gates was just over in China making nicey nice with is Sino counterparts. Why the shadow puppetry which is certainly going to give the US Navy a serious case of the jitters? I can't find much more on this story, and the Daily Mail is surely not the most credible source...What do you dear readers make of this?
(Gouge: CM)
-- Christian
The Freaky F-35 Lid
I mean, is this the craziest helmet ever? It looks like bogies could die of fright before being shot down.
Gazette and Herald (Wiltshire, UK)
Fighter pilots get a clear vision
By Gazette Reporter
Futuristic new helmets will enable fighter jet pilots to see through their own aircraft, the Ministry of Defence said today.
The head gear being developed for the hi-tech F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is being tested by MoD scientists at Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.
An MoD spokesman said: "Unlike other jet aircraft the JSF, which is planned to replace the Harrier, does not have a traditional head-up display
Instead the computerised symbology will be displayed directly on to the pilot's visors, providing the pilot with cues for flying, navigating and fighting the aircraft.
"It even will superimpose infra-red imagery on to the visor to allow the pilot to look through the cockpit floor at night and see the world below - like something out of Terminator.
"This is absolutely the cutting edge of technology. No other helmet will be able to do this."
The head gear, currently at prototype stage, is being developed by Vision Systems International and Helmet Integrated Systems Limited.
(Gouge: NC)
-- Christian
Train Cable UAVs Soar
From Aviation Week's Ares weblog and posted at Military.com.
Israeli company Planum Vision is pushing a new type of fixed-route UAV that relies on an electric train cable line. As is the tendency of smaller companies these days, Planum Vision is using YouTube to get the word out. The word being that a fixed-route, train cable UAV, or TCUAV, is ideal for border patrol and protection of military bases by creating an automated surveillance that eliminates the failures associated with flight control, communications and human error.
TCUAV would also be useful in protecting oil pipelines, energy facilities and ports and other transportation hubs, according to the company. It's not clear the company has any contracts or partners yet, although a related patent application was filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization late last week.
-- Christian
Russia's 5th Gen Fighter Delayed
Russia's fifth-generation fighter aircraft -- being developed in collaboration with India -- has again been delayed. In late October a senior Russian air force officer said that the fifth-generation fighter is expected to fly by 2012, the RIA Novosti news service reported. "The deadlines have been set—[the fighter] must take to the skies in 2012 and enter service [with the Air Force] in 2015," said Lieutenant General Igor Sadofyev, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force. "International cooperation and joint development efforts will certainly expedite the process," Sadofyev said.
(EDITOR: Photo is of an S-37 Berkut, once thought of as Russia's 5th generation fighter. There are no pictures available of the current one.)
Less than two years ago, on 17 January 2006, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force, General Vladimir Mikhailov, said that Russia's fifth-generation fighter plane would be ready to fly in 2007. "Work to build the fifth-generation plane is going according to schedule," Mikhailov declared.
However, the project has encountered some financial problems with civilian aircraft being produced using money allocated in the budget for fighter planes. "Clearly, the development of aviation technology will depend on specific military and economic conditions, determining the progress of reform in the Russian armed forces and the country's aircraft construction industry,” explained Mikhailov.
(At the time the general also said that "We are actively working on the modernization of MiG-29 and MiG-31 planes. New equipment could be installed in their cockpits that will increase their efficiency two and a half to three times.")
Russia and India have agreed to jointly develop the fifth-generation fighter aircraft. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who is co-chairman of the Russian-Indian commission on military-technical cooperation, said that the new multi-role fighter is being designed by the Sukhoi Bureau, which has developed a long line of Soviet-Russian fighter and strike aircraft. India has agreed to cooperate with Russia on research and testing of the aircraft, and to future joint production by India's HAL corporation.
While the categorization of fighter-type aircraft by generation is somewhat arbitrary, the technologies that best characterize fifth-generation fighters are advanced integrated avionics systems, which provide the pilot with a complete picture of the aerial battlespace, and the use of low observable or "stealth" features in the design and construction of the aircraft. Most experts agree that the U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor and the multi-service F-35 Joint Strike Fighter/Lightning II, now in flight test, are the world's only fifth-generation fighters currently flying. Both the F-22 and F-35 series are produced by Lockheed Martin.
Beyond the Sukhoi Su-47, the Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) design now known as the MFI is the only other fifth-generation fighter on the horizon.
India has been a customer for Soviet-Russian military equipment for a half century. Soviet-Russian warships dominate the Indian Navy, with the ex-Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, now being rebuilt in a Russian shipyard for future service in the Indian Navy. The Indian Army uses a large amount of Russian ground combat equipment while the overwhelming majority of the Indian Air Force's aircraft inventory was built in Russia or in India to Russian designs.
The buildup of the Indian armed forces overshadows the advances being made by other Asian military forces, including the massive modernization of the Chinese armed forces.
Umm, how would you like the be the guy who's got to secure the lines on these decks?
CUTLINE:ATLANTIC OCEAN (Nov. 6, 2007) - Rough seas pound the hull of Military Sealift Command fast combat support ship USNS Arctic (T-AOE 8) as she sails alongside Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) while preparing for a replenishment at sea. Truman is a part of Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 10 and is en route to the Central Command area of responsibility as part of the ongoing rotation to support maritime security operations in the region. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Joshua A. Moore
(Gouge: NC)
-- Christian
Building the COIN Facebook
I ran across an interesting study published by the RAND Corporation that took a look at how the United States could best leverage its current communications and intelligence networks to wage an effective information operations campaign in a counterinsurgency.
The study, aptly titled “Byting Back: Regaining Information Superiority Against 21st Century Insurgents,” takes a novel, “web 2.0” approach to the problem of gaining information to fight an insurgency. RAND rightly states that the information requirements for conventional war – the basis upon which most of the Pentagon’s intelligence apparatus is based – are very different from those of a counterinsurgency.
“If winning war requires understanding the terrain, winning counterinsurgency requires understanding the human terrain: the population, from its top-level political structure to the individual citizen. A thorough and current understanding of individuals and their community can help rally support of the government by allowing the government to meet the needs of the local population. Because insurgents do not identify themselves as such on sight, knowledge at the individual level is often what it takes to make such necessary distinctions.”
The study suggests utilizing local “wikis” compiled by the population, security services and government officials; leveraging cell phone networks to push information and to potentially track insurgents; incorporating the use of video and voice recorders on individual weapons to compile information and lessons learned and the institution of a detailed government census of the population.
The RAND analysts call this an integrated counterinsurgency operating network, or ICON.
Interestingly, the authors developed a metric of 160 information requirements in a counterinsurgency. From their analysis, the RAND authors found that only 13 of those bits of information required covert sources, while 90 could be obtained by troops on patrol and 57 come from the population itself. How do you think the military views this balance now? I betcha it’s weighted heavily toward the “covert operative” side of things.
What the RAND study also reveals is that the ICON benefits from openness.
“By contrast, security tended to be the least stringent desideratum. Only 2 requirements were of the sort that could not be shared with indigenous forces, while 28 could be shared with anyone.”
Though RAND admits the technologies to build such an intel network are well within reach, linking them together could pose significant challenges.
“In addition to designing and engineering work, DoD and leading IT firms will have to work together as they never have before to crack such problems as providing selective security in an open search-collaborative environment. With proper incentives, market forces will provide most of the drive needed. But an abundance of creativity and common purpose will also be needed.”
It seems to me, though, that all the tools are out there to do this. We don’t need ungainly weapons cameras developed by some billion dollar defense contractor, for example, when most cell phones come with one embedded in their wafer-thin mechanics. The key is to form a sort of intelligence “community” that interweaves these different streams into one easily accessible database...a counterinsurgency Myspace, maybe?
For the U.S. Army, kicking down doors will become blowing them down now that the service has ordered $52 million worth of Simon door-breaching rifle grenades from Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd of Israel.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Rafael says that the Simon, or GREM (grenade, rifle, entry munition) as it is known in the U.S., is a lightweight, rifle-launched grenade specially adapted to breaching steel or wooden doors from a stand-off distance. It may be fired from a variety of rifles using regular bullets.
Says Rafael: "The Simon (GREM) is designed to breach a door or to enable breaking an entry into a building or an enclosed area, while posing minimum collateral damage or risk to the gunner and to troops following him. The warhead has a special dome shape and its explosion generates a shock wave which blasts the door and causes it to yield."
The Simon (GREM) is a member of Rafael's family of shoulder-launched breaching munitions, together with the Matador family that has been developed and produced in conjunction with DND of Germany.
TOKYO -- Japan's air force has grounded its F- 15 fighter jets following a crash of the same type of aircraft in the United States on Nov. 3, Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said.
The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force has suspended flights of F-15 aircraft since Nov. 5, Kyodo News quoted Ishiba as saying. The suspension will last until the cause of the U.S. crash is determined, he said.
The minister also said that F-4 fighters will deal with airspace incursion "for the time being," since the ASDF has also grounded F-2 fighters in the wake of a recent crash of an ASDF plane of the model at Nagoya.
A Missouri Air National Guard F-15C jet crashed while training in air combat maneuvers over southern Missouri. The pilot ejected and suffered a dislocated shoulder and broken arm. The U.S. Air Force then grounded nearly all its F-15 fighters - excluding those required for critical missions - as preliminary findings showed there might have been structural failure.
It was the second crash of a Missouri Air Guard F-15 this year. In May an F-14D crashed near Vincennes, Ind. Officials traced the cause to a jammed cable. The pilot of that plane also ejected, and escaped with minor injuries.
According to an earlier report from Kyodo, a planned joint drill between the U.S. Air Force and Japan's Air Self-Defense Force at Komatsu base in Ishikawa Prefecture, in which F-15s from Kadena were to take part, has also been postponed.
-- Christian
China One Step Closer to Planting Flag on Moon
It’s kind of funny that on the same day we posted a piece on the pros and cons of American space weapons, the Chinese flew its first survey satellite of the moon into lunar orbit.
A Chinese satellite successfully entered lunar orbit Monday, a month after rival Japan put its own probe into orbit around the moon, but Chinese officials denied there was any competition between the two nations.
Chinese space officials said the Chang'e 1 satellite, part of the country's ambitious space exploration plans, entered lunar orbit after completing a planned braking operation.
China plans to keep the Chang'e 1 — named after a mythical Chinese goddess who flew to the moon — there for one year, about the same length of time as Japan's probe. China launched its satellite late last month, while Japan put its into space in September.
The timing of the launches raises the prospect of a space rivalry between the two Asian nations, with India possibly joining in if it carries through on a plan to send its own lunar probe into space in April.
But Long Jiang, deputy commander of spacecraft systems of China's lunar exploration program, said Beijing wanted to use its space program to work with other countries.
It also was perfectly timed to coincide with a visit by U.S. defense chief Robert Gates, who was forced to be conciliatory in his remarks on the development. According to the AP he congratulated China’s achievement, saying “it’s a clear credit to Chinese industry and innovation” (as long as they’re not using lead paint).
More AP:
"We are willing to cooperate with the rest of the world to the benefit of humankind, but as to what kind of cooperation, it depends on specific circumstances," Long told a news conference.
The Chang'e 1 blasted off on top of a Long March 3A rocket on Oct. 24 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province in southwestern China.
"All of the subsystems of the Chang'e 1 are in normal operation so far," said Pei Zhaoyu, spokesman for the China National Space Administration.
The Chang'e 1 has survived the most critical part of its journey, Pei said. It had to enter the moon's orbit at the right time and speed, otherwise it could have hit the moon or flown by it.
He said the satellite's success was a sign of China's advanced engineering. "The project is a comprehensive demonstration of China's economic, scientific and technological power."
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is on a two-day visit to China, commended China's Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan over the lunar mission.
"I congratulate him and the people of China on this achievement. It's clearly a credit to Chinese industry and innovation," Gates said.
The lunar mission adds depth to a Chinese space program that has sent astronauts orbiting the Earth twice in the past four years.
Chang'e 1 is the first step of a three-stage moon mission. In about 2012 China plans an unmanned lunar landing with a rover. In the third phase, about five years later, another rover is to land on the moon and be returned to Earth with lunar soil and stone samples.
China plans a new generation of more powerful Long March 5 rockets able to lift more weight to the moon — and possibly a manned mission — but Pei told the news conference these wouldn't be used until after 2012, missing the second phase.
According to Japanese news reports last week, Japan plans to send an unmanned probe to land on the moon by 2015.
It would cost about $437 million and consist of an unmanned lander, a rover to study the lunar surface and a small satellite to transfer data, according to the Asahi and Mainichi newspapers.
Chang'e 1's goal is to analyze the chemical and mineral composition of the lunar surface. It will use stereo cameras and X-ray spectrometers to map three-dimensional images of the surface and study the moon's dust.
The 5,070-pound satellite is expected to transmit its first photo back to China late this month.
China sent its first satellite into Earth orbit in the 1970s but the space program only seriously took off in the 1980s, growing apace with the country's booming economy.
In 2003, China became only the third country in the world after the United States and Russia to put its own astronauts into space.
But China also alarmed the international community in January when it destroyed an old satellite with a land-based anti-satellite missile.
I tend to think it’s kind of cute that the Chinese are just now getting into lunar exploration. I’ve been watching the Discovery Channel special on the upcoming mission to Mars, and the challenges are so far beyond what the Chinese are now attempting, it’s staggering.
And the specter of some Chinese military moon base, bristling with laser weapons and nukes pointed at New York is at best far fetched.
America’s space race and launch to the moon was an amazingly maturing phenomenon for the country, maybe it can do the same for China ... and India.
The U.S. military's sprawling logistics system has always been its most vulnerable flank. Two years ago Iraqi insurgents figured that out. In 2004 and 2005, attacks on supply trucks killed hundreds of U.S. troops. More escorts and thicker armor eventually trumped insurgent attacks - for now - but the military hasn't forgotten just how hairy it got. In typical American fashion, the military decided one of the best ways to protect logistics troops was to fire them, and make supply convoys autonomous.
It's freezing cold this morning at an abandoned U.S. Air Force base near Victorville, California. In just a few minutes, officials from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will fire the gun to begin the 60-mile, 6-hour Urban Challenge robot race. The idea: to demonstrate the technology that might one day result in fully robotic supply trucks that can find their way through intersections, maneuver around obstacles, change lanes and stop on a dime when some kid runs across the road. The prize: a $3.5 million check from Uncle Sam.
Two weeks ago, there were 35 teams from universities and industry vying for a spot in the final race. After rigorous testing, during which the robots were required to adhere to California traffic laws, only 11 teams are left. One disqualified robot plowed into a human-driven Darpa car. Others freaked out at intersections, parking lots or left turns.
Read the rest of David Axe's brief from Aviation Week HERE.
An F-15C tooling around the sky in southern Missouri with 3 of his closest aeronautical acquaintances came apart during air combat maneuvers Friday and the Air Force grounded all F-15 Eagle aircraft pending inspections for service-life issues.
The grounding of an entire fleet of aircraft is not all that rare. Many aircraft types have experienced this after an mishap, pending the discovery of the cause of the mishap. This particular aircraft was 27 years old and "service life issues" is one of the determining factors in the grounding. Fuselage or wing fatigue concerns are a very definite question in the aircraft, and the fact that the C-model is the air-to-air version of the F-15 and this particular Eagle was engaged in ACM when the mishap occurred makes a fleet grounding apropos until inspections can be made.
There are between 550 and 688 (depending on which source you use) F-15 aircraft out there so a grounding of the fleet is no small thing.
Lieutenant General Gary L. North, the Air Force officer in charge of military aircraft in the Middle East, issued a statement yesterday saying he would be able to fill the gap with other fighters and bombers. But another Air Force official said the F-15 grounding will have a "significant impact" on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "They will clearly have to work hard to pick up the slack," the official said.
F-16's and A-10's will take up that slack in southwest Asia, as will whatever aircraft carrier airwing is deployed to the region.
General T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, who ordered the grounding this past Saturday said at a congressional hearing in October "The F-15s . . . they're very capable airplanes". "But against the new-generation threat systems, they don't have the advantage that we had when they were designed in the late 1960s and built in the 1970s."
Air Force grounds entire fleet of F-15s
Move in response to plane breaking in midair last week
By Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times | November 6, 2007
WASHINGTON - The US Air Force has grounded its entire fleet of F-15s, the service's premier fighter aircraft, after one of the planes disintegrated over eastern Missouri during a training mission, raising the possibility of a fatal flaw in the aging fighters' fuselage that could keep it out of the skies for months.
General T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, ordered the grounding Saturday after initial reports showed that the Missouri Air National Guard fighter plane broke apart Friday in midair during a simulated dogfight.
Although the 688 F-15s in the Air Force's arsenal gradually are being replaced by a new generation of aircraft - the F-22 - they remain the nation's most sophisticated front-line fighters. US officials said the F-15s are used heavily for protecting the continental United States from terrorist attack, as well as for combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lieutenant General Gary L. North, the Air Force officer in charge of military aircraft in the Middle East, issued a statement yesterday saying he would be able to fill the gap with other fighters and bombers. But another Air Force official said the F-15 grounding will have a "significant impact" on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"They will clearly have to work hard to pick up the slack," the official said.
The health of the F-15 fleet has long been a concern for Air Force brass, who repeatedly have warned that the two-engine fighter had exceeded its expected life span and was straining under the workload imposed by the counterterrorism duty.
In addition, Moseley repeatedly has raised concerns that the plane is inadequate for increasingly sophisticated air defense systems being developed by potential adversaries such as China and Iran.
"The F-15s . . . they're very capable airplanes," Moseley told a congressional hearing in October. "But against the new-generation threat systems, they don't have the advantage that we had when they were designed in the late 1960s and built in the 1970s."
In May, another Missouri Air National Guard F-15 crashed in southern Indiana during a similar training exercise. The pilots in Friday's crash and the May accident survived.
The F-15 that crashed Friday was 27 years old. Of the five versions of the F-15 used by the Air Force, four versions average 24 to 30 years of age. The F-15E, the newest version, is 15 1/2 years old, but has been grounded with the other versions because it has a similar airframe.
Air Force leaders frequently have cited the age and growing obsolescence of the F-15 as the main reason to buy the new, stealthier F-22, the most expensive fighter ever made.
Critics of the F-22, which was first designed to fight a generation of Soviet MiGs that never materialized, say it is an overpriced Cold War relic, but the Air Force insists it has adapted the plane to meet more modern threats and missions.
Lieutenant General David Deptula, a former F-15 pilot who is now the Air Force's head of intelligence, said his son now flies the same F-15 aircraft that Deptula flew while based in Japan in the late 1970s.
"They have become serious maintenance challenges as they get older, and now I'd suggest that we may be facing a crisis," Deptula said. "We must recapitalize our aging fighter forces - and fast."
Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute who has consulted for aircraft manufacturers, said the accident probably was caused by metal fatigue, corrosion, or faulty maintenance.
If maintenance problems turn out to be the culprit, Thompson said, the F-15 fleet could be returned to flight relatively quickly. Similarly, corrosion could be fixed by examining other aircraft for similar problems.
If the Missouri crash was the result of metal fatigue, however, it could lead to a much more extended grounding, as it would suggest that time and intense use of the aircraft since the Sept. 11 attacks have caught up with the aging fighter.
"The whole fleet was already flying on flight restrictions due to metal fatigue," said Thompson, noting that a fleet-wide grounding is extremely rare, especially for a fighter.
"In this case, the planes that are grounded are supposed to be America's top-of-the line air superiority plane," Thompson added. "This is not like grounding some cargo plane. These are the sinews of our global air dominance."
Despite fears over the plane's safety, it remained unclear whether all F-15s were on the ground or would stay there.
The long and the short of it is that Steve Kosiak, their principle budget analyst and author of the report, believes at this point space-based missile defense and space-based anti-satellite systems are too expensive for their relative effectiveness.
A constellation of space-based weapons designed to defend the United States against an attack with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) would be extremely costly to acquire and support. Moreover, at least based on the technology likely to be available over the next twenty years, such a system would probably not prove to be a cost-effective investment, especially when measured against the cost to a potential adversary of defeating such a system.
Second, while space-based weapons intended to strike terrestrial-based targets could, in some cases, cost substantially less to acquire and support than space-based ballistic missile defense systems, such weapons would likely prove more costly—and, in some instances, far more costly—than comparably effective terrestrial-based alternatives.
Third, while space-based ASAT weapons would also generally be less costly to acquire and support than space-based ballistic missile defense systems, there does not appear to be a compelling need, on either cost or effectiveness grounds, to acquire a dedicated space-based ASAT capability—in part, because the US military already possesses or is acquiring a range of terrestrial-based weapons with significant inherent ASAT capabilities.
Fourth, space-based defensive (“bodyguard”) satellites would, to a great extent, be indistinguishable from space-based ASAT weapons. Thus, such systems would likely have similar costs. In addition, their deployment would presumably have similar implications for sparking or accelerating an arms race in space. These weapons would also be incapable of protecting against some of the ASAT threats most likely to emerge in coming years. A more effective and cost-effective approach might be to rely on a range of passive countermeasures. Strengthening US space surveillance and tracking capabilities could also offer an important means of improving the security of US satellites.
Fifth, although space-based weapons designed to strike terrestrial-based targets, conduct ASAT attacks, or intercept enemy ASAT weapons appear to be neither necessary, nor, generally, as cost effective as terrestrial-based alternatives, in a few instances—unlike space-based ballistic missile defense systems—they appear to be relatively affordable and may even represent cost-effective options. In these cases, non-budgetary considerations, such the perceived strategic importance of the capability and the potential arms race implications of moving ahead with such a system, will have to play the dominant role in shaping programmatic and policy choices.
What he does advocate is some mix of decoy satellites, high-altitude drones that mimic satellite capabilities and the rejiggering of ground-based ICBM interceptors to an ASAT role.
Ultimately ... the most cost-effective means of protecting US satellite capabilities may be to rely on a range of passive countermeasures, such as decoys, and terrestrial-based alternatives, such unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). ... Strengthening US space surveillance and tracking capabilities offers an important means of improving the security of US satellites.
I tend to believe that space weapons will be increasingly important given the U.S. reliance on satellites for everything from navigation to communications. But I like the idea that the U.S. can exploit vulnerabilities in anti-satellite weaponry and weaknesses without breaking the bank, countering one country’s propaganda win with a quiet “so what?”
-- Christian
Disband the DC Punditocracy
The extended op-ed by Robert Farley about disbanding the Air Force is now online in full, and revealed for what it is: a rather ill-structured and highly selective recycling of old arguments.
Selective? Consider this: continued production of the F-22 Raptor is an absurdity during the course of two counter-insurgency wars, says Farley. Maybe, but how much use is this...
...against the Taliban? (Apart from lashing them to the periscope, or torpedoing them when they charter a ship for a cruise vacation.)
Old? We can argue the effectiveness of the World War 2 strategic bombing campaign until we are all blue in the face. I would merely suggest that, in the absence of any plan to fire-bomb Tehran with B-29s, it's of limited relevance.
The question is not "Why do we need an Air Force?" because in classic terms that "begs the question" - that is, it implies that there is some reason that the Air Force rather than any other service is expendable.
For example, Farley would abolish the Air Force but adds that "some elements of tactical airpower would pass to the Marine Corps." If the United States does not need its own air force, why the bloody hell does the US Navy's own army need its own air force?
Of course, in the world of DC, that question has a simple answer: any proposal that the Marines don't like stands as much chance as Barney in the velociraptors' cage...
Read the rest of this story from our partners at Aviation Week HERE.
I don't care whether you're a football fan or not, if you missed yesterday's Navy - Notre Dame game, you missed an epic contest and one of the gutsiest performances by an underdog in years.
Here's some of how AP called it over at Military.com:
Roger Staubach was quarterback for the Midshipmen in 1963 when they beat Notre Dame 35-14. Since then, the Irish have had their way - that is until Saturday.
Seven times during the streak the Midshipmen had chances to win in the fourth quarter only to be thwarted by bad luck, questionable calls or big plays by the Irish. A few times Saturday it looked as though the win would elude them again. But this time it was the Midshipmen who managed to make the decisive plays.
Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada threw a 25-yard TD pass to Reggie Campbell on the first play of the third overtime, then found him again for the 2-point conversion.
Notre Dame (1-8) cut the lead to two on a 5-yard TD run by Travis Thomas. But after a pass interference call gave Notre Dame a second chance at the 2-point conversion, defensive lineman Michael Walsh and linebacker Irv Spencer tackled Thomas well short of the end zone on the final play.
"Honestly, this win hasn't even hit me yet," linebacker Matt Wimsatt said. "I can't wait to talk to everybody back home. This is definitely bigger than just one football game."
For Notre Dame, it was its school-record fifth straight home loss, another low point in a season of lows. Weis said the 43-game winning streak had no meaning to him or the team.
"They're worried about here and now. These kids are 17. You think they're worrying about 43 years?" he said.
"To be honest, I don't even know what the streak was at before it ended," linebacker Joe Brockington said.
Weis said the home losing streak was much more important to the players. It also is the first time the Irish have lost five at home in one season.
Notre Dame did have its best game offensively, rushing for 235 yards, nearly doubling their season output, and James Aldridge ran for 125 yards. It wasn't enough.
No, it wasn't.
Congratulations, Navy. With that kind of determination and heart, it's safe to say the future of our Navy and Marine Corps is very bright.
(Scoreboard photo: Keith Boring (USNA Class of '82 football great). Team photo: AP)
Boeing is expected by the end of this week to select a manufacturer to upgrade the US Air Force F-15 fleet with an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar.
Vying for this contract are Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, but no matter who wins Boeing's protest-proof selection (take that, GAO) will be sure to set off the first Great Radar War.
The idea driving this industrial war is this: the power of a fighter aircraft's radar may now be as important in combat as the power of its engine.
In the early 1980s, Pratt & Whitney and General Electric fought every year for their share of the USAF's fighter engine budget. The rivalry was so intense it was chronicled in a book called the Great Engine War.
That same industrial phenomenon has started to appear in the radar market. The contract for the F-15 radar modernization will be the first of several to come.
Both Raytheon and Northrop are designing new active arrays for the F-16 in anticipation of foreign buyers (hello, India?) and eventually the USAF.
And I'll bet you a quarter and a coke that the war will extend even to the grand prize of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. In 2001, Raytheon was on Boeing's X-32 team, so Northrop's design for the X-35 is on the program today. But if the USAF can re-open the F-15's radar selection to competition, Raytheon is going to fight to take another shot at the F-35 program.
You can also safely bet that the USAF will think about radar interchangeablility when creating the requirements for the Next-Generation Long Range Strike fleet, which should enter service after 2018.
The Great Radar War will have profound implications for both industry and for the fighter community. For the first time, operators may actually have a choice of radars like they already do for engines. By implication, neither Raytheon nor Northrop can rest anymore after winning the initial contract, but must continually refresh its technology to stay in the chase for new contracts.
Israel used several new intelligence-gathering and strike technologies in its raid on Syria. New details of the attack involve a train of capabilities extending from satellite observations to precision bombing of the suspect facility on Sept. 6.
The launch of a new satellite this summer allowed the integration of several advanced technologies including electro-optical imaging from space, image-enhancing algorithms, scene-matching guidance for precision weapons and the use of advanced targeting pods carried by the Israeli Air Force's two-man F-16Is (the pods are not available on F-15Is).
In a series of interviews, several specialists detailed the technologies and how they were used. "Reality is more impressive than your imagination in some areas,"says a senior military officer.
Space observations provided early planning details for the raid. The important satellite for the Syrian raid was Ofeq-7 launched on June 11th. It has multi-spectral and high resolution electro-optical sensors and a resolution of less than a half-meter, far better than that provided by earlier Israeli satellites.
The space images were then improved by specialized imagery enhancement algorithms to sharpen pictures for planning precision bombing attacks.
The primary aircraft for the Syrian raid were some of the new, two-man Lockheed Martin F-16Is (Sufa or Storm) that Lockheed Martin began delivering to the Israeli Air Force in Feb. 2004. The backseater is a weapons systems officer who can focus on targeting and electronic warfare while the pilot focuses on flying and evading air defenses. Conformal fuel tanks give the fighters an unrefueled combat radius of over 500 mi. which matches the unrefueled range of F-15Is which would normally escort a flight of strike aircraft.
Sensors on the $45 million F-16I include a APG-68(v)9 radar with high-resolution synthetic aperture radar mapping capability and about 30% more range that other mechanically scanned radars.
But more importantly for this raid, the fighter had the Litening targeting pod. Its EO imagery can be used for seeker cueing. That imagery can also be used for scene-matching with the observations made by the satellite.
Breaking News from the front page of Military.com:
A senior Navy official said Thursday one of General Dynamics Corp. next-generation combat ships has been canceled after efforts to control costs failed.
After more than a month of extensive talks, neither the Navy nor Falls Church, Va.-based General Dynamics could agree on a restructured contract that contained cost overruns in a way that was acceptable to both parties.
"They were above the numbers we were willing to accept," Navy Adm. Charles Goddard, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.
This is the second ship that the Navy has canceled on the so-called Littoral Combat Ship program. In April, the Navy terminated Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp.'s second ship after costs on the first ship soared to at least $350 million from an initial price of $270 million.
The Navy declined to specify how much costs on the General Dynamics ship has exceeded initial estimates, but said the cost difference is comparable to Lockheed's.
“I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing,” Tibbets told The Columbus Dispatch for a story on Aug. 6, 2005, the 60th anniversary of the bomb. “We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible.”
Tibbets, then a 30-year-old colonel, never expressed regret over his role. He said it was his patriotic duty and the right thing to do.
“I’m not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I’m proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did,” he said in a 1975 interview.
“You’ve got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war. ... You use anything at your disposal.”
General Tibbets was born in Quincy, Ill., in 1915. He graduated from Western Military Academy in Alton, Ill., in 1933, and later attended the University of Florida and the University of Cincinnati where he majored in chemistry.
He entered the Army Air Corps on Feb. 25, 1937 at Fort Thomas, Ky. Immediately thereafter, he entered flying school at Randolph Field, and in February 1938 graduated from pilot school at Kelly Field, Texas. His first assignment was to Flight B, 16th Observation Squadron, Lawson Field, Fort Benning, Ga.
In April 1941, General Tibbets became group engineering officer of the 3d Attack Group, Hunter Air Force Base, Savannah, Ga. On Dec. 4, 1941, he received orders to join the 29th Bomb Group at MacDill Field; however, before reporting to MacDill he was placed on temporary duty to take 21 B-18s to Pope Field, Fort Bragg, N.C. to form an anti-submarine patrol. In February 1942, General Tibbets actually reported for duty with the 29th Bomb Group at MacDill as engineering officer. After three weeks, he was made commander of the 340th Bomb Squadron, 97th Bomb Group, which was formed from a cadre taken from the 29th Bomb Group. From February until June 1942, he was in training for an overseas movement.
In June 1942, he arrived in England and immediately went into combat operations, flying 25 combat missions in B-17s, including the first American Flying Fortress raid against occupied Europe. In October 1942, the general was given the special assignment of flying General Mark Clark to make his rendezvous with the French in preparation for the invasion of North Africa. Upon his return from this trip, he was retained to ferry General Eisenhower and his staff to Gibraltar on the night of the invasion. General Tibbets then flew General Clark to Algiers where General Clark took control of the invasion forces.
For the next 30 days, General Tibbets conducted bombardment missions in the North African area under the direct control of the British, pending build-up of the American bomber forces.
He led the first heavy bombardment mission in support of the invasion of North Africa. In November 1942, General Tibbets reverted to control of the Twelfth Air Force and, with the arrival of the remainder of the 97th Bomb Group, resumed normal combat operations in the Sahara Desert area. In January 1943, he was reassigned to the Twelfth Air Force Headquarters at Algiers as assistant operations officer in charge of bomber operations under Colonel (now General) Lauris Norstad.
In March 1943, he was returned to the United States for the purpose of participating in the B-29 program. This flight test work with the Boeing factory and Air Materiel Command continued until March 1944 at which time General Tibbets was transferred to Grand Island, Neb., as director of operations under General Frank Armstrong who started a B-29 instructor transition school. In September 1944, he was assigned to the Atomic Bomb Project as the Air Force officer in charge of developing an organization capable of employing the atomic bomb in combat operations, and mating the development of the bomb to the airplane. In this function, he was also charged with the flight test development of the atomic bomb itself. As these developments progressed, General Tibbets was further charged with the tactical training of bombardment organizations and their deployment into the combat theater of operations. He flew the first atomic bomb mission against enemy forces, dropping the bomb on Hiroshima.
With the end of the war in 1945, General Tibbets' organization was transferred to what is now Walker Air Force Base, Roswell, N.M., and remained there until August 1946. It was during this period that the Bikini Bomb Project took place, with General Tibbets participating as technical adviser to the Air Force commander. He was then assigned to the Air Command and Staff School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., from which he graduated in 1947. His next assignment was to the Directorate of Requirements, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, where he subsequently served as director of the Strategic Air Division.
In June 1950, General Tibbets was assigned to Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., and from July 1950 until February 1952, was B-47 project officer at the Boeing Airplane Company, Wichita, Kan., where the service test of the B-47 to determine its operational suitability took place. From February 1952 until August 1954, he was commander of the Proof Test Division at Eglin Air Force Base. The general then received orders assigning him to the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, from which he graduated in June 1955. His next assignment was director of war plans, Allied Air Forces in Central Europe at Fontainebleau, France. In February 1956, he returned to the United States as commander, 308th Bomb Wing, Hunter Air Force Base, Ga.
In January 1958, General Tibbets was reassigned to MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., where he assumed command of the 6th Air Division. He is a rated command pilot.
In February 1961, General Tibbets was assigned to Headquarters U.S. Air Force as director of management analysis (redesignated as Directorate of Status Analysis effective March 27, 1961).
In July 1962, General Tibbets was assigned to the Joint Staff, Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as deputy director for operations, J-3. In June 1963, with reorganization of the Operations Directorate, Joint Staff, General Tibbets became deputy director for the National Military Command System.
Ford Engine Powers New Boeing UAV
Boeing's work on a high-altitude, long-endurance UAV has moved forward with a successful four-day test of a hydrogen-fuelled engine, including three days at a simulated altitude of 65,000 feet. Teammates include Aurora Flight Sciences, providing the high-altitude test facility at Manassas, VA, and - revealed for the first time - Ford Research and Advanced Engineering.
Ford has developed a multi-stage-turbocharged engine - based on the engine used in the Ford Fusion - for Boeing's UAV project. Boeing is looking at a military HALE with a seven-day-plus endurance and a 2,000-pound payload; Aurora is working on its single-engine Orion HALL (High Altitude Long Loiter) both as an engine test platform and as a research vehicle.
Using an automotive engine makes sense. In-service small aircraft engines are almost all air-cooled, which is a headache in the stratosphere, and are based on very old designs. Auto engines use more modern materials. Meanwhile, the ability of an internal combustion engine to operate at very high altitude, given sufficient turbo boost, has been proven in multiple programs, including Boeing's own groundbreaking Condor. This article first appeared on Aviation Week’s Ares weblog. Read the rest of the story HERE.
This particular aircraft was 27 years old and "service life issues" is one of the determining factors in the grounding. Fuselage or wing fatigue concerns are a very definite question in the aircraft, and the fact that the C-model is the air-to-air version of the F-15 and this particular Eagle was engaged in ACM when the mishap occurred makes a fleet grounding apropos until inspections can be made.
role. He said it was his patriotic duty and the right thing to do.
