Lobby Worries About Saudi F-35s

In 1992, the first line combat air strength of the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) consisted of approximately 200 aircraft, organized into six fighter/ground-attack squadrons and five fighter-air defense squadrons. However, the RSAF declined during the 1990s' as the Kingdom's F-5EIIs and F-5s lost substantial operational capability.

In September 2007, Saudi Arabia and Britian signed a deal for the sale of 72 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter aircraft for 4.43bn (British pounds). The deal followed a £21bn al-Yamamah contract negotiated by the Thatcher government and involving the sale of BAE Systems Tornado jets and medical equipment.

Now, the US is reportedly considering a sale of the advanced stealth F-35 Lightning II to Saudi Arabia. In an effort to maintain military superiority, Israel has asked the Bush administration to purchase the the F-22 Raptor, despite the fact that foreign sales of the aircraft are currently banned by Congress.

In addition, Israeli defense officials have requested two new advanced JDAM models (laser-guided and immune to jamming) to offset the standard JDAM smart-bomb kits sold to Saudi Arabia that converts existing 500-, 1,000- and 2,000-pound unguided free-fall bombs into accurately guided "smart" weapons.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., has expressed concern over US arms sales to Saudi Arabia, noting that the Kingdom “has not been a true ally in furthering the United States interests in the Middle East,” and noted that “about 40 percent of all foreign fighters [in Iraq] are Saudi.”

However, according to US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States will “help bolster forces of moderation and support a broader strategy to counter the negative influences of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran."

Nevertheless, Daryl G. Kimball of the Arms Control Association has compared the Bush administration arms sales policy of “sell, sell, sell” to throwing “gasoline on a brush fire.”

The possibility of a rogue pilot or the eventual overthrow of the Saudi regime also concerns officials and analysts. Dr. Michael Donovan of the CDI emphasized that “as of Sept. 11, [Saudi] stability can no longer be taken for granted...The Islamic values upon which they based their authority for so long are now, seemingly, in conflict with forces they could not control even if they chose to do so.”

(Gouge: NC)

-- Aharon Etengoff

Navy Officials: JSF Costs Under Control

U.S. Navy officials insist the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter won't bust its budget, despite persistent rumors that the $300 billion acquisition program is on the cusp of a major cost overrun.

Capt. Wade Knudson, the Lightning II's development manager, said the plane's development costs are in line with earlier projections. Even if the first planes off the new production line cost more than expected, the long-term price tag isn't likely to move much, he told reporters last week. That's because the U.S. Air Force is on the books to buy 1,763 of the single engine fighters, anchoring a production line that is also due to crank out hundreds more aircraft for the Navy, Marine Corps and eight partner nations.

That isn't just program optimism, but should be reflected in the Pentagon's upcoming next round of official cost estimates, said Vice Adm. David Venlet, head of Naval Air Systems Command, in an interview. He rejected Capitol Hill talk that the program is on the cusp of a so-called Nunn-McCurdy breach, a cost overrun that would trigger a lengthy review and program restructuring. "I don't expect them to probably have numbers in it that would cause a Nunn-McCurdy. I believe what they're saying," Venlet said.

The verdict will come out in coming weeks, when the Pentagon releases its next "selected acquisition report" data on weapons costs. Already, however, audit agencies are raising red flags.

"We believe that JSF costs will likely be much higher than reported. The estimates do not include all costs," the Government Accountability Office said this month in a new report that called current projections "optimistic" and "not well supported". GAO said the required total investment now approaches $1 trillion, including maintenance costs, and it urged the Pentagon to take a realistic look at just how big the coming bills will be, given the Lightning II's "unprecedented" demands on the federal budget.

Critics say that expense should prompt a second look at cheaper alternatives, like a new order of Lockheed Martin's F-16 fighters or the latest models of the F/A-18 Super Hornet. Partner nations also might think twice, particularly if an electronic attack version of the F/A-18 is approved for export.

But Lockheed Martin counters that the stealthy F-35 will prove itself over decades of service, as it takes over roles currently performed by a wide variety of existing aircraft. The F-35 will be a bomber and a spy plane, as well as an air-to-air fighter. Its triple-play design will offer flexibility along with maintenance-saving commonality, said Steve O'Bryan, a former Navy fighter pilot who now handles F-35 business development for Lockheed Martin.

The F-35 will come in three versions, all produced on the same production line and able to use the same engines. A version of the basic model, a conventional takeoff and landing plane, is now in flight testing at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth plant. The second version is a short-takeoff, vertical landing (STOVL) model sought by the Marines and the U.K., and the third version is an aircraft carrier model for the U.S. Navy.

Design differences among the three variants have brought more headaches than initially expected. Engine modifications for the STOVL have become a development challenge. Also, the Navy version has required a bigger wing, so the plane can fly long distances and also stay airborne at slow speeds near aircraft carriers. Even the basic plane has had its snags -- for example, wing bulkhead production issues have caused the first planes to be built "out of sequence" from the production plan, which is a significant hurdle for builders. Still, Lockheed Martin says it's making progress on all three versions and doesn't expect any major delays to result.

That's good news for the Navy, said Vice Adm. Venlet. "We've got to be deliberate about getting it here so it's got the capability we need when it gets here," he said. Patuxent River Naval Air Station, where Venlet is based, is due to get its first STOVL F-35 by the end of this year, assuming the plane sticks to its current schedule. Lockheed Martin will handle the initial test flights this summer, but the Navy will handle the jump jet's first vertical operations. Venlet said that testing will be "busy and noisy", but very welcome.

"We need it and we need it bad," Venlet said. "We need the Joint Strike Fighter. We covet that capability. It's going to be great."

-- Rebecca Christie

Israel Looks to STOVL JSF

The IDF assesses that its bases and runways could potentially be targeted by enemy missiles during wartime, leading to a decision to consider the purchase of a JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) squadron with vertical take-off and landing capabilities (VTOL), such as the F-35B.

According to Lockheed Martin, the F-35B employs a short-takeoff/vertical-landing (STOVL) capability via a shaft-driven lift fan propulsion system. The STVOL, designed to replace the AV-8B Harrier, also carries a refueling probe fitted into the right side of the forward fuselage. It has more than twice the range on internal fuel, operates at supersonic conditions, and houses internal weapons.

"The plan is that we will get the F-35 as soon as it's possible," a senior IAF official told Aviation Week & Space Technology. He noted that the IAF will eventually acquire more than 100 F-35s and emphasized that the IAF wanted the JSF "the minute it is available."

A senior Israeli general explained that "the number of aircraft [we obtain initially] could be irrelevant...The main issue now is that we get the first squadron as soon as possible. We give the basic capability to the squadron, and later on we increase it [with technology upgrades]...At the beginning, we expect to get at least one squadron, with more to follow by the end of the decade [in 2020]."

The Israeli rush to gain VTOL capability is certainly understandable, as the Jewish state faces the possibility of sustained missile and rocket attacks from at least three enemy states: Syria, Iran and Lebanon (via Hizballah).

The Israel Missile Defense Association (IMDA) notes that during the Second Lebanon War, (July 12 - August 13 2007), the IDF Home Front Command reported 3,970 rocket impacts in Israel. 907 rockets impacted on buildings or in close enough proximity to cause severe damage. 1,012 rockets landed in the northern city of Kiryat Shemona, while the coastal Nahariya sustained 808 rocket impacts. In addition, the Port of Haifa was forced to close and the Navy base at Haifa relocated south.

Hizballah still maintains an impressive arsenal of lethal projectiles that includes: Katyushas, 220mm and 302mm rockets, the FADJR-3 and FADJR-5, the Zelzal-2, the C-802 and Fatah-110.

Wyn Q. Bowen and Joanna Kidd estimate that Syria has a stockpile of several hundred SCUD-B, SCUD-C and SS-21 missiles. Damascus may also possess a number of SCUD-D missiles with a range of 650 kilometers. In addition, the Assad regime maintains 10 squadrons of fighter-ground attack aircraft (including Su-24, Su-22 and MiG-23 BN) and 16 squadrons of fighter aircraft (including MiG-21, MiG-23, MiG-25 and MiG-29A and Su-27).

According to Steven A. Hildreth, a specialist in missile defense and non-proliferation, the Iranian Shahab-3 (a derivative of the North Korean No-Dong 1 ballistic missile) is reportedly capable of achieving a range of 1,000-1,500 kilometers. The Shahab-3A may have a range of 1,500 to 2,500 kilometers and could potentially reach targets throughout the Middle East, Turkey and southern Europe.

-- Aharon Etengoff

The JSF Finally Flies...

Our boy Box Cox of the Ft. Worth Star Telegram and his gang of zany JSF watchers caught the plane in the act on Friday...

Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II test airplane finally took off again Friday afternoon for a 55-minute flight, the first since a severe electrical problem forced an emergency landing May 3.

Test flight No. 20 was successful, went according to plan and was trouble free, said Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin executive vice president and F-35 program general manager.

"We planned it to go an hour," Crowley said. Test pilot Jon Beesley "had the discretion to go a little more or a little less. He got everything done and finished a little bit early."

It was a key milestone in the development of the next generation stealth combat jet, a program estimated to ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers upward of $300 billion even with financial contributions from eight partner nations. Lockheed Martin and government officials have downplayed the effect of the plane's grounding and the problems that caused it, but the issues and rising costs are being closely watched by potential foreign buyers.

The F-35's wasn't the only milestone flight of the afternoon above Fort Worth. Lockheed later flew the CATBird, the much-modified Boeing 737 that will be a flying laboratory for engineers to test and modify the many electronic surveillance, tracking and weapons-targeting systems that are being developed for the F-35.

"The impact of these two flights on the team morale, having been down so long, was huge," Crowley said.

With a cluster of several dozen onlookers watching nearby, Beesley fired up the F-35's Pratt & Whitney engine and took off about 1:20 p.m. from Naval Air Station Fort Worth, followed moments later by an F-16 chase plane. Both planes quickly gained altitude and turned to the southwest.

After becoming airborne, Beesley ran the engine at various power settings and checked the aircraft's flight characteristics at 6,000, 17,500 and 20,000 feet, and performed a fuel-dump test at 250 knots before returning to base at 2:15 p.m.

"Everything sounds like the plane is ready to fly again right away," Crowley said. The test plane will likely fly several more times before the end of the year as test pilots methodically put the aircraft through various maneuvers and situations to test its performance.

In particular they will be monitoring the electrical-hydraulic controls that operate the aircraft's control surfaces. It was a serious electrical arcing problem in one of the control boxes that caused the emergency on flight No. 19 and led to the plane's grounding while repairs were designed, produced and tested.

The F-35 will be flown in Fort Worth until about March, when plans call for it to be flown to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., for testing by the military.

Hopefully they got all the kinks worked out - especially since they keep grounding those confounded F-15s.

(Gouge: NC)

[Photo: "Where's Bob?" from the Ft. Worth Star Telegram]

-- Christian

JSF Still on the Ground?

Our boy Bob Cox from the Fort Worth Star Telegram has been watching out for JSF test flights like some UFO nut-job casing Area 51...and we love him for it.

His latest dispatch on Sky Talk is a couple days old, but the stuff he mentions about the shakiness of the F-35's international partners is worth noting - and checking out.

Well yet another day has passed without the F-35 test aircraft returning to flight. As we noted previously on this blog, Lockheed Martin folks were geared up to fly the plane on Tuesday for the first time since a critical problem was discovered on May 3. But that flight was scrubbed shortly before the expected 2:30 p.m. takeoff.

Wednesday came and went without a flight either. No explanations forthcoming from Lockheed officials as to what has happened to delay the return to flight, other than they couldn't complete all the preparations on Tuesday. But another source tells the Star-Telegram that there was a problem discovered with one of the many sensors on board the aircraft.

No word on whether it was a primary system sensor, or a sensor that checks the other sensors!

A spate of news out of the press of nations that are expected to be F-35 buyers indicates considerable nervousness over the aircraft's lack of progress and rising costs. A Dutch government watchdog agency, similar to the US GAO, says the Defence Ministry lacks good cost and updated technical information. Another report, out of Denmark, says Saab, which manufactures the Gripen fighter, is offering major financial participation trying to convince the Danes to forgo the F-35 for the Gripen.

An Australian paper speculates the U.S. government will push the new political bosses Down Under hard to stick with plans to buy the F-35.

The Howard government's $15billion plan to place an order for up to 100 F-35s late next year for delivery in 2013 is now on hold, as the Rudd Government conducts a review of options for the air force.

The review will examine all alternatives in replacing Australia's aged F-111 strike bombers and F/A-18 fighters, including the feasibility of the world's most potent but expensive fighter, the F-22 Raptor.

However, the US is likely to seize the opportunity of a newly elected government to step up the pressure on Canberra to place early orders for the F-35.

Ah, international political intrigue.

We'll see if he shoots us another update from the perch on the roof of his JSF hunter RV. You know he's sitting just outside the security fence with night visions goggles, a sixer at his side and a laptop at the ready.

(Big props to Bob himself, the JSF chaser-in-chief)

[Photo: www.jsf.mil]

-- Christian

Up Up and Away!...'nt

DT friend Bob Cox of the Fort Worth Star Telegram passed this along to us...poor JSF...

The F-35 test aircraft was supposed to begin flying again Tuesday after a seven-month grounding, but the flight was aborted about 2 p.m. No word yet on why the flight was scrubbed.

Lockheed Martin had made no announcement about the pending flight, but word got out. The hill where the White Settlement Road bridge ties into Spur 341 was crawling with photographers and some Lockheed Martin employees.

The plane last flew on May 3 when it suffered a severe electrical system malfunction that resulted in an indefinite grounding. Further problems discovered by Pratt & Whitney with identical engines to the one used in the test aircraft added to the delays.

See this excellent article recasting many of the technical issues that have come up with the F-35.

Also check out Monday's Star-Telegram piece on how delays and rising costs are deterring F-35 orders by the very countries that have contributed money to development of the F-35.

More reason for increased F-22 buys? (Come on, don't get snippy, I'm just kidding...)Except maybe I'm not.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force said on Tuesday it had grounded all its older-model F-15 fighter jets, as many as 450 aircraft, for the third time in four weeks, after finding cracks in a third aircraft under a tightened inspection routine.

Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington that the latest F-15 "stand down" underscored the need to extend Lockheed Martin Corp's production line for the F-22 fighter, designed to replace the Cold War-era F-15s.

Hey, the F-22s are flying and have been given a "B" designation. The F-35 can't seem to get back up in the air, so...?

-- Christian

When Will the F-35 Return to Flight?

Following an enforced six-month lay-off, Lockheed Martin is "champing at the bit" to get the F-35 Lightning II back into the air, an ambition it is aiming to fulfil this week.

As of the end of last month company officials were targeting Dec. 4 to restart flight trials of AA-1, an F-35A. The aircraft has been on the ground since May, initially as a result of an electrical problem, and latterly with engine issues.

The planned return of the AA-1 to the flight test program will be quickly followed by flight tests of company's Boeing 737 systems testbed-aircraft, the Cooperative Avionics Testbed (CATBird). The CATBird was slated to fly as early as Dec. 5. The aircraft will eventually be fitted with a complete F-35 sensor suite.

Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin vice-president and F-35 general manager, says the circuitry responsible for the electrical problem has been redesigned. This delay, however, was compounded by a "manufacturing defect in an engine blade" resulting in the need for checks to the Pratt & Whitney F-135 engine.

Aircraft AA-1 had been flown on 19 test-flights when the electrical issue was encountered, May 3. A successful return to flight this week would see the aircraft go on to be flown from Forth Worth through March 2008, when it would be transferred to Edwards AFB, Calif. for a series of trials lasting around a month.

The initial AA-1 flights will be used to examine whether the electrical arcing issue at high-altitude has been satisfactorily dealt with. The aircraft will be flown at various flight levels up to 40,000 feet to ensure the anomaly does not recur.

Read more from Aviation Week about the F-35's return to flight at Military.com.

-- Christian

Whose JSF is Stealthier?

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

-- Christian

Dutch Reveal JSF Costs

The first Joint Strike Fighter aircraft to be ordered by the Netherlands, an F-35A to be used in the Operational Test & Evaluation (OT&E) program for the type, will cost approximately $142 million, the Netherlands defense ministry said October 17.

The Dutch are planning to participate in the OT&E program with two aircraft, the preliminary order for the first of which is to be placed at the end of this year.

According to the defense ministry, Lockheed Martin will start ordering long lead items for the OT&E aircraft at the beginning of 2008, and The Hague is expected to pay 10% of the cost of the first jet, an estimated $14.2 million, at that point.

The final and legally binding contract for the first aircraft is to be signed in 2009, the ministry says.

The second OT&E aircraft is to be ordered one year later.

The OT&E aircraft are standard F-35A production aircraft equipped with test instrumentation.

-- Aviation Week’s Ares weblog

Editor's Note: Defense Tech and Military.com have entered into a content sharing arrangement with the Aviation Week publishing group, which will allow us to feature their excellent aerospace content on a frequent basis. We look forward to comments and feedback from our readers and we invite them to visit Aviation Week frequently for additional content not featured here.

The Cloudy Future of the JSF

So, is it time to significantly cut the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter buy, leave the 2,400-odd airplane program alone or cut it altogether?

That’s the quandary a prominent D.C.-based defense think tank wrestled with during a briefing to Hill staffers, reporters and Pentagon officials Wednesday. Researchers with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said the per-plane cost has grown by $20 million since the program’s original $60 million per-plane estimate in 1997. In 2008 dollars, the JSF program will wind up costing $242 billion.

That’s certainly a hefty sum.

Read the entire "U.S. Fighter Modernization Plans: Near Term Report"

But the interesting thing is that the CSBA analysts switched their earlier position on cancellation, recognizing that at least some JSFs will be necessary for a future Air Force fighter mix. Additionally, it seems that the cost savings from cutting the 1,763 Air Force buy in half would net about $300-$500 million per year – a total cut of the roughly 600-plane Navy buy would save about $500 million per year across the program.

As a RAND aviation analyst stated at the briefing, that’s not a huge savings in the grand scheme of Pentagon budgets. And others say it is unlikely the Air Force will want to cut the JSF buy and substitute them with more modern Block 60 F-16s.

One CSBA analyst, former Pentagon PA&E chief and Vietnam-era fighter pilot Barry Watts, claimed that the need for JSFs is shrinking with the demonstrated success of precision munitions and smart artillery. The CAS mission the JSF would largely shoulder, he said, is going the way of the “horse cavalry.”

While it is beyond the scope of this report to estimate what a sensible F-35A/F-16 replacement ratio might be, it seems clear that one-for-one is too high. Thematuration of guided munitions and battle networks argues that fewer advanced fighters will be needed in the future than were required in the prior era of industrial-style warfare in which most munitions missed their aim-points or targets.

As I am sure many DT readers will agree, if anything, CAS is more important now than ever. Artillery is NOT effective in an urban fight and smart shells are still a ways off for general use. Attack helicopter squadrons and fixed-wing assets are taxed to the max in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of those missions are for close air support and the balance tend to focus on surveillance. So if the argument is that the JSF can afford to be cut because its CAS mission is shrinking, there’s not much to stand on.

Now, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne argued that the service’s TacAir fleet is ageing at a considerable rate – airframes now average around 24 years old - and are forecasted to be nearly 27 years old by 2010. So some kind of wholesale replacement needs to occur. And what’s the closest program to fruition? The JSF.

One intriguing idea that the analysts didn’t hit was instead of buying new F-16s, maybe the Air Force – and the Navy, for that matter - could accelerate the development of unmanned combat air systems. There’s been a lot of advancement on UCAVs and it seems to me that might be a more viable option than buying less stealthy, manned, legacy aircraft.

There will be a lot of pressure on Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps budgets in the coming years. Ships are expensive, bombers cost a lot and so does a larger Corps. It seems that the analysts are right in saying something’s got to give – and it’s most likely going to be fighter aircraft buys. Some say the Air Force aimed high on its JSF number anticipating a cut in the future, and everyone knows the Navy’s less than enthusiastic about the JSF with Super Hornets still coming off the lines. That leaves the Marine Corps, who’s technologically complex STOVL fighter has its own road blocks, not to mention that the Navy holds the purse strings for Marine air.

The CSBA logic:

From the standpoint of military necessity, a major concern is
that DoD’s current air power modernization plans may be unbalanced
in favor of fighters, vice longer-range strike aircraft. In future wars, US aircraft may have to operate at far greater distances than they have in the recent past. In particular, US air forces operating in Asia and the Pacific might well have to travel several times farther than US air forces typically had to during the Cold War. There also appears to be a growing need for aircraft that can loiter over the battlefield long enough to find emerging, fleeting or otherwise time-sensitive targets.

From the Air Force perspective, Wynne can say all he wants, but in the end he’s got a lot of big ticket items his service needs to buy: satellites, bombers, tankers, F-22s; and something will surely have to give.

-- Christian