October 2008 - Posts

• Japan's Stealth Fighter Concept (photos)

  Not a perfect translation, but interesting.... Japan's model of a concept low RCS fighter jet. Hat tip: Alert 5 and Ishida, Shinichi Posted Oct 13 2008, 08:30 PM by ELP with no comments Filed under: Japan

• DOD's Nohari Window

  DOD has crashed through the Nohari Window. What U.S. weapons system programs will survive after the economic downfall? The USAF is in extremely poor shape in the area of paying for new stuff. Other parts of the DOD aren't much different even if the U.S. Navy is holding it's own. The aerospace industry is wondering too. For a better explaination of what the future may hold, I refer to Mr. Donald Rumsfield. Posted Oct 11 2008, 09:20 AM by ELP with no comments Filed under: U.S. Military Budget

• Bell's ARH-Preparing for the end

  The Bell U.S. Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter project is preparing for death row. Army officials acknowledged Tuesday that they are weighing alternatives to Bell Helicopter Textron's Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter in anticipation of an upcoming Defense Department decision on the troubled program. Speaking at the Association of the United States Army annual meeting, Army officials would not comment on what aircraft they consider viable alternatives to the militarized version Bell's 407 single-engine light helicopter now under contract. Paul Bogosian, the Army's program executive officer for aviation, said the service is "gathering data" on possible solutions the Army could consider if the program is canceled. Maj. Gen. Walter Davis, the director of Army aviation, said the internal analysis of ARH alternatives is a prudent measure in the event Pentagon acquisition chief John Young cancels the contract with Bell. Within the next several weeks, Young will decide whether to cancel the program or proceed with Bell's aircraft, which has been plagued by cost overruns. The cost of the plane has risen more than 25 percent -- a violation of the Nunn-McCurdy law that triggers a department review of any program whose price tag exceeds that threshold. Under the law, the Pentagon must terminate any program whose costs grow by more than 25 percent unless the Defense secretary can certify the program is suitable to national security, that no lower-cost alternative exists, that new estimates of total program costs are reasonable and program managers can control costs. "It's out of our hands," said Maj. Gen. James Barclay, the head of the Army's aviation branch. "OSD [office of the secretary of Defense] is working that." Posted Oct 09 2008, 09:23 PM by ELP with no comments Filed under: U.S. Army

• South Korean Air-to-Ground Weapons Video

  Here is a good video of South Korean live fire training showing SLAM-ER, AGM-142, JDAM, and GBU-24. Posted Oct 06 2008, 06:47 PM by ELP with no comments Filed under: South Korea

• Fake Chinese Chips In U.S. Weapons Systems

  "I am very frustrated with the leadership's inability to react to this issue." There are several U.S. weapons systems that have been corrupted by counterfeit computer chips. How? Read the following article in Business Week, Dangerous Fakes - How counterfeit, defective computer components from China are getting into U.S. warplanes and ships. Retired four-star General William G.T. Tuttle Jr., former chief of the Army Materiel Command and now a defense industry consultant, agrees: "What we have is a pollution of the military supply chain." Confidence in the supply chain isn't inspiring after reading parts of the story like this: Mariya Hakimuddin owns IT Enterprise, a company she runs with her mother out of a modest one-story house in Bakersfield, Calif. Rosebushes line the street, and a basketball hoop hangs in the driveway. Hakimuddin, who is in her 40s, says she has no college education. She began brokering military chips four years ago, after friends told her about the expanding trade. Since 2004 she has won Pentagon contracts worth a total of $2.7 million, records show. The military has acquired microchips and other parts from IT Enterprise for use in radar on the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and the antisubmarine combat system of Spruance-class destroyers. Hakimuddin says she knows little about the parts she has bought and sold. She started her business by signing up on the Internet for a government supplier code. After the Defense Dept. approved her application, with no inspection, she began scanning online military procurement requests. She plugged part codes into Google (GOOG) and found Web sites offering low prices. Then she ordered parts and had them shipped directly to military depots. "I wouldn't know what [the parts] were before I'd order them," she says, standing near her front door. "I didn't even know what the parts were for." Posted Oct 04 2008, 10:16 AM by ELP with no comments Filed under: Avionics, MRO, Industry Problem, Supply Chain Problem

• Israeli F-35 Briefing Slides and the M.E. Question

  Here are some F-35 briefing slides from last year that were used to amaze Israeli journos. Undoubtedly, some or all of these slides (except the last one) were used to show decision makers at all levels of the Israeli F-35 deal. What is interesting is the last slide from another F-35 brief that was in 2007 which had nothing to do with Israel. I mean literally. Think of it. The last slide shows all the potential F-35 customers worldwide for the life of the program, and the most important one, Israel,  is left out. Imagine that. So when will Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Egypt get theirs? Posted Oct 03 2008, 11:15 PM by ELP with no comments Filed under: F-35, Arms Sales

• The Sale That Isn't

  The Sale That Isn't   How money laundering of U.S. taxpayer funds return back to help a troubled aircraft program.   The F-35 program needs cash. Major JSF partner nations aren't buying yet and expenses are getting high. Failure to manage and estimate development costs and other factors outside the control of the program: Such as a falling U.S. dollar and the rising cost of manpower and material are having a negative effect. So where does Lockmart/Pentagon search for an infusion of cash to help push it along? Israel. This article in the Fort Worth Star Telegram points it out in very simple language: -Although Israel is placing the order, Darling said U.S. taxpayers will pick up most of the tab through annual foreign-aid grants targeted specifically to purchases of U.S. weapons systems. U.S. arms aid financing for Israel totaled $2.4 billion in 2008 and will rise to $3.1 billion annually from 2012 through 2018.- Jackpot. And the stressed out U.S. taxpayer who is already carrying a heavy burden for a seriously in-debt U.S. Federal Government is picking up  a large portion of the tab. It will be interesting to see what the F-35 in IDF service will look like. It will need an extreme overhaul in design to meet the IDF requirements for indigenous weapons, indigenous avionics, indigenous everything. How will Team JSF countries respond when an IDF F-35 gets certified for tactical nuke stores? It is doubtful that the F-35s are to be used against Iran. Why? While it is a convenient justification, with the U.S. happy to sell arms like JDAMs and advanced air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East locales, the IDF has to keep a full menu of O-Plans in the safe ready to drag out for any number of contingencies. It is the modern air forces with Typhoons, F-15's, F-16s and cheap all-weather sub 4 meter PGMs that Israel has to game for. Going against Iran while challenging, can be done just as well with existing strike aircraft and weapons like Spice. It will be a very long time before Iran gets their air defense act together. This means that the IDF can manage Iranian defenses for some time to come. The Iran issue might be resolved for better or worse by the time an F-35 in Israeli colors reaches IOC. So if Congress approves the deal and the F-35 program doesn't encounter serious problems in testing, $15 plus billion spread out over a few years will help keep the program healthy and maybe even cover for any quitters in Team JSF that balk at procurement of the jet for any number of reasons.   Posted Oct 01 2008, 10:03 PM by ELP with no comments Filed under: F-35

• USAF under-reported C-130J Cost?

  I saw the early adoption of the C-130J. While a good plane now, it was a disaster the way that it got into service. Real slight of hand stuff. Create a commercial variant (snort guffaw ) so LM can sell it to the DOD as COTS (commercial off the shelf) and well since it wasn't milspec there was a lot of work to fix them to make them mil friendly. As the Brits said when they got theirs... "It kinda looks like a C-130 but that's it". Which means a lot of the support equipment and maintenance/sustainment processes in place for legacy Herks, won't do. A very big sad story best for another time. So no surprise here when Stephen Trimble From Flight International has this Congress: USAF under-reported C-130J costs : Six months later, Abercrombie's hunch proved right on the mark. The defense appropriations conference report approved by the House last week explains that the twin-engined C-27J costs much less than a four-engined C-130J after all. Here's the language: "The report (H. Rept. 110-652) accompanying the House bill noted that, at the time of the report, the Air Force was reporting a unit cost for JCA of $60.7 million, and was reporting a unit cost for C-130J aircraft of $56.7 million. After further discussion with the Air Force acquisition officials and clarification of terminology, we believe that a fairer, apples-to-apples comparison of such costs would raise the comparable average procurement unit cost for a C-130J to $84.2 million, in terms of fiscal year 2007 dollars." Posted Oct 01 2008, 08:57 AM by ELP with no comments Filed under: C-130J