Defence: December 2005 Archives

BAE Systems stock shot up yesterday, even by its own dizzying recent standards, and put on another 5% in the opening hours of trading today following confirmation of the UK-Saudi government-to-government deal that includes the purchase of 24 Eurofighter Typhoons.

On this occasion the market's reaction is fully justified - the deal is of huge importance to Britain's aerospace giant and is the product of agonising negotiations to sustain the Al Yamamah business relationship that has so far been worth a reported ｣43 billion.

It's true of course that 24 aircraft is not a huge quantity - but outside the USA it's about as many current generation fighters as anyone can hope to shift in an international sale in one go. It also helps keep BAE in the platform business for a while to come and beefs up its financial strength at a time when big-ticket partnerships are likely to be in its future.

But in the world of commercial aerospace things are not so rosy. BAE's activity in the field is essentially its 20% share in Airbus. And with the air transport sector growing like crazy - Airbus deliveries will be 370 in 2005 against 320 last year - life should be sweet indeed.

Not so unfortunately. BAE has been unable to shrug off its regional aircraft legacy and this year's Chapter 11 filings in the US, where bankruptcy judges have been particularly happy to see the aircraft lessors take the hit, have been a ghastly experience for it. Indeed it has just had to announce that the growth in its share of Airbus profits has been wiped out by the latest liabilities.

The talk for years has been around whether BAE should liquidate its Airbus holding, probably as part of its strategic thrust into the US. But I have the nasty feeling that this company may have to take one last hit to fix this chronic problem before it makes its 'big move'.

The US Air Force's newest fighter stands poised to enter operational service this week, but with a new name. The Lockheed Martin F/A-22 is renamed the F-22A. The USAF's official explanation says the 'F/A' designation was invented three years ago as a marketing tool aimed at selling the Raptor as a multi-role fighter to a sceptical US Congress. A series of successful operational tests has since proved the point, so the USAF is now free to revert to tradition.

Perhaps the odd cynic might wonder if there was a different explanation -- perhaps a tacit admission of the F-22A's primarily single-role air-to-air abilities until a series of spiral upgrades are complete by 2009. Those would include a two-way data link and a multi-mode active radar.

For what it's worth, General Michael "Buzz" Moseley offered his own interpretation during a roundtable with reporters at the Pentagon on 13 December. Here's his reason:

"You can take this a bit to the extreme about the F/A, because [the Raptor] is equally capable as a Rivet Joint; it's equally capable as a Compass Call; it's equally capable as all these other aircraft when you look at the wide variety of things that it does. But we had no desire to call it an RC or an EW or an F/A/EW/RC-22Something. So the simplicity of this is the air force has fighters with the nomenclature of F which should be in the lineage of the rest of the fighters."

What is your opinion?

It is rare to spot something truly new in one of the hundreds of reports issued each year by US Department of Defense's legion of internal think-tanks, much less learn of the existence of an undisclosed, revolutionary helicopter development project. But it can happen.

And so it is with the recently published, 175-page report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Mobility . Under the subheading, "Future capabilities" (page 56), it casually unveils a US Marine Corps proposal to build the largest helicopter in history. It lists two candidates to replace the USMC's venerable CH-53E - the CH-53X and the CH-53X+.

The CH-53X is now called the Heavy Lift Rotorcraft (HLR), and is correctly described by the DSB as a proposal to develop a new variant of the CH-53E that can transport a 27,000lb payload about 110nm.

Then comes the news about the CH-53X+. Here's what the report says:

"The CH-53X+ is designed to carry a 40,000-pound payload to a range of 250 nautical miles. It would require making major aerodynamic and structural changes to the CH-53E. Maintaining current disc loading would require a 116- to 120-foot-diameter rotor. This modification would in turn require a redesigned fuselage and an extended tail rotor boom.

"Some members of the helicopter design community have observed that the capabilities projected for the CH-53X+ represent a major challenge. The introduction of a new engine, a much larger rotor, higher disc loading, a new tail boom, and (probably) a new transmission amounts to a new aircraft, with many design unknowns.

"Further, a helicopter with a rotor diameter of 120 feet and takeoff weight of approximately 160,000 pounds may not be compatible with existing ships. The anticipated requirement to carry more than 40,000 pounds to ranges of 250 to 300 miles is similar to the capabilities of the Russian Mi-26 HALO helicopter. The existence of the Mi-26 suggests that the technology for such an aircraft already lies beyond technology readiness level 6. However, it is not clear that the airframe of this aircraft has the dimensions to allow internal carriage of ISO containers or Stryker vehicles."

Ordinarily, this little blurb would make quite the news story. But there's a problem - neither Sikorsky nor the Naval Air Systems Command nor the US Marine Corps' requirements branch apparently has knowledge of nor interest in such a massive new helicopter. Representatives of each organisation have theorised that the DSB may have confused the CH-53X+ proposal with a possibly aged - and long-forgotten, if it ever existed - concept for a CH-53 variant for the separate Joint Heavy Lift proposal, which is a US Army-led programme.

So perhaps for now we'll call the CH-53X+ a mystery. But if anyone spots a new variant of a CH-53E that has a fuselage the size of a Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules, give us a ring.