March 2007 Archives

You might think the army would still be shy over publicity for the Aerial Common Sensor (ACS, for short).

Some of you will recall that ACS was the acquisition program that got cancelled in January 2006 in a most embarrassing fashion.

Somehow, Lockheed Martin promised the army that they could squeeze a 20,000-pound sensor on an aircraft with only 14,000lbs of extra room, and the army bought it. There were lots of reasons and justifications given for the oversight, but, really, it was just a dumb mistake. The army threw away $200 million and five years of wasted time.

So it was a bit surprising this week to see ACS back in an army news release.

Of course, the need remains to replace the army's RC-7 and RC-12 with a spy aircraft built after the Apple IIe computer generation. (The navy's need to replace the EP-3 also lurks in the background, but they have other options than ACS.)

So, for the army, the need remains, but so does the question: how?

The ACS is supposed to be a platform that can see all and hear all. In the intelligence world, that means you need a very sophisticated TV camera and an antenna receiver that can pick up everything from a high-bandwidth fire control radar system to a low-bandwidth cell phone held by the trigger-man of an improvised explosive device.

That is asking a lot for any one sensor to do.

With so many competing demands for cash, a next-generation spy aircraft may not be at the top of the army's budget priority list.

Look for the army to start cheap with an "off-the-shelf" sensor. One candidate often floated in industry circles is Northrop Grumman's Airborne Signals Intelligence Payload (ASIP). It is already flying aboard the U-2 spy plane and is selected for two unmanned aircraft - the RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-9B Predator.

The TV camera - also known in the military as a charge-coupled device (CCD) -- may be added to this system, or that part of the payload could be outsourced to another unmanned aircraft, such as the army's RQ-7 Shadow or MQ-12 Warrior.

I'd like to make an announcement.

After four years and who-knows-how-many-billions, the Department of Defense has discovered a new potential sensor solution for the problem of detecting mines, such as improvised explosive devices.

I give you the newly-unveiled pilot program for the "Munitions of Concern Detection Dog".

Chew on that term "munitions of concern" for a while too.

Let's call it a bad week for the forces of globalization in the defense industry.

Not that there's ever been a truly good week, mind you.

On Tuesday, ITT Corporation pleaded guilty to illegally outsourcing components of a night vision goggle to suppliers in China, Singapore and the UK without an export license.

On Thursday, a small defense contractor named Axion Corporation was indicted for allegedly doing the same thing with a component of the UH-60 Black Hawk.

Axion is still innocent until proven guilty, of course.

But it's not difficult to imagine the temptations. You're a defense contractor. Your customer wants you to cut your costs. You know that by outsourcing a small and seemingly innocent component of your military system to a foreign (read: cheaper) supplier, you could shave costs. But to do so you'd have to get an export license, and you know the foreign supplier would probably walk rather than have to endure that process. So you give the foreigners the deal on the sly and hope nobody is paying attention.

Welcome to the underbelly of this new era of globalized arms traders. I'm sure many such transactions occur completely legally, with all the appropriate licenses and reviews completed. But, given the suddenness of these two cases, one wonders if we're just seeing the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Anybody who wants to learn more about the forces of globalization in the defense business should read a new monograph published by the Security Studies Institute at the Army War College. The paper, which was published on March 15, is titled, "Globalization and its Implications for the Defense Industrial Base." I'll give you the excerpt with the author's conclusion:

"Globalization in many ways has strengthened the hand of defense companies at the expense of national governments. With more opportunities to expand their international presence, governments, at times, are being required to make concessions that would have been unheard of even a decade ago."

'Media Day' at Pratt & Whitney headquarters was yesterday. I was there and so were 10 top Pratt executives and about other 15 reporters.

After a mercifully brief corporate presentation in the morning, reporters got paired up with half-hour individual interviews with sector presidents for space, military, commercial, engineering and so forth.

One executive called it the PR equivalent of "speed dating".

Fun fact: the founder of Pratt & Whitney was not named Pratt or Whitney. It was a man named Rentschler. I asked several people, but no one could tell me why a man named Rentschler would go to all the trouble of creating an engine company only to name his own company "Pratt & Whitney".

As an employee for a British defense (oops, I mean 'defence') publishing company called Jane's, I might be a little sensitive to the oddities of company names.

Finally, a Pratt executive I met at media day knew the answer. I never got the executive's name, but he must not be too important at Pratt because he was the only executive forced to sit with a table full of journalists for lunch.

He explained that Rentschler was not an engineer, but had the brilliant thought that an air-cooled engine could solve a lot of problems for the fledgling aviation business. Rentschler's brother was a banker, who gave his sibling the capital he needed to buy a machine and tooling shop. The shop was called Pratt & Whitney. The company went on to build the Wasp engine, which revolutionized the technology of aircraft engines.

These days, Pratt & Whitney has another big idea: the geared turbofan engine. The company believes this is the technology that will propel (pardon the pun) the company back into the commercial airliner business, after losing its footing in the 1980s by sticking too long with the JT8D despite the arrival of the GE/Snecma CFM56.

Modern turbofans work by splitting the airflow into air that bypasses the engine core and the air that goes through the engine core. The larger the ratio of air that bypasses the core, the more efficient an engine can be at subsonic speeds. By introducing a gear into the turbofan, Pratt is seeking to double or triple the ratio, making any airliner instantly about 20-25 percent more efficient.

If the technology works, Pratt will have a great product to put on the market early in the next decade just as Boeing and Airbus unveil the next-generation of single-aisle airliners to replace the B737 and A320. If the technology fails, Pratt will be in big trouble, with no viable commercial engine business after the V2500 passes its prime.

Er, no pressure.

"The weapon systems acquisition process apparently is out of control. Initial time and cost estimates and even updated estimates cannot be depended upon. Mandatory engineering changes arise continually throughout the process. Management information and control systems do not identify impending problems in time for preventive action to be taken."

I am quoting from the book "Arming America: How the US Buys Weapons", by J. Ronald Fox.

It was published in 1972. From 1969 - 1971, Fox served as assistant secretary of the army for procurement.

The quoted section above comes from page 4, and is the first of four points he makes to summarize what's wrong with the acquisition process. Thirty-five years later, the same basic problems can be found described in almost any recent GAO report.

I'm heading up to Pratt & Whitney today for a media tour, so in lieu of my own writing, I'll instead re-publish his other three points about the problems of the DOD acquisition system in the early 1970s.

"Second is the claim that bargaining positions are unbalanced; first one side, then the other has the advantage. The theory of countervailing pressures acting to produce fair and realistic contract terms does not hold. With emphasis on economies of scale and series production there are only a small number of weapon systems competitions each year and prospective contractors believe that their very existence may be jeopardized by failure to win. Hence the DOD is in the dominat position and can compel an unreasonable bargain. Following award of the contract, the DOD, committed to the timely success of the program, is in the weaker position as the sole source contractor negotiates for contract changes, product acceptance and follow-on business.

Third is that incentives both for efficient operation and for candor about expectations are lacking. Heavy reliance on historical costs in pricing, lack of adequate consideration of capital required in negotiating profit rates, and the high risk of low future utilization of contractor-owned facilities impede investment and modernization of the plant. The hazard of program survival, of high cost, long duration, or looming technical difficulties, as each program competes with others in and out of the DOD, motivates extreme optimism by DOD and contractor personnel alike.

Fourth are allegations of confusion connivance and deception by the DOD-contractor combination. Close cooperation and common interest are held in contrast to the arm's length relationship preferred by much of regulation and policy. Policy notwithstanding, the military departments receive advice and assistance from prospective contractors in preparation of requests for proposals. Contractors receive aid from government personnel in performance of contract. Contracts fail as instruments of control.    

If somebody wanted to really help the US Army, they would do something about those godawful M4 carbines that American troops are forced to endure.

This is a recurring theme in this blog, and I'm returning to it again because of yet new information that sheds light on the problem with the army's standard-issue weapon for close-in fighting -- which is exactly the kind of combat that is raging in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

In a routine acquisition notice (see this link), a US Special Forces battalion based in Okinawa announced that it is buying 84 barrels for the Heckler & Koch HK416 asssault rifle.

The HK barrels will be used to replace the barrels on their own M4s.

Why? Here's what the notice says:

The 416 barrel "allows soldiers to replace the existing M4 upper receiver with an HK proprietary gas system that does not introduce propellant gases and the associated carbon fouling back into the weapon's interior. This reduces operator cleaning time, and increases the reliability of the M4 Carbine, particularly in an environment in which sand and dust are prevalent. The elimination of the gas tube ... means that the M4 will function normally even if the weapon is fired full of water without first being drained. There isn't another company that offers these features in their products. It is a practical, versatile system."

Translation: the M4 barrel is so unreliable that special forces units need to swap it out with a barrel from a different gun -- and one that actually works in real combat conditions.

One solution is to simply swap out the barrel.

But here's another good answer: trash the M4s and just buy HK416s!

Well done to Defense News for this huge scoop: Lockheed Martin may offer the Indian Air Force a clone of the Israeli Air Force F-16I Sufa.

This is the latest twist in the most important international arms deal of the year. India is soliciting bids for a contract to buy 126 multi-role fighters with extensive industrial participation on Indian soil. The winner not only gets a multi-billion dollar contract, but also a new best friend in the heart of Asia.

Selling the F-16I to India would seem to solve a lot of problems for the US side, the most important being the dilemma posed by exporting sensitive US military technology to a country that has a standing military cooperation agreement with Iran. The F-16I, which features missiles and an air combat system designed in Israel, has the advantage of being already cleared for export. The $45-$50 million F-16I also has a more competitive price tag when compared to a bargain-bin Russian SU-35.

The loser of such a deal on the US side would clearly be Boeing, which is seeking to offer the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Pound-for-pound, the Super Hornet is probably the more advanced aircraft. But how does Boeing obtain an export license for the highly-sensitive active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, not to mention the Super Hornet's other sensitive pieces and parts?

On the other hand, a big shortcoming of the F-16I is the lack of an AESA radar, which comes standard with the F/A-18E/F Block II and is a new option offered by the Russians and the French (Dassault Rafale). While the F-16I's Northrop Grumman APG-68(V)9 could be the most advanced mechanically-scanned radar on the market, it is still a notch below the capability of the AESA equipped on the F-16 Block 60 sold to the United Arab Emirates.

I don't know if it's possible, but Lockheed Martin may need to consider shifting the Northrop Grumman APG-80 AESA on the F-16 Block 60 to the F-16I to make a truly competitive offer. That also avoids some of the trouble with export license, since the APG-80 is so far the only AESA radar exported to any country in any known fighter sale to date.

Start thinking about two sets of numbers. They are:

1. 5-16-47
2. 2-12-16

The first series of numbers is good. The second series of numbers is disturbing.

I'll explain.

Number 1 is the original production rate for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. Look it up here (see the chart on page 6). This means the  plan was to buy 5 this year, 16 next year, and then make a huge leap to 47 in 2009.

Number 2 is the new production rate, as described in this year's updated spending forecast (see the chart on page 7). So now the US military is buying 2 F-35s this year, 12 next year and only 16 in 2009.

Consider that huge gap in 2009. The old plan called for producing 47 aircraft. The new plan would buy only 16.

Recall that the original business case for the Joint Strike Fighter rested foremost on affordability. A huge driver of affordability is production rate. The more that can be produced, the greater the economies of scale and so forth. If production rate falls, the average unit cost of each aircraft will likely go up.

Under the new spending plan, the US military won't approach the original number for 2009 until 2012. (Also, to make even this schedule work, please assume the flight test phase on the weight-optimized aircraft goes off without a hitch.)

So what does this mean?

• First, it means the US military may not be able to enter full-rate production for JSF until two or three years after 2012, unless the program decides to lower the threshold for what the term "full rate production" means.
• If JSF full rate production is delayed by two or three years, the air force has a new reason to extend F-22 full rate production by two or three years. Recall that the air force wants to keep an active full-rate production line for a fifth-generation fighter, so it follows that a delay for JSF requires an extension of F-22. At current production rates on F-22, a two-to-three year delay could mean an extra 40-60 aircraft.
• The first export versions of JSF may still be available in 2014, but the average unit production cost must be significantly higher than in the original plan.

Bell Helicopter Textron must stop work on the ARH-70 Arapaho. After a nearly one-year schedule slip, mounting technical problems and a recent crash of a prototype on its maiden flight, the army decided it was time for a re-think.

At least that puts the Arapaho in good company.

I'll start with the HV-911 Eagle Eye, the unmanned tiltrotor that developed a problem with staying in the air. How much money did the US Coast Guard sink into that program before they finally pulled the plug? 

What about the H-1 Upgrades Program? It was orginally a roughly $3 billion program to remanufacture a total of 180 UH-1H Hueys and AH-1W Super Cobras. It is now a more than $8 billion prorgram to mostly remanufacture 180 UH-1H Hueys and AH-1W Super Cobras (some new-build UH-1Ys are now included in the total).  That means the army is paying about $45 million per aircraft for (deep-breath) mostly re-built Hueys and Cobras. For perspective, a brand new (and much, much larger) CH-47F Chinook costs about $31 million.

And then there's the V-22. I've flown on the V-22. It's a good aircraft and it can do some amazing things. The US Marine Corps will no doubt put it to good use. Some people remain convinced it's a death trap, but the conventional wisdom says the program is finally in the clear. How long did it take to get to this point? How many unnecessary crashes and lives lost? How many program re-baselines, manufacturing crises and design screw-ups did it take?

Bell is the home of some brilliant aerodynamicists and engineers. This is the company that invented the super-sonic aircraft (Yeager's X-1 Glamorous Glennis). For its time, the design of the original H-1 Huey was a major leap in technology. The V-22 tiltrotor program may have been deeply flawed in execution, but the design and concept obviously was the product of great minds.

The standard for complexity in military technology continues to rise. Aircraft manufacturing is not just about bending metal, but about integrating a "system".

At some point, Bell needs to show that it still belongs among the ranks of viable military aircraft manufacturers.

Is the contract for ARH -- the army's ARH-71A Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter made by Bell Helicopter -- dead or not?

David S. Harvey, a very good journalist on rotorcraft issues for Shephard's, may have a huge scoop today at Rotorhub.com that says yes.

ARH: Bolton issues Show Cause letter; other options being studied

The US Army Systems Acquisition Review Council (ASARC) for the ARH was held Tuesday and chaired by Claude Bolton, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology/Army Acquisition Executive.  As a result, Bolton issued a Show Cause letter to Bell stating that the Army had no confidence in Bell's ability to execute the ARH program.

Expect a T4C (termination for convenience) soon.  This leaves the future of the program in doubt and gives weight to previous reports in rotorhub.com that a OH-58D modernisation program using a different sensor system is being considered or that the Army may extend the EC145 LUH program to include an armed scout version.

An email requesting comment has been sent to Bell.

But Rebecca Christie, a very good Pentagon journalist for Dow Jones, published a story yesterday that says no.

  WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. Army on Wednesday said Textron Inc.'s (TXT)

Bell Helicopter unit will keep its Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter contract for

now, after a program review this week.

More to follow ...

The DOD will become oil-free within this century. You saw it here first.

For more, listen to my appearance on Federal News Radio this morning (see link below).

Download 03202007_fednewsradio.wma

This morning I and about 25 other reporters had breakfast with Representative Ike Skelton, the newly-empowered chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Skelton is not like your average member of Congress. He is an intellectual as much as a politician, capable of transitioning from a feel-good anecdote from his district in rural Missouri to a dissertation on geo-political strategy -- and I mean strategy with a capital "S".

Over a $30 plate of soggy eggs, burnt bacon and mushy potatos, I didn't pick up a shred of what reasonably can be called news, yet I learned three very unexpected things.

1. The fruits of Congressional pork won the Battle of Midway in World War II (who knew?)
2. If the NATO expedition to Afghanistan fails, the geo-strategic winner is... (I'll get to that a bit later)
3. Drought is killing the livelihoods of dairy farmers in Missiouri (natch)

To start from the top, Skelton was asked about the amount of pork contained in a recent version of this year's supplemental bill for emergency war spending. He didn't exactly defend the added largesse, but noted that if wasn't for Congressional plus-ups, the US Navy would have lost the Battle of Midway. (A big "huh???" was scratched in my notebook.)

Luckily, I happened to be seated next to Otto Kreisher, the veteran of the Copley News Service bureau in Washington DC, but more importantly -- as an ex-naval officer -- a known expert on all matters maritime. A moment after the breakfast ended, I turned to Otto and asked, "So how did Congressional pork win the Battle of Midway."

Otto, of course, knew the full history: It was the Great Depression. Congress wanted some jobs programs. Aircraft carriers would mean A LOT of jobs. The navy didn't want them, believing the old ships of the line battleships would win the next naval war. But Congress overrode their concerns and paid for them anyway.

Like I said, not very newsy. But very interesting. If you read this blog and my posts about MurthaFest, you'll know that I am inclined to challenge the legislative system that creates anonymous earmarks. So Skelton made me think a little.

And then there was the part about NATO's ongoing struggles in Afghanistan. Skelton noted with some aggravation that only four NATO countries -- the UK, Canada, the Netherlands and the US -- allow their forces to operate in Afghanistan without restriction. Skelton seemed very concerned that the NATO deployment could end up a disaster. And then he said this:

"If NATO is seen as a loser in Afghanistan and things fall apart and NATO becomes a shell and seen as ineffective or collapses ... who benefits? Think about this."

It took a few moments for the reporters in the room to realize that he wasn't being rhetorical. He wanted us to answer the question. (Uh ... the Warsaw Pact?)

Again, it was Otto who had the answer: "Well there's no more Soviet Union, but is it Russia?" he said.

"You got it," Skelton said.

Flying an unmanned aircraft can be a little like skiing downhill backwards. When you're no longer absolutely sure you're going in the right direction, it's probably a good time to just fall down.

We're not really sure why the P-175 Polecat -- the latest Skunk Works creation anybody outside of Palmdale is allowed to know about -- met an early grave last December, and the Skunk Works public relations machinery (surprise!) isn't helping very much.

For the Skunk Works, I understand that secrecy and obfuscation may be considered a core competency but in this case it's not just annoying. It's irresponsible. The future of unmanned flight depends above all on the level of transparancy about why these aircraft crash so much and what is being done to prevent it.

Many times the reason for a UAV crash is just like the backwards skiier. Once control of the UAV is disrupted or lost in any way, the safest option is to crash immediately.

Unfortunately, we don't know if this simple explanation applies in this case and we may never know.

I've pasted Lockheed Martin's responses to reporter's questions below. If anyone is able to make any sense of the term "irreversible unintentional failure in the flight termination ground equipment", please let me know.

What's going on with Polecat?

The Lockheed Martin Polecat Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) returned to flight test at the Nevada Test and Training Range late last year. During a test flight, when the vehicle was functioning normally and in full positive control by the ground operators, it was unfortunately damaged beyond repair. The damage was the result of an irreversible unintentional failure in the flight termination ground equipment which caused the aircraft's automatic fail-safe flight termination mode to activate.

Why have we waited so long to release this information?

There was an investigation and during that time we were precluded from discussing this per government order.

What caused the flight termination system to activate?

A failure in the Nevada Test and Training Range flight termination equipment resulted in the activation of the fail-safe flight termination mode.

Who is at fault?

It's not a matter of "who." There was an irreversible unintentional failure in the flight termination ground equipment at the Nevada Test and Training Range. We believe the Test Range has corrected the potential for a similar circumstance to occur again.

Why couldn't the flight termination be stopped?

The fail-safe mode is designed to irreversibly terminate flight to ensure that systems do not deviate from the range into civilian airspace.

Explain what you mean by automatic fail-safe mode?

The fail-safe mode is required for range safety for unmanned systems to ensure systems do not deviate from the range and pose a danger to civilians on the ground outside the range boundaries.

When did it happen?

The incident happened at year end. An investigation is complete and being shared with appropriate parties.

Will you share the incident report publicly?

No, there are no plans to share the report publicly.

Was this an issue with flight controls?

No, the aircraft was in full control and performing well.

Does the U.S. Government have any liability in regard to providing funds to build a replacement vehicle?

No, the U.S. Government has no liability.

General P-175 Information

How long has Lockheed Martin been working on this program?

LM internally funded this effort beginning in March 2003 and was ready to fly 18 months later.

Is this a declassified program?

No, this is a proprietary Lockheed Martin Internal Research and Development program funded solely with Lockheed Martin IRAD funds.

Where was it built?

The Polecat was constructed in our advanced prototyping facilities at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company in Palmdale, Calif.

Was this unmanned system meant to replace manned systems in the future?

No, Lockheed Martin's unmanned systems are designed to work collaboratively with manned systems.

What is the highest altitude the vehicle flew?

We had just gotten back to flight test when the incident occurred. The highest altitude the vehicle flew was 15,000 feet.

How many vendors /subcontractors were involved on this program?

I don't have an exact figure. However, Lockheed Martin is grateful to all the vendor team members who supported such a fast-paced program.

Did LM Aero intend to use Polecat to capture a specific contract or line of business?

Lockheed Martin has been involved in research and development opportunities for more than 40 years.  However, we wish to position ourselves in development work for the Air Force's future Long Range Strike Program. Many lessons learned on this project will be applicable to future efforts, including Long Range Strike.

Was this vehicle designed as a stealthy or low observable vehicle?

From a shaping standpoint the vehicle was configured for down stream enhancement but the original configuration was not "stealthy." Polecat was an effort to better understand flight dynamics of a tailless air vehicle as well as advanced composite structural design concepts in support of our ongoing research and development work for the Air Force's future Long Range Strike Program.  The all-wing design gave the UAV an aerodynamic advantage by reducing drag.

Was Polecat planned to be a replacement for the U-2 spy plane?

No, the two vehicles are not related.

Was the UAS controlled by a satellite for Beyond Line Of Sight (BLOS) operations?

No.  Our ground station segment was a standard line-on-sight, (LOS) operations capability.

How far and how fast did it go in flight tests?

This information is proprietary and as such, I can't share that information at this time.

Have you had any customer interest in this system?

Yes. I can't reveal any specifics in this regard.

How many people work on the program?

It was roughly 60 people comprised of engineers, shop personnel and support staff.

Why is it called Polecat?

Polecat is a colloquial term used to refer to some members of the Skunk family. Since this was a Skunk Works IRAD effort we thought the name fitting.

Who says the top minds of the Department of Defense aren't focused on energy policy?

I give you James L. Jones, retired US Marine Corps general (as in, four stars), former head of US European Command and Supreme Commander Allied Powers Europe, ex-commandant of the Marine Corps and (trivia alert) veteran of the siege at Khe Sanh.

Mr. Jones is now the president and chief executive officer of the Insitute for Energy, of the US Chamber of Commerce. His new job description reads:

"... to increase the variety of the U.S. energy supply and associated infrastructures, to advance international cooperation on energy issues, to protect national energy security, to promote better understanding of changes to the global climate and its effects on the environment, and to expand economic opportunities wherever possible."

Count on Mr. Jones to look into the Fischer-Tropsch production system, which can turn any carbon-based form of energy into synthetic oil. The most attractive energy form in the US is coal shale, which is attractive becasue it is abundant and there's a whole bunch of states that have got nothing else to do with it. The Department of Defense is signed on to generate at least 200 million gallons of Fischer-Tropsch fuel to demonstrate its viability in aircraft engines, including the B-52 and all 707-based aircraft in the air force fleet (KC-135, RC-135, E-3, E-8C, etc).

With apologies to the entire rap community: If your former flack is talking smack, your program might be really whack.

Ward Carroll is the former public affairs officer for the V-22 development program. He is now editorial proprietor of my old employer Military.com and one of the leading lights of DefenseTech.org.

Here's what he has to say today about the V-22:

"In the first three years of fleet V-22 operations, the Marines will suffer six Class A flight mishaps with the Osprey. And here's how:

- Although VMMT-204, the Osprey RAG, is up and running, the pilots training there are relatively senior compared to other RAGs. Eventually true "nuggets" will make their way to the fleet and they will do "nugget" things.

- The test pilots (both active duty and civilian) did amazing work during the High Rate of Descent (HROD) phase of developmental test at NAS Patuxent River back in 2002 and 2003. They validated the V-22's vortex ring state (VRS) envelope. (DT readers will remember that VRS was what caused an Osprey to crash near Marana, Arizona back in 2000, killing 19 Marines.) Improvements have been made in the vertical speed displays and aural warning systems. But the fact remains that - while there are no "unknown unknowns" about VRS and that there is a buffer between the operational rate of descent limit of 800 feet per minute and where VRS occurs - the rate at which the V-22 develops a high rate of descent is unique to the V-22. Basically, the crew has to hawk the VSI gauge constantly during a descent. A moment's inattention can result in the VSI getting out of hand. (The test pilots actually had an inadvertant VRS entry during HROD testing because they got distracted for a second.) So imagine junior pilots during high op-tempo periods (deployed) at night, on goggles, and operating with not enough sleep (never happens if you follow NATOPS, right?) Yes, this is a training issue in that crews can be taught to watch the VSI readout on the display, but in spite of the comprehensive understanding Osprey crews have of the phenomenon (thanks to the Developmental Test Team at Pax River), somebody's going to be tired and distracted (and maybe under fire) and will enter VRS close to the ground. The outcome won't be good.

- It's unclear at this point whether or not VMM-263 will self-deploy or embark on an amphib like most USMC assault support aircraft. If they conduct sustained flight ops from an LHA or LHD, again, we will see nuggets do nugget-like things. Somebody will fly into the water while on final approach; somebody will plant one against the deck edge. And I guarantee you these things will happen at night or in bad weather.

- Ospreys will operate as multi-ships, so there's a high likelihood of a midair. Once again, when it occurs it'll be at night.

- An Osprey will be lost due to controlled flight into terrain (CFIT).

- An Osprey will have an engine failure (or fire) and be forced into an extended transit to get to somewhere safe to land. During the transit the interconnect drive shaft will fail. (The one true test of the interconnect drive shaft was very early in the program's history. The mechanism failed grossly.)

- The Osprey has survivability features like self-sealing tanks and composite structures that will allow the airplane to take hits and keep on going. However, one of the other features of a composite fuselage is bullets don't bounce off, they pass through like a hot knife through butter. The airplane may survive an encounter with small arms fire, but Marines flying in back might not. Another prediction: Just like the Humvee, the Marines will "up-armor" V-22s in time. They didn't do it to date because that would've kept the airplane from attaining its Key Performance Parameters (payload, range, etc.) during OPEVAL.

So that equals six lost aircraft (seven if you believe the midair will result in the loss of both Ospreys).

For now and for the next few years, the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is the proverbial baby of the aerospace industry family.

Every 'first' this infant aircraft design makes will be ooh'd and ahh'd over, simply by virtue of it being the baby. Even the cranky uncles (like me) will crack a smile.

And so it goes with the first lighting of the F-35's afterburner during a takeoff.

This great piece - written by my old colleague (okay, ex-boss) Graham Warwick - describes the moment earlier this week that the F-35's 40,000lb-thrust monster of an engine went thermonuclear.

That being said, lighting an afterburner is one of the simplest tricks of the aerospace engineering profession, dating back to the dawn of the jet age in the 1950s. With the right tools, you can even try it at home. Just spray kerosene into a blast of super-heated air and watch what happens. (Okay, maybe don't.)

This whole show over the JSF is cute for now. But, just like a baby who grows into a toddler and eventually an adolescent, the enthusiasm for some of its personality quirks will fade. Some features may become downright annoying.

How will that afterburning engine of the JSF be appreciated in 15 or 20 years, I wonder?

It is sometimes said that the JSF is the last manned fighter to be built, and that may yet prove true although the jury is still out.

But it's arguably a lock that the F-35 will be the last fighter designed without regard to the rate of specific fuel consumption.

Two trends in aerial warfare are clear: gas-guzzlers are 'out' and engine efficiency is 'in'. Long-range strike, the object of the air force's current high-tech fixation, demands an aircraft that hoards gas like it was liquid gold. Super-speed will still be desirable, but for the first time speed will not be the over-riding criteria if it means damaging engine efficiency.

Dear General John P. Jumper (ret.),

How long has it been - almost 18 months? Is that all since you were the reigning chief of staff of the US Air Force?

I don't know if you've been paying attention since you've likely donned the uniform of a highly-paid industry "consultant".

If you haven't, I bet you'd be surprised.

Your successors in the air force seem to have been hell-bent on dismantling every last shred of your legacy, which, come to think of it, does seem to get weirder and weirder the further it turns into retrospect.

The door of the Pentagon parking garage had barely closed as you left in your car for the last time in November 2005 before your former colleagues pulled the plug on one of your favorite pet projects: buying hundreds of short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (STOVL) F-35Bs.

What were you thinking when you proposed that back in February 2004, anyway?

But let's talk about the E-10A Multi-sensor Command and Control Aircraft (MC2A) for a moment, shall we? If any one piece of technology defined your tenure, that was your baby, wasn't it?

Well then, what the heck was all that about?

Perhaps you noticed when Northrop Grumman formally announced earlier this week that they had formally killed the E-10A. The aircraft's two big features - a Wide Area Surveillance radar and the Battle Management Command and Control system - are being looked at as an upgrade to the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS).

So, if the air force could have put both of those things on JSTARS in the first place, what was the point of buying a whole new fleet of Boeing 767s?

While I'm asking all these crazy questions, what the heck is going to happen to the so-called E-10A testbed - the $126 million 767-400ER ordered from Boeing that should probably be delivered by now? What does the air force now do with one 767-400ER?

On second thought, don't answer my questions. Just go back to your retirement, and leave the air force alone for a while.

In case any of you are keeping score at home, it has been suggested by visitors to this blog that the very cool Vectoring in Forward Flight (VIFF) feature of the Harrier jet could be one aerodynamic advantage employed by the short-takeoff-and-landing F-35B.

Well, apparently not.

Bill Sweetman, who literally wrote the book on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, says the VIFF'ing maneuver won't work on the F-35B. Says Sweetman:

"The Harrier can VIFF (although it drains energy) because it can simply rotate its nozzles down. F-35B won't because it has to engage a clutch and open doors that aren't designed for high speeds."

Oh well. 

When I read, it's not always about weapons and defense policy. I sometimes go slumming in books about the airliner biz.

It says something that it's pretty hard these days to write a book about the business of selling airliners without devoting a bunch of pages to defense programs -- the in-bred cousins of many Boeing and Airbus airliner technologies (Airbus=fly-by-wire; Boeing=where do I start?).

In his new book Boeing Versus Airbus, author John Newhouse interweaves several defense-related sub-plots in telling a fascinating story about the paranoid and bitter rivalry between these two goliaths of industry.

But I would like to draw attention to his comments about what he calls the "Iron Triangle" and many also call the "Revolving Door" -- the practice of job and influence peddling among lobbyists, government employees and contractors. This is the disease in the defense industry, but few have described the substance of the malady with more eloquence than Newhouse.

He devotes a page of his book describing the issue, from which I'll give you a small excerpt.

"A weapons program is normally managed by a so-called integrated product support team. And it is a team. There is a corporate product manager and a government product manager. The work together as team players. Suppose they are working on a combat aircraft and the air force's project manager, possibly an experienced and fast-track colonel, sees the program falling short of agreed performance benchmarks. Should he flat-out complain? He isn't expected to. Complaining carries the risk of being seen as a non-team player, a judgment to be avoided, especially if he takes the complaint to OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) or Congress.

The air force colonel may be approaching retirement age and thinking about sustaining or, even better, raising his income level. The cost of educating children may be a concern. Holding his opposite number too closely to the program's specifications might weaken his chances of being offered a postretirement job by the prime contractor. Under rules aimed at discouraging conflicts of interest, the colonel could not upon retiring turn up there working on a program that he had been managing. But he could acquire a role in another of the comapny's several military programs." 

This blog once discussed the possibility of the Pentagon going oil-free by 2050.

But oil apparently is among the least of the army's energy problems.

According to this newly-minted memorandum, the army's assistant chief of staff for installation management is more worried that the worldwide supply of natural gas will dry up within 25 years. Says the memo:

"Current Army assumption is that natural gas may cease to be a viable fuel for the army within the next 25 years based on price volatility and affordable supply availability."

If the army's assumptions are correct, the situation may "threaten the army's ability to house, train and deploy soldiers", says the memo.

What will replace natural gas? This is certainly not my field of expertise, but perhaps readers or other bloggers may have something to add here.

I know the US Air Force is keen about a new form of synthetic fuel derived from liquefied coal to power its jet aircraft. A demonstration is underway with the B-52, which is actually using a slightly different sythentic product derived from -- oops -- natural gas. The fuel is made using a process known as Fischer-Trope, which has the unfortunate distinction of being employed by only two countries -- Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa.

... and check out this elegant web tutorial by Popular Science on the F-35B's "magical" engine. I'm guessing this one is the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine, not the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 alternative.

It's another great Bill Sweetman creation.

This is probably a good time to wish Bill good luck in his role as editor-in-chief of Defense Technology International, a relatively new monthly published by Aviation Week & Space Technology.

Bill's a great pro who is going to be dearly missed on the Jane's masthead.

Check out this page on the Popular Science web site for an excellent graphic of the F-35B, composed by my friend and colleague Bill Sweetman. Note the $110 million price tag.

If I learned Flash I think I'd be dangerous.

China announced last week that it will spend 18% more on defense in 2007, the largest one-year jump in a decade for the People's Liberation Army.

It's an arms race!

Finally, sixteen years after the Soviet Union went to that great "ash heap of history" in the sky, the Pentagon's big-spenders have a reason to justify ... well, everything, in the name of preserving military superiority, of course.

Or perhaps not.

The PLA has announced that it intends to spend about $45 billion on defense this year. Double this figure if you prefer, as some experts quite rationally believe that China significantly under-reports defense expenditures. So, just suppose, the PLA spends, say, $80-90 billion a year on defense.

Ok, that's a lot of change. But let's keep this in perspective, shall we? The US Department of Defense is seeking to spend $600 billion this year, which is quite nearly an actual order of magnitude more than the PLA. 

If this is an arms race, this isn't even the tortoise and the hair. This is more like a porpoise and the hair -- on land.

That said, there are some things China's PLA is doing that deserves some calm, rational levels of concern. Blowing up space satellites, for instance. Bulking up their submarine fleet is another. Designing a new, moveable, long-range nuclear missile -- not good.

But let's put this in perspective. Using the term "arms race" conjures up an image of the old Soviet-US/NATO competition. That was a high-stakes power struggle over the spread and denial of influence and power on a global scale.

Comparing that to the current PLA military build-up does the Cold War a monumental disservice. 

The strategy of the PLA build-up is focused almost exclusively on the Taiwan Strait. Yes, China certainly wants to exert more influence in its region. But the military build-up of the past decade is all about Taiwan. The PLA was embarassed in 1996 when President Clinton ordered two carrier battle groups into the Taiwan Strait, and the PLA knew it had no ability to respond. Its entire modernization effort since that time has been focused on that one scenario.

It is reasonable for the US to respond to this as a new challenge, and the US Navy already is. A sophisticated anti-submarine warfare system is being designed. Ship-based defenses against a new class of Chinese tactical ballistic missiles -- potentially with a new maritime strike capability -- are being tested. All these things are logical and proper.

But, everyone, just stop calling it an arms race.

From a very good Kansas City Star article about the usefulness (or not) of the 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator:

"If we can't attack a target using 5,000-pound bombs, it's probably nature's way of telling us it's pointless," said Owen Cote, the associate director of security studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Anybody remember the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (aka, UCAR)?

UCAR was one of those futuristic concept vehicles that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (aka, DARPA) swoons over until the Army (aka, army) sees the bill, and then -- poof -- the program dies.

Well, it's back -- kind of.

When UCAR got the budget axe about two years ago, there were two teams involved. There was Lockheed Martin offering an unmanned version of the Bell Helicopter 407, with a very cool propulsive anti-torque feature (think vectored-thrust but on a helicopter). And there was Northrop Grumman offering the Kaman Aerospace K-MAX, which has inter-meshing rotors to solve that pesky (for helicopters) anti-torque issue.

Two years later, Lockheed Martin announced last week that it's getting back into the unmanned armed rotorcraft business, but with a twist: they're switching partners. Gone is the Bell 407, which, goodness knows, is in enough trouble right now.

Onboard is (drum-roll ...) their former competitor: the Kaman Aerospace K-MAX. Lockheed Martin's press release says:

"The K-MAX has proven its capabilities, at very high altitudes and in hot environments, and has demonstrated more than twelve hours of continuous flight operations as a UAS. Working with Lockheed Martin, the K MAX will realize even greater potential and hopefully serve our forces in a capacity to reduce the burden on our ground and aviation forces."

Not surprisingly, Lockheed Martin's press release omits any direct references to the aborted UCAR program, except to mention that some of the technologies were developed under previous DARPA programs. (Yeah, we know.)

A very puzzling question this new teaming arrangement creates is -- to put it simply -- why? No obvious market exists for a highly autonomous and armed (always a troubling combination), unmanned helicopter. Perhaps Lockheed Martin can pitch it as an advanced alternative to the Northrop Grumman MQ-8B Fire Scout, but to whom? There is no sign that the Fire Scout's two customers -- the army and the navy -- would consider dumping Northrop Grumman for a more unproven alternative.

Your guess is as good as mine, in other words.

If you're frustrated by what you see happening with the US defense industry, here's good way to cheer up: read about the state of Russia's defense industry.

Worked for me anyway.

Stephen J. Blank, a professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College, has published a new monograph, entitled: "Rosoboroneksport: Arms Sales and the Structure of Russian Defense Industry".

That's a nice title, but, I'd would humbly suggest changing it to: "How an Already Dysfunctional, Bankrupt, Corrupt, Doomed Industry Can Get Even Worse (and Play with Nukes, Too!)".

Consider this: there is something like 1,700 defense companies operating in Russia today, all but a handful of which are bankrupt. Most are relics of the Soviet system with no products, no orders and no prospects -- yet, somehow in existence anyway.

To reform this bloated, non-productive mess, Vladimir Putin and his favorite henchman -- er, Minister of Defense -- Sergei Ivanov have a really bright idea: centralize the industry under state control. (After all, when the modern economy fails you, why not take a page from the ever-popular Tsarist textbook of economics?)

Thus, senior members of the Russian government now wear second hats as executives and members of the boards of directors at Russian defense companies. Blank notes: "It is as if [former] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were a member of Lockheed Martin's Board of Directors". (Well, on second thought, maybe there are some similarities ...)

But, more alarmingly, Blank describes some notable consequences of the crisis in the Russian defense industry. Russian defense firms are forced to survive on the international arms market. Long-time customers China and India, however, are moving away from Russian arms imports. Meanwhile, an anti-US stance in the Kremlin puts no checks on sales to very unsavory customers, to include the Sudan, Venezuela, Iran and Syria.

Even worse, Russia's defense industry along with the rest of the economy may be headed for an epic crash. Says Blank:

"As history shows, it inevitably leads Russia into strategic competitions that it cannot afford and to economic and political rigor mortis. If this structure continues, can Russia -- and the globla community -- afford the crash that becomes increasingly thinkable with each more regressive step."

Like I said, it will cheer you up.

For those following the great V/STOL/Harrier/F-35B debate, here's some great responses to my responses from Mr. Ehling. Everyone feel free to join the fray.

Me: Do you really think that it's anything like an equalizer?

Ehling: I don't know. I've been told viffing gave the Harrier an edge at low altitude engagements against our own aircraft (F-16s, etc.) and Soviet aircraft (simulated) in past exercises.

The lift fan theoretically gives the F-35 a similar capacity to turn tighter for a missile shot. It might boost the roll rate as well.

Remember that they wargame these platforms in the digital domain well before they bend metal.

Your concerns are valid; the F-35 may be less than it's cracked up to be. It may be more. As a taxpayer, I'm hoping for the latter. As an American, I'm expecting a little of both.

Me: By the time the death rays are ready for service, there will be a new generation of aircraft better suited for a weapon of that kind.

Ehling: Directed energy weapons might not be as far away as you think. If they aren't, we want to get there before or the same time as everyone else. They may portend a true revolution in military affairs.

What "new generation of aircraft" are you referring to? UAVs? If so, note that the F-35 is already under consideration as an unmanned platform.

Me: Is that risk extreme enough to deserve such a costly mitigation strategy?

Ehling: I don't know. You can also ask the converse: can we afford not to mitigate the risk?

My impression is that a lot of our defense establishment looks to past American failures to keep pace with trends in world aircraft design -- i.e., WW I and II, and Korea -- and are motivated not to repeat those mistakes. Does that mean we now tend to overmitigate? Possibly.

The matter doesn't seem to be subject to easy proof or resolution, except by an exchange of opinion, like we're doing here, or maybe taking a vote. At this stage in the voting process, it looks like the F-35's moving ahead, despite your perfectly rational concerns.

Many thanks Bob. For the record, I'm a professional skeptic. But that doesn't mean I'm completely down on the F-35B or the greater Joint Strike Fighter program.

Personally, I like how my friend Robbin Laird, a defense analyst, characterizes the F-35. Robbin advises against thinking of JSF as a fifth-generation fighter, and instead as a first-generation airborne combat system. That is, as a pure fighter, the F-35 may not be the better of many earlier-generation fighters, to include the Typhoon and perhaps later-model Flankers and MiGs.

But the F-35 may be the first fighter designed from the start as part of an integrated combat system, and therefore represents the first of completely new kind of combat aircraft.

That kind of thinking makes sense to me, and I think helps to clarify the true strengths and weaknesses of the program.

Let the discussion continue.

Today, the Department of Homeland Security ruined the personal "retirement" plans of hundreds of its own executives and senior managers.

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that, starting June 7, ex-feds must spend a year off after leaving the agency before coming back for a hand-out as a contractor.

Previously, the one-year ban applied only to ex-feds approaching their specific, former agency. The new rule expands the prohibition to the department as a whole.

DHS is not famous for "best practices" in the acquisition world, but this is one the Department of Defense should give some serious thought to.

I wish that as many people as possible take a few moments to read an incredible article published this month in Signal Magazine, the house organ of the AFCEA International.

The article by retired Navy Commander Gregory Glaros is headlined, "Are You Angry Yet?".

You will read a no-holds-barred manifesto of rage directed at the repeatedly demonstrated incompetence of US defense companies and their overseers in the Pentagon.

Here's a small sampling, but, please, go read the full article:

"There is little understanding of the systems engineering methods needed in the information age. One system failure after another plagues the Defense Department. We can only wonder, Do defense industries have the skills to build our future, or does the feedback loop in current contracts simply reinforce failure?

Despite the absurdities, the Defense Department continues to defend the cost structure of these platforms and the companies that produce them without penalty. How can our nation continue to fail so consistently with such extravagance? It would seem that oversight, leadership, engineering and production have merged--with disastrous results. Two of our biggest defense companies posted record profits last year, yet no one seems to be outraged. If we protected our troops as well as we do these programs, the loss of so many fine men and women in combat certainly would decline."

The AGM-129A Advanced Cruise Missile (ACM) is being retired by the US Air Force, according to a March 7 post on the Strategic Security Blog by the Federation of American Scientists.

Add the AGM-129A to the growing list of weapons the air force is divesting or seeking to divest, which also include the F-117 and the U-2.

The decision also brings an ingnominous end to the brittle AGM-129A, the first nuclear-tipped cruise missile designed with stealth as an overriding factor. It was conceived in 1983 in the same generation as the B-2 stealth bomber and RAH-66 Commanche stealth helicopter in an age when stealth -- perhaps like information and networking today -- was still viewed and hyped as its own revolution in military affairs.

The original plan was to deliver 1,500 AGM-129A missiles at a rate of 40 missiles per year after full-rate production in 1993. The weapon would still be coming off the assembly line today!

But the original manufacturer, General Dynamics, was beset by flawed software, shoddy manufacturing and testing mishaps. Congress stepped in to zero out funds for the program in 1989 and the air force invited McDonnell Douglas to qualify as an alternative source. McDonnell Douglas accepted the invitation, only to regret it later when the Bush I regime decided to stop production of the missile after building about 460.

The remaining inventory is now being retired after less than 20 years of service. Other non-stealthy cruise missiles with conventional warheads -- such as the AGM-86B Air Launched Cruise Missile and the UGM-109 Tactical Tomahawk -- are known to have been fired in combat.

The concept of a nuclear cruise missile now appears to be out of fashion. US Strategic Command is demanding a capability for prompt global strike -- like the kind delivered by a hyper-mach ballistic missile, not a subsonic cruise missile. Conventional (read: non-nuclear) warheads are seen as the proper kill mechanism of a cruise missile, stealthy or othwerwise.

To wit: production of the nuclear AGM-129A was curtailed just as the military started pouring cash into the development of stealthy, non-nuclear cruise missiles.

The initial investment in the Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile fell apart, but the replacement -- the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile -- is in the inventory today. The JASSM and the AGM-129A are not equivalent even as conventional weapons -- the AGM-129A has an enormous range advantage.

The AGM-129A never really found its niche in the arsenal despite its reportedly $6.4 billion price tag. If there is any return for the taxpayer's investment, it may be as an object lesson for the dangers of taking the fads of military technology to their unjustified extreme. 

For my weekly appearance on Federal News Radio, the topic was the future of the C-17 production line.

To sum up: it's not as bleak as Boeing says it is.

Listen to the interview here:

Download 03052007_fednewsradio.wma

The debate continues about V/STOL, the Harrier and the F-35B.

Bob Ehling comments:

VTOL also gives the Harrier the capacity to "viff" (vector in forward flight), which allegedly gave it a high kill ratio at low altitudes in Red Flag exercises some time ago. The F-35's lift fan may have similar attributes for future ACM, particularly flight at the high angles of attack necessary to fully exploit future air-to-air missile capabilities.

My response: Agreed, vectoring in forward flight is a neat trick. Do you really think that it's anything like an equalizer? How many F-16 and F-15 pilots have asked to trade cockpit seats with an AV-8B pilot in a dog fight?

Ehling: Don't forget that work is already under way to use the F-35's lift fan bay for a directed energy weapons suite. That capability might be worth the extra engineering costs, and might make the AF and Navy "conventional" versions more effective than other platforms at some tasks.

My response: Directed energy weapons will one day be standard issue for tactical aircraft, but that day is still a long, long way away. By the time the death rays are ready for service, there will be a new generation of aircraft better suited for a weapon of that kind.

Ehling: My own informal studies of procurement policy suggest that we don't want to put all our eggs in one basket, whether it's the F-22 for the Air Force, or the Super Hornet for the Navy and Marines. The case for the F-35 might be hard, but the alternative might be worse.

You make a fair point about diversifying the fleet. It mitigates risk in case of a fleet-wide grounding caused by a design flaw. But the question is one of opportunity cost. Is that risk extreme enough to deserve such a costly mitigation strategy?

I'm not sure I know the answer. This is a great discussion. More comments welcome.

Earlier today, I forecasted that the DOD budget will soon equal the 5% of GDP benchmark clumsily called for by the American Enterprise Institute.

To sum up: the AEI's Gary J. Schmitt and Thomas Donnelly think the defense budget should rise until it hits about 5% of GDP. And, as I pointed out, that's redundant. The 2008 budget will be that high anyway.

Winslow Wheeler, former Senate staffer/current director of the Straus Military Reform Project, emailed to add:

Indeed, and now Donnelly and AEI will up their ante to 6%.  Remember: More is never enough.Consider also: If the economy goes into recession and slows, and if the defense budget goes down, but less, the % for GDP goes UP. If the economy grows rapidly and defense spending grows, but less, defense's share of GDP goes down. If we can shrink the economy enough, Donnelly will get his wish.

All typos are bad. Some are REAL bad. Read it on DefenseLink:

Raytheon Co., Tucson, Ariz., was awarded a $23,700,000 cost-reimbursement contract on Mar. 2, 2007, to procure long lead material in support of the FY07 production of Evolved Seasparrow Missiles (ESSM) for NATO Seasparrow Consortium countries and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers.    Raytheon Co. will procure long lead material used in FY07 ESSM production for Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, Norway, Spain, United States, and the United Arab Emigrants. Work will be performed in Australia (26 percent); The Netherlands (25 percent); Spain (19 percent); Tucson, Ariz. (12 percent); Norway (6 percent); Greece (4 percent); Germany (4 percent); Canada (2 percent); Denmark (1 percent); and Turkey (1 percent), and is expected to be completed by Feb. 2010. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The contract also supports the United Arab Emigrants under the FMS program. The contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-07-C-5431).

Richard Aboulafia, The DEW Line's favorite logorrheic aerospace analyst for the Teal Group, gave The Los Angeles Times on March 3 an interesting quote about the future of the approaching-death's-door-again C-17 production line.

Says the Times story:

But the program is likely to get another reprieve, much as it did last fall, because of strong congressional support, said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with Teal Group, an aerospace research firm.

"Congress might have to increase here and there, but it can be done," he said. "There is a very strong chance that there will be another dozen added this year."

I've made some new friends and some apparently bitter enemies with my recent rant on the relative merits of V/STOL technology for fighters.

One comment posted at DefenseTech.org, which was nice enough to cross-post the item, is so good that I'm cross-posting it back here.

I think the anonymous SteveD is really onto something:

The F-35B has a serious business case -- it is the only aircraft that can meet the USMC/UK RN requirement (not to mention the "Harrier carrier" requirements of India, Italy, Thailand, and Spain, and potentially of Japan). More importantly, if the Marines have any justification for a "high performance" fixed wing jet, it is that they need a jet organic to units operating from expeditionary strike groups (no CVNs) and from short/unprepared/minimally hardened forward air strips. VSTOL provides this capability, with the understood cost in range/payload.

However, traditional low-and-slow, eyeball-on-target CAS is obsolete in the era of ubiquitous MANPADS, SHORADS, and light AAA. CAS must be replaced by direct air support, providing NRT response to target designations by ground controllers using an illuminator (laser or MMW) or providing a 1m3 target cube based on GPS offset and laser ranging and a characterization (e.g., tank, troops in trench, mortar team in SE corner, 1st floor, masonry building, etc.).

The AF F-35A is an unnecessary airplane. It does nothing substantially better than the already in production F-22A except carry a somewhat larger (but still inadequate) bomb load; and is much weaker in range, air-to-air capability, and sustained cruise. The AF would do better buying 10 AEF's worth of F-22s (380), updating the A-10 to A-10C, and remanufacturing or buying F-15Es with AESA radars and helmet-mounted sights, dropping the F-35, and expeditiously retiring the range/payload limited F-16.

The Navy F-35C is also of questionable value. While it has somewhat more range/payload than the F-35B, it offers no real benefit over the F/A-18E/F except stealth. It cannot match top-notch Russian- or European- air superiority aircraft. The Navy needs a replacement for the F-14D -- a fast, long range, truly multi-mission aircraft, or should invest its money in supersonic, stealthy SSGN/DDG/CG-launched cruise missiles and long-loiter stealthy subsonic UCAVs.
--SteveD

Thanks SteveD.

To this I would add that the JSF is increasingly an odd-fit in the navy aircraft inventory. By the time the F-35C enters service, the navy will have hundreds of F/A-18E/Fs crowding the carrier deck. The JSF will be squeezed for relevance between this armada of Super Hornets and the navy's ambitions to deploy a stealthy UCAV, which is the true sucessor of the still-born A-12 Avenger.

Good news! Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2006 was a whopping $13.2539 trillion.

Now that we know that, The DEW Line gets to ask the billion (or even trillion-) dollar question: how much of that bounty needs to be invested in the defense budget?

Your answer will depend on how you read the trends in the global security posture and how you assess certain key future geo-political scenarios. In other words, make your best -- read: least risky -- guess.

Gary J. Schmitt and Thomas Donnelly -- a resident scholar and resident fellow, respectively (er, who out-ranks who, we wonder?) -- at the American Enterprise Institute have made their best guess very public in a new book called Of Men and Materiel.

Based on their premise that the current budget is woefully inadequate in the current security landscape, AEI's star residential duo make two claims: 1) the current defense budget is too low and 2) the budget should be sized at 5% of GDP.

In short, one nickel of every dollar produced in the US each year should go to spending on troops, weapons and -- most importantly, perhaps -- more analyses of the defense budget by Schmitt and Donnelly.

Why 5%, you may ask? Well, we're not quite sure. Besides its value as a nice rhetorical rallying point, the authors make no attempt to quantify their analysis. They don't even bother explaining what is the actual percentage share of defense spending (about 3.7% in 2006 actually).

The DEW Line is not brave enough -- or, frankly, educated enough --to thoroughly crunch the numbers ourselves, but we will venture to make one minor, little, miniscule, probably completely insignificant point about the analysis of Schmitt and Donnelly: it's redundant.

We know that the Federal Reserve is projecting GDP to rise to $14.2 to $14.3 trillion in fiscal year 2008. We also know that the Defense Department is asking for funds totaling about $650 billion in 2008, if you add up the base budget, the Global War on Terror request, military construction and the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons complex.

According to the seldom-used calculator program in our laptop computer's "accessories" folder, that total adds up to 4.5% of projected GDP in 2008.

That means at this point the DOD is just a $60 billion to $65 billion supplemental budget request in fiscal year 2008 from reaching Schmitt's and Donnelly's 5% target.

Is there anyone out there who doesn't believe the DOD will ask for - and receive - a second major supplemental spending package in an election year?

So, Misters Schmitt and Donnelly, congratulations! You have managed to forecast the inevitable. Now do you think the defense budget is too low?

Meet retired Major General Robert "Ched-Bob" Chedister, former commander of the US Air Force Air Armament Center (AAC) at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

Under Chedister's watch from 2003-2005, the AAC conducted the Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) competition, eliciting bids from Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The contract award went to Boeing, but that was partially overturned later after it became clear that disgraced former air force acqusition executive Darleen Druyun had fiddled with the requirements to favor Boeing's bid.

Chedister laid-low in retirement for about a year, but now works as Vice President - Operations for a Maryland-based start-up called Proxy Aviation.

Led by chief executive Don Ryan, Proxy is seeking to introduce one of those "disruptive technologies" -- and particularly disruptive from the standpoint of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI).

Proxy is hoping to offer the air force a very near-term alternative to the GA-ASI MQ-9B Reaper unmanned aircraft system (aka Predator B). Proxy's approach is based on the optionally-manned SkyRaider. Four SkyRaiders could fly autonomously and collaboratively on a hunter-killer-type mission, versus the one MQ-9B that needs a cleared-out airspace in which to operate. The SkyRaider is one-fourth the cost of the MQ-9B, so the air force gets four for the price of one.

Chedister's role in the company will likely fall on the armaments side, as the 250-lb SDB is a natural candidate for the SkyRaider's 1,000-lb bomb-bay.