February 2009 Archives

Okay, the Aussies are not buying new Super Hornets nor Growlers. But they are proposing to spend AUS$335 million to convert 12 of the 24 F/A-18 Super Hornets already on order to the EA-18G Growler standard.

"If finally pursued, the relatively small investment will significantly enhance the Super Hornet's capability, by giving electronic attack capacity and therefore the ability to nullify the systems of opposing aircraft," said Minister of Defence Joel Fitzgibbon. "It will also provide the Super Hornets with counter-terrorism capability through the ability to shut down the ground-based communications and bomb triggering devices of terrorists."

Not to mention (ahem) the Growler's recently disclosed, anti-F-22 capability.

It's a great week to be a Growler.

I might be jumping the gun on this one, but I'll throw it out there anyway. I think Australia is just about to announce buying another batch of F/A-18E/Fs, and maybe even some (F-22-killing - ha!) EA-18Gs.

This email just popped into my inbox. It's a press release from the office of Australian Minister of Defense Joel Fitzgibbon. The press conference starts in 15 minutes. Stay tuned for updates.

THE HON JOEL FITZGIBBON MP
Minister for Defence

Friday, 27 February 2009  023/2008

DEFENCE MINISTER TO MAKE MAJOR CAPABILITY ANNOUNCEMENT IN RELATION TO AUSTRALIA'S FUTURE AIR COMBAT CAPABILITY

Who:    The Hon Joel Fitzgibbon MP, Minister for Defence.

What:    Defence Minister will a make major capability announcement, whilst welcoming the Boeing and United States Navy Super Hornet team, visiting Australia for the Australian International Air Show.

Where:    RAAF Base Williamtown, Medowie Road, Williamtown.

When:    Today, 27 February 2009.

Time:    7:30am.  Media should gather at the security gate for pass issue.

The Minister will meet the Super Hornet team, which is in Australia for the Australian International Airshow at Avalon, Victoria, on 10-15 March 2009.

A United States Navy early model Block I F/A-18F Super Hornet and one of the Royal Australian Air Force's classic F/A-18 Hornet aircraft will be on display.

Media Notes:
Media must present current photo identification from their organisation.


Media Contacts:
Jack Smith (Joel Fitzgibbon):    02 6277 7800 or 0408 116 423
Defence Media Liaison (Danielle Kuhn):    02 9359 2787 or 0405 310 176

www.defence.gov.au

Today was Electronic Awareness Warfare Appreciation Day at Andrews AFB. The base hosted a sort of petting zoo for high-tech jamming systems. I noticed a Boeing EA-18G parked on the side, and struck up a conversation with the pilot.

As we chatted about interference cancellation systems, I couldn't help but notice an odd decal decorating the side of the fuselage. I asked the pilot: What's that aircraft decal on the fuselage?

"That's an F-22," he said.


Well, why is it there?

"Because this is the EA-18G that killed an F-22," he explained.

Um, really?

Alas, after that bombshell, the conversation quickly dried up. I did learn the EA-18G kill was courtesy of a well-timed AIM-120 AMRAAM shot. And I learned the simulated combat exercise took place at Nellis AFB. How the EA-18G escort jammer got the shot, and whether its jamming system played a role in the incident were not questions the pilot was prepared to answer.

For the spotters, the aircraft pictured above is EA-1, the first of two Lot 27 F/A-18Fs converted into flying prototypes for the EA-18G program.

I liked The Economist's treatment of last night's address by President Barack Obama, especially this paragraph.

A theme that permeated the speech was rapidly rising national debt, following the budget-busting $787 billion stimulus that Mr Obama just signed. "Everyone in this chamber-Democrats and Republicans-will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars. And that includes me," Mr Obama said. But he has yet to say what he is prepared to sacrifice. He still plans to expand publicly financed health care, make permanent tax credits to the majority of workers, expand college assistance and invest in alternative energy.

Hmmm, what is the huge part of the federal budget missing from that list of expansion projects? Let me think ... I know!

President Barack Obama kidded yesterday that he didn't realize he was so deprived by the VH-3D that he needed a new helicopter. It was a great line. Even presidential rival Senator John McCain laughed heartily. But was Obama's comment, in fact, untrue? Is he deprived by his executive helicopter?

The first Sikorsky VH-3D was delivered in December 1974, making the oldest helicotper in the HMX-1 fleet slightly more than 34 years old. But despite a three-year-old program to develop a replacement, the US Navy has quietly launched a wide-ranging upgrade program for the VH-3Ds. Maybe there's some more life in the old fleet after all. Consider this list of known, funded upgrades:

1. Lift Improvement Program, including newly designed composite main rotor blades
2. Communication Suite Upgrade, which adds satcom and high frequency links
3. Fuel System Upgrade, to improve reliability and crash survivability
4. Cushier VIP seats
5. My favorite: EMP-Hardened acrylic windows
   

How does the VH-71 survive after this unlikely exchange yesterday between Sen John McCain and President Barack Obama at the White House Fiscal Responsibility Summit?

Read the transcript on the jump.

The BF-2 prototype for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program should be available to start flight tests after today. This is only the third flight-worthy prototype, with AA-1 expected to return to flight soon and BF-1 entering hover pit tests next week.

The spotters at Fence Check snapped a great shot of BF-2 during taxi tests two weeks ago.

On Friday, I interviewed the US Marine Corps officer leading a campaign to develop a high-speed, point-to-point space travel capability for the US military.

I contacted the officer -- Lt Col Paul Damphousse -- after his organization, the National Security Space Office, posted a fascinating request for information to industry. The RFI asked the market about options for transporting a 200kg payload above 50,000ft altitude for up to 5,000nm -- suborbital territory.

The idea grew out of an even more ambitious, USMC-launched concept called small unit space transport insertion (SUSTAIN), which probably drew as many giggles as gasps when it was profiled on the cover of Popular Mechanics in 2005.

After talking with Damphousse on Friday, I came away with the impression that the US military is serious about the idea of space transport, and has dialed back its requirements to non-absurd levels. After all, if technology will soon allow rich tourists to start frolicking in space, why not a US miltiary payload?

Click here to read full story.

The pseudo-race to develop a high-speed helicopter just got a little more interesting. My colleague John Croft, attending the Heli-Expo in Long Beach, cajoled a confirming quote from Rolls-Royce about a secretive new Eurocopter concept called the X3. [Sikorsky already grabbed X2 for its high-speed prototype. Hmm -- Anybody know who got the X1?] The UK-based engine manufacturer confirmed the RTM322 will power the Eurocopter X3, although the airframer still declines to comment on the X3's existence.

We know almost nothing more about the Eurcopter project. But, as John reported, Eurocopter has recently applied for a patent on a heavy-lift high-speed rotorcraft design, which is shown below.

Skunk Works deserves credit for several of the world's most amazing and successful aerospace projects: SR-71, U-2, C-130, F-117, F-104, etc, etc. Clearly, the Skunk Works publicity department has no need to embellish the record.

That's why this poster on the Skunk Works web site makes me so curious. Check out the aircraft pictured in the bottom-left corner. It's a tiltrotor aircraft called the Eagle Eye.

Eagle Eye, as I'm sure many of you know, is not a Skunk Works project. The tiltrotor UAV was developed and tested exclusively by Bell Helicopter. It also didn't exactly establish itself in a class with Skunk Works' more successful ideas. The Eagle Eye was cancelled in 2006 after a flight test crash.

Its appearance on a Skunk Works publicity poster raises a few interesting questions. Maybe it's just a bizarre typo by the marketing department. But what if it's not? Could Lockheed Martin's advanced development unit played an undisclosed role in the Eagle Eye's development?  

This is very likely an old chart. The FB-22 and AMC-X references are circa 2004. At that time, the Lockheed Martin/Northrop Grumman joint venture Integrated Coast Guard Systems had selected Eagle Eye for the Deepwater programme. But that didn't make the Eagle Eye a Skunk Works aircraft any more than the EADS CASA HC-144.

There are really only three options: a) a mistake, b) needless appropriation of another company's product or c) acknowledgement of an unannounced role in the Eagle Eye program.

My guess is 'b'.

The US Army bought three Bell Helicopter 407 helicopters yesterday for $7 million.

It was only five months ago that the army terminated a $6 billion contract to buy 522 Bell 407s modified into ARH-70s. Ironically, the deal was terminated largely because the cost of buying a single ARH had ballooned to about $14 million each, or twice the amount for all three aircraft purchased yesterday!

Of course, there are a few differences. The army is buying the three 407s on behalf of the Iraqi Air Force. The three airframes will be modified to carry weapons and serve as armed scout helicopters. If the modifications prove successful, the army will buy at least 24 more helicopters for the Iraqis.

Oh, the irony. If this works out -- and judging from past performance that's a big "if" -- the US Army could be more successful at buying combat aircraft for other militaries than for itself! 

An improper stabilizer trim setting caused a Boeing B-52 to crash into the ocean off Guam in July, killing six crewmembers as they practiced a flyby for the next day's island parade.

So why was the stab trim set to 4.5 - 5 degrees nose down?

The USAF's accident investigation board (AIB) has two theories. Either the pilot made a fatal error and forgot the unusual trim setting as he entered a shallow, descending turn, or the B-52 has a fatal mechanical problem.

The suspected mechanical problem is called runaway stabilizer trim, caused perhaps by a failure of the pilot's trim switch or the hydraulic actuator for the stab trim. It has happened once before to a B-52G on the ground. Another B-52D mishap was "most likely" caused by a stabilizer control system malfunction, the USAF's AIB says.

As part of the crash investigation, Boeing simulated the effect of a runaway stabilizer trim problem in the pilot's flight profile. It took the simulator crew 29 seconds to recognize the stabilizer trim problem. By then, it was too late to recover the aircraft "even if the pilots executed response actions perfectly."

(Photo credit)

I must admit the headline on Boeing's press release today didn't much impress me: "Boeing SLAM ER Scores Direct Hit in Land-Base Moving Target Test".

Big deal, right? Didn't they already do that with SLAM ER several years ago with Hairy Buffalo? (Answer: Yes)

So why repeat the test? It turns out that firing SLAM ER at a moving missile launcher probably wasn't the real purpose of this test.

It's true that sometimes press releases bury the real news. In this case, the press release may have omitted the real news entirely.

This may have been the first time that a standoff missile scored a direct hit on a mobile target as it made a 90-degree turn along a bend in the road.

We know this because my former colleague, Guy Norris, attended a Society of Experimental Test Pilots meeting in April 2007, where US Navy officials described what would happen in the next round of tests for the SLAM ER.

Saddam Hussein's army pitched five Seersucker cruise missiles into Kuwait as coalition forces invaded. The allies' robust missile defense network -- so effective against Scuds -- detected none of them.

Fortunately for Iraq's attackers, none of the five found their mark, with one slamming into a Kuwait City shopping mall and another landing about 100 meters from a US Marine Corps leadership post.

Finding an answer to this problem has been difficult. I was at an army missile defense conference in El Paso, Texas, in December 2003, when then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfled pledged to find a solution. Four years later, it still doesn't exist.

But there has been progress, especially in the last two weeks.

First, the US Army last week announced finalizing the design of the joint land attack cruise missile defense elevated netted senor (JLENS).  It's an aerostat tethered 10,000 feet above the ground, carrying about 7,000lbs of radars.

Knowing the missiles are coming is one thing. Shooting them down is quite another. The surface-launched advanced medium range air to air missile (SLAMRAAM) is useful, but has limited range. If the cruise missile is packed with a biological or chemical warhead, intercepting the missile at short range could do almost as much harm.

But the army has just taken a big step to solve the range problem. Late last week, the army invited industry to participate in a market survey for an extended range cruise missile interceptor. The acquisition notice suggests the potential contract is competitive, but the favored candidate is already clear.

Raytheon has been slowly developing the low-cost, advanced extended range attack missile (AERAM) since at least 2004. It is already designed to meet all of the requirements in the description for market survey, including compatibility with the SLAMRAAM launcher.

The Pentagon first disclosed a roughly 65% cost overrun for the VH-71 program nearly a year ago, and officially notified Congress of the Nunn-McCurdy breach last month.

So why was it such a big news story today?

Thank CBS Evening News. It's story last night seemed to open a floodgate of reporting today.




Here's the current program status: All eight "Increment One" aircraft, including three flight test vehicles, are almost complete. Progress on the "Increment Two" fleet, which includes a new engine, rotor blades, drive shaft, gear box and tail cone, is stalled pending the Nunn-McCurdy review.

The Pentagon obviously has a huge problem on its hands. This is not an ideal time for a politician to buy a fleet of $400 million executive helicopters. But the VH-3Ds and VH-60s currently doing the job aren't going to fly forever. Maybe Sikorsky could sell about a dozen VH-92s to replace the VH-60s. Perhaps the Navy will cancel Increment Two and settle for the Increment One standard. Terminating the program really can't be an option. 

What do you call an EA-18G Growler without a jammer?

a) Growl-less
b) Meowler
c) Growler Lite

Boeing is going with option C.

As my colleague Andrew Doyle exclusively reveals from Bangalore today, Boeing is proposing the Growler Lite for certain export customers that won't be allowed to buy the ALQ-99 jamming pod.

The details are still sketchy, but Ihere's my best guesses for the EA-18G configuration (see bottom-middle box in graphic above).

I'm guessing it still comes with the ALQ-228 ICAP-III suite and Raytheon communications antenna for situational awareness. Presumably, HARM or AARGM missiles could still be an option. The interference cancellation (ICANS) system would be redundant without a jammer on board, so it's scratched.

Even without the ALQ-99, the EA-18G Lite may still have a limited jamming capability. The AESA radar in the nose could eventually be used as a jammer for X-band transmitters, assuming the US Navy continues to fund the software upgrade and the State Department clears it for export.

I got an email from a PR rep asking me to interview someone for the blog instead of the magazine -- a TDL first! I took her up on it.

Mike Dunn is president of the Air Force Association. He is a retired lieutenant general and former F-15 and F-106 pilot. Both Dunn and his organization are of course strong supporters of the US Air Force's plan to extend F-22 production.

The interview couldn't be precisely scheduled, so, in true blogging style, I received a phone call on the fly while Dunn was in between meetings on Capitol Hill.

Dunn explained the USAF's position and defended the F-22 against criticisms by John Young, the Department of Defense's chief weapons buyer. And he scored bonus points for name-checking the real DEW Line, while explaining the F-106's suicidal bomber intercept mission using nuclear-tipped air-to-air missiles.

DOWNLOAD PODCAST

Flight's Andrew Doyle is in Bangalore and this is all he sends me: C-390 pics! (Okay, that's really all I wanted anyway.)

These Embraer slides shows the dramatic evolution of their jet-powered C-130 replacement concept from relatively simple E190 spin-off to a virtually all-new aircraft with perhaps a common cockpit. And are those CFM56 turbofans under the wing?

[WARNING: Slides are marked "Embraer Proprietary Information", in case you're thinking about emailing them around your company. If the lawyers come after you, just tell them the slides were presented at a very public press conference at Aero India.]

We last heard from Col Terrence Fornof on YouTube in November, after he infamously assessed the foreign participants at Red Flag 2008.

I just spotted Fornof again in a great article posted online today by The Atlantic. In the article, "The Last Ace", Black Hawk Down author Mark Bowden takes up the cause of preserving F-22 production from an early demise.

Bowden quotes Fornof twice in the 15-page article, mostly on the Sukhoi SU-30's surprise performance against the US Air Force F-15s at Cope India 2004. Bowden writes:

"We came rolling in, like, 'Beep-beep, superpower coming through,'" Colonel Fornof told me. "And we had our eyes opened. We learned a lot. By the third week, we were facing a threat that we weren't prepared to face, because we had underestimated them. They had figured out how to take Russian-built equipment and improve upon it."

Here's Fornof on YouTube.

Apologies for the commercial, but let me briefly plug Flight's new Military Fleet report. You can download the 30-odd page document for free, but you do have to provide some personal information. The report breaks down fleet data by aircraft type, country and region. I think it's a handy reference document to have on the bookshelf.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

How do you deliver a 200kg payload packed with "militarily-relevant" stuff half-way around the world in under two hours?

If you know the answer, the US Department of Defense would like to invite you to attend a three-day technology forum at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, starting on 24 February.

Specifically, two DOD organizations -- the National Security Space Office and the Air Force Security Forces Center -- has issued a request for information for "Rapid Delivery of Military Capabilities via Space".

The goal of the RFI is to identify "existing commercial systems or low risk systems in development" that can transport a 200kg payload -- either an unmanned aircraft or unmanned ground vehicle -- up to 5,000nm from the launch site. The DOD also wants to know if the payload can be scaled up to 30,000lb.

The RFI mentions that the concept was based initially on the marine corps' small unit space transport and insertion (SUSTAIN) concept, which got so much press a few years ago. 

The merger of Northrop Grumman and TRW in 2002 created the "Big 5" club of US defense contractors -- namely, Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.

But a foreign-owned company -- BAE Systems PLC -- broke into the exclusive group in 2008, displacing Raytheon, which moved to sixth. Here's the updated chart from USspending.gov:

BAE is only one of several European companies that have made huge inroads into the US domestic defense market since the 1990s. EADS, Finmeccanica and Thales are also deeply invested on US territory, despite persistent calls for a protectionist stance on defense industrial policy.

A few months ago, BAE Systems' top US media rep Greg Caires provided me with comprehensive briefing of the company's current footprint in North America. I transcribed the paper briefing into the a PowerPoint file above.

Eight-year DARPA Director Tony Tether announced his relatively unexpected resignation by email today. As his widely distributed note suggests, Tether also believed the conventional wisdom that he would remain in office until his successor arrived.

It appears that Tether doesn't appreciate how he was informed. Here's the email:

Subject: The Time to Go has Been Settled.

As you know, I had said that I was asked to stay on at DARPA until replaced.

It turns out that that was not the case.

I was informed last week that the Administration had decided that I was to leave now with February 20th as a two week notice.

So it's over.

But it has been a good ride and we have many, perhaps thousands, of technology developments most of which are yet to come, but also many which are out being used saving our Soldiers lives yet making them far more effective than the adversaries they face.

I want you to know that I am proud of all of you, current and past, and will never forget what you have done.

Once I know what I am doing, I will let you know.

God bless all of you, and most of all, God Bless America.

Tony

I've watched Lockheed Martin propose a few memorably far-out ideas: for example, a carrier-based C-130 Sea Herk or slingloading a cage under an unmanned helicopter to transport detainees. Neither idea moved much beyond a PowerPoint slide (er, thankfully?).

But I've read one new idea this morning that could top them all: selling F-22s to the US Marine Corps.

Unlike my previous examples, this idea did not come from Lockheed's business development department.

It comes from Air Power Australia -- that hotbed of pro-F-22/anti-F-35 advocacy. I know the source will immediately disqualify the concept for some. But I think it's worth reading, at least for its novelty value. I'm sure the USMC wouldn't mind getting their hands on a few F-22s, as long as they didn't have to pay for them or give up their beloved F-35B.

Check out the commentary published on defpro, but or click on the jump below.

Fighter manufacturers are seeking out celebrity endorsements this week. First, Brazil reached out to Tom Cruise to turn Top Gun tricks on the Super Tucano (see item below). Now, Lockheed Martin has signed up Abhinav Bindra, India's first Olympic gold medalist -- for shooting, of all sports -- to fly around the Aero India air show next week in the F-16IN Super Viper, according to the Hindu Times.

Making the announcement, Orville Prins, vice president (Business Development-India) said: "Lockheed Martin is very pleased to have Abhinav Bindra fly in the F-16IN Super Viper. It is a perfect fit. Lockheed Martin and Abhinav share the same commitment to integrity and the F-16IN and Abhinav have achieved absolute excellence in performance."

Bindra will be flown by a highly experienced test pilot with Lockheed Martin. The flight will last approximately 45 minutes. He will undergo the mandatory medical fitness test before takeoff and will also get a ground briefing before going on the sortie.

Bindra said: "I was instantly excited when the offer to fly on F16IN came. I have heard about the adrenalin rush when the aircraft sorties in the air and am looking forward to experience it. I guess it will be an encore of what I felt when I hit the target at Olympics. I thank Lockheed Martin for giving me this honour".

My apologies to those who aren't able to hear the audio file on Hunter Green Dart (posted below). Our IT folks in London are trying to figure out why it works for some, but not others.

Meantime, here's a quick transcript of the remarks by Tim Owings, the army's deputy program manager for unmanned aircraft systems:

The Green Dart -- let me back up. Green Dart was a quick reaction capability. It was something we could procure today to get SIGINT capability very quickly. We've used that to learn not only what SIGINT needs to be, but how we could use tactical SIGINT. The TSP, or tactical SIGINT payload, is a program of record that's being run out of PEO IEWNS out of Fort Monmouth. And that program is a much more robust SIGINT package -- much more robust. That program is slated to go on the Sky Warrior program and so is a significant leap forward from what we're doing with Green Dart.

Here's some additional background from Owings on the Hunter Green Dart:

The value of Green Dart to us was discovering the TTPs and CONOPs required to really utilize tactical SIGINT. It's one thing to talk strategic SIGINT but it's a totally different world when you talk tactical SIGINT and the army had not done a ton of that. So there was a PED [processing, exploitation and dissemination] piece, which is basically exploitation and dissemation, that had to get figured out at the tactical level. So Green Dart has seved that purpose and continues to provide great input. It's the first generation of SIGINT capabilities for us. But you're going to see a lot more. I'm sure you're aware of a few other programs. There's Air Handler and a few others out there that are being pushed forward as well, plus our tactical SIGINT package which then should be -- the first protype should be available at the end of 2011 which will be intetgrated on Warrior and will ultimately be on ACS [Aerial Common Sensor] as well.

Fictional Top Gun graduate Tom Cruise is being recruited by Brazil's Ministry of Defense to hock Embraer Super Tucanos on the international market, according to Brazilian media today. Really:
 

According to the newspaper "The Day", Nelson Jobim, Minister of Defense, called the star to fly a Tucano on a possible return to Brazil. If Cruise agrees, it will help [Embraer's] image abroad.

According to the publication, the Brazilian government is negotiating the sale of these planes to the Americans.
Clifford Sobel, Ambassador of the United States, confirmed the interest to Tom over lunch on the island of Ivo Pintanguy in Angra dos Reis, last Sunday.

Heads-up: the Aerial Common Sensor pre-solicitation notice is out (read here).

The US Army has completely changed the acquisition strategy. Instead of a winner-takes-all, two competitive prototypes might battle for the integration contract all the way through low-rate initial production.

I wrote a story in October suggesting this might happen (read here). Boeing was strongly lobbying the army in favor of this change, and Northrop Grumman was strongly opposed. I'm still not sure where the two other likely competitors -- Lockheed Martin and Raytheon -- stand on the issue.

Lockheed originally won the contract in 2004, but the deal was canceled two years later after it became clear that the sensor package would be too big for the Embraer ERJ-145 jet.

This photo shows the Boeing concept, which is modeled on the Gulfstream G550.

At last, a US Army acquisition official has explained the purpose -- if not the details -- of the Hunter Green Dart program.

This blog first reported on this secretive signals intelligence (SIGINT) system in October 2007, and followed-up with a speculative -- and now slightly errant -- report in August 2008.

Tim Owings, the army's deputy program manager for unmanned aircraft systems, held a press conference at the AUVSI air programs conference on February 3. Asked point-blank, "What is Hunter Green Dart?", Owings gave a fairly complete answer. We still don't know the precise nature of the system's SIGINT capabilities, but the purpose of the program is now clear.

Click below for the audio.


 

Ashton Carter has been at the top of the rumor list since at least December for replacing John Young, the increasingly outspoken undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. That rumor has now been elevated to real news, as Reuters reports this morning that Carter could be named Young's successor this week.

Read Carter's SourceWatch profile here. He's a Harvard professor and former DOD international policy guru, but forget that. The big question is: what does he think about the F-22?

There seems to be no definitive answer. I checked Lexis-Nexis, and a search for "Ashton Carter" and "F-22" revealed no direct statement on the stealth fighter over Carter's entire career. Ditto, unfortunately, for the F-35.

But I found an article that might give supporters of the imperiled F-22 hope. In 2006, Defense Daily reporter Dave Ahearn reported on a Carter speech about China.

China Threat Forces U.S. Procurement of Advanced Air, Naval Assets, Official Says

The threat that China may invade Taiwan compels the United States military to procure advanced aerospace and naval capabilities, a Harvard University expert and former Pentagon leader said.

It is an unavoidable reality that "the Chinese military and the U.S. military are already in a Cold War...over Taiwan," said Ashton Carter, the Ford Foundation professor of science and international affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and co-director there with former Secretary of Defense William Perry of the Preventive Defense Project.

Carter, who was assistant secretary of defense for international security policy in the Clinton administration, spoke at the National Press Club.

The United States is "in a miniature but very real military competition with China," he said.

U.S. military policy actions must ensure "that the Chinese can't chase or scare us out of the Taiwan Strait," he said, "and that means having air and sea dominance in the Taiwan Strait area."

...

Countering China must "require an investment on our part," he said, "as part of our China hedge," a hedge against China launching hostilities. That hedge should be pursued in addition to a parallel policy of engaging China. The hedge avenue must be built into U.S. military plans, he said. And the hedge "takes you in the direction [of acquiring] advanced aerospace and naval capabilities," he noted.

From the bureaucracy that gratuitously renamed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), here's a new update.

Long ago, the US armed services divided UAVs into four "tiers". At some point, the air force, navy and army adopted the term "classes", but the USMC stuck with the "tier" nomenclature, each with slightly different shades of meaning. This certainly caused some confusion, but had become firmly implanted in the global UAV -- er, UAS -- lexicon.

No more.

The DOD renaming authorities have officially banished the terms "class" and "tier", and invented the new category "groups".

To get a glimpse of how confusing this is going to make my job, consider the example of the small tactical UAS/tier II contract. STUAS is the navy term. Tier II is the marine corps term, but it's for the same aircraft. Well, not anymore. STUAS/Tier II is now collectively called the "Group 3" category.

More details to follow ...

Defpro.com, a wonderful networking site for defense industry types, has the most remarkable commentary today. The headline is phrased politely as a question, but the text is a stinging and informed argument against the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. There have been many arguments against the multi-national jet -- with few public rebuttals from its muzzled supporters, who don't wish to the dilute their F-22 argument -- but few have had the rhetorical strength and factual analysis as this piece.

I've tried various ways to excerpt certain portions, but gave up. I encourage you to visit defpro's web site to read the commentary there, but I've also pasted it below to jump-start a discussion here.

Is American Air Power on the Verge of Collapse?
By John Halldale

The Australian think-tank, Air Power Australia (APA), has released another in their series of techno-strategy papers, this time analysing the advancements in Russian-built Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS) (http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2009-02.html), and what it means in global strategic terms for the Americans. The APA report is direct and unequivocal - Russian radar and missiles have improved to the point where the US fleet of F-15s, F-16s and F/A-18s, as well as the planned Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), are not capable of surviving against these systems and unless the Americans build another four hundred-plus F-22s, they will lose the strategic advantage they have held since the end of the Cold War.

The result will be nations such as China, Iran and Venezuela thumbing their noses at the Americans, knowing that no President will commit to using force in the knowledge that hundreds of jets and pilots would be lost.

The paper comes a month after APA savaged the JSF (http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html). APA's Dr. Carlo Kopp, who completed his PhD in radar engineering, simulated the radar signature of the F-35 and showed exactly how vulnerable it will be to the Russian radar systems and missiles that have emerged since the specification for the JSF was drafted over a decade ago. Lockheed-Martin has not publicly disputed Kopp's findings yet.

The APA IADS study confirms, in tedious detail, what many of us have suspected or known for some time and what U.S. Air Force generals said repeatedly before being forcefully muzzled by the Bush Administration. That is the simple fact that the globalised economy has given Russian radar and missile designers the technology to close the gap with the US and EU designers in most areas which matter. The Russians have used this technology to digitize many Cold War missile and radar designs, and vastly improve post-Cold War designs. The new S-400 has no equivalent in the West, having outstripped and outgrown the Patriot.

The Russians obviously spent a lot of time thinking about how the Americans busted the Iraqi IADS in 1991 and the Serbian IADS in 1999. Like chess players, they looked at what the Americans used, where they were going, and figured out how to checkmate the mighty US Air Force.

Russian industry is now building and marketing short-range missile systems specifically built to shoot down American HARM anti-radar missiles and cruise missiles. They are also putting electronic countermeasures and decoys on their radars to prevent missiles and smart bombs from hitting them. Further, the Russians are currently testing a 400 km range missile, the 40N6, so they can shoot down or drive off American jamming aircraft like the Prowler, Growler and Compass Call. These same missiles can be used to keep the Rivet Joint and AWACS electronic reconnaissance systems out of useful range.

In strategic terms, the Americans are now in real trouble. China is fielding around 500 Russian Flankers and the latest Russian IADS. Iran is fielding the SA-20, and already has the SA-5, upgraded Chinese SA-2s and, some people claim, the HQ-9s - cloned SA-20s. Further, the US aerial tanker fleet is 40-years-old, and the fighter fleet was mostly built twenty-five years ago - many of the F-15s are now older than the pilots flying them. Iraq and Afghanistan have bankrupted the U.S. defence budget and now Wall Street has bankrupted the U.S. economy.

The only modern and credible fighter the Americans have is the F-22, and it is the only way they can recapitalise their collapsing fighter fleet in the next decade, with an aircraft which can actually survive the first day of an air war. The F-35 is not an F-22 and can never become an F-22. The F-35 is, first and foremost, an export fighter program.

We should not mislead ourselves about the seriousness of this matter. Leading American analyst Dr. Richard Hallion, in a recent interview commented: "Today, if NATO wanted to establish an air exclusion zone over Georgia, it could not do so with any aircraft other than the 5th Generation F-22 Raptor...".

Who is most to blame for American air power now teetering on the edge of collapse?

Clearly it has been the Bush Administration, who considered the EU fighter industry a more important enemy to kill than exported Russian Sukhoi fighters and Almaz SAM systems. Rather than sticking with the conservative US Air Force plan for 700+ F-22s, they chopped the number down to 180 aircraft. Why? To force every American service and every American ally to buy into the F-35 monopoly.
Where does this leave us Europeans? We have, since the start of the Cold War, depended on the Americans to provide the fighter top cover, the SAM suppression and the standoff radar jamming none of us were prepared to fund. We, much like the Americans, overindulged in the peace dividend and downsized several times over.
The mighty collective NATO air forces are now a pale shadow of what they were in 1989.

If the Obama Administration decides to follow the Bush Administration policy to terminate F-22 production, the strategic consequences will be just as grave for America's NATO allies as they will be for America.

Here's one for the eBay enthusiasts. The Israeli Ministry of Defense is holding a public auction on five C-130s, including one involved in the dramatic rescue of Israeli hostages at the Entebbe airport in 1976.

My London-based colleague and mid-east aviation expert David Kaminski-Morrow reports:

The aircraft, bearing Israeli Air Force identifier 106, was one of four deployed after an Air France Airbus A300 - operating Tel Aviv-Athens-Paris - was hijacked out of Greece on 27 June 1976 and diverted to Uganda.

In its official tender documentation, the ministry lists aircraft 106, which was built in 1971, as an 'early H' variant with 14,395 landings. It says this aircraft "may be in use" by the air force until no later than 30 September.

The Brazilian magazine Veja ("See") reports an alleged intrigue by Embraer.

According to the magazine's blog, Maria Juliana Buendia de La Vega has hired a law firm in Brazil, seeking an $18 million bonus from Embraer for her part in winning a major contract -- a 2005 sale to Colombia for 24 Super Tucano fighter/trainers. The blog adds that she claims her role involved financially compensating the Colombian authorities.

Embraer issued a public rebuttal on Saturday. Interestingly, Embraer admits hiring Buendia de La Vega's late husband -- Guillermo Garcia Gil -- in 2000 to lobby Bogota officials for the contract. However, Colombia delayed the contract award in June 2002, and Embraer terminated their contract with Gil two months later.

Colombia finally signed the contract "within the scope of a new bidding process" in 2005, two years after Gil had died, according to Embraer. 

Embraer described Veja's article as a "libelous attack" and defended its "worldwide reputation based on ethical and respectful conduct, and on rigorous integrity with all of the people, companies and governments with which it has relations".