I must say I'm disappointed. As I wrote earlier this week, I looked forward to reading the the Radar Game report issued this morning by the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute. I anticipated that Rebecca Grant would build on her 1998 report of the same name, and present a well-researched update on the eternal battle between radar and stealth technology.

I assumed wrong. The new report is a copy-and-paste job from Grant's 1998 study with only a single-page Forward section that unfortunately provides no new data. Most disappointingly, even the "future" section is copied word-for-word from the original report published 12 years ago! If you want a late-1990s update on the status of stealth technology and evolution of aircraft survivability, it's not a bad read. But overall it's a missed opportunity to contribute fresh knowledge and research on such an important topic. 

Five billion dollar paydays are rare even for a US defense contractor, so Boeing is probably feeling pretty good today.

The US Navy yesterday gave $5.3 billion to Boeing to build 124 F/A-18E/Fs and EA-18Gs over the next five years. That's not quite as good as Lockheed Martin's agreement last week on LRIP-4 for F-35, which, the company says, will pay more than $5 billion to build 32 aircraft over only one year. Of course, the Super Hornet fleet has a decade of production maturity and lacks very low observable (VLO) stealth, so the cost differential is not unexpected.

But it should be noted the pricing trend looks good for the Super Hornet after a year of uncertainty. The Department of Defense played hardball with Boeing for several months on the third multi-year contract, complaining that Boeing's initial price offered only 7% savings compared to a single-year purchase. The DOD requires at least 10% savings to approve a multi-year, which trades away the department's budgetary flexibility for marginal cost savings.

I researched Boeing's press releases to find out how much the Super Hornet's price has changed over the last decade. Even as the company introduced the Block II Super Hornet/Growler with active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, the price has steadily declined. Keep in mind these figures don't include 'actuals' -- Congressional plus-ups make true cost comparisons impossible. But the trend is clear.

• MYP 1 (June 2000) -- orders 222 aircraft for $8.9 billion, or $40.09 million per copy. Adjusted for inflation based on consumer price index: $49.45 million (2009 dollars)
• MYP 2 (December 2003) -- orders 210 aircraft for $8.6 billion, or $40.95 million per copy. Adjusted for inflation based on consumer price index: $47.65 million (2009 $), a 7.6% decrease
• MYP 3 (September 2010) -- orders 124 aircraft for $5.3 billion, or $42.72 million per copy, a 10.4% decline compared to MYP-2 and 13.6% decline compared to MYP-1

 * Boeing MYP contracts exclude government furnished equipment, which includes engines

Iran says they have delivered three squadrons of new Bevar 2 ground effect vehicles (aka "flying boats") to its "elite Republican Guard".  As to claims of stealth, the exposed engine and propeller (which is unfortunately designed to spill exhaust into the OPEN cockpit) nullifies any attempt at evading radar detection. You have to respect the courage of the pilots. These flimsy things make the Soviet ekranoplan designs look stable.

I have badgered Boeing executives unsuccessfully for more than a year to reveal the configuration of the KC-767 NewGen Tanker. Perhaps never before has so little been known about such a high-profile product. Boeing has only offered that the new tanker would based on the fuselage of the 767-200 and the cockpit would be upgraded with 787-like displays. Left unsaid is the source for the wings and the cargo layout, such as the door and the floor handling system.

My Flightglobal colleague Brendan Sobie finally solves the mystery this morning, reporting from Seattle that a Boeing source has confirmed details of the full configuration of the KC-767. Well done, Brendan!

Boeing source reveals specifications for KC-767 NewGen Tanker
By Brendan Sobie

Boeing's proposed KC-767 NewGen Tanker for the US Air Force incorporates the wing and fuselage from the 767-200, the cargo door and floor from the 767-300F and the cockpit from the 767-400ER.

The offering, which is currently being evaluated by the USAF along with the EADS North America KC-45 for an initial 179-aircraft requirement, will also feature a new boom. NewGen Tanker programme manager Jean Chamberlin says the new boom will have "a wider envelope than the KC-10 and is fully digitalised". She declines to provide more details for proprietary reasons but says it will "absolutely" be developed in time for first delivery in 2017.

The article crucially discloses that Boeing is reusing the wing from the -200 version of the 767. In the previous competition, which Boeing lost before the contract award was overturned, the KC-767 incorporated the wing from the -300 fuselage. It was a major ingredient of the criticism that labeled Boeing's offering the "Frankentanker", with major structures borrowed from several variants of the 767. 

The only mystery left with the Boeing proposal is the development status of the KC-10-derived, digital refueling boom. Is it ready to be delivered 18 months after contract award? Has Boeing tested and certificated the system? We don't know.

EADS North America has some mysteries of its own. The KC-45 configuration is not one of them. It is an Airbus A330-200 passenger to freighter conversion, which is then modified into a tanker that is required to meet the US Air Force's equipment specifications. But EADS has not been forthcoming about the schedule for transitioning final assembly operations from Seville, Spain, to Mobile, Alabama.

Bad news today for the General Electric/Rolls-Royce team producing the F136 alternate engine for the F-35 in defiance of the Department of Defense's desire to kill the program.

GE/Rolls issued this statement about one hour ago to reporters:

Approximately three hours into a mechanical check-out on September 23 at the GE Aviation facility in Evendale, Ohio, an F136 development engine experienced an anomaly at near maximum fan speed.
Engine #008 was shut down in a controlled manner. Initial inspection revealed damage to airfoils in the front fan and compressor area. The engine is currently being disassembled for a thorough investigation.
The GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team is researching the manufacturing and assembly records for engine #008, an endurance engine in the development program.
The Fighter Team has run several builds of five F136 development engines for more than 1000 hours since early 2009 without experiencing this issue.
GE/Roll-Royce promptly inspected two other development engines now running in the program and neither engine exhibited similar distress. Prior builds were also inspected with no findings.
The Fighter Engine Team is continuing to run test engines #005 at the USAF Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) in Tullahoma, Tenn., and #007 at GE in Evendale.

Forget PowerPoint! If you want to show how a Japanese P-3C kills a Chinese or possibly North Korean submarine, grab a few mini-bikes, hire some very tiny actors and crank up the Top Gun theme song!

The Mitchell Institute, an Air Force Association-funded think-tank, will release on Thursday a new paper called "Radar Game and the Value of Stealth", by Rebecca Grant. It comes 12 years after Grant first published a paper called simply "The Radar Game", which defended the US Air Force's long insistence on a mostly- (if not all-) stealth fleet of fighters and bombers. It will be interesting to see if any of the advances in bi-static radar or integrated air defenses have altered Grant's conclusions over the last 12 years. Stealth technology also has come a long way since Have Blue, which combined a forgotten Soviet mathematician's formulas with Skunk Works engineer Denys Overholser's vision for aircraft surfaces that bounce signals away from a radar receiver. As the USAF plots the strategy for developing a new penetrating bomber, balancing the need for survivability with the cost of stealth technology will be a key issue. 

You don't see a video like this every day ...




Navy Times has the full story:

MH-60R crews grounded for Lake Tahoe dip

By Gidget Fuentes, Navy Times

TAHOE, CA -- The Navy grounded two MH-60R aircrews with a Coronado, Calif., squadron after their helicopters sustained damage when they dipped into Lake Tahoe Sept. 13, Naval Air Forces said Friday.

Here's our first peak inside the F-35 weapons day in the air, courtesy of this May 2010 brief by Lockheed Martin deputy director of F-35 vehicle systems Doug Hayward. I see one AMRAAM and one 2,000lb JDAM inside each bay, a standard load-out. The aircraft appears to be the now-retired AA-1 flight test aircraft.

Just when you thought it was safe to move your nuclear complex underground ...

Boeing, Raytheon win work on high power microwave missile

By Stephen Trimble

Boeing and Raytheon have won seedling contracts to define requirements for a new kind of aerial weapon for the US Air Force that uses high-power microwave (HPM) beams instead of explosives.

Jeremiah Gertler at the Congressional Research Service has published a very useful document on the F-35 alternate engine dispute. You can download it here: CRS report - alternate engine - Sept 2010.pdf

The report includes a list of frequently asked questions, which I excerpt below. My only quibble is the part that says the F-16 is the only US jet with more than one engine. The F-15 community might beg to differ. [UPDATE: To be fair to CRS, I'm referring to foreign F-15 owners. If this is only about jets in US service, CRS is correct.] But this should clear up some of the most important facts in the dispute.

Has DOD always opposed the alternate engine program?

No. From FY1996 to FY2006, funding for an alternate engine was included in the Administration budget request. Starting in FY2007, both the G.W. Bush and Obama Administrations deleted this request.

Was there an earlier competition for F-35 engines that one contractor won?

No. Three aircraft companies bid to design and build the F-35. One design used the GE/Rolls-Royce engine; two used the Pratt & Whitney engine. The two aircraft chosen as finalists both used the Pratt & Whitney engine. There was no separate engine competition.

Is this about replacing the existing engine supplier?

No. The issue is whether to underwrite development of a second engine to the point where a competition for production engines can be held. The estimated cost to do so ranges from $2 billion-3 billion.

Will F-35 engine competition save money?

Studies disagree. DOD, the Institute for Defense Analyses, and the GAO have done separate studies of potential F-35 engine competitions. DOD and IDA found that competition would not save enough to repay the initial investment; GAO found that it would. All studies found non-monetary benefits to the competition.

Will the competition be winner-take-all?

The rules for the competition(s) have not been established. In the 1985-1990 competition for F-15/F-16 engines, engine contracts were awarded in annual lots. Although annual ratios differed markedly, overall one contractor won 51% and the other 49%.

Do other military jets have multiple engine suppliers?

Yes. The F-16C/D fleet includes engines from different suppliers. All other U.S. jet models use single engine types and suppliers.

What is the chance that all F-35s will be grounded if they have the same engine?

It is impossible to state. Historically, with the F-14, F-15, and F-16, significant engine issues were discovered early in development, leaving time for the issues to be addressed through technical fixes, competitions, and/or wholesale replacement by another engine. No such issue has yet surfaced for the F-35. It is possible that a serious flaw could remain undiscovered until much later, when a significant portion of the F-35 fleet shared a common engine. There is no way to calculate the probability of this.

So am I!

Lockheed Martin and the Department of Defense have reached an agreement -- but not signed a contract -- on the fourth lot of low rate initial production for up to 32 jets (including one option reserved for the currently deadlocked Dutch government).

What does it mean to reach an agreement without signing a contract? Who knows! Maybe they agreed on the font size for the letterhead on the cover sheet.

Lockheed, meanwhile, says the value of the contract could be more than $5 billion. But that doesn't mean the cost of each jet is at least $156 million, which is the mean. That number also includes production costs not associated with the flyaway price of the aircraft, such as extra tooling.

Why would the new contract include extra production costs even though the Department of Defense already gave Lockheed a $819 million contract two months ago to buy special tools and testing equipment for LRIP-4? Again, we don't know the answer.

Here's what we do know: LRIP-4 negotiators will have to work hard to keep the average price per aircraft on a downward trajectory.

In May 2008, Lockheed received a $2.2 billion contract to build 12 F-35s in LRIP-2, which averaged $183 million per jet excluding the engine and long-lead acquisition costs.

Fourteen months later, Lockheed received a $2.1 billion contract to build 17 F-35s in LRIP-3, or $123 million per jet with the same exclusions as above.

Now we're waiting to see the value of the LRIP-4 order for 31 or 32 aircraft. If it's anything like the $5 billion figure cited above, this blogger will need to see a lot more details to understand why the aircraft is getting cheaper.

[Update: Answers are now in bold. Source: GAO report issued yesterday.]

I just read a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, so now I feel obliged to test your knowledge of certain basic facts about US arms exports. Unlike defense contractors, you are strictly on the honor system here, so no Googling the GAO report before you give your answers! I'll post the actual answers later today.

1. Which country consumed about 11% of all US arms exports between 2005 and 2009, making it America's largest arms importer?

a) Great Britain
b) Israel
c) United Arab Emirates
d) Japan

2. Which country is not among the top 7 importers of US arms who accounted for half of all sales from 2005 to 2009?

a) Egypt
b) India
c) Israel
d) Australia

3. What was the total value of licenses for defense services (ie, non-equipment) approved by Department of State in 2008?

a) $71 billion
b) $9 billion
c) $27 billion
d) $4 billion

4. What is the percentage ratio of direct commercial sales (DCS) to foreign military sales (FMS) from 2005 to 2009?

a) 30% DCS to 70% FMS
b) 20% FMS to 80% DCS
c) 50% FMS to 50% DCS
d) 60% DCS to 40% FMS

Raytheon has released video showing the third and last guided test vehicle test of its candidate for the US Army/Navy joint air to ground missile (JAGM) contract. All three shots by the Raytheon/Boeing have scored direct hits.

The third test on 3 September 2010 verified that the millimeter wave radar -- one of three seekers on board JAGM -- can lock onto a target from a range of 6km.

In this case, the imaging infrared seeker took over for terminal guidance against the moving T-72 tank, but in the case of bad weather, such as fog, the radar would have guided the missile into the target.

The third sensor -- a semi-active laser -- was deactivated not employed during the test in order to confirm the performance of the radar.

Raytheon and Boeing are teamed up to compete for the JAGM contract against Lockheed Martin. The army is expected to award a contract to order up to 33,000 JAGMs in the second quarter of 2011.

A Cape Town-based videographer has kindly posted video showing a glimpse around the first day of the African Aerospace & Defence Show now underway at Ysterplaat Air Base in South Africa. In addition to showing cool shots of the Gripen flying display, the video also tips off that South Africa is a possible C-17 customer. A Boeing C-17 is parked on the static line. Ever since South Africa canceled an order for the Airbus A400M, it's military transport requirement has been a target for Boeing and the Lockheed Martin C-130J. It's also possible that Embraer this week might add South Africa to the list of foreign partners pledging to buy the future KC-390 airlifter.

Great video was posted Saturday on YouTube showing carrier operations by the Russian Navy Su-33s aboard the Kuznetsov. It seems to come from the same filming session that caught a nearly out of control Su-33 barely avoiding disaster, although that clip isn't included here. But you'll not see a better glimpse of Russian carrier operations.

Political debate over the F-35 continues growing in Canada. Only a few days after top government officials defended the 16 July decision to award sole-source contract after 2013 for 65 F-35s, Canadian journalist David Pugliese today reports that newly-obtained internal documents show the air force last year planned to launch a competitive procurement. With Boeing, Eurofighter and Saab once hoping to bid on the contract, the opposition party has seized on the sole-source decision as a key political issue. Pugliese writes:

The District of Columbia employs 370 aerospace workers who make an average salary of $111,280, making the US capital by far the most financially attractive location to work in this industry.

The next highest average salary in any state is California, but aerospace workers there get by on only $66,606.

Any state, however, is a better place to work in aerospace than South Dakota, where the average salary is $38,833.33, which is just barely above the federal poverty line for a family of eight.

I know all of this thanks to the new state-by-state statistics breakdown on the Aerospace Industries Association's web site. The AIA itself is located just across the river from DC in Virginia, where the average salary is $62,522. Perhaps it's time for the AIA staff to request an office move.  

The US military's next budget proposal remains mostly a mystery, but the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) has given us a sneak preview about one key detail.

The JPO on Wednesday posted a notice saying they intend to buy 53 Pratt & Whitney F135 engines for the sixth lot of low-rate initial production (LRIP-6). Since the F135 is the only engine in the JPO's program of record, the number of engines and jets in LRIP-6 are equal.

Buying 53 F-35s in LRIP-6 means the Department of Defense is cutting the order by 29 jets compared to the 2009 plan. We knew that the program restructuring announced on 1 February moved 122 total aircraft out of the six-year order plan, but the individual numbers were not disclosed.

The change means that Lockheed's ramp-up rate from LRIP-5 to LRIP-6 decreases from nearly 2.0 to about 1.25.

It's also not clear how many orders by foreign customers might be included in the LRIP-6 deal. The 2009 plan assumed 36 additional aircraft sales to foreign partners in 2012, including 10 by Turkey, eight by Australia, six by the United Kingdom, six by Italy and six by the Netherlands.   

Boeing has revealed an all-new and unusually curved winglet on the KC-767 model prominently displayed in its exhibit booth at the AFA convention.

But don't get excited.

The new winglet design is not accurate and is possibly just a model-shop mistake, Boeing officials insist.



Although Boeing declined to reveal the true shape of the KC-767 tanker winglets, the company's other official marketing materials have not deviated from the more conventional, straight winglets already certified on commercial airliners.

The new model for the AFA booth arrived with the symmetrically misshaped winglets, and Boeing officials had not confirmed whether it was a glitch in packaging or construction.

Winslow Wheeler and Pierre Sprey are two of the foremost critics of the Lockheed Martin F-35. Dutch TV has posted on YouTube extended English-language interviews with both men. The videos are valuable for providing enough time to illuminate the full extent of their case against the F-35. Their criticisms, of course, can be picked apart depending on how you view the utility of basic tools of modern air combat, such as radar and long-range air-to-air missiles.

This is a good interview by Jane Wells.

It may say something about today's military acquisition process that a three-star general cites "litigation avoidance" as the top priority for his acquisition strategy.

But that is what Lt Gen Donald Wurster, chief of Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), told a standing-room only audience at the AFA convention today. Wurster also shared a method AFSOC has developed to protest-proof new acquisitions of major weapon systems.

The issue came up two years ago when AFSOC attempted to buy 16 AC-27J gunships.

Wurster says he asked his staff: "How do we buy AC-27s without the big dogs [ie, contractors] poking each other in the eye?"

The solution, Wurster says, lies in bypassing the traditional procurement process completely. Instead of asking for competitive proposals, AFSOC would bolt onto  the existing C-27J procurement contract. Then, the AFSOC would compete the gunship modifications for the C-27J under a task order from an existing services contract, such as the F2AST mechanism, Wurster says.

It's not unlike the strategy AFSOC has traditionally used to develop its specialized versions of C-130s, UH-60's and CH-53s.  But it's the first time AFSOC has used the strategy specifically to avoid procurement litigation.

In this specific case, AFSOC never got the chance to see if its strategy might work. The US Congress rejected the AC-27 gunship plan, Wurster says, although he adds the "door is not closed".

But AFSOC also has another strategy to fight the proprietary interests of defense contractors, Wurster says. AFSOC, for instance, is insisting on installing a new computer processor on board its aircraft that is independent of the operational flight program.

"It gives us the capability to [add new payloads] without sending our aircraft out to Edwards [AFB] because the software we just changed moves the aileron," Wurster says.

If the idea is unpopular with the aircraft manufacturers, Wurster is decidedly unsympathetic.

"We're going to put it on there," Wurster told an AFA audience thick with contractors, "whether you like it or not".

Aerospace and defense journalists have launched a worldwide manhunt to identify the whereabouts of Vice Adm David Venlet.

Despite being named as F-35 program manager last February, and assuming the position last May, Venlet has been sighted in public only once -- and that was in Ottawa on the same day that all aerospace and defense journalists were traveling in the opposite direction to London.

Two months after no-showing the traditionally joint Lockheed-JPO press conference at Farnborough, Venlet also failed to appear today at the traditionally joint Lockheed-JPO press conference at the AFA convention.

Moreover, Venlet has instructed subordinates to ignore all requests for comment by the press, despite sitting on top of a program that consumes $11 billion a year in taxpayer funds.

Despite sending numerous emails and leaving countless voice mails, this aerospace journalist/blogger hasn't received so much as an "out-of-office" automated reply from the formerly professional F-35 government press office since attending a disaster of a media roundtable hosted by Venlet's predecessor last June.

If you have seen this man or know about his whereabouts, contact your nearest journalist/blogger, and maybe we will finally hear his side of the F-35 story.

A few thousand blue-suited representatives of the world's largest air force have gathered in a resort hotel on the Potomac River just southeast of Washington DC for the Air Force Association's annual Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition.

It is the best opportunity every year for industry and (not least!) reporters to connect with the US Air Force's senior leadership to ask questions in the usually vain hope of receiving a responsive answer.

The fate of the KC-X tanker competition is obviously first on everyone's mind this year, as it has been so many times in the past decade. We'll also be searching for updates on the big contract opportunities coming up for grabs next year. These include potential deals for new rescue and utility helicopters, advanced jet trainers, and light attack fighters.

It's meanwhile a year of transition within senior USAF ranks. Chief of Staff Gen Schwartz is reportedly in line for a promotion to the Joint Chiefs. And deputy chief of staff Lt Gen David Deptula, architect of the ISR surge in Afghanistan, is matriculating to the private sector. Their successors will inherit a stronger and more confident air force than the one Schwartz inherited only two years ago after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates fired his predecessors.

Photo courtesy of US Air Force 

This is one year in the mood of senior Department of Defense officials on the subject of the Lockheed Martin F-35 program.

• Aug 31, 2009: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates travels to F-35 final assembly plant in Fort Worth, Texas, says he is "especially excited that things seem to be on schedule".
• Feb 1, 2010: Gates fires F-35's government program manager, withholds $614 million from Lockheed Martin, says performance "has not been what it should", amidst new schedule delays and cost overruns.
• Sept 8, 2010: Frank Kendall (see annoyingly long title) tells audience this morning that Lockheed is now on track to make the F-35 cheaper, possibly soon knocking as much as 6.25% off the cost of the average jet.

I think it may be time for an intervention. In fact, I recognize all seven signs of an unhealthy relationship. Please, get help.

Raytheon has released video showing the second of three scheduled launch tests of the company's candidate for the Joint Air to Ground Munition (JAGM) contract, which is due to be awarded in early 2011.

Although JAGM includes a tri-mode seeker, this test involved only the imaging infrared (IIR) mode and Raytheon's uncooled sensor technology. The direct hit on the tank at 4mi distance is fairly spectacular considering this test involved only a dummy award. Kinetic energy alone caused the explosion of dust and shrapnel from the high-velocity impact.

Lockheed Martin is competing against Raytheon for the JAGM contract, but its second launch test failed to hit the target. The company is self-funding a repeat test of the IIR seeker mode later this month. 

Winning second place in the Seattle Museum of Flight's annual Spirit of Flight photo contest is this stunning image by Bernardo Malfitano, who captured the F-22 at a San Diego air show in 2008.

Lockheed Martin is in the middle of nearly tripling C-130J output from 2008 to 2011 as demand for the airlifter rises across the world. A company photo released on 10 August provides a unique glimpse of the diversity of C-130J customers. The line-up shows seven aircraft ordered by four different customers. From right to left, the C-130Js shown above are being delivered to India, Canada, US Marine Corps, US Air Force, Canada, USAF and Canada. The two USAF aircraft include one C-130J for the mobility fleet and one HC-130J for the combat search and rescue fleet.