July 2011 Archives

US Air Force chief scientist Mark Mayberry briefed the AirVenture symposium on the future of electric flight this morning, allowing your blogger the pleasure of one of our favorite games: Spot the funny-looking aircraft on the AFRL briefing slides! Hey, it's one way to survive death-by-PowerPoint.

1. F-X is the new name for the USAF's very preliminary programme (see this story) to replace the Lockheed Martin F-22, and here's the picture that Mayberry used to illustrate it. I haven't seen this one before. Can anybody place it?


2. Boeing's well-publicized concept design for a next generation air dominance fighter -- another F-X candidate -- illustrated the slide about the INVENT programme (see more on this here).

3. We're pretty sure we've seen this on AFRL slides before, but here it was labeled a "fractionated and survivable" unmanned aircraft system (UAS) in Mayberry's presentation. Perhaps an early concept for MQ-X?

4. We all know about the Long Range Strike (LRS) programme, but were you aware there is apparently an "LRSII" and "LRSIII" programme?

Spotters captured an a McDonnell North American FJ4 rolling off the end of Runway 36 only hours after the same thing happened to an Alabama Air National Guard F-16. If you look closely enough, you can see the FJ4 roll right by the poor F-16, with its nose stuffed into what is now water-logged mud off the end of the runway. This blogger thinks it's interesting that the FJ4 nose gear didn't collapse (see bottom photo below), yet the F-16 nose gear did. How's that for carrier-based fighter engineering, eh?

... not here. As much as I'm digging getting buzzed by the only fly-able B-29 in the world here at Oshkosh AirVenture, it's not the best air show in the world this summer -- by far. Neither does that distinction belong to last month's Paris Air Show, which was unusually bereft of debut appearances by military aircraft. No, that honour goes to the MAKS 2011 air show outside next month. Why? Read this.

The Sukhoi T-50 prototype of the fifth generation fighter PAK-FA programme will make its debut public appearance at MAKS 2011 next month at Zhukovsky airport near Moscow. Until now only a small handful of Russian and Indian dignitaries has officially witnessed the T-50 in person. Joining the PAK-FA prototype will be an interesting assortment of combat aircraft, including the Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle and, I hope, the Sukhoi Su-35S. The biggest transport in the world, the AN-225, also will be on hand. I'm sure there will also be a few surprises nestled into exhibit halls and static areas.

Alas, your blogger will not be in attendance. I have to cover the AUVSI unmanned systems exhibition in Washington DC, which is also scheduled the week of 16 August. Flightglobal will be well represented, however, with magazine editor Murdo Morrison, Siva Govindasamy and David Kaminski-Morrow attending from our London office. Flightglobal's excellent photographer, Tom Gordon, also will be capturing the event visually. I'd also love to hear updates from any DEW Line readers who happen to be at the show.  Dos ve danya?

Sikorsky test pilot Kevin Bredendeck briefed the AirVenture crowd on 25 July on what comes next for the X2 high-speed, coaxial-pusher-combo helicopter.

I'll be reporting on-scene this week from Oshkosh 2011, the annual pilgrammage of the world's most ardent aviation fans. There's no better way to start a show like this than a tribute to Burt Rutan, who will be honoured here all week after retiring in April.

Rutan's Risky Business
By Stephen Trimble



New ideas are powerful things, even when they are wrong. Aviation legend Dick Rutan is not criticising his younger brother when he says the aerodynamic ideas of the now-retired founder of Scaled Composites are generally wrong two times out of three.

After a 46-year career as a test pilot and pioneering aircraft and spaceship designer, a list of Burt Rutan's failed projects could fill the world's most eclectic aviation museum.

But, oh, the ideas that worked...

A partial list of successful projects includes lightplanes (Vari-Eze, Long-EZ, Quickie, Defiant) designed to be almost impossible to stall; an admittedly dangerous aircraft design (Voyager), no heavier than a Beechcraft King Air, which circumnavigated the globe nonstop; and a privately-funded space vehicle (SpaceShipOne) configured to assume the perfect profile for safe re-entry.

UPDATE: Stand down! Looks like this one is more of a toy than a representative model. Apologies for the rush to judgment!It appears the Chengdu J-20 may be an eight-shooter: six PL-12s in the main internal bay and one PL-9 in each of two side weapon bays. In non-stealthy mode, the J-20 may also carry more air to air or air-to-ground weapons on external hard points.

It is hard to judge definitively from this photo of a scale model, but there doesn't appear to be room for air-to-surface missiles like the bulky YJ-12 or smart bombs inside the internal bays.

Is this evidence to support the theory that the J-20 is designed to perform as a stealthy air-to-air interceptor, or is there still reason to believe the aircraft could swing-role into a long-range penetrator?

Let's say you really, really want to pick up 30 tons of something and drop it off in the middle of a field somewhere, but you think a helicopter the size of an A400M and a hybrid airship the size of a football field are a little too impractical. What do you do?

Boeing apparently has an answer to this problem: an Advanced Pulsejet vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, which Google reveals is being actively assessed (see slide 12) by the US military's Transportation Command.

I found the corporate video posted above on YouTube this morning. It was posted there about one week ago. It reveals a whole new class of cargo aircraft technology, with applications for sea-based, land-based and unmanned approaches. Any new technology invites skepticism, which is of course a healthy reaction for any serious industry. But try to keep an open mind, and let me know what you think - pro's, con's, feasibility, risk, etc.

There was a time when any Russian military equipment offered to forces on the Korean peninsula would have stopped slightly north of the 38th parallel, but those days are apparently over.

Although only 18 months beyond first flight, the Sukhoi PAK-FA stealth fighter has been offered to the South Koreans for FX-III. Local reports (see here and here) in Seoul today say that South Korea's defence acquisition agency -- DAPA -- has included the PAK-FA in its short-list of competitors.

For those keeping score, this is the first real competition between the PAK-FA and any foreign fighter. South Korea also is considering the Boeing F-15SE Silent Eagle, Eurofighter Typhoon and the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. This could get interesting, folks.

Let's look on the bright side, for a change. Yesterday, we counted the various weapon systems terminated within the last decade by the Department of Defense (DOD) and their costs, with the help of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). Today, let's look at the programmes that contributed the majority of their sunk cost and achieved initial operational capability (IOC) within roughly the same timeframe. By stretching a little, I can think of six new aircraft meeting that criteria: 

1. UH-72A
2. EA-18G
3. CH-47F/G
4. MC-12W
5. H-1 Upgrades
6. MQ-9 Predator

This list excludes programmes like the F-22 and MV-22, which had the majority of sunk costs before IOC in the previous decade. It also excludes programmes like the P-8A and E-2D that have not yet reached IOC, but appear to be in good shape.

What does this list have in common? Each is a new version or derivative of another model.

How bad were the 'Naughts' (as in '00 decade) for the US government's weapons systems? The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments attempts to answer this question with a table showing the major programmes canceled since 2001 (see page 36). In total, the Department of Defense invested $46 billion on 12 canceled programmes, CSBA says.

1. Future Combat Systems - $18.1 billion sunk
2. Comanche - $7.9 billion sunk
3. NPOESS - $5.8 billion sunk
4. VH-71 -$3.7 billion sunk
5. Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle - $3.3 billion sunk
6. Transformational satellite - $3.2 billion sunk
7. Crusader - $2.2 billion sunk
8. Advanced SEAL delivery system - $600 million sunk
9. Armed reconnaissance helicopter - $500 million sunk
10. Aerial common sensor - $400 million sunk
11. CG(X) next generation cruiser - $200 million sunk
12. CSAR-X - $200 million sunk

 
As bad as this list seems, I can think of several others that also didn't make it. Who can forget the Northrop Grumman E-10A multi-sensor command and control aircraft (MC2A)? Dead. Anybody remember the B-52 stand-off jamming system (SOJS)? Buried. Or the air force's stand-in jamming system -- to be performed by its version of the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) programme? Mostly dead. The X-47 lives as a demonstrator, and the X-45C is on life support as the Boeing Phantom Ray. 

Two questions: Is the picture below really an X-37? And why was it rolling down I-15 interstate highway last week in Las Vegas? (See answers below.)



Answers:

1. It is not one of the two Boeing X-37B orbital test vehicles launched into space on semi-secret demonstration missions, but it's the closest thing. According to Boeing and the US Air Force, this is the X-37A approach and landing test vehicle, the predecessor of the X-37B.

2. It is returning to storage at Vandenberg AFB, California, after a public tour that include being displayed at the National Space Symposium in April and more recently at Boeing's defence headquarters in St. Louis.

(H/T: Orbital Debris at NASAspaceflight forums)

The Venezuela Air Force's new Sukhoi Su-30 was among the star attractions for the country's bi-centennial celebrations on 5 July in downtown Caracas. The video below is highly instructive. For example, we learn that launching flares at low altitude over a crowded city is apparently not a career-killer for a Venezuelan Air Force pilot.

It may not be the prettiest photo, but it's the first known image of all three F-35 variants in the same frame. That's the conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) F-35A in the foreground, the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B on the left and the carrier variant (CV) F-35C in the background.

If you're a casual observer trying to identify the different variants, here's a quick cheat sheet:

1. In this case, the F-35A bears markings for Eglin AFB's 33rd Fighter Wing, an easy give-away
2. The F-35C is the only variant with two wheels on the nose gear, the tell-tale sign of any carrier-based aircraft
3. The F-35C also has a detectable vertical crease slightly outboard of the wing mid-point. This is where the wings fold. It's hard to tell from this photo, but the F-35C wings are much larger than the other two variants
4. The F-35A is the only variant with a small hump on the shoulder of the left wing. You can't see that wing in this photo, but the left wing of the F-35C is clean
5. The F-35B is an easy mark. The outlines of its "'57 Chevy" lift fan cover are clearly visible immediately aft of the cockpit dome

If the experts have any more spotter tips, please share.

(h/t: Invisible Defender) 

Legacies of successful combat aircraft designs are almost always founded by individuals. Russia had Mikhail Simonov. The United Kingdom had Sydney Camm. The United States had Kelly Johnson and Ed Heineman.

But who is the face of Chinese fighter jet design?

Until recently, Simonov, the father of the Su-27, would have been a good choice, as modern Chinese military aviation owes a considerable debt to the Russian master. It was also Simonov who pushed through the initial sale of the Su-27 to China, launching a reluctant post-Soviet, Russian government into the fighter export business.

But not now. With the unveiling of the J-20, the Dragon Soar, and the Pterodactyl within the last eight months, it's clear there is an enterprising, fast-moving aircraft design house somewhere in the Chengdu aviation complex.

The leader of that group appears to be a master designer named Yang Wei [pictured above], who is now the subject of a Chinese-language profile rapidly buzzing around the Internet. I still lack a coherent English interpretation, but the gist seems to be that Yang is credited with pioneering fly-by-wire flight controls and successfully fielding the J-10, JF-17 and J-20 fighters. We'll surely be hearing more about him. 

Canadian journalist David Pugliese's ever-vigilant Defence Watch blog for the Ottawa Citizen informs us today that Canadian deputy minister of national defence (DND) for materiel Dan Ross appears to be grossly misinformed about his ministry's biggest acquisition programme.

As Pugliese notes that the DND's highest cost estimate for the F-35 has now risen to CAD$80 million per aircraft, he also quotes Ross' testimony last month to Parliament's Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. Here's Ross, according to Defence Watch:

"Right now that estimate is 75 to 80 million for the conventional takeoff variant, not for the other two which are more expensive and have more developmental risk. That variant, our variant has finished its development.  It is in production and the United States Air Force has taken its first production aircraft and will stand up its first squadron this year." [Emphasis added]

Claiming the F-35A "has finished development" is simply untrue. This is different than normal PR spin, which upon scrutiny often proves generally true yet misleading at the same time. No, this statement is factually incorrect, and Ross is just plain wrong. 

Development testing for the F-35A is currently scheduled through 2016. Don't believe me. Just do a quick Google search. Believe this press release from the US Air Force, or this press release by the Department of Defense, or this report from the director of Office of Test and Evaluation. This is not a secret and the US government has made no attempt to conceal or obscure the F-35 programme's development schedule. This is true even though production aircraft are being delivered to Eglin AFB. These aircraft must be modified to the operational configuration after development is complete.

Telling a Parliamentary panel otherwise is simply wrong.   

Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, one of nine declared Republican presidential candidates, supports the F-35. Or maybe he wants to be nice to make the pretend (I'm guessing) Utah Jazz fan go away. Either way, Huntsman clearly has done his homework, and even on the spot can recall some of the finer talking points about the US military's most expensive weapons programme. By the way, Stockton and Malone - seriously? That was 15 years ago. If you really want to put Huntsman on the spot, ask if Boozer or Williams is his favorite.

Combining British brevity and a bit of Italian/Spanish smack-talk, this Eurofighter Typhoon video posted on YouTube today may be the shortest promotional video ever released by the global defence industry.

Somebody should get the AVIC and CATIC marketing staffs back on the same page.

I realized yesterday that I had picked up two different product cards in the exhibit halls of the Paris Air Show for the JF-17 Thunder, the low-cost, multi-role, Chinese-Pakistani collaboration.

One of the product cards came from AVIC, the JF-17 designer and manufacturer. The other card was produced by CATIC, office export/import for Chinese aerospace products. Each card shows different statistics for the same aircraft. I understand that different assumptions could drive changes in maximum take-off weight and ferry range. But surely the overall length and height of the airframe should be the same?

My guess is that CATIC is the culprit. I checked the CATIC web site, and the JF-17 page lists specifications that more closely match-up with the AVIC product card. 

Specifications	AVIC	CATIC	Difference
Takeoff weight	9,100kg	9,100kg	Same
Speed	M1.6	M1.6	Same
Length	14.26m	14.0m	(-) 0.26m
Wingspan	9.46m*	8.5m	(-) 0.94m
Height	4.77m	5.1m	(+) 0.24m
MTOW	13,300kg	12,700kg	(-) 600kg
Ceiling	16,000m	16,700m	(+) 700m
Ferry range	2,037km	3,000km	(+) 963km
*AVIC wingspan includes wing-tip missiles

The Predator C Avenger -- the stealthy, jet-powered, and newly "attrition tolerant" alternative to the F-22 -- has lost some weight and stamina since it was unveiled two years ago.

A new product card distributed at the Paris Air Show last month by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) reveals the changes.

Maximum takeoff weight has declined to 7,167kg (15,800lb) from 7,257kg. Fuel capacity is unchanged at 4,082kg, but internal payload capacity has dropped from 1,855kg to 1,588kg, the product card says. Meanwhile, total payload capacity, which includes external stores, has increased from 2,722kg to 2,948kg. The aircraft's endurance has also been trimmed by 10%, declining from 20h to 18h.

I break from the last evening of my summer vacation to share this important video. It reveals the latest in Chinese military communications technology. I don't want to spoil the ending, but let's put it this way: If you automatically suspect the technology is ripped off from the Americans, you may be on to something.

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