On Friday, we compared the actual operational costs of four different fleets in the US Air Force inventory over the past decade, with data supplied by the Center for Defense Information's sources. The charts revealed some startling trends among the USAF's aging and most mature combat aircraft.

Now it's going to get a little weird.

We are turning our focus today to less mature or less numerous aircraft types in the USAF inventory. Remember we are using a metric called operational cost per flight hour (CPFH) This excludes only modifications funded by procurement accounts. The operational CPFH includes the costs of fuel, manpower, spares and maintenance. It also adds in the cost of building new hangars and standing up new bases, which tends to skew the data especially as new aircraft types come on line.

It's unfair to compare new aircraft that have entered service in the last 10 years to previous models that have spent decades already in the fleet. But it may be worthwhile to compare them to each other. The USAF has introduced two all-new aircraft in the last decade -- the Lockheed Martin F-22 and the Bell Boeing CV-22. In the first year each was introduced, they yielded an operational CPFH of $2,855,132 and $24,463,579, respectively. These numbers are so wildly off the mean that we deleted from the chart below. Both sets of numbers can fluctuate wildly as production deliveries are completed and supply chains mature.



Another category that produces some spectacularly pricey operational CPFH metrics are fleets of highly specialised aircraft. These include such well-known aircraft as the VC-25 (better known as "Air Force One" when the President is on board) and the E-4B national airborne operations center. There are only two of the former and four of the latter, so all manpower, fuel and maintenance costs are borne by a very small sample size. Even more specialised, and less well-known, are the WC-135 Constant Phoenix fleet, which sniffs for nuclear radiation. There is only one WC-135W, which has thrust reversers, and one WC-135C, which doesn't. The WC-135W is the USAF's most expensive CPFH, but that's less meaningful since there is only one of them.

How much does it cost the US Air Force to operate the manned combat fleet?

Winslow Wheeler, of the Center for Defense Information, has obtained actual operational cost per flight hour data over the past 10 years from his sources, and he graciously shared the database with The DEW Line. It is not classified information, but the data is not normally released by the USAF.

Writing about "costs" is always tricky. Numbers can vary dramatically depending on what gets included. In this case, we're talking about operational costs. This includes operations costs, including fuel, parts and maintenance, as well as interim contractor support and manpower. It excludes modifications funded by procurement accounts. The total cost number is divided by the total number of flight hours flown by the fleet, and that is the operational cost per flight hour.

According to Wheeler's sources, operational cost data is not an accurate measure of unmanned air vehicle (UAV) costs or fifth-generation fighter costs, so those are excluded from these tables.

We fed this data into the Google documents tool, and, with some assistance from Flightglobal data journalism consultant Kevin Anderson, produced a series of interactive graphics that you can browse below. The y-axis represents US dollars in constant 2010 values.

Among the surprises, B-2 costs appeared to rise dramatically to over $130,000 per hour after one of the bombers crashed on Guam in March 2008, the C-17A costs less to operate than a C-130H, the B-52H costs more than the B-1B, and the C-5B is more expensive to operate than the C-5A.

FIGHTERS

From this:

B-2 in minor fire at base in Guam

Feb 26, 2010, 8:14 AM

GUAM-- A B-2 bomber engine caught fire this morning at Andersen Air Force Base.

According to Headquarters Pacific Air Forces, Hickam Air Force Base, a B-2 aircraft deployed to AAFB, experienced a minor engine fire during a routine engine start about 6:50 this morning.

To this:

Program office brings home 'wounded warrior'
by Daryl Mayer
88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

8/23/2011 - WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- Sadly, we've seen too many comrades return home bearing the scars of war -- enough that the term "wounded warrior" has become entrenched in the American lexicon and merits millions of hits on Google.

So when a 'wounded warrior' - a veteran which has stood ready to answer its country's call -- flew into Palmdale, Calif., on August 16, it could've passed as yet another sad and noble story.

Except that aircraft number 0332, the B-2 bomber named the "Spirit of Washington," hadn't received its scars in battle, but from a horrific fire in February 2010 that left it unable to fly.

H/t: Secret Projects

Saturn has responded to quickly to questions raised about the 117S engine after a flame-out on Sunday forced Sukhoi T50-2 test pilot Sergei Bogdan to execute a rather hasty take-off abort procedure. It didn't help that the starboard engine flame-out occurred in front of about 200,000 witnesses at the MAKS air show hoping to catch a glimpse of Russia's premier new stealth fighter.

The 117S is one of the key innovations supporting both the Su-35 and PAK-FA prototpye programmes. The new engine boosts thrust compared to the Saturn Al-31FP by 16% to 14,500kgf in maximum reheat for the SU-35BM, and perhaps even higher for the PAK-FA version. (Jane's also has reported that Russia has agreed to transfer the Saturn/UMPO 117 to AVIC for the J-20.) And it introduces a digital engine control system fully integrated with the T50 prototype's flight control system. It appears to be the latter feature that caused the engine breakdown, according to Flightglobal's Moscow-based correspondent Vladimir Karnozov, who writes today:

Speaking to Russian media two days after the incident, NPO Saturn general director Ilya Fedorov acknowledged that the starboard Item 117 "suffered surge".
According to Fedorov, this happened due to a malfunctioning multi-parameter sensor, at some point of time it began feeding "erroneous data" to the airplane's control system. He thanked Sukhoi test-pilot Sergei Bogdan for prompt reaction to the engine failure. "It was a test for the new machine. During flight trials on any brand-new aircraft - and this airplane is undergoing flight trials - malfunctions such as this one are not only possible, but even mandatory". Fedorov stated that flight trials are meant for finding and eliminating any would-be malfunctions "so that these do not happen after the new type becomes operational".
Fedorov further insisted that "the motor did not fail - in fact, it was put by erroneous control input into a wrong mode that caused surge... this is not an engine failure, but the wrong data input caused by a malfunctioning sensor feeding data to the flight control system". Saturn head further insisted that the T50-2 starboard engine "is intact". "After what had happened, the motor was checked with dedicated equipment, the malfunctioning sensor was replaced by a good one. Today, there is no issue with this engine".

Lockheed Martin F-35 test aircraft are back in the air after a 16-day grounding. The story is almost ready to move on, but we can't let it pass without enshrining this moment to posterity in our own special way. In honour of the occasion, we have chosen to re-tell the story in the style of an early-90s rap lyric, which should be spoken to the tune of (what else?) Naughty by Nature's mega hit "O.P.P". (If you haven't heard it, you were probably born 10 years after 1991 or at least 30 years before. It's ok. Click here.) Here goes:

I.P.P. how can I explain it
I'll take you plane by plane it
To have power pumping, not overheating it
I is for Inter, P is for Power, not difficult
The last P ... well ... manages thermals
It's sort of like another way to say it does lots of things
It's six little letters that are missing here
That give you on occasion an "explosive event"
As a key subsystem, I gotta start to explainin

Bust it

You ever had a jet of generation 5.0
With so many sensors and big computers no air can blow
You turn on the engine, now the heat goes off the charts
Fool, you best cool those cables fast, or you'll be seeing sparks
PTMS -- Call it P to the T to the M to the S
Sucks in fresh air and dumps the rest of the heat in the gas
It's I.P.P. time, and there ain't nothing like it
Cause ain't no room for the F-35's fuel tanks without it
How many fourth gen's out there know just what I'm getting at
Who carry stuff on the outside, blow heat out their stacks
Well, if you do, you're lighting up radars all over town
But that's okay - at least you're off the ground

You down with I.P.P.
Yeah you know me

Flightglobal's Moscow-based correspondent Vladimir Karnozov was at the scene at 13:57 yesterday afternoon when Sukoi's T50-2 prototype experienced a dramatic flame-out at the ends of the MAKS 2011 air show. He files this witness report:

"Two bursts of flames erupted from the right engine and two loud "bumps" were heard. Thanks to the great length of the Ramenskoye runway - 5000 meters - the pilot managed to bring the airplane to a stop well before the aerodrome fence, but had to deploy brake parachute in addition to wheel brakes. The incident happened before eyes of some 200,000 visitors gathered to watch flight display. That day Sukhoi test-pilot Sergei Bogdan was to perform in the second operable PAKFA prototype, referred to as the T-50-2 or Side 52. Sukhoi admitted that the airplane suffered a technical malfunction and said the pilot acted "in accordance with manuals". The airframer ads the T-50-2 did not have any damage, while playing down the earlier media reports that the right NPO Saturn Item 117 engine developed surge. Rather, the company attributed it to "malfunctioning fuel supply system" in one case and "engine's FADEC" in another. The latter is strange since Sukhoi and Saturn claimed earlier the Item-117-powered PAKFA differs from the Su-35 with similar FADEC-equipped Item 117S engines in having a centralized comprehensive control system for flight controls, onboard systems and powerplant, which is a feature of fifth-generation fighters as opposed to fourth generation. Further to Sukhoi embarrassment, immediately after the incident the show organizers promised the public that the PAKFA would fly, calling for the first operable prototype T-50-1 to takeoff. But as the show closed down four hours later, the promise did not materialize. Rumors had it that the T-50-1 had gone to repairs shortly after flat-out flight performance on 17 August before Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin."

It's official: Sukhoi has built an air show stud with the Su-35S. We hope to see it live in Seoul or Dubai later this year.

All week at the AUVSI convention we heard the same message: the US Department of Defense (DoD) wants more unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Budget cuts may be coming, but the demand for the persistence and relative affordability of UAS will only increase.

Or perhaps not.

This blogger moderated an AUVSI super-panel of UAS market experts this morning. It included Phil Finnegan of the Teal Group, Derrick Maple of IHS/Jane's, Wayne Plucker of Frost & Sullivan and Ron Stearns of G2 Global Solutions. It was like the Traveling Wilbury's of UAS panels -- and, um, that's a compliment from this blog. After one week of AUVSI enthusiasm, their analyses of DoD and global budget trends was like a dose of cold water.

Their consensus opinion is that DoD spending on UAS may only slightly increase over the next 10 years, or it may just level off. That might be a best-case scenario. The analysts based their conclusions on Fiscal 2012 budget request documents. That's the latest data available, but it still doesn't include a roughly $330b, 10-year, defence spending cut approved under the recent deal to lower the debt ceiling. And it also excludes the outcome of the "super committee" in Congress that must find $1.5t in new budget cuts, or, if they fail, trigger mandatory, across-the-board cuts that could siphon another $600b off DoD's 10-year spending plan.

That is not to suggest that the DoD has lost its appetite for all-things-unmanned. The US Air Force is planning to replace 33 U-2s with 24 RQ-4 Block 30s within five years. The Navy wants to replace the EP-3E Aries with its 22 onboard Mk-1 eyeballs with a family of UAS by the end of the decade. Several AUVSI exhibitors are ramping up to sell potentially hundreds of unmanned, long-endurance helicopters to the army and navy in seven or eight years. Unmanned bombers could be flying off carrier decks in seven years. So the interest is still there. It's just not reflected in DoD's budget plans.

Meanwhile, UAS spending in the rest of the world is expected to grow significantly, according to Finnegan and Maple. Maple estimates that UAS spending outside the US could double in the next decade, which is led, of course, by China.

None of this bodes well for the US supply chain. With their home market stagnating on military sales, they must look to a still highly uncertain commercial market or military export customers. The former is still forbidden by the US FAA, and the latter has not been especially kind to US manufacturers, especially when facing competition by Israel. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., (GA-ASI) thought they had a great chance to sell the MQ-9 Reaper to France, but the French selected a Dassualt bid offering the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Heron TP, Finnegan said. Israel also has taken a market leadership position in South America, Maple said.

Not surprisingly, US industry wants more freedom to compete in fast-growing, foreign UAS markets. Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush made his keynote address on Wednesday a call for export reform. US companies may not enjoy a significant technical advantage over foreign competitors in the UAS market, so there could be more pressure to curb export controls that diminish the technical quality of US bids.  

Maybe the Chinese are a little jealous by the PAK-FA show at Zhukovsky this week. The Chengdu J-20 made some of its most dramatic aerodynamic moves in public view earlier today, including this near-roll.

A scale-model on display at the Sikorsky Innovations booth in the exhibit hall gives away the company's new strategic move.

The model shows that Sikorsky has partnered with Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), which has been developing the Smart unmanned air vehicle (UAV) tiltrotor for about nine years.

No information about the new alliance was immediately available, but Sikorsky is likely to explain the model's presence in its own both later this week.

KARI had originally partnered with Bell several years ago to develop a more capable version of the latter's HV911 Eagle Eye. Bell dropped out of the partnership in 2005, then canceled the Eagle Eye following several mishaps in flight testing.

U.S. Aides Believe China Examined Stealth Copter

By MARK MAZZETTI

[Key excerpt:]

American spy agencies have concluded that it is likely that Chinese engineers -- at the invitation of Pakistani intelligence operatives -- took detailed photographs of the severed tail of the Black Hawk helicopter equipped with classified technology designed to elude radar, the officials said. The members of the Navy Seals team who conducted the raid had tried to destroy the helicopter after it crashed at Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, but the tail section of the aircraft remained largely intact.

It's every defence contractor's favorite statistic: the Commerce Department's formula that measures the amount of direct and indirect jobs created by an aerospace programme.

For the F-35, the total US jobs number is ... (drum roll, please) ... 127,000!

We confirmed that data point with Lockheed Martin on 11 August. But we could have just linked to Lockheed officials quoting that number in any number of places over the last month, including Tulsa, Oklahoma; Norman, Oklahoma; Rockford, Illinois and Westminster, Colorado.

Or we could have checked Lockheed's very new "Domestic Impact" page for the F-35 programme.  Fun facts: The F-35 creates jobs in 47 states and Puerto Rico, the three excluded states are North Dakota, Wyoming and Hawaii, and Louisiana is apparently one of the 47 even though the F-35 contributes only $550 annually to the economy of the Bayou State. Yes, we have too much free time.

It seems likely we are seeing the beginning of a grass-roots campaign to thwart any budget-cutting exercises by spreading the word about the F-35's economic impact.

Keep in mind that Lockheed's 127,000 jobs figure is US-only. That doesn't include the programme's international partners. If that number seems inflated, that's because it includes not only the 33,000 people directly employed by the programme, but also 94,000 indirect jobs, according to Lockheed. This methodology was created by the US Department of Commerce, and is often quoted by defence contractors. Even so, it still seems high. It means that the F-35 programme alone supports more than 10% of all direct and indirect jobs created by the US aerospace industry, according to Commerce's data.

This doesn't mean that 127,000 people will suddenly lose their jobs if the programme goes away. Using the same methodology, Lockheed warned two years ago that 100,000 jobs would be lost if F-22 production was not extended. The F-22 line is scheduled to shut down next year, but Lockheed is actually adding jobs in Marrietta, Georgia, as other programmes, including C-130J, C-5M and F-35 ramp up.

Part of the reason this blog exists is to show some of the stranger moments of our work at Flightglobal. This one definitely qualifies. Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin hijacked the AUVSI press conference at the National Press Club today to protest drone strikes. As soon as we recognised Benjamin sitting in front of us, we expected sparks to fly. Honestly, we were a little disappointed by how quickly the protest was subdued. After this one-minute outburst, Benjamin sat quietly while we asked AUVSI's panelists our normal questions about operational cost reductions, export prospects and operational doctrine.

Astute observers may recognize the panelist seated in the background. He, of course, is David "Duncan" Heinz, currently chief executive officer vice president of maritime systems at iRobot. On 1 February 2010, then-Maj. Gen. Heinz was ousted as F-35 programme executive officer by Secretary of Defense Bob Gates. 

It would have been an interesting bet on 4 May (the day after the US Air Force grounded the Lockheed Martin F-22). Which fifth-generation fighter would fly again first -- the F-22 or the Sukhoi T50-2?

The T50-2 -- the second PAK-FA prototype -- first flew on 3 March, trailing first flight of the T50-1 by 13 months. Everything seemed normal when Sukhoi flew T50-2 to Zhukovsky airport near Moscow on 3 April, but then it stopped flying. T50-1 continued on pace, but T50-2 stayed in the hangar. Meanwhile, the Lockheed F-35 has joined the F-22 as hangar-bound companions.

It now appears the T50-2 would have won that bet.

Multiple reports on Russian and English-language spotter forums report that the T50-2 flew again today for the first time in more than four months. It is still unknown what caused the programme's second prototype to stop flying for so long. Perhaps in related news, the MAKS air show begins next week, and both T50 prototypes are expected to perform in the air display.

Andrew McLaughlin, deputy editor of Australian Aviation magazine, has posted a nearly complete explanation of the F-35 grounding caused by the failure of the Honeywell integrated power package. Still left unexplained is the root cause of the valve failure, which is no doubt the focus of the ongoing safety investigation. Key quotes are below:

"The airplanes are in a stop mode right now because we had a ground incident with an IPP about a week ago where we had a valve that failed," Burbage said. "It's a turbine engine that's driven   by fuel and combusted until it starts the main engine of the airplane, and then main engine takes over and runs it on bleed air. There's a valve that has to open to shift from combusted to bleed, and there was problem with that valve."

"We have 1,500 flights and a thousand hours on that piece of machinery and have never seen this failure before, so it's good we can identify these things early."

Russian Air Force chief Gen Alexander Zemin Zelin briefed reporters today on the eve of the MAKS air show next week. Zelin covered a wide variety of topics, but we'll try to summarise the most interesting.

1. The Su-35S avionics and integrated defence system is inferior to "American fighters of the same type", Zelin said. Depending on how you interpret that phrase, Zelin is either implicitly endorsing Boeing's F-15 and F/A-18E/F, or perhaps Lockheed Martin's F-35 and F-22. My money is on the latter. Sadly, due to the "slow pace" of progress by Sukhoi, the Su-35's appearance at MAKS has been scratched. No word on the status of two PAK-FA prototypes -- T-50-1 and T-50-2.

2. The Russian Air Force will transfer its unmanned air vehicles to the army, Zelin said. After covering the USAF-US Army turf wars of the last five years, that's a very interesting development.

3. Russia will introduce the A-100 airborne early warning (AEW) system in 2016, Zelin said. The Ilyushin Il-476-based system will replace the Beriev A-50s.

4. Russia also will receive 6 new Su-34 fighter-bombers this year, Zelin said.

A valve malfunction caused the F-35 grounding order last week. The Honeywell integrated power package (IPP) pulls in outside air to start-up, then switches to engine bleed air after the propulsion system comes online. The valve that switches the flow from inducted to bleed air didn't work, forcing highly compressed air to build up behind the valve until it essentially backfired. Ground tests may resume as early as tomorrow and flight tests could start again next week.

That information comes from Australian journalists who were briefed yesterday in Canberra by Lockheed Martin vice president Tom Burbage. Their news articles have not been posted yet, so there are no links to share.

As of yesterday, the joint programme office in Arlington, Virginia, remained in communications black-out mode.

In US budget deficit wars, there seems to be only one consensus: it's time to kill or cut back the F-35 and V-22.

Our review of eight budget reduction proposals by a hodge-podge of centrist, leftist and libertarian think tanks reveals a startling insight: All of them agree that two military aircraft programmes should be terminated or scaled back, and all of them agree those two programmes should be the BellBoeing V-22 and the Lockheed Martin F-35. Among these various policy proposal, only the bipartisan Sustainable Defense Task Force suggests delaying also the KC-46 procurement. Otherwise, their recommendations are clear and unanimous. If only all Washington budget debates these days could be so clear-cut.

There remain some -- such as the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and House budget committee chairman Rep Paul Ryan -- who oppose any significant budget cutbacks beyond those already identified in former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates' "efficiencies initiative", which actually did scale back the F-35 in the short-term but left the V-22 untouched.

Proposals	V-22	F-35
Fiscal Commission co-chairs	Cut 170 aircaft	Cut F-35A/C by 1/2, terminate F-35B
Debt Reduction Task Force plan	Defer or terminate	Defer or terminate
Galston-MacGuineas Plan	Terminate	Reduce purchases and slow production
Center for American Progress	Cut by $1.9 billion	No change
Cato Institute	Terminate	Build fewer F-35As
Roosevelt Institute	Terminate	Terminate
Economic Policy Institute	Not mentioned	Cut by $47.9 billion
Sustainable Defense Task Force	Terminate	Terminate

It has been described by Lockheed Martin as "revolutionary" and a "lofty technology challenge" so important that it was included in Secretary Robert Gates' tour of the F-35 assembly plant in September 2009 (see photo above).

The power and thermal management subsystem is called the Honeywell integrated power package (IPP), and it is currently the reason why no F-35s are flying.

We don't know how long the grounding order caused by an undisclosed IPP malfunction on 2 August will last. Since the announcement landed in our email inbox at 14:14 on 3 August, the programme has been in communications black-out mode. Even its normally chatty Twitter page has gone silent. That is not a good or a bad sign, although it is never re-assuring. It really means we still don't know anything about the incident or its consequences.

But we do know many things about the IPP. This relatively unknown subsystem is one of the few innovations -- along with the shaft-driven lift-fan, electro-hydrostatic actuators and engine-mounted starter/generator-- that distinguish the F-35 as a technological trailblazer. The F-35 is one of the first "more-electric aircraft", meaning it uses electricity to replace several functions formerly fueled by hydraulics or pneumatics. The IPP is the heart of the power and thermal management system. Its roughly 200hp gas turbine engine sends power to the starter/generator, which powers on the F-35's engine, which, in turn, powers up the generator. The IPP then manages the air-cycle cooling system, plus acts an emergency power supply in case both starter/generators happen to fail.


The IPP has been the focus of concerns throughout the development and flight test programme. Here's a brief catalogue of the major issues that have surfaced since the IPP started the first F-35 test engine six years ago.

• April 2005: IPP performs first engine start
• 21 Aug 2007: While operating in cooling bleed mode, the IPP shut down on the integrated test stand. The test stand was damaged as a result of the shut down and had to be refurbished, according to the Defense Contracts Management Agency (DCMA). An issue with a rotor was blamed for the shut down. "They believe that the rotor contacted the stator and gradually wore the stator, the rotor's sleeve and the enclosing magnet," DCMA reported.
• October 2007: DCMA reports IPP oil samples have unallowable traces of nickel alloy. "Stator and rotor clearance issues within the IPP have been identified as the root cause. Design clearance corrections are being implemented, and a rebuilt IPP is forecasted for availability in late October following successful acceptance testing."
• 17 October 2007: Honeywell delivered a redesigned IPP to Lockheed Martin
• March 2010: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that exhaust from the engine and integrated power package exhaust may cause excessive damage to the flight deck environment and runway surfaces that may result in operating limits or drive costly upgrades and repairs of JSF basing options".

The US military plans to reduce about 25 different helicopter types today into four models of a next-generation of vertical lift aircraft. We've known this for a few years already, but the full scope and vision for the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) studies guiding the Joint Multi-Role (JMR) has eluded this blogger until now.

The strategy is revealed in a May 2011 briefing by Col Doug Rombaugh, programme executive officer of rotory wing aviation for Special Operations forces. Rombaugh's slide breaks down performance goals for a four-member family of JMR types:

If these numbers hold, the US military anticipates transitioning to a vastly larger fleet compared to the helicopters operating today. For example, the JMR-Medium is listed with a combined internal and external payload weight of 16,000-40,000lb. The upper limit of that range exceeds the UH-60M's maximum take-off weight by 18,000lb! The ultra category is also interesting. It asks for a combined payload weight between 80,000 to 144,000lb -- for a vertical lift aircraft!

Rombaugh also provides the timeline envisioned to launch the migration from today's helicopters to the JMR family, and it starts almost immediately for the JMR-Medium and very soon for the JMR-Ultra. Not far behind is a new-start for a JMR-Light. Further out is the launch of a JMR-Heavy to replace the CH-47 Chinook. This slide is also new information.

We bring you the latest video to surface from the world's least-secured runway for officially classified, experimental military jets. (Pssst: Hey, AVIC! Seriously, it's like you're not even trying now. It was almost more fun when you tried to keep this stuff hidden. Geez, when did China become the world's most transparent military about new weapons technology?)

This video first shows take-offs by the J-20, the JF-17, and, making a surprise debut, a runway appearance by the all-new J-10B powered by the indigenous WS10 Taihang engine (see the 5-minute mark). Taihang may soon replace the Russian-made AL31 in the PLAAF fleet and, like the J-20 airframe, symbolizes China's ambition to become independent of foreign supply chains for its own tactical aircraft.

To understand the differences between the J-10A and J-10B, read our colleague Greg Waldron's write-up on their different features on Asian Skies.

This report on Eurasia.net by the South Asia Analysis Group this morning on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to New Dehli last week raises some very big questions. Among them: If this is true, why didn't the US government offer the F-35 to India in the first place? And does the "unbelievable" description of the $65 million F-35 price tag imply a positive or negative connotation?

Hillary Clinton's Hits And Misses In India - Analysis

By Rajeev Sharma

The visiting United States Secretary of State Hillary, who held the second Indo-US Strategic Dialogue with her Indian counterpart S M Krishna in New Delhi on July 19, failed to give any concrete assurance to India on its concerns about Nuclear Suppliers' Group's recent hardening of ENR (Enrichment and Reprocessing) technology transfer terms ...

KEY EXCERPT:

Clinton is understood to have made a strong pitch for more US military sales to India, especially in the wake of American companies recently losing out in the race for a $ 10.4 billion order by the Indian Air Force for 126 fighter aircraft. She expressed her country's willingness to sell state-of-the-art F 35 warplanes to India at "unbelievable" prices. The Americans are understood to have asked the Indian government to open its purse strings for the Lockheed built fifth generation super stealth F-35 Lightning the basic model of which is being made available to India for $ 65 million apiece. The Indian defence establishment would naturally find the offer too good to be true as much inferior fourth generation French Rafale is priced at $ 85 million and Eurofighter Typhoon (also a fourth generation aircraft) at $ 125 million apiece. The American offer signals American desperation for capturing a big pie of the highly lucrative Indian defence market, especially after two top American fighter aircraft manufacturers - Lockheed (F-16) and Boeing (F-18) - got eliminated in the recent Indian MMRCA deal worth $ 10.4 billion. More clarity would have to emerge on the proposed F 35 Lightning sales to India.

We hesitate to show you this movie, Sky Fighters, but we'll at least give you fair warning. This  attempt to wrap the PLAAF's J-10 in Top Gun's blockbuster meme is ... well, let's put it this way: Compared to Sky Fighters, Top Gun's plot is Mamet-like and its dialogue is Shakespearean. And, compared to Sky Fighters, King Kong of the 1930s may have had better special effects. But you do see crudely animated J-10s in simulated combat, pulling Pugachev's Cobra manoeuvre against, of all fighters, the Su-30 rip-off J-11, and going inverted to communicate with the cockpit of a non-country-specific F-16. So microwave some popcorn, lower your artistic expectations and enjoy the show ...