September 2011 Archives

Eight months ago, Lieutenant General Terry Robling took over the US Marine Corps aviation branch. Almost immediately, Robling's most critical programme -- the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) Lockheed Martin F-35B -- was placed on probation and threatened by then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates with cancellation. This morning, Robling spoke publicly for the first time about the status of the F-35B's five engineering problems and why the Marine Corps has no other options. The Marines specially asked the event's organiser, the Navy League, to invite the news media. And so we came, wielding cameras.

It's been nine months since the first grainy images of the Chengdu J-20 sneaked out of China on 24 December, but perhaps it's time to add another Chinese stealth fighter to the club. And a new UCAV.  And a new UAV.

First, meet the Shenyang F-60 (shown above). This scale model appeared on this Chinese web forum earlier today. There has long been speculation that Shenyang, maker of the J-8, was working on a rival stealth fighter to the Chengdu J-20. It's important to note that these images show only scaled-down models, not the real thing. But they may represent the best and clearest images of Shenyang's latest work. By the way, check the poster directly behind the fighter. That appears to show an interesting new UAV project.

That's not the only new Shenyang programme revealed today. Over on the secretprojects forum, the spotters there posted an image of a new UCAV. It appears to be a scaled-up model of the subscale Shenyang UCAV demonstrator posted here last week.

There is no question which bid for the US Army's joint air to ground missile (JAGM) contract is cooler.

Lockheed Martin is competing for the $6 billion order with a missile featuring a cooled infrared seeker. Its competitor, Raytheon, is offering an uncooled seeker.

The infrared seeker is just one of three sensors required to be embedded into the missile. A semi-active laser and a millimetre wave radar are also in the package. But the infrared sensor is getting the most attention since it represents the most obvious technical difference between the two proposals.

Raytheon has never argued that its uncooled seeker is more sophisticated than Lockheed's cooled IR seeker. Instead, Raytheon has argued that a cooled sensor is unnecessary. Each of the six initial aircraft to be equipped with JAGM already has a very capable cooled IR seeker already, so it simply doesn't need to use the camera inside the missile to identify targets at long range.

Lockheed has argued that Raytheon's strategy takes unnecessary risks on a battlefield where every long-range seeker is welcome. Alas, the cooled sensor was not able to help Lockheed during live-fire tests last year, when a series of unrelated component glitches led two misses in three attempts.

We'll find out which side of this argument wins. The US Army was planning to award the JAGM contract by the end of this month, but no one expects that to happen now until at least October and possibly November. 

The US Air Force has some big decisions to make soon about strategic airlifters. The backlog for the Boeing C-17A Globemaster III runs dry in 2014. That year also is the current expiration date for the Lockheed Martin C-5M programme, which is converting about 50 C-5B models to the re-engined and more reliable M-model configuration.

Perhaps sensing little immediate enthusiasm by the USAF to buy yet more strategic airlifters, Boeing and Lockheed are seeking to extend those products as long as possible. Boeing is working on collecting even more foreign orders for the C-17A. Meanwhile, Lockheed has some new ideas for preserving the life of the C-5M production line.

For Lockheed, the solution may lie in the commercial market, said Jim Grant, vice president for air mobility. The USAF plans to retire between 22 and 32 C-5As within the next two years. Lockheed is proposing to offer these aircraft to either allies or commercial freighter companies.

The Antonov An-124 has proven a market exists for a C-5-sized airlifter to move heavy and out-size cargo. The USAF, in fact, is one of the An-124 operator Volga-Dnepr's biggest customers. The C-5A is likely far more expensive to operate than the An-124, but Grant has a possible solution. The C-5A could be modified to the M-configuration, which includes installing four new General Electric CF6-80C2 turbofans. That upgrade will make the C-5 competitive on price with other outsize cargo freighters in the commercial market, he said.

In 2015, the cost to build and install the C-5M upgrades will be about $100 million per aircraft. The USAF has estimated the C-5A airframe will be viable through about 2030. Compare that to the cost of a new Boeing 747-8F, which is currently about $319.3 million for a 30- to 40-year airframe. Buying new An-124s would likely be cheaper, but is a non-starter for US-based freighter companies.

Grant's commercialization strategy also happens to serve the dual purpose of keeping Lockheed's reliability enhancement and reengining programme (RERP) for the C-5 going for perhaps one or two more years. Perhaps then the USAF may consider upgrading the last 30 or 40 remaining C-5As, which at that point will have about 10 years of service life left.  

Converting US military airlifters into commercial freighters is no sure bet. The BC-17 concept was marketed aggressively by the USAF and Boeing for a decade, but was essentially dead on arrival. Lockheed had more success converting the C-130 into the L-100 for the commercial aircraft, but its success was marginal compared to the military programme. Over 30 years, Lockheed delivered only 114 L-100s. 

The Orteig Prize motivated Charles Lindbergh to fly across the Atlantic. The X Prize gave Burt Rutan all the excuse he needed to design SpaceShipOne. The organizers of China's AVIC Cup, which concluded this weekend in Beijing, appear slightly less ambitious, but who knows what ideas will be sparked by the country's first "international UAV innovation grand prix"?

At least 100 teams from around China and the world entered vehicles to compete for roughly US$378,000 in prizes. It is possible that the event included the mysterious flying wing UAV reported on this blog last Friday, but we've found no references to it in Chinese news articles and videos already posted about the event.

The most interesting design revealed by the Grand Prix is a flying-wing, tailed UAV submitted by Shenyang University, a school located in the same northeastern city as one of China's biggest makers of fighter jets.
 

A new photo on sinodefenseforum and Secret Projects appears to show China's first stealthy unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV). One view on these forums guesses this image may reveal a new, subscale, 2m-wingspan demonstrator by Shenyang, one of China's three historic fighter makers along with Chengdu and Xian. Others speculate that it could be merely a hobbyist's remote controlled aircraft - a toy. 

With startling photos of secret Chinese military projects, there is always reason to suspect fraud-by-Photoshop. But this image at least wears a legitimate pedigree. Weifeng is the online moniker for a widely published Chinese aviation spotter. You can view this photographer's catalogue of commercial and military aircraft images on airliners.net and JetPhotos.net. Weifeng also maintains one of the best and most up-to-date Chinese military imagery sites at cnair.top81.cn.

This image of a stealthy UCAV is being ciruclated only three weeks after Weifeng attended an open house at Changchun AFB, which yielded this gorgeous image of a parked J-11.

We don't need to speculate about Shenyang's interest in flying-wing, stealthy UCAVs. The company's research engineers have published several papers in recent years on this topic, including this one titled "Application of Flying Wing UAV for Reconnaissance". The paper concludes "the flying wing configuration is an optimal selection of aerodynamic configuration design of an UCAV for reconnaissance".

We've also seen China show off flying-wing concepts for UCAVs in the recent past. At the 2008 Zhuhai air show, for instance, Shenyang presented a forward-swept flying wing called Combat Eagle [shown below]. It is not as electrifying as the Dark Sword concept that Shenyang unveiled at the 2006 Zhuhai air show, but clearly shows Chinese ambitions in stealthy UCAVs. It would not be out of sequence for Shenyang's engineering team to begin with a subscale demonstrator to understand the aerodynamics and flight controls of a flying-wing aircraft.

Brazil may or may not award a fighter contract next year, but, if it does, the Dassault Rafale would win.

That is basically what the French press is reporting that Dilma Rousseff, president of Brazil, privately told Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France, on the sidelines of the United Nations meetings in New York on 22 September.

Of course, we recall that Rousseff's predecessor, Lula da Silva, once made similar assurances to Sarkozy, but was forced to backtrack after his minister of defence threatened to quit.

The French reports do nothing to assure the Rafale's long-suffering competitors in the F-X2 competition -- Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the Saab Gripen.

Boeing and Raytheon have always seemed the favourites to win the US Air Force next generation missile (NGM) contract. The NGM -- formerly titled with the mouthful of joint dual role air dominance missile, or JDRADM -- aims to replace the AIM-120 AMRAAM and the AGM-88 HARM. Note that both are Raytheon missiles. Meanwhile, Boeing has collected a series of wonderfully acronym'd research and development contracts from the Air Force Research Laboratory (my favourite is called "MR ROKM").  Raytheon and Boeing are also working on separate NGM demonstrations funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's triple-target terminator (T3) programme.

But Lockheed Martin wished to remind folks at the Air Force Association's annual convention that they're also in the missile business, and, yes, they, too, want a piece of that NGM action.

So Lockheed unveiled its own notional concept for the NGM in the exhibit hall. There was some initial confusion because someone placed a Boeing sticker on Lockheed's model. The sticker showed an NGM fired by a Lockheed F-22, so it illustrated the concept. But the sticker also was clearly labeled as property of "The Boeing Company". After we pointed this out, Lockheed quickly removed the sticker.

Lockheed is actually still partnered with Northrop Grumman. We recall when the Lockheed-Northrop partnership was announced at the 2008 Farnborough air show. At that time, these partners refused to confirm the deal was focused on the then-JDRADM competition, although it seemed obvious.   

No one in the US Air Force is publicly talking about replacing the relatively youthful Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor. Neither is there any public commitment by the USAF's leadership to immediately replace the relatively aging Northrop T-38C Talon.

But those facts haven't stopped some of the defence industry's most creative contractors from showing off new concept drawings on the walls of their exhibit booths here at the Air Force Association's annual convention at National Harbor, Md.

The above "F-X" concept poster shows a twin-jet, single-seat, tailless air superiority fighter on Boeing's stand.  Nearby at the Northrop Grumman exhibit booth is a concept image of their own F-22 replacement candidate, which is shown below.

Boeing also finally revealed its all-new trainer concept. We must note that this blogger actually saw this very image three months ago inside Boeing's Phantom Works offices. At the time, Boeing's media relations department vehemently denied that this concept showed the company's secret T-X drawing. Yet, here it was at AFA, and it is identified as exactly that. And media relations types always seem so offended when I question their sincerity!
 
Finally, here's another image showing Northrop's high-speed bomber concept. This is not the first time I've seen this image, but it's too interesting to leave out of this post.

Russia's strange absence of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) stands out among the world's biggest military spenders. The idea of home-grown, medium-altitude UAV for surveillance and strike is certainly not some US and Israeli fetish. China has the Pterodactyl (also known as Wing-Loong), India has the Rustom. Even relatively smaller spenders, like the United Arab Emirates, has an indigenous medium altitude UAV - the Adcom Smart Eye. In Brazil, Avibras is testing the Falcao. Pick a country and there's probably somebody developing or operating a medium-altitude UAV.

But not Russia.

Some of that mystery was cleared up by a YouTube video uploaded on Friday. It shows the ultimate fate of the Vega Stork -- Russia's answer to the Predator. That was until 18 January 2010, when the Vega reportedly crashed on take-off during a demonstration flight. This video is likely the record of that ill-fated test.



Despite the Stork's demise, Russia's military still appears eager to develop and deploy the country's own medium-altitude UAV. Last month, Vega showed off a brand new UAV concept at the MAKS 2011 air show at Moscow's Zhukovsky airport. This one is called the Vega Ray (shown below). Its design appears similar to the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Searcher Mk-II UAV, although it's not an exact copy. Perhaps Russia will soon join the ranks of militaries with an indigenous, medium-altitude UAV. 

On 30 September 2008, or nearly three years ago, members of Florida's Okaloosa County economic development council received a rare treat. Major General Charles Davis, then-programme manager for the Lockheed Martin F-35, briefed the council's regularly scheduled roundtable sympoisum. Okaloosa County is the proud home of Eglin AFB, the F-35's centralised training centre, and Davis clearly hoped to impress the local business leaders. Slide 24 surely drew a few smiles in the room.


That was then.

Today, the picture looks vastly different, and not for the better. The US Senate, meanwhile, looks set to make it even worse for the F-35's supporters.

One year ago, everything still seemed roughly on track. Negotiations over the fourth lot of low rate initial production (LRIP-4) dragged on for several months, but the Fiscal 2010 order for 32 aircraft in total was in line with Davis' briefing chart.

The 2011 order (LRIP-5), however, was coming apart. It was supposed to be a contract for 47 aircraft, but the Department of Defense already trimmed its request to Congress to 43 aircraft. When Congress finally approved the FY2011 budget seven months late in April, the final number was cut to 32. That froze F-35 production at the FY2010 level.

This year, the DoD didn't even try. The request sent to Congress in February asked for 32 aircraft in LRIP-6. In 2008, LRIP-6 was supposed to be an order for 118 F-35s, including 82 aircraft for the US services and 36 aircraft for the international partners. Foreign orders have not solidified yet, but the US order for 82 aircraft is out of the question. Anticipating a Senate move to free F-35 production, the DoD asked the Congress for only 32 F-35s in FY2012, a 50-aircraft cut from the 2008 production profile.

The Senate's appropriations subcommittee now wants to extend the 32-aircraft production plateau into LRIP-7. According to Davis' chart in 2008, the DoD planned to buy 90 F-35s in FY2013, with the partners chipping in for another 42 aircraft.

If the Senate's proposal sticks, F-35 production could be frozen at 32 aircraft for four years straight.   

Forty years ago, the US Air Force tried to replace the Lockheed Martin C-130 with a super short take-off and landing (STOL) airlifter, with the Boeing YC-14 and McDonnell YC-15 as the candidates. Then, things got weird. Budgets grew, funding shrank and eventually the requirement transformed into something much larger. Thus, the Boeing C-17A Globemaster III was borne to replace the Lockheed C-141B Starlifter and the Lockheed C-130 continues into its seventh decade of active production.

What goes around always seems to come around in this business, and so it is with the YC-14 and YC-15.

Meet the Speed Agile. If the USAF is allowed to spend big money on a super-STOL C-130 replacement after 2020, this is Lockheed's idea for what it should look like. Boeing is also working on an alternative concept. The Air Force Research Laboratory has been funding both Lockheed and Boeing to work on wind tunnel models. Last month, the AFRL released these front and rear images of a 23%-scale model of the four-engine Lockheed Speed Agile concept. The wind tunnel model includes two Williams FJ44 engines. The Secret Projects forum found the images earlier today on AFRL's web site. 

It's a tense moment for Tehran. The country today opened its first nuclear power plant in Bushehr, prompting fears of a pre-emptive strike by Israel and the US.

Meanwhile, the Iranian Air Force is conducting a simulated, 10-day air war. The skies over the northwestern city of Tabriz are filled with most of Iran's fleet, with the notable exception of its surviving Grumman F-14s. Perhaps they are standing guard at their base in Shiraz in the south.

Instead, the exercise includes the Northrop F-5s and McDonnell F-4s acquired from the US in the early 1970s, as well as the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29s and Sukhoi Su-24s acquired from Russia in the last two decades. As the above video shows, one of the F-5s was lost on Saturday. The status of its pilot, who is briefly glimpsed still strapped to his ejection seat, is unknown.

The indigenous Sa'eqeh fighter, an F-5 modified with a V-tail, also is involved in the exercise. Although the FARS news agency declared today that the Sa'eqeh is operational at squadron strength, we tend to doubt this claim -- FARS is never very reliable. More likely, the Sa'eqeh remains a testbed for a follow-on production aircraft -- this stealth fighter perhaps.

Two years ago, the Indian Air Force blamed BAE Systems for a one-year delay in the assembly of 42 Hawk advanced jet trainers at Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). BAE released a statement defending itself, but provided no details.

Thanks to Julian Assange's latest dump of US State Department cables, BAE's side of the story emerges a bit more clearly. In a 24 February 2010 cable marked "confidential", the US Embassy in New Dehli describe Ambassador Timothy Roemer's tour of HAL's factory complex in Bangalaru, and concludes with this anecdote.

The potential for HAL to successfully partner with U.S. firms on a truly advanced aircraft remains untested and suspect. The Hawk program,  which involves the assembly of aircraft from kits supplied by BAE, is well behind schedule. BAE has told Embassy staff that the Indian Air Force did not order sufficient spare parts for the first batch of Hawks that were delivered fully assembled from England. BAE technicians supervising work at HAL became aware that parts were being taken from the kits
intended to assemble new aircraft and used instead as replacement parts for aircraft already delivered. Lack of controls left BAE unsure what parts were now missing from the kits. When BAE confronted HAL regarding the problem, the BAE technical staff was asked to leave HAL. Clearly, despite the progress evident within the Indian Defense sector, American firms need to approach partnerships carefully to understand the management and technological experience of Indian firms. Cost, schedule and quality will be key challenges for any company engaging in JOINT production ventures.

Blackswift is dead. Long live the High-Speed Aircraft.

The short-lived collaboration between the US Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) didn't really die in 2008. It just went into hibernation.

The National Defense Industries Association hosted a conference in June on the Department of Defense's science and technology programmes. One of the presenters came from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). The briefing slides have now been posted online (see "overview of air force science, technology and engineering"). It reveals exactly how the AFRL plans to assemble collection of research projects, including carbon matrix composites (CMCs), turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) engines, and the next version of the HTV-3X Blackswift vehicle, into a high-speed aircraft that can penetrate any airspace at any time practically anywhere.

When an aluminium alloy bulkhead inside the Lockheed Martin F-35B cracked last year after just 1,600h of durability tests, the programme was caught by surprise. Lockheed's analysis had not predicted the 496 bulkhead would buckle before the end of the 16,000h-long durability exam.

A year later, the programme claims to have made some progress.

Unfortunately the airframe structure is still not immune from early cracking, but this time Lockheed was not caught by surprise.

Lockheed's analysis predicted root rib forgings in each wing for the F-35A and F-35B also would fail, and they actually survived slightly longer than expected, the programme office says. The root rib actually succumbed after about 2,800h of the 16,000h durability test.  Lockheed had already designed a fix to install in the next lot of low-rate initial production (LRIP).

I saw the smoke on the Metro platform at National Airport. A southeasterly breeze carried the black cloud across I-395 and into the northern half of Crystal City, tinting that uninspired office park with an eerie haze. I didn't check my watch when a Metro worker announced the train was not going beyond National. There had been "some kind of explosion" three stops down the track at the Pentagon, he announced dryly. The time was at least a few minutes after 09:37. The date, of course, was 11 September 2001, and a Boeing 757-200 serving American Airlines Flight 77 had just slammed into the southwest wall of the Pentagon's E-ring.

As the 10th anniversary approaches, I've been asked by our web editor to comment on the 9/11 event's impact on military aviation. It is an assignment that frankly I anticipated with dread. The old journalistic trick of "localizing" a story seems off-tone in this case - a bit too self-absorbed amidst the tragedy of the lives lost and changed all over the world during that terrible hour and its far-reaching aftermath. With due caution, I will proceed.

For the military aircraft industry, I believe the real impact of 9/11 was a single word: Dollars. Suddenly facing a new set of requirements and problems, the US military, in particular, received an epic infusion of funding over a decade. The fiscal windfall propelled the Department of Defense into a new era, for better and worse, of experimentation (not, sorry, true "transformation"), and greased a lasting, whole new level of appreciation for airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). It is difficult to trace any particular programme or trend specifically to 9/11, but one that stands out is the Pentagon's enthusiasm for medium-altitude ISR platforms. The Beechcraft King Air 350ERs and medley of unmanned air vehicles darkening the skies over airstrips in Kandahar and Bagram may be the most direct heirs of the 9/11 calamity, and they are only the first generation. Hybrid airships, stealthy UAVs and ultra-long-endurance UAVs are poised to come next - perhaps establishing whole new industries and modes of transport in their wake. It's been quite a journey since I was kicked off my train at National Airport, and it's not over yet.  

All perspectives on this topic are welcome here. Please offer your thoughts on the impact of 9/11 for military aviation around the world. You can also read our 9/11 anniversary special in the 6 September issue of Flight International.