October 2011 Archives

Low rate initial production (LRIP) is the hardest phase. It's one thing to develop an aircraft, and quite another to manufacture it. The phase between development to full-rate production has tripped up many programme offices in the past. For the F-35 programme, that struggle is personified in the strange and twisting saga of the LRIP V contract.

The F-35 programme office has revealed today that the Department of Defense will reduce the LRIP V procurement amount by five aircraft, which cuts some combination of F-35As and F-35Cs but preserves three orders for the F-35B.

This means the LRIP V order drops from 35 to 30 aircraft, but it's only the latest twist. The evolution of the LRIP V is tricky, but it basically breaks down like this:

• Up until two years ago, the DoD and Australia plans to buy 47 F-35s overall in LRIP V.
• Australia postpones buying their first batch of four aircraft by two years, cutting the total LRIP V number to 43.
• The first DoD restructuring comes next in February 2010, trimming the LRIP V order by one to 42.
• The second DoD restructuring in January 2011 is more severe. This time, the LRIP V order plummets by 10 to 32 aircraft.
• Congress doesn't like this arrangement, so it proposes raising the LRIP V amount to 35 aircraft.
• Now, the DoD cuts the number back to 30.

Down, down, down, up and down again.

The number is continuing to fluctuate even one month after the fiscal year expired in which the contract should have been signed.

But the LRIP V award to Lockheed has been delayed by the most intense round of negotiations to date.

The DoD surprised Lockheed's negotiators about one month ago. Nearly six months after Lockheed submitted its proposal for LRIP V, the DoD decided to change the contracting terms. Now, Lockheed has to agree to pay at least some -- and maybe all -- of the extra costs caused by development mistakes. And the DoD is refusing to pay a $1.2 billion bill it owes Lockheed until the company agrees to the new terms.

[Click on the jump to read the programme office's full statement.]

This literally slipped right past us last week in Seoul. Buried in the Korean-language F-15SE Silent Eagle brochure, which we brought home as a souvenir, is an image revealing Boeing's concept for South Korea's KF-X fighter. It was so sneaky we didn't even spot it until it was pointed out to us by an alert blog reader, who had downloaded the same brochure on Boeing's web site. Yes, we are ashamed.

Judging by this image, Boeing is offering a single-seat fighter with a V-tail and an internal weapons bay. We detect a passing resemblance to a snub-nosed F/A-18. It's difficult to determine whether the image shows one or two engines, but South Korea's preference is clearly the latter. In the KF-X seminar we attended on 21 October, a Defense Acquisition Programmes Administration (DAPA) official voiced concern about the safety of single-engine fighters. This, from a country that operates Lockheed Martin KF-16s and partly indigenous Lockheed/Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) T/F/A-50 Golden Eagles, is an astonishing opinion.

In any case, we believe we now have the three images of the most likely KF-X designs proposed by foreign companies.

Boeing's concept is above. The Eurofighter concept, showing what appears to be a twin-engined MAKO variant, was revealed on this blog last week. Where is Lockheed's concept? Well, we're betting that's the image revealed in DAPA's presentations at the KF-X seminar, which, ahem, kind of makes you wonder if one team has an early lead.

Click here to read our full analysis of the KF-X programme running in next week's issue of Flight International magazine.

It took nearly eight months from first flight, but Northrop Grumman has retracted the landing gear of the X-47B in flight.

Then it took another month for them to post the video, but at least it's worth the wait. 

The cruise flight test is a critical step on the path to achieving the ultimate goal for the $1 billion unmanned combat air systems-demonstrator (UCAS-D) programme. The US Navy is paying  Northrop to build two X-47Bs and to demonstrate that a tailless, stealthy aircraft with no cockpit can land on a moving, rolling runway that is occasionally obstructed by heedless (and very nearly headless) jaywalkers.

By the way, where is Northrop's second X-47B anyway? Perhaps we'll be hearing something about that very soon.

The Saturn NPO 117 engine "enables the execution of a wide range of maneuvers which match the performance of the Raptor and in some parameters exceed it", says Russian guy.

It's your move, Pratt & Whitney.

It's been another wild week for the Lockheed Martin F-22 fleet.

For the first time in five days, about 30 F-22s at Langley AFB, Virginia, were cleared to fly today. That comes one day after Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson lifted a grounding order on 40 F-22s. Both flight stoppages were triggered on 20 October after a Langley pilot reported hypoxia-like symptoms. A string of similar reports over a two-year period led to a four-month grounding that ended only one month ago. The latest grounding probably did not have a major impact on operations. As one Langley public affairs officer explained, the F-22s wouldn't have flown that much over the weekend anyway.

USAF officials still do not appear to understand what is causing the malfunctions in the life support systems. The USAF has not requested any changes to the Honeywell onboard oxygen generation system (OBOGS), which diverts air from the compressor section of the engines, filters it through a molecular sieve and supplies concentrated oxygen to the pilot's breathing mask and anti-g suit. 

Hopefully, the technological issues driving the investigation will become clear next month. That's when the special commission chaired by retired USAF General Greg "Speedy" Martin are scheduled to release a public version of their findings. Until then, all we can do is continue asking questions, and wait for more groundings.

The Boeing E-3A airborne warning and control system (AWACS) is like the binoculars of a fighter formation. By emitting a 3GHz electromagnetic pulse, the E-3A's Northrop Grumman APY-2 radar can spot an inbound fighter at 30,000ft as far as 430nm away. But what if the fighter is stealthy, which means partly that its designed to scatter radar waves in any direction except back to the source? That is the whole idea behind electromagnetic stealth -- a capability almost monopolized by US forces until very recently. The appearance of the Sukhoi PAK-FA and the Chengdu J-20 within the past 20 months is a warning. To detect the most dangerous targets, E-3A soon may need help.

A new concept for addressing precisely this problem appeared late last week. In a 19 October solicitation notice, the US Air Force Research Laboratory asked radar companies if they could develop a new electromagnetic trick. Technically, it's called bistatic target detection. It basically means one aircraft -- in this case, the E-3A -- emits the radar pulse, and the returns are detected by radar receivers operating passively on one or more other aircraft. So the stealthy target scatters the radar waves in different directions, but it still can't hide.

The AFRL wants to demonstrate a bistatic radar system for AWACS using an unmanned air vehicle with a very unique radar antenna. The E-3A operates a giant 24ft by 5ft planar array antenna installed on top of the aircraft like a flying saucer. The AFRL, however, wants the UAV radar receivers to be integrated into the load-bearing structure of the aircraft. It's a concept that's been in development for many years, and it's called Sensorcraft (see picture of AFRL wind tunnel model above). The AFRL solicitation could be a prelude to full-scale development of such a new UAV. On the other hand, it's possible the conformal antenna could be integrated into an existing UAV, such as the Northrop Grumman X-47 or the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc Avenger. 

As part of its KF-X presentation at the Seoul Air Show on 21 October, Eurofighter representative Cassidian displayed a fascinating chart with a fighter market forecast. Click on the chart to download a high-resolution version.

There are some questionable assertions, as one might expect of a manufacturer-driven forecast. Eurofighter, of course, predicts the Dassault Rafale loses in the United Arab Emirates and India. The Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet production line joins the Lockheed Martin F-22 and Boeing F-15E in the history books by 2017, according to Eurofighter. Interestingly, Eurofighter accepts that all 3,100 Lockheed F-35s are purchased, although the chart closes the production line five years early in 2030.

But most fascinating of all is what Eurofighter thinks will happen in Brazil and Turkey. (See dark blue stripe in bottom-left of chart). These two countries join forces to introduce a new fighter in 2025, joining a growing list of indigenous projects already started in China, India, Japan and South Korea, Eurofighter forecasts.

This assertion may have come as a shock to the South Koreans in the room. They are counting on Turkey to join KF-X and contribute 20% of the development costs, splitting 40% of the bill with Indonesia.

Brazil and Turkey have both expressed desire to break free of dependence on foreign suppliers of fighters, but we were not aware of a possible joint programme. If Brazil and Turkey do intend to introduce a new fighter by 2025, they will likely start working on the project within the next few years.

South Korea needs help developing KF-X. Its industry feels up to the challenge of developing the new fighter's flight controls, aerodynamics, sensors and weapons. But it wants an industrial partner to transfer technology for the engines, sensor fusion software and systems integration. This presents a certain dilemma for potential US partners. How much do Boeing and Lockheed Martin give up for a piece of the KF-X programme, knowing South Korea's fighter ambitions means losing a historically reliable customer and possibly creating a future competitor?

That's where Eurofighter comes in. The company presented itself at the Seoul Air Show as an "eager" supporter of South Korea's next-generation fighter programme. Accordingly, Eurofighter was pleased to present its vision for KF-X on 21 October during a seminar dedicated to the programme. Neither Boeing nor Lockheed accepted invitations to present at the same event.

Eurofighter's concept proposes a clean-sheet, twin-engine design with a conventional, single tail. The latter feature differs from South Korean concepts showing twin-canted tails. The design goal is a medium-class fighter to replace the Asian fleet of McDonnell F-4 Phantoms and Northrop F-5 Tigers.

In a seminar today at the Seoul Air Show, South Korean government officials outlined the strategy and plans for the KF-X, a twin-engined stealth fighter with a design goal of achieving manoeuvrability, speed and range performance between a Lockheed Martin F-16 and a Boeing F-15.

South Korea wants to develop the KF-X over the next nine years, with mass production beginning after 2020. Indonesia has already joined the programme, and talks with Turkey are continuing.

If developing an all-new stealth fighter is not enough of a challenge, South Korea also intends to equip the KF-X with a set of all-new weapons, including indigenous missiles in the Raytheon AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM class, guided bombs and an anti-ship missile. South Korean officials have released a development budget estimate of about US$5 billion, which seems (wildly?) optimistic.

KF-X has previously been pictured with canards, but that concept was nowhere in today's presenations. Instead, the KF-X appears to have morphed into a more conventional fighter. It appears similar a two-engine variant of the Lockheed F-35. This is Korea's vision for the KF-X. Eurofighter presented an alternative vision of KF-X, which I will present later. 

South Korea is the first country to see a next-generation helmet-mounted cuing system (JHMCS) for the Boeing F-15. It will be offered to the Republic of Korea Air Force with the F-15SE Silent Eagle for the F-XIII contract.

The Elbit Systems-Rockwell Collins joint venture VSI unveiled the JHMCS II at the Seoul Air Show this week. It adds a full-colour display to the original helmet, a feature already developed for armed helicopters such as the Boeing AH-64 Apache. For night operations, the visor would be replaced with a modular, snap-on night vision goggle (NVG) that preserves the full-colour symbology.  JHMCS II also replaces a bulky and sometimes uncomfortable cable with a very thin wire.

VSI also produces a more advanced helmet-mounted display with integrated night vision for the Lockheed Martin F-35. The F-35 helmet is not only a weapons-cueing system, but also replaces the head-up display (HUD). But development glitches, including a blurry screen in night vision mode, have raised concerns. The Government Accountability Office has warned the F-35 cockpit may need to be redesigned with a HUD if the helmet display problems can't be fixed. Meanwhile, Lockheed has selected BAE Systems to produce an alternative helmet mounted display with a goggle for night vision.

Boeing and VSI have decided not to attempt to replace the HUD with JHMCS II for the Boeing F-15 Silent Eagle. Nor are Boeing and VSI offering an integrated night vision display. 

North Korea last week moved fighters - perhaps MiG-23s? -- to an air base near a disputed maritime border with its southern neighbour. It was all part of a sudden burst of saber-rattling, which included deployments of missiles and mobile launchers. North Korea media howled that military drills in the South were threatening, and protested that peace messages falling from hot air balloons launched across the DMZ were annoying. Whatever the source of all the fuss, it's either quieted down or retreated into closed diplomatic channels. Don't be alarmed. It's just an average mid-October on the peninsula.

That North Korea was able to move its fighters around at all may be the only real surprise. For all of its provocations, the North Korean air force is shockingly weak -- and increasingly desperate. In August, South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported that North Korean air force commander Ri Pyong-chol accompanied Kim Jong-Il to a summit with Russian prime minister Dmitri Medvedev. Pyong-chol (above, center) was photographed by Russian media wearing a civilian suit, not his air force uniform. Jong-Il was also reported to have visited a Russian aircraft factory at Novosibirsk, where Sukhoi manufactures the Su-34 fighter-bomber.

South Korea's military has clearly taken notice. In a seminar on the sidelines of the Seoul Air Show on 17 October, Taekyu Reu, of the Agency for Defense Development, showed a chart listing a possible F-X fighter programme in North Korea. The chart also lists a possible F-22 sale to Japan -- despite the planned shutdown of the Lockheed Martin production line next year and the US government's official ban on F-22 exports. That means the chart is either out-dated or perhaps South Korean military planners still don't rule out the possibility. The J-20 photo suggests the chart is no more than 10 months old. Either way, it's another confirmation that North Korea is on the market for fighters.

China has reportedly already rebuffed Jong-Il's requests to import the Chengdu J-10 or J-11. Russia is not expected to be a motivated seller either. After all, North Korea is what Strategy Page calls one of the world's most difficult customers. There is also the possibility that the Pyong-chol appeared in Russia not to beg for new fighters, but for spare parts and upgrades for existing Russian-built fleet, which also includes MiG-29s, MiG-21s and MiG-17s.

Tucked into a corner of the Samsung Thales exhibit booth was a small room labeled "Next Generation Aircraft Display". Inside was a demonstration cockpit, and a clue to one of the key pieces of South Korea's indigenous K-FX stealth fighter. An attendant who spoke only slightly more English than we can speak Korean seemed to express that this was a new KF-16 cockpit. But the image on the large area display showing a fighter with canards and a canted tail gave the secret away. This was the locally developed cockpit concept for the fighter South Korea hopes to develop by 2020.

You're the marketing guy. It's between your aircraft, the Boeing F-15 Silent Eagle, and the Lockheed Martin F-35. The latter is the latest fifth-generation fighter to hit the market and the former is the last and, perhaps, ultimate expression of a 40-year-old fighter series. You fear the Republic of Korea Air Force really wants the shiniest, newest product. What do you do?

You roll out a new paint job and simulate blowing stuff up in North Korea.

SEOUL -- South Korea wants things. A new fighter, for instance. Also, a new attack helicopter. And then a maritime helicopter. And new radars for their F-16s. Before any of that happens, which could be within a year, the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) may spend hundreds of millions of dollars on an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) that's less capable than it seems. Have we mentioned the plan to develop an indigenous, fifth-generation stealth fighter and unmanned combat air vehicle from scratch?

Above the 38th parallel, only 40km away, is an opponent from a war that technically never ended, who every now and then sinks a South Korean ship and lobs shells at an unsuspecting island. The security situation is grave, but that's not all that is driving South Korea's shopping list for advanced weapons.

This is a country with ambitions of global aerospace power, with a stated goal to eclipse Japan by the end of the decade as Asia's second-largest aerospace manufacturer behind China.

To accomplish that feat, the country must eventually compete with the global aerospace giants it now welcomes this week to the Seoul Air Show, a biannual showcase of South Korea's growing aerospace might. The KFX programme aims to deliver a fifth-generation stealth fighter by around 2020. South Korea has been a reliable customer of the US defence industry for more than 50 years, and now it is seeking to become an independent manufacturer of combat aircraft -- and, therefore, a strategic competitor to the US defence industry.

This tension between what South Korea needs today and what it hopes to become is palpable. It was clear in a keynote speech on 17 October by General Gary North, chief of US Pacific Air Forces. North told us afterward that he did not mean to sound like he was telling the ROKAF how to invest their own money, but his language was not ambiguous.

"Now more than ever our solutions must be fiscally prudent, matched to counter the realistic threat to security, and interoperable with the capabilities shared by allies," North said. "Now more than ever we must, such that we do not overspend or unnecessarily duplicate, and we must unify effort to defend and deter with appropriate solutions to a complex problem."

He reminded the ROKAF that the US Air Force has learned this lesson already. The Lockheed SR-71 was built to replace the Lockheed U-2, but the latter is still flying on the Korean peninsula and the former has been retired for two decades due to operational costs. 

"The lesson there is that we must be very careful in looking to the future to procure technologies that are fiscally prudent and match need to actual requirements," North said.

Another source of tension are the investments that the USAF is counting on South Korea to make over the next five years. The USAF is retiring the U-2 fleet in 2015, but won't replace the 5th Reconnaissance Sqd at Osan Air Base with new aircraft. Instead, the USAF has stationed the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk at Anderson Air Base, Guam, a more optimum location to stand watch over the increasingly vital Taiwan and Malacca straits. The ROKAF has been asked to buy the RQ-4 to fill the gap on the peninsula, and so it is, but not without controversy.

The RQ-4s the ROKAF have requested are Block 30s that come without signals intelligence payloads, according to Northrop. That means an intelligence collection gap will still exist here after the U-2s are retired in 2015. Perhaps South Korea would prefer to invest that money in other priorities.

Not that the world's defence contractors are complaining. South Korea is still one of the world's most active shoppers, and, so far, there is still plenty for everyone here. 
 

The US Army wants helicopters to go faster. We don't know yet if army is willing or able to pay for that extra speed, but the desire is certainly there. Look around the exhibit hall of the Association of the United States Army's (AUSA) annual convention earlier this week, and the evidence was everywhere. On display were next-generation tiltrotors, and every combination of coaxial rotor-pusher-prop or ducted fan. Every idea was based on overcoming the inherent tendency of the retreating blade of a conventional rotor to stall after about 170kt.

But Boeing added yet a new category to the speed discussion. If you looked carefully around its booth, a video on a loop showed a new kind of high-speed tandem rotor. Boeing had actually shown a previous version of the unloaded lift offset rotor (ULOR) concept at the American Helicopter Society safety forum in 2008. Since that event, the company has added two turboprops for extra thrust in forward flight.

But the key technology of this concept are the "wings" placed over each rotor. Boeing actually describes these devices as non-rotating blades, which augment the flapping effect of the hinged blades to overcome retreating blade stall at higher speeds than a conventional rotor.

General Martin Dempsey, newly-appointed chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, fired a warning shot at the F-35 in a House Armed Services Committee hearing today. Three variants may be more than the military can afford, Dempsey said. The three-variant strategy was adopted in the late-1990s partly to make the programme affordable. The theory was that a common production line and economies of scale would allow Lockheed Martin to tailor the basic F-35 aircraft to suit the operational needs of all three services.  

Do not adjust your computer display. That's really a Northrop Grumman MQ-5B Hunter unmanned air vehicle (UAV) with enlarged wings and booms. Flightglobal UAV and spaceflight editor Zach Rosenberg spotted the unusual model on Northrop's booth. It stumped us for a while, but then we remembered (with, candidly, some help from Google) that Flightglobal has written about this concept before, although this is the first time we've seen an image.

At the AUVSI 2010 convention last year in Denver, Northrop revealed a plan to modify the Hunter with the wing of the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Heron. More details:

The new Heron wing would further extend the endurance of the already modified MQ-5B, from 17-21h with a standard electro-optical/infrared payload to 35-40h and the aircraft's ceiling from 18,000ft to 25,000ft, according to Northrop. The new wing would increase its wingspan from 10.3 metres to 16.4 metres but keep the 110l of fuel it carries and the hardpoints that carry 58.97kg (130lbs) on each wing.

Weaponizing unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) is nothing new. As far back as World War II, the US Army Air Corps converted B-24 Liberators into unmanned cruise missiles guided by remote control from another aircraft. The US Air Force equipped RQ-1 Predators with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles 11 years ago, as our friend Richard Whittle has chronicled.

What is new is a burst of interest in weaponizing tactical UAVs, such as the AAI Corp RQ-7B Shadow and, perhaps, even the Boeing/Insitu RQ-21A Integrator. Treaty reviews delayed the process for about a year, but those concerns were tidied up in late July. At AUSA, the interest in sub-10kg-class munitions tailored for medium-sized UAVs was apparent everywhere. Not only were there the munitions we've already known about -- ATK's Hatchet, BAE Systems' Cutlass, MBDA's SABER and Raytheon's small tactical munition (STM). There is also one surprise.

In the exhibit booth belonging to the rapid response/irregular warfare directorate -- a division of the office of the secretary of defence -- sat a new UAV called Remora. This is what it looks like.
 
We didn't spot the Remora UAV until the booth had mostly cleared out, but a helpful video (shown below) explained its background and purpose. The UAV was actually itself a guided bomb, which is designed to be dropped by another tactical UAV. It was part of an OSD-funded demonstration called precision acquisition and weaponized system (PAWS). The Remora appears to be the outcome of this Boeing miniature munition awarded to Boeing in 2009.



Interestingly, the army's unmanned air systems gurus still aren't buying into the weaponizing UAV business. That interest belongs exclusively right now to the US Marine Corps and Special Operations Command. The army still wants the RQ-7 to perform only long-endurance reconnaissance missions, and carrying relatively heavy weapons limits its range. But the Marines are pressing forward with launching an 18-month demonstration, with the acquisition of a new type of miniature munition likely to follow. At that point, the army can change its mind --  without the consequence of having to invest its own funds to develop and qualify a new weapon.  


 

Bell Boeing responded to the US Army's joint multi-role (JMR) studies with concepts for next-generation tiltrotors. These images were displayed in Boeing's exhibit booth at the Association of the US Army's annual convention on 10-12 October in Washington DC. Note the three pairs of scissor blades and the V-tails.

The US Army wants to buy a new family of high speed rotorcraft by 2030. Four companies have been awarded study contracts by the Army Aviation Technology Directorate (AATD) -- AVX Corp, Bell Boeing, Boeing and Sikorsky.

Three of the four concepts were on display in the exhibit hall of the Association of the US Army's (AUSA) annual convention in Washington DC. It was especially nice to see Boeing's future rotorcraft concepts, which we had not seen before this event.

Bottom-left image seems similar to the Piasecki X-49 Speed Hawk, and we're told the pusher propeller can swivel for anti-torque capability.

The next image shows a growth version of a conventional CH-47 Chinook.

The third image from left to right shows Boeing's futuristic DiscRotor concept, which is being funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA.)

The upper-right image is a second-generation tiltrotor by Bell Boeing, which we'll write more about later today.

In June 2010, Boeing told us that the F-15 needed a new order by the end of that year or there could be at least a temporary break in the production line.

Sixteen months later, Boeing is still waiting for that order to materialize, yet nobody seems to be panicking. The F-15 has been in continuous production for 40 years, and is one of five active fighter production lines in the US. Yet, both the F-15 and the F-22 could be shut down next year in the absence of new orders. We know the F-22 has no chance, but the F-15's status is more murky.

It seemed like the F-15's future was guaranteed only one year ago. The Obama Administration notified Congress on 21 October last year that Saudi Arabia had requested a possible sale of 72 F-15Es.

But something funny happened on the way to the bank. Saudi Arabia has still not signed the contract, and we're not sure why. Lingering concerns by the Israeli lobby may have something to do with it. The Arab Spring revolts in the Middle East also might make the Saudi regime more cautious about making big splurges on weapons programmes. But those are just theories. Boeing refers all questions about the Saudi deal to the US government, and they aren't returning our phone calls.

Boeing, however, does not seem publicly worried. There are no C-17-style rallies on the factory floor in St. Louis, with friendly politicians raising awareness about the possibility of massive job cuts in the event of a production line shutdown. 

There are, of course, a few options for preserving the production line. The F-15SE Silent Eagle is in competition in South Korea, although that contract award is not scheduled until next October. Meanwhile, the Saudi deal can still happen. Perhaps, that's why the company released this optimistic-sounding statement yesterday, when we asked the company to clarify when the F-15E backlog runs out.

"With a number of pending international sales opportunities for a highly capable, proven, affordable aircraft like the F-15, it is premature and inappropriate for us to even speculate on when the production line might close," Boeing said.

At precisely 16:14 local time somewhere at sea on 25 September, two flight deck crew members decided to cross an active runway. It was precisely at that moment a Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet came in to land. With the aircraft nose tilted upward, the pilot appears to have no way of seeing these two flight deck strollers with cosmically bad timing.  Someone on deck -- presumably the landing safety officer? -- must have alerted the pilot, who opens the throttle and goes around at the last moment. The crew members and pilot are safe, and the ship and the aircraft are no worse for the wear.

Question: With the arrival of the Northrop Grumman X-47B demonstrator on a carrier deck next year, do you think this scenario plays out any differently?

Even amidst the PAK-FAs, J-20s, KF-Xs, F-22s and F-35s, the favourite next generation stealth fighter concept of any worthy aviation journalist has always belonged to India. Why? The Sukhoi/HAL fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) was introduced as the world's only two-seat stealth fighter, which means it will soon become the only free ticket for a backseat ride.

But there appears to have been some misunderstanding. Either the Indian Air Force allowed the two-seat fighter story to spread without a challenge, or they have radically re-thought the FGFA's design and concept of operations in the last several months.

NAK Browne, air chief marshal of the Indian air force, said yesterday in New Delhi that he actually plans to buy 166 single-seat and 48 twin-seat versions of the FGFA, which will be derived from the Sukhoi PAK-FA. Browne's statement means that India has trimmed its projected order from a rough estimate of around 250 to a more precise 214. More importantly, it also means the two-seat fighter will likely be relegated to the training role, with the single-seater tasked for operations.

At least the two-seat variant has still survived, at least for now. We want our back-seat ride at AeroIndia 2021!

China is the world's hottest spot for military aviation spotters. There's literally something new and exciting to write about on a weekly basis. It's overwhelming our ability to keep up with all of China's new toys. Here's a quick round-up of the coolest videos and pictures that have popped up in the last few days. 

First: China's Soar Dragon UAV in ground tests in Chengdu appeared on .cn URLs on Friday.



Second: More pictures of the Shenyang F-60, which is either a next-generation fighter mock-up or this year's must-have Christmas toy.





Third: Finally, a pictorial round-up of last weekend's UAV grand prix event held in Beijing.