May 2012 Archives

Oh dear, it's bad news for the world's last flyable Avro Vulcan, with two of XH558's Rolls-Royce Olympus engines having been destroyed during an incident on the ground on 28 May.

Things of course go wrong on classic aircraft, but initial indications point to the mishap at Robin Hood airport (which serves Doncaster and Sheffield and in a previous life housed Vulcans as RAF Finningley) having been down to old-fashioned human error.

"The primary cause of the damage has been determined to be ingestion of silica gel desiccant bags," says the Vulcan to the sky Trust, which restored XH558 (file picture above from AirSpace user Gaviscon). This oversight is believed to have caused a surge and low-pressure compressor blade failure to the Vulcan's number one engine, which then sent debris into its neighbouring Olympus powerplant. Both were damaged beyond repair, although thankfully the airframe escaped any injury.

Luckily the failure happened just as the crew commenced their take-off roll on a training flight; presumably this incident could easily have turned into a major accident had it occurred maybe 30sec later?

The Vulcan to the sky Trust says it is "actively working on a plan" to recover its Jubilee season schedule for XH558, but notes that the additional costs to be incurred as a result of the mishap "are clearly very worrying as resources are very tight".

That sounds like a precursor to a major new funding call to my mind, but I'm not so sure that its public backers will be willing to be quite so generous this time around.

While attending Airbus Military's Trade Media Briefing in Toulouse last week, I watched A400M development aircraft "Grizzly 2" setting off on its way to performing the type's first unpaved runway landing trials at Cottbus-Drewitz airport in Germany.

The company today issued a brief press release and one picture from the trials activity, and stated that the aircraft "performed a series of ground runs on the grass surface including maximum-braked rejected take-offs".

As I reported on Flightglobal last Friday, things didn't go entirely to plan, with the aircraft's left-hand main wheels having broken through the upper surface of the runway at the end of one maximum braked rejected take-off exercise. Analysis is ongoing to find out whether pre-trial measurements about the grass strip were accurate; perhaps it had been too drizzly for the Grizzly?

"The aircraft will return in due course for further trials," Airbus Military says. It will be hoping for better luck next time.

NATO's Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) programme has got off the ground at last, with 13 nations having agreed to fund the acquisition and initial operation of five MP-RTIP-equipped Northrop Grumman Block 40 Global Hawks.

Signed on the sidelines of NATO's Chicago Summit, the AGS deal is worth $1.7 billion. That's a major investment to make during tough economic times, but covers much less than the originally planned mix of unmanned air vehicles and Airbus A321 surveillance aircraft first talked about getting on for a decade ago.

To be based at NAS Sigonella in Sicily, the AGS fleet (Global Hawk image supplied by Northrop Grumman) and its ground infrastructure will start being delivered during 2015, and should achieve full operational status in 2017.

But that's not the end of it; under current plans all 28 of the alliance's member states will provide financial support for long-term operations, while its two leading European players, the UK and France, will contribute other surveillance equipment. The pair are due to sign a memorandum of understanding in 2017 to determine what that will entail, but have previously agreed to pursue a collaborative medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV project; Telemos.

Another option for the UK would be to retain part of its Sentinel R1 fleet, which is currently threatened with early retirement following the departure of NATO forces from Afghanistan later this decade. It also has allocated funds for a "Crow's Nest" programme to replace the Royal Navy's current Sea King 7 airborne surveillance and control system helicopters (which have been used to great effect in Afghanistan and during last year's Libya operation), which would provide a more modest contribution.

US Marine Corps Col Arthur Tomassetti, 33^rd Fighter Wing vice-commander, had his first local area F-35B flight scrubbed yesterday due to weather. Today, however, the weather was good and he managed to log 1.5 hours on the jet--which returned home with zero discrepancies.

USAF Photo by Major Karen Roganov--these are from yesterday's attempt...

Most of the flight was out over the Gulf of Mexico and consisted of basic aircraft handling maneuvers such as turns, climbs, descents. But Tomassetti also did some formation flying with the two Boeing F/A-18s that are visiting from Marine Corps Reserve Squadron VMFA-112 based at Fort Worth, Texas. Returning to base, he did some touch and goes around the Eglin pattern.

As Tomassetti describes it, flying at Eglin without having to hit specific test points is far less stressful than a full-up test sortie would be at NAS Patuxent River or Edwards AFB.

Tomassetti says: "The difference between flying test flights in a test aircraft and flying the F-35B in Eglin airspace is not being under the continuous pressure of a test flight following very specific procedures. Today I really had the luxury of exploring the aircraft at my own pace, getting comfortable flying it around, and operating the displays. I was able to focus on what I wanted to focus on and my first time flying in the Eglin airspace.

I continue to be impressed how easy it is to fly the F-35 and how well it performs. For the last two years I only flew in the back seat of the F-16s at Eglin. Today's flight is one of the first steps in building VMFAT-501's capability to train F-35 pilots. I was happy to be able to contribute to that effort."

Maintainers are also impressed with how well the F-35 doing given its immaturity. Right now, Eglin relies upon contractor maintenance support, but military crews are learning fast how to take care of the new jets.  

"We were able to incorporate Lockheed Martin Contracted Logistics Support procedures accomplished with the Air Force F-35A to streamline operations for the first week of flying the F-35B variant," says USMC Gunnery Sergeant Matthew Smith, a VMFAT-501 maintainer.  "So we were scheduled to fly three days and the F-35B flew all three days on our first week of flying operations."

The Eurofighter Typhoon has replaced the last of the Italian Air Force's Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcons in the air defense role, the consortium announced today. Italy currently has 62 Typhoons in its inventory dispersed between four squadrons at two different bases around the country.

The Italians have been operating 34 F-16A model jets, the bulk of which were Air Defense Variant aircraft, for the last 10 years. The aircraft were leased from US Air Force surplus stocks. Most of the surviving jets have been returned to the United States and have been placed into storage at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona. The program, which was dubbed Peace Caesar, was originally intended to run for five years.

The F-16s were intended to be used as a gap-filler during Italy's transition from the antiquated Lockheed F-104 to the new Typhoon.

Italy had originally intended to buy some 121 Typhoons, but in recent years cut that number back to 96 aircraft. Given that nation's present financial difficulties, it is difficult to predict if the current procurement numbers will hold.

Yesterday saw the confirmation of an impressive 102-aircraft programme to equip the Royal Saudi Air Force with a new-generation pilot training fleet from 2014.

Brokered under a new agreement between the Saudi Arabian and UK governments, the deal includes 22 BAE Systems Hawk advanced jet trainers and - as revealed exclusively by my colleague Stephen Trimble on Flightglobal a full week before the announcement - a whopping 55 Pilatus PC-21s. Ground-based training equipment, personnel training and some in-service support is also included.

BAE puts the value of the programme so far at around £1.6 billion ($2.5 billion), with some elements still remaining to be confirmed. This includes a planned 25-strong fleet of primary trainers which will support candidate screening and initial flying instruction. Figures coming out of Riyadh say the total spend is likely to be around the $3 billion mark.

Riyadh needs new trainers to support its fleet of Eurofighter Typhoons (it has received its first 24 of 72) and 84 new Boeing F-15SAs and 70 upgraded F-15s.

Going for the Hawk AJT/PC-21 combination makes sense - Saudi Arabia already has 45 legacy Hawk 65/65As (Saudi Hawks display team aircraft pictured above, just because it's a great shot - source BAE Systems) and 47 PC-9s in service. It's unclear whether it will replace only its oldest 29 Hawk 65s under this deal, but it certainly looks like it has embraced the concept of "downloading" touted by trainer manufacturers for the last several years. Students will certainly be able to learn a lot from flying the PC-21, as reported by our test pilot Peter Collins from his assessment ride in the type in 2008.

This has been an exceptional week for Pilatus, which also today confirmed its receipt of a contract to deliver 75 Swiss-built PC-7 MkII trainers to the Indian air force.

But perhaps there are follow-on opportunities for BAE in Saudi Arabia too: will Riyadh maybe later order another batch of Hawks (Mr Trimble take note; pronunciation "Hork", not "Hock") to replace its younger Mk65A airframes? And will the Saudi Hawks also be in line for new jets? I don't know the answer to either of those, but one thing's for sure: this is certainly one customer which still has real money to spend.

F-35 pilots from the initial cadre at Eglin AFB, Florida, have started their transition to the new aircraft. Initially, the 33^rd Fighter Wing had two test pilots who were putting the jet through its paces.

 

Recently, however, US Marine Corps Col Arthur Tomassetti, the unit's vice commander, has gotten checked out in the F-35 at the Navy's Pax River test facility. He was scheduled to fly his first local sortie today in an F-35B, but was forced to postpone due to deteriorating weather. He'll be giving it another shot in the morning.

 

Read the full story here

 

Tomassetti, as some of you might recall, was one of the original X-35 concept demonstrator test pilots. So he's seen the program right from day one basically.

 

But 33^rd FW is working on getting its first non-test pilot checked out on the F-35. Lt Col Lee Kloos, the commander of the 58^th Fighter Squadron, should be finished his six-ride transition course in the next week or two.

 

The veteran F-16 operational tester and Weapons School grad shared some of his impressions the F-35. The jet is powerful, stable and easy to fly.

"One of the things this aircraft usually takes hit on is the handling because it's not an F-22," Kloos says. "An F-22 is unique in its ability to maneuver and we'll never be that."

 

But compared to other aircraft, a combat-configured F-35 probably edges out other existing designs carrying a similar load-out. "When I'm downrange in Badguyland that's the configuration I need to have confidence in maneuvering, and that's where I think the F-35 starts to edge out an aircraft like the F-16," Kloos says.

 

A combat-configured F-16 is encumbered with weapons, external fuel tanks, and electronic countermeasures pods that sap the jet's performance. "You put all that on, I'll take the F-35 as far as handling characteristic and performance, that's not to mention the tactical capabilities and advancements in stealth," he says. "It's of course way beyond what the F-16 has currently."

 

The F-35's acceleration is "very comparable" to a Block 50 F-16. "Again, if you cleaned off an F-16 and wanted to turn and maintain Gs and [turn] rates, then I think a clean F-16 would certainly outperform a loaded F-35," Kloos says. "But if you compared them at combat loadings, the F-35 I think would probably outperform it."

 

The F-16, Kloos says, is a very capable aircraft in a within visual range engagement--especially in the lightly loaded air-to-air configuration used during training sorties at home station. "It's really good at performing in that kind of configuration," Kloos says. "But that's not a configuration that I've ever--I've been in a lot of different deployments--and those are the configurations I've never been in with weapons onboard."

 

Meanwhile, the F-35A continues to increase its sortie generation rate with another two-turn-two launch at Eglin earlier today. The second F-35A flight was cut somewhat short due to the same weather pattern that scrubbed Tomassetti's flight.

The US Air Force's 33^rd Fighter Wing and US Marine Corps flew their first Lockheed Martin F-35B local area flight at Eglin AFB, Florida, earlier today (22 May). But while today was the STOVL model's day, the wing's F-35A fleet is performing very well, a senior USAF official says.

 

The F-35A had already flown 47 sorties to date, but today they added to that total.

The unit "launched a two turn two of F-35As, another first," the senior official says. That makes "for a total of five sorties flown today."

 

I was hoping to find video footage of the flight but instead I found this clip from this Perpar3D simulation software.  Those are some very nice renderings. I'm sure it's great for training, but it would also make for an awesome video game.

Yesterday I wrote from Airbus Military's Getafe site near Madrid about a change of conversion plan for the UK's next (and fifth) A330 Voyager tanker/transport, and lo and behold, look what I saw taking to the air in Toulouse today, but the very same aircraft.

Airbus expects the "green" widebody to arrive in Getafe towards the end of this week, after a decision was taken to move its conversion from Cobham Aviation Services in the UK. The latter says that it is already "working at full capacity" on its first two airframes.

The need to safeguard the planned delivery schedule for the next aircraft in the UK's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft deal (a private finance initiative contract) is such that a large penalty payment would have been incurred with any slip, hence the move to Spain. Much as the PFI route for delivering Voyager has been criticised on cost terms, a traditional procurement wouldn't have had this option available to it.

Airbus Military's A400M development aircraft "Grizzly 2" just took off from Toulouse, France on its way to performing the type's first unpaved runway trials.

The aircraft is now en route for Cottbus, Germany, where it is expected to stay through the rest of this week. First on the agenda will be making landings on a grass strip, which should provide some spectacular photo opportunities.

Confession time from me; I only packed a 70mm lens, so apologies for the dodgy image quality!

Our Airbus Military media visit also included a look around MSN3, but sadly no pictures were allowed onboard or in the cockpit. It has recently performed initial flights with underwing hose and drogue refuelling pods installed (now removed) and is also doing night-time work to prove use of the enhanced vision system.

Hawker Beechcraft T-6 Texas II primary trainers from the 33rd Flying Training Squadron are providing adversary support to the US Air Force's elite Weapons School--joining a long list of other types that have done so previously. The USAF Weapons School is where the service takes its best instructor pilots and molds them into weapons and tactics officers in their respective airframes. Those few aviators who graduate return to their parent unit to become their chief instructor pilot and tactical guru. The best of those graduates are eventually hand-picked to return to the school as instructor pilots. The addition of the relatively low performance turboprop T-6 to the onslaught of "Red Air" adversaries--which could include everything from F-15s, F-16s, and F/A-18s to F-22s replicating threats--broadens the scope of challenges the students have to deal with. That in turn will help the combat air forces when those students graduate to become Weapons officers.

 

Here are two T-6s from the 33rd FTS that are participating as adversaries during the WIC course. USAF Photo

 

This is a Weapons School F-22 from the 433rd Weapons Squadron. USAF Photo

The USAF has more here

The Pentagon has released its new assessment of the Chinese military. In terms of aircraft development, China is developing the Chengdu J-20, it is bolstering its long range strike capability, airborne command and control capabilities, and it's interested in developing unmanned aircraft. The country is also set to have its first aircraft carrier in service, but it won't have a full air wing for some time yet...

Here is the full article

Meanwhile, the China's second J-20 has flown. Here is a video of that... It's pretty damn long (and not particularly riveting).

Also, in Congress, the House of Representatives has passed a measure requiring the Obama Administration to sell Taiwan at least 66 new F-16 fighters.

Read about it here

Lockheed says that fixes to the problems with the F-35's helmet will be tested later this summer. If those modifications work as planned, it will put to an end a number of vexing problems that have hounded the program since pilots started flying the jet.

The company has also redesigned the carrier-version's tail-hook--that fix will enter into its preliminary design review next month. The redesign still has to prove itself, but so far things look good.

Flight sciences testing is also proceeding well this year...  the team is about 20% ahead of schedule.

This might be a sign that the program has turned the corner...

Read the full article here

The US Marines are buying three additional Harvest HAWK weapons kits for their fleet of KC-130J Hercules--basically turning the tactical tanker/transports into gunships and surveillance platforms. It's kind of a demonstration of just how versatile the Herk really is...

The KC-130J is proving to be the aircraft of choice for modification into gunships and other special operations applications. The MC-130J and forthcoming AC-130J aren't based on the vanilla C-130J, but rather the Marines' tanker variant airframe. But the special operations aircraft have a sensor ball added along with an aerial refueling receptacle... which weren't part of the Marines' requirements. The special ops birds also have provisions for some other special hardware...

The only weakness of the KC-130J is that the Marines didn't spring for the enhanced cargo handling system found on the regular J-model, opting instead for the cheaper original system found on the legacy Hercules. Probably, in retrospect, it might have been wiser to have just kept the new system.

The USAF special ops Herks, however, do have the new cargo-handling system...

The full article can be found here.

The US Air Force's 33^rd Wing stationed at Eglin AFB, Florida, received its 12^th F-35 yesterday, 15 May. The aircraft was a US Marine Corps short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) variant jet assigned to VMFA-501.

USMC test pilot Lt Col Fred Schenk ferried the jet, BF-11, from Lockheed's Fort Worth, Texas, facility on a 90-minute flight.

F-35B local area flights should start at the base any day now; pilots have started taxiing the aircraft this Monday, 14 May.

Meanwhile, earlier today Air Force Chief Gen Norton Schwartz said that the F-35B can't generate the sorties it needs to replace the A-10--the USAF will stick with a pure F-35A fleet. The USAF had considered adopting the F-35B to replace the A-10 at one time.

The Marines, of course, dispute Schwartz's comments.

Schwartz also doesn't think unmanned aircraft will replace manned fighters anytime soon.

Read the article here.

Later in the evening, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta paid tribute to Marine Corps aviation during a ceremony at the Marine Corps War Memorial--sometimes referred to as the Iwo Jima Memorial. He strongly endorsed the USMC's need for a fifth-generation fighter in the form of the F-35B and also the MV-22.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has directed the some additional safety measures for the US Air Force's fleet of Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors.

Full article 

1) Pilots operating the stealthy twin-engine air dominance fighter must remain close enough to an airfield to recover the aircraft quickly in case they encounter problems with their oxygen system.

2) The USAF is directed to speed up the installation of an automatic backup oxygen supply into the entire F-22 fleet. The USAF should complete testing of the automatic backup oxygen system by the end of November. Installations should begin in December with 10 Raptors being retrofitted with the system per month.

3) The USAF will provide the SECDEF with monthly updates on the service's progress in determining the root cause of the jet's oxygen system maladies.

The Secretary did not, however, reverse the USAF's decision to defer installation of an Automatic-Ground Collision Avoidance System in the forthcoming Increment 3.2B upgrade for the Raptor.

Meanwhile, the USAF hasn't ruled out decompression sickness, but the current thinking is that the problem is related to either a toxin or it's an oxygen quantity/quality issue. A very knowledgeable source suggests that the problem could be related to a form of hyperventilation. More on that later...

The service has 185 operational jets left after two losses. There were also eight developmental jets, but how many of those are left flying is unclear, some of them are either in museums (like 4003 at Wright-Patterson) or used as maintenance trainers (like 4005 at Langley and another at Tyndall--the tail number of which I can't immediately recall).

The political dogfight over the cost of Canada's proposed purchase of 65 Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters continues unabated in that nation's capital.

The Canadian Auditor General Michael Ferguson disputed the assertions of Department of National Defence (DND) officials that they aren't required to count the full life-cycle costs of aircraft like the F-35 of 15 May.

"I am concerned with suggestions that accurate estimation and the inclusion of personnel, operating and maintenance costs are not important, since they would be incurred regardless of the aircraft selected to replace the CF-18," Ferguson told the Canadian parliament's public accounts committee.

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, life-cycle cost are required by the DND's own internal polices and also by Canada's Treasury Board, which is responsible for setting those standards.

Earlier, Robert Fonberg, Canada' deputy minister of defence, told parliament that the DND normally only includes the purchase price and sustainment costs. The DND doesn't normally count operating costs because those are included in annual budgets. The F-35s is being bought the same way as four previous RCAF equipment purchases, he says.

Ferguson's report showed that internal DND estimates peg the cost of Canada's future F-35 fleet at $25 billion over 20 years, but those estimates weren't shared publically.

Fonberg told Parliament that there were two estimates as described in Ferguson's report.  According to the CBC, one column in a chart shows DND's internal estimate in 2010 for the F-35s as $25 billion over 20 years, and the second column shows its public response to a report that says the total estimate in 2011 was $14.7 billion.

Canadian parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page offers another estimate that suggests that the total cost of 65 F-35s might be as high as $29 billion over 30 years.

The CBC has more here and here.

The Indian version of Sukhoi's T-50 PAK-FA fifth-generation fighter might be delayed by two years, press reports in that country indicate.

Image by Maxim Maksimov via Wikimedia

Previously, India's defense minister A K Antony had said the Sukhoi/Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) would be inducted into the Indian Air Force by 2017. On 14 May, deputy minister M M Pallam Raju told the Indian parliament that the project is being delayed.

 "The fifth generation aircraft is scheduled to be certified by 2019, following which the series production will start," Pallam Raju says.

The Indian T-50 variant, which the country hopes to buy 250 of, is expected to cost about $100 million per copy--$25 billion for the whole Indian production run. The Russians are also buying 250 jets.

But the Indian variant is far more ambitious that the original Russian version of the T-50. The Indians have a good 40 to 45 improvements that they want incorporated.

One notable feature that India wants is a 360° active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar rather than the more conventional AESA found on the original Russian aircraft. A 360° AESA would be a first for any fighter on the planet, and it will undoubtedly be expensive.

Nor have the Indians determined if they want an enhanced single-seat version of the fighter or if they want to develop a two-seat variant. Redesigning the airframe might adversely affect the aircraft's stealth characteristics or impact the jet's performance to a degree that the Indians find unacceptable. It would also add to the jet's cost. The Indians will make that decision pending the outcome of the FGFA's preliminary design phase.

The Indian side of the programme is focusing on composite materials that can withstand flights at Mach 1.7. That suggests that the goal of the Indo-Russian effort is to the design the fighter to cruise at around those airspeeds--which would be comparable to the US Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.

From the Indian perspective, perhaps the most important aspect of the FGFA effort is that the country's engineers are being embedded with their Russian counterparts. That would enable the Indians to learn how to design and build a large twin-engine fighter from the relatively early stages of the project.

More here at India's Business Standard.

Photos of China's second prototype Chengdu J-20 tactical aircraft have emerged on Chinese internet sites--including the government-backed Global Times.

This second jet, apparently called aircraft 2002, appears to have a few a modifications to the original aircraft--called aircraft 2001. The most obvious one is that the air data probe appears to have been moved to the tip of the radome.  

Since everyone else is speculating on what this thing might be, I'm going to offer an observation.  This J-20 type has small wings relative to its size and probable weight. Even taking into account that its fuselage probably acts as a lifting body, it's huge and likely has very high wing-loading. So one could argue it's not a fighter per se--maybe a strike aircraft of some kind...

But that being said, given that the center of pressure moves aft during supersonic flight, the placement of the canards affords the designers a long moment arm. That means more leverage for those control surfaces, which presumably helps the aircraft's supersonic maneuverability.

More images here

It's anniversary time in the UK, with several Royal Air Force units in the process of marking the centenary of their formation; originally as part of the Royal Flying Corps.

Coningsby-based 3 Sqn commemorated its own milestone over the weekend, with a specially-painted Eurofighter Typhoon certainly bringing a bit of colour to proceedings (the stunning image below was captured by Flightglobal AirSpace image gallery user Adam Duffield during a night-time shoot at RAF Northolt). I'm not sure the choice will be going fleet-wide any time soon though.

The RAF's 1 Sqn is currently resting without aircraft, following the retirement of its BAE Systems Harrier GR7/9s, but is a strong candidate to return with its own Typhoons some time soon. Also with a centenary this year is RAF Valley-based 4 Sqn, which now operates the BAE Hawk T2 advanced jet trainer.

The coming weekend will also be one to watch, with a mass flypast to be staged over Windsor on Saturday as part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. In all, 78 military aircraft are expected to take part, including the Red Arrows and the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Let's hope for clear skies.

My first civilian aviation story has been released... I have to say it was one of the more interesting things I've gotten to cover. Basically, Honeywell has launched a new version of its Apex Primus avionics suite for the Pilatus PC-12. This version has synthetic vision added... which makes life a lot easier for the pilot.

Now, as I'm sure most of you guys know, the PC-12 is flown by the US Air Force Special Operations Command under the designation U-28. The USAF aircraft are usually flying into small austere strips to drop-off special operations troops. Also, according to some accounts, they provide surveillance for special operations forces on the ground with their cameras and other intelligence-gathering apparatus.

Perhaps the USAF might potentially be interested in a version of this technology? Honeywell's system uses a highly detailed terrain data-base to generate its imagery, which is probably not suitable for the military's usage by itself (since it can't take into account for something that might pop up-- like a parked truck or other unknown variable). But if one combines that with millimeter-wave radar or the like, that might be something they could potentially use. Of course, that's assuming they don't already have something (which they very well might).

Meanwhile, the US Army is already looking at a number of solutions to the problem of degraded visual environments for its helicopters--millimeter wave radar, lasers, long-wave infrared, synthetic vision, or a combination thereof. That would solve the vexing problem of brownouts-which has plagued helicopter pilots since the beginning of rotary-wing aviation.

The US Navy is going ahead with its Next Generation Jammer program, but if and when the F-35 gets that hardware is very much in doubt.  The service is going to have the EA-18G operating in the fleet through the mid-2030s--but what comes after that could be very different from what we currently fly.

Read the full article here.

The future of electronic warfare might not be single large platforms, says Captain John Green, the Navy's airborne electronic attack program manager. Instead it could very well be dispersed unmanned platforms or manned tactical aircraft carrying a jammer pod--but those pods might be controlled remotely from the ground or from a Growler.

It's already happening, the US Marine Corps' Intrepid Tiger II, which the service built in-house, will fly on the weapons station of a Boeing AV-8B Harrier or F/A-18A/B/C/D in Afghanistan this summer. But the pilot won't operate the pod; the Marines on the ground will use the pod via a data-link and remote control.

Another interesting fact about the Intrepid Tiger II is that the system is completely open architecture and was assembled using commercial-off-the-shelf parts by the Marines and Naval Air Systems Command. It can be pretty much upgraded or modified on a whim with little additional testing required, a senior Marine officer tells me. To top it all off, it only costs about $800,000... which is dirt cheap by Pentagon standards.

The caveat, of course, is that the Marines used Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds to cut through the red-tape... so that's why it's cheap and effective.

In other news, the Pentagon announced today that US Air Force Major General Christopher Bogdan is moving over to the F-35 program as the new deputy program director. He currently heads the KC-46 program at the Aeronautical Systems Center. So he could be the heir apparent to Vice Adm David Venlet...

Gen Mark Welsh is being nominated to become the new USAF chief of staff once Gen Norton Schwartz retires in August. Welsh has long been a favorite to take over the top job... all of my USAF contacts that I've talked to today are openly rejoicing. He is apparently very popular amongst the troops it would seem.

Read the article here

 

This is a USAF photo of the last Raptor arriving at Elmendorf last Saturday--I'm aware it is of no relevance to the topic at hand.

US Marine Corps aviators Major Joseph "OD" Bachmann and Lt Col  Matt "Squirt" Kelly flew a pair of Lockheed Martin F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) production jets to Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. The aircraft were the 9^th and 10^th B-model jets built for the USMC.

Lockheed Martin photo by Fred Clingerman, Jr

 

At Eglin, the two aircraft will serve with VMFA-501, which resides with the US Air Force's 33d Fighter Wing, where they will be used for pilot and maintainer training. VMFA-501's parent unit is the 2^nd Marine Air Wing.

One other STOVL jet, BF-11, was formally accepted by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) 5 May. That jet will fly to Eglin soon.

Meanwhile, the Marines at Eglin could start local area flights as early as tomorrow, 11 May.

The UK government has finally 'fessed up to having got its plans spectacularly wrong on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter/Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier combo, which means that it now loves the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) B-model once more (Lockheed Martin image of aircraft BK-1 below).

I wrote about the announcement as the Ministry of Defence's embargo was lifted this morning, but thought that The DEW Line's friends might like to get the extra detail that I had to leave out. So in no particular order, here are my Top 10 questions about the decision:

1. Why has the MoD dropped the carrier variant F-35C? The cost of fitting "cats and traps" to the second CVF carrier (Prince of Wales) had doubled to £2 billion ($3.2 billion), and extensive work to also retrofit it to HMS Queen Elizabeth was estimated at another £3 billion.

2. Will the Royal Navy operate both carriers? A decision won't be made until the next Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2015, but it looks likely for now. Both will get ski-jump ramps to support the STOVL type, with the Queen Elizabeth to support embarked flight trails from 2018.

3. How much did the UK waste by planning to operate the F-35C? Officially "only" £40 million, as long-lead items for the cats and traps had not yet been ordered.

4. What about the F-35B's smaller weapons load, shorter range and high price? The MoD says the STOVL aircraft will carry everything that the C would, and that the other factors should be balanced against having one carrier available 100% of the time.

5. Is this bad for interoperability with allies? No. Cooperation with France is more about ensuring that one of their carriers (France only has one) is available at any time, with "cross-decking" opportunities very rare. Flying the B will revive the UK's links with the US Marine Corps, and, er, the Italian navy.

6. So is this the end of a navalised Typhoon, Rafale or Super Hornet alternative? Come on, folks, none of those were ever going to happen!

7. Isn't the UK's third IOT&E jet a C-model? Not so, apparently. While STOVL BK-1 flew in April and will be delivered in July, followed by BK-2, plans to change the third aircraft over to "CK-1" were still only an option.

8. When will UK production aircraft enter use? At-sea trials are planned for 2018 on HMS Queen Elizabeth; the same year that the UK should declare land-based initial operational capability with the jet. IOC status on a carrier should come in 2020.

9. How many F-35Bs will the UK get? We don't know; another one for the next defence review. But with a carrier to typically have only 12 aboard (40 is the highest number possible), plus land-based examples and training assets, it'll be nowhere near the 130 or so mentioned previously.

10. Did the UK bother to tell Lockheed Martin about the change this time? Yes, which is an advance on what happened in September 2010.

Let me know if I've missed anything, and I'll try to answer it. The obvious one of course is why they ever thought that going to the C was wise, but apparently it seemed like a good idea at the time!

The US Air Force Test Pilot School has started a new cyber-systems course.

"We are the place where the world comes to learn about test and evaluation. With the introduction of the Cyber Systems Test Course, we can now teach our graduates and others the framework for testing cyber systems in a contested environment," says Col Noel Zamot, TPS commandant. "This is the first course of its kind that includes a disciplined, yet flexible approach to testing cyber intensive systems."

According to the USAF, the Cyber Systems Test Course provides TPS students with the knowledge and resources for successfully identifying and testing cyber vulnerabilities on a variety of systems.

While cyber is becoming an increasingly important part of current military thinking, I can't help but feel this move steers the TPS away from its roots as a school for pilots and flight test engineers.

It's happened before with the USAF Weapons School--which, before the introduction of myriad different courses for different airframes, space and cyber--used to be called the Fighter Weapons School.

Perhaps the TPS will go that way too... with the word "pilot" being dropped in order to be more inclusive.

The times they are a-changin'--as Bob Dylan said.

This photo has nothing to do with the TPS or Edwards AFB, except that I found it on their site--I just thought it's an awesome shot. This jet is actually from the 65th Aggressors at Nellis.

The USAF has more here

US Air Force test pilots from Edwards AFB, California, recently helped train aviators from the 18th Aggressor Squadron at Eielson AFB, Alaska, on how to push the F-16 to the absolute limits of its flight envelope. 

 "In most combat air forces, the emphasis is on the global war on terror, dropping bombs and supporting the troops, so they don't fly in this kind of flight regime very often," says Major Peter Kasarskis, the 18th Aggressors' assistant director of operations. "Even if they are highly experienced F-16 pilots, they may not have had this type of flying."

Maj. Andrew Martin, one of the visiting test pilots 416th Flight Test Squadron, says "This is really the only time, probably in their whole career, that they will be able to do these kinds of maneuvers in a structured, scripted environment and practice getting the aircraft back under control."

The additionally training should help the Aggressor pilots to better replicate enemy "Red Air" during exercises.

"It's good preparation for Red Flag-Alaska and fighting F-22s, but really it's just good general knowledge to take in an air-to-air fight, which of course is what we are doing in training," Kasarskis says. "It allows us to understand the aircraft and its capabilities better so we know what we can and cannot do when we get in a fight with somebody else."

DOD has more on this here.

An A400M has made its first "dry" air-to-air refuelling (AAR) contacts behind an Airbus Military A330 multi-role tanker/transport, with one of the company's "Grizzly" development aircraft having achieved the milestone last week.

Airbus Military, which supplied the image below, says 30 contacts were made with the hose basket trailing from the A330's Cobham-supplied fuselage refuelling unit. This is a unique configuration so far, having been implemented for the UK Royal Air Force's AirTanker-supplied "Voyager" fleet.

"The tests demonstrated the stability of both aircraft when flying in close formation and while refuelling," says Airbus Military. Previous work had been performed behind an RAF Vickers VC10 tanker flown out of Toulouse, France.

The fresh activity represents good news for the UK; the only A400M customer nation so far to also be buying the A330 as a tanker. The "Voyager" aircraft involved in the work has previously conducted "wet" refuelling trials with Royal Air Force combat aircraft, during which hose stability and fuel venting issues were encountered, as I wrote in a feature article late last month.

Fresh trials are expecetd to occur in the UK from later this month to assess whether both problems have been solved.

Virginia Air National Guard pilots Major Jeremy Gordon and Captain Josh Wilson won't be punished for speaking out... or so the US Air Force says. I have my doubts about that personally.

Read the article here.

Meanwhile, in a somewhat weird twist, Lockheed Martin has apparently taken to Twitter to mount some sort of Raptor defense campaign. Basically, they sending out little F-22 factoids on a twitter feed...

But in this case, the only thing to do is to find out what is causing this problem and then to fix it... Only then will the public at large regain confidence in this jet. The USAF is apparently making some progress in that regard.

Let's hope they're well on their way to finding the root cause of this debacle.

In the meantime, here is a video of the last two tails Lockheed delivered to the USAF on their last company flight. Lockheed send the video over this morning. What's really good about this video is that it is not sullied by horrifyingly bad music... It's just the roar of a pair of Pratt & Whitney F119s as the universe intended (toward the end that is- it's mostly silent otherwise).
Here are some stills from that flight. Lockheed went all out and they have some fine photographers at their disposal.
Here is the last aircraft built 10-4195 flying alongside 10-4193, the third from last jet which is now the 3rd Wing flagship.

During a phone interview about the A400M's recent receipt of restricted type certification from EASA we got onto the subject of continuing problems with the aircraft's all-important TP400-D6 turboprop engine.

Bad vibrations from one engine have delayed production-standard MSN6 from starting on flying the 300h of functioning and reliability testing needed to get to full civil type certification - a milestone now expected around mid-year. Flights should start in a couple of weeks, after a replacement has been installed.

 

But Airbus chief test pilot military Ed Strongman told me that "Grizzly 4" (pictured above in an Airbus Military image) remains in Oman after encountering an unexplained engine shut-down while descending into Muscat on its way home from a debut tour of Asia. The troublesome TP400 should arrive back with Europrop International in Munich tomorrow, but there's no answer for now on what caused the incident.

You can find the full story here.

The line from Airbus Military is that neither of these issues will delay the planned delivery of the first production A400M to the French air force at the end of this year. But they certainly can't be helping.

I've just finished writing two feature articles about the company's assembly work on the A400M and light and medium transports, and its international training centre in Seville for the next issue of Flight International, which includes our Spanish industry special.

Don't expect a tanker version of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner anytime soon, says Jim Albaugh--the company's commercial aircraft division chief. But, of course, we knew that since the 767-derived KC-46 is going to be in production until at least 2028 with 179 examples built.

But, as the US Air Force admits, the KC-46 design will be pretty long in the tooth by then--which is why the service is keeping its options open for the subsequent KC-Y and KC-Z tanker programs. And 179 aircraft only covers the replacement of one third of the antique Boeing 707-derived KC-135 fleet.  (Read my KC-46 special here)

But there might never be a tanker or any other military derivative of the 787 period. Unlike the 707 and 767, which were purposely overdesigned with extremely rugged airframes, the 787 has little in the way of excess structure.

"We're pretty full-up over the next nine years building airplanes to deliver to domestic customers and international customers," Albaugh says. "I'm not certain this airplane lends itself to being a derivative because this is an airplane that we took a lot of weight out of. We didn't overdesign this airplane, like the 707 is over-designed or the 767. I'm not ruling it out, but right now our focus is on commercial airplanes."

But moreover, the 787 has a composite fuselage. While industry has a very solid understanding of what happens when one cuts metal out of an aluminum fuselage, the same can't be said of carbon-fiber composites. That's probably another factor playing into this.

Here is a link to our 787 special--mostly written by our dearly departed (to the Wall Street Journal that is...) colleague Jon Ostrower.

Virginia Air National Guard F-22 Raptor pilots Major Jeremy Gordon and Captain Josh Wilson were on CBS's 60 Minutes tonight. While there were no major revelations, the two aviators added detail to what was already known.

The two working theories as to the root cause of the Raptor's oxygen system maladies are still a toss-up between either some sort of toxin or some sort of oxygen flow/quality problem--as I have reported since the beginning of this mess.  Though I will say some of the symptoms as described remind me of decompression sickness, but that's purely my own observation.

Of particular interest is the fact that the charcoal filters--which were added after last year's F-22 grounding was lifted--were breaking up and ending up in the pilots' air flow. This was causing some of the pilots to cough up some nasty black stuff...

The USAF has removed those filters and is apparently looking for a replacement. When that might happen is anyone's guess...

This problem was predicted by a good source of mine when the US Air Force started to consider lifting the flight ban last September. The charcoal filters were tested at Edwards AFB in California, but without G loads on the test card--so I was told. The source had predicted correctly that the filters would break-up and cause further problems (such as face full of carbon)--as has proven to be the case.

But the USAF was pretty seriously gunning for my head at the time, so I just left well enough alone for the time being...

 

Here is the 60 Minutes segment:

Here is Jeremy Gordon describing his symptoms:

Here is Josh Wilson describing his symptoms:

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USAF photo from last week's ceremony at Lockheed Martin's Marietta, Georgia, factory--this is the last Raptor ever.

The US Air Force has issued a new request for proposal for an Afghan Light Air Support aircraft program. Hopefully, it will work out better than the last time round with no one suing each other this time...

Read the story here.

 

It's for 20 turboprop attack aircraft worth about $355 million, with dubious prospects for further orders. Despite the tiny contract amount, there has been a disproportionate amount of attention paid to the program.

 

Not only that, Sierra Nevada/Embraer and Hawker Beechcraft are in what looks like a vicious winner take-all fight to the death (not literally). That's for an amount that's roughly worth not much more than a single Boeing C-17 Globemaster.

It was a close call for me on whether to run a story about a proposed aggressor fleet being pitched in support of future fighter pilot training by NATO nations on Flightglobal earlier this week, and also in the new issue of Flight International.

You can see the article in full here.

ECA Program boss Melville ten Cate says an April bond issue has raised €283 million ($375 million), and that this will enable his company to move ahead with the concept by announcing a platform selection by mid-May, before then seeking additional backing. Named candidates are the Saab Gripen, Chengdu J-10 and RSK MiG-35.

 

I immediately received correspondence about the ECA scheme questioning the solidity of its business case, which proposes selling training hours against an adversary fleet of around 24 lighweight fighters equipped with fifth-generation-type capabilities. Clearly there is a need for such a service from air forces unable to train under realistic combat conditions, but is this idea really going to be a flyer?

Ten Cate's philosophy is one of "if you build it then they will come", but there seem to be many doubters out there. I'll be keeping an eye on this one over the coming weeks, and hopefully there will be further developments to report on soon.

The US Navy has been laying the ground work for the F/A-XX since at least 2010- but a senior DoD official and a couple of retired Marine Generals are dubious about the whole effort. Read the story here.

The program is currently in the RFI stage (so technically it's not a program yet). The most important aspect of the whole effort is the engine, without which there will be no F/A-XX-- as Rear Admiral William Moran, N98, pointed out a couple of weeks ago at the Navy League convention.

According to this slide from an Office of Naval Research presentation by Rear Admiral Nevin Carr from at the Naval Energy Forum on August 25, 2010, the ONR predicted a Naval Variable Cycle Engine Technology program even back then.

Here is a slide from the presentation:
Click here for a link to the whole presentation

Major Jeremy Gordon and Captain Josh Wilson fly with the Virginia Air National Guard's 192d Fighter Wing, which is an associate wing of the USAF's 1st Fighter Wing at Joint Base Langley-Eustis. They are among the "very small number" of F-22 pilots, mentioned by Air Combat Command chief Gen Mike Hostage, who are refusing to fly the Raptor due to their concerns with the jet's oxygen system. This certainly explains the General's sudden public admission... he was preempting 60 Minutes--better to hear it from him than the news is probably his reasoning.

It's an unfortunate situation all around...

This shot was so awesome I had to post it twice... my congratulations to the Lockheed photographer who shot it.

My article on the last Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, Tail 10-4195, being delivered to the US Air Force is finally up.

When the jet leaves Marietta on Friday and flies home to Elmendorf, it will join the 525^th Fighter Squadron--commanded by Lt Col Paul "Max" Moga--as the squadron's flagship. Accompanying it will be 10-4193, which will become the new 3^rd Wing flagship.

USAF Photo- they had a much better camera than I did... I used a Blackberry.

While the two jets are the newest in the fleet, they won't be Elmendorf's most capable Raptors. The new aircraft are currently equipped with the Increment 2 configuration and will be upgraded with Increment 3.1 later.

The 3^rd Wing already has 10 Increment 3.1-equipped jets.

Meanwhile, the USAF is deferring adding an Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System and full Small Diameter Bomb capability on the forthcoming Increment 3.2B upgrade. The service already deleted the Multi-function Advanced Data-Link(MADL), which would have allowed the F-22 to share data with the F-35, years ago.

Deferring the Auto-GCAS seems troubling. Adding that feature was a specific recommendation by the USAF Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) looking into the Raptor's oxygen system woes.

Given that SAB recommendation, the USAF might consider coughing up the cash to integrate Auto-GCAS sooner rather than later. It probably would have saved at least two lives--those of Captain Jeff Haney and Lockheed Martin test pilot David Cooley.

The US Air Force took delivery of the last F-22 Raptor today at Lockheed Martin's plant in Marietta, Georgia.

It was a pretty elaborate affair with all the USAF big wigs like the chief, General Norton Schwartz, Air Combat Command boss General Mike Hostage, Pacific Air Forces commander General Gary North and a host of others.

Lockheed had its big wigs there too--CEO Bob Stevens, Aeronautics head Larry Lawson, and F-22 manager Jeff Babione all spoke during the ceremony.

And, of course, there legions of Lockheed and line USAF personnel--many of whom have worked on the program for decades. Which is a stark reminder that the Advanced Tactical Fighter effort originated in the early 1980s.

Overall, the mood was bittersweet since the USAF ended up with only a tiny fraction of the number of jets it wanted. 195 total--which breaks down into 187 production jets and 8 developmental test planes. Two have been lost, so the operational fleet consists of 185 jets.

Anyways, here are some pictures I took of the last jet 10-4195.

My original plan was to have a full article up on the news part of the site, but unfortunately technological glitches have scuttled that effort. So this will have to hold you guys over till the morning.

I have to say the music and animation at the beginning is actually much worse than anything you'll see in one of Lockheed Martin's F-35 videos. Anyways, here is a video of the Chengdu J-20--supposedly a Chinese fifth-generation fighter--but who really knows? Lots of speculation, not a lot of facts.

But in the video--are those civilians clambering all over that J-20? They are acting more like tourists than engineers. But once again, speculation.

Canada's Globe and Mail is reporting that a new secretariat within the Canadian government is urging a complete restart on that nation's Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter purchase.
The recommendation comes on the heels of a Canadian Auditor General's report that highlights problems with the purchase--which some estimates peg at $25 billion in Canadian currency.
"If the military were smart, they would do it themselves, unsolicited," one unnamed senior official told the Globe and Mail. "There seems to be an overwhelming public appetite to ask why [the government is] asking for this capability, and to be involved in a consideration of whether we should continue."
Canada's purchase of the F-35 is a hugely controversial issue in Canada. Much of the debate is over the selection process--critics contend that no alternatives were seriously considered. Canadian government and military officials say they thoroughly vetted alternatives.
There is no indication as of yet that the Canadian Department of National Defence is actually going to restart the F-35 procurement process. But if the country did cancel its buy, it could have serious diplomatic fall-out for Canada's security relationship with the US and other F-35 partner nations.
Based on previous conversations with leading Canadian defense and security experts including retired Lt Gen George McDonald, the former Canadian Forces vice-chief of staff, Robert Huebert at the University of Calgary, and Philippe Lagassé at the University of Ottawa, the real debate surrounding the F-35 is about Canada's role in the world.
While a conventional fighter, for example the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, could replace the existing Boeing CF-18 Hornets for air sovereignty missions to defend Canada's airspace, it wouldn't enable the country to participate in expeditionary warfare past about 2025.
The F-35, however, would enable the country to participate in coalition warfare during major combat operations past that timeframe. This would mean that the recently reborn Royal Canadian Air Force could take part in airstrikes on the first day of a war when enemy air defenses are still at their strongest.
So the debate really comes down to what does Canada want the RCAF to do? And what does Canada want its role in the world to be?

It's about to get even busier in the skies over London, with a major (well, by UK standards at least) exercise to test Olympic security plans to be conducted from 2-10 May.

Dubbed "Olympic Guardian", the activity will include operations with a pair of Eurofighter Typhoon interceptors from the Royal Air Force's Northolt base on the western edge of the capital. Their arrival from RAF Coninsgby should certainly turn a few heads on the A40, as will subsequent demonstrations of the type's quick reaction alert role (picture courtesy of BAE Systems).

 

"Most of the exercise will be played out in the public domain and the military aspects of it will result in a visible presence of armed forces personnel, ships and aircraft," the Ministry of Defence says.

Other kit likely to be seen in the skies above London and the home counties will include Royal Navy Westland Sea King 7 airborne surveillance and control system and RAF Eurocopter Puma transport helicopters, operating from Ilford. RN Lynx will also be flying from the deck of the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, which will be alongside in Greenwich for the duration.

But spotters and shoppers shouldn't get too excited, as the MoD notes that "there will be minimal low flying by various military aircraft" and that "this will be carried out at times which keep the disturbance to the minimum possible".

The security implications of hosting the Olympics have recently received major press coverage in the UK, after a pair of Typhoons rudely broke the silence during a cross-country supersonic dash to intercept a civilian helicopter a couple of weeks ago. Sonic booms are something that people simply aren't accustomed to hearing these days.

Opposition has also been voiced by some local residents faced with the prospect of having British Army Starstreak surface-to-air missile launchers temporarily located on the roof of their tower block near the Olympic stadium. I'm pretty sure though that people living in the aptly-named Shooters Hill can't have been surprised that Rapier missile batteries will be in their vicinity this week.

While I was unable to attend this (30 April) morning's briefing at Joint Base Langley-Eustis down in Hampton, Virginia, press reports from the event indicate that the US Air Force is admitting that a "small number" of Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor pilots are refusing to fly the jet.

"Obviously it's a very sensitive thing because we are trying to ensure that the community fully understands all that we're doing to try to get to a solution," says Air Combat Command chief Gen Mike Hostage as quoted by the Associated Press.

The USAF has not found the root cause of 11 hypoxia-like cases since the Raptor fleet returned to flight in September after a near five-month stand-down.  The F-22 fleet has flown about 12,000 times since then.

Incidentally, I had known that several pilots were planning on asking not to fly the Raptor for weeks, but could not report it because it might compromise the sources. I had asked USAF PA to confirm on the record--this appears to be it.

Hostage told the assembled reporters at Langley that he would get himself checked out in the Raptor and fly the jet until the cause of the F-22's oxygen woes are discovered and fixed.

"I'm going to check out and fly the airplane so I can understand exactly what it is they're dealing with. The day we figure out what the problem is I will stop flying because we don't have enough sorties for all of our combat aviators to get as much training as they need," Hostage says--via AP.

Hostage did address the recent reports of the F-22 deploying to Al Dhafra, in the United Arab Emirates. But he wouldn't confirm where the jet was deployed to, or where the aircraft came from--though the jet has deployed to Al Dhafra before.

However, I have it on good authority that the jets came from the 7^th Fighter Squadron at the 49^th Wing, based at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. My understanding is that this was simply part of their Air Expeditionary Forces rotation.

Indeed, Hostage says the deployment was previously planned.

Incidentally, I'm off to Marietta, Georgia, in the morning to attend the delivery ceremony for the last jet 10-4195 on 2 May.