The DEW Line

Boeing's KC-X bid won't go hiking on Appalachian Trail

2009-11-06T15:17:00Z

Boeing decided last week to move the second 787 production line to Charleston, South Carolina. As a primarily military aviation journalist, I, of course, immediately wondered what this means for Boeing's KC-X tanker bid. (I apparently wasn't the only one.)

The 787 move to Charleston potentially shifts South Carolina's GOP-leaning political delegation into the pro-Boeing camp, perhaps helping offset Northrop Grumman's support from Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia. South Carolina already had reason to be miffed. Remember during the last competition when Northrop Grumman spurned South Carolina for the final boom assembly location?

But I also wondered if there might be an industrial angle to Charleston/KC-X story.

Boeing told me in September that they were looking for a low-cost location for the KC-X finishing center, perhaps shifting the work away from Wichita, Kansas.

So I asked Boeing's KC-X spokesman last week if Charleston was in the running. I got a surprisingly direct answer a few days later.

"Our answer is no," the spokesman said.

Well, thank you. That answers that - sort of. So if Charleston is ruled out, where could Boeing install the finishing center if they win the KC-X contract? The answer is not trivial because it comes with both cost and political consequences.

Hmm ... could it be here?

F-35 saves ... Cleveland?

2009-11-05T12:15:53Z

Source: Alcoa

Alcoa's famed Cleveland Works builds the single-piece, aluminum bulkheads for the Lockheed Martin F-35, perhaps the most complex and expensive structural parts of the aircraft.

So Lockheed must have been very worried a year ago when Alcoa decided to shut down the massive, 50,000-ton hydraulic press -- a Cold War industrial monument -- rather than invest $68 million to fix a crack in the foundation. The shutdown threat spread concerns far beyond the F-35 program. It would have added more devastation to the Cleveland economy, and eliminated one of the USA's most important domestic manufacturing capabilities.

Happily, that situation now appears resolved. Thanks to massive state and local tax subsidies, and the long-term commitment of the F-35 full-rate production, Aloca has decided to repair the famed press.

Bloomberg reports today:

Alcoa to Fix Largest Cold War Era Press to Build F-35 Parts
Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Alcoa Inc., the largest U.S. aluminum producer, is set to invest $110 million to repair one of the nation's biggest pieces of industrial machinery to help boost output for Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-35 fighter jet.
The 50,000-ton Cleveland Works press, which has been out of service for more than a year, will be completely disassembled and renovated, said Bill Christopher, head of Alcoa's engineered-products division. New York-based Alcoa aims to complete the project by the end of 2011's second quarter, aided by $21 million in state and local tax credits.

Winner: Most interesting air force press release

2009-11-03T00:11:23Z

A thousand bonus points to the South African Air Force for managing to write this news release with an exclamation point and a hint of humor:

Astra lands minus passenger
By Dean Wingrin
In a highly unusual incident, a SAAF Astra training aircraft landed with one person less than which it took off!
The PC-7 MkII Astra, a two-seat training aircraft, is the aircraft flown by the SAAF's Silver Falcon aerobatic team. A member of the aerobatic team, Capt Gerhard Lourens, who occupies the number four position in the five man team, was flying with a passenger in the rear seat yesterday when the passenger unintentionally initiated the ejection seat.
The ejection seat is normally only used when the pilots need to exit the aircraft in a dire emergency as the aircraft is about to crash.
The unknown passenger landed without serious injury, apart from that to their pride. The Astra landed safely, but has suffered damage from the ejection.

USAF: No jets for you, Afghanistan!

2009-11-02T18:34:01Z

The US Air Force's acquisition community apparently has gone all 'soup Nazi' on the Afghan National Army Air Corps.

A market survey released last week by the Aeronautical Systems Command on behalf of the ANAAC basically rules out vendors selling light attack jets.

That's despite a) the availability of two jet fighters for ANAAC's requirement, and b) the USAF's top combat adviser in Afghanistan publicly saying that only jets are suitable.

The ASC solicitation twice says it wants intdustry to submit data on only turboprops for Afghanistan's light attack fighter requirement.

I reported in late September that AleniaAermacchi wants to pitch surplus Italian Air Force AMX jets. A few days later, I met with ANAAC chief Maj Gen Mohammed Dawran and USAF Col Brad Grambo in Naples, Italy. In addition to confirming that the Aero Vodochody L-159 was another candidate, Grambo outspokenly endorsed jets as the only sensible option for Afghanistan's terrain.

"It's a country the size of Texas," Grambo told me. "How are you going to cover that with a [turboprop] aircraft that cruises around at 200-250kt [370-460km/h]?"

VIDEO: Meet KAI's UAV line-up

2009-11-02T13:28:49Z

Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI) made a big splash at the Seoul Air Show a couple of weeks ago, showing off an Avenger-like unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV). KAI also released a video that introduces several new design concepts for unmanned air vehicles.

How to build the F-35 center fuselage

2009-10-30T15:10:01Z

Northrop Grumman has started building the center fuselage for the first international F-35 -- BK-1, ordered by the United Kingdom. In hono(u)r of the occasion, I build a flow-chart based on Lockheed Martin images showing 12 major steps in the center fuselage assembly process. Note: The chart describes the conventional take-off and landing variants center fuselage, but BK-1 is a short-takeoff-vertical-landing version.

F-22 gets $474 million parting gift

2009-10-29T21:37:10Z

Only one day after President Barack Obama signed a defense bill authorizing the shutdown of the F-22 production line, the US Air Force announced signing a contract to buy the last four F-22s.

Lockheed Martin Corp., of Fort Worth, Texas was awarded a $474,200,000 contract which will provide for the issuance of full production of four F-22 Lot 10 air vehicles, alternate mission equipment, production engineering support and work in process through Aug. 11, 2009 for 16 shipsets of raw material aircraft fuselage titanium. 478 AESG/PK, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio is the contracting activity (FA8611-09-C-2900,P00007).

The notice shows all hope for the F-22's future within the USAF apparently died on August 11, when Lockheed's supply chain stopped work on titanium to build 16 more stealth fighters. Let the record show that was three weeks after Senate authorizers voted to kill the F-22, but nearly one month before Senate appropriators followed suit.

Although I called it a 'parting gift' in the headline, yes, I do realize more money is coming. Lockheed now has to negotiate a program termination fee. The USAF also plans to spend some $8 billion to upgrade all 186 F-22s, including the last four purchased above. The only question left is whether the last F-22 contract will be paid in yen.

F-35 hearts Seoul

2009-10-29T16:01:40Z

Lockheed Martin has doubled-down on its F-35 proposal to South Korea, my colleague in Singapore Siva Govindasamy reports.

To steal a contract that presumably favors Boeing's V-tailed F-15 Silent Eagle, Lockheed sales veep Steve O'Bryan made the following promises at the Seoul Air Show last week:

Delivery slots in 2014
Second-tier supplier deals
Final assembly role in South Korea

Lockheed's sales pitch also appeared to get the full support of the US government. In a pre-show interview with the english-language Korean Times, top US Air Force weapons salesman (ahem, I mean, deputy undersecretary) Bruce Lemkin suggested the F-35 would be an excellent choice for the KF-X contract. If Lemkin mentioned the Boeing F-15SE, the reporter didn't note it.

'Father of Su-27' Simonov: F-15 hater

2009-10-28T16:59:12Z

Mikhail Petrovich Simonov, designer of the iconic Su-27 Flanker, realized after the 1977 first flight that the T-10 prototype was a dog, a fact he explained to the aviation minister in Moscow.

"'It's a good thing, Petrovich, that today is not 1937," the minister replied.

That is one of the incredible anecdotes sprinkled throughout a Simonov feature published today in the London Telegraph. The article is a must read for anyone even slightly curious about aviation history. For example, we learn the lead designer's delightfully Russian reaction to Simonov's proposed solution to the T-10's problem, which involved moving a belly storage compartment onto the top of the fuselage.

"'Why don't you, Mikhail Petrovich, go to your wife," the designer shouted, "and ask her to move her breasts onto her back?! We'll see how useful she will be then!'"

But the best -- and most newsy -- part of the feature is about Simonov's views about the F-15's performance compared to the Su-27. Simonov is obviously biased, but he makes some interesting points. Simonov described what he believes happened when Russian Su-27s and American F-15s 'fought' during a 1990s exercise.

"The F-15 constantly needed to make a kind of a "step" - fly along a straight line for a certain period of time. The Russian pilots took advantage of that - they persuaded the Americans to go upward, at which point they lost speed, and the Sus, having made a sharp turn, found themselves on the tail of the enemy. A moment later and the target was "destroyed"."

Simonov also revealed what he thinks about the Indian's Su-30MKI's recent run-ins with American fighters.

Thus, when the Americans learnt that India had acquired the more advanced Su-30s, they decided to pay them a visit. In their exercises they decided to use the improved F-15. The result of the meeting was 6:4 in favour of the Su-30. However, instead of the Su-30MKI, the Indians used the ordinary training Su-30, a machine without the new radar or thrust vector control. The next time Americans arrived in India, they brought the improved F-16.
"This fighter jet is smaller and lighter than our Su-30," says Simonov. "Thus, logically, it ought to be more manoeuvrable and win in close combat. But everything was exactly the opposite. Su-30MKIs were used. The defeat was unquestionable."

VIDEO: Northrop KC-X tanker campaign 'goes negative'

2009-10-28T15:03:50Z

Watch Northrop's full presentation in four parts on YouTube:

Northrop Grumman hosted a press conference today to deliver a specific message: the company wants wholesale changes made to the US Air Force's draft requirements for a KC-135R tanker replacement contract.

If KC-X were a political campaign, pundits would say Northrop's candidate for the coveted KC-X deal has "gone negative". But the twist is that Northrop isn't bothering to criticize it's rival (Boeing KC-7A7 bid). Instead, Northrop's complaints are focused on how its customer is proposing to evaluate the final bids. Following the political analogy, it might be like a politician bashing voters for the way they think.

But Northrop's bottom line still isn't clear. The company won't say what it will do if the USAF doesn't make substantial change to its acquisition strategy. Off camera, I asked Bill Welser, Northrop vice president for air mobility, if Northrop believes its tanker bid can win under the draft requirements. Welser replied that he'd have to wait to see the final requirements. After I repeated that I had asked about the draft requirements, Welser again dodged a direct reply: "We can design an aircraft that meets the requirement," he says.

US Air Force probes structrual viability of EC-130H Compass Calls

2009-10-28T00:13:58Z

The US Air Force has revealed that the structural health of its primary airborne electronic attack platform, the EC-130H Compass Call, is under review by a fleet viability board.

The board's members will determine by January how the airframes of the 14-aircraft Compass Call fleet have held up after nearly a decade of hyper-activity, says Col Stephen Brown, chief of electronic warfare requirements.

The US Air Force's primary system for jamming communications systems has been in high demand in both Afghanistan and Iraq, presumably for disrupting the comparatively primitive command and control networks of insurgents and jamming the triggering devices for improvised explosive devices.

The Compass Call fleet has operated at a rate 2.5 times greater than planned, Brown says in an interview. But it's not clear if any major concerns prompted USAF officials to call for the fleet viability board review.

"I'm not gong to say it was a worry or a concern," Brown says.

The results of the review will be closely scrutinized by the joint community. The Compass Calls are not only in high demand in current operations, but are the primary aerial weapon for jamming or disrupting enemy communications in a "near-peer" conflict.

Moreover, the Compass Call's future viability is a hot issue within the USAF. By default, the EC-130H fleet now stands as a pillar of the USAF's airborne electronic attack strategy, with the final demise earlier this year of a plan to convert some B-52s into standoff broadband signals jammers. Brown confirms the B-52 core component jammer programme was canceled because a broadband jammer was not deemed cost-effective.

If the Compass Call viability review finds any problems, the USAF could be faced with an unplanned, and expensive, repair or replacement bill. USAF officials have previously stated that WC-130s or TC-130s, or both, could be converted into EC-130Hs if the demand required it.

The US Navy is also starting to field its own communications jamming system. The Boeing EA-18G Growler carries the Raytheon ALQ-227 communications countermeasures set.

The US Army also appears interested in creating a similar capability by repackaging the ALQ-227 into a jamming pod that can be carried by unmanned aircraft system such as the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc MQ-1C Sky Warrior.

Raytheon job ad reveals big upgrade for Sky Warrior

2009-10-27T12:50:37Z

Who needs a PR staff when you can just browse job ads for news?

Consider this new ad posted by Raytheon seeking to hire a program manager in Dallas.

Manager III-Program Management

In November of 2007, the U.S. Army selected RTN to provide a common sensor payload for manned and unmanned aircraft in a program that could represent more than $1 billion in potential sales. CSP was awarded to Raytheon Army contract to provide the electro-optic/infrared/laser designator (EO/IR/LD) payload for use on the Army's Extended Range Multi-Purpose (ERMP) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

In response to a recent army RFQ, RTN has proposed a significant upgrade program to the baseline CSP configuration to include High Definition (HD) EO/IR capability and Target Location Accuracy (TLA) enhancements. This position is the program manager (PM) of the CSP TLA/HD (approx $30M) development program. The selected individual will be responsible for managing all aspects of the development program including start up, gate reviews, customer reviews, customer daily interface, supplier management, build of 6 integration and test systems, quality testing and flight testing. It is anticipated the CSP TLA/HD development program will result in retrofit of up to 100 baseline CSP systems and this position would manage the follow-on retrofit business. The TLA/HD upgrade program will be run in parallel with the CSP IDIQ base program and will require integration and leveraging with the on-going CSP production program

Skunks ask: What if F-22 was smaller, unmanned & had 2 noses?

2009-10-26T12:59:38Z

Has anybody heard of the Sabre Warrior UCAV?

This video has been on YouTube since May 2008, but hasn't received nearly the attention it deserves.

Only one reference to the Sabre Warrior has appeared in print, and that was about a decade ago. An Associated Press story on April 17, 1999, quotes Armand Chaput, then-Lockheed Martin's director for unmanned combat air vehicles, who gave a lecture at the University of Toledo.

"Chaput showed Toledo engineering students video animations of several Lockheed-Martin projects, complete with video game-style fires and explosions.
One, the Sabre Warrior, was portrayed taking off from an airfield at night, receiving computerized target instructions from soldiers hidden inside enemy lines, and dropping bombs that destroy a convoy of tanks and other armored equipment.
Chaput also showed a video animation of a proposed unmanned plane that would take off from a submarine, unfold its wings while floating to the surface, fly to a target, drop bombs and return to the submarine, where it would be serviced by robots."

VIDEO: Seoul Air Show 2009 recap

2009-10-26T12:35:53Z

Flightglobal's Asia bureau chief Siva Govindasamy covered the Seoul Air Show last week, and published two big program updates on KF-X and AH-X.

Seoul could revive KF-16 plans

KAI reveals options for army attack helicopter

A tourist also posted great video of the static line and exhibit halls on You Tube. The soundtrack is a little cheesy, but the footage is worth the minor annoyance.

Lockheed dogfights F-35 JET

2009-10-23T19:22:55Z

Quoting a single, anonymous source, InsideDefense.com today reported that the Pentagon's Joint Estimating Team (JET) has concluded the F-35 faces another multi-billion dollar overrun and more schedule delays. If true, the JET might have simply re-affirmed the conclusions in last year's report (click here -- see page 8) , which projected a nearly $7 billion overrun and a two-year delay. Or JET's outlook for the program could have worsened over the past year, as the InsideDefense.com story suggests.

The Pentagon won't confirm the InsideDefense.com article, or even comment on whether the JET has finished their work. The JET is a composite of the secretary of defense's cost analysis improvement group, and estimating teams from each of the services.

Whatever the status of the JET report is, however, Lockheed Martin disagrees with the conclusions. The company has released this statement in response to the InsideDefense.com scoop:

Lockheed Martin and our industry partners recognize the Joint Estimate Team's earnest efforts to predict F-35 program costs and schedules as part of the annual DoD budget planning process. However, we disagree with their conclusions, which we believe are driven by legacy-based assumptions regarding the time required to deliver the remaining SDD aircraft, complete development, and conduct the flight test campaign.

This has been Lockheed's point all along: the JET is basing their projections on the experience of previous fighter programs, such as the F-16, F-15 and F-4. But, according to Lockheed, F-35 development has engineering and simulation resources far beyond anything those programs ever had. In Lockheed's view, the F-35's few flight tests achieved to date is not a warning sign. In fact, Lockheed argues that it simply means it's too early to judge whether the program office's predictions are inaccurate. Lockheed says:

The program is early in the flight test phase, so it is much too soon conclude that the expected payoffs will not be realized. Lockheed Martin acknowledges that modest risks to our cost and schedule baselines exist, but we envision no scenario that would justify a substantial delay to completion of development or transition to production milestones.