The DEW Line

And the MMRCA lowest-cost bidder is (drum roll) ...

2012-01-31T13:36:27Z

Flightglobal defence editor Craig Hoyle has confirmed the Dassault Rafale has been selected as the lowest-cost bidder for the Indian Air Force's medium, multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) contract.

Please ignore, for the moment, the sound of Veuve Clicquot corks popping all over Bordeaux-Merignac.

We've been down this runway before with the Rafale. The French have demonstrated a knack for fumbling away deals even after they seemed to eliminate all of the competition (cough-Morocco, cough-cough Brazil, cough-cough-cough United Arab Emirates).

On the other hand, the MMRCA deal is structured in a way that makes it extremely improbable for the highest-cost bidder -- the Eurofighter Typhoon -- to come away with the contract. But we will see. Crazier things have indeed happened.

A Rafale victory means one thing for sure: Europe will continue to build three different fighters through the end of this decade, as well as begin to absorb the first F-35s. Now who'd have ever thunk that?

PICTURES: Northrop adapts B-2's flying wing into airliner for NASA study

2012-01-17T18:09:59Z

NASA two years ago challenged three aircraft makers -- Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman -- to design a next-generation airliner. Boeing's and Lockheed's designs have been revealed before. Northrop's concept finally was unveiled last week at the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics Sciences Meeting in Nashville.

It's the first airliner optimized for radar cross section! (Well, that's one way for airlines to get around slot restrictions at LHR.)

Seriously, NASA originally planned to analyze all three concepts and select a single design to build a 737-sized subscale test vehicle. That programme is now on hold due to funding cutbacks.

But Northrop is unlikely to walk away from the concept forever. Company officials emailed us another another image showing a concept for a next-generation military airlifter based on the same technology. In two decades, the USAF will likely need to start replacing the Lockheed Martin C-5A fleet. It's a requirement already being eyed by Boeing with the subscale X-48 blended wing body, and by Lockheed with the Speed Agile concept. It's now clear that Northrop plans to compete for the contract, if it ever comes.

Chief skunk on 6th-gen fighters, 2-seat F-35s & classified UAVs

2012-01-11T16:41:03Z

NASHVILLE, Tennessee -- It was a presentation this morning by Alton "Al" Romig, the new chief of the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, on unmanned air vehicle technology, so you know he had to say something about the RQ-170 Sentinel. Anticipation only grew as he began his lecture to the 50th annual Sciences Meeting of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) with this sentence:

"I want to tickle your curiousity with the art of the possible," Romig said. (ED: Go onnnn ...)

Alas, even among his peers, Romig stuck to the unclassified, non-proprietary script on the RQ-170, which was referenced in text-form only on his second slide. Yes, the RQ-170 exists, he conceded. "And before you can ask me, that's all I can say about that," he said.

(ED: Right. Moving along then.)

On the subject of UAVs, Romig allowed that Skunk Works has much more than the RQ-170 in its classified product stable. "There's a whole large collection of classified programmes (within Lockheed) in the area of small UAVs," Romig said.

A major effort at Skunk Works is now underway to make UAVs more autonomous. Internal demonstrations have proven that a single operator can control more than two UAVs simultaneously. "How large that number can get is unclear," he said.

Intriguingly, Romig said that if the US Air Force returns to the days of "back-seat" electronic warfare officers, the F-35 could control a swarm of four "buddy" UAVs. He didn't directly say that Lockheed is considering two-seat F-35s, but the possibility tanatalises. (Two years ago, we reported that Israeli industry officials already anticipated the emergence of a two-seat F-35 eventually.)

In the short clip below, Romig answers an audience member's question about the the possibility of a sixth generation fighter.

Decision week for India's MMRCA contract?

2012-01-08T23:09:34Z

Photo by Katsushiko Tokunaga via Eurofighter

Eleven years after it all started, India's, er, patient acquisition process may yield a final downselect for the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) contract later this week -- or maybe next month, or -- since we are talking about India -- next (fill in the blank).

But the two survivors of India's technical and cost evaluations -- the Dassault Rafale and the Eurofighter Tyhpoon (pictured) -- are probably optimistic of short-term closure, if not victory.

In Paris, the La Tribune seems hesitant. The Rafale "should" be cheaper than the Typhoon, the newspaper reports, noting also this may overcome the Indian air force's technical preference for the non-French competitor.

In London, The Telegraph also worries the Typhoon may be too pricey. The article quotes Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton acknowledging the Rafale has an advantage on up-front costs. But the Telegraph also a source in New Dehli, who confides the air force judges the Typhoon superior technically.

Not least, in India, the IDRW news network counts the rumours floating around New Dehli, and decides the pro-Typhoon rumours out-number the Rafale.

PICTURE: Lockheed reveals concept aircraft for post-F-22 replacement

2012-01-04T21:22:05Z

Lockheed Martin's 2012 calendar -- which your blogger received in the mail but casually deposited, unopened, in the trash -- contained the company's first concept design for a sixth generation fighter to succeed the F-22 after 2030.

Call her "Miss February".

The US Air Force has already started the search for the F-X fighter to replace the F-22 after 2030. Boeing and Northrop Grumman have already revealed their concept designs. But the conceptual ideas of the USAF's sole fighter supplier had been a closely guarded mystery. Conceptual aircraft designs should not be mistaken for prototype blueprints, but they do offer some insight into the starting assumptions and philosophies.

We asked Lockheed to describe the philosophy behind this concept drawing. Here is the company's emailed response in full:

This concept originates from our Advanced Development Programs group called the Skunk Works®. The Skunk Works primary objective is to aggressively pursue next generation technology programs and conduct research and development that will allow it to rapidly respond to customer needs. U.S. 5th generation fighters are now operational with the F-22 in the USAF and F-35 soon to be operational for USAF, USN, USMC and our international partners. As with the 4th generation fighters (F-15, F-16, F-18), 5th Gen is poised for growth, and will go through a process of capability upgrades over their service lives. As such, they will be operationally relevant for decades to come. Even with that, it is time to start looking at the technologies that will provide the next quantum leap in capabilities for the next generation of fighters (IOC ~ 2030+). Simply removing the pilot from an aircraft or introducing incremental improvements in signature and range does not constitute a generational leap in capability. These improvements are already being looked at for our 5th generation fighters.

Future fighter requirements are not set and will depend on assessments of future threats that may emerge in the 2030 time frame. Greatly increased speed, longer range, extended loiter times, multi-spectral stealth, ubiquitous situation awareness, and self-healing structures and systems are some of the possible technologies we envision for the next generation of fighter aircraft. Next generation fighter capabilities will be driven by game changing technological breakthroughs in the areas of propulsion, materials, power generation, sensors, and weapons that are yet to be fully imagined. This will require another significant investment in research and development from a standpoint of both time and money. We will continue to investigate technologies that demonstrate great promise, and work closely with our customers to define the future operational concepts and requirements that the next generation of fighter aircraft must fulfill.

Almost hot off the presses - Latest F-35 master plan

2012-01-03T16:26:16Z

Mark your calendars.

Thanks to ELP's blog for discovering this five-month-old presentation (see Ebersole brief), Here's what the F-35 is supposed to do over the next five years. The clock on LRIP-4 started last year. LRIP-5 is getting sorted out now, although it technically should have been awarded before 1 October 2011.

The timing for Block 2B, 3I and 3C (3F) are currently being reviewed, according to the chart. However, if one was forced to guess, a rightward shift is probably the safest bet, given programme history. It will be interesting to learn which weapons could be accelerated into Block 2B.

POLL: Pick airpower's winners and losers in 2012

2012-01-01T20:50:46Z

1. Lockheed Martin F-35

2. Leftovers from 2011

3. Themes

4. Good-byes

5. Winners

BREAKING: USAF web site confirms Saudi Arabia sale

2011-12-29T12:48:50Z

A US Air Force web site appears to confirm the blockbuster Boeing F-15SA sale to Saudi Arabia. [UPDATE: Within two hours of my blog post, the USAF removed the image from the web site.]

The picture shown above was released to a USAF web site at 3:31pm on 28 December. That means the image appeared several hours before the Associated Press reported the deal would be announced soon by the Obama Administration. So far, the White House has not formally announced the order has been signed by the Saudi government.

Negotiations over the deal have dragged on for more than a year. The US government notified Congress in October last year that the Saudis had requested a possible $30 billion F-15 order. It would include 84 new F-15SAs with active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars and AESA installations on the Saudi air force's 70 F-15SAs. But a deal was not signed for more than a year. In October, Boeing chief executive Jim McNerney assured market analysts that a deal could be imminent, explaining without elaborating that the death of Saudi Crown Prince Sultan Ibn Abdul-Aziz could accelerate the process.

How an A-12 Avenger II canopy landed on eBay [UPDATE]

2011-12-23T20:14:21Z

Seth Kettleman makes a living buying and selling surplus aircraft machinery on the web. In late November, a strange item popped up on GovDeals.com: an A-12 Avenger II fighter canopy. Kettleman had never heard of the A-12, but he was intrigued so he started Googling. He read that the highly classified A-12 had been canceled in 1991. He also read that the A-12 was canceled before McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics assembled the first aircraft.

Kettleman decided it was worth a gamble, and won an online auction with a $2,300 bid.

After examining the merchandise, Kettleman decided it was the real thing. To his mind, Kettleman now owned the only known artifact of the A-12 programme. Sure, there is a wooden mock-up languishing on the back-lot of a military airport in Forth Worth, Texas, but this canopy may be the real thing. Kettleman has seen small panels of the Lockheed SR-71 sell for more than $500,000 in online auctions. But he doesn't own a small panel. He owns an entire canopy of the A-12 (maybe). [UPDATE: Kettleman says: "The canopy has now been verified as authentic. It was a production unit for the A-12 Avenger II manufactured by McAir (Division of McDonnell Douglas). The canopy must have a hundred or so individual serial numbers and manufacturing data marked on it. These numbers and individual pieces have been verified as authentic parts from the program."

Kettleman's canopy is now for sale on eBay for $620,238. (Note: If you are still looking for our Christmas present, this would be really perfect. Just saying.)

That, of course, assumes Kettleman owns the real thing. And that's where the story gets complicated.

GovDeals told us that the canopy was posted by the aviation department of Purdue University. That's where the canopy has been for more than 15 years. Nobody in Purdue's aviation department knows how it got there. The canopy didn't even belong to the aeronautical engineering department, which operates research wind tunnels. The aviation department teaches students how to become pilots, not design canopies for stealthy fighter jets. One day it just showed up in the back of the hangar, and nobody touched it for more than 15 years. A couple months ago, the department decided to get rid of it, a Purdue spokesman said. They thought about selling it for scrap worth about $700, but decided it may be worth more at auction on the relatively obscure GovDeals site.

Litigation for the A-12 cancellation likely made a lot of lawyers very rich. But nobody will make a better return on the A-12 than Kettleman, if he finds a buyer. He may never snag a $620,000 offer, but he will surely get a lot more than $2,300.

F-22 crash mystery finally explained

2011-12-14T21:53:42Z

The US Air Force has ended the mystery of what happened to the Lockheed Martin F-22 that crashed on 16 November 2010.

According to the newly-released accident investigation board report, the cause wasn't the onboard oxygen generation system (OBOGS), although it did stop working. Instead, the pilot apparently struggled to activate the back-up oxygen system so much he inadvertently flipped the F-22 over into a steep dive while contorting his body to pull the tiny ring tucked into the side of his ejection seat.

F-22 oxygen system malfunctioned moments before crash
By: Stephen Trimble Washington DC

A US Air Force report says the regular oxygen system stopped working before a fatal Lockheed Martin F-22 crash in Alaska last November.
The accident investigation board still blames the accident on the pilot, Captain Jeffrey Haney, who failed to activate an emergency oxygen supply that could have saved his life and the aircraft.
But the failure of an engine bleed air system that feeds the Honeywell onboard oxygen generation system (OBOGS) in the moments before the crash is a new twist in the evolving story.
[Click on the headline to ready the full story.]

F-22 assembly line fades into history

2011-12-13T18:34:39Z

There are now four active fighter assembly lines in the US, one less than a few hours ago.

Lockheed Martin confirms that F-22 tail number 4195 rolled off the assembly line earlier this morning. The last of the 185 operational F-22s has now moved to the flight line, with final delivery to the US Air Force early in the second quarter.

The closure of the F-22 assembly line caps a painful year for the programme. In January, the investigation of a mysterious F-22 crash last November in Alaska was just beginning. Pacific Air Forces Command still has not released the report by the accident investigation board. The F-22 was withheld from operations in Libya. Concerns about onboard oxygen generating system also prompted two fleet-wide groundings during the year, and the cause of the problem is still unknown.

Lockheed rolled out F-22 tail number 4001 in April 1997, the first of nine flight test aircraft. Development delays and cost overruns forced the USAF to reduce the original 750-aircraft programme to about 330 by 2000. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumseld trimmed the final number in 2006 to 187, and two aircraft have since been lost to crashes.

(Photo by Lockheed Martin)

MUST-READ: F-35 concurrency report

2011-12-13T13:52:24Z

A damaging report on the F-35 concurrency strategy is in the news this morning. Flightglobal, Ares and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram have the story, and each account is based on the same leaked Pentagon report.

Read the full 20-page report by clicking here: F35 concurrency report.pdf

The report takes aim at the amount of concurrency risk in the F-35 programme. Concurrency risk measures the downside on cost of producing aircraft before completing all development. Nearly all modern commercial and military aviation programmes rely on some overlap in the development and production phases, but the F-35 acquisition plan takes this to a whole new level, according to the report. The F-35 concurrency strategy was based on certain assumptions about the accuracy of modern design tools that have proved invalid, the report says.

As a result, the Department of Defense should scrap the current acquisition plan based on automatic, yearly production increases, and allow the rate to increase as tests develop.

The report also contains the most comprehensive look at all of the ongoing and likely future design problems with the F-35 programme. None of the problems are categorised in the report as significant enough to merit halting production.

Predator C heading to Afghanistan, packing a 2,000-pounder

2011-12-12T18:49:10Z

The US Air Force in Afghanistan has given itself an early Christmas present -- a General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Predator C Avenger.

The jet-powered, stealthy unmanned air system (UAS) with -- and this is important -- an internal weapons bay is going to Afghanistan.

The Aeronautical Systems Center on 9 December released a document justifying why the service needs to award a sole-source contract to General Atomics for a Predator C to deploy to Operation Enduring Freedom as a test aircraft.

With the Avenger, the USAF's "classified customer" will have an aircraft that can drop 900kg (2,000lb) bombs. (Note to the underground residents of Natanz and Qoms: GBU-24 penetrator bombs weigh about 900kg. Just, um, FYI.)

By the way, don't think the Predator C is intended to replace the hostage Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel. The 9 December notice says the USAF started the process of buying the Predator C on 5 July.

Iran: We will reverse engineer RQ-170

2011-12-08T22:56:24Z

Iran Press TV reports this evening:

Iran has announced that it intends to carry out reverse engineering on the captured RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft, which is also known as the Beast of Kandahar, and is similar in design to a US Air Force B-2 stealth bomber.

We have a few thoughts for our friends in Iran.

First: You're supposed to be ashamed about the whole reverse engineering thing. Yes, it's true former Nazi rocket scientists got US astronauts on the moon, but at least NASA had the decency to leave that part out of the press release.

Second: The RQ-170 and the B-2 are both lifting bodies, but that's probably where the similarities end. As far as lifting bodies go, you might have learned more by Googling "horton brothers" and "northrop yb-49".

Third: What the heck happened to the landing gear?

Fourth: If you figure out where the RQ-170's intelligence-gathering sensor is, please tell us. It's been driving us crazy, and all your videos and pictures just make it more frustrating.

Five: Admit it. Even you didn't realize the RQ-170 is that small.

Six: Ran out of gas? Yeah, even we think that's hilarious.

PICTURE: Raptor snapshots by the Rafale

2011-12-08T11:40:31Z

At LIMA 2011 air show in Malaysia, Dassault released a set of imagery from an apparent engagement between the Rafale and the Lockheed Martin F-22. One of the images have been released before, and it came from the sort-of-friendly fighter jet show-down in November 2009 at Al Dhafra AB, United Arab Emirates.

The imagery was released as part of a plug for the Rafale's infrared search and track sensor, called the Thales front sector optronics system.

These are desperate times for Dassault's fighter programme. The manufacturing house that produced the Mirage and Rafale fighter series has lost a series of competitions, including most recently in Switzerland. Defense Minister Gerard Longuet warned yesterday that the Rafale line will be closed in the absence of export orders. That may seem like merely stating the obvious, but the timing of Longuet's statement makes it a warning. India is rumoured to be set to announce tomorrow the outcome of the competition for the medium multi-rote combat aircraft (MMRCA), with only the Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon still in the running.