Recently in Defense With an 'S' Category

Welcome back to The DEW Line after this blog’s extended hiatus for the holidays.

To kick things off for 2008, I’m going to share with you the fruits of a little investigative project of mine over the holiday break.

Using the Way Back Machine (thank you, Jon Ostrower – aka “Flightblogger”), I hunted for any changes in the US military’s official performance specifications for its major aerospace programs.

The Way Back Machine is an archive of millions of web pages, allowing you to track changes made to individual web pages over time. The US military keeps “fact files” on all the major weapon systems, allowing snoops like me a chance to prowl for any changes in their official performance record.

I wasn’t looking for news so much as hoping to dig up questions.

In that spirit, I didn’t find a great deal of meaningful performance changes, but a few interesting fact file tweaks did appear. Here they are:

1. The US Navy has quietly increased the maximum takeoff weight for the Boeing P-8A by two tons, from 184,200 pounds to 188,200 pounds. This is not scandalous, even despite aircraft weight challenges that have plagued the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and doomed the original Aerial Common Sensor. But it raises the question, why? The P-8A is the Boeing 737-800ERX, a derivative that blends the 737-800 fuselage with the extra fuel capacity of the 737-900ER wing. The new maximum gross weight remains within the 737’s previously-established limits, but would seem to eat deeply into the potential for growth margin as the program’s design matures. This is definitely a question for my next interview with the US Navy or Boeing on the P-8A.

2. The US Air Force appears to have declassified the supercruise speed for the Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor. The air force’s fact sheet previously listed the F-22’s speed as “Mach 2+”. But the fact file’s speed listing was updated in October 2007 to read “1,140 miles per hour (Mach 1.72); supercruise at altitude”. This clearly means that the USAF has clarified the F-22’s supercruise speed, but the still-classified maximum speed is presumably still somewhere in the region of Mach 2.5. But, again, that’s another good question for the next time I talk to Lockheed’s Larry Lawson.

3. Probably most puzzling change occurred with the BellBoeing CV-22 Osprey, the Air Force Special Operations bird. In November 2007, the USAF updated the fact sheet, boosting the CV-22’s maximum speed from “218 miles per hour (230 knots)” to “277 miles per hour (241 knots)”. The 218 mph number is obviously a typo, as 230 knots actually converts to about 260mph. Regardless, somehow, the CV-22 picked up some extra speed during the last year. Perhaps the USAF was being conservative in its speed projections, or perhaps something changed with BellBoeing’s aircraft to add about 11 knots to the famously fickle tiltrotor’s top speed.

1. Aviation Week & Space Technology: "Future Bomber Could Feature Stealth"

2. C4ISR Journal: "Saudi choice for targeting pod won’t be Israeli"

Last year on this date I sat around a table with about 10 other reporters in a Pentagon conference room and listened to Sue Payton, assistant secretary of the air force for acquisition, announce that the Boeing HH-47 had won the multi-billion dollar CSAR-X contract.

I was seated at the head of the table nearest to Payton, so perhaps that allowed me to get in the first question after she concluded her rather brief announcement.

My question, if I recall correctly, was this: What can you say about why you picked the HH-47 over the competing bids, the Lockheed Martin US101 and Sikorsky HH-92.

It was not exactly a 60 Minutes moment. I expected them to refer to their talking point cheat-sheet, and rattle off a few bits that I could throw into a news story.

But that's not what happened. There was a discernoble pause, and for a moment I got the impression that my question had stumped them. Payton deferred to her military assistant, who basically repeated the same bland comments from the press release.

So I followed-up and asked a question that was roughly like this: Surely you can give us some reason why the HH-47 was a better deal for the taxpayers?

Again, neither Payton or her deputies was prepared to give a clear answer to this simple question.

That's when the other reporters in the room joined the fray and a melee of questions with no satisfactory answers ensued. I left after 20 minutes to make my next appointment, but I was there long enough to know that this was no ordinary contract announcement.

It's interesting to look back on that experience one year later, with the contract still in hot dispute and undergoing its third round of competition. There was a report earlier this week that the USAF will push back contract award again from February to August.

Is this the new paradigm for major USAF contract decisions?

Coming to the rescue ... or not (Source: US Air Force)

Earlier this year, ITT became the first major US defence company to plead guilty to knowingly export weapons technology illegally to China.

The guess here is ITT won't be the last.

Go to the Washington Post this morning for a great read on this topic, but here's an excerpt.

Some of the most audacious cases involve Iran. Through reverse engineering, Iranian engineers have produced only about 15 percent of the parts needed for the F-4, F-5 and F-14 warplanes -- made famous in Tom Cruise's 1986 "Top Gun" -- that have been the mainstay of Iran's air force since the days of its monarchy, U.S. law enforcement officials say. Tehran has also been trying to acquire parts for Boeing 707s, Lockheed C-130 transports, and Cobra, Chinook and Sikorsky helicopters, they say.

This month, Abraham Trujillo and David Wayne were charged in Utah with attempting to export F-4 and F-14 parts to Canada that were ultimately destined for Iran. Last month, Dutch-based Aviation Services International was charged in Washington, D.C. with illegally exporting U.S. aerospace-grade aluminum and 290 aircraft-related components to Tehran. And in July, the founder of Vash International Inc. was charged in New York with illicitly exporting F-5 and F-14 parts.

Forget the VTOL patent I posted on this blog last week. That's old news.

Walking amidst the exhibits at the Association of the US Army convention, I found out about a completely different kind of aircraft that may finally solve one of the most challenging aerodynamic puzzles: how to design an aircraft that can fly both vertically and horizontally without compromising efficiency in either regime.

Boeing has a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to study design concepts for a new breed of hybrid vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft. It's called the Disk Rotor, and it looks a lot like this:

I picked these photos off this Swiss web site, but I am reliably informed is very similar to Boeing's concept.

The aircraft achieves vertical lift and hover with rotor blades that fold out from the rotor hub and retract during forward flight. A pair of engines provide the power for forward flight, during which the larger rotor hub functions as a wing.

[UPDATE: I'm stuck at a conference, but Paul Richfield (aka, Mr. Anti-blogger) tells me that Northrop Grumman is telling inquirers today that they are "not at liberty" to discuss Green Dart. (see "comments" link.) The plot thickens ...]

Whatever the "Hunter Green Dart" is, Northrop Grumman is building one for the US Army for $22.5 million. (See yesterday's contract announcement below.) There's already a handful of RQ and MQ variants of the venerable Hunter UAS, so perhaps this is another one.

While we attempt to responsibly answser that question, does anyone want to try to speculate/guess/make-up an explanation?

Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Sierra Vista, Ariz., was awarded on Sept. 28, 2007, a $22,499,406 modification cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the Hunter Green Dart. Work will be performed in Sierra Vista, Ariz., and is expected to be completed by July 31, 2008. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on Aug. 31, 2007. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-04-C-0082).

What gives you better bang for the buck: the F-22 or the F-35?

The answer will of course depend on the evolution of the F-35's price tag, so is probably unknowable for several more years.

But I'm glad that didn't stop Captain J. Michael Stelly, who has recently published his master's thesis for the Air Force Institute of Technology. The thesis is entitled "Price versus Performance: The Value of Next Generation Fighter Aircraft".

Assuming the F-35's price tag remains constant, he concludes the JSF is by far the more cost-effective purchase.

He claims that the F-35 shares every major weapons capability with the F-22 with one exception -- super-cruise, which is usually defined as the ability to fly faster than Mach 1 without afterburners. According to Stelly's models, this feature carries a relative value of $68 million per each F-22, making its somewhat slower rival a better overall affordable solution.

I'm not sure I completely follow this line of reasoning, but I think it's a worthy debate to have, and I'm glad Stelly has filled the factual vaccum with some empirical data to work with.

Aviation journalists like me generally don't write news stories about the aircraft that don't crash. So, even though air travel is statistically safer than than walking across the street to buy a vanilla soy latte at Starbucks, give me an airplane crash and I'll give you 24/7 wall-to-wall coverage.

But I'm going to break with this time-honored and web traffic-proven tradition today to report about some airplanes that haven't crashed this year: namely, those flown by the US Air Force (USAF).

A quick check of the Accident Investigation Board web site reveals that the USAF is quietly compiling a historically safe year. With only two weeks remaining in fiscal year 2007, USAF pilots are enjoying the longest streak of crash-free days and fewest number of total "Class A" mishaps since at least FY99.

It may be the safest year the USAF has ever recorded but I can only find safety statistics going back to the year before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

There hasn't been a major USAF aircraft crash this year since May 30, which means the current streak has lasted 109 days. The previous longest streak that I could find went from March 19, 2000 to May 31, 2000, which was only 73 days.

The number of total crashes is, by comparison, even more significant. Even including the 73-day streak in FY00, 24 USAF aircraft suffered Class A mishaps that year. The number so far this year is 13, which is nearly 50% of the previous best year since FY99.

With the USAF's fleet aging and the cost of recapitalizng growing with every F-22 and F-35 added to the procurement budget, this safety trend has major implications for the air force's long-term fleet plans.

Normally, I'd be tempted to add a little photo of a crashed jet at the end of this post, as crash pictures are like liquid gold for web traffic, but I shall refrain. It's obviously a good time for breaking a bunch of traditions about aviation crashes.

In the "potentially-first-of-its-kind-unless-I'm-really-wrong" file, the US Department of Defense is buying a commercial unmanned aircraft system for the first time that I'm aware of. The honors go to the Raytheon Cobra UAS, which I must admit always reminds me of a flying lawnmower (see pic below).

The US Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg is the procuring agency. Read the relevant document here.

DOD has leased quasi-commercial UAVs like the Boeing/Insitu Scan Eagle in the past, but I do believe this is the first time a completely commcercial UAV is being purchased.

"We're here. We're unmanned. Get used to it." (Source: FAA)

Er, speaking of flying lawmowers ...

In one of the more wacky legal disputes in defense industry history, Lockheed Martin has announced today that a third country -- Thailand -- recognizes the company's right to call its laser-guided bomb the "Paveway".

Previously, the courts of Oman and Turkey came to the same conclusion. But this bizarre dispute of nomenclature goes on in the courts of 13 other countries, including the United States.

Why is this happening?

Raytheon (nee Hughes) is the inventor of a laser-guided bomb code-named Paveway and for many years its only manufacturer. But several years ago Lockheed developed a rival design and sold it to the US Air Force and US Navy, which means Raytheon and Lockheed compete every year for Paveway orders.

You can imagine how excited Raytheon was by this development.

In 2005, Raytheon won approval by the US Patent and Trademark office to trademark the name "Paveway", meaning that henceforth Lockheed couldn't legally market its rival product by that name.

Lockheed argues that the term was a government-furnished code-name for what was once a classified weapons technology, not a proprietary marketing brand.

Raytheon, of course, seeks to protect its competitive position as the sole heir of the original Paveway technology.

"That's Mr. Paveway to you!" (Source: Raytheon)