Recently in Flashbacks Category

Evening minions, I'm off to Phoenix, Arizona, in the morning to cover my first civilian story. There will be flying involved--I'll report back if anything interesting should happen...

In the meantime here is a link to my MQ-8C story- or just read the Cliff's Notes version below.

Northrop Grumman is porting over the guts of its MQ-8B Firescout unmanned helicopter to a Bell 407 airframe--creating the MQ-8C. The US Navy awarded the contract $262.3 million today to buy two developmental airframes and six production examples for its special operations forces. The Bell machine is about twice the size of the Schweizer 333 on which the MQ-8B is based...

This Fire-X prototype, which evolved into the MQ-8C, started off life as a prototype for the ill-fated US Army ARH-70 Arapaho armed aerial scout helicopter.

Second time lucky I guess.

The US Air Force's Global Strike Command is planning on commemorating the 60th anniversary of the first flight of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress on 15 April. The original event happened on 15 April, 1952, when the YB-52 prototype took to the air over Seattle, Washington.

 The YB-52 is actually the second Stratofortress built by Boeing. The XB-52, which was the first aircraft, was damaged during ground testing and first flew on 2 October, 1952.

 Unlike the current B-52 flying today, the original two test planes had the crew sitting in tandem similar to the earlier B-47 aircraft.

 Anyways, the B-52 has been in the USAF fleet for so long that there are quite literally generations who have flown the type. One such example is the 23^rd Bomb Squadron's 1st Lt Daniel Welch, who is stationed at Minot AFB, North Dakota. His dad and grandfather both flew the eight-engine bomber.

 There is a joke in the USAF that when any given newer type of bomber is retired to the "Boneyard", the last crew who drops off that aircraft to Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona will be picked up in a B-52. And there is more than a grain of truth to that...

 The B-52 has outlived all of its would be replacements. Remember the B-58 Hustler Mach 2+ bomber? Gone. XB-70--it's in a museum in Ohio. FB-111? Those are rotting away in the desert somewhere. And probably so will the B-1 and B-2 when it comes to their turn... (Don't have a crystal ball, just willing to make that bet)

 The USAF is working on a new stealth bomber under a new program called the Long Range Strike-Bomber as part of its classified budget. The service wants 80 to 100 of the aircraft to enter service in the mid-2020s and cost $550 million each.  It will rely on "mature technologies" --even if it's supposed to be optionally manned--and the USAF will watch its appetite for added new capabilities, Air Force chief Gen. Norton Schwartz insists. But he's leaving in a couple of months- what then?

 The USAF has a long track record of bungling acquisitions programs and overreaching on technical requirements--so the jury is still out on if this new LRS-B will ever see the light of day.

 Given the ever aging and ever shrinking USAF bomber fleet, it had better work out better than the F-22 and F-35 programs, much less the ill-fated Navy A-12 program (which was also developed largely in the classified space).

The Global Strike Command has put together a timeline here:

 April 15, 1952 - The first flight of the YB-52 Stratofortress will be commemorated with a long-duration flight from AFGSC Headquarters at Barksdale.

 May 10 through Oct. 23, 1972 - Operation Linebacker - Linebacker was the first continuous bombing effort conducted against North Vietnam since the bombing halt instituted by President Lyndon B. Johnson in November 1968.

 June 18, 1965 - Operation Arc Light - The first use of the B-52D Stratofortress as a conventional bomber from bases in the U.S. to Guam to support ground combat operations in Vietnam.

 Aug. 2, 1994 - B-52's first round-the-world bombing mission.

 Oct. 26, 1962 - Strategic Air Command received the last B-52 from production line

 Dec. 18 through 29, 1972 - Operation Linebacker II - This operation saw the largest heavy bomber strikes launched by the U.S. Air Force since the end of World War II.

The E-10A program is supposed to be deader than a door-nail.

The E-10A is so dead Northrop Grumman went to the trouble earlier this year to issue a press release stating that its formerly prized surveillance and command and control aircraft program is, indeed, dead.

So why would Boeing apparently still be building it?

The question is raised because seattle-deliveries.com, a well-trusted Boeing spotter site, is reporting that Boeing has issued a line number (#965) to build a 767-400ER for the "supposedly cancelled" E-10A program. Scroll to the bottom of the list on this page.

Anybody remember something called the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS)?

That was the multi-billion dollar project that came just before what we now call UCAS-D, and just after what we used to call UCAV and UCAV-N. I hope that's all clear.

But J-UCAS died an obscenely protracted death in 2006 on the busy gallows of formerly joint weapons programs.

The man in charge of that program, if you remember, was Dr. Michael Francis, of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Well, he's back -- and he's mad.

Or maybe he's just annoyed. But he now works for General Atomics's Photonics Division, and he presented at last week's Shephard's UAS conference.

In his presentation, Francis makes the unusually impolite gesture of bashing the program that replaced his own. On the second slide, he writes: "This is not UCAS". The message appears over pictures showing the vehicles that the Navy and the Air Force have chosen to call exactly that.

His point is that the heart of his former DARPA program was not the vehicles but an interesting feature he called the common operating system (COS). It was a single database that operated, maintained, equipped and connected the unmanned combat systems of both services. When the J-UCAS program died, Francis' idea for the COS was the ultimate casualty. Both J-UCAS vehicles remain potentially viable candidates for operational service, but the COS by all accounts has been discarded.

Ike Eisenhower got it wrong when he called it the "military-industrial complex". It's really the military-industrial-and-congressional complex, and each component plays an equal part in the long history of flubs and scandals involving the process of developing and buying weapons.

At least, that's the message of a book I just finished called "The C-5A Scandal", by Berkeley Rice. Don't rush to your bookstore. This book was published in 1971, but used copies are still available for sale.

To sum up, the C-5A scandal of the late-1960s was really a "perfect storm" of acquisition crimes: an overtly suspicious contract award to Lockheed even though Boeing won the evaluation; cost overruns that ballooned by 300% beyond the original estimates; an insider trading investigation; a large defense contractor on the brink of insolvency; a powerful Congressman who fought colleagues seeking accountability; and, finally, a host of technical problems with the aircraft itself, including a wing prone to cracking. In the end, Lockheed was bailed out with extra government cash and loans and the air force got its prized strategic airlifter.

I'll skip to the last page. Berkeley writes: "It's troubles had little to do with the plane itself. Rather, they are the natural result of the military-industrial-congressional system that produced it. Unfortunately, most of what happened to the C-5A happens to all military procurement programs. C-5As will continue to happen unless the public demands a change in the system. Until then, the public will have no choice but to continue paying the bills."

I think you may have a point, Mr. Berkeley.