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With the Sikorsky X2 prototype achieving first flight yesterday, it's a good time to discuss its military potential.

The X2 is designed with a coaxial main rotor and an aft pusher propeller in order to break the conventional helicopter's roughly 170-knot/hour speed barrier.

And its fly-by-wire controls and modern avionics are supposed to defeat the high vibration and high workload levels that doomed Sikorsky's last attempt in the 1970s with the XH-59A advancing blade concept.

Sikorsky business development director Jim Kagdis, a veteran of the RAH-66 Comanche, spoke with me yesterday about the military vision for the X2.

Kagdis identified three potential missions:

1. Peer escort for the BellBoeing MV-22, replacing the slower AH-1W/Z Cobra. (Interestingly, Lt Gen David Trautman, US Marine Corps chief of aviation, told me last month that the MV-22 no longer required a high-speed escort.)
2. Carrier-based antisubmarine warfare helicopter, replacing Sikorsky's SH-60. As Kagdis says, when an enemy sub is on the loose near the battle group, "speed really helps you get their faster".
3. Combat support for special forces in urban environments

I was a little surprised Kagdis limited his vision to fairly niche roles for the X2. Wouldn't Sikorsky want to offer the X2 for the emerging 'Joint Multi-Role' (JMR) requirement to develop a single aircraft after 2020 worthy of replacing the Boeing AH-64 Apache and the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk? As you can imagine, this is the Holy Grail for the world's helicopter industry after the next decade.

Kagdis replied that it was all about the requirement. "If the customer's demands are as interested in a requirement that includes significant or greater speeds than we have today with the same hover performance as a conventional helicopter, this [the X2] becomes a competitor," Kagdis said.

1. After 2015, the Army's manned ground vehicles for the Future Combat System could outgrow the C-130 box size.
2. After 2020, the USAF must start replacing the 221-aircraft C-130H fleet. This is called the Joint Future Theater Lift (JFTL) -- formerly AJACS and AMC-X.
   

Two years ago GE was proposing the GENX for future A330 freighter and tanker applications, as reported by flightglobal. The A330F has more engine ground clearance then the A330. Long term this would probably be the best solution instead of the moderately outdated CF6 and PW4000 offerings. The 15%-20% better fuel efficiency of the GEnx-2B against the CF6-80E1 makes adiiference hard to ignore..

That's the problem when you allow extra credit for exceeding requirements. We now have an arms race that if unchecked we will end up with a KC-747F vs a KC-380F contest to replace a 60 YO KC-135 fleet.

All eyes seem focused on Boeing's next move. Do they want to delay the tanker RFP to switch to the KC-767-400ER? Or perhaps even the KC-777F?

Another interesting question is what will the Northrop Grumman/EADS North America team do to respond?

But Airbus launched the pure freighter version of the A330-200 almost two years after the Northrop/EADS team formed. Designed to be a superior freighter than a modified passenger aircraft, the first A330-200F is scheduled for delivery in late 2009.

Will the team sweeten their offer in the second round of bidding by switching to the A330-200F?

There's yet another possibility, and one that has huge ramifications for the commercial cargo market.

Airbus has been mulling the launch of an A330-300F freighter for a few years, but hasn't yet made a decision. It would compare well against the Boeing 777F on the cargo market.

If Boeing succeeds in winning a delay in order to offer a KC-777F, will that prompt Airbus to respond by using the KC-X tanker competition to officially launch the A330-300F?

These changes also have potentially major consequences for the industry teams supporting each bid, and, thus, potentially on the political landscape as well.

For example, General Electric is currently aligned with the Northrop bid and Pratt & Whitney is on the Boeing team.

But GE is the sole-source supplier for the 777 with the famous GE90. Will the Ohio delegation suddenly shift to Boeing's side?

P&W, meanwhile, is the sole US-based engine supplier for the A330-200F and would be likely to compete with Rolls-Royce for a similar role on the A330-300F. So does Connecticut suddenly switch its vote to the KC-30?

• Who is the George Costanza of the defense industry?
• Costanza update
• Costanza update: Kevin wins
• The wrong George?
  

So far, so good.

But what happens when the annual output rate basically triples from 2010 to 2012 (12 to 32 + a few foreign orders), then almost quadruples from 2012 to 2014 (32+ to 118+)?

F-35 program manager Lt. Gen. Charles Davis, who I interviewed last month, told me he already is seeing the strains of simultaneous ramp-ups for both JSF and the 787 as he visits production sites worldwide. "I'm fighting for space in the plant that's for 787 stuff," Davis said.

Davis also takes a philosophical view on the causes of recent production system meltdowns for any aerospace program, including the 787. The increasing sophistication of tools for designing aircraft has simply outpaced the progress in manufacturing technology and capacity, creating an unhealthy imbalance as programs transition from the development to the production phase.

The JSF program is hoping to cope with this phenomenon by investing an extra $1.5 billion in upfront tooling, mainly to bring second-source suppliers, such as TAI in Turkey and Terma in Denmark, up to quality and rate standards for the F-35 program, Davis said. He describes the $1.5 billion investment as a necessary cost growth in the beginning of the program that will pay huge dividends by the sixth and seventh years of production, as the monthly production rate exceeds 10 aircraft.

Behind the scenes, the US and UK industry partners are working intensely with other foreign manufacturers that will serve as second source suppliers on critical parts in the full-rate production phase. Northrop Grumman's Randy Secor, a vice president for the F-35 program, told me earlier this month that TAI's employees have been trained on the production line with Northrop's mechanics and assemblers. "Lack of a critical part at a single supplier will stop you dead in your tracks," Secor said.

But F-35 industry officials are also realistic about the difficulty of staying on track as the production rate escalates after 2012. Secor told me that he expects "huge challenges" with meeting the one aircraft per day target after 2016, but it is achievable if the entire industry team works together to solve the problems that arise rather than pointing fingers.

[GA-ASI] continues to struggle as the systems integrator.

[GA-ASI] has resisted hiring adequate engineering and technical staff to address all of the tasks they are currently contracted to perform.

The common theme within the delivery/schedule problems appears to relate back to the acceptance of contractual commitments which are physically beyond production capacity.

A major contributor is [that GA-ASI's] senior management continues to obligate the company without fully reviewing and understanding the current workload and commitments.

Management task saturation coupled with [GA-ASI's] highly centralized management structure both contribute towards the delays with the integration testing and coordination efforts.

The engineering staff appears to be technically [competent], but in most cases are not empowered at the appropriate levels to make the necessary decisions to push the task forward in a timely manner to maintain schedule.

[GA-ASI] has made limited corrective actions and usually not without Government PMO insistence.   

2-12-19-32-47-118

This is the projected rate of F-35 production during the first six years of low rate initial production phase (LRIP), which actually started in 2007.

My previous two posts explored the recent past of the Lockheed Martin F-35 and Boeing 787 and the similarities of their darkest moments. This post and a follow-up later this week will explore the challenges common to both programs as each seeks to overcome their troubled development phase and dramatically boost production output starting next year.

Here's a scary thought: the F-35's production rate listed above is just the baseline.

Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin's executive vice president for the F-35, told me there is a lot of "upside" in the last two years in the LRIP phase. The US Air Force has recently mused about increasing their order in LRIP-6 from 48 to 110, and then sustaining that order rate for several years. Israel also is likely to soon place an order for 25 aircraft, of which the bulk could be delivered during LRIP.

If funding and order profiles hold -- and assuming no show-stoppers emerge in flight test phase -- full-rate production for F-35 starts in five years. Factory output is currently expected to increase to one aircraft per working day as early as 2016, an astonishing pace for a fighter with low-observable characteristics.

It's all a familiar tune to my ears.

Boeing's 787 program, both blessed and cursed by insatiable demand for its next-generation airliner, at this time last year planned to be well on its way toward a "low-rate" output of 10 aircraft per month by 2010, perhaps jumping to 16 per month by 2012. No previous commercial widebody was built at a faster monthly rate than 10 even at its peak.

We know how well the original plan worked out for the 787. Boeing's production system breakdowns revealed over the past year not only delayed first delivery by at least 15 months. The production ramp also has been slowed from a sprint to a crawl.

Details are sketchy, but Boeing has disclosed a goal to reach the previous low rate of 10 per month in 2012, or two years later. Opening a second production line has been discussed, but it's not entirely clear if that step would help exceed the low rate pace or merely reach it.

Commercial programs certainly face their own set of pressures, but the manufacturer at least has full control of setting aircraft design requirements and the funding profile that dictates the production rate. A defense contractor, by contrast, enjoys some protection from pure market forces, but lacks those two key advantages.

If Boeing's 787 ramp-up proved far beyond the capacity of its chosen industry team, despite all of the management advantages of a commercially-driven program, how does the F-35 program hope to avoid the same fate?

The former is the first F-35 Joint Strike Fighter prototype completed in December 2006.

The latter is the first 787 prototype that was originally supposed to enter flight test about eight months later, yet remains in the late stages of final assembly and 15 months behind schedule.

Both aircraft must be spectacular disappointments so far for Lockheed Martin and Boeing, respectively.

Consider that the F-35 program's AA-1 required 65,000 more labor hours to build than planned, a roughly 35% overrun, according to a March report by the Government Accountability Office. Most of the delays were blamed on the wing and final assembly, both firmly controlled by Lockheed in the Team JSF industrial partnership.

But final assembly was the least of the worries for AA-1. Lockheed realized in 2004 that a major redesign was required to shed about 2,100 pounds from the airframe. Further changes in production methods, propulsion output and operational requirements were needed to offset another roughly 2,700 pounds. In all, AA-1 is almost 5,000 pounds too heavy, which equates to about one-eighth of the aircraft's maximum weight.

Nonetheless, Lockheed and the joint program office decided in 2004 that assembling AA-1 would still be worth the cost, even if the first prototype would become an instant anachronism. Subsequently, its limited value as a non-production representative flight test asset has been eroded by frequent groundings, including one that remains ongoing.

The story of ZA001 is only slightly less tragic. After all, Boeing at least expects this perpetual resident of hangar 40-26 in Everett, Washington, to one day enter operational service, albeit more than a year late and after one of the most severe production system meltdowns in the company's deservedly proud history.

The full story of ZA001's tormented upbringing has been superbly told from the perspective of true insiders by my blogging colleague Jon Ostrower, master of the ever-fascinating Flightblogger site on FlightGlobal.com.

But, to summarize, what Boeing first portrayed as a slight delay caused by shortages of key parts and software mushroomed into a system-wide industrial breakdown. On top of that, Boeing discovered that the centre wing box would have to be redesigned. Continued production snafus, such as poor drilling by a single mechanic, have plagued Boeing's recovery timeline.

Both manufacturers have since moved on from their disaster-prone prototypes. The next roughly 20 F-35s and 787s are each in various stages of assembly, with Lockheed having completed its first four flight test aircraft and Boeing still working on completing ZA001.

• F-35 vs 787, part 1: Rise, fall and recovery

Relating commercial and military aircraft programs can be very tricky, but I can't help make connections between the 787 and that other major aircraft production programme with global aspirations also launched earlier this decade: the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), which is also called the Lightning II by the US military.

For those who are not airliner watchers, Boeing's more-electric, mostly-composite 787 (pictured) is innovating beyond mere systems and materials. In the aerospace industry, the 787 is also a fascinating experiment in globalization. Six major structural producers in three different countries - Italy, Japan and the USA -- are not just building up parts and shipping them to Boeing's final assembly center north of Seattle. Boeing's Tier 1 suppliers are endowed with the unprecedented responsibility to design, build and certificate complete aircraft sections, to include the electronics, software and computers embedded in the structures.

By comparison, the F-35 industrial blueprint seems modest, but is nonetheless a great leap even for an international defense program. The F-35's three major structural producers are the USA's Lockheed (nose and wings) and Northrop Grumman (center fuselage) and the UK's BAE Systems (aft fuselage). The international production system will expand as annual orders begin to escalate from handfuls into dozens starting in 2010. Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) is responsible for delivering center fuselages after 2012. At the same time, Italy's Alenia Aeronautica, an acknowledged key culprit in the 787 production meltdown, will be ramping up production of wings for the F-35.

Both aircraft are being initially packaged as a family of three variants built on the same production line. (Interestingly, the fate of the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing F-35B is yet more secure than even the short-haul 787-3, which has now drifted off Boeing's public delivery schedule.) Both aircraft were selected by their respective industries to embrace globalized supply chains in new and radical ways.

After each program began after 2001, both have experienced roughly equal setbacks: first delivery of the F-35 has slipped 18 months after a weight problem forced a redesign; first delivery of the 787 has slipped 15-18 months after the experimental production system basically had a meltdown. Weight remains a design "challenge" for the 787, but the problem has not been severe enough to force Boeing to redesign the jet.

Most importantly perhaps, neither airframe has proven itself in flight. Although the first non-weight optimized F-35 prototype flew in December 2006, Lockheed has still only scratched the tiniest surface of a 6,000-hour flight test phase. The first 787 flight test aircraft is now scheduled to fly in the fourth quarter of this year to launch a roughly 3,000-hour flight test phase.

Over the past two months, I've interviewed the head of the US government's F-35 joint program office and the lead production executives for Lockheed and Northrop. In each conversation, a key theme was the lessons learned for the F-35 from the perspective of the 787 experience. After all, the F-35 flight test phase and production rate increase is less urgent (read: slower) than Boeing's commercially-funded program, but is less than three years away.

How well Lockheed's industrial team applies the 787's lessons and avoid its mistakes will soon be determined. The F-35 must soon prove itself in the air. But, if Lockheed fails to execute, even an effective fighter can be sabotaged on the ground by a 787-like production meltdown.

Will the USAF KC-X tanker competition result be reversed this time?

Yes - Boeing will win		39%
No - Northrop Grumman/EADS will win again		61%

Total Votes: 1708
Poll ends on: 15 August 2008

Guy Higgins, vice president of Boeing Advanced Systems' analysis, modeling, simulation and experimentation group, said that most models and simulations do not required detailed data about competitors' platforms, rendering firm links between proprietary corporate laboratories unnecessary.

"Most of the time we just need to be accurate and by accurate it just needs to be about right," Higgins said. "It doesn't need to be precise."

Higgins' remarks come four years after the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) was formed expressly to create the standards that would allow the defense industry's various wargaming centers to communicate with each other.

Since 2002, the US defense industry has stood up vast modeling and simulation networks, to include the Boeing Integration Center (BIC), Lockheed Martin's Center for Innovation Lighthouse and the Northrop Grumman Cyber Warfare Integration Network (CWIN).

Their purpose is to provide a service to military weapons buyers and internal decision-makers, exposing the strengths and weaknesses of new technologies and operational concepts in the digital world to help inform investment decisions.

As each proprietary network was formed, Boeing spearheaded the effort to establish the NCOIC to address concerns that the industry was creating "stovepipe" modeling and simulation centers that would feed into the military's interoperability problem.

However, Boeing's philosophy on the value of interoperable networks since 2004 has shifted. Networking concepts have until recently been guided by Metcalfe's Law, which states that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes.

New research appearing in 2006, however, claimed that this principle was incorrect, Higgins said. Instead of increasing at such a high rate, new research suggests the increase in value by adding additional network users is significantly more modest, he said.

Nonetheless, Boeing is continuing to dramatically expand the network its network of modeling and simulation centers in the US and abroad. Boeing has teamed with Qinitiq in the UK to open "The Portal" center. In September, Boeing also plans to open a 7,500ft-squared facility in Suffolk, Va.

New modeling and simulation capabilities will be opened in South Korea in 2009, even as the company expands similar efforts in Japan and India.