Stephen Trimble: November 2007 Archives

The term "network-centric warfare" appears to be heading to the ash-heap of history's buzzwords.

Noah Shachtman's article this week in Wired magazine motivated me to do a bit of research on Lexis-Nexis.

So I looked up "network-centric warfare" references by year in the Lexis-Nexis database. Here are the results.

1997: 27
1998: 83
1999: 97
2000: 117
2001: 192
2002: 535
2003: 752
2004: 800
2005: 731
2006: 586
2007: 357 (so far)

Michel Merluzeau and the folks at G2 Solutions today break down the KC-X competition as thoroughly as possible without charging you a consulting fee.

Their verdict for the KC-X winner: split buy.

Here's a snippet, but go read G2's full report here: http://g2globalsolutions.com/blog.html.

Read the signs: what is the best way for the Air Force to avoid a costly, time consuming, emotionally charged and at the end of the day entirely wasteful protest? Split buy.

And this:

IF NGC-EADS wins tanker or even a small portion of it, then Mobile is a go. KC-30s will be assembled there and it is likely that the 330Fs will soon follow. This location thus becomes sustainable for a minimum of ten years, more with orders from the US based package carriers. This would give ample time to Airbus to design a utilization strategy for the facility based around either cargo markets or its new narrowbody aircraft scheduled for production between 2015-2020.

Yesterday, I broached the topic of autonomous killer robots for the second time on this blog.

But this morning I came across the best article I've seen on the topic so far in Unmanned Systems magazine, written by Judi Hasson.

The article spotlights Ron Arkin, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who is apparently trying to write the rulebook on killing by armed autonomous weapons, the increasingly inevitable next step in the technology of war. His web site is here: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/projects/robotsurvey/auvsi.html.

Here's a glimpse of the subscriber-only article:

His goal is to create a framework that would integrate an artificial conscience and restrict actions to an ethics code. So a robot would be programmed not to order soldiers to fire on unarmed civilians or engage in action such as the destruction of an unarmed village.

"As codes of conduct and laws change, we have to design it in a flexible way. All of this changes over time. It is not cast in stone like the Ten Commandments," Arkin says. ... "Part of my mission is raising the consciousness among other researchers about the ramifications of our research."

This morning I was at Northrop Grumman's offices in Rosslyn, Va., for a press briefing on the DARPA-funded HURT II program. (HURT=Heterogeneous Unmanned Reconnaissance Team).

Click here to see the power-point presentation.

The idea is pretty straightforward. One day, the US Army may want to operate its unmanned aircraft fleet more like a collaborative team, and this could be the software package that makes it happen.

The seemingly always-threatened F136 program is about to get a new power base of support in Congress from the Mississippi delegation, if I'm reading this press release correctly.

Duke Realty Corporation to Develop New Manufacturing Facility in Batesville, Mississippi

BATESVILLE, Miss. & INDIANAPOLIS (November 27, 2007) -- Duke Realty Corporation (Duke) (NYSE:DRE) announced today that General Electric Company (GE) has selected Duke to develop a 300,000 square foot manufacturing and distribution facility located just east of Batesville, in northwest Mississippi. The facility will be utilized by GE Aviation, an operating unit of GE and a leading producer of jet engines for commercial and military aircraft, in the production of advanced composite components for jet engines. The facility is expected to employ approximately 100 people.

GE and Duke have a proven track record of other developments in North America, with GE accounting for over one half million square feet of leased space from Duke's properties in multiple states.

"We are very pleased to have been selected to develop this new manufacturing and distribution facility for GE's aviation business. Nearly 70-percent of Fortune's top 100 companies look to Duke for their national development, construction and leasing needs ," said Drew Sanders, Duke's Vice President of National Development and Construction. "We also look forward to working with area residents and Batesville officials as we prepare to break ground on this very exciting development for their community."

As part of this project, Duke has purchased nearly 87 acres of land, east of Batesville, Miss., on U.S. Highway 6, approximately ¼ mile from Interstate 55. Current plans call for 290,000 sq. ft of manufacturing space, 10,000 of office area, and an option for significant future expansion. The groundbreaking for this property began in early November 2007, and it is expected to be operational by September, 2008.

Brent Woodruff, First Vice President of CB Richard Ellis in Atlanta represented GE in this transaction.

As previously announced by GE in May, 2007, the new Batesville plant will produce composite fan blade platforms for the highly-popular GEnx engine. (GE's composite fan blades and fan cases are produced at other facilities.) The Batesville plant is also expected to produce composite components for GE military engines, including components for the F136 engine being developed jointly by GE and Rolls-Royce as the alternate engine for the F35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Is Iran's unveiling of a 2,000km range ballistic missile on Tuesday merely a new salvo in the mideast (er, what's the opposite of peace?) war process, or is it the start of a new fad for naming weapons?

Iran named its new missile the "Ashura", which is presumably a reference to the "Day of Ashura", one of Shiite Islam's holiest days commemorating the martyrdom of the grandson of Muhammad at the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD 680, or so says Wikipedia.

I like the idea of naming weapons after religious holidays. Very ironic in a Quentin Tarantino/Pulp Fiction sort of way.

So I've even come up with my own ideas for renaming some US weapons. Here goes:

1. Rename JASSM the "St. Patrick's Missile": commemorating JASSM's former habit of veering wildly off course, like some drunken crowd spilling out of a New York pub on March 17.

2. Change cluster bombs to Christmas bombs -- like the gifts in Santa's bag? (Okay, maybe that one's a stretch)

3. Rename Israel's Arrow missile interceptor the "Yom Kippur" missile.

Any others? I'm sure there are some religions I haven't offended yet. I'll give a prize to the first person who can think of a legitimate reason to rename a weapon after Kwanzaa.

Iranian Fighter Jet Crashes, 2 Killed

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian air force F-4 Phantom jet crashed into the Oman Sea on Monday off the southeastern coast of Iran, killing both pilots, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The jet, belonging to the army air force, crashed into the sea near the port of Konarak during a training flight, and "both pilots ... were martyred," IRNA said.

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

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

As if the KC-X competition wasn't already weird enough, did you hear the chief of the French Air Force now says the Boeing KC-767 could be his next aerial refueller?

Read the full article on flightglobal.com here, but here's how it starts:

France hopes to proceed to the next stage of an evaluation process involving the Airbus A330-based KC-30 and Boeing KC-767 tankers "as soon as possible", and is closely following the UK's protracted private finance initiative deal with the EADS-led AirTanker consortium as a possible procurement model, says air force chief of staff Gen Stéphane Abrial.

You can read the FAF's dossier about the multi-role tanker transport requirement here. (Warning: the dossier is written in French.)

So let me get this straight: While the US and France duke it out at the WTO this summer over alleged subsidies to Airbus and Boeing, their respective air forces will be simultaneosuly considering the allegedly offending manufacturer's products for a tanker contract worth billions of dollars!!!

The creeping militarization of the Airbus-Boeing rivalry is now in full force.

From Air Force One to the tanker wars to strategic airlift, the US and French governments find themselves in the same position as the world's major airliners: seeking to wrangle the best deal by playing one member of the duopoly against the other. It remains to be seen, however, if either governments can overcome political interests to drive the best economic deal for their taxpayers.

Irony, via Stratford, Connecticut.

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- United Technologies Corp.'s Sikorsky unit, maker of the Black Hawk helicopter, said the U.K.'s royal family named it the preferred supplier, a designation that puts it in line to manufacture the family's next chopper. The royal family now uses a Sikorsky S-76C+ helicopter and its replacement will be an upgraded model, subject to contract and U.K. government approval, the Stratford, Connecticut, aircraft maker said in a statement.

I'm on the hook to write a round-up of major US acquisition programs for Flight International's World Air Forces annual update this year.

To focus my thinking I jotted down a list of the biggest contracts and a key question. Here's what I came up with. Feel free to suggest additions or substractions, or just tell me I'm dumb. I can take it.

In reviewing the list, it strikes me the real action for the next few years won't be in new acquisitions, but inevitable budget fluctuations for the programs already on contract (ie JSF, Super Hornet, F-22, C-17, etc.)

So here goes:

KC-X: The mother of all acquisition programs. If a contract awarded to either side triggers a stalemate between the competitors' rival factions in Congress, is there any way to avoid a scenario that results in a compromise requiring a split-buy?

CSAR-X: The re-re-competition has started. Key question: Is it possible for Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky to prevent a contract award to Boeing in perpetuity, or can the US Air Force muster the political will and credibility to enforce its contract decisions?

CRT-X: Re-capitalization of the HC/MC-130 fleet. Can the 50-year-old box-size of the Lockheed Martin C-130J remain operationally relevant for the first wave of C-130E/H fleet replacements, or does the USAF wait for the wider and larger Airbus A400M to get back on schedule?

BAMS: In a time of tightening procurement budgets, will the US Navy remain committed to a program that is arguably a new, unproven capability, rather than a required replacement for an existing system?

Joint Heavy Lift/AJACS: What's the better investment: Boeing's cheaper "80% solution" C-17B that the warfighter can have in 2012, or the 100% solution with an 11-digit development price tag that the warfighter can have nine years later?

EPX/ACS: Where's the room in the budget?

Core Component Jammer: Will the new Boeing/Northrop Grumman partnership create a new industrial monopoly for arborne electronic attack, with the same team serving as the sole supplier for the Pentagon's escort and stand-off jamming roles?

A-10 prime re-compete: Can Boeing consolidate its victory for the A-10 re-winging contract to snatch the A-10 fleet away from the Lockheed Martin/Northrop Grumman incumbent team?

STUAS/Tier II: Small Tactical UAS for navy and US Marine Corps. Has the need for this capability been mooted by the "interim" acquisitions of the Boeing/Insitu Scan Eagle?

CVLSP: Common Vertical Lift Support Platform. How does this program avoid the sad fate of the CSAR-X stalemate?

Small Diameter Bomb Increment II: Can Raytheon catch-up to present a legitimate technical alternative to the Boeing/Lockheed Martin team?

JAGM: Joint Air to Ground Missile. No good question. I'm still wondering what the heck went wrong with the Joint Common Missile.

Counterinsurgency aircraft: Will this seemingly logical requirement in an age of insurgency and terrorism ever get off the ground?

[UPDATE: QF-16: Air superiority target. Who could forget?]

[2nd UPDATE: AMF JTRS . I am so ashamed. This is a really big one. Airborne-Maritime/Fixed-site Joint Tactical Radio System: is this just offering the finest in late-1990s cellular technology at 10x the price?]

EPX is the name for the US Navy acquisition program to replace the Lockheed EP-3E Aries II airborne electronic intelligence fleet.

The navy launched the competitive phase of the programme today by posting the broad agency announcement, which is the formal term for essentially a market survey.

The BAA documents include a list of attendees at a recent "industry day" hosted by the navy to explain the program's acquisition strategy.

The attendee roster offers a good early indication of the potential field of competitors. We already know that Boeing is involved with the 737-based EP-8.

But the roster shows that EADS North America is interested, which means the special mission variant of the Airbus A320 could become a contender. Airbus is already teamed with Northrop Grumman to build a surveillance version of the A320 for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Get ready for another fun competition between Boeing and Airbus.

Also, Embraer North America showed up for the industry day, which is good sign that the E190 regional jet could be offered. Lockheed Martin had partnered with Embraer to offer the ERJ-145 for the aborted army/navy Aerial Common Sensor program.

Piasecki made a surprise appearance at the industry day. I can't think of any obvious role for Piasecki to play in this competition, but maybe some of you might have some ideas.

From the daily wires:

A test flight of a GR.4 Tornado went tragically awry yesterday when the back-seat navigator was somehow dislodged from his seat and fell through the canopy with the aircraft in an inverted roll. Read the full bizarre story here.

Meanwhile, I have received a report from Flight International's internal data team that an Azerbaijani-owned Ilyushin Il-76 was fired on while landing yesterday at the Mogadishu airport. I am still hunting for a news report of this inident. If confirmed, this incident follows two previous attacks in March on Il-76 transports arriving in Mogadishu.

Thanks to Mr. Knight on YouTube for giving us this video of Boeing's X-48B in-flight.

Just when you thought it wasn't possible for the US military to invent an entirely new niche area of unmanned systems, along comes this little announcement from US Special Operations Command.

The document is SOCOM's call for information for yet a new family of unmanned aircraft systems ranging in size from 2-pounds to 450-pounds. They would be distinguished by their ability to land or be recovered on water.

Although it is not stated, the request for information is obviously intended for the SEALs, but once fielded, could presumably be of some use for the US Marine Corps and the US Navy's new Riverine Command.

The question is, what unmanned flying boats already exist in the market? Off the top of my head, I can only think of Vought Aircraft's Kingfisher II concept for an unmanned flying boat. But I guess I'll have to start learning.

The Associated Press has a critical news report on the UH-72A Lakota, which is the army's new light utility helicopter [LUH] based on the Eurocopter EC145.

The report focuses on the aircraft's lack of an air conditioner, but this should be an easily fixed problem.

More interesting is the comment by Representative Duncan Hunter, an outspoken US protectionist, who says the Lakota should be replaced by a US made helicopter. Says the AP article:

"In my view, we would be well advised to terminate the planned buy of 322 Lakota helicopters and purchase instead additional Blackhawk helicopters," Hunter said in a letter this week to Army Secretary Pete Geren.

Interestingly, Sikorsky had the same basic idea nearly four years ago, just as the LUH requirement was coming into focus. Here's my article published in Flight International on February 11, 2004:

Sikorsky is planning to compete for a US Army requirement for a light utility helicopter fleet with a lower-cost version of the UH-60L. Freshly marketed as the LUH-60 Black Hawk, the helicopter uses the UH-60L engine and transmission, a UH-60M digital cockpit and adds a health usage monitoring system. Sikorsky officials say the design can be competitive for LUH at $3 million per aircraft and operate at under $1,000 per flight hour. The engines would be operated at 80% maximum power.

Sikorsky's bid is based on refurbishing UH-60As to the LUH-60 configuration as the older models begin to phase out of the service rapidly over the next few years. Other advantages, says Sikorsky, are a shared training, logistics and personnel structure with the rest of the army's Black Hawk fleet, and the ability to deploy the aircraft in combat.

The army intends to buy a commercial helicopter for light support missions in a strictly non-combat environment. Other candidates include the Bell 210, as well as potential offerings from AgustaWestland and Eurocopter.

The UH-60A idea was shot down by the army's requirement for an FAA-certified helicopter. (Sikorsky eventually teamed up with the UH-72A team to offer aftermarket services.)

But that requirement remains the target of a debate both within and outside the army. Should a combat service buy a fleet of helicopters that is intentionally designed to be unworthy of combat conditions? Proponents say the army saves a lot of money, but opponents argue that the troops need more flexibility from their equipment.

EADS North America, the LUH prime contractor, is not blind to this debate, and has already suggested that the UH-72A could eventually be tweaked to become a combat-capable aircraft.

In a recent feature article on LUH, I quoted EADS VP Randy Hutcherson, who says:

"If you're going to put soldiers in this aircraft in an environment where they're going to be shot at, our aircraft is not ready to do that and it's not the right thing to do for the soldiers," Hutcherson says. However, it remains possible that this part of the LUH experiment may not survive the duration of the programme. When asked if the army will eventually require a military-unique variant of the UH-72A for LUH, Hutcherson replies: "I do. But I think it's a ways away."

I might be abusing my blogging privileges, but I want to quickly plug my Veterans Day tribute for my grandfathers, my great-uncle and the Honor Flight Network appearing today on Military.com.

Click here for more information about Honor Flight. This rapidly spreading grassroots organization has found a way to say "thank you" to World War II veterans in a way that almost matches the gratitude they deserve.

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)

In the bomb business, the warhead is the thing that gets all of the press, but all it really does is go "pow".

The more impressive component of the bomb is the fuze, and, in that spirit, the US Air Force's Hard Target Void Sensing Fuze (HTVSF) is the most sophisticated of the bunch. (The "mother of all fuzes", anyone?).

This fuze must be sophisticated enough to sense voids as the bomb passes through layers of an underground, hardnened bunker, yet robust enough to survive the initial impact with the hardened bunker and yet fulfill its intricate function.

It's so hard to do that the USAF spent $100 million trying to develop an ATK-designed fuze about four years ago but had to dump it because it didn't work.

The project's back, and so is the USAF's interest in technology that can defeat those pesky underground bunkers. Read the USAF's solitication here: http://www1.fbo.gov/spg/USAF/AFMC/AAC/FA8681%2D08%2DR%2D0004%28Synopsis%29/listing.html

Let's hope they don't waste their money this time.

London's Guardian newspaper reports:

Lord Drayson, the businessman turned defence minister, has quit his government position to follow his motor-racing "dream" of competing in the American Le Mans series, Downing Street said today.

The peer - who has been a minister since 2005 - has asked Gordon Brown for a leave of absence to take up this "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity".

In a letter to the prime minister, Lord Drayson said that the move was "a key step towards my eventual dream of success in the Le Mans 24-hour endurance race".

Long Beach is the Douglas Aircraft Company's original base of operations. Boeing inherited the site and its tens of thousands of employees when it acquired McDonnell Douglas in 1997.

It was never a good fit.

Maybe Boeing was still bitter about the decades from the early 1930s through the late 1950s when Douglas reigned supreme in commercial airliner market, largely by trumping each new Boeing product by coming out with essentially a better version of the same thing a few years later (are you listening, Airbus?).

In the past decade, Boeing has shut down the old Douglas commercial airliner factory, with the last 717s shipped out last spring. Boeing also exiled the fomer Long Beach space launcher business to the friendly, non-unionized atmosphere of Decatur, Alabama.

All that's left in Long Beach is the ever-imperiled C-17 and, until now, perhaps the fourth or fifth highest ranking executive in the Boeing heirarchy.

George Muellner, president of advance systems, was based in Long Beach, but he retires at the end of the year. Boeing announced today that Muellner, who will be missed by this blog for one, will be replaced by Darrly Davis. But Davis's office will remain in St. Louis.

That's another blow for Long Beach, whose long, slow decline as a national aerospace hub continues to be sad to witness.

Korea Herald reports on the US-Korean defence ministerial held yesterday in Seoul. This could be a big step to fulfilling Korea's very old ambition to buy a fleet of RQ-4 Global Hawks.

``The sale of the Global Hawk is not included in the official agenda. But the two sides are expected to deal with the issue as part of efforts to strengthen bilateral ties and cooperation in the defense industry,'' ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-ki said.

Read the full story here: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/nation_view.asp?newsIdx=13215&categoryCode=205

Morocco's decision to reject the Dassault Rafale in favor of the Lockheed Martin F-16 is stunning even a week after it was confirmed.

G2 Solutions Michel Merluzeau, unquestionably the best French-born aerospace analyst based in Seattle, does some detective work to attempt to discern how Dassault and France could have lost the contract.

In the best english-language deconstruction of the situation I've read, Merluzeau finds that a mixture of arrogance, political distractions and poor teaming between government and industry conspired to rob Dassault of its desperately needed first export customer.

Read all about it here: http://www.g2globalsolutions.com/blog.html

And read Flight International next week, where we'll identify Dassault's next possible opportunity after India to make a deal for the Rafale.

Air Force suspends some F-15 operations

11/4/2007 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- The Air Force suspended non-mission critical F-15 flight operations on Nov. 3 following the crash of a Missouri Air National Guard F-15C aircraft Nov. 2.

The cause of that accident is still under investigation, however, preliminary findings indicate that a possible structural failure of the aircraft may have occurred. The suspension of flight operations is a precautionary measure.

The Air Force will ensure mission requirements are met for worldwide operations normally accomplished by the F-15. Current F-15 flying locations include bases in the continental United States, Alaska, England, Hawaii, Japan and the Middle East.

There are more than 700 F-15s in the Air Force inventory. The F-15 reached initial operational capability for the Air Force in September 1975.

While the F-15 continues to serve its country well, the Air Force is replacing its aging F-15 fighters with its fifth generation of air superiority, the F-22 Raptor. The F-22 is the world's most advanced fighter aircraft combining stealth, supercruise, maneverability and integrated avionics to provide unmatched warfighting capabilities in both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions.

The F-15 Eagle is an all-weather, extremely maneuverable, tactical fighter designed to permit the Air Force to gain and maintain air supremacy over the battlefield.

The F-15C, D and E models were deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1991 in support of Operation Desert Storm where they proved their superior combat capability. F-15C fighters accounted for 34 of the 37 Air Force air-to-air victories. The F-15E's were operated mainly at night, hunting SCUD missile launchers and artillery sites using the LANTIRN system.

They have since been deployed for air expeditionary force deployments and Operations Southern Watch -- the no-fly zone in Southern Iraq, Provide Comfort in Turkey, Allied Force in Bosnia, Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Iraqi Freedom in Iraq.

It's hard enough to get started on Monday, so I apologize if this YouTube video and the awful soundtrack scrambles your intellect.

But I'm showing it because the world needs to know that 1) Yes, there are people in the US Marine Corps who think this is a brilliant idea, and 2) they are using your tax money to create such awful promotional videos!!!!

Boeing is expected by the end of this week to select a manufacturer to upgrade the US Air Force F-15 fleet with an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar.

Vying for this contract are Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, but no matter who wins Boeing's protest-proof selection (take that, GAO) will be sure to set off the first Great Radar War.

The idea driving this industrial war is this: the power of a fighter aircraft's radar may now be as important in combat as the power of its engine.

In the early 1980s, Pratt & Whitney and General Electric fought every year for their share of the USAF's fighter engine budget. The rivalry was so intense it was chronicled in a book called the Great Engine War.

That same industrial phenomenon has started to appear in the radar market. The contract for the F-15 radar modernization will be the first of several to come.

Both Raytheon and Northrop are designing new active arrays for the F-16 in anticipation of foreign buyers (hello, India?) and eventually the USAF.

And I'll bet you a quarter and a coke that the war will extend even to the grand prize of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. In 2001, Raytheon was on Boeing's X-32 team, so Northrop's design for the X-35 is on the program today. But if the USAF can re-open the F-15's radar selection to competition, Raytheon is going to fight to take another shot at the F-35 program.

You can also safely bet that the USAF will think about radar interchangeablility when creating the requirements for the Next-Generation Long Range Strike fleet, which should enter service after 2018.

The Great Radar War will have profound implications for both industry and for the fighter community. For the first time, operators may actually have a choice of radars like they already do for engines. By implication, neither Raytheon nor Northrop can rest anymore after winning the initial contract, but must continually refresh its technology to stay in the chase for new contracts.