Stephen Trimble: April 2008 Archives

Lockheed Martin is scheduled today to hear why the US Navy selected the Northrop Grumman RQ-4N for the $1.1 billion Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) contract.

The debriefing starts a 10-day clock for Lockheed to decide whether to protest the decision. A few years ago, such a move would be considered a huge surprise. (Boeing, for example, didn't protest Lockheed's victory on JSF in 2001. In turn, Lockheed didn't protest Boeing's victory on the MMA contract in 2004.)

These days, however, anything seems to go.

Lockheed had teamed with General Atomics to offer a new version of the Predator B called the Mariner. The offer is completely different than Northrop's proposal. The medium-altitude Mariner is a turboprop, which makes it slower but perhaps more agile than the turbofan-powered, high-altitude RQ-4N. Lockheed also decided to incorporate an off-the-shelf Israeli sensor, whereas Northrop's proposal included an all-new active electronically scanned array (AESA).

Boeing teamed with Gulfstream to offer an optionally-manned G550 and with Raytheon to offer an only vaguely defined sensor package based on three AESA radars.

So far, Lockheed has only issued a terse, but vaguely threatening statement.

We are very disappointed with the U.S. Navy's decision in the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance program competition. We will wait for the formal customer debrief to better understand the decision and criteria used to select the prime contractor.

It's hard to imagine that reasonable people only nine months ago wondered if Northrop Grumman could ever win another defense contract. The company had compiled a long string of embarrassing contract losses, starting with the UK's Watchkeeper program. The company then unfathomably lost a contract to integrate the US Air Force's future air operations center. Finally, and perhaps most disturbingly, a Northrop-Boeing team lost a contract to build the next manned spacecraft for NASA.

Now, Northrop seems virtually unstoppable, having won three major contracts in a row: UCAS-D, KC-X and, last week, BAMS.

So, how are they doing it?

Heidi Wood, Morgan Stanley's aerospace analyst, hinted at a possible theory last week. She cleverly made it part of her question, in which she was really praising Northrop CEO Ron Sugar for his string of success. But pay attention to the last sentence for a clue to Northrop's success that probably deserves more attention from reporters like myself.

I remember a couple of years it seemed Northrop was really struggling. It seemed like there was a number of things you had lost and were disappointments and I really feel like over the last couple of years I’ve seen that turnaround quite visibly with a number of really impressive wins

Can you talk about fundamental changes you have implemented within the organization that might help explain sort of what we’re seeing, with the change in approach to competition? There might be a charge for some outsiders that you might be aggressively pricing to account for these wins.

Sugar never addressed the under-pricing issue, but I think Wood is right to raise the issue.

The fact is that defense contractors go absolutely unpunished for submitting unrealistically low bids. This goes all the way back to the Lockheed C-5A scandal of 1965, when that company stole a contract from Boeing by submitting a $1.9 billion bid. By the time the C-5A was complete about eight years later, Lockheed's actual cost had jumped more than 300%.

The US Air Force spends more money every year to keep an old -- and sometimes archaic -- fleet in the air. More funds for sustaining the fleet means less money is available to buy new airframes. Of course, flying newer aircraft is the only way to solve the first problem, so figure that one out.

But, if you think that's bad, take a quick look at readiness levels for the French Air Force (tip: G2 Solutions).

The French-language Secret Defense blog extracts fleet availability data from a report prepared by a member of parliament, revealing the dire situation of the French Air Force. The figures do not directly compare to the USAF's mission capability rate.

Not pretty.
Here's a cleaned-up Google translation of the analysis of the data by Jean-Dominique Merchet, the journalist for the Liberation newspaper and editor of the blog.

One air force fighter aircraft out of two (48.3%) is not available. This huge figure, is extracted from a report prepared by the parliamentary deputy Jean-Claude Viollet. And, contrary to official statements, these figures are increasing. The availability rate by type of aircraft is detailed in the table below. An aircraft is considered unavailable when it can not be implemented within six hours. The difficulties stem mainly reactors [ed: translation unclear]. Specifically, the Air Force has the ability today to fly 150 combat aircraft. In the first half of 2007, there were, for example, 26 Mirage 2000-Ds available. If one excludes the six 2000-D Opex (three in Afghanistan and three in Djibouti), it means that the Air Force is able to bring only one squadron (20 aircraft) out of three it is supposed to possess.

In the most recent issue of subscription-only Inside the Air Force, Marcus Weisgerber writes that several high-ranking US Air Force generals oppose using a manned turboprop to fight insurgents.

Weisgerber quotes Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, the USAF's top-ranking acquisition official:

“We can rebuild the P-51, great airplane. All we need is you, you, you and you,” he said referring to several reporters in front of him after an April 9 Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee hearing, “to go fly it into the threat zone.”

Okay, general, why do USAF pilots get special treatment? Why can't they be exposed to the same level of risk as your average army, marine corps and -- for that matter -- air force helicopter pilot, who fly into and around the threat zone everyday in an aircraft that is slower, bigger and, thus, less survivable than a turboprop fighter? Also, while we're on the subject, how come USAF pilots can't be exposed to the same level of risk as the (predominantly) soldiers or marines driving on Iraqi and Afghan roads in a vehicle as exposed as a basic, up-armoured Humvee?

Yes, flying a turboprop into battle is less safe than riding an F-16 and requires more guts than possessed by your average (blush) aerospace reporter, but if that's what it takes to do the mission then why is there any argument? Is the grunt loading into an MRAP bound for a ride down Ambush Alley allowed to take a raincheck after deciding the odds are a little high?

You can argue that an unmanned aircraft is more effective in the same role. It may or may not be true, but it is a fair point for debate.

Comparing the relative risk of manned turboprops is not only irrelevant. It's unbecoming for a military officer.

Four Lockheed Martin F-117s will takeoff at 10am today from Holloman AFB, New Mexico. They will land at Lockheed's Skunk Works facility at Palmdale, California, for a brief ceremony. Later today, the four aircraft will be parked in recallable storage at the Tonopah test range, completing the retirement process for the world's first stealth fighter fleet.
While we say goodbye, let's remember the other key US Air Force systems that also face the retirement axe. In no particular order:
1. Last we heard, the penetrator variant of the AGM-86 cruise missile -- the only long-range weapon to defeat deeply buried or hardened targets -- is being retired after only five years of operational service.
2. The USAF first wanted to slash the Boeing B-52 fleet from 94 to 56 aircraft, but lately appear to be compromising at 76.
3. The USAF also has wanted to permanently park the Lockheed U-2 fleet, but Congress won't let them until Northrop Grumman can deliver the RQ-4B Block 30/40 Global Hawk, which should include a signals intelligence payload.

This is a must-see video for anyone interested in the Lockheed Martin F-35 project. Paul Bevilaqua, a non-propulsion engineer (!!), explains how he invented the F-35B's innovative shaft-driven lift fan.

Lockheed uploaded the video yesterday on YouTube.

A couple of people have offered some suggestions for solving the surprising problem -- disclosed on this blog earlier this week -- that Predator flight crews are the most fatigued "aviators" in the US Air Force.

RTLM writes:

The USAF might ought to follow the Army model in their approach to UAV crews: They allow senior enlisted and Warrant Officers to pilot their UAV's instead of assigning only trained USAF pilots (Officers) to fly the platforms. This is demonstrated by the Army's push for 45 MQ-1C Warrior squadrons.

This suggestion could make a lot of sense. The published navy study I cited concluded that the primary culprit for Predator pilot fatigue is lack of manpower. But the air force is adamant that only commissioned officers can "fly" an aircraft in the same airspace as other manned planes, even if remotely. I'm not agreeing with this position, just pointing out why the air force will never accept this.

Another suggestion comes from Juan. He writes:

Maybe the USAF should buy the Raytheon Universal Control System.

http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/ucs/epress/index.html

Ah, yes. This is how the air force likes to solve manpower problems: buy new technology!

I recall that defense modernization played an important role in the 2000 election, and then-candidate George W. Bush's pledge to skip a generation of weapons technology led to the "transformation" agenda of Rumsfeld's Pentagon.

We all know how that worked out!

In 2008, defense modernization still hasn't become a hot-button issue in the US election, despite the efforts of lobbying groups like the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and urgent pleas for more cash coming from the Pentagon.

But I'm starting to feel that the '08 debate by the candidates on the defense budget might bypass completely the issue of spending levels for new weapons systems. The campaigns may focus instead on where the weapon systems are coming from (ecoute-moi, l'Airbus?).

A campaign theme that focuses on "Buy American" may become as significant to the US defense industry as any havoc caused by Rumsfeld's transformation policies.

I'm attaching a press release issued by Senator Hillary Clinton last Saturday that outlines her plan to keep foreign outsourcing from disrupting the security of the US defense industrial base.

Let's see if this campaign theme starts to snowball into a real election issue. A quotable excerpt is pasted below, but click on the link for the full press release.

"Because of the Bush administration's failed policies, we're not just outsourcing jobs, we're outsourcing our security. This has got to stop. We cannot remain a strong, free and prosperous nation if we continue to outsource industries essential to our national defense," said Clinton.

"This is not about ideology. This is not about economic theory. This is not about Democrat or Republican. It's about common sense. 'Made in America' can't be just a slogan. It must be a strategy."

A research team from the Naval Postgraduate School last month quietly published some surprising findings about MQ-1 Predator flight crews.

A previous study found that the shift-work nature of Predator flight operations takes a toll on the crews. The average MQ-1 crew -- a pilot and sensor operator -- was likely to show signs of severe fatigue more often than crews for any other "high-demand/low-density" asset in the US military aircraft inventory.

The USAF made some big changes after the first study was published. To help crews adapt their circadian rhythms to the grind of shift-work, MQ-1 operational tours switched from weekly to monthly. Crews also were given three days off instead of two to help recover.

All those changes were supposed to help relieve the fatigue problem, but the research team for last month's follow-up study found that nothing had changed. Despite operating from a home base, Predator crews are still the most fatigued flight crews in the military.

Here are some more findings from the study:

Overall Assessment: Based on the data collected, the investigators noted the following: • Survey results were essentially unchanged compared to one year ago and indicated a pervasive problem with chronic fatigue. • Nearly 50% of surveyed crewmembers met the diagnostic threshold for levels of daily sleepiness which can be expected to adversely impact job performance and safety. • Duration of being a shift worker, decreasing sleep quality, and impaired domestic relationships were all associated with increased fatigue. • M&S did not identify an alternative shift schedule which would result in improved work effectiveness over that predicted for the current schedule. • The root problem for this population was not the shift system features themselves, but rather a lack of adequate manpower to provide sufficient recovery opportunities.

Dominic Gates, the best Seattle-based aerospace reporter from Ireland, has a scoop today about defective parts on the Lockheed Martin F-22.
According to Gates' story, Boeing, the F-22's aft fuselage supplier, last month filed a lawsuit against Alcoa, its former supplier. The suit alleges that Alcoa failed to properly forge certain parts for the F-22, so Boeing supplied hundreds of the parts to Lockheed before the defect was discovered in 2005.
The story also says the US Air Force has determined the defective parts -- struts that connect the wing to the forward boom of the aft fuselage -- are not a flight safety issue, and that the forward booms should survive a full service life of 8,000 hours.
At the same time, the USAF has also contracted Boeing to conduct inspections of the parts at undisclosed intervals, Gates reports. You know, just in case.
The story gives me an excuse to take the F-22 cutaway poster down from the office wall. I believe I have identified the struts that Gates is writing about. These are clearly not parts that you'd want to see crack up prematurely in a dogfight.
On this close-up, the parts are checked in red. The forward boom is the connecting point between the aft fuselage and the wing.

And here's a broader shot, with the area circled in red.

Another YouTube sighting this week. The video obviously comes from protestors outside this week's National Space Symposium at the Broadmoor hotel in Colorado Springs.

This artsy video just popped up on YouTube today.

Feel free to flex your collegiate lit-crit chops and give us your interpretation.

I'm still working on mine, but I'll post later. I do think the casino scene fits the vibe of the Boeing - EADS rivalry, but I'm struggling to interpret which side is represented by the guy who makes the "I'll kill ya" threat.

You could view this as a reflection of our increasingly globalized defense trade. Perhaps it's even a clue about the next move for the Northrop/EADS partnership.

It's a Spanish-language copy of the infamous Northrop Grumman/EADS "spider chart" that apparently proved so persuasive to the US Air Force.

The photo below was snapped in the exhibit hall of Chile's FIDAE air show last week. The anonymous photographer kindly uploaded the shot on his Flickr page.

The Spanish-language chart also adds to the original by inserting the A310 MRTT into the comaprison. It surprises me by comparing fairly well against the KC-767, at least in terms of overall performance.

Chile's air force has a need to replace its aging Boeing 707-based tanker fleet. Either the Northrop/EADS team or EADS alone is already hoping to transfer their KC-X win into a new contract in South America.

Here is the original spider chart, in English:

That all-time classic line from a congressional hearing about military acquisition comes from Representative Neil Abercrombie's 10-minute rant last week on Sue Payton, the US Air Force's acquisition chief.

I finally got my fingers on a copy of the transcript from this most bizarre hearing.

You can read the entire exchange by clicking on the link. I apologize in advance to anyone who doesn't like to read obscenities on a blog, but, in my defense, I am simply quoting from the congressional record.

For background, Abercrombie has just found out that the US Army and the US Air Force each have different procurement prices for the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA). The army's price tag is $30 million per aircraft and the the USAF's price tag is $60 million. Abercrombie is not impressed -- to say the least -- with Payton's explanation for the disparity.

I'm just excerpting my favorite part here, but read the whole transcript by clicking on the link at the bottom.

Enjoy.

REP. ABERCROMBIE: Ms. Payton, you are right on the edge of getting into the Blues Brothers.

MS. PAYTON: Sorry sir, I don't mean to be there. I --

REP. ABERCROMBIE: That's when -- when Jake says, Bill, but you lied to us about the band. They lied to me when I was in prison about the band. You haven't kept the band together. He goes, I never lied to you. I bullshitted you a little bit, but I never lied to you.

MS. PAYTON: Sir, I would never give any misinformation --

REP. ABERCROMBIE: No, you are saying that the Army is doing that.

MS. PAYTON: No, sir. I believe that --

REP. ABERCROMBIE: You are trying to finesse us. You are telling me they've got a cost that they know about, but they are not telling us about it, and are trying to pretend their unit cost and given information to us is the same as your unit cost, and they know better.

I'm calling today "F136 Day" because ... well, for me, it is.

I'm on my way to Cincinnati for a meeting this afternoon with the General Electric/Rolls-Royce program manager for the perpetually-imperilled alternate engine for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

I've got to run to catch my bus, but I'll let you know how it turns out.

In the meantime, enjoy some background reading material on the engine here, and feel free to share your thoughts on whether you think the JSF program really needs two engines.

More bad news for the US Air Force's aging aircraft fleets.

I'm sure everybody remembers the infamous longeron-cracking that grounded the entire Boeing F-15 fleet in November, which for a time left (gasp!) Oregon's air space briefly undefended.

Less strenuously reported is the worsening structural condition of growing numbers of older-model Lockheed Martin F-16s. Cheers to Graham Warwick for forwarding this snippet of written testimony from a Congressional hearing earlier this month. The writing is attributed to "Daniel J. Darnell Deputy Chief of Staff Air, Space and Information Operations, Plans and Requirements Headquarters, U.S. Air Force."

He says:

Wing pylon rib corrosion, a known problem with the F-16 aircraft is an issue we monitor closely. This corrosion prevents the F-16s from carrying pylon mounted external fuel tanks, which limits their effective combat range. While we currently have three F-16 aircraft grounded due to wing pylon rib corrosion, the corrosion problem is somewhat common across the fleet. For example, within the past 24 months, we identified 27 aircraft at Aviano Air Base, Italy with this problem. We currently inspect F-16 aircraft every 800 hours to monitor for this problem. Because of inspections, we have also found approximately 16% (69 of 399) of our Block 40/42 F-16 aircraft now have bulkhead cracks. This discovery has led to 22 Block 40/42 F-16 aircraft grounded due to the severity of the cracks. An additional 41 aircraft continue to fly with flight restrictions. We will continue to monitor this situation closely.

Now comes the news this week that the relatively young C-17 fleet is also dealing with a structural problem.

General Arthur Licthe, chief of Air Mobility Command, told lawmakers this week that stress imposed by the C-17's thrust reversers have spawned fuselage cracks in the airframe. I asked Boeing for elaboration, and here's what they told me:

Thanks for your question on the C-17 fatigue cracks. The stress cracks, beneath and forward of the wings on the C-17 fuselage are a minor occurrence and don’t pose a safety hazard for the aircraft or flight crews. Boeing has developed a fix for the problem and the fix has been demonstrated and validated to meet the durability requirements. There’s no impact on the operational readiness of these planes and the cracks are being fixed during regularly scheduled maintenance with a simple technique.

I also asked Boeing why the thrust reversers would lead to fuselage cracks forward of and beneath the wings. Boeing's reply:

It’s referred to as the "fire hose effect." The reversed air, from the fan thrust reverser, glances off the fuselage forward and below the wing. The resultant stresses in the fuselage skins due to this impingement were higher than anticipated and have resulted in the small skin cracks.

Raytheon will begin the next phase of development for the US Air Force’s first stand-in jammer platform scheduled to enter operational service after 2013.
The $80.2 million contract announced on 31 March will allow Raytheon to launch the second phase of risk reduction for the jammer variant of the Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (MALD) called MALD-J.
The USAF wants the vehicle to launch against pre-planned targets, jamming the radars of an integrated air defense system before friendly aircraft are detected. The same vehicle, which is intended to be unrecoverable, also must function as a decoy.
Along with an upgrade for the EC-130 Compass Call, MALD-J is all that remains of the USAF’s once-vaunted concept for an airborne electronic attack “systems of systems”, which emerged in 2002.
MALD-J and the now-cancelled Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) would have performed the stand-in jamming role, while the aborted B-52 Stand-off Jammer System would have been aimed at blocking an enemy’s long-range early warning radars.
The US Navy’s Boeing EA-18G Growler, meanwhile, is moving forward in the “escort jamming” role.
The SOJS may be revived in a proposed new programme called Core Component Jammer (CCJ), which has already drawn a teaming agreement by Boeing and Northrop Grumman.
Raytheon declined to comment on MALD-J for this article.
The USAF originally planned to launch development of the MALD-J in 2006, but instead opted to stretch out the schedule by introducing a two-phase risk reduction effort.

MALD in-flight (Source: Raytheon)

Read about the USN's next-generational jammer concept here.

The above is the question that the US Department of Defense is asking itself, courtesy of a new Defense Science Board Task Force chaired by Jacques Gansler. I wrote about the issue in a news analysis published this week in Flight International. I've posted an excerpt below, and you can read the full story here.

Taking an "off-the-shelf" aircraft and adapting it for a new military role was supposed to be the cheap and easy alternative to designing an all-new platform.

So, in accord with the mantra "faster, better and cheaper", US military services since 2001 have often turned to off-the-shelf derivatives of commercial and military aircraft to satisfy new and emerging requirements for a wide range of missions, including scout and utility helicopters, VIP transports, surveillance aircraft and aerial tankers, to name but a few.

The results, however, have proved disappointing. Far from removing cost and schedule risks, procurements based on off-the-shelf aircraft and similar equipment have led to some of the most expensive acquisition fiascos for the US military over the last decade.

Examples range from aborted efforts, such as the ERJ-145-based aerial common sensor (ACS) or the 767-400ER-based E-10A, to multi-billion dollar development fiascos, as endured by the EH101-based VH-71A presidential helicopter and the Bell 407-based ARH-71A armed reconnaissance helicopter.

Despite the dubious track record, off-the-shelf alternatives remain popular. A pending contract for an unmanned maritime surveillance aircraft, as well future procurements for new signals intelligence fleets, are all expected to rely on platforms originally designed to perform a different role.

Jacques Gansler, a former US undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics (ATL), has been recruited to help solve the Department of Defense's problem.

"A lot of the older systems also had the same characteristics" as today's off-the-shelf aircraft programmes, Gansler says, adding: "We've just got a collection now of bad stories."

Current ATL chief John Young has tapped Gansler to chair a task force aimed at evaluating the reasons why acquisition programmes based on off-the-shelf equipment often fail or face costly delays.

I'm listening to the webcast of the hearing by the Air and Land Forces subcommittee, which is chaired by Rep. Neil Abercrombie, of Hawaii. He is at this moment giving Sue Payton, assistant secretary of the air force for acquisition, an epic tongue-lashing. Some unprintable words, even for this blog, have been used. I will post a full transcript as soon as it becomes available. It's about the unit cost differential between the US Air Force budget for the Joint Cargo Aircraft and the US Army's budget.

I picked this up rummaging around Boeing's booth at the Missile Defense Agency conference in Washington DC today. Enjoy.