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Aviation History
2003
2003 - 2501.PDF
FULL LIST OF READER SERVII & ADVERTISER CONTACTS - P53 EDITORIAL + 44 (20) 8652 3842 Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS, UK Fax +44 (20) 8652 3840 email flighUnternationamrbi.co.uk Editor Murdo Morrison +44 (20) 8652 4395 murdo.morrisonWbi.co.uk Editorial Assistant Andrew Costerton +44 (20) 8652 3835 andrew.costerton@rbi.co.uk News Editor Andrew Doyle +44 (20) 8652 3096 andreti.doyle@rbi.co.uk Acting Defence Editor Julian Moxon +44 (20) 8652 3S3Ajulian.moxon@rbi.co.uk Commercial Aviation Editor Max Kingsley-Jones +44 (20) 8652 3825 max.kingsley.jones@rbi.co.uk Operations/Safety Editor David Learmount +44 (20) 8652 3845 david.learmount@rbi.co.uk Business Editor Alexander Campbell +44 (20) 8652 3990 alexander.campbell@rbi.co.uk Business & General Aviation Editor Kate Sarsfield +44 (20) 8652 3885 kate.sarsfield@rbi.co.uk Senior Reporter Justin Wastage +44 (20) 8652 3S63justin.wastnage@rbi.co.uk Technical Reporter Michael Phelan +44 (20) 8652 3843 michael.phelan@rbi.co.uk Spaceflight Correspondent Tim Furniss +44 (1237) 471960 tim@spaceport.co.uk Senior Technical Artist Giuseppe Picarella +44 (20) 8652 S05Ajoe.picarella@rbi.co.uk Editorial Artist Tim Brown +44 (20) 8652 8043 tim.brown@rbi.co.uk EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST European Editor Christina Mackenzie +33 (1) 64 23 68 89 christina.mackenzie@rbi.co.uk Israel Correspondent Arie Egozi +972 (3) 9413132 Middle East Correspondent Gerald Butt AMERICAS Washington DC Office Fax +1 (703) 836 8344 Americas Editor Graham Warwick +1 (703) 836 3448 graham.warwick@rbi.co.uk East Coast Editor Stephen Trimble +1 (703)8363084 stephen.trimble@rbi.co.uk West Coast Editor Guy Norris +1(949)2528971 Fax+1 (949) 252 8972 guy.norris@rbi.co.uk Brazil Correspondent Jackson Flores Jr •55 212439-6062 Fax +55 212349-6090 fubar@uol.com.br Canada Correspondent Brian Dunn ASIA/PACIFIC Singapore Office Fax +65 6789 7575 Regional Managing Editor Nicholas lonides +65 6780 4311 nicholas.ionides@rbi.co.uk Deputy Asia Editor Brendan Sobie +65 6780 4309 brendan.sobie@rbi.co.uk Regional Reporter Leithen Francis +65 6780 4314 leithen.francis@rbi.co.uk Australia Civil Aviation Correspondent Emma Kelly +61 (8) 9454 4987 emmajkelly@bigpond.com Associate Editor (Defence) Peter La Franchi +61419 246 620 Fax +61 (2) 62312795 nulka@ozemail.com.au EDITORIAL PRODUCTION Group Production Editor Graeme Osborn +44 (20) 8652 3828 Group Art Editor James Mason +44 (20) 8652 4994 Chief Sub-Editor Chris Thornton +44 (20) 8652 4997 Deputy Production Editor Jackie Thompson +44 (20) 8652 3850 Sub Editor Megan Turner +44 (20) 8652 3848 Photographer Mark Wagner +44 (20) 8944 5225 WWW.FLIGHTINTERNATIONAL.COM Webmaster Sheena Buchanan +44 (20) 8652 4432 SUBSCRIPTIONS +44 (1444) 445454 rbi.subscriptions@rbi.co.uk THE FLIGHT COLLECTION kim.hearn@rbi.co.uk © and Database Rights 2003 Reed Business Information Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publishers L r/y; ! Air Transport Intelligence (ATI), Flight International's sister online service at www.rati.com, contains the full text of Flight International'and Airline Business since 1996. Full text of the magazines can also he found online with Lexis-Nexis, Dialogue, FT Profile, IAC and Reuters. Editor Kieran Daly +44 (20) 8652 3837 Reed Business Information COMMENT A dying design art? Unless industry can find some way to sustain its design skills, the JSF may yet prove to be the last manned combat aircraft produced Over the last 100 years, industry has devel oped the capability to design and produce extremely complex and capable aircraft. The pinnacle of that complexity and capability is the modern fighter, exemplified by the Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and Lockheed Martin/Boeing F/A-22 Raptor. Each stands on the back of a long line of past com bat aircraft that have honed the design skills of their developers. But any skill begins to atro phy if it is not exercised regularly. The US military aircraft industry - the largest and best-funded in the world - is in danger of losing its ability to design a manned combat aircraft within 10 years, according to a new report from research organisation Rand. Conceptual designers are already an endan gered species, says Rand, as the Joint Strike Fighter moves into detailed engineering. All that remains to keep the design teams intact at Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop It already may be too late for Boeing and Northrop Grumman Grumman is work on unmanned air vehicles, unmanned combat air vehicles and military derivatives of commercial aircraft. Such pro grammes are not sufficient, says Rand, to keep alive the special skills required to design manned combat aircraft. The report and its stark conclusions should come as no surprise. Concerns about the impact on the US industrial base of the Department of Defense's "winner-takes-all" strategy for JSF were raised well before Lockheed Martin won the competition in 2001. Rand itself concluded winner-takes-all was the cheapest option, but its latest report highlights the true long-term cost of that decision. Based on currently funded programmes, Rand estimates, research and development funding will fall below the minimum required to maintain a viable military aircraft design team at Boeing in 2006-8. Northrop Grumman, with its share of JSF will remain a viable competi tor until 2008-10, the report suggests, but even Lockheed Martin will begin to lose its design capability two years later if there are no new programmes. Adding in the UCAV, tanker and surveillance aircraft programmes already planned does little to delay the design inter regnum facing the US industry next decade. Commissioned by Congress, the report out lines policy options to maintain the capability for more than one US company to design and produce military aircraft. None of them are cheap. And maintaining three companies as viable competitors for future military aircraft programmes will be far from cheap. Options include a new major UAV programme every four years, a series of X-plane technology demonstrators, or a new long-range strike air craft. Only the latter option will sustain all three companies' design capabilities to 2020, says Rand - but at enormous cost: $30 billion for development and $50 billion for 100 aircraft. With the F/A-22 and JSF consuming most of the USAF's procurement budget for the next 10-20 years, it is hard to see how it can afford to launch a new manned combat aircraft programme before the end of this decade. If the Rand report is correct, and no other rem edy is found, that already may be too late for Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Inevitably there is room for debate on just how perishable are the skills of military aircraft design teams. Boeing lost JSF but says most of its design team remains within the com pany, dispersed on other programmes - many unrelated to manned combat aircraft. But Rand argues that working on programmes such as the US Army's Future Combat Systems network of manned and unmanned ground and air vehicles does not maintain the specialist skills needed to design a highly inte grated, high performance fighter or bomber. It is a problem European industry has been facing for several years, since the Rafale, Typhoon and Saab/BAE Systems Gripen entered production. So far, there is no sign of a next generation of European combat aircraft emerging this decade and European defence spending is not sufficient to fund a robust pro gramme of technology demonstrators. In Europe, encouraged by the success of Airbus, the emphasis on government R&D funding is shifting to the commercial arena. While this will provide work for the region's designers, by Rand's definition it will not preserve Europe's ability to produce competitive combat aircraft. Whether the military aircraft industry is facing a crisis or simply adapting to change is unclear. The emergence of unmanned systems and network-enabled operations is reshaping the face of warfare. At one time, the JSF was hailed as the last manned combat aircraft. Unless industry can find some way to sustain its design skills it may yet prove to be true. SEE HEADLINES P7 www.flightinternational.com FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 4-10 NOVEMBER 2003 5
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