Author: Matthew G. Saroff

The Post is Interesting, But the Snark is Prize

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Over at Ares, Bill Sweetman has a post noting the similarities in weights and fuel loads between the Navy’s F-35C and the A-5 Vigilante series.

It’s an interesting read, but his takedown of the Vigilante linear bom bay is just prize:

The A3J-2 or A-5B was designed without that restriction, and had usefully more internal fuel, but by the time it came along two things had happened. The Polaris missile submarine had taken over the Navy’s nuclear strike mission and tests had shown that there was only one version of the Vigilante where the unique linear bomb bay – which shot the bomb out of the tail – actually worked.

Unfortunately, it was this version:

Mr. Sweetman owes me a screen wipe.

Now This is a Breath of Fresh Air

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Well, it looks like President Elect Barack Obama has decided to tighten ethics rules, and it will hit the pentagon hardest, “No political appointees would be able to work regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.”

It’s a very good start. It will have the effect of reducing the so called “Tron Triangle.”

Of course, you get the complaints:

“You can understand the motivation behind it, but it’s not clear that you will get the best and brightest people who understand what needs to be done to serve in the government. As you know previous administrations have had great difficulty attracting people under the existing guidelines,” a procurement expert with experience in and out of government told me this morning.

But the, “procurement expert with experience in and out of government,” is the problem, not the solution.

It’s this kind of self dealing that gets us a JSF that runs nearly $1/5 billion a plane.

Your Defense Dollars at Work

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Yes, the U.S. Air Force has paid to become the exclusive sponsor of the Xbox LIVE short film series ‘Horror Meets Comedy’:

As the sole sponsor of the series, Air Force will create custom intro billboards that will run with each pilot and interactive media placements that will live across the Xbox LIVE online entertainment network and the Xbox.com website. Users can click on these custom units and engage directly with the Air Force Brand Destination which offers users the opportunity to learn more about the Air Force through video downloads, gamer pictures and theme packages. GSD&M Idea City, the Air Force’s advertising agency orchestrated the sponsorship.

Barney Frank is right, we are spending way too much money on defense.

Japan Eying a Larger Stealth Aircraft Project

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I mean a physically larger aircraft than the F-5 sized ATD-X that I have written about before.

I had theorized that this was an attempt to pressure the US Congress to change the law forbidding exports of the F-22, but now It now appears that they are considering a stealth aircraft in the that is significantly larger. (paid subscription required)

They are talking about two engines in the 22,000 lb thrust range, which appears to put the new aircraft in the Superbug and Typhoon size range, though if it is a strike fighter, it could be larger still, as attack aircraft generally have lower thrust to weight.

It’s clear from the pictures above, that the Japanese are very serious about stealth, which is about attention to detail.

It’s clear that Japan’s immediate need, replacement of its F-4EJ, will not be filled by any such aircraft, the need is too immediate.

The leading candidates for an F-4 are the F/A-18 E/F, Typhoon, and Rafale.

If it weren’t so damn slow, I’d bet on the Japanese buying the Superbug, but I have no clue as to where they are going on this.

USAF Playing Budget Make-Believe on JSF

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The USAF is trying to boost JSF funding to move forward development and production.

This is not achievable:

The JSF program has set itself some lofty goals. Even with the new mid-2014 date for the completion of operational testing (OT) the flight-test team has to average 70-plus sorties per month, starting yesterday, to get there. (This is based on the 5100 total sorties mentioned in a GAO report early this year.)

That’s as many flights as the program has notched up in the past two years.

So,what is going on?

I think that they art either looking at a larger buy, or they want to make sure that they have spent so much money that cutbacks are simply not viable.

When you consider that military spending is the highest that it has been since the end of WWII, with fewer troops, ships, and planes than at any time since WWII, this is an indicator of profound dysfunction/

Zhuhai Air Show Picture Pr0n

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Well, let’s start with the UAVs, and the Chinese are clearly looking at matching US capabilities with large UAVs:


This rather looks like any number of low observability UAVS


The Tian Yi-3 looks like a Global Hawk


As does the Soar Dragon.

We also see new antiship missiles and a trainer, which looks a lot like the russian Yak-130 trainer.


These look identical to missiles that Iran have shown, which gives a pretty good idea as to the provenance of those.


Clearly separated at birth from the Yak.

It also looks like it’s not just the US and Israel that are seriously considering truck mounted SAMs based on currently fielded air to air missiles:

That being said, the highlight of the show tends to be the aircraft that actually, of which the canard delta J-10 was the star of the show.

There is a very good collection of pictures here, which in addition to the J-10 has pics of the henyang J-8II fighter aircraft (above), a Xian JH-7A strike aircraft, and the Xian H-6U (Beagle derivative?) tanker. But here is some canard:


Thankfully, we also get some pictures of the J-10 in flight:

A ‘chute for landing…That’s unexpected….In a 1970s way.

We also have a review of the demonstration flights at the airshow.

What is interesting is that the review of its performance by Vladimir Karnozov is very positive, “The pilot rarely used afterburner and the degrees of canard deflection were small. Still, the airplane flew very well. I reckon it will beat F-16C or MiG-29/SMT easily.”

They are STILL Having Fastener Problems?

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Boeing has delayed the first flight of the 787, again.

Not a surprise, considering the strike, but it appears that the work stoppage is only part of it:

Included in the assessment is a costly manufacturing error. Boeing acknowledges a need to reinstall slightly less than 3% of all fasteners throughout its production system.

I’m beginning to think that they should hire a Witch Doctor, and slaughter a pig to get the demons out.

Son of Hyper-X Approaches Flight Ready Status

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The X-43A was a rather crude demonstrator, relying on a large, heavy copper heat sink and burning hydrogen, but the X-51a is much more advance, and much more viable technologymuch lighter, and being actively cooled by its own hydrocarbon fuel, and the flight ready SJX61-2 scramjet has finished ground test

It will start on ethylene, and than sustain thrust with JP-7, the fuel used by the SR-71, and should have a powered endurance in the 300 second range, following launch at 50,000 feet by a B-52 and a boost to supersonic speed by a booster derived from the ATACMS missile.

I think that if this transitions to anything in the near term, it would be some sort of missile, and if they can get 300s thrust at mach 5 or so, you would be looking at a total range on the order of 600+km.

One of the things that would change is that you would see a lot less metal, and a lot more composite.

Picture Pr0n below:


SJX61-2 Engine in Hypersonic Wind Tunnel


Titanium nozzle for SJX61-2


The fuel tank is integral to the structure.

A New VTOL UCAV Concept

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I present to you the Aurora Flight Sciences Excalibur VTOL UCAV, a 40% proof of concept version, which seems to be almost as much prop as wing, paid for by DARPA.

The twist in this design is that the lift fans are driven by electric motors:

For VTOL mode, the Excalibur’s turbine engine tilts vertically and provides about 70% of the thrust, says program manager Heather Brendle. Battery-powered lift fans in the nose and wing tips provide pitch and roll control by differential rotational speed, and yaw control via vanes that deflect fan thrust. For cruise, the engine tilts horizontally, the tip fans retract into the wing, a sliding door covers the nose fan and the aircraft rolls onto its back.

The Excalibur is designed as a close-air-support UCAV. The notional 21-ft.-span full-size vehicle is designed around a 500-lb. weapons capacity—enough to carry four Hellfire missiles. This aircraft would have a VTOL takeoff weight of 4,000 lb. and useful load of 1,000 lb., increasing to 4,800 lb. and 1,900 lb., respectively, with short takeoff and vertical landing. Maximum speed would be 300 kt. at sea level, increasing to 460 kt. at 30,000 ft.; loiter speed would be 90 kt.

Aurora’s subscale, 10-ft.-span, proof-of-principle (POP) aircraft weighs in at 720 lb., with a 100-lb. useful load and 280-kt. sea-level speed. The engine is a Williams F415 turbofan from the Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile. Each common lift-fan unit is powered by four lithium polymer batteries packaged with the electric motor. The motor’s fast response allows use of a fixed-pitch fan, says Brendle.

Someone seriously thinking outside of the box here.

Boeing Uses Labor Agreement as Cover to Trim Outsourcing

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So, we now see that Boeing will move more engineering and manufacturing in house after the debacle with its long-delayed 787:

Boeing has expected too much from major outsourcing partners and will take much detailed design work and some major production back in-house to avoid in future the troubles that have plagued its long-delayed 787 programme.

I think that some of the upper management will now say that they had to, because of the labor deal they cut with the IAM, as opposed to admitting that farming that much out to future competitors so as to reduce the initial investment, did not work, and transferred core competencies to the “partners”.

I think that the employment guarantees in the contract were a relief to management, because they had to bring this stuff back in, but admitting failure in an honest way would have meant some high level firings.

Also, toward the bottom, it appears that the SPEEA is feeling its oats with Boeing too, though I don’t expect a strike from them, they are engineers, who tend to be Randroid by nature.

Then again, I did not predict the last time, when they did go on strike, so YMMV.