Category: Aviation

AESA Radar Enters Flight Test on F-16

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Northrop Grumman is now flying its Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) on a USAF F-16.

The interesting question here is how much this will influence current F-16 operators who are currently considering purchasing the F-35.

I think that it is likely that the capabilities of an avionics suite installed on an F-16 can come close to that installed in a JSF: Even with an advanced sensor suite, it’s clear that the F-16 will be less than ½ the price, and less than ½ the direct operating costs.

Additionally, any avionics package is far more open to the development of national systems and upgrades, and the ability to operate 2-3 times as many aircraft, particularly if the nation expects to operate largely in coalition action or counter-insurgency scenarios, might very well deliver superior results on the battlefield.

Brazil Fighter Competition Update

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We have a report from the Brazilian Newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reporting that there will be 36 Dassault Rafales purchased at $175 million each, ($6.2 billion) and this constitutes a $2 billion price cut in the deal.

On the other hand, the Brazil defense ministry had denied that any formal decision has yet been made.

$175 million each? Great googly moogly, for a few bucks more they could buy the F-22, if it could be sold, and if the production tooling still existed.

Death Spiral, JSF Edition, Chapter 2 of Many

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Well, this week, SecDef Robert Gates has just fired the program manager for the JSF program, Major General David Heinz, and is withholding millions of dollars in performance fees to the prime contractor, Lockheed-Martin, because of schedule and budget slips, citing a “troubling performance record.” (see also here, here, and here)

Lockheed-Martin’s response has been nothing short of delusional, at least as described by Steve O’Bryan, L-M VP for “business development and customer engagement” for the JSF, “:

Gates’ actions, in O’Bryan’s view, “reflected the commitment of the U.S. government to the F-35… the program is fully funded, with more development funding and more robust leadership.” The decision shows that the aircraft is “relevant today, and that the customer wants the jet right now.”

I’m beginning to think that part of the reason that this program is over budget and behind schedule is that Lockheed Martin has, and so the tax payer is paying for, a, “vice president for business development and customer engagement on the JSF program”.

It seems to me that this is a rather high falutin, and likely highly paid, position for what amounts to a PR flack with heavy duty knee pads.

Misapplication of resources may be a part of the problem, and Mr. O’Bryan’s continued employment does not seem to me to be an example of “spending smart.”

Of course, the USAF chief of staff is similarly sanguine, suggesting that the delays in the pro will only raise unit cost in the immediate term, because, like no other program before it, the delays will increast the cost only, “for a period,” and he does not see a Nunn-McCurdy breach in the costs.

It makes me want to quote that Samuel L. Jackson speech from Pulp Fiction again, because it’s clear that they want to f%$# the taxpayer like a bitch.

There are people who recognize the truth, like the Director Of Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E), who says that even with a flawless program, there will be a slippage of at least 18 months on the program, but that a flawless program is extremely unlikely, since things like the idea that modeling and simulation can reduce testing are unlikely to succeed.

Of note in the DOT&E report:

  • LRIP configuration is not yet defined.
  • Clutch heating on the STOVL variant
  • Increases in weight and landing speeds means that tires are running into their thermal limits for the carrier (F-35C) version.
  • Software instability
  • They aircraft is pulling out many of its survivability features, fuel check valves in the engine nozzle and fire extinguishers, to reach the specified weight.

Additionally, it now appears that the F-35C fuselage is under-strength:

Lockheed Martin Corp. is fixing a structural weakness in the Navy version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that limits the jet’s ability to launch from aircraft carriers, according to a company spokesman.

Engineers in July discovered a “strength shortfall” in an aluminum structure in the aircraft’s center fuselage that helps absorb stresses during a catapult takeoff, Lockheed spokesman John Kent said today in an e-mailed statement.

Additionally, it appears that the carrier model may be too hot, literally for carrier decks:

The Pentagon’s Gilmore said in his report that the engine and power-systems’ exhaust on the Navy and Marine versions is powerful enough to pose a threat to carrier personnel. The blasts also may damage shields used to deflect heat on the deck, including on the CVN-21 carrier, the Navy’s most expensive warship.

“Early analyses of findings indicate that integration of the F-35 into the CVN-21 will result in damage to the carrier deck environment and will adversely affect hangar deck operations,” Gilmore wrote.

<snark>Actually, it’s not a worry, since their new electromagnetic catapults don’t work anyway. </snark>

A Good Plan View of the PAK-FA

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H/t ELP Defens(c)e Blog

What is apparrent from this view:
Edge Alignment.

  • Relatively flat central belly area.
  • Straight through engine air path (which implies radar blockers, as in the F-117 and F/A-18E/f).
  • The flaps on the leading edge of the leading edge extensions.
  • Metallic skin on rear portion of engines.
  • Su-27 style “stinger, with a relatively large radome.
  • Landing gear appears robust.
  • Trapazoidal (stealthy) air inlets with splitter plates.

I think that the metal on the rear fuselage around the engines are an indication that whatever signature reduction techniques that they want to apply, they are not all on this model, so it reinforces my earlier assessment that this is not a representative prototype, but rather more of a validation model for the configuration.

Sikorsky’s X2 Looks to Break 250 MPH Early This Year

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Soon to hit 250 MPH?

Sikorsky is looking at taking the coaxial rotor compound helicopter to more than 250 miles per hour soon:

Sikorsky expects to exceed 250 kt. with its X2 Technology coaxial-rotor compound helicopter demonstrator early in the year, resetting speed expectations for rotorcraft that have been stuck at around 150 kt. for decades.

A modern reinterpretation of Sikorsky’s XH-59A Advancing Blade Concept (ABC) testbed, which reached 238 kt. in the 1970s, the X2 combines fly-by-wire control, integrated engine/rotor/propulsor system, variable-speed rotor, high-lift/drag rigid blades and active vibration control to realize the speed potential of a coaxial rotor while retaining the hover agility of a helicopter.

The ability to auto-rotate in an emergency is a big plus too.

It works by offloading the retreating blade, and so preventing retreating blade stall, which occurs when the relative speed of the blade versus the air at higher speeds falls.

The issue has always been the complexity of the flight controls, the X59A required two pilots, and vibrations, which appear to be satisfactorily addressed through active digital flight control system on the X2.

I’ve always favored it over the tilt rotor concept, it appears to be both simpler and more redundant, and the rotors are not a compromise between lift and propulsion that they are in something like the V-22.

Earlier posts

Russia Looks to Joint Venture With Chinese for Mi-26 Successor

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Proposed Mi-46

The Russians make the largest production helicopter in the world, the Mi-26 “Halo”, and they have been considering an updated helo in the same (humongous) size range for some time.

Now, it appears that they are looking to do a joint venture with the Chinese to develope a 20T payload class helicopter. (paid subscription required)

Seeing as how the helicopter originally flew in 1977, and has been in service since 1983, there is a lot of room for improvement.

Just updating the transmission to modern aluminum alloys in the transmission and going with a more modern rotor system would probably add about 10% to payload and range performance, but that would be an upgrade rather than a completely new design.

A completely new variant might be based on the canceled Mi-46, though that was about a 12 tonne class machine.

I think that the reason for a joint venture has more to do with a potential market, they want to sell to the Chinese, than it does to any real technical or development advantage that they might gain.

Some More on the Pak-FA

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H/t Douglas Barrie at Ares

First, is that the wheels are large, and I would assume relatively low pressure, implying, as is consistent with Russian doctrine, that it is intended to operate from poorly prepared fields.

The second is that it has relatively small all moving vertical stabilizers, which implies to me that thrust vectoring might be a part of further development, though there was no evidence of such in the initial videos.

Also, the wheels were never retracted, but this is not a surprise on a first flight.

There is also what appears to be a not-particularly-lo IRST on the nose.

Also, if you look at the somewhat more detailed video, it appears that the leading edge of the leading edge extensions (a mouthful that). Aerodynamically, it appears to me to be rather similar to the leading edges of the inlets on an F-15, which pivot down for better pressure recovery at high angles of attack.

Also, lots of rivets on a closer look in the new video, which implies that this is, as I originally surmised, a demonstrator rather than a true prototype.

Urban Air Mule Demonstrates Hover

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Looks a bit Buck Rogers

So, the Israeli ducted fan cargo UAV concept has finally left the ground.

This appears to have validated the basic control systems, as well as the software.

It appears that the most likely route to success will be on an eventual autonomous ambulance (bottom pic), particularly since the ducted fan arrangement eliminates those pesky rotors which can strike buildings and people.

Here is my original post on this.

Report: Brazilian Military Prefers Gripen

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According to this report, the Brazilian President’s first choice, the Dassault Rafale, is actually ranked 3rd:

Brazil’s F-X2 fighter programme could be the subject of further delays, after a summary of the air force’s 30,000-page evaluation report was leaked to one of the country’s leading newspapers.

The Folha de São Paulo newspaper reported that the air force’s F-X2 procurement programme committee has ranked Saab’s Gripen NG as its first-choice candidate for the deal, initially for 36 aircraft, due to its lowest acquisition and operating costs. It is followed closely by Boeing’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet Block II.

I think that part of this is higher level diplomacy, with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva believing that closer relations with France are more important than those with Sweden (that’s a no-brainer), and his belief that allying with Dassault will provide more opportunities to the Brazilian aerospace industry.

The Rafale is certainly not the low cost solution, it’s low production numbers mean that acquiring the aircraft will necessarily be expensive, and the Gripen is ½ the size of its competitors, with ½ the number of engines, so it will be much cheaper to operate.

I would also note that, given Swedish requirements for austere field operations, it would likely be better suited to operating from some hole-in-the-wall air strip in the Amazon jungle.

F-35 Update

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H/t ELP Defens(c)e Blog

So, the F-35 B has finally engaged its lift fan in flight, (video below) which is a step toward, but considering the fact the aircraft flew only 10% of the scheduled test flights in 2009, I guess you take what you can.

The bigger news is about the F-35 C model, where a study has been released showing that it will be significantly more expensive to operate than its predecessors:

Moreover, NAVAIR estimates the total of 680 short take-off and vertical landing F-35Bs and carrier-variant F-35Cs, ordered by the US Marine Corps and USN, respectively, will cost $30,700 to fly each hour. This compares to $18,900 for the Boeing AV-8B Harrier II and Boeing F/A-18A-D, the aircraft types the Joint Strike Fighter will replace.

Although NAVAIR projects the F-35 will fly 12% fewer flight hours than the AV-8B and F/A-18A-D fleets, the agency expects the modern aircraft to cost as much as about 25% more to operate at peak rates, the briefing says.

The unexpected cost increases mean the F-35 “will have a significant impact on naval aviation affordability”, the NAVAIR document concludes.

Note that this is competing against an F/A-18 with 2 engines, and roughly the same level of installed thrust and weight.

In fact, it is more expensive to operate than the F-15 Eagle, which is significantly larger, but costs only $30,000/hour to operate and only slightly less than that of the F-22, which is nearly twice the size, and costs $44,000/hour to fly. (scroll down)

When the inevitable costs escalation is included, and part of the hourly cost is the amortization of the initial purchase, I think that the “smaller cheaper” F-35 will be nearly the cost of the F-22.

I do not consider this an argument for the F-22, just an argument for a 2nd tier that costs less (inflation adjusted) than an F-4 Phantom to operate.

The US has air dominance because it dominates the situational awareness in any potential conflict, which is done with things like advanced communications, AWACS, etc., not a plane that can break mach 1 in a vertical climb.

Lockheed-Martin’s response is that the study is “not definitive,” which is defense contractor speak for, “I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for your meddling kids.”

Russian PAK-FA Flies

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Here is a decent quality picture

The aircraft made its first flight at Komsomolsk-on-Amur, duration about 45 minutes, the Sukhoi’s air field near Russia’s Pacific coast.

Note that this is more of a demonstrator than anything else, and by way of comparison, the BAE EAP, the demonstator for the Eurofighter Typhoon, first flew in August 1986, but entered service in August 2003, a 17 year lag.

To the degree that I can get a look at the cockpit arrangement, and it’s a couple of times that I have paused the videos (below), it appears that the canopy has not gotten any sort of stealth treatment yet.

There also appears to be a fair amount of edge alignment.

This, along with the visible smoke trails from engines, implies to me that this is more a demonstrator than a prototype

The the 2nd video makes that fairly clear that they are staying with the straight inlets and widely spaced inlets of the Flanker and Fulcrum, , so I’m not sure how they keep RCS down. There might be radar blockers in the inlets.

Interesting, they retain the widely spaced straight through inlets of the Flanker and Forger. I wonder how they reduce the RCS, perhaps radar blockers in the inlets.

Also, it appears that agility is a larger priority, as it has a cranked delta wing, which tends to improve nose authority at higher angles of attack.

I wonder if they are operating under the assumption that sensor fusion and increased processing power will mitigate stealth going forward, or they may have decided that lowering RCS to improve jamming efficiency was a more economical path forward than going with extreme stealth.

H/t ELP Defens(c)e

Moscow Russians Working on a Next Generation Bomber in 2025-2030 Time Frame

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Unlike some of the other Russian programs (*cough* PAK-FA *cough*) which seem to have overly aggressive time frames, this program has a realistic time frame, and the technical requirements are rather modest (paid subscription required) :

“At the end of the first stage, we selected four options [for the future bomber] out of an initial 47 for further consideration and analysis,” [head of the Special Aircraft Division, Alexander] Bobryshev said during a Dec. 23 meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Bobryshev committed to the design being completed in 2011-12, with development of the aircraft to be finished by 2017. Funding needs were not disclosed.

[Strategic aviation commander Maj. Gen. Anatoly] Zhikharev says the new bomber will be low-observable, using advanced materials and other technologies. However, he notes that it cannot be made “invisible,” signaling Russia will not pursue the all-aspect, multi-signature stealth performance the U.S. is considering for its next-generation bomber project.

Part of this is, I think, the understanding that if they were to go up against a highly integrated ground bases air defense system, it would be based on their technology, where they would have intimate knowledge of the technology and capabilities, as NATO relies more heavily on aircraft for this sort of defense.

Additionally, they are no doubt aware how expensive the full up stealth is, and they know how improvements in processing and the combination of signals from various sensors have the promise of negating stealth to a significant degree in the next few years.

Also, the Russians do not have the need for the extremely long range power projection capabilities that the US does. They are primarily concerned about their “near abroad”, basically former Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact nations, with a special focus on Georgia and Ukraine, where NATO membership is unlikely in the foreseeable future.

Saab Looks to Go Feet Wet on Indian Gripen Proposal

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Credit: SAAB CONCEPT

In an effort to improve its chances to sell its Gripen to India for the MMRCA competition Saab has once mooted the possibility of an aircraft carrier capable Gripen:

Saab believes modifying the Gripen NG to meet an Indian requirement for a carrier-borne fighter would add only 400 kg. (880 lb.), giving the aircraft—dubbed Sea Gripen—an empty weight of 7,500-8,000 kg.

…………

The Sea Gripen would require a new main undercarriage and nose gear, airframe strengthening in specific areas and a redesigned arrestor hook. Given the comparatively small size of the Gripen, this obviates the need for folding wings. The company is proposing Sea Gripen as a “partner program,” with the first target country being India.

Even for an aircraft as light as the Gripen, having a delta of only 400 kg (880 lb) is pretty impressive, so I’m wondering if they are trying the same thing that was proposed for the Eurofighter Typhoon, when it was proposed to create an auto-land system that allowed for a flare before landing to the need to reinforce the landing gear and structure.

[on edit]

There is also the possibility that Swedish operational requirements, which include the ability to operate from austere fields, such as roadways, may have already resulted in a landing gear that is rather more robust than those found on the normal western jet fighter.

F-35 News, 1 Good, 2 Bad

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Finally!

On the good side, the F-35B, specifically air frame BF-01, has finally engaged the lift fan in flight, and everything was, as the flight test people say, “Nominal”:

The Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter engages its short takeoff/vertical landing propulsion system in flight for the first time, near Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., on Jan. 7. F-35 Lead STOVL Pilot Graham Tomlinson said afterward that the aircraft flew smoothly with the STOVL system engaged and was very easy to control.”

This is a good thing, though it is somewhat behind schedule, and Lockheed-Martin is thinks that it is necessary to add planes to the test program, so as to reduce the test schedule slippage from 2 years (!) to 6 months:

Lockheed Martin Corp. may add an aircraft-carrier model to a group of F-35 test planes as the company works to limit delays on the fighter jets to six months or less instead of the two-plus years expected by the Pentagon.

I’m not sure that this would help though, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has just ordered a delay in deliveries of the aircraft:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered a delay in the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 program, cutting the Pentagon’s planned purchases by 10 aircraft in fiscal 2011 and a total of 122 through 2015, according to a budget document.

More than $2.8 billion that was budgeted earlier to buy the military’s next-generation fighter would instead be used to continue its development.

The delay is a setback for both Gates and Lockheed.

Setback is one way to put it.

So is clusterf%$#, death-spiral, shambles, snafu, and many other words I’m not in the mood to look up right now.

Report: Russia Enters Test With PAK-FA

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Nose Radar Installation


Wing Leading Edge Arrays


Optical/IR Search and Track

We now have a report that they have run up the engines in the prototype and taxied:

The first prototype of the aircraft rolled out on the runway of KNAAPO aircraft plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the country’s far east. The test pilot switched on its engines and made two runs on the airstrip, during which breaks were applied several times.

The report says that they expect to field the aircraft in 2015, but my guess is that this is either a deliberate deception, or self delusion.

We are still getting conflicting reports on just what the aircraft is like, though this story reports a 3,500 km range, which I assume refers to ferry range, and is roughly equivalent to that of the F-22, for which the Wiki quotes a 2,000 mi (3,219 km) range.

Assuming that this is the case, I would assume that the PAK-FA is a bit smaller than the F-22, since the Russians tend to have internal fuel tanks which are not rated at the aircraft’s full performance (the equivalent of a internal “external tank”), as they are doctrinally less inclined to use either external tanks or aerial refueling.

One thing that is almost certain though: That its missiles will have superior kinematics to the AMRAAM/AIM-9Z used by the Raptor. The current Russian missiles are larger and heavier than the American loadout, and larger missiles=larger motors=longer range and better terminal performance.

Also, my guess is that the Russians are going “stealth lite”, with a greater reliance on sensors and missile kinematics, as opposed to all aspect stealth.

The photos from the Wiki, show a larger AESA radar array (top pic), wing leading edge mounted arrays for better off-axis performance (middle pic), and an Optical/IR Search and Track (bottom pic) for passive, or 3rd party designated, engagement of targets.

My guess is that the missiles will be mounted conformally, as opposed to internally, because the associated weight of internal carriage of larger missiles would very likely prove prohibitive.

But those are just my not-particularly-educated guesses, and we have to wait for the first blurry photos to be leaked to Aviation Week & Space Technology.

Poo of Mass Destruction

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So, on another Northwest Flight, a passenger experiencing “gastric distress”, spent an extended amount of time in the aircraft lavatory, and when quizzed about his experience, he was less than forthcoming, so we had yet another security freakout.

Needless to say, al Qaeda is planning to start opening restaurants at airports that serve really strong curry, and they will follow it up with sabotage to disable toilet heating, so we will be threatened with icy BM’s.*

*Icy BM (Bowel Movement)-ICBM, get it?