Category: Aviation

Well, That Makes 3 F-22 Shootdowns in Excercises

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Stephen Trimble had a walkaround at Electronic Warfare Appreciation Day at Andrews AFB, and he noticed noticed this EA-18G “Growler” electronic warfare aircraft.

Look at the bottom picture: the pilot bagged an F-22 in exercises at Nellis.

This does raise an interesting question, how does an aircraft largely dedicated to electronic warfare bag what is supposed to be the hottest jet out there.

I think that it comes down to the fact that the F-22 had to get close to burn through the jamming, and once it did, its size, the aircraft is roughly as large as an F-14 Tomcat, made rather more visible to the Mark 1 eyeball than the F/A-18.

This raises an interesting question as to the effectiveness of the aircraft in a heavily jammed environment: will this require the Raptor to get close enough to its target that it is then in a visual conflict, where it will be more visible than its opposition.

Hrm….

European Aerospace Aggressively Pursuing Indian LCA Program

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With its indigenous Kaveri engine repeatedly delayed, India is looking to foreign engines to power light combat aircraft (LCA), the Tejas, and Eurojet is pitching its EJ200 as a competitor to the GE F414, and they are promising some, “special sauce”, thrust vectoring.

Unspoken in this bid to power the diminutive delta is the concerns that the Indian government has regarding ITAR restrictions which could hamstring sales to other nations.

This is also what is driving India’s interest in procuring an AESA radar from EADS for an upgraded version of the fighter.

AESA And Typhoon

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It looks like Eurofighter is considering adding an AESA radar to the Typhoon that has mechanical scanning.

The neat trick here is that instead of simply strapping an AESA radar to the pitch and yaw actuators, they mount the radar at an angle, and then rotate the array to get a wider field of view.

About a year and a half ago, I posted about the Russians looking at something similar, though their idea used the existing actuators of a plane array radar.

I don’t believe that in either case the actuators would respond as quickly as those on a more conventional radar, because the AESA is heavier than a slotted plate array antenna, but the electronic response of the AESA within a narrower band is literally hundreds of times faster than that.

Both would achieve the same thing, a very large field of view, though I think that Eurofighter’s concept looks like it is much more amenable to reduction of head on radar cross section.

Mechanically, this is a lot simpler to do, though you need slip rings for both power and signal, and a rather complex fitting for cooling, as all current AESAs need liquid cooling.

More F-22s Appear to Be Coming

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The reports appear to indicate that the USAF will get 60 More F-22s, at a price tag of around $800-900 billion, though it appears that it will remain firmly in the “not for export” category.

Won’t be much use for the military, and it’s really expensive, the the wild blue yonder types are ecstatic right now.

How about if instead of the planes, we just chip in and rent them a hooker?

That way the taxpayer won’t be quite so f%$#ed.

Retrofitting Stealth to Existing Airframes

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Bill Sweetman was at Aero India, and he noticed that the Zhuk-M1E proposed for Mig-29 upgrades has been treated with a bit of radar absorbent material (top picture).

This won’t make a plane invisible, but it will significantly reduce the RCS of an aircraft in the front aspect, so the rule of thumb, about 5m2 is likely no longer operative, particularly when juxtaposed with RAM coatings on the inlets, fan, or the installation of radar blocker screens, as was done with the F/A-18 E/F, though the environment in an engine inlet is rather more severe than that found under a radome.

You can see a similar application on the Have Glass II F-16s (bottom, the RAM is white).

Additionally, the move to AESA radars might provide some additional reductions.

This probably doesn’t reduce detection much, but it probably does increase the effectiveness of jamming relative, particularly with the necessarily (physics is a bitch) high frequency radars on air-to-air missile seekers.

Also, you may want to check out this PowerPoint (19.3M) for some perspectives.

Gripen/JSF in the Netherlands Gets Odd

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So, Saab is talking about cutting its losses on the fighter competition in the Netherlands if they order two F-35 test aircraft in the next few months, which brings them into the JSF test program, which makes sense, the fix has been in for some time here, with Lockheed throwing too much business Dutch industry’s way for them to say no.

But wait, there’s more.

The Netherlands is demanding a firm fixed price for the F-35, which Lockheed Martin is simply unable to do….The aircraft is still (!) not mature enough, and we are seeing price ranges from $60m to $160 million from various sources and what is counted. (The last number is from Air Power Australia, and they really dislike the JSF[Update: the Israelis are saying $200 million, more than the F-22])

Saab, meanwhile, has given a firm fixed price offer which covers pretty much everything from soup to nuts of around $79 million.

I don’t think that Saab has the least chance of winning this, but this is definitely interesting.

Israel Balking at JSF Cost

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The flyaway cost has gone from $50-60 million to something closer to $100 million, and the IAF is beginning to wonder if it is worth it, particularly since the electronic warfare and avionics systems are going to be locked up tightly, preventing the Israelis from customizing the aircraft to their needs.

Note that this is flyaway costs, which is the lowest measure of cost, so these budget numbers, which are still in flux, are only going to get worse.

I would also note that down the road, countries that want to upgrade their JSFs are going to get done like a 3 dollar whore by Lockheed Martin.

Update: We have these comments from a Israeli Air Force (IAF) chief procurement officer Brigadier-General Ze’ev Sni giving a $200 million price tag.

Tactical Analysis of the Gaza Strip Combat

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First a disclaimer, this is not an essay on the rightness or the wrongness of the Gaza operation. It is an analysis of the tactics used with an eye toward tactical lessons learned from the Lebanon war, and toward lessons that should be learned by the US military.

Think of it as the War Nerd, without the good writing.

Aviation Week & Space Technology has an analysis of the combat in the Gaza Strip (paid subscription required), and it’s basic conclusion is rather unsurprising, though it’s rather controversial in some military circles, that air force operations must be completely subordinate to the ground forces authority.

Considering the debacle in Lebanon in 2006, where the Chief of Staff was the first, and likely the last, Air Force general, and worked on the USAF model, basically the assumption that precision guided munitions delivered from altitudes in excess of 8000 feet could win the war, this is not an unanticipated change in tactics.

One need only look at Afghanistan to see that the Taliban’s best recruiting tool is the USAF.

Some of the things that they did that worked on a tactical level:

  • Using retired/reserve air force officers physically in the ground units as liaison officers.
  • Each brigade had a specific helicopter squadron specifically assigned to them, and under their command.
  • One pilot from the helicopter squadron was physically assigned to the brigade’s communication cell, and he conducted all communications with the helicopter squadron.
  • A tightly integrated network to allow handoff from target identification to strike in less than 1 minute.
  • The brigade teams had significant autonomy from the high command in Tel Aviv.
  • Each brigade had its own dedicated artillery support.
  • Extensive operations at night, to take advantage of the Israeli superiority in night vision systems.

This does not make Gaza operations a victory, but these are lessons that the US military, and particularly the bomb happy boys in blue in the USAF, desperately need to learn for Afghanistan.

Baby Seal Gets More Expensive

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It appears that the F-35 cost overruns have already placed the program in Nunn-McCurdy breach in all but name, and a lot of the problem is that the program was poorly managed from the very beginning:

The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer says the huge cost increases and delays incurred on the F-35 joint strike fighter program were inevitable because the Defense Department didn’t spend enough money upfront to build realistic prototypes.

….

For the JSF program, the Pentagon contracted with Boeing and Lockheed to build “technology demonstrators” and not “true prototypes.”

As a result, Young said, “the future of JSF cost growth was largely written in 2001 when budget and pricing decisions were made . . . based on inadequate knowledge gained from the JSF technology demonstrators.”

I’m so not shocked. In fact, I think that the DoD in general, and the USAF in particular do this on purpose to conceal the true cost of a program until it is too far along to cancel.

I’m beginning to think that the Pentagon needs to have its contracting authority pulled like the Coast Guard’s authority was late last year.

H/T Worldwide War Pigs

Blended Wing Transports

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Well, NASA is big on them to improve efficiency, and the Boeing’s sub scale demonstrator, the X-48B continues apace, with the development team looking at stall characteristics, and the Europeans are conducting validation studies on a BWB with 1000 passengers. (paid subscription required for all links)

It will require rather a lot of validation and test in both structures and control surfaces.

In any case, here is some picture pr0n:


Podded Engines


More advanced serpentine duct arrangement.


Structural Test Item


X-48 B

What Are They Smoking?

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Russia and India now have an in-service date for their joint next generation fighter program, the PAK-FA, 2017.

This simply is not going to happen that soon, particularly when India is still unsatisfied with the level of technology transfer, and they haven’t yet agreed on the number of crew (Russia wants a single seater, India a 2-seater).

They may have a demonstrator, at a maturity level of the MiG MFI, or the BAE EAP in the next 5 years, but the former never saw production, and the successor to the latter the Typhoon, did enter service until more than a decade after it rolled out.

If this ever enters service, I’d my guess is that it would be closer to 2025 than 2017.

And the P-80 was 180 days from proposal to first flight……

Last S-3B Viking Retires. Walking Away from ASW?

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It’s one of those orginary stories that might raise some bigger issues. The US Navy has retired the last S-3B Viking from fleet service.

This means that there is no dedicated fixed wing anti-submarine aircraft in service any more. This is more than just a story about the retirement of an aircraft affectionately known by its crew as “the Hoover.”

Given the expansion of capabilities of non nuclear submarines, such as air-independent propulsion (AIP) , improvements in anti-ship missiles, and the reports that the Russians have been working on a low cost “hybrid” nuke boat, I would think that submarines are more of a threat to the CVBG than they have ever been.

Diamond Aero-Diesel Gets Euro Certification

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I have been following the story of Thielert’s insolvency, and Diamond Aircraft has been hit particularly hard by the loss of their engines, which were a major part of their business strategy.

Diamond has now certified Austro AE 300 turbo-diesel, which it has been feverishly working on since Thielerts troubles, which means that it can start shipping aircraft with the highly efficient, and perhaps more importantly, jet fuel compatible, engines shortly.

They still need type certificates, but that should be relatively straightforward, as their engine uses the same Mercedes block as the Thielert, and so fit and mounting should be very similar.

Further Delays in Indian MMRCA Competition

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There is still no word on when when field trials will start for the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft fighter competition. (paid subscription required)

One of the issues that complicates this is mother nature: If the demonstrations do not finish by July, then they run into delays as a consequence of the monsoon season.

Current competitors for the medium fighter are the, “Boeing F/A-18, Lockheed Martin F-16, Eurofighter Typhoon, Mikoyan MiG-35, Saab Gripen, and Dassault Rafale.”

It’s intended to replace their fleets of older model MiG-21s, which are at end of life.

My guess would be the the MiG-35 has the inside track, the Indian AF already has operational experience with the MiG-29, though the least expensive over the life time is very likely the Gripen.

It’s unclear to me whether SAAB is submitting the base Gripen, or the improved Gripen NG.

Hypersonic Engine Tests Continue Despite Blackswift Demise

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Facet Common Inlet

It looks like DARPA is continuing to develop turbine/ramjet hypersonic propulsion systems, (paid subscription required) called the Turbine-based combined-cycle (TBCC), despite the cancellation of the Blackswift demonstrator last month.

Williams International XTE88 (Histed)

The concept remains the same, a turbine to get the vehicle off the ground and through Mach 1, with some level of cocooning beyond that as a Ram/Scram jet takes over.

DARPA is continuing to test the Falcon combined-cycle engine technology (Facet) developed for Blackswift, along with the high-speed turbojet engine development (Histed).

Basically, they are looking at integrating previously pieces, inlet, combustor and nozzle primarily, into a complete engine system.

Following this, they intend to combine Facet and Histed.

Obviously it is a non trivial issue to test the engines throughout their range without a flight test.