Not a surprise, Airbus participating in a bid for Air Force One would have been incindiary, so their declining to bid on the program makes good business sense, though I think the fact that there is now only one bidder is bad for taxpayers.
It will likely jack up the cost of Boeing’s bid by 10-25%.
Where its Super Hornet joins the Gripen NG and the JSF.
I think that the fix is in for the JSF, bribery and coercion offsets and diplomatic considerations making any other choice highly unlikely.
The Gripen is still the cheapest alternative, but the F/A-18 E/F is not only flying, but actually in service, and so is even more of a know quantity than the Gripen.
But like I said, there is a very hard full court press going on with this aircraft.
They have suspended production and the prototype is yet to fly, though the engine has finally taken to the air in the C-130 testbed, and now the Financial Times Deutschland is reporting that EADS is considering walking away from the contract.
I’m not sure how that would work, but EADS is facing some fairly substantial penalties for the delays, and
My guess is that the rumors, and the dire statements made by EADS executives, are an attempt to move negotiations on delays in their favor.
Which means that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is massively over budget.
They have finally gotten to the point where they cannot use accounting tricks to cover this up.
I expect the unit cost to rise sharply now, and be near that of the F-22.
A number of people have been predicting this, most notably the House Appropriations Committee, who have been pushing for more Super Hornets, and the DoD, who were trying to accellerate purchases, doubtless to beat this announcement. (paid subscription required)
An air-to-air refueling mishap for an Italian AMX attack aircraft.
There appear to have been no injuries, but I rather imagine that the pilot got a healthy ribbing when he got back to base.
H/T Worldwide War Pigs.
On Wednesday, the Gripen NG prototype sustained Mach 1.2 at 28,000 feet without the use of afterburners, though it did use reheat to get to Mach 1.2, and then went full military power to settle to a speed, which it held until it “ran out of test area.”
No idea on how long the test ran, but my guess would be something on the order of 10-30 minutes total.
It is that any nation operating the aircraft will be shut down in a very short time without direct US support.
As Bill Sweetman notes here, if the JSF progresses as anticipated, it will drive all other competitors out of business. Sometime around 2020, you could see the Typhoon, Gripen, Rafale and F-18 being unsellable, because, like the Italians and the F-104S, the nations using them cannot afford upgrades, because they have to go it alone.
While the Gripen model of using existing systems essentially unmodified in their aircraft might offer the ability to make support and upgrades affordable, there is a very real possibility that there will be no fighter industry left outside of the US/JSF and Russia, but the folks doing this do not have a good track record:
There hasn’t (for example) been one successful stealth warplane program since the F-117. The A-12 and Comanche were cancelled outright. The B-2 cost tens of billions to fix and is so costly to operate that efforts to sell more than 21 jets were unsuccessful. The F-22 works, but the current debate over whether to acquire more than 183 jets is driven to a great extent by the startling cost of maintenance and upgrades. JSF itself is already two and a half years behind the original schedule, and further problems are certainly not out of the question at this stage.
If your track record is Ishtar and Howard the Duck, and you tell me that you’ve got something that beats Gone With The Wind and Star Wars, you are going to have to prove it with more than a PowerPoint, or “trust me, but it’s secret.”
(emphasis mine)
This is something to think about, and it’s my favorite defense procurement quote of the year, but this is not the gorilla that I mentioned.
The 800 lb gorilla is the fact, as Bill Sweetman notes, that any nation adopting the JSF will be completely unable to field those aircraft without active and aggressive support from the US/Lockheed Martin:
The JSF is unique in the degree of integration in its information systems. So far, for example, it has no open-standard transmit datalink, at least in stealth mode. The automated logistics system will continuously transmit operational information back to Fort Worth. Not only is it a coalition-optimized airplane, it’s hard to see how it could be operated at all without direct, constant US support.
He further notes that the JSF will be shipped without a jammer, which will not be an issue for the US, which has EA-6Bs and shortly E/F-18-Gs to provide standoff jamming, but is a real problem for other nations, who do not operated dedicated stand off jammers, and it is nigh impossible for them to retrofit such a system into a tightly integrated airframe…Truth be told, I’m not sure that they could even find power, much less signal to do so.
Finally, the JSF will not communicate with legacy aircraft. The US is planning to handle this with a MADL (the stealthy communications system installed on the JSF) on something like a business jet that will be well behind the combat zone, but again, any other nation operating the plane will not have this capability.
If I were a nation looking at operating the aircraft under these circumstances *cough* Israel *cough*, I’d be very concerned.
So the boys in blue, despite officially eschewing a supersonic aircraft for their Next Generation Bomber, and canceling the Blackswift hypersonic demonstrator, are still looking for something that flies faster than Mach 1 and carries bombs. (paid subscription required)
If you’re confused, that’s what happens when you look at Air Force procurement programs recently. As Bill Sweetman notes, when talking about USAF procurement, “If your track record is Ishtar and Howard the Duck, and you tell me that you’ve got something that beats Gone With The Wind and Star Wars, you are going to have to prove it with more than a PowerPoint, or ‘trust me, but it’s secret.’“
They are looking at a tailless supersonic design, which would achieve the requisite broadband stealth, only, no one has gotten a tailless design to fly at supersonic speeds.
Basically, they are looking at advanced applications of fluidics for both the serpentine air inlets and the control systems.
Considering the drains of Iraq, Afghanistan, and now the US economy, and the complete lack of utility on the highest tech desires of the USAF, they have to smoking something pretty powerful.
Rather unfortunately for the South Korean Air Force, they will be buying a crippled radar set, because their development agreement with Lockheed-Martin gives them a veto on avionics fits, so as not to compete with the F-16.
So the Fighter/Attack variant, called the FA-50, will be used with a mechanically scanned radar, as opposed to the AESA radar that they desired.
One of the problem with the hypersonic scram jet is that it does not work well at speeds lower than about Mach 4 or so, and a turbojet pretty much runs out of steam at about Mach 3, and even then it gets big and heavy and complex, as evidenced by the size and weight of the bypass turbofans in the SR-71 (bottom pic), and it looks like DARPA is has put the pulse detonation engines (PDE) at the head of a list to bridge this gap in its Vulcan program. (paid subscription required) (top picture)
Similar in concept, though much different in execution to the pulse jet that powered the V-1 “Buzzbomb”, it is increasingly being looked at as a way to bridge the gap between turbojet and scramjet.
Additionally, it is being examined as a possible replacement for both combustors in turbine engines, and for afterburners behind turbine engines.
One thing that I’m not clear on here though is why you need the turbine engine in the first place with a PDE, as they do operate at 0 airspeed, as evidenced by the (very noisy) flight of a Long-EZ powered by a such an engine about 11 months ago.
It looks like EADS is asking for a further 2 year delay in service entry for the A400M military transport.
At the same time, a report says that the A400m is over weight and under-performing:
The FTD cited sources which said the current version of the A400M can carry only 29-30 tons of material, instead of an expected 32 tons, and that it is itself 12 tons overweight.
Nice to know that bloated under-performers in defense acquisition is not a special American monopoly.
Then maybe you have a problem like lack of air superiority over your airfields, which pretty much means “game over”.
This makes me wonder why the USAF is soliciting proposals from Boeing and Northrop-Grumman for stealthy STOL airlifters.
My guess is that this is a way to get additional money for a successor to the B-2 bomber through a back door, because there ain’t any money in the front door.
Obviously, this is technically challenging, if just because tailless designs do not lend themselves to short take-off and landing and the slow speeds that this entails.
The basic requirement, the ability to operate from a a 1,500-2,000ft landing strip and cruise at Mach 0.80 is doable, and has been done, even at the size that they are looking at, a 35T payload, roughly equivalent to an EADS A400M, which comes close to these goals…Or it will when it finally flies.
Clearly, the two proposals differ, with Boeing going with a tail, and they will rely heavily on things like blown flaps, and perhaps some application of the Coandă effect.
Northrop-Grumman Concept
STOL Technologies from Northrop-Grumman
Honestly, I am pleasantly surprised by the news that Thielert Aircraft Engines’ insolvency administrator has announced a (probably small) profit, and is looking for a buyer.
You can find a rundown of my previous stuff here, but here is the nickel tour:
What has happened over the past few months apparently is that the insolvency administrator, Bruno Kübler, has come to understand the market, reduced spares prices, and started to supply a limited amount of support under its old guarantees.
Additionally, they are looking to sell the engine in the future without the extensive guarantee, so as to avoid this problem in the future….It’s a change in business model, with the majority of future profits being in engine support, rather than the initial sale.
It’s still a promising technology, though I am still dubious of Thielert’s continued existence.
It’s the largest defense contract ever between India and the US for 8 of the Boeing 737 derived maritime patrol and anti-submarine aircraft.
They will replace a similar number of Tupolev-142Ms “Bear” turboprops.
They will carry sonar buoys, depth charges, torpedos, and Harpoon missiles for use against surface combatants.
Considering that the next largest Indo-US deal was a $962 million contract for 6 C-130J, this is a step up, both in size and technology transfer.
That being said, the US is still a bit player, with Russia, France , and Israel dominating the defense import market to India.
It looks to me like USAF is making some decisions with their date links with an eye toward deliberately obsoleting the current fleet. (paid subscription required)
The short version is that the USAF has an existing data link, Link 16, which is both narrow-band and non-stealthy, so it needs replacement.
The USAF has just selected the directional multifunction advanced data link (MADL) in preference to the competing tactical targeting network technology (TTNT) for the B-2, F-22, and F-35.
While this appears to be inside baseball, the caption on a picture along with the article speaks volumes, “An anti-access data link will allow B-2s to share information with F-22s and F-35s, but not legacy platforms such as F-15s.”
So I am wondering if this is a deliberate attempt to obsolete legacy platforms so as to justify more F-22 and F-35 purchases?
The ever reliable Bill Sweetman points us toward an Air Power Australia (APA) analysis of the stealth capabilities of the F-35 JSF.
The folks at APA have an agenda, and they have been very clear on it, they like the F-111 and F-22 for Australian service, and do not like the F/A-18 and the F-35, so that is a part of the subtext, but they have have a bit of a first in their analysis here, they have, “used publically available radar scattering models,” to get a first order approximation of the performance of the F-35 in various frequency bands.
The science has been known for some time, but actual computer codes available publicly are a fairly recent development.
They make it clear that this is an accounting of the shape, because information on RAM (radar absorbent material) is classified, Mr. Sweetman is right when he quotes Stealth pioneer Denys Overholser, who said, “the four most important aspects of stealth are shape, shape, shape and materials.”
Also note that the Russian double digit SAMs were largely developed post Gulf War, when it was clearly shown that higher frequency radars, particularly in the X-band, were the most vulnerable to a stealth, and that in a modern combat environment, you can not sit there with an air defense radar radiating looking for a target.
You either will not see the target, or eat an anti-radar missile, or both.
So, the surveillance radars have gone to lower frequencies both L-Band and VHF, and a lot more computer processing power has been devoted to finding a firing solution with less dwell time for the radars.
Obviously, there are a lot of assumptions made here by APA, so there is some uncertainty there, though Lockheed-Martin does not have a whole bunch of credibility as to their claims, which describe the aircraft as near-invisible with the capability to strike a target multiple times in a sortee.
It appears that they are going to be sending the canard equipped F-15 testbed to the boneyard. (Paid subscription required)
Originally called the short-take-off/maneuver-technology demonstration (SMTD) about 20 years ago, the aircraft was originally equipped with F-18 tail derived canards, square thrust vectoring nozzles, and a redesigned landing gear intended for rough field operations.
It demonstrated impressive improvements in STOL peformance and agility.
NASA is currently using it to research its quiet boom supersonic aircraft technology, as they felt the need to test a canard equipped airframe as one of the configurations.
When they are done, it’s going to the boneyard.
Well, defence ministry spokesman Huang Xueping has announced that China is considering building an aircraft carrier.
This is really no surprise. There have been indications that China was considering building a carrier for some time, as I have noted.
It will be news when China actually starts formally drawing up requirements, and again when it starts cutting metal or negotiating a purchase, but this is no surprise.
Bill Sweetman teases out some information which sheds some light on the relatively low thrust to weight ratio of the F-35 JSF, the fact that the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine has a thrust to weight ratio of only 6.6:1.
By comparison, the F-100 engine (F-15, F-16), whose contract was awarded in 1970, has a thrust/weight ratio of 7.8:1, and the more modern F414 and EJ2000 (Superbug and Typhoon) exceed 9:1 thrust to weight.
Additionally, he notes that the vertical lift system used on the F-35B weighs 10,472 pounds with a thrust of 40,550 pounds, giving a thrust to weight ratio in that mode of 3.87:1, as compared to 5.6:1 for the Rolls Royce Pegasus used on the Harrier.
There is a saying that you can’t make a race horse out of a pig, but you can get an awfully fast pig, the F-4 Phantom comes to mind, but this is not a fast pig.
Pics of the F135 promotional brochure are from here.
