So, they’ve finally gotten the doos open of the vertical lift system open in flight, hopefully this means a full STOVL flight in the next few weeks, though these wheels seem to be grinding awfully slowly.
To my mind, it is the F-35B, with it’s STOVL capabilities, that is really the only variant that brings anything particularly necessary to the table.
It’s clear that for a number of reasons, the Harriers in service really do need to be replaced.
BA038 crashed when it lost power on descent on January 17 of this year, and it appears now that the problem was caused by ice accumulation in the fuel system impeding fuel flow.
It flew over Siberia at relatively high altitudes and low fuel flows, and so ice accumulated, and when the throttle was added during descent, ice broke loose, and plugged the fuel lines.
If it wasn’t a one in a million thing, it was close.
It’s an interesting read.
I was reading this article about the spate of aerial encounters between Russian bombers and NATO aircraft, and it appears that it gets pilots pumped up on both sides.
Regardless of the political fallout of the situation, pilots on both sides just love this stuff.
In any case, a commenter at this article, after noting that the Russian pilots get only about $800/month, said something very wise:
[R]ather than build JSF or Raptors, why not just take that money, and recruit Russian pilots away? We can move them into foreclosed condo’s down in So Beach, pay them twice what they make, and I think save the American Taxpayer a ton of money.
Very wise.
The House completely eliminated the $120 million from the DARPA hypersonic demonstrator project, and the Senate cut $110 million, so the prognosis is not good.
Not surprising. Considering the total lack of budget and program control in DoD acquisition programs, and the demands of Iraq and Afghanistan, the last thing needed is a Mach 5+ demonstrator.
When you consider their airforce, a mix of MiG-29s, Su-30 MKMs, and F-18s, it seems inevitable that they would start to consider some sort of airborne command and control capability, particularly given Thailand’s purchase of Saab’s Erieye, Australia’s oft delayed Wedgetail, and Singapore’s E-2Cs and future deliveries of Phalcons.
I think that over the next few years, we will see a lot posturing, both on the part of the Malaysians and on the part of the companies who want to make a sale to them.
So, now we have some models of the competing Boeing and Northrop Grumman concepts to compare:
Boeing Above
Northrop Grumman Above
Both are clearly designed with stealth in mind, and Boeing’s design is rather similar to the B-2, though they have made comments about laminar flow designs to reduce drag. The outer wings, given their narrow chord would likely be laminar flow naturally.
N-G’s design looks as if it would more easily accommodate a large weapons bay, which might make it easier to carry ultra heavy bunker busters.
Based on my estimates of scale, both appear to carry less in the way of bombs than a B-52 (20-30 tons), and more in line with something along the line of the B-47 (10-15 tons).
My guess is that given miniaturization of nuclear weapons, and the available of relatively small guided weapons, a larger capacity is considered redundant.
The EADS Casa’s C-295 transport.
I’m thinking that with its high wing design, incorporating the radar directly into the structure would be quite doable, but I think right now, they are looking at minimizing the engineering resources for integration.
Once again, one of the issues with the F-35 JSF is that, to a greater degree than any other fighter aircraft history, the country operating the aircraft will be unable to modify its systems to meet their needs.
It now appears that the Israeli Air Force will purchase the F-35, the number that it purchases will be highly dependent on the ability it will have to install indigenous systems, as the JSF is a remarkably closed system.
In the long run, I think that follow-on orders for the aircraft may be hindered by this, as operators, and nations becoming operators, find out the degree to which they have to jump through hoops to integrate upgrades and new systems that were routine in prior aircraft.
Seeing as how the TP400 engine is the major delay item on the A400M transport, the fact taht they have finally done some full power runs on the C-130 demonstrator, this is a long overdue positive sign.
It is still an open question as to whether EADS will be able to get the A400M into the air before year’s end though.
But they are certainly making it look like a real competition. The Swedes needed extra time to get approvals for data release from the US, and the Dutch MoD extended the deadline on the bid to 30 September.
I still do not believe that the Dutch are serious about considering an alternative to the Lockheed-Martin JSF, they simply have invested too much time and effort, but they are doing their best to look fair about the process.
They really want the F-22, but it appears that this is simply not going to happen, so they are looking at F-15 upgrades and a stealth platform of their own, the ATD-X.
Honestly, for legitimate defensive needs, the upgraded F-15 is all the JASDF needs. It’s actually superior for cruise missile interception, since it has a larger antennae than the F-22, and AESA radars have already been fitted to some export models.
I’m uncertain that this means much in the scheme of things, it’s a demonstration of a UAV helicopter controller that can “learn” as it executes maneuver, but this a couple of cool videos:
In addition to all the other problems with Boeing, it appears that their determination to screw their workers is now preventing the first flight of the 787.
I have no clue as to what Boeing was thinking when, in a year of record profits, it presented its employees what amounted to a pay cut…Actually I have no clue IF Boeing is thinking at all.
Honestly, I think that both countries have alredy sunk so much money into the JSF, that it’s a lost cause, but you have to admire the dedication of the SAAB sales force.
First, SAAB is offering an “all inclusive” bid, including, “the 85 Gripen NGs, training, spares, simulators and support,” in addition to industrial offsets.
Additionally, they are claiming that the Gripen will will be billions cheaper over the life of the aircraft, which is likely true, as it weighs half as much.
Additionally, with the emphasis on remote austere basing, the Gripen probably wins in a COIN scenario like Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is actually their strongest case, that the US DoD and Lockheed-Martin will be nickel and diming the JSF customers throughout the program, in addition to still not having a hard and fast price or delivery schedule.
We also have some of the PowerPoint slides from L-M and SAAB:
LM Range Chart
SAAB Chart
Which appears to indicate that the Gripen has more range than the JSF, though I think that this is not an apples to apples comparison, as the Gripen is likely carrying external tanks for this.
In the meantime, it appears that reports of the Typhoon reentering the competition were greatly exaggerated, they still see it as a sucker’s game, though Boeing, and US Navy are offering the Super Hoenet with the APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar.
One interesting monkey wrench thrown into the JSF’s path is that the Dutch Economics Ministry appears to be trying to extract more money from the Dutch industrial JSF partners, which would serve to raise costs of the aircraft to non-cloggie air forces.
There have been allegations that the Eclipse 500 was given a pass on issues in the FAA certification process, and an independent review team has just given the cert a clean bill of health.
There have been some issues with the aircraft since certification, trim, flaps, displays, and stall speeds, but there is no evidence that these showed up during the certification process, and were then swept under the rug:
The review came a little more than a month after congressman James Oberstar asked the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General to investigate formal complaints that the aircraft was certified despite objections from FAA pilots and engineers working on the program, an allegation the review team did not find evidence of.
Of course, these problems still need to be addressed on some level, and Eclipse is still hemorrhaging money, so I’m firmly neutral on the future of the aircraft.
Because the USAF just canceled the Common Battlefield Airmen Training(CBAT), a program to train airmen for conducting operations outside the airfield perimeter.
We have seen a greater involvement of USAF personnel in ground combat operations, particularly in areas such as EOD, and this will decision is profoundly unhelpful to the needs of the soldier on the ground, but it’s always been the policy of the USAF top be profoundly unhelpful to the needs of the soldier on the ground.
It’s supposed to execute a short takeofff, be able to reach supersonic speeds, and then execute a vertical landing, but at this point, the production model is moving very slowly toward this goal.
They have now gotten up to about 60kts taxi with everything hanging out.
This aircraft does not fly….It’s just so ugly it repels the ground.
Well, if Boeing was hoping the cancellation/delay of the tanker competition to give them a chance to deliver products on time and schedule, the continuing problems with deliveries to the Italians, where they have delayed initial deliveries from this year to next year on a program that was supposed to deliver tankers in 2005 ain’t gonna help.
In the world of pork, Airbus has canceled plans to move A330F freighter final production to Alabama, which is to be expected.
Even with the relatively low dollar, the move does not make sense without the DoD contract for tankers.
One thing that sees apparent is the it won’t only be Boeing that will be rejiggering its bid now that it’s been put off, as Airbus is already announcing a 5 ton increase in gross weight for its A300-200, which would doubtless be applied to any new bid on the tanker contract.
Well, it appears that the oft delayed Boeing project*, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Boeing 747 airborne laser (ABL) is actually ready to start shooting at some stuff, albeit for very short (under 1 second) duration.
I’m of the camp that believes that the issues involved with chemical lasers, specifically the logistical issues raised by the exotic and toxic chemicals that they need to carry in order to work, mitigate against them finding much use in the battle field, particularly since ganging together solid state lasers seems to be advancing very rapidly now.
*All of their stuff appears to be “oft delayed.”
The Tu-160 Blackjack, the Russian AF’s crown jewel, just two of them.
There are consequences for dick swinging, and I expect to see an increased Russian military presence in Latin America, particularly Venezuela, as a result of the meaningless assertions of machismo by Bush and His Evil Minions&trade.