Tag: Aviation

I Weep for the Tortoises

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Notwithstanding a section of their constitution banning foreign military bases, Ecuador is allowing the US to set up a base in Galapagos:

Ecuador has agreed to allow US military planes to operate from an airport on the Galapagos Islands, reports say.

US aircraft will be able to use San Cristobal airport, Ecuador’s defence minister Oswaldo Jarrin has been quoted as saying.

They will “fight drug trafficking” under a deal with Ecuador’s government, Mr Jarrin said.

The reported deal has prompted concerns over the potential impact on the environment and Ecuador’s sovereignty.

………

Legislators in Ecuador’s parliament have called on Mr Jarrin and environment minister Marcelo Mata to explain the scope of co-operation with the US in the islands.

They have asked them to elaborate on proposals to extend the runway at San Cristobal airport, daily El Universo reports.

Lawmaker Marcela Cevallos said the plan would be alarming for conservationists, it reported.

Opposition congressman Carlos Viteri said the agreement with the US was “unacceptable” and should be prohibited if “it intends to cede an inch of Ecuadorian territory”.

Under Article 5 of Ecuador’s constitution, the country is “a territory of peace” and the “establishment of foreign military bases or foreign facilities for military purposes shall not be allowed”.

Ecuador’s former president Rafael Correa also reacted angrily, tweeting (in Spanish) that the island was “not an aircraft carrier” for the Americans.

Mr Jarrin assured critics that “there will be no permanence of anyone” on the island.

He said any modifications to the airfield would be paid for by the US, Telesur reported.

So, the US will pay to modify airfield, potentially destroying hundreds of acres of habitat on San Cristobal, but it’s not a base.

This is manifest destiny Monroe Doctrine bullsh%$.

Finding the Way (Again): Building the Air Force’s New Century Series

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Mike Pietrucha thinks that the USAF needs to return its development and procurement programs to the mid 1950s, when it developed the 5 frontline Century Series fighters.

  1. Senior Staff (Major or higher) exempted from up or out.
  2. No rotation out until full production procurement, defined as 25% of the original order, is complete. 
  3. A prohibition on such staff working for defense contractors for 10 years after leaving the service. 

This would make decades long product development cycle a career killer, it would prevent program changes as management rotates in and out, and it would incentivize some alacrity, and time is (taxpayer) money.

Also, the perfect is the enemy of good enough:  It makes no sense to bankrupt ourselves in an attempt to completely overmatch any potential opponent.

We are spending more on defense than the next seven countries combined, and our roads are falling apart, our schools are underfunded, healthcare is unaffordable for much of the population, and life expectancy is falling in many regions.

We cannot afford our bloated military or our bloated weapons anymore.

    Because It’s a Cheaper Plane to Fly

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    Saab is tendering an offer to Canada for JAS-39 Gripens.

    The Trudeau government has been decidedly cool on the expensive to buy and expensive to operate F-35, and the Gripen offers much more flexibility and much lower life cycle costs:

    Saab is ready to sell the Canadian government 88 Canada-built Gripen fighters should Ottawa require home-built aircraft.

    The Swedish combat aircraft manufacturer cautions nothing is finalised and its offer will ultimately reflect Canada’s formal request for proposal (RFP). The company expects the final RFP to be issued around midyear by the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF).

    “As we have demonstrated in Brazil, and depending on the requirements of a customer, we can build fighter jets in countries other than Sweden,” says the company. “Gripen is the world’s most-modern multi-role aircraft and a perfect match to Canada’s operational requirements for NORAD defense and expeditionary missions. It is proven to operate in any climate, from arctic to desert.”

    ………

    The RCAF issued a draft request for proposal in October 2018 to an exclusive set of five potential suppliers to replace its Boeing CF-18A/B Hornet fleet.

    The suppliers included Dassault Aviation, maker of Rafales; Saab, maker of JAS 39 Gripens; Airbus Defense, a major partner in the Eurofighter joint venture, which makes Typhoons; Lockheed Martin, maker of F-16s and F-35s; and Boeing, maker of F/A-18 Super Hornets and F-15E Strike Eagles.

    My guess would be that Canada would go with the F/A-18 EF, as it is the most straightforward path from the earlier models CF-18s.

    Additionally, Canada has long expressed a preference for a twin engine aircraft.

    Still, if the bottom line is cost, the Gripen makes a lot of sense.

    The Return of the AH-56 Apache

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    Proposed Apache Update


    AH-56 Apache

    Boeing is proposing a major update to its Apache attack helicopter, that the similarities between it and the 1960s vintage AH-56 apache are striking:

    U.S. aerospace manufacturer Boeing has shown footage of high-speed version of Apache attack helicopter during the Vertical Flight Society’s 75th Annual Forum & Technology Display.

    Graham Warwick posted images of the Apache gunship concept and photo of a scale model of a new helicopter that was unveiled by the Boeing on social media.

    The concept, called the Advanced AH-64 Block 2 Compound, is developing to serve as a gap filler in a U.S. Army Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program.

    Jane’s Defense Weekly early reported that the new gunship will feature an enlarged main wing, revised engine exhaust arrangement, large vertical tail fin, and a rear-mounted pusher propeller. The design may also feature a new, rigid rotor system, which is a standard feature on other compound helicopter designs.

    Also the Rotor & Wing International said that Boeing already has conducted wind tunnel testing of a scale model of a high-speed Apache gunship.

    The similarities between the two helicopters, both in appearance and concept, are striking.

    Something Is Very Wrong

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    It looks like Boeing altered changed the operation of trim and autopilot switches in the 737 MAX for no discernible reason.

    This makes no sense, which leads me to believe that, somehow or other, this was driven by some sort of bizarre business case:

    In the middle of Boeing 737 cockpits, sitting between the pilot seats, are two toggle switches that can immediately shut off power to the systems that control the angle of the plane’s horizontal tail.

    Those switches are critical in the event a malfunction causes movements that the pilots don’t want. And Boeing sees the toggles as a vital backstop to a new safety system on the 737 MAX – the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) – which is suspected of repeatedly moving the horizontal tails on the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights that crashed and killed a total of 346 people.

     But as Boeing was transitioning from its 737 NG model to the 737 MAX, the company altered the labeling and the purpose of those two switches. The functionality of the switches became more restrictive on the MAX than on previous models, closing out an option that could conceivably have helped the pilots in the Ethiopian Airlines flight regain control.

     Boeing declined to detail the specific functionality of the two switches. But after obtaining and reviewing flight manual documents, The Seattle Times found that the left switch on the 737 NG model is capable of deactivating the buttons on the yoke that pilots regularly press with their thumb to control the horizontal stabilizer. The right switch on the 737 NG was labeled “AUTO PILOT” and is capable of deactivating just the automated controls of the stabilizer.

     On the newer 737 MAX, according to documents reviewed by The Times, those two switches were changed to perform the same function – flipping either one of them would turn off all electric controls of the stabilizer. That means there is no longer an option to turn off automated functions – such as MCAS – without also turning off the thumb buttons the pilots would normally use to control the stabilizer.

     Peter Lemme, a former Boeing flight-controls engineer who has been closely scrutinizing the MAX design and first raised questions about the switches on his blog, said he doesn’t understand why Boeing abandoned the old setup. He said if the company had maintained the switch design from the 737 NG, Boeing could have instructed pilots after the Lion Air crash last year to simply flip the “AUTO PILOT” switch to deactivate MCAS and continue flying with the normal trim buttons on the control wheel. He said that would have saved the Ethiopian Airlines plane and the 157 people on board.

    ………

    Lemme said he’s surprised that Boeing made the change to take away the functionality that could have allowed the pilots to shut off MCAS without shutting off the electric switches at their thumbs.

    “I don’t get it at all,” Lemme said. “I don’t see what the benefit was for making that change. It was like change for change’s sake.”

    Seriously, what the F%$# were they thinking?

    As If You Needed a Reason not to Fly Delta

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    Very disappointed in @Delta here. I assume they will change their attitude towards unions soon, or I’ll do my flights through (international) airlines that do not ridicule worker rights and respect workers’ voices. pic.twitter.com/W2OGKWD2qA

    — Cas Mudde 🗣️ (@CasMudde) May 9, 2019

    Delta’s contemptible anti-union posters

    — Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallStNYC) May 10, 2019

    The thoroughly appropriate response

    Delta has been virulently anti-union throughout its history, but its latest anti-union poster has engendered a particularly trenchant response:

    Two posters made by Delta as part of an effort to dissuade thousands of its workers from joining a union drew a torrent of criticism after they were posted on social media Thursday.

    The posters included messages targeting the price of the dues that company workers would be paying if the union formed.

    “Union dues cost around $700 a year,” one noted. “A new video game system with the latest hits sounds like fun. Put your money towards that instead of paying dues to the union.”

    The other, with a picture of a football, was framed similarly.

    ………

    In the charged world of social media, in which talk about socialism and the evils of unfettered capitalism percolates in the conversations of an invigorated left, the posters fell with a thud.

    ………

    James Carlson, a coordinator with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace workers, the union which has been working to organize the workers, said he did not know where the poster was distributed but said an employee had sent it to him earlier. He said that Delta has been papering its employee break rooms with anti-union fliers.

    “Some are like what you saw today — a stupid, insulting message to spend your money on a video game system instead of union dues,” he said. “They try to interfere with the employees’ exercise of freedom of association. And that’s not allowed.”

    I happen to agree with Occupy Wallstreet’s response, extolling the cost benefit ratio of guillotines, to be wonderfully cheeky.

    Bad Day at the Office

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    A Sukhoi Superjet-100 just crash landed and caught fire at a Moscow airport.

    Death toll exceeds 40:

    Seventy three passengers and five crew members were on board the plane when it made the emergency landing on Sunday afternoon at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, Russian Investigative Committee spokeswoman Elena Markovskaya told the journalist, saying that “41 people” have died.

    At least six of the 37 people rescued were rushed to a hospital. Three are now in intensive care after suffering burns and smoke inhalation injuries, health minister Veronika Skvortsova said, in a brief press statement.

    The Aeroflot flight SU 1492, en route from Moscow to the Russian northern city of Murmansk, had to turn back to Sheremetyevo after reporting an emergency on board less than half an hour after takeoff.

    Leaked CCTV footage appears to show the Sukhoi Superjet-100 aircraft attempting to land. The plane is seen bouncing off the runway and hitting it with full force, as the engines burst into flames.

    Notwithstanding the rather spectacular video, I will wait for the investigation to drawing any conclusions.

    Germany has the Military Industrial Complex Completely Losing Its Sh%$

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    Germany has decided not to procure the F-35, and Lockheed Martin is not happy.

    I do think that the apocalyptic terms used are a bit over the top:

    Germany’s decision not to buy the F-35 stealth fighter jet is a “retrograde step” that could hamper the country’s ability to operate at the same level as its Nato partners, according to the European head of Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the aircraft.

     Jonathan Hoyle, vice-president for Europe at the US defence group, said the German decision in January to exclude the F-35 from further consideration as a replacement for its ageing Tornado fleet had caught a lot of governments “on the hop”. The German defence ministry said at the time it had decided to acquire either more Eurofighters from Airbus, the European group, or Boeing-made F-18s.

     With the German rhetoric in the past three years having been about stepping up its defence capabilities, the decision not to consider the F-35 had prompted questions among other European governments over “Germany’s position going forward, and therefore what does it mean for Nato”, Mr Hoyle told the Financial Times in an interview.

     ………
     The German decision was seen by many defence observers as a signal by Berlin that it remained committed to pursuing a next-generation Franco-German “future combat air system” (FCAS). Paris had previously voiced fears that a German order to buy the F-35, widely seen as the most advanced aircraft on the shortlist, could have made the FCAS project — due to form the backbone of both countries’ air forces after 2040 — redundant.

    It’s also a signal that Germany finds the F-35 too expensive to own and operate, as well as being too inflexible (limited weapons loadout and payload) for its needs.

    Even ignoring Eisenhower’s characterization of the Military Industrial complex, this decision makes sense.

    Mo Money, Mo Money, Mo Money

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    Despite the fact that the F-35 technically entered service last year, it is still not combat ready.

    The block 4 upgrade is supposed to get it there (maybe) and now we discover that the price tag for this will run into the billions:

    Lockheed-Martin Corp.’s F-35 jet, the world’s costliest weapons program, just got even costlier.

    The estimated total price for research and procurement has increased by $22 billion in current dollars adjusted for inflation, according to the Pentagon’s latest annual cost assessment of major projects. The estimate for operating and supporting the fleet of fighters over more than six decades grew by almost $73 billion to $1.196 trillion.

    ………

    Instead, the increase reflects for the first time the current cost estimates for a major set of upgrades planned in coming “Block 4” modifications, according to the report.

    ………

    But the long-range cost estimate for operating the fleet from 2011 to 2077 was problematic even before the latest independent Pentagon cost projection of an increase to $1.196 trillion. By contrast, the F-35 program office’s latest estimate declined by about $8.5 billion to $1 trillion.

    Block 4 is a major upgrade, and includes integrating new weapons beyond its current meager loadout, (including European weapons and the short range Sidewinder), adding electronic warfare capabilities, and adding the ability for the F-35 to communicate with legacy aircraft.

    Note that even with this upgrade, the cannon will still not work properly, and the vaunted ALIS maintenance program is still (at best) marginally operational, so the term “combat ready” is a bit of a stretch.

    For only a few tens of billions of dollars, which could otherwise be used to rebuild aging infrastructure, educate citizens, and provide healthcare.

    The F-35 is an exercise in what James Tiberius Kirk would call, “The illogic of waste.”

    World’s Largest White Elephant Takes to the Sky

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    I am referring, of course to the late Paul Allen’s abortive Stratolaunch program:

    On Saturday morning, exactly 45 minutes after the sun began to rise over the Mojave Desert, the largest airplane ever created—and its record-breaking 385-foot wingspan—took off for the very first time. The aircraft, from the company Stratolaunch, has been eight years in the making. By 2022, the company hopes to use the twin-fuselage, six-engined, catamaran-style aircraft to launch satellite-bearing rockets into space.

    “All of you have been very patient and very tolerant over the years waiting for us to get this big bird off the ground, and we finally did it,” Stratolaunch CEO Jean Floyd told reporters on a press call. The company reported the airplane hit speeds of 189mph and heights of 17,000 feet during its 150-minute test flight, before landing safely at the Mojave Air and Space Port.

    “The systems on the airplane ran like a watch,” test pilot Evan Thomas told reporters. But the day’s events were bittersweet. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, a longtime space enthusiast who founded and funded the Stratolaunch project, passed away last October at age 65 from complications related to non-Hodgkin lymphoma. “Even though he wasn’t there today, as the plane lifted gracefully from the runway, I did whisper a ‘thank you’ to Paul for allowing me to be a part of this remarkable achievement,” Floyd said.

    One day soon, Stratolaunch hopes to carry 250-ton rocket ships loaded with satellites to a height of 35,000 feet—into the stratosphere. Once at cruising altitude, a rocket’s engines would ignite, carrying it and its satellite cargo the rest of the way into space. Only a select few facilities, like the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, can handle rocket launches, which means tight competition for scheduling and long wait times. Airplanes can take off from many more runways, which Stratolaunch hopes will give its aircraft a competitive edge for those wishing to launch satellites into orbit.

    The aircraft is a white elephant because, as I noted a few months back, Stratolaunch was designed as an airborne launcher for rockets, but Stratolaunch has abandoned its development for launchers, so there is nothing for it to launch.

    There are, and never will be, “250-ton rocket ships loaded with satellites,” for it to carry.

    There is talk of Stratolaunch being used to carry the Pegasus XL, but that is 25 tons, and has already been launched from an almost certainly cheaper to operate Lockheed L-1011 carrier, so I do not see how it would make any sense from an economic or a business perspective, even with Stratolaunch having the ability to launch 3 Pegasus XLs simultaneously.

    Bad Day at the Office

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    Japan has grounded its F-35 fleet after one of the aircraft crashed:

    The Japan Air Self-Defense Force confirmed Wednesday morning local time that a missing F-35A has crashed, pointing to debris sighted and recovered Tuesday night by ships and helicopters searching for the aircraft.

    The pilot remains missing. U.S. military assets have also joined the search, including a U.S. Navy Boeing P-8A Poseidon multi-mission aircraft on temporary duty in Japan.

    The crashed aircraft, which the JASDF identified as serial number 79-8705, was the first of 13 Japanese F-35As assembled so far by Mitsubishi’s final assembly and check out facility in Nagoya. In addition to the 12 JASDF F-35As affected by the temporary Japanese grounding order, the 14th aircraft assembled, which is still at Nagoya and undergoing pre-delivery flight tests, has also been grounded.

    Local media reported Tuesday that contact with the Lockheed Martin-made stealth fighter was lost just before 7:30 p.m. local time, with the aircraft’s last reported location identified over the Pacific Ocean about miles 85 miles east of Misawa city in Aomori prefecture, in the northern part of Japan’s main island of Honshu.

    Japan’s national public broadcaster, NHK, quoting Japan Air Self-Defense Force officials, reported that the missing F-35A was one of four JASDF F-35As that had taken off from nearby Misawa Air Base for a training mission at 7:00 p.m. local time.

    The squadron has been operating the JSF for only about a month.

     Not good.

    Look Out Below

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    Boeing, signalling what might be an extended grounding, has announced that it is curtailing production of the 737 MAX:

    Boeing’s decision Friday to reduce the production rate on the 737 MAX was a surprise in timing and scope.

    This came so quickly and was steep, cutting production from 52 MAXes per month to 42. It comes on the heals [sic] that a second software problem was found, delaying submission of the MCAS software upgrade to the FAA for review and approval.

    The production rate cut is effective in mid-April. This is lightning speed in this industry, where rate breaks, as changes are called, typically have 12-18 month lead times.

    Boeing hasn’t announced what the second software problem is. LNA is told it is the interface between the MCAS upgrade and the Flight Control System, but specifics are lacking.

    LNA interprets these combined events as indicative the MAX will be ground well past the Paris Air Show in June.

    The impact to Boeing is going to be huge: customer compensation, deferred revenue, lost revenue, potentially canceled orders and potential lost orders in sales campaigns. The hit to the Boeing brand and impacts of multiple investigations won’t become clear for months to come.

    Also, we are seeing airlines scrambling to lease aircraft to replace their grounded MAX airliners.

    Boeing is in a world of hurt.

    I’m Not Sure that Boeing Can Make Aircraft Anymore

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    It now appears that the Ethiopian Air pilots followed Boeing’s protocols for dealing with a runaway trim and that the system still drove the aircraft into the ground:

    The pilots of Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 apparently followed the proper steps to shut down an errant flight control system as they struggled to regain control of the 737 MAX aircraft shortly after takeoff. But according to multiple reports, data from the ill-fated aircraft’s flight recorder revealed that the anti-stall feature of the aircraft’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) was triggered at least three times—and at least one time after the pilots followed the correct steps to shut it down.

    Both Reuters and The Wall Street Journal report that the air crew followed procedures laid out by Boeing following the crash of a Lion Air 737 MAX in October, according to officials briefed on the initial findings of the investigation. But the pilots failed to regain control of the system, and the MCAS was reactivated again—triggering yet another automated correction of the aircraft’s stabilizers that would have pushed the nose of the plane down.

    ………

    To prevent the MCAS from continually pushing the nose down in the event of bad sensor data or some other software failure, Boeing instructed pilots to deactivate the system using procedures already in place for dealing with runaway stabilizer control systems in other 737 aircraft—flipping two stabilizer trim “cutout” switches to the “cutout” position. Failure to do so could result in the system pushing the stabilizers to their movement limit—putting the aircraft into a steep dive. The pilots of the Ethiopian Airlines flight did flip the cutout switches, and they cranked the controls to attempt to regain positive stabilizer control. But they continued to have difficulty controlling the aircraft.

    It is not clear at this point whether the pilots purposely reactivated the MCAS’ stabilizer control or if the software reactivated on its own after shutdown. While a Wall Street Journal source said that it appeared the pilots turned the system back on in hopes of regaining control over the stabilizers, Reuters reports that the software may have reactivated without human intervention, and further investigations of that possibility are ongoing.

    ………

    If the air crew did follow Boeing’s instructions on recovering from an MCAS system failure, the information emerging from the Ethiopian Airlines crash investigation raises more questions about Boeing’s response to the Lion Air crash five months earlier and the Federal Aviation Administration’s review of that response.

    Every time we get more information on MCAS and the crashes, it just gets worse and worse, and now it seems that there are some very basic problems on their factory floor, as the Air Force has paused deliveries of the KC-46 tanker because of problems with foreign objects being found in delivered aircraft.

    Seriously, that is aircraft building 101:  Don’t leave sh%$ in a plane when it rolls off the production line:

    The Air Force has stopped accepting deliveries of Boeing Co.’s new refueling tanker aircraft for the second time in a month because of debris found in closed compartments, according to Secretary Heather Wilson.

    The halt in deliveries of the KC-46A Pegasus is the latest issue to plague the $44 billion effort to create the first U.S.-built flying gas station for the Pentagon’s fleet since the KC-10A Extender in 1981.

    “We actually stopped again,” Wilson said Tuesday at a House Armed Services Committee hearing. Wilson told lawmakers that the Air Force found “foreign object debris” in closed compartments of the aircraft.

    Elaborating on the trash left behind by workers, Wilson told the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee later in the day that it was a “manufacturing discipline” issue on the assembly line where “we saw a breakdown.”

    “If you drop a wrench you have to find a wrench,” she said. “You have to wipe down surfaces so you don’t have pieces of aluminum that over time get in the midst of things and cause serious problems.”

    Boeing has lost its way.

    It has been relentlessly chasing MBA-think and over-inflated executive compensation, and making aircraft has become secondary.

    I so hope that I am flying Airbus to Portland in June.

    Boeing’s Problems Metastasize

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    I am sure that the operators of aircraft are going over their procedures and training as we speak:

    Boeing’s 767-based tankers use a version of the pitch augmentation system that grounded the 737 Max 8 fleet, the manufacturer and U.S. Air Force officials say.

    The disclosure provides a new data point in the unfolding story of how Boeing installed the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) on the narrowbody airliner fleet.

    Both the KC-767 and KC-46 fleets delivered to air forces in Italy, Japan and the U.S. rely on the MCAS to adjust for pitch trim changes during refueling operations.

    ………

    By 2011, Boeing had already delivered KC-767s to Italy and Japan fitted with the first version of MCAS. The use of the system then spread as Boeing won the Air Force’s KC-46 contract in February and launched the 737 Max 8 in August. ………

    The U.S. Air Force has launched a review of flight procedures for the KC-46, a spokeswoman says.

    “The USAF does not fly the models of aircraft involved in the recent accidents, but we are taking this opportunity to exercise due diligence by reviewing our procedures and training as part of our normal and ongoing review process,” she says.

    Oops.

    The 737 MAX Is Grounded

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    The U.S. FAA, relying on refined satellite tracking data and new physical evidence that more closely links two crashes of Boeing 737 MAX 8s, grounded Boeing’s newest narrowbody Mar. 13, with immediate effect.

    The move ends three days of cascading groundings after the Mar. 10 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 (ET302) accident, and leaves the world’s MAX fleet grounded.

    “On Mar. 13, 2018, the investigation of the ET302 crash developed new information from the wreckage concerning the aircraft’s configuration just after takeoff that, taken together with newly refined data from satellite-based tracking of the aircraft’s flight path, indicates some similarities between the ET302 and [October 2018 Lion Air Flight] JT610 accidents that warrant further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause for the two incidents that needs to be better understood and addressed,” FAA said in its emergency order.

    FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell, speaking to reporters after the order was released, made it clear that FAA made the decision to ground the aircraft. “The FAA is the safety authority for emergency airworthiness directives and orders,” he said. “FAA made the decision.”

    After the EU grounded the aircraft in Europe, the FAA really had no choice.

    Sucks to be Boeing Right Now

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    Boeing added new flight modes for the 737 MAX, and this was justified: The new engines are larger and further forward, and so they can induce a pitch up moment under certain circumstances.

    With the recent crash in Ethiopia, facing flight operations bans in much of the world, the problem seems to be a business decision to minimize these changes when selling the plane to airlines, and minimie transition costs:

    Has the world’s aviation community lost faith in the FAA? Country by country and airline by airline the past 48 hours have seen more than half the global 737 MAX fleet grounded in response to the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 on Sunday. Both Boeing and the FAA say it is still too soon to act; they lack confirmed and compelling data to determine the cause of the crash and any potential remediation efforts. But the world is not willing to wait.

    China was first to act, a strong play given that the country is home to the largest active fleet of the type with 93 flying. Indonesia followed shortly thereafter. That country was already on edge with respect to the type, with the Lion Air crash the first hull loss for the MAX just months ago. Ethiopia joined as well, grounding the remaining four frames in its flag carrier’s fleet.

    And many other countries, including all of the EU.

    On Tuesday morning in Chicago, after half the world’s 737 MAX planes were grounded either by regulators or the airlines that operate them, Boeing issued an updated statement. It implies that the actions are premature, but acceptable as a response to local sentiment.

    Safety is Boeing’s number one priority and we have full confidence in the safety of the 737 MAX. We understand that regulatory agencies and customers have made decisions that they believe are most appropriate for their home markets. We’ll continue to engage with them to ensure they have the information needed to have confidence in operating their fleets. The United States Federal Aviation Administration is not mandating any further action at this time, and based on the information currently available, we do not have any basis to issue new guidance to operators


    ………

    In the meantime, a global revolt of sorts is calling both Boeing and the FAA’s judgement into question. Is the regulator effective or is it granting the companies it oversees too much control of the process? Can the manufacturers be trusted to place safety above profits? Can the regulators?

    This is not the first time that questions have been raised about the willingness of the Agency to make tough regulatory calls that adversely affect businesses in the name of safety. And there is absolutely a balance that it must strike. Proving a negative – the plane will never crash – is impossible and there are very real costs with every ruling it makes. But a growing collection of nations believes that inaction by Boeing and the FAA is a mistake.

    Gee, you think?

    There has to be an MBA at the bottom of this.

    Triple the Development Time, and You Might Get Close

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    This will not fly in 4 years

    India, which took 30 years to develop a lightweight fighter, the Tejas, is now promising that it will be fielding a completely new mid-size derivative of that benighted program.

    They are expecting the aircraft to take flight in 2023, with initial qualification following by 2 years.

    Considering the fact that this aircraft will be almost completely new, this is a Herculean task.

    Given that it is India, where weapon system development proceeds at a pace that makes US defense procurement look like a hummingbird on meth, I doubt it:

    Before it became the Tejas Mk. 1, India’s indigenous fighter was the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), intended to replace the MiG-21. As a final operational configuration is approved for the Tejas Mk. 1, the government’s defense technology agency is proposing a larger successor, the Medium Weight Fighter (MWF), or Tejas Mk. 2.

    ………

    The MWF relates to the Tejas Mk. 1 very much as the Saab Gripen E/F does to the Gripen A/B/C/D. The Tejas Mk. 1 is an enlargement using the General Electric F414 engine in place of the F404 in its predecessor and fitted with updated electronics. Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) builds the Tejas Mk. 1.

    Unlike that earlier type but like all Gripens, the MWF has all-moving foreplanes just behind the cockpit, creating a close-coupled canard-delta configuration. With 22,000 lb. thrust available from the F414-INS6 engine, maximum takeoff weight is 30% greater than for the Tejas Mk. 1—17.5 metric tons (38,600 lb.) versus 13.5 metric tons, according to data that the DRDO presented at the Aero India exhibition, held in Bengaluru on Feb. 20-24. Maximum external load is almost doubled, to 6.5 metric tons from the 3.3 metric tons of the Tejas Mk. 1 and improved Mk. 1A, which use the 20,200-lb.-thrust GE F404-IN20. Weapons would include beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles and standoff precision-guided munitions.

    The compound delta wing carries short-range air-to-air missiles on wingtip launch rails, rather than on pylons under the wing as on the Mk. 1, increasing span slightly to 8.5 m (28 ft.). Height also is increased slightly, to 4.86 m. The proposed aircraft will be 14.6 m long, 1.35 m longer than the Tejas Mk. 1. A Mirage-style refueling probe is fitted. Maneuver capability is increased to 9g, versus 8g for the Mk. 1A.

    ………

    “The first prototype is expected to fly by the end of 2023 and we hope to get the initial certification by 2025,” says a DRDO official—though these events hinge on when and if funding is made available.

    The Gripen E update involved relocating the landing gear to allow for additional fuel, structural improvements, and adding some hard points.

    This is basically a completely new aircraft, with new systems, new flight control laws, and no shared structure to speak of.

    This is not going to happen in the time frame described.

    Lockheed Martin Lobbyists Are Completely Losing Their Sh%$

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    The Air Force Chief of Staff is examining the first new F-15 buy in 19 years, and Lockheed-Martin and its Evil Minions™ are having a major freakout. 

    I cannot imaging why Lockheed-Martin would be worried at the prospect of the US Air Force making a purchase of an aircraft that is cheaper to buy, cheaper to operate, flies farther, carries more, can have a back-seater who can handle things like SEAD and jamming, and has been continuously modernized over the years because of foreign sales.

    A full month before the scheduled rollout of the Trump administration’s fiscal 2020 budget request, Boeing’s F-15X has provoked a fierce intellectual clash over the future of U.S. airpower strategy and priorities.

    Advocates of the U.S. Air Force’s current plan to resume F-15 orders after a 19-year hiatus say it is an overdue response to an urgent requirement for quickly and affordably recapitalizing an aging air superiority fleet, while at the same time adding a comparatively flexible weapon system that can be adapted in the future to play a host of new roles, including perhaps electronic attack.

    But critics see wasteful spending on the latest version of a fighter originally designed in the late-1960s, at the expense of buying faster and what they assert are more relevant Lockheed Martin F-35As. Some critics also invoke the prospect of the F-15X causing an acquisition “death spiral” for another advanced stealth aircraft, snaring the Air Force’s program of record to buy 1,763 F-35As in the same budgetary trap that sharply curtailed original plans to order 132 Northrop Grumman B-2A bombers and 750 Lockheed Martin F-22s.

    ………

    The debate has placed Lockheed Martin in an awkward position. Although Lockheed executives generally support more spending on F-35 production, they also seem unwilling to contradict Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein, who has stated that F-15X funding won’t come at the expense of planned F-35 purchases. It is a point that CEO Marillyn Hewson emphasized on the fourth-quarter earnings call in late January.

    ………

    The Air Force is interested in buying a single-seat F-15CX and twin-seat F-15EX, the source says. Except for a two-place canopy and second cockpit in the F-15EX, both Air Force models would be identical.

    The configuration is defined by the Air Force’s demand to limit costs, especially for nonrecurring engineering. So the F-15X models are based exclusively on already fielded technology, including strengthened wings and large area displays funded by the Qatari Air Force, plus conformal fuel tanks, a digital fly-by-wire control system, APG-82 active, electronically scanned array radar and the Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System (EPAWSS) introduced by the Royal Saudi Air Force. The U.S. Air Force also is integrating the APG-82 radar on F-15Cs and F-15Es.

    ………

    For example, the combination of a strengthened wing and fly-by-wire flight controls expand the flight envelope, yielding a dogfight performance somewhere between the raw power offered by the F-15C and the nimble agility at high angles of attack of the F-22.

    ………

    Other important details involve the weapons options. The Saudi air force has integrated the AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) on the F-15SA, so that becomes a new option for the Air Force fleet. The combination of the AGM-88, EPAWSS and the F-15’s inherent ability to generate large amounts of electrical power create intriguing possibilities. The Air Force retired its last tactical escort jamming platform in 1997, but the Navy has continued to perform the mission of jamming air defense radars with the Boeing EA-18G. The idea of a radar-jamming and -suppressing “Wild Weasel” version of an F-15EX could create a long-term role for the two-seater, operating alongside strike packages of F-35As.

    I don’t think that this will go anywhere, Lockheed-Martin has meticulously spread subcontractors around crucial Congressional districts, and even if it outperforms the F-35 in 90+% of conflict scenarios.

    Still, this promises to be entertaining.

    Like Comedy, the Secret of Aircraft Manufacture is Timing

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    The program was old enough not to be able to benefit in advances in composites and electrically powered subsystems that were central to the Boeing 787 and the A350, but it entered service late enough that the move from hub and spoke to point to point air travel made it difficult for the aircraft to fill its seats.

    With the biggest customer for the aircraft, Emirates, cutting their order there was no path to the program ever reaching profitability, and so they pulled the plug.

    It’s kind of a bummer.  The A-380 is a magnificent aircraft:

    Airbus announced Feb. 14 that it is terminating the A380 program.

    Emirates announced it will only take 14 more A380s instead of the 53 it had on firm order so far. The order is revised and now includes 40 A330-900s and 30 A350-900s, according to a new heads of agreement.

    “As a result of this decision we have no substantial A380 backlog and hence no basis to sustain production, despite all our sales efforts with other airlines in recent years. This leads to the end of A380 deliveries in 2021,” Airbus CEO Tom Enders said. “The consequences of this decision are largely embedded in our 2018 full year results.”

    “The A380 is not only an outstanding engineering and industrial achievement. Passengers all over the world love to fly on this great aircraft,” Enders said. “Hence today’s announcement is painful for us and the A380 communities worldwide. But, keep in mind that A380s will still roam the skies for many years to come and Airbus will of course continue to fully support the A380 operators.”

    I still want to take a flight in one someday.