USAF Gameplan

[buglerbilly]

SecAF unveils service's game plan in future security environment

(Source: U.S Air Force; issued January 22, 2010)

WASHINGTON, D.C. --- The Air Force's top civilian addressed Air, Space and Cyberspace Power in the 21st Century during his portion of the 38th Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis-Fletcher Conference on National Security Strategy and Policy Jan. 20, here.

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley noted the service's challenge to "plan for uncertainty in a complex security environment," with a multi-faceted approach to supporting combatant commanders and national leadership.

The secretary also discussed strategies to allow the service to plan for uncertainty and ambiguity, mitigate the possibility of surprise, and both shape and recover from what Secretary of Defense Robert Gates described as likely "imperfect assessments" about the future.

Strategies include "engaging with partners and shaping the environment, making careful decisions in posturing U.S. forces abroad, developing balanced forces, promoting operational innovation, and developing the institutional capacity for change," the secretary said.

He underscored the significance of joint initiatives, increased capabilities and reduced vulnerabilities in a 21st century security environment.

"The complex, hybrid nature of future conflict will continue to challenge us and will demand coalition, whole-of-government and joint applications of power," Secretary Donley said.

The secretary added that national and international security will continue to be a "team sport" as the service confronts a wide range of strategic challenges such as global terror networks, nuclear deterrence, space, cyber and "rising economic and regional powers whose intentions may be unclear."

"The Air Force needs to remain vigilant in tying our work to the National Security Strategy, the (Quadrennial Defense Review) and other authoritative guidance that sets the direction for DoD and the larger national security community," he said.

Secretary Donley cited that Air Force presence in regions of interest is critical to building partnerships and partner capacity along the way. "Engagement provides early warning and helps us understand the direction and pace of change through the eyes of potential adversaries and partners in the region."

He added that continuous engagement also creates avenues for sharing perspectives of the strategic environment and opportunities to shape that environment in ways favorable to the U.S.

"Well-developed air forces often seek partnership with us in the most advanced weapon systems, like the Joint Strike Fighter and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance or space-based capabilities," Secretary Donley said.

The secretary continued that building partner capacity as an Air Force core function must be "sufficiently robust and flexible to address a broad range of engagement needs."

Secretary Donley described basing access as "the lifeblood" of a globally oriented Air Force as the service seeks the right balance between the forward stationing of U.S. forces in key regions and periodic rotations and deployments. He explained sending the right message of long-term interest and commitment while preserving greater flexibility in the service's global posture.

He said that the identification and exercise of contingency basing remains important to the force, particularly the mobility and tanker forces that facilitate joint movement and logistics.

"This is why we also sustain periodic deployments of long-range strike aircraft in the Pacific," he said, "and why, as we eventually field the (F-35) Joint Strike Fighter, we will consider the need for early beddowns outside the continental U.S."

"(The service) must build in the flexibility that enables our forces to operate effectively across the spectrum of conflict," he said.

This flexibility includes enabling such capabilities as C4, mobility, air refueling and ISR, on which the entire joint force depends at any level of conflict.

According to the secretary, the balance also reflects the need for a broad range of capabilities. "While reinforcing our counter-insurgency capabilities, we're also building the Joint Strike Fighter. While working on command and control for missile defense, we're building light attack armed reconnaissance and light air support aircraft. While planning for the recapitalization of the tanker fleet, we're strengthening space situational awareness and cyber defense. And, while building up language and cultural competency, we continue research on directed weapons," Secretary Donley said.

With contingency operations and humanitarian missions in Haiti in full swing, the secretary noted that the conference was occurring "at a most important time."

"We are challenged to meet today's requirements while preparing for tomorrow's and doing both with fewer resources than we'd like," he said.

Noting such pitfalls as planning too far ahead, getting mired in processes or locking into a single approach for success, Secretary Donley emphasized the institutional competence for change as the most important capability the service can foster.

"We need the capacity and culture to anticipate and recognize change early and respond quickly and effectively to new facts and circumstances," he said. "Developing new joint initiatives, capabilities and closing vulnerability gaps will be important as we move into the future."

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

USAF 30-Year Plan Lays Out Aircraft Acquisition Through 2040

By bruce rolfsen

Published: 6 Mar 2010 16:07

The U.S. Air Force is taking a long look down the road at buying and fielding new airplanes.



A U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber is towed to a parking spot Feb. 12 at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. The 30-year Air Force plan calls for development of a new long-range strike aircraft by 2020. (TECH. SGT. SHANE A. CUOMO / U.S. AIR FORCE) Mandated by Congress, the "Aircraft Investment Plan" maps out how many planes the Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy plan to buy through 2020 and sets goals for 2021-2040. It does not include helicopters.

The report calls for a joint approach to long-range strike and electronic warfare but does not drastically alter the Air Force's announced plans for its two main acquisitions this decade - the F-35 Lightning II and KC-X tanker

By aircraft, what the report foresees for the Air Force:

Combat

■ Bomber: The Air Force could spend $2 billion to $4 billion a year to develop a new long-range strike aircraft by 2020.

Whether the plane will have a pilot onboard or will fly at supersonic speeds is undecided. The report says: "A study is underway to identify the right mix of manned and unmanned technologies … and to determine the right balance between range, payload, speed, stealth, and onboard sensors."

Until the new bomber arrives, the Air Force will keep about 160 B-52 Stratofortresses, B-1B Lancers and B-2 Spirit bombers.

■ F-22 Raptor: The service will spend $1.9 billion to upgrade its 180 fighter jets with improved communications and avionics gear. Retirement of the Raptors could begin in 2025.

■ F-35: The Air Force is in line to buy 602 F-35s through 2020 at a cost of about $70 billion. Two-thirds arrive in 2016 or later. The Air Force fleet will eventually total 1,763 jets.

■ MQ-9 Reapers: Forecasts call for the service to buy 372 of the attack and reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles from 2011 through 2018. The price tag: about $820 million. Later models will have an electronic warfare capability.

■ RQ-4 Global Hawks: Four to five remote-controlled jets will arrive each year through 2017. There is no projection for later years.

The report did not offer an overall cost for the RQ-4s; for 2011, the Air Force wants $737 million for four Global Hawks, their payloads and logistics support.

Mobility

■ KC-X: The service is set to spend about $30 billion through 2020 to develop and buy 109 new tankers.

■ Intra-theater airlift: The Air Force should continue to buy C-130J Hercules to replace older C-130 E and H models. The study projects buying 63 C-130Js through 2020 for about $6 billion.

■ Strategic airlift: The service wants to maintain an fleet of 314 large cargo planes, a mix of 223 C-17s and 91 C-5s. The report recommends the Air Force begin development of a new cargo jet starting in 2015.

E-mail: brolfsen@militarytimes.com

[ARH v.3.0]

Retirement of the Raptors could begin in 2025.

This really is starting to look like $69 billion down the shitter! The entire program seems to be misspent resources.

[Tim]

I was just thinking that, the history books might remember the Raptor saga a little differently to the stuff currently trotted out by the F-22 Uber Alles crowd... it's a real shame about the fleet-wide issues they've had, if only they'd gone about designing the systems in a different way. Could have been almost as capable as the fanboys would have you believe... almost.

[Gubler, A.]

The 26 page plan can be downloaded from here:

http://www.militarytimes.com/static/projects/pages/30yearaviation.pdf

Interesting stuff.


Meet the demand for persistent, unmanned, multirole intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. The number of platforms in this category—Global
Hawk-class, Reaper, and Predator-class systems— will grow from approximately 300 in FY
2011 to more than 800 in FY 2020, including the Army’s Extended-Range/Multipurpose
unmanned aerial system (UAS) and the Navy’s Broad-Area Maritime Surveillance UAS
aircraft. This nearly 200 percent capacity increase will be effectively multiplied by
capability improvements afforded by the acquisition of vastly improved sensors and the
replacement of Air Force Predators with more capable Reapers. This plan calls for growth in
Air Force unmanned Predator and Reaper platforms from a capacity of 50 orbits in FY 2011
to 65 by FY 2013. The Department will assess the need for more capacity in future plans.

200% increase in ISR capability from FY11 to FY20.


By FY 2040, almost all of today’s
“legacy” force will have retired and the Department will have begun recapitalization of its
fifth-generation force. These far-term recapitalization plans cannot be defined with any
degree of precision today, making investment projections difficult beyond the wellunderstood
procurement plans for the JSF. The Department is continuing to evaluate
projected threats and the alternative means for defeating those threats. It is anticipated that a
family of systems—mixes of manned and unmanned aircraft, with varying stealth
characteristics, and advanced standoff weapons—will shape the future fighter/attack
inventory. These tradeoffs are being examined now, and subsequent aviation plans will
reflect the resulting acquisition decisions.

2040 the key date for next generation air combat (ie fighter) capability.

[McDethWivFries]

Was the Raptor really that much of a flop or was it simply good but over hyped?

[Tim]

Was the Raptor really that much of a flop or was it simply good but over hyped?

McDeth, if you go to the URL below and read the comments appearing under the article (specifically, the comments made by gf0012-aust - does he still frequent T5C?), you should get a pretty good idea of some of the problems. I certainly found it very interesting.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairfo/20090704/page1.aspx

[McDethWivFries]

Cheers Tim

[buglerbilly]

McDeth, if you go to the URL below and read the comments appearing under the article (specifically, the comments made by gf0012-aust - does he still frequent T5C?), you should get a pretty good idea of some of the problems. I certainly found it very interesting.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairfo/20090704/page1.aspx

GF is very busy at the moment but should be back soon enough.................

[buglerbilly]

US Air Force prefers extending old fighters' life

Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz told reporters that any move to buy new F-15 fighters built by Boeing Co (BA.N) or F-16s built by Lockheed would take money away from the F-35 fighter program.

Instead, the service would prefer to do service life extensions for the older fighters, at about 10 to 15 percent of the cost of buying new planes.

"We do not think it is wise to dissipate the limited pool of resources that we have available for F-35 by procuring new, lesser capable aircraft that will last as long," Schwartz said after addressing an Air Force Association breakfast.

He acknowledged that the service needs to verify that service life extensions are possible to the older planes.

"We do not think it prudent to utilize precious procurement dollars for anything but fifth-generation aircraft," he said. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa)

[buglerbilly]

More on this...........

DATE:31/03/10

SOURCE:Flight International

USAF rules out new F-15s and F-16s to narrow ‘fighter gap’

By Stephen Trimble

Delays and cost overruns for the Lockheed Martin F-35 have not changed the US Air Force's plans to deactivate about 250 fighters later this year, says Chief of Staff Gen Norton Schwartz.

The USAF, however, has begun destructive tests on Boeing F-15s and Lockheed F-16s to prove the viability for a potential service life extension programme, says Schwartz, who spoke to reporters on 30 March after a breakfast speaking event hosted by the Air Force Association.

"At 10-15% of the cost [of a new fighter] you could perform a SLEP," Schwartz says, "which would get us close to where we need to be in, we think, a more affordable way".

Schwartz also rejected buying the latest version of the F-15 and F-16 -- or "fourth-generation-plus" fighters -- despite a new two-year slip nearly 90% projected cost overrun for the F-35.

"To be sure, we do not think it prudent to utilize precious procurement dollars for anything but fifth-generation aircraft," Schwartz says.

The USAF has terminated Lockheed F-22 production with 186 aircraft in inventory after 2011, leaving only plans to acquire 1,763 F-35s over the next 30 years to modernize its fighter fleet. Meanwhile, the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review set the tactical aircraft requirement at about 2,000 fighters.

During the F-35's projection lifetime in production, however, the USAF faces a growing fighter inventory gap made even more complicated by the Lockheed's cost and schedule problems.

Last year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported alarming trends. Twelve Air National Guard units today patrol US airspace with F-16s scheduled for retirement by 2020. As of late 2008, only one of the 12 units was scheduled to receive F-35s by 2020 to continue flying the mission.

The increasing gap in the fighter inventory prompted a US lawmaker to predict the air force's dependence on the F-35 will be a "monumental mistake".

"When these F-16s and F-15s are no longer able to fly and the F-35s still has problems because somebody hasn't figured it out, you're going to have air guard units that are not going to have planes," says Representative Frank LoBiondo, who represents a district that includes an F-16 base, during a 24 March hearing.

But Schwartz repeated the USAF's long-standing policy that buying F-15s and F-16 today is senseless because they will be obsolete long before they can be replaced by a modern fighter design.

To bridge the gap, the USAF considers it more logical to perform a service life extension programme (SLEP). But Schwartz added an important caveat. The USAF still has not determined whether the SLEP would be technically or financially viable.

"I think it's pretty clear our strategy is to pursue service life extension to the extent that that is required rather than purchase new, four-and-a-half generation while we are bringing on F-35," he says. "We do not think it is a wise to dissipate the limited pool of resources that we have available for F-35 by procuring new lesser capable aircraft that will last as long."

[Gubler, A.]

DoD: Next 'Bomber' May Be a Family of Systems

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4559485&c=AME&s=AIR

By JOHN T. BENNETT
Published: 29 Mar 2010 16:22 Print | EmailT

he U.S. Defense Department is examining how to fit "complementary" tools on the "family of systems" that would replace a long-range bomber concept terminated last year, Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter said March 29.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates in April 2009 canceled a years-long effort to establish requirements and a formal development program for a new long-range bomber. Gates felt the department needed to stop that work, which was led by the Air Force, and begin a new look at how the U.S. military could best fulfill all the missions envisioned for a new deep-penetrating bomber.

After months of examining, Pentagon officials in recent months have said they expect to replace the former long-range strike aircraft concept with a "family of systems," each designed to conduct specific kinds of missions. Speaking to an industry audience in Arlington, Va., Carter said it is likely that the platforms will be designed to do tasks deemed "complementary" to one another.

Then-Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley in the mid-2000s used terms like long-range strike and persistent ISR when describing the service's mission requirements for a new bomber aircraft. Carter used the same phrases in his National Aeronautics Association presentation and added two more to things the "family of systems" will do: "prompt global strike and electronic attack."

The former refers to a next-generation weapon that can be launched quickly to take out fleeting targets anywhere around the globe; the latter refers to offensive and defense missions like jamming enemy signals.

Although Carter said officials "are still thinking through" what the family of platforms will have to look like, he said some of them likely will be "dual-use."

For instance, an aircraft designed for electronic attack missions also could be armed with complimentary jamming equipment, he said. And a long-range strike aircraft could be fitted with sophisticated ISR sensors.

Some of the family's platforms, Carter said, will be "stand-off systems" while others would be "stand-in." And some will be "reusable" where others "could be expendable."

The Pentagon's senior acquisition, technology and logistics official also said that, as Pentagon officials decide how to move forward with the family of systems concept, they will factor in industrial base implications.

Officials "have to keep in mind," he said, "that if certain capabilities [within U.S. defense firms are] allowed to whither, it will be hard to replicate them."

Carter added that the Pentagon "has a special responsibility to segments of industry," and promised DoD officials that, as part of the family of systems program, the department "will be looking at all the contributions each segment can make."

[buglerbilly]

DoD: Next 'Bomber' May Be a Family of Systems

Got it already under this thread here.............

http://www.w54.biz/showthread.php?71-USAF-Future-Bomber

............entitled USAF Future Bomber!

[SteveJH]

Plus I assume they'd also get stuck with any new aircraft for the next 30 years or so, whereas life extended airframes would have a much shorter period of service life remaining.

[SteveJH]

GF is very busy at the moment but should be back soon enough.................

Looks like he was on Strategy Page having some fun in another F-35 argument....sorry, discussion.....Hope he's having an interesting time wherever he is off to.

[buglerbilly]

US Air Force Eyes Service-Life Extensions for Older Fighters

By JOHN REED

Published: 2 Apr 2010 15:43

U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz confirmed that the air service has begun stress tests on its fleet of F-16 Falcons to help determine how to keep several hundred of the jets airworthy through the end of the decade to hedge against delays in the delivery of the service's 1,763 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

"We're conducting destructive structural assessments on our F-16 and F-15 aircraft to make sure that our engineering estimates are accurate with respect to" the planes' remaining service lives, Schwartz told reporters after a March 31 Air Force Association-sponsored speech in Arlington, Va.

"I think it's pretty clear that our strategy is to pursue service-life extensions [SLEPs] to the extent that is affordable rather than purchase new generation four-and-a-half aircraft while we're working hard to bring on F-35," said Schwartz. "I do not think it is wise to dissipate the limited pool of resources available for F-35 by procuring less capable aircraft that will last as long" as the F-35s.

Some lawmakers are pressing the Air Force to buy new so called 4.5 generation fighters, such as Boeing's F-15SE Silent Eagle or Block-60 F-16s to prevent a fighter gap.

He went on to say that, if viable, SLEPs could cost the Air Force only 10 percent to 15 percent the cost of buying new fighters such as Boeing's F-15SE Silent Eagle or Block 60 F-16s. However, if the costs spike higher than those numbers, the service may have to rethink that plan. Still, Schwartz was adamant that the Air Force cannot afford to purchase new jets based on older designs if it wants to keep its F-35 buy on track.

"We do not think [it makes sense] to utilize precious procurement dollars to buy anything but fifth-generation aircraft," said Schwartz.

The Air Force is retiring 250 of its oldest F-15 Eagles, F-16 Falcons and a handful of A-10 Thunderbolts this year in a move expected to save $3.5 billion over the next five years.

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Next-Gen UAVs and Weapons Planned

Posted by David A. Fulghum at 4/9/2010 8:44 AM CDT

Unmanned designs and electronic attack capabilities will be heavily represented in planning for the sixth generation of U.S. warplanes.

“We’re looking at our next generation Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPAs) more as standard trucks that would be modular and able to be configured to support several possible missions,” says Maj. Gen. Tom Andersen, Air Combat Command’s director of requirements. “Generally, we’re likely to see much less on-board processing. “Also key will be machine-to-machine communications and automated decision making aids so that [information] can be limited to decision quality data. It also will help us with the manpower intensive backend [of RPA operations] if people can limit or automate some of the activity that eats up those manhours.”

Upgrades to Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars could turn them into fighter-sized directed energy weapons for both manned and unmanned aircraft.

“An issue with most directed energy concepts is that usually you can’t see the [HPM] weapon’s point of impact nor the effect on the target,” Andersen says. “So how do you boresight that weapon and produce a known effect? Is that effect temporary or permanent? What does the strike planner want and what can he trust? How do you treat it like a real weapon so that the joint force commander knows the capability it will deliver?”

AESA radars also may be the core of a new jammer and self-protection suite similar to the Navy’s next-generation jammer program.

“There is no next generation jammer per se for us,” says Brig. Gen. Dave Goldfein, ACC’s director of air and space operations (A3). “There are capabilities that we’re looking for, but there’s no program of record. I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface on AESA. We haven’t got it on the F-35 yet so that we can wring it out, but I think it is going to have tremendous capability for both electronic attack and electronic protection.”

The capability will allow aircrews to find, avoid and neutralize enemy emitters on the battlefield. Remotely piloted aircraft are also certain to be part of the offensive mix, ACC officials say. Rather that working toward a single, elegant but expensive solution, they are looking for multiple ways of attacking a foe electronically.

The next generation of aircraft will follow an incremental approach.

“It will be logical, sustainable and affordable,” Goldfein says. “Long Range Strike, Sixth Generation Fighter, follow on to the MC-12 and MQ-1/9 will have evolutionary but multiple capabilities such as ISR and electronic attack-protection and strike.”

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Afghanistan and Future Wars - What's the Connection?

Posted by David A. Fulghum at 4/9/2010 9:00 AM CDT

U.S. Air Force planners, charged with fitting requirements into a shrinking budget, are looking at the common needs for irregular and conventional and cyber wars.

So far, the operational pull from Afghanistan is for small, precise weapons.

“The requests I have been getting is in the arena of limited effect [grenade size explosions without fragmentation] kinetic weapons that are all-weather, day/night, high precision and low collateral damage,” says Brig. Gen. Dave Goldfein, Air Combat Command’s director of air and space operations (A3).

Specifically, troops want bombs that create grenade-size explosions without fragmentation that can make the best use of intelligence by destroying a very small area – perhaps one room in a house.

“We have been doing that with different warhead fills and putting a composite body on the weapon and delivering it with a laser,” Andersen says. “We find the energy dissipates in single-digit feet instead of going out to 40-50 ft.”

Those small, air-launched weapons of 250-lb. or less also would allow an increase in the number of bombs that future manned or unmanned aircraft could drop in a single mission. Or it could carry the same number of bombs, but the decrease in payload weight would allow unmanned aircraft to fly higher, faster and farther.

“We’re working on the capabilities document for the follow-on to the MQ-9 [Reaper], Goldfein says. “If you line up the master schedules, it’s a capability that is delivered in 2020. You’ll hear modularity, sustainability, affordability, and it will be built with the idea of operations in civil air space in mind with see and avoid, for example. It will be much more suited for bad weather, operate in the mid-altitudes around 20,000 to 30,000 ft. It could be weaponized and carry sensors and it would have to be monitored. Stealth will be an affordability issue. It will probably be difficult.”

Recent low-intensity conflicts give some clues how advanced unmanned aircraft may be used in large-scale future wars.

ACC officials learned a lot from Israel’s current defensive preparations and Russia’s attack on Georgia. Some lessons are exotic and some are doing the basics well, they say. Georgia had a primitive, un-integrated air defense network. But the Russians didn’t develop an electronic order of battle and flew into battle un-briefed on Georgian air defense. Another piece of data about future tactics is Israel’s planning for their communications and military networks to be disabled by electronic attack in future conflicts.

That’s a lesson the American are taking to heart.

“We also are making sure that we can still fight with our networks degraded,” says Maj. Gen. Tom Andersen, ACC’s director of requirements. “If I lose my connectivity to locations in the [combat area], how do I continue to deliver [critical information]? There are a couple of major projects that commanders are focused on. One that reported out at the four-star and service secretary level was the ability to operate in denied environments. That includes the survival or quick reconstruction of datalinks, secure and insecure communications including radars, long-distance transmission, sharing of information, the ability to tie into command and control systems and the coordination of real time decision-making and the ability to adjust to dynamic targets. That’s what we’re training toward.”

[buglerbilly]

USAF Mulls Retiring Old C-5s, Backs C-130 AMP

Apr 12, 2010

By Amy Butler

The U.S. Air Force is planning to trim its buy of C-5 Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) kits made by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics by 20 aircraft, indicating the service is likely to retire 20 aircraft if approved by Congress.

The Pentagon’s April 2 Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) is the first public acknowledgment of the reduction in C-5 AMP numbers (Aerospace DAILY, April 5).

The Air Force had sought to retire some of its oldest C-5s to save money for maintenance.

And an excess of C-17s provided by Congress, against the desires of the Air Force, will allow for the retirements without affecting the readiness of the operational fleet.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said March 30 that the long-awaited Mobility Capabilities Requirements Study (MCRS) found that the number of strategic airlifters needed is in the low 300s.

The Air Force is buying 223 C-17s. Schwartz indicated in March that the service could begin retiring 17 C-5s in Fiscal 2011.

Originally, all 112 C-5s were slated to receive the AMP, with only the Bs, one C and an A undergoing the re-engining program for now. It is possible more re-engining kits could be added to the 52 now planned to support the Air Force’s need to boost reliability of the entire fleet.

Schwartz also said that 19 of the oldest C-130 Hs also should be retired.

Also in the April 2 SAR, the Pentagon notes that the C-130 AMP program is finally being properly funded, driving the overall price up 17.9%. The new price is $6.35 billion for 220 kits.

This estimate now includes the pricing for depot installations, spares and training systems.

Boeing had designed the AMP kit, and the Air Force has completed testing. However, lukewarm support from the Air Force prompted a delay in the decision to proceed with producing the kits.

The SAR acknowledges a one-year delay in production. The Air Force had plans to conduct a competition to select a contractor to build and install the kits. It is unclear if that plan has changed.

[buglerbilly]

Military Tech, Organizations Will Merge

Apr 13, 2010



By David A. Fulghum

Next-generation aircraft and sensors are being planned that combine surveillance, intelligence gathering, tactical cyber and other electronic attack and directed energy. For example, a burst of high-power microwaves could leave a person unharmed but kill his mobile phone.

“There are three trends that are bringing about what I call the ‘information in war revolution,’” says Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the Air Force’s first deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). “The first is the ability to rapidly compress and decompress data due to advancing computing speed; the second is the ability to transmit this data using very clever means — like transmitting only the parts of a video or radar picture that have changed — and then finally the ability we have now to bring all these technologies onto one platform, like we do with our Remotely Piloted Aircraft and will do on our future manned aircraft.”

Those advances in technology are increasing the speed of information and changing the way the Pentagon designs aircraft, its organizations, and even the military’s long-developed cultural habits of collecting data, analyzing it, and then distributing the information to those who need it.

“In the past we had a specific aircraft for collecting data, then a separate organization for analyzing it, and then another organization and system for distributing it,” Deptula says. “And this was at all levels of operations.

With today’s technology we can do all of that from one aircraft — near real time and at the speed of light — from across the globe. Today the trends are blurring traditional lines to the point where we are now able to integrate a sensor-processor-distributor-kinetic-non-kinetic shooter-penetrator all on one aircraft — or perhaps even more attractive — distributed on a set of multiple aircraft in a ‘fractionated’ system. That is a concept that may allow us to achieve greater degrees of survivability in the face of advanced threat systems.”

In short, the traditional fighter, bomber and ISR aircraft will disappear, or at least no longer denote the mission. This is not a multirole, he cautions, but instead “rather a more advanced ‘integrated mission composable’ approach.”

However, advanced jamming tools and techniques may render relying on linking separate capabilities on separate aircraft more and more problematic, therefore integration of multiple function attributes on single aircraft could actually become more attractive.

Cyberwarfare also is part of ISR’s future. “A big part of the job in exploiting operations in cyberspace entails computer network exploitation,” Deptula says. “Wrapped up in the mission set of 24th Air Force is the exploitation piece, and the Air Force ISR Agency capabilities are vital to that task.

Within a few weeks of the stand up of 24th Air Force [the cyber-attack force], we established an ISR group of about 400 people in direct support of that command’s cyber-activities. Today it is known as the 770th Provisional ISR Group, and in June it will become the 659th ISR group, located at Fort Meade, Md. [the home of the National Security Agency].”

Photo: Boeing

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Upgraded F-15Cs to protect F-22s

Posted by David A. Fulghum at 4/14/2010 9:07 AM CDT

F-22 stealth fighter production is capped, so USAF officials are upgrading their best F-15C with advanced, long-range radars to beef up the air dominance force.

Because of the larger size of the F-15s radar and the aircraft’s greater flight endurance, they also will serve as “stand-in” electronic warfare jamming and attack aircraft as part of the Air Force’s composite air dominance force that also includes stealthy F-22s stationed at Langley Air Force Base, Va.

Each fighter type will shoulder 50% of the air dominance mission now that the F-22 force has been capped at 187 aircraft. The upgraded F-15Cs will carry the larger APG-63(V)3 active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. The radar's long range and small target detection capability will allow F-22s to operate in electronic silence with their low observability uncompromised by electronic emissions.

The first F-15C modified with the Raytheon radar was declared operational with the Florida Air National Guard’s 125th Fighter Wing last week.

“Our objective is to fly in front [of any strike force] with the F-22s, and have the persistence [because of larger fuel loads] to stay there while the [stealthy fighters] are conducting their LO attack,” says Maj. Todd Giggy, the wing’s chief of weapons and tactics. Giggy was formerly with the chief of weapons and tactics for the 1st Air Dominance Wing at Langley. “That persistence is something we can add that no one else can in the air dominance world.”

The Florida, Louisiana and Oregon ANG will field the first 48 V3 radar-equipped F-15Cs. Massachusetts and Montana ANG units will follow so that the East, West and Gulf coasts have a cruise missile defense capability.

“We’re embracing an air-launched concept for theater ballistic missile defense as a deterrent and as a tactical capability to protect our forces in theater and for homeland defense,” Giggy says.

One of the missiles in consideration for the theater ballistic missile mission is Raytheon’s NCADE variant of the AIM-120 AMRAAM.

“We’re talking to the ANG about a demonstration of an air-launched, hit-to-kill system, says Ramon Estrada, Raytheon’s F-15 AESA program manager. “It takes the AMRAAM body and extends the range to support a ballistic missile mission.” The AIM-120C-6 and AIM-120D AMRAAM models were optimized in part to attack small-signature cruise missiles.

The Air Force will deliver up to six AESA radars this summer for installation on F-15Cs at the Weapons School and 442 Sgdn. at Nellis AFB, Nev. The fleet will eventually grow to 176 Golden Eagles that are slated to serve until 2030.

The F-15Cs also will provide electronic jamming and attack capability, self-protect the force against enemy missiles and aircraft, shoot their beyond visual range missiles to supplement limited numbers carried by the F-22s and use the radar to create situational awareness for everyone else.

“Weapons effects are the priority, and we are carrying so few weapons that BVR fighting is going to be distributed among all the platforms out there,” Giggy says. “So we distribute the targets and weapons management.”

The F-15C’s electronic surveillance capability also can identify and precisely locate electronic emitters – communications and radars in the air and on the ground – to direct the attacks of other aircraft carrying conventional missiles or non-kinetic, electronic or cyber weapons. Examples of the latter are Raytheon’s Miniature Air Launched Decoy – Jammer (Mald-J) and the CHAMP high power microwave (HPM) generator for cruise missiles being developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland AFB, N.M.

There are also more modifications to come, say aerospace industry officials.

“The simple answer is yes,” says Jim Means, Boeing’s director of proprietary programs for global strike systems. “We are looking in all the right places for the future and that includes the radar and modification to the [AESA] antenna.”

The APG-82(V)4 radar and a new radome planned for the Air Force’s fleet of about 220 F-15Es “we may retrofit to the F-15Cs,” Means says. “There’s also a new computer, a larger cockpit display and enhanced bandwidth datalinks that can send more data to other aircraft faster.”

“Our goal is to break the [enemy’s] kill chain,” Giggy says. “The AESA is a critical component. We can’t stand-in against the current threats unless we can build that [electronic and radar] picture of the battlefield. The V3 allows us to pick and chose where we can go to deliver the [weapons’] effect. And some of those EW and non-kinetic warfare effects are very important.”

But they are expected to be only a few of the upgrades considered through the end of the F-15C’s operational life in 2030.

“With the capability gap that the Air Force is trying to address through the air dominance category with the F-15C, we looked at a lot technologies,” says Robert Martin, a Boeing business development official for the F-15 program.” The Air Force is going to look across platforms for effects to enhance warfighter capability.”

Technologies already in consideration include advanced processing, electronic warfare, multi-spectral sensors, high volume, low probability of intercept datalinks and interoperability with unmanned platforms, he says.

[buglerbilly]

ACC Looks At Possibilities For Future Weapons

Apr 30, 2010



By David A. Fulghum
Langley AFB, Va.

Early planning for improved fifth- and new sixth-generation aircraft indicates they could be designed with wide-area optical and electronic surveillance and nonexplosive weapons, and offer an intricate analysis of the enemy networks that might affect them.

Also part of the formula will be communications—including command and control—that can function even when under network attack.

Fifth-generation aircraft combine stealth and supersonic cruise speeds. The follow-on sixth generation will likely include optionally manned, stealthy, non-supersonic designs with advanced electronic attack payloads involved in ISR and clandestine transport missions.

“We’ve stood up a sixth-generation fighter office here, and we’re starting to figure out what those attributes should be,” says USAF Maj. Gen. Tom Andersen, Air Combat Command’s director of requirements. “Survivability will be huge, so how do you do that—with speed, stealth or some combination? Affordability is critical because $500 million per air vehicle doesn’t do much good [in a tough budget environment]. If we start right now, 2030 is about the time you get a sixth-gen fighter on the line. I think it will have to be capable of being [optionally] manned. The cost margin between manned and unmanned is now only about a 3-5% delta. We have to be prepared to go either way.”

These aircraft will need to be linked so they always know where they are in reference to one another and to any enemy threat all the time. The advanced architecture for connectivity is called the Joint Aerial Layered Network (JLAN). It creates a mosaic for the battlefield with space, airborne and surface layers. And within those layers, the denied and anti-access areas are detailed along with where everybody else can operate. “We have to concentrate on low probability of intercept or detection [LPI/LPD] type wave forms. Then we have to get [those messages] out of that environment so they can help the follow-on forces and support jammers like the nonstealthy Growler. That’s going to be a challenge.”

The equipment on these new aircraft designs will also be innovative. It will, for example, exploit new segments of the electromagnetic spectrum. Also increasingly important will be a translator that transforms an LPI signal to a waveform that can be widely distributed by Link 16. That would avoid compromising stealth and also generate digital information that everyone can use immediately.

Electronic attack, network invasion and generating high-power microwave (HPM) pulses as weapons will also be part of the formula.

“We’re working the Champ [counter-electronics HPM *advanced missile project] demonstration,” which is anHPM device in a cruise missile at Kirtland AFB, N.M., says USAF Brig. Gen. Dave Goldfein, ACC’s director of air and space operations. “We’re probably about three years from where we will have to transition it from the [joint demonstration program].”

ACC officials contend that HPM and laser research is finally at a crucial point. After 20 years of promises, the laboratories and industry are miniaturizing and weaponizing those technologies, and even more progress is anticipated. The U.S. Marines, for example, plan to introduce truck-mounted, base-defense HPM into operations in Afghanistan.

There are also hints about sixth-generation unmanned aircraft.

“We’re looking at our next-generation RPAs [remotely piloted aircraft] more as standard trucks that would be modular and able to be configured to support several possible missions,” says Andersen. “Generally, we’re likely to see much less onboard processing. Also key will be machine-to-machine communications and automated decision-making aids so that communications can be limited to decision-quality data. It also will help us with the manpower-intensive back end [of RPA operations] if people can limit or automate some of the activity that eats up those man-hours.”

Upgrades to the active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radars can turn them into fighter-size directed-energy weapons.

“Build it and we will come,” says Andersen. “What comes first, the investment from the services to weaponize something or the proof that the technology is ready for operational use? In today’s fiscal environment, we need to see some evidence before we can invest.

“An issue with most directed-energy concepts is that usually you can’t see the [HPM] weapon’s point of impact or the effect on the target,” he says. “So how do you boresight that weapon and produce a known effect? Is that effect temporary or permanent? What does the strike planner want and what can he trust? How do you treat it like a real weapon so that the joint force commander knows the capability it will deliver?”

AESA radars also may be the core of a new jammer and self-protection suite similar to the Navy’s Next-Generation Jammer program.

“There is no next-generation jammer, per se, for us,” says Goldfein. “There are capabilities that we’re looking for, but there’s no program of record. I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface on AESA. We haven’t got it on the F-35 yet so that we can wring it out, but I think it is going to have tremendous capability for both electronic attack and protection.”

The capability allows aircrews to find, avoid and neutralize enemy emitters on the battlefield. RPAs are also certain to be part of the offensive mix, ACC officials say. Rather than working toward a single, elegant but expensive solution, they are looking for multiple ways of attacking a foe electronically.

Whether the Air Force can successfully turn its fifth- and sixth-generation aircraft into a combination ISR, electronic attack, strike and AWACS aircraft is also an issue of perspective.

“The first day of Desert Storm [Jan. 16, 1991], I rolled in an F-16 with dumb bombs,” says Goldfein. “Ten years later I was rolling into Kosovo with laser-guided bombs with all kinds of data coming into the cockpit. Now we’re far more capable than we were then.”

Nevertheless, some of the most pressing needs for operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East and Southwest Asia are pretty prosaic.

A tour in theater for the F-22 was more about gathering data on operating in a dry, high-temperature, fine-sand situation for an extended period and less about functioning in a different electromagnetic environment.

Ironically, the big three issues in the Middle East are maintainability, supportability and commonality. These lessons from the F-22 are already being rolled into the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

“We have more panels for maintenance access that you don’t have in the F-22,” says Goldfein. “You don’t have to refinish the [low-observable] surface. The radar is much more capable. And the architecture is much more versatile for accepting upgrades.”

The next generation of aircraft will follow an incremental approach.

“It will be logical, sustainable and affordable,” says Goldfein. “Long-range strike, sixth-generation fighter and follow-ons to the MC-12 and MQ-1/9 will have evolutionary but multiple capabilities, such as ISR and electronic attack and protection, and strike.”

However, weaponry and sensors for the current Afghan conflict are not all esoteric.

“The requests I have been getting are in the arena of limited-effect kinetic weapons that are all-weather, day/night, high precision and low collateral damage,” says Goldfein.

Specifically, troops want bombs that create grenade-size explosions without fragmentation that can make the best use of intelligence by destroying a very small area—perhaps one room in a house.

“We have been doing that with different warhead fills and putting a composite body on the weapon and delivering it with a laser,” says Andersen. “We find that the energy dissipates in single-digit feet instead of going out to 40-50 ft.”

Those small, air-launched weapons of 250 lb. or less also would allow an increase in the number of bombs that an aircraft can drop. Or it could carry the same number of bombs, but the decrease in payload weight would allow unmanned aircraft to fly higher, faster and farther.

“We’re working on the capabilities document for the follow-on to the MQ-9 [Reaper],” says Goldfein. “If you line up the master schedules, it’s a capability that is delivered in 2020. You’ll hear modularity, sustainability, affordability, and it will be built with the idea of operations in civil airspace with see-and-avoid, for example. It will be much more suited for bad weather and operate in the mid-altitudes around 20,000-30,000 ft. It could be weaponized and carry sensors, and it would have to be monitored. Stealth will be an affordability issue. It will probably be difficult.”

But recent low-intensity conflicts offer clues about how advanced unmanned aircraft may be used in large-scale future wars.

ACC officials learned a lot from Israel’s attack on Syria in 2007 and Russia’s attack on Georgia in 2008. Some of it was exotic and some of it was basic EW blocking and tackling, they say. Georgia had an unintegrated air defense network. But the Russians did not develop an electronic order of battle and flew unbriefed into Georgian air defense. Another piece of evidence is that Israel is planning for its communications and military networks to be disabled by electronic attack.

“We also are making sure that we can still fight with our networks degraded,” Andersen says. “If I lose my connectivity to locations in the [combat area], how do I continue to deliver [critical information]? There are a couple of major projects that commanders are focused on. One that reported out at the four-star and service-secretary level was the ability to operate in denied environments. That includes the survival or quick reconstruction of data links and secure or insecure communications. Other priorities are the ability to tie into command-and-control systems, the coordination of real-time decision-making and the ability to adjust to dynamic targets.”

Photo: General Atomics

[buglerbilly]

AF Panel Likens DOD Acquisition to Contact Sport

(Source: U.S Air Force; issued April 30, 2010)

(Scroll down to see the Editor’s note in the second item below)

DAYTON, Ohio --- The Defense Department's journey to recapture acquisition excellence took a big step forward during two days of discussions and workforce training held at Sinclair Community College here April 20 and 21.

That was the assessment made by several senior leaders at the DOD Acquisition Insight Conference, at which more than 700 military, civilian and contractor acquisition professionals and defense industry partners met.

Sponsored by Defense Acquisition University - Midwest Region, the conference focused principally on providing acquisition experts from nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base with a forum to exchange ideas and discuss how to best implement the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009.

"In my mind, it's about continuous process improvement," said Lt. Gen. Tom Owen, commander of the Aeronautical Systems Center and the Air Force's program executive officer, or PEO, responsible for buying and modernizing aircraft systems. "We know that what we do is vitally important, so we should work hard to improve our processes."

General Owen's boss, Gen. Donald Hoffman, commander of Air Force Materiel Command, said it's important for weapon system program managers to think carefully about program scope. They need to be willing to say no when nice-to-have, emerging weapon systems requirements are proposed late in the game because these ideas lead to cost overruns and delivery delays.

General Hoffman used the word "pugnacity" to describe the attitude he wants to see in program managers. They must be hard-nosed enough to ensure well-intentioned but disruptive ideas don't derail the process. Program managers must defend the boundaries of their program and aggressively execute the agreed plan with their industrial partners or schedule delays and cost increases will creep in.

Virtually everyone acknowledged that years of downsizing and outsourcing left the acquisition workforce out of balance and ill-equipped to deal with a concurrent significant increase in oversight, documentation requirements and dollar value of contracts written.

The government must stop the trend of hollowing out DOD's in-house technical capability and then attempting to compensate by adding burdensome oversight, said Dr. Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

The DOD acquisition workforce improvement plan, currently in execution, includes a number of concurrent efforts to increase the size of the department's in-house acquisition workforce through recruitment of people into newly created positions and "in-sourcing" or conversion of contractors to government positions. General Hoffman said for his command, AFMC officials plan to in-source about 4,000 positions.

Enhancing skills of acquisition, technology and logistics workers through education and training and establishing a clear path for their professional development also are key components of the improvement plan. Rebuilding skills in the workforce which have atrophied, like those of budget estimators and system engineers, will take time, but the effort is necessary and worthwhile, senior panel experts said.

"It takes about 10 years to (develop) a good fighter pilot," said retired Gen. Lawrence Skantze, former commander of Air Force Systems Command, adding the same is true for a good acquisition professional.

Additionally, a soon-to-be announced major restructure of major AFMC acquisition centers was previewed. In part, it will increase the number of program executive officers to enable better senior officer-level focus on high-dollar, high-risk programs that warrant additional scrutiny.

General Owen, who currently serves as the PEO for aircraft systems, said that will mean five new PEOs at Aeronautical Systems Center, for a total of six. He will remain PEO for B-2 Spirit, C-17 Globemaster III and F-22 Raptor but will be joined by PEOs for Agile Combat Support; Fighters and Bombers; Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; KC-X; and Mobility.

Sue Payton, former assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, said across AFMC, the number of PEOs will go from five to 15.

Ms. Payton, General Hoffman and others extolled the value of solid systems engineering, as well as incentive-based contracting with industry to move to firm fixed-price contracts as early as feasible. Funding fewer programs at high confidence levels to enable low-risk development and production to proceed quickly at efficient economies of scale was universally preferred to stretching out weapons buys in tiny lots over many years. Competitive prototyping up front to reduce risk later was another lauded approach.

"The only leverage you have in Air Force acquisition is to say 'no,'" Ms. Payton said, noting that programs with prioritized, stable requirements and realistically funded for block upgrades are preferred to attempts to go from zero to hero in fielding the perfect weapon system straight out of the starting block.

"This is a contact sport," said Lt. Gen. Ted Bowlds, commander of the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass. It requires active leadership and personal contact, early and often, between acquirers, testers, sustainers and industry producers, he added.

Transparent, open communication between these communities and sharing detailed analyses using various information technology tools enhances trust and credibility, General Owen said.

Gary Bliss, the director of the Pentagon's Performance Assessment and Root Cause Analysis office, agreed, noting the one unifying theme he's learned in his reviews of acquisition programs that encountered serious problems was a need for "greater transparency of programs throughout the acquisition chain of command."

Mr. Bliss also said there is no substitute for knowledge of the complex series of rules and policies that drive acquisition decisions.

"Everyone in this room must understand (the Weapons System Acquisition Reform Act of 2009)," he said to the conferees in attendance.

Despite its difficulties, when really tested, the acquisition community can perform with incredible agility, General Owen noted.

"Some of our most successful programs (came about from being) challenged with doing something really quickly," he said. The MC-12 Liberty is a notable ASC example, with an entire squadron of ISR aircraft being fielded in less than 10 months from concept to combat. (ends)

DOD Acquisition Leader Shares His Priorities

(Source: US Air Force; issued April 30, 2010)

DAYTON, Ohio --- More than 700 military, civilian and contractor acquisition professionals and defense industry partners discussed challenges they face during the Department of Defense Acquisition Insight Conference April 20 through 21 here.

The Pentagon's top acquisition official, Dr. Ashton Carter, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, was among the senior executives.

"Secretary (of Defense Robert) Gates is insistent that we do things differently," said Dr. Carter on the imperative to improve the way U.S. military weapons and systems are acquired and delivered. "There is no silver bullet here; It's not oversight. It's the practice."

The forum, hosted by Defense Acquisition University members, is one of the three largest DAU annual training events for military and civilian acquisition professionals.

Doctor Carter used real-world development challenges with DOD's largest acquisition program, the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter, to illustrate what most urgently needs to be fixed.

The complex acquisition program represents the cornerstone of America's stealthy, multi-role fighter force for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. Many allied nations also plan to buy the F-35 and several are helping to share the cost to develop it.

Despite discipline in keeping F-35 requirements stable, a combination of unforeseen engineering changes and other factors went unacknowledged and virtually unmanaged for two years, resulting in a 30-month delay and $3 billion in additional program costs, according to one estimate.

"We should have better situational awareness and better early warning about the status of our programs," Doctor Carter said.

Once the F-35's problems finally surfaced, DOD and industry officials were able to collaborate and come up with a strategy to reduce the delay to just 13 months, Dr. Carter said.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: It is somewhat disingenuous of Carter to say that the F-35’s problems “went unacknowledged…for two years.” On the contrary, they were chronicled in excruciating detail by many trade publications, not least defense-aerospace.com, before and during this period. The solution to the acquisition problem that the Pentagon wants to fix may well rest, at least in part, in simply paying more attention to outside observers.)

Secretary Gates withheld certain award fees to the contractor and tied earning them back to meeting specific development and production goals and timelines, so taxpayers didn't bear the additional cost burden alone, Doctor Carter said.

While he underscored the importance of the industry-government partnership, Doctor Carter said a key lesson learned is less reliance on contractor estimates and "a need to strengthen the government's capability for independent technical judgment."

The government must stop the trend of hollowing out DOD's in-house technical capability and then attempting to compensate by adding burdensome oversight, regulation and documentation requirements, he said.

That's another reason why the acquisition workforce improvement plan is so vital, Doctor Carter said. After years of downsizing and outsourcing, the plan includes a number of concurrent efforts to increase the size of the department's in-house acquisition workforce by nearly 20,000 over the next five years through new recruitment and conversion of some contractor functions to government positions.

Enhancing workforce skills through education and training are also key components, with a focus on systems engineering as one example, he added.

Another strategy Doctor Carter said officials can employ to help wrestle in program development costs is to identify when firm fixed-price contracts are appropriate, rather than cost plus award fee contracts.

Firm fixed-price contracts should be used when they make sense to the warfighter and the taxpayer, he said. The intent is to reduce and share technical and business risk.

Ultimately, improving acquisition performance should depend on "quality people making quality decisions, rather than a ponderous process and oversight," Doctor Carter said.

Delivering capabilities on time and on cost benefits both U.S. warfighters and taxpayers, Doctor Carter said.

"The top priority, the No. 1 priority, is to support the troops."

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

USAF To Reduce Reliance On UCAs

May 12, 2010

By Amy Butler

Obviously I'm a member of the "ancien(t) regime"...........I didn't even know "undefinitized" was a real word with a real meaning beyond USAF quatsch-sprach ("rubbish speak" to you)..............

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio — U.S. Air Force officials are working to reduce the number of undefinitized contract actions (UCAs) used by the service to procure weapon systems as a result of some criticism that this procurement tool has been used too often.

UCAs are a tool used by procurement officers to get a company on contract for specific tasks while saving detailed negotiations until later. They are typically considered appropriate for use in areas such as urgent needs for commanders fighting a war. For example, UCAs were used to quickly get contractors working on the MC-12W Project Liberty aircraft, which are providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. Acquisition officials also sometimes turn to them as an option if a foreign customer is eager to get on contract, but negotiations take longer than planned.

However, after high-profile procurement foul-ups such as KC-X, the Air Force is bound to draw criticism if it does not follow acquisition regulations closely.

Defense acquisition regulations require that a service has 180 days to “definitize” a contract, which means to iron out all of the details and get a signed deal.

This is an area where the Air Force has fallen short, according to some critics in government. During an April 23 speech, David Van Buren, the service’s acting top procurement official, also acknowledged that the number of UCAs open for Air Force contracts is a “major problem” that raised eyebrows in Congress.

“Unfortunately, we have allowed UCAs to just be used more commonly than they should,” said Aeronautical Systems Center Commander Lt. Gen. Thomas Owen during a May 7 interview with AVIATION WEEK. “In our zeal to get product developed and delivered, that led to using UCAs more often than we should.” Owen says his command is reducing the number of UCAs.

As of April 2010, the ASC had 57 undefinitized UCAs; that number is projected to dwindle to zero by July 2011, with fewer projected new UCAs to be opened.

Credit: USAF

[buglerbilly]

U.S. Lawmakers Push for Additional F/A-18s, C-17s

By JOHN REED

Published: 18 May 2010 16:51

Fresh on the heels of the U.S. Navy's move to buy 124 new F/A-18 Super Hornets and E/A-18G Growlers, Missouri lawmakers on May 18 announced a renewed push for the Pentagon to purchase additional Super Hornets and C-17 Globemaster III cargo haulers.

Calling last week's news of the Super Hornet buy "an important first step," but just a first step in addressing the sea service's looming fighter gap, Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., and fellow Missouri lawmakers held a news conference on Capitol Hill to announce they will urge the Pentagon to buy additional fighters using savings garnered from the multiyear Super Hornet buy.

Bond was joined by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who added that she will insist the Navy use the nearly half a billion dollars in savings from the multiyear buy to "go right back into" buying more Super Hornets to address the Navy's fighter gap.

The pending Super Hornet deal, unveiled May 14, is worth about $70 million per airplane, according to Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo. Akin and McCaskill called out the Navy for issuing "perplexing" estimates regarding the size of the fighter gap, which have ranged from 243 jets to the current estimate of 100.

McCaskill also said that she is trying to get enough votes in the Senate to allow the Air Force to retire its 50 oldest C-5A Galaxys and purchase additional C-17s in the 2011 defense authorization bill, which the Senate is expected to mark up on May 25.

Retiring the C-5As would free up ramp space for the C-17s without building a fleet of strategic airlifters larger than the 317 the Air Force says it needs, according to the Missouri democrat. The House favors such a move, according to Akin, although McCaskill said garnering the votes in the Senate will be a challenge.

[buglerbilly]

Mistakes become career-enders during drawdown

By Michelle Tan - Staff writer

Posted : Sunday May 23, 2010 9:41:00 EDT

Nearly every airman has forgotten to salute, missed a meeting, showed up for work late or flubbed a test.

By and large, those moments strike fear in airmen’s hearts — and for good reason.

A little thing, or a seemingly little thing, can kill a career as much as a big thing. You don’t have to commit a crime to get kicked out of the service. You can be handed your walking papers for simply being in an overmanned career field or flunking the PT test.

And in these times when the Air Force is looking to get rid of 6,000 active-duty airmen, it doesn’t hurt to know what can trip you up — innocuous or not.

The list of potential pitfalls comes mostly from the rank and file. The Air Force doesn’t keep an official list of reasons why airmen separate — either voluntarily or involuntarily, a spokeswoman told Air Force Times.

“Currently we have no means to track the different, varied separation reasons,” Elizabeth Gosselin wrote in an e-mail.

The number of airmen who left the service in fiscal 2009 totaled 2,246, up from 2,234 in fiscal 2008. The number for the first seven months of fiscal 2010 is 1,145.

A tough civilian job market triggered the drawdown, announced in early April by Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz. High unemployment plus job security equals high retention. Now, the Air Force is faced with doing its own layoffs.

Schwartz and his force management advisers figure a three-pronged plan — the active-duty cuts along with the delayed commissioning of hundreds of ROTC cadets and severely curtailed recruitment goals — will bring the service back to its congressionally mandated end strength of 332,200. The number right now is about 335,500 and was projected to hit 336,500 by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, if the Air Force didn’t act.

To implement the cuts, the service is using both the carrot and the stick. Some airmen are eligible for incentives — accelerated retirements, voluntary separation pay, fewer years in grade and shortened service commitments, for example. Others are getting the boot — for being denied or declining re-enlistment, poor grades in technical school or being passed over for promotion.

Crime, cross-train and PT

Even if you don’t think you’re vulnerable because of the drawdown, your fellow airmen warn that you should know how to protect your future anyway.

One big way to stay in is to stay out of trouble — criminal trouble.

Assigned to the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals, Tech. Sgt. Christina Parsons has seen a lot of airmen get kicked out because they broke the law: smoking pot, viewing pornography — not only at work but at home — writing bad checks, misusing a government travel card, sexual misconduct, assault.

“These are just to name a few,” wrote Parsons, one of three dozen airmen and retirees who responded to a call-out from Air Force Times. “And although most think that there is no way that they will be found out, remember, someone is always watching and/or listening. There is never anywhere to hide.”

An Air Force legal expert backed up Parsons’ contention about crime being bad for careers: A drug conviction, for example, means discharge.

“Most of our courts-martial are drug offenses, marijuana, dereliction of duty, making false statements, disobeying orders, and everything you can imagine, to sexual assault and the occasional murder,” said Col. Ken Theurer, chief of the military justice division in the Air Force Legal Operations Agency.

“We expect our airmen to live up to the Air Force core values at all times,” he said.

Saving your career can be as easy as being open to switching Air Force Specialty Codes.

“Being in an overmanned career field coupled with an unwillingness to cross-train can be a career-ender,” Maj. Juan Doan of the Georgia Air National Guard told Air Force Times. “With the Air Force ranks swelling due to the economy, the Air Force may have to push you out if you are unwilling to move into a position of need.”

Keeping fit is an easy way to make sure you stay in. Involuntary separation is automatic if you get four unsatisfactory fitness assessment scores in a 24-month period or remain in an unsatisfactory fitness category for 12 continuous months.

“The No. 1 career-ender? No question about it, the scarlet letter ‘F’ as in consistent fitness test failure,” Capt. John Parrish wrote. “We’re not a one-mistake Air Force unless you mistakenly under-prioritize your fitness.”

Parrish, an enlisted airman for 10 years before being commissioned eight years ago, never saw or heard of anyone being separated for “gross occupational incompetence (unfortunately) but quite a few due to the old ‘fat boy’ program and the misguided bike test. In other words, historically in the Air Force, you can be a borderline moron in your AFSC and make 20 years, but being a slow runner makes you a dirt bag. That applies to officers and enlisted alike.”

Lies, washouts and rusty skills

Capt. Michael Fontana sent up a red flare about false allegations. He speaks from experience, accused — and eventually acquitted — of giving lethal doses of painkillers to three terminally ill patients at Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.

“My personal opinion is victims of false accusations and failures of the chain of command are career-enders,” wrote Fontana, who had faced three counts of murder. “I am living proof of such an event. I am trying to remain strong after dealing with this situation, which is now over, but reintegration back into patient care has been an enormous obstacle.”

In the explosive ordnance disposal community, what’s needed to hold on to your job depends on whether the country is at war or not, according to Tech. Sgt. John McCoy. On the battlefield, endangering a fellow team member or killing a non-combatant almost guarantees you’ll be fired as soon as you go back home. During peacetime, you’ll be shown the door if you don’t keep up your skills.

Francis Crotty said he saw his career come to a screeching halt when he had to leave navigator school for medical reasons, though he didn’t realize it at the time. He entered another career field, acquisitions, and retired as a major.

“Washing out of a school, may it be the military member’s choice or not, puts a permanent mark against them forever,” Crotty wrote. “The lesson to be learned is to be successful at everything you undertake, period.”

As a training manager, Master Sgt. Lyndell Massey said he has seen commanders target airmen who have failed a career development course twice — especially during a drawdown.

“Although the commander has multiple options [90-day review period, CDC waiver and retraining], oftentimes the struggling young airman is simply shown the door with minimal benefits and options.”

Massey said he also has seen airmen punished for failing to progress in training or for receiving one too many letters of counseling for decreased performance when dealing with personal or family issues.

“The Air Force says people are their number one resource,” Massey wrote. “If this is true, why are our fellow Air Force brothers and sisters always the first thing on the chopping block to save money?”

[buglerbilly]

Air Force should not relegate F-15 Eagles to boneyard

By Robert F. Dorr - Special to Air Force Times

The F-15 Eagle could be the only air-to-air fighter in history that has never been beaten in battle.

The score is 104-0, according to the Eagle’s manufacturer. The 104 is the number of enemy planes downed by F-15s, and the zero is the number of F-15s lost in air-to-air combat. The total includes aerial victories by American, Israeli and Saudi pilots.

More than 100 Eagles — 112 — are headed to the boneyard, nearly half of 259 perfectly good aircraft that Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to retire from service. The rest of the 500-plus planes in the fleet will be upgraded, but those being retired will not be replaced.

Besides sidelining F-15s, the Air Force is consolidating Eagle training at one location — Kingsley Field in Oregon. The 325th Fighter Wing at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., graduated its final five student pilots in May and is saying goodbye to its 48 Eagles. All should be in the boneyard by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

While there’s no doubt that the Oregon Air National Guard’s 173rd Fighter Wing will do a fine job with the F-15 training, it’s sad to see the mission leave Tyndall. In 22 years, the 325th taught 3,900 pilots well.

An instructor at Tyndall likened the F-15 drawdown to “retiring the undefeated New England Patriots.”

Once, there appeared to be a reason for putting the F-15 out to pasture: An Air National Guard pilot had to eject from an Eagle during a routine training mission Nov. 2, 2007, when it broke apart over Missouri. Parts of the plane struck Maj. Stephen Stilwell, hurting him seriously enough that he can no longer fly for the Guard or his private employer, Southwest Airlines. Stilwell brought a personal injury lawsuit against Boeing and declined to be interviewed.

Stilwell’s bailout prompted initial fears of a fleetwide structural problem caused by aging of the F-15, fears that experts now deem unfounded.

Today, F-15s showing the least structural wear and tear are having their lives extended from 8,000 to 16,000 flying hours by upgrades. Despite being 25 years old, many Eagles have just 4,000 or 5,000 hours, not exorbitant flight time for a jet fighter.

Because of the Air Force’s puny F-22 Raptor buy (187 aircraft), the Eagle remains its primary air-to-air fighter. And the F-15 probably keep the honor even when the F-35 Lightning II finally makes it into the air, some airmen theorize. “The F-35 pilots need to accomplish many tasks, and we need a single-mission airplane for the air-to-air role,” as one Eagle pilot put it.

There are lawmakers who want to halt the retirement of the Eagles and are going to debate Gates’ decision come fall. Until Congress has its say, though, the Air Force should halt the “iron flow,” as airmen call it.

Retiring F-15s now is certainly premature because of the resistance on Capitol Hill, and it will ultimately prove unwise because it weakens the nation’s defenses. Ë

———

Robert F. Dorr, an Air Force veteran, is co-author of “Hell Hawks,” a history of a U.S. fighter group in World War II. His e-mail address is robert.f.dorr@cox.net.

[buglerbilly]

B-1B Lancer Fleet To the Boneyard?



Back to the Title 10 side of the house for a moment; the Air Force Council meets today to consider further cuts in aircraft to meet aggressive savings targets laid out by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. One option on the table: early retirement of all 66 B-1B Lancer bombers (the last delivery of which came back in 1988).

Force structure cuts might also extend to the air arm’s much cherished but currently under-utilized fighter force. The service already plans to early retire 250 fighters this year, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said last month; gone are 112 F-15s, 134 F-16s, and 3 A-10s.

Some of the fighter wings, mainly A-10, are being chopped altogether, while others are transitioning from legacy F-15s to upgraded F-15s or to the fifth-generation F-22 and other wings are prepping to receive the F-35 at some uncertain future date.

“By accepting some short-term risk, we can convert our inventory of legacy fighters and F-22 (Raptors) into a smaller, more flexible and lethal bridge to fifth-generation fighters like the F-35 (Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter),” Donley said.

While short-range tactical fighters (and potentially bombers) are being cut, the Air Force is adding more MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones and more analysts to scrutinize the massive amounts of imagery they generate.

– Greg Grant

Read more: http://defensetech.org/2010/06/24/b-1b-lancer-fleet-to-the-boneyard/#ixzz0royeu5HD
Defense.org

[buglerbilly]

DATE:24/06/10

SOURCE:Flightglobal.com

Boeing outlines C-130H and KC-10 cockpit upgrades

By Stephen Trimble

Boeing will upgrade cockpits for US Air Force C-130Hs and KC-10 tankers under separate deals announced on 24 June.

The USAF has cleared Boeing to launch low-rate initial production (LRIP) for the C-130 avionics modernization programme (AMP). Boeing will deliver five of 20 kits ordered by the USAF during the first lot of LRIP, with the balance produced by the Warner Robbins Air Logistics Centre and also by an unnamed competitor.

Boeing developed the AMP kit under a $1.4 billion development programme awarded in 2000 that endured cost overruns and schedule delays until a final restructuring in 2007.

Last year, the USAF attempted to terminate the programme, citing lack of funding. But the service relented under pressure from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Congress.

“I’m very confident that the air force will continue with the C-130 AMP,” says Mike Harris, Boeing vice president of C-130 AMP. “They never said they didn’t need it. They just didn’t have the money.”

The USAF decided in 2007 to qualify alternate sources to build and install about 198 AMP kits developed by Boeing under the original contract. Boeing’s goal is to reduce the price of AMP kit production from $14 million today to $7 million by the 69th aircraft, Harris says.

Meanwhile, Boeing also has received a $216 million contract to upgrade the 59-aircraft KC-10 fleet with a new communication, navigation, surveillance and air traffic management (CNS/ATM) system.

The five-year contract will allow the fleet to operate in civil airspace after 2015, as new US FAA and ICAO standards take effect, Boeing says.

[buglerbilly]

A report I nearly missed...........forgot about it...........

Previewing T-X: The biggest USAF contract nobody is talking about

By Stephen Trimble on June 21, 2010 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0) |ShareThis



[As promised, here's the link: US Air Force, industry prepare for T-38 replacement)

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/06/22/343393/us-air-force-industry-prepare-for-t-38-replacement.html

I'm amazed that the unfolding T-X contract battle, which I'm previewing in this week's magazine (I'll add the link after the story is posted online), isn't one of the biggest news stories in military aviation today.

It's a story that has it all. Controversy? Three largely foreign aircraft in competition with potential American rivals. Size? Projected initial orders range from 350 to 500 aircraft, with follow-on potential up to 1,000. Emotion? Replace the US Air Force's venerable Northrop T-38 Talon, the advanced jet trainer that has primed three generations of fighter and bomber pilots for combat.

And it's a story that's moving very fast. Until a few years ago, the USAF had delayed plans for a T-38 replacement past 2020. A fatal crash in 2008 caused by an over-fatigued aileron helped to change the plan. The in-service date was accelerated to 2017. Since then, the USAF has released two fairly explicit requests for information to industry, detailing what the service thinks it needs.

But there is one thing holding this story back, and it's a 'biggie'. So far, the USAF hasn't put any real funding into the budget for T-X, despite plans to award a full-scale development contract before 2013. Industry expects that oversight to be cleared up in the Fiscal 2012 budget request that will be released in early February.

The USAF will not lack for options. Three off the shelf options exist to replace the T-38: AleniaAermacchi M346 Master, BAE Systems Hawk 128 and Korea Aerospace Industries/Lockheed Martin T-50 Golden Eagle. The catch: All of them are primairly designed and built overseas, although final assembly of course would shift to the US for the T-X contract winner.

But the USAF doesn't have to settle for off the shelf. It's possible that Boeing and perhaps Northrop Grumman could propose an alternative route: design a "purpose-built" -- and, more importantly, "all-American" -- advanced jet trainer.

That option may please a faction of parochial lawmakers, but it will add at least $3 to $5 billion to the program price tag. Given that buying new trainers rank among the lowest of any air force's spending priorities, that may be asking a lot.

One more option still exists, and it's perhaps Northrop's favorite strategy. Rather than buy an all-new aircraft, simply launch a "super-SLEP" (service life extension program) on the T-38 fleet.

[McDethWivFries]

B-1B Lancer Fleet To the Boneyard?


...
Some of the fighter wings, mainly A-10, are being chopped altogether, while others are transitioning from legacy F-15s to upgraded F-15s or to the fifth-generation F-22 and other wings are prepping to receive the F-35 at some uncertain future date.


BOOOOOooooo, two of my alltime favs, the B1 & A10, be sad to see them go

[buglerbilly]

The service already plans to early retire 250 fighters this year, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said last month; gone are 112 F-15s, 134 F-16s, and 3 A-10s.

3 X A-10's is insignificant to the point of almost being irrelevant..................the B-1B's have been on the chopping block previously and to be honest they are bloody expensive to keep in service..........

[buglerbilly]

A lot more expansive article on the USAF's T-X new trainer program................

DATE:22/06/10

SOURCE:Flight International

US Air Force, industry prepare for T-38 replacement

By Stephen Trimble

The US Air Force may be within months of launching a contest to replace the Northrop T-38 Talon trainer that was introduced in 1962.

At least five companies are plotting potential bids to win the contract to replace 450 T-38s and become the go-to trainer option worldwide for Lockheed Martin's fifth-generation fighters - the F-22 and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

With fewer new contract opportunities available over the next decade, the T-X programme is shaping up as a must-win battle. In terms of quantity, the deal represents the single largest new contract opportunity for manned aircraft in the US defence market for several years.

By 2012, the USAF may select a contractor to build at least 350 aircraft to replace the T-38 alone. But follow-on opportunities, including naval and light attack versions, could push sales to nearly 1,000 aircraft for the Department of Defense.


© PalmsRick Gallery on flightglobal.com/AirSpace

It is an opportunity that the worldwide advanced jet trainer industry has been anticipating for decades. Replacing the T-38 (above) has enticed industry for so long that two of the first companies that became involved were named Samsung and General Dynamics. Neither remains in the aircraft business, but the result of their collaboration in the early 1990s produced the T-50 Golden Eagle (below), which is now offered by Korea Aerospace Industries and Lockheed.

"We designed the T-50 as a T-38 replacement for the US Air Force," says Douglas Miller, Lockheed director for T-50 business development. "We were focused on that opportunity a long time ago."


© Lockheed Martin

The South Korean-built T-50 is not alone. Both the Alenia Aermacchi M-346 Master and BAE Systems Hawk 128 have attracted other buyers, but replacing the USAF's T-38 fleet remains the prime goal for both companies.

With KAI tightly aligned with Lockheed, Alenia Aermacchi and BAE may need to find US partners.

Starting in June 2009, Alenia executives spoke openly of plans to offer the M-346 to the USAF as a prime contractor, perhaps using newly acquired DRS Technologies to install sensitive equipment. But the company has changed course since April, when Finmecannica chief executive Pier Francesco Guarguaglini told market analysts that it would seek a US partner.

Meanwhile, BAE's plan is still to offer the Hawk for the T-X contract through its US-based subsidiary BAE Systems Inc.

Ian Reason, BAE's business development director for military air sector training, says the company's starting point is to "deliver this as a prime in our own right, but with a very strong US industrial team around us". However, he adds: "We are not ruling out teaming with a major air sector prime."

For Alenia and BAE, the most obvious partners are Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Not only is Boeing already partnered with BAE as the US Navy's prime contractor for the T-45 Goshawk (below), it also has an agreement with Alenia to market the M-346 internationally.


© Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Nicholas Hall/US Navy

In addition, Northrop may offer advantages to a potential partner as the USAF's incumbent supplier of advanced jet trainers, although the T-38 production line closed in 1972.

However, both manufacturers appear to have different ideas than participating in the T-X contest as a partner to a foreign company.

Boeing, in particular, wants the USAF to factor industrial base issues into the T-X competition. Moreover, industry sources last year confirmed to Flight International that Boeing may offer a "purpose-built" aircraft. With each off-the-shelf option relying heavily on foreign aircraft designers, Boeing may hope to sway the requirements to drive a clean-sheet design launched by a US manufacturer.

So far, Boeing is keeping its strategy for T-X mostly secret. "We have various options on the table," says Dave Schweppe, a business development director for Boeing. "In December-or-so of this year, we can probably be a lot more forthcoming about our offering."

For its part, Northrop also prefers to keep its strategy closely held at this stage.

"Northrop Grumman is interested in the future of this programme, and will look at all options to respond to the needs of the air force," says Scott Collins, director of future tactical systems for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.

As the legacy T-38 supplier, Northrop's preferred route may be offering a service life extension programme for the Talon fleet.

Dave McDonald, a plans, programmes and requirements manager for the Air Education and Training Command (AETC), confirms "extending the life of the baseline system" remains one of the options on the USAF's list.

Northrop also has the ability to surprise the competition by producing an all-new, clean-sheet design. In addition to its long heritage in the trainer market, the company owns a major stake in Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites.

Among several ambitious design projects over the years, Scaled designed and built a jet-powered replacement for the Fairchild A-10 ground-attack aircraft in the early 1990s called the agile response effective support aircraft.

The scale of the programme could also spark other surprise offerings from industry.

Dan Korte, president of Rolls-Royce Defence Aerospace, says his company has been in discussions with T-X bidders about offering the Eurojet consortium's EJ200 turbofan as a re-engining option. Even in a single-engined configuration, the prospect of introducing the powerplant of the Eurofighter Typhoon into a T-X offering shows how far vendors are willing to compete for this contract.

Korte declines to name any companies involved in the EJ200 discussions. BAE's Reason has heard about the possible offering, however. "I believe [Rolls-Royce has] been approached by one of the competitors," Reason says. "Everybody's talking to everybody. Until the acquisition strategy settles down, I think there's going to be a lot of discussion."

Meanwhile, USAF officials are working to define what they want to replace the Talon.

The AETC, perhaps mindful of preventing delays as a result of flaws in the acquisition process, has been working on finalising requirements for the T-X since 2003. At that time, a T-38 replacement was not planned until after 2020, as the oldest Talons approached entering a seventh decade of service.

But the USAF seemed to accelerate the T-X acquisition process last year as new concerns arose about the T-38 fleet's viability. A T-38C crash in April 2008 was blamed on an aileron that failed in the full-down position on take off, killing the two-man crew.


© Senior Airman Julius Delos Reyes/US Air Force

USAF officials launched a comprehensive structural assessment in the wake of the accident, and believe the fleet remains viable beyond 2020.

Nonetheless, the service launched the T-X acquisition process less than a year after the T-38C accident, issuing a request for information for an "advanced pilot training family of systems" in March 2009.

For the first time, the initial operational capability date was set for fiscal year 2017 for a family of systems that includes an aircraft, simulator and classroom instruction.

The RFI identified five training tasks for the F-22 and F-35 that "lend themselves" to being performed by a two-seat fighter. The five are "sustained high-g operations, air-refuelling, night vision imaging systems operations, air-to-air intercepts, and datalink operations".

Five months later, the USAF issued a follow-up that clarified the air refuelling task could be performed in a simulator.

McDonald says the next step is to perform an analysis of alternatives. A draft copy in January should identify the feasibility, cost and effectiveness of a wide range of options.

At the same time, the Pentagon must commit funding in the FY2012 budget request, which will be revealed in February 2011. So far, the T-X programme's budget has been limited to assessing options and launching a competition.

If the programme receives budget support, a request for proposals could be issued in February or March in 2011, with contract award possible by the end of the calendar year.

With the introduction of the F-22 and the conventional take-off and landing F-35A, flying the aircraft is supposed to become easier, with more responsive and sophisticated flight controls compared to earlier generations. The next trainer aircraft, however, will have to teach pilots how to manage a cockpit that fuses data coming from several advanced sensors simultaneously.

"You have more things to manage, more things to look at," McDonald says. "Prioritisation of tasks is still an issue."

Although the RFI documents ask vendors whether there is a fighter or attack version of their trainer aircraft, the USAF is not likely to factor combat performance when it comes to evaluating bids.

"I'm looking strictly at the trainer," McDonald says. "What do we need to fill the capability gaps that we have now?"

The USAF has taken a similar approach with the USN's far-term requirement for a T-45 Goshawk replacement.

Navy officials are participating in the analysis of alternatives for the T-X, but carrier-landing capability will not be part of the USAF's evaluation.

It is also possible that the airframe for the USAF's T-X will be different than the USN aircraft, McDonald says. "The navy needs an advanced trainer that's stressed for carrier operations. That's a plain and simple fact." But separate airframes could share common engines and avionics, he says.

Alenia's M-346 is designed specifically to emulate fifth-generation fighter cockpits, but differs in one significant detail: its pilot uses a centre-stick to command a digital fly-by-wire control system. However, the cockpit can be redesigned to accommodate an F-35-style sidestick if a customer requests it, says Alenia North America chief executive John Young.

The M-346 also may be adapted with a universal aerial slipway installation, which would allow the aircraft to be refuelled in-flight by a boom-equipped tanker.

But those seem like minor changes compared with Alenia's surprise rebranding effort unveiled quietly in May. For the T-X competition, the M-346 is renamed the T-100 integrated training system (ITS).


© Alenia North America

The new designation, Young says, is intended to evoke the USAF's historical century-series fighters.

Establishing the T-100 ITS as an American brand is one of the keys to Alenia's strategy. In addition to finding a US-based partner, the company is making several concessions beyond the 50% threshold to meet "buy American" requirements.

Final assembly of the M-346 will transfer from Venegono, Italy, to a US location - perhaps Elizabeth City, North Carolina, or a site chosen by a US partner. Production of Honeywell F124 engines for the rebranded T-100 will shift from Taiwan to Arizona.

With the UK Royal Air Force's Hawk T2/128 set as the baseline for its offer, BAE is positioning itself as the least risky option among the field of competitors.

"Our understanding of this opportunity is that replacing the T-38 is a must-pay bill," says Reason. "Doing nothing is not a zero-cost option. A new acquisition is required. The USAF has significant budget and fiscal constraints at the moment. We can offer a low-risk, low-cost option."


© BAE Systems

Indeed, BAE's strategy is to offer the Hawk T2 version (above), with as few modifications as possible. So far, for example, the company plans to retain the jet's centre-stick configuration, rather than offer a sidestick option.

Some flexibility is possible with the choice of engine, but BAE prefers to retain the Hawk 128's Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour 951 turbofan. In a concession to "buy American" requirements, Adour production for the T-X could be moved to the USA, where Rolls-Royce operates a major hub in Indianapolis.

"The Adour is a very capable product," Reason says. "We don't need to change the engine."

As the manufacturer of the F-22 and F-35, Lockheed owns a unique perspective on the lead-in trainer requirement.

"I suspect there's an awful lot of people scratching their head [at other companies] trying to think how [they're] going to approach this opportunity," says Miller. "We're not one of them."

Indeed, Lockheed believes the baseline T-50 design will satisfy the USAF's T-X requirements.

"I think that from a performance perspective there's no change necessary," Miller says. "The T-50 is a remarkably strong performing aircraft. There will be some changes that we incorporate in the avionics and the capabilities that we're able to train to in the aircraft to accommodate the multi-role aspects of the fifth-generation fighters."

Lockheed is also considering transferring T-50 final assembly for the T-X contract to the USA, but leaves the option on the table to continue building the aircraft in South Korea. KAI has already delivered 50 T-50s to the nation's air force, which has ordered a total of 142 as trainers and light attack aircraft.

As big as the T-X contract is to aircraft manufacturers, the competition is also important for companies that provide full-flight simulators, with between 35 and 50 systems likely to be purchased.

McDonald, however, does not expect to see dramatic improvements in simulator technology as T-X proposals are submitted.

"I have not seen any transformational approach to simulation from the vendors," he says. "The fact that the vendors have not come forward with that type of approach indicates to me that it's not out there."

Radical improvements, including holographic-based visuals and centrifuge-based simulators for motion realism, will probably remain on the drawing board.

But simulator vendors are preparing several new technologies, such as improving visual acuity to near-20/20 quality, says Ray Duquette, vice-president of marketing and business development for CAE.

"I don't think we're there yet for the 20/20 requirement," says Duquette. "That will be ready three to five years from now, and that's what industry will strive for."

[buglerbilly]

Petraeus Gives Shout-Out to B-1B Lancer Fleet



Last week, we wrote that the Air Force Council, the blue suiters board of directors that advises the air chief, was considering deep cuts to force structure to meet aggressive savings targets laid out by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. One option they are reportedly considering is early retirement of all 66 B-1B Lancer bombers, last delivered in the late 1980s.

Yesterday, the Lancer fleet got a hearty shout-out from new installed Afghan commander Gen. David Petraeus. “It is a great platform,” he told senators at his confirmation hearing. “It carries a heck of a lot of bombs… and it has very good intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.”

It can loiter for long periods of time in a combat-air patrol, using its Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod which contains a laser designator, 3rd Gen. FLIR and digital cameras that function well both day and night to search out insurgent movements or IED emplacers. “It is almost like having another unmanned aerial vehicle in terms of full motion video and so forth,” he said.

“So it’s not just a case of a very, very capable bomber just boring holes in the sky waiting to open the bomb-bay doors, it is also the case of a platform that’s very capable even as it is just flying around in circles.”

So take heart Lancer pilots!

Of course Petraeus isn’t just randomly throwing out compliments to aging bombers, he was prompted by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.); the Lancer equipped 28th Bomb Wing operates out of Ellsworth Air Force Base in Thune’s state.

– Greg Grant.

Read more: http://defensetech.org/#ixzz0sORZvMo3
Defense.org

[buglerbilly]

Pilots told to save money, fuel

By Bruce Rolfsen - Staff writer, Air Force Times

Posted : Saturday Jul 3, 2010 9:39:25 EDT



Pilots are hearing calls the earthbound are well familiar with: Slow down. Don’t turn on the engine until you are ready to leave. Do you really need to go there?

These are new rules for aircrews, part of the Air Force effort to use less fuel and save money.

“Trying to teach a fighter pilot or a bomber pilot to approach energy differently can almost be as challenging as trying to educate my daughters to turn the lights off and not spend so much time drying their hair,” Lt. Gen. William Rew, vice commander of Air Combat Command, told other military leaders and energy industry officials at a two-day Air Force energy forum in May.

Driving the conservation push is fuel use — 84 percent of the Air Force’s energy costs.

Before the consumption crackdown, pilots didn’t worry much about saving fuel unless the gas gauge needle was on empty and they needed to find a tanker, according to Rew.

Pilots “like to go fast and think, ‘if I go afterburner, I want to use as much as I want,’” Rew said.

Now, ACC pilots get an annual review of their fuel savings. If they don’t do well, they get a talking to.

“We’ll have a little attention adjustment or they will suffer the consequences,” said Rew, an F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot and three-time wing commander.

Rew told Air Force Times that pilots aren’t restricted on fuel use during the combat phase of a training sortie. The focus is on what happens before and after planes enter the training range.

At Red Flag exercises over Nevada, for example, commanders tell the fighter pilots to cut their speed on their return to Nellis Air Force Base. Instead of 350 knots, the pilots fly at 300 knots.

Air Education and Training Command aims to start aircrew members thinking about fuel conservation while they are still earning their wings, said Lt. Col. Frank Yannuzzi, chief of the flying training branch for undergraduate flight training.

Most measures are simple, he said, such as keeping engines off during preflight preparations until they need to be turned on and not filling up fuel tanks, which make a plane heavier, unless the mission requires it.

Once the student pilot is off the ground, training takes priority over fuel conservation, Yannuzzi said.

Flight simulators are another way the Air Force can save fuel. How much a student pilot uses a simulator depends primarily on his skill level and the type of plane, said Ron Hamada of the graduate training division.

A new student pilot flying a T-6 Texan trainer needs as much time in the air as he can get, he said. A student pilot moving on to training for operational assignments, though, would use a simulator.

For example, a C-130J Hercules student pilot trains only in a simulator during the basic phase of his course and moves to a plane for the mission training phase.

[buglerbilly]

New ejection seat added to T-38

Posted 7/9/2010 Email story Print story

by Robert Goetz
502nd Air Base Wing OL-B Public Affairs



7/9/2010 - RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) -- The T-38 Talon is receiving an upgrade that officials said will improve aircrews' safety and comfort.

Representatives from Martin-Baker Aircraft Co. Inc. are in the early stages of installing their new escape systems in all T-38Cs at Randolph AFB after completing the same project at Laughlin AFB, Texas, the first of five Air Education and Training Command installations scheduled for the upgrade.

One of the greatest advantages of the new seat, called the Mk US16T, is that it functions well in the situation that accounts for most ejections, said Rick French, an AETC T-38 program manager.

"The old ejection seat has the least capability in the flight regime where the most ejections occurred, the low-altitude, low-airspeed range, because it takes a few seconds for the parachute to open when you leave the aircraft," Mr. French said.

"The best part of the new seat is that it's a zero-zero seat," said Rey Gutierrez, a 12th Operations Support Squadron Aircrew Flight Equipment instructor. "It will eject at zero altitude and zero airspeed, so the aircrew can bail out on the ground."

The new seat provides rapid deployment of the parachute following ejection, Mr. French said.

"When the seat clears the aircraft, explosives deploy the parachute," he said. "It's almost instantaneous."


Rey Gutierrez goes over procedures for connecting the parachute harness to the new T-38 ejection seat June 30, 2010, while Maj. Bryan France connects his harness shoulder straps to the seat. The new seat has a host of features that will make ejecting from the aircraft, should the need arise, much safer for the pilots. Mr. Gutierrez is an aircrew flight equipment instructor in the12th Operational Support Squadron at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. Major France is a pilot in the 435th Flying Training Squadron. (U.S. Air Force photo/Steve Thurow)

A bonus for aircrew members is that they no longer have to carry their 45-pound parachutes to the aircraft, because each one is part of the ejection seat, enclosed in a container called the head box. Their only requirement is to wear a 5-pound harness that attaches to the ejection seat. The parachute itself, an aeroconical design, incorporates multiple safety features.

Another feature, the inter-seat sequencing system, which has a selector box with three options, decreases the possibility of aircrew collision during ejection and potential aircrew burn, because the rear seat will always eject first, no matter which crew member pulls the seat firing handle located on the front of the seat.

Another advantage of sequencing "is that the rear seat ejects up and to the right, and the front seat ejects up and to the left, so a collision is unlikely," Mr. Gutierrez said.

In addition, the seat decreases the potential of injury to aircrew members, especially at high airspeed, because its thigh and ankle restraints keep them more secure. It also expands the population who can fly the T-38 to anyone from 103 to 245 pounds, because the seat has two positions, including one that moves it one inch forward.

"Now the seat can better accommodate smaller pilots," Mr. French said. "The old seat accommodates 58 percent of female pilots; the new seat brings that percentage up to 87 percent."

The seat's other features include a survival kit with a radio, flares, a mirror, a first aid kit, water, a flashlight and other items as well as fittings that allow for a faster release of the parachute canopy, Mr. Gutierrez said.

The T-38 has been a part of the Air Force's fleet for nearly 50 years.

[buglerbilly]

DATE:14/07/10

SOURCE:Flight International

US Senators raise alarms over more C-17 add-ons

By Stephen Trimble

Two US Senators are concerned that fellow legislators on the appropriations committee are likely to add funding to buy more Boeing C-17s, despite strong opposition from the Obama administration.

Arizona Senator John McCain and Delaware Senator Thomas Carper took the unusual step of organising a hearing outside the normal appropriations process on 14 July specifically to question the affordability of adding even more C-17s to the US Air Force strategic airlift fleet.

Congress has inserted about $10 billion to add 43 C-17s to military budgets since 2007, when the Bush administration originally attempted to shut down the production line in Long Beach, California.

The Obama administration adopted the same policy, but was ignored by legislators who in 2009 voted to add 18 more C-17s in two separate spending bills, raising the USAF's total fleet of the type to 223 aircraft.


© USAF

So far, the four committees that administer the defence appropriations process have not added funds for more C-17s this year, but that could still change, McCain says.

He cites the strong possibility that fellow senators on the appropriations committee may add funds for C-17s as the reason for the 14 July hearing, which was hosted by Carper's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee.

"Let's be clear: the only thing sustaining the C-17 programme in the face of a military requirement that is and will likely remain satisfied is the predominance of the military-industrial complex," McCain says. "These machinations should end."

Although the USAF has not asked for additional funds, the Air National Guard has published a list of unfunded priorities that include a need for five more C-17s worth $1.3 billion.

USAF officials at the hearing testified that the strategic airlift fleet is over capacity by 10%. That analysis drove the decision to stop C-17 production after 2012 and retire 22 of the least reliable Lockheed Martin C-5As, they say.

Boeing is working to keep production alive by slowing the rate of deliveries from 15 last year to 10 in 2012, while maintaining current prices. The company also is pursuing more foreign sales opportunities, including a potential order in India for 10 aircraft.

[buglerbilly]

Strategy Emerges To Prevent More U.S. C-17 Funding

By WILLIAM MATTHEWS

Published: 14 Jul 2010 11:46

As the 2011 U.S. defense budget creeps languidly through Congress, two senators have launched an effort to keep their colleagues from adding money to buy more C-17 cargo planes.

Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and John McCain, R-Ariz., held a hearing July 13 so three senior Pentagon officials and two other military experts could testify - repeatedly - that the U.S. Air Force does not need any more C-17s.

Rather, the Air Force has an airlift surplus of at least 10 percent that could easily be expanded to 20 percent or more, the five witnesses agreed.

The Air Force hasn't asked for more money to buy C-17s since 2007. That year the Air Force wanted 12, and Congress bought it 22. In 2008, the Air Force wanted none, but Congress bought 15. In 2009, the request was also zero, and Congress bought eight. In 2010, the Air Force once again asked for no C-17s, and lawmakers bought 10.

Carper said this year he has decided "to play offense" and get the Air Force unambiguously on the record as saying it wants no more C-17s before appropriations committees in the Senate and House again buy more of them.

The C-17 is a great airplane, Carper said. But the fleet of 223 that the Air Force now has, together with a fleet of 111 C-5 airlifters, provides more lift than the U.S. military needs. And buying even more C-17s is more than the U.S. can afford, he said.

The U.S. government is currently overspending its budget by $1.3 trillion a year. To do so it has to borrow money from China, Japan, Britain and other countries, Carper said. The U.S. is borrowing at a rate that is unsustainable, he warned.

Carper isn't the only one who is worried. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the Pentagon must cut $100 billion, mostly in administrative expenses over the next five years.

"We have a lot more capability than we need," Carper said. "And we have a lot more appetite than money. When you're in a hole, stop digging."

In a worst case scenario, the Defense Department estimates that it will need 32.7 million ton-miles of airlift a day. Today it can airlift 35.9 million ton-miles a day, said Maj. Gen. Susan Desjardins, the Air Force Air Mobility Command's director of strategic plans, requirements and programs.

The Air Force doesn't need more C-17s, she said. In fact, the Air Force would like permission from Congress to retire 22 of its oldest C-5s, she said. That would save $325 million in maintenance, flying and modernization costs over the next five years, she said.

Since 2007, Congress has spent more than $10 billion buying C-17s that the Air Force doesn't want, according to Carper.

"It's waste, pure and simple," said Mike McCord, the Pentagon's deputy budget chief. Each dollar spent on unneeded equipment is money that can't be spent on necessities, he said.

McCain, who has battled against buying more C-17s for years, said it is important for senior military officials to say clearly that no more C-17s are needed. "But how the Appropriations Committee will act remains to be seen," he said.

Appropriations committees in both houses of Congress wield enormous power, often adding favored projects to annual budgets.

What keeps the C-17 going is the influence the "military-industrial complex" has with the committees, McCain said. "The needs of the war fighters should predominate, not the profits" of defense companies, he said.

"Giving us something we don't need is the gift that keeps on giving," said Alan Estevez, principal deputy assistant defense secretary for logistics and material readiness. The money spent to buy the unwanted planes is just the beginning. The extra C-17s consume tens of millions a year in maintenance and operating costs, he said.

McCain said, "The argument we need to make to our colleagues is that there will be at least $1 billion in extra costs" if Congress keeps buying C-17s.

Each new C-17 costs $244.5 million, said Jeremiah Gertler, a military aviation expert with the Congressional Research Service.

The planes are popular with lawmakers for a number of reasons:

■ Jobs. "Members' own statements and press releases make clear that economic and employment benefits for a particular geographical area" affect buying decisions, Gertler said.

■ Military need. Some members of Congress simply disagree with the Pentagon's assessment of how many airlifters are needed.

■ Industrial base. Some lawmakers believe it is necessary to keep the C-17 production line open in case more planes are needed in the future.

But C-17s aren't the only answer if there are future airlift needs, said William Greer, of the Institute for Defense Analysis.

Lift capacity could be increased by 10 percent or 20 percent without buying more planes, if the Air Force made better use of refueling tankers for airlift, by relying more on civilian cargo planes, relying on allies and by having C-5s fly with fuller loads, Greer said.

Carper said saving money by not buying unneeded C-17s is only one step the U.S. government needs to take to bring its budget under control. He said he plans to meet with McCain and Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to discuss Congress' determination to buy a multibillion-dollar alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter despite Pentagon insistence that the engine is not needed.

Carper called for financial reforms outside the Pentagon as well. Billions of dollars in owed taxes go uncollected each year, he said. Millions more in improper payments are made by government agencies and not retrieved when the mistakes are discovered.

Between 2001 and 2008, the United States took on as much debt as it had in its entire history before that, Carper said. "And now it's even higher. It's not sustainable."

The defense budget sought for 2011 is $726 billion, including funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[buglerbilly]

VIDEO: RIAT begins with fab F-22 take-off

By Stephen Trimble on July 15, 2010 2:07 PM

Tough to be at work in Virginia knowing the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) is taking place right now in Fairford, UK. But at least we have a T-1 line and YouTube! Here's the F-22 on takeoff today.

[buglerbilly]

Air Force's 'Technology Horizons' Makes Science Fiction A Reality

(Source: U.S Air Force; issued July 15, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- With innovations seemingly plucked from the latest futuristic Hollywood movie script, Technology Horizons outlines the Air Force's major science and technology objectives through the next decade, officials said here July 14.

Highly adaptable, autonomous systems that can make intelligent decisions about their battle space capabilities and human-machine brainwave coupling interfaces are but two significant technologies contained in the document, said Dr. Werner J.A. Dahm, the Air Force chief scientist.

"These are hands down, slam dunk, among the biggest findings in Technology Horizons; this is one of those 'a-ha' moments for the Air Force," Dr. Dahm said. "If you come back 20 years from now, you'll see an Air Force that looks substantially different than what you see today, and it will look that different, in part, because of Technology Horizons."

Air Force Research Laboratory engineers will use the document to help plan technologies of the future, and have already begun implementing some of the key findings in Technology Horizons.

"We will be making greater use of autonomous systems, reasoning and processes in almost everything the Air Force does," Dr. Dahm said. "This is not only in terms of increasing and enhancing remote-piloted aircraft, but in developing new ways of letting systems learn about their situations to decide how they can adapt to best meet the operator's intent."

He described how future autonomous aircraft would be able to sense battle damage and make intelligent decisions about their remaining capabilities.

"Such adaptable autonomous systems will be able to automatically re-plan their mission to maximize their effectiveness," Dr. Dahm explained. "In decision-making systems and processes, these systems can give us a tremendous operational edge over potential adversaries who are limited to human decision and control."

He explained that in today's combined air operations centers, for example, there are several hundred people involved in assembling daily air tasking orders. Adaptable autonomous decision-making systems can handle many of these steps, reducing the number of people who must be deployed.

Such advanced levels of autonomy, Dr. Dahm added, complement another key focus of Technology Horizons: human performance augmentation.

"Natural human capacities are becoming increasingly mismatched to the data volumes, processing capabilities and decision speeds that technologies either offer or demand," Dr. Dahm said.

He said autonomous systems and advanced human-machine interfaces are among ways the service can meet this rapidly growing challenge.

"To identify threats in full-motion video, we can outfit a helmet with literally hundreds of brainwave sensors and begin to localize and identify reactions you have, even below the level at which you could put them into words," Dr. Dahm said.

Dr. Dahm explained the brain is presented with cues as the video images plays.

"Some of those cues will be strong enough for you to say, 'stop, I saw something there,' but many other cues may be so low that they evoke only an intuitive response without rising to the level of conscious reaction," he said.

Brainwave sensors can potentially detect these, in effect providing Airmen with enhanced intuitive capabilities reminiscent of Spiderman.

These human performance technologies can create a dynamic in which the machine and the analyst are almost inseparable.

"We are beginning to be able to couple humans and machines in ways that were unthinkable 10 years ago," Dr. Dahm said.

He admits that the concept of an Airman literally becoming part of the computing environment is "bizarre, but technologically credible."

As missions become increasingly faster and more complex, Air Force researchers will need to consider and implement these advancing technologies where they make sense, he said.

Dr. Dahm cited another example in which the same skull caps can measure brainwaves and determine if, by nature, Airmen are trainable to be effective in certain roles or careers.

"Many of these technologies are focused on gaining capability increases even with a smaller force size, Dr. Dahm said. "We will have a much stronger focus on advancing and applying technologies that can make our Airmen even more effective than they are today."

As the Air Force's "in-house" research arm, AFRL researchers will be at the forefront of translating the Technology Horizons' vision into reality.

Some of the research will be contracted out to companies ranging from big aerospace to small innovative firms, Dr. Dahm said.

Air Force officials also will partner with the other services, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, NASA, other agencies and even international partners aligned with U.S. Air Force interests, he added.

In this revolutionary age of social media and online gaming, Dr. Dahm contends the Airmen of today are primed for these very technologies designed to maintain the service's superiority in 2020, 2030 and beyond.

"If this had come out of the blue 50 years ago, even if the technology were ready, the workforce -- the Airmen -- would not have been ready," Dr. Dahm said. "Today, both the technology and our Airmen are ready. Technology Horizons is going to enable changes that literally reshape the Air Force."

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Presentation slides on the USAF future................via The Dew Line blog and Steven Trimble.............

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2010/07/download-usaf-reveals-the-futu.html

[buglerbilly]

Wii Air Force: Will Gamer Gloves Help Fly Combat Jets?

By Spencer Ackerman July 28, 2010 | 3:05 pm



The Air Force Research Laboratory’s band of futurists at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base think that pilots and flight engineers spend way too much time flipping switches and pressing buttons. In a recent pre-solicitation, the labs made it known they want enterprising engineers to design a pair of high-tech flight gloves that can help you fly a plane.

“Warfighter productivity is limited by the need to operate equipment via physical keys, switches, and buttons and to coordinate 3-D events viewed from different perspectives via time-consuming voice communications,” the labs lamented last week. The response? Link all the stuff necessary to flying a plane into a pair of gloves with gesture-recognition technology sewn in. Well, at least the stuff on cockpit annunciator panels.

“Pilots and mission crew need a means to annotate the real world out the cockpit or helicopter door with hand motions that become geo-registered icons on the displays of all air crew and ground team members simultaneously,” the labs urge. “All airmen need an ability to type commands, reports, etc. by simply moving their fingers in air.”

So, it may be a couple of years before you wave your hands like Luke on Dagobah and your F-22 takes off. But for the rest of what it takes to fly, just pull on the gloves, wave your hands around in a couple of specific ways to command the plane, and enjoy to your career in the Wii Air Force.

And that’s a natural thing. The labs don’t put it quite this way, but gesture recognition tech is the direction that gaming has been heading ever since the Wii taught everyone how to bowl virtually. According to one account of this year’s E3 Expo, PlayStation and Microsoft are pulling out all the stops to get their gaming consoles to recognize players’ gyrations and wobbles. In May, Gadgetlab reported that a pair of MIT researchers taught a computer to respond to commands transmitted through hand motions made in a pair of $1 lycra gloves aimed at a webcam.

Viewed from that perspective, the military is behind the power curve on gesture recognition — a technology that has obvious possibilities for increasing efficiencies when performing complex tasks like aviation. And if the gamers of the ’90s and early 2000s are now piloting drones with interfaces modeled on Splinter Cell, why shouldn’t the Wii masters of today use their skills to maintain U.S. air dominance tomorrow?

Touchingly, the labs’ pre-solicitation includes a few links to companies and products that already employ gesture recognition, almost as a defensive demonstration that the technology is sufficiently mature. (“[I]t is now possible to make real computer display interfaces based on gestures such as those depicted in recent science fiction movies….” It’s science fact!) One example: the Peregrine, a game controller in the shape of a gnarly, Captain Eo-looking glove. “By simply touching your fingertips with your thumb you can control your game faster than ever before,” designer Iron Will Innovations pledges. Its motto: Touch for the Win. Sounds like a squadron patch waiting to happen.

Credit: MyEGnet

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07/want-to-fly-a-plane-with-gamer-gloves/#more-28349#ixzz0v1tygVOS

[buglerbilly]

US Facing Lack of Pilots, Not Planes, in Afghanistan

Updated: 6 minutes ago

Sharon Weinberger

AOL News (July 28) -- With the United States in the midst of a crucial surge in Afghanistan, demand for surveillance aircraft is at an all-time high. But after more than a decade of moving toward spy drones, the Air Force is facing a crisis: a lack of pilots with experience flying manned reconnaissance planes.

In response to the war's increasing demands, the Air Force last year activated three MC-12 squadrons, which use a military version of the Hawker Beechcraft Super King Air 350, a lightweight twin turboprop aircraft. The MC-12 Liberty is equipped with a variety of sensors, including full-motion video and a day and night camera.

The Air Force has touted the aircraft's success in tracking down insurgents and disrupting attempts to plant roadside bombs, but officers involved in the program acknowledge that getting enough MC-12 pilots has been a challenge.


Staff Sgt. Manuel J. Martinez, USAF
The Air Force does not have enough skilled pilots to fly its MC-12 reconnaissance planes. Here, Lt. Col. Rob Weaver goes through a routine check of the instrument panel in an MC-12 Liberty.

Already, the Air Force has run out of qualified volunteers to fly the MC-12s and must now draft pilots into the program. And regardless of whether the pilots volunteer or are assigned, getting them trained and deployed to Afghanistan is no easy task.

"The key here is supply and demand," explains Lt. Col. Rick Berryhill, the MC-12 operations officer, who notes there's essentially been a "15-year lapse" in the Air Force's production of new manned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft.

"It was a very shallow pool [of pilots], and we're catching up as quick as possible," Berryhill says. "It takes awhile to recover from that; we're shoving folks out as fast as possible."

Pilots are being trained at Key Field in Meridian, Miss., where the MC-12s are located for now. They arrive for a hectic monthlong training course, and then deploy immediately to Afghanistan for six-month tours. After that, they return to their previous assignments.

This rushed program is a result, in large part, of Pentagon pressure on the Air Force to provide more surveillance aircraft.

"My concern is that our services are still not moving aggressively in wartime to provide resources needed now on the battlefield," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in 2008. "While we have doubled this capability in recent months, it is still not good enough."

The Air Force moved to increase the number of Predator spy drones, but also came up with the MC-12 Liberty, a low-altitude manned fixed-wing aircraft. While a Predator drone may be able to fly longer, the MC-12 can also perform signals intelligence, meaning it can intercept communications.

That ability to combine many different sensors is why one senior Air Force official called it a "Predator on steroids."

But unlike the Predator, which is flown remotely from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, the MC-12 requires a four-person crew on board: two pilots, a sensor operator and a cryptologist, who deciphers the intelligence picked up by the sensors.

Training pilots under such strict time constraints, and getting them deployed on time, has been a challenge. "The problem with the MC-12 is, again, we've only been doing this for year," says Lt. Col. Harlie Bodine, the director of MC-12 operations. "With any new system, there's going to be curve balls thrown at you."

After training, the pilots spend about six months in Afghanistan, and then return to their original assignment. That creates yet another challenge, because the MC-12 squadron then loses those pilots, and the experience they gained in training and operations.

"I'll never see that experience come back," Bodine says.

That problem will be solved in large part once the MC-12s are assigned to a permanent base and have pilots on regular assignments. Half a dozen bases are being considered as permanent homes for the MC-12s.

Perhaps the bigger question is, in the age of drones, do manned aircraft still have something to offer? For Bodine, the answer is a definite yes.

There have been times, he says, when having humans in the cockpit has proved useful, citing a recent incident where a crew member looked out the window of the aircraft and saw a large smoke cloud, which turned out to be a U.S. military convoy that had been ambushed. The MC-12 was able to provide immediate support.

"Would a Predator have been able to do that? Yes, but it would have taken time," Bodine says, noting that for a drone to respond it would mean routing the request from ground forces to a combined air operations center, and then back to pilots located in the United States.

Those involved in the program declined to discuss the specifics of the mission, citing security. But the high demand for the aircraft, they say, is proof of its worth.

"Unfortunately," Bodine says, "we are suffering from a catastrophic success."

[buglerbilly]

Air Guard Officials Focus on Equipment for Domestic Operations

(Source: U.S Air Force; issued August 3, 2010)

BALTIMORE, Md. --- Hundreds of Air National Guard members are meeting here Aug. 2 through Aug. 6 to discuss and prioritize the Air National Guard's equipment requirements for future natural and manmade disasters.

The Domestic Operations Equipment Requirements conference provides Air Guard leaders, subject matter experts and others a platform to meet and discuss their needs for domestic missions.

"It is your job to identify and prioritize the requirements essential to ensuring the link (with civilian authorities) is both effective and efficient," Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt III, the director of the Air Guard, wrote in his memo to the attendees.

The conference attendees represent the units, states and FEMA regions they serve.

They attended working groups on public health and medical services; public safety; public works and engineering; emergency management; transportation; communications; mass care, emergency assistance, housing and human services;
oils and hazardous material response.

Guard officials said the working groups consider several factors, including:
-- Ways to apply military capabilities resident in units to domestic operations
-- How to help the many levels of authorities work together and bring together a myriad of responders and their capabilities
-- The gaps in response capabilities and how to ensure solutions are interoperable with both civil and military responders

There has been recent increased reliance and acceptance of the Guard and its missions, said Maj. Gen. Garry Dean, the commander of 1st Air Force and U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command.

"The timing of this conference is truly amazing as to where the Guard is right now," he said.

General Dean noted the corporate process of DOERS was to generate the data supporting Air Guard's requirements.

"We must continue to strike toward commonality and better synchronization of our components," he said.

Air Guard officials held their first DOERs last year, which produced a 2011 Essential-10 Requirements book.

Military, elected and other top officials used that book to understand communicate and prioritize the Air Guard's domestic requirements for funding and resources.

General Wyatt told the conferees they had a "daunting task before them" this year.

"Our job would be difficult enough if we were in charge and trying to fulfill our own requirements, but we are just one small element in a whole of government responsibility and must try to envision how the Air Guard fits within a much larger, ever changing matrix of authorities and responders," he said.

The working groups will produce a final briefing for General Wyatt and a new 2012 Essential-10 Requirements book this week.

"It's a working conference," said Col. Michael McDonald, the commander of the Air Guard Readiness Center at Joint Base Andrews, Md.

He told conferees to keep teamwork between the states, regions, agencies and others in mind during the development process.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Tactical Aircraft: DOD's Ability to Meet Future Requirements Is Uncertain, with Key Analyses Needed to Inform Upcoming Investment Decisions

(Source: US Government Accountability Office; issued Aug. 10, 2010)


Continuing delays in the Joint Strike Fighter program could require a $7 billion upgrade of about 300 US Navy/Marine Corps F-18C Hornets, says the GAO in a new report. (US Navy photo)

From 2011 through 2015, DOD plans to spend over $336 billion to operate, maintain, modernize, and recapitalize its tactical air forces. Since DOD projects tactical aircraft inventory shortfalls over the next 15 years, it must effectively balance resources between an increasingly expensive Joint Strike Fighter program and the need to keep its legacy aircraft viable.

GAO was asked to assess DOD's tactical aircraft requirements, the extent to which plans for upgrading and retiring legacy aircraft and acquiring new aircraft are likely to meet the requirements, and how changes in strategic plans and threat assessments have affected requirements. GAO analyzed tactical aircraft requirement and inventory data, key plans and threat assessments.

DOD's current combined tactical aircraft requirement is around 3,240 aircraft. The requirement includes a mix of various types of Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps fixed-wing fighter and attack aircraft. The Air Force requirement is 2,000 aircraft, and the combined Navy and Marine Corps requirement is about 1,240 aircraft. To achieve national security objectives, however, DOD not only needs the right quantity of aircraft to adequately equip each service's force structure, but must also have the right organization and mix of aircraft capabilities.

The services have reduced required quantities by a combined total of around 900 aircraft since 2002. Service officials believe that the current numbers provide sufficient capabilities to carry out assigned missions with manageable risk, but are not at optimal levels. Although officials also stated that current requirements account for capabilities provided by other weapon systems, such as unmanned aircraft and bombers, it is unclear exactly how and to what extent.

DOD expects to encounter shortfalls in both Air Force and Navy tactical aircraft inventories, but the timing and magnitude of these shortfalls largely depend on assumptions about Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) acquisitions and the viability of legacy aircraft. The JSF program has continued to experience cost and schedule problems and is in the process of being restructured. In addition, DOD's investments in legacy systems have generally been assigned lower priority in the budgeting process.

As a result, many legacy aircraft systems are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain as parts needed to support key subsystems age and become obsolete. The Navy and Air Force are exploring various options for closing their projected inventory shortfalls--including upgrading and extending the service lives of hundreds of legacy aircraft, and making modifications to how tactical air forces are used. Many of these options may be funded in future budgets and could cost billions of dollars.

The services have not fully reconsidered tactical aircraft requirements in light of recent changes in strategic planning and threat assessments, but according to service officials, the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) affirmed the existing force structure in the near-term, principally the next 5 years. Similarly, DOD's recent Aircraft Investment Plan, which was required by Congress, and fiscal year 2011 budget decisions did not directly affect tactical aircraft requirements, but did make some changes in near-term aircraft investments.

The QDR reflected a change in how DOD views future national security challenges, examined expected challenges in various combinations, and recognized the need to plan for and acquire adaptive and agile systems, including unmanned aircraft. The department is still in the process of establishing the analytical foundation for its future requirements.

Until requirements analyses and JSF restructuring are complete and capabilities provided by unmanned aircraft and bombers are more clearly accounted for, it will be difficult for DOD to make informed investments in legacy aircraft upgrades and modernizations, and new aircraft procurements.

GAO suggests that Congress consider requiring that costs associated with modernizing and sustaining the legacy fleet be included in future investment plans, and recommends that DOD:
1) better define requirements and the size and severity of projected shortfalls,
2) clearly articulate how systems like unmanned aircraft are accounted for, and
3) complete a comprehensive cost and benefit analysis of options for addressing expected shortfalls.

DOD agreed with the second recommendation and partially agreed with the others, citing current and planned actions. GAO believes its recommendations remain valid.

Click here for the full report (80 pages in PDF format) on the GAO website.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10789.pdf

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Among the report’s more interesting points is the finding that F/A-18E/F unit costs are expected to increase from $61 million in FY2011 to $76 million in FY2013, i.e. an increase of 25% in two years. (see Table 2, page 22).
The document also includes status reports on tactical air programs are also a handy summing up of the current state of play.
Citing this report, Bloomberg news service reported Aug. 9 that “Boeing Co. may receive $7 billion to extend the use of the Navy’s older fleet of F/A-18 jets, partly because of delays in Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. In its 2012-2016 budget proposal, the Navy is considering spending the money to upgrade about 300 F/A-18 A and D fighters and lengthen their service lives by about 16 percent to 10,000 flight hours.”

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Forget the Drones: Executive Plane Now an Afghanistan Flying Spy

By Spencer Ackerman August 11, 2010 | 12:03 am



BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan — With its rail-thin interior and the twin propellers flanking its nose cone like Salvador Dali’s mustache, the tiny MC-12 looks like it should be leisurely ferrying well-heeled passengers to the Vineyard. In the United States, this plane’s corporate cousins handle cushy jobs like that every day. But here in Afghanistan, this executive carrier has been turned into an unlikely spy — one of the U.S. forces’ most valuable intelligence assets, airmen say.

One of the things that makes it so valuable, and so seemingly unusual: There’s a pilot sitting in the cockpit. Armed Predator and Reaper drones have become the robotic face of the American air war here – able to stay in the air for a day at a time, and blast insurgents with hellfire missiles. The MC-12, on the other hand, has no firepower. It typically flies for a couple of hours at a time. And it’s not supposed to be a competitor to the drones, but rather a more tactical and collaborative supplement.

If the Predator gives ground commanders and intelligence analysts long-term viewing, for instance, the MC-12 gives ground units more and complementary options: a snapshot overview of a rapidly changing battlefield, right at the moment when information needs change, working in collaboration with the unit on the ground. Or, to use the mantra of Lt. Col. Douglas J. Lee, the commander of the Old Crows, the MC-12 squadron for the Bagram-based 455th Air Expeditionary Wing, “flexibility and responsiveness.” Welcome to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance with a human face – or, maybe, welcome back.

Lee, a serene 40-year-old pilot with 2000 flight hours under his belt, introduced Afghanistan to the MC-12 on Dec. 27, 2009, when he stood up the squadron, part of. Since then, his airmen have flown close to 2000 missions. Kandahar — Afghanistan’s other big air base — is now getting its own MC-12 crew.

I count ten of the twin-engine planes on Bagram’s runway, as Lee escorts me out. But that’s by no means a complete figure; there are probably many more. Inside, the MC-12 is too skinny to allow you to fully extend your arms from side to side. It’s a souped-up version of a C-12 Huron, King Air or Beechcraft passenger aircraft, a plane that the military has used since the ’70s. To put it more charitably, when Gates ordered the Air Force to rapidly get more spy planes downrange, the MC-12 was an “off the shelf” option, Briggs notes, procurable with relative ease and capable of getting outfitted with the latest surveillance tech. Suddenly airmen were looking at a familiar plane in new ways.

And these MC-12s are way tricked out. The passenger seating is gone, replaced with two stations for the operators of the plane’s intel gear – meaning the MC-12 is crewed by a team of only four people, including the pilot and co-pilot. Each station is outfitted with several monitors and a forest of black cables leading to unfamiliar gizmos. Just how the plane’s spy gear works is classified, as is a lot of basic information about the MC-12, including how high it flies. “We have full-motion video capabilities, as well as SIGINT [signals intelligence] capabilities,” is all Lee will say.

But that’s what gives the plane the “flexibility and responsiveness” that gives Lee and Briggs pride. To explain that requires a quick and somewhat meta point about drones.

Troops on the ground certainly make use of the broad overview that drones offer. But out on a mission, a ground commander might also need something more specific. He also might need to change his focus rapidly in order to get a better idea of what’s going on around him. That’s where the MC-12 comes in. Talking through forward Air Force liaisons riding with ground troops known as JTACs, the pilots and intel operators in the MC-12 work with ground forces to rapidly answer – and anticipate – commanders’ questions about what their area actually looks like, and collaborate with them when their information needs shift. The MC-12 incorporates intel gathered from the drones, supplementing and focusing it in a tactical way with the troops below.

The drones also have the capability to do that, of course, and they talk to ground troops through JTACs, too. But that’s where the human element comes in. As fast a transmission as a ground commander might have with a drone operator back in the U.S., with the MC-12, the loop can close more rapidly, as officers on the ground talk with pilots in the air to come up with a full tactical intelligence menu. When they need to switch courses, so to speak, they do so together. Indeed, Briggs notes, the airmen of the MC-12 eat at the same dining facilities as the soldiers back on base, forging a certain rapport. You can’t really do that with drone operators back in the States.

For instance: Airmen in the MC-12 might go from providing “IED overwatch to a route scan for a patrol to immediately providing overwatch for a ground assault or a helo assault,” Lee says. Or they might see some smoke coming from a position near the ground unit they’re supporting “and then look out a other aspects” of the battlespace to get a fuller picture of a fight that might change in an instant.

Briggs puts it a little differently — and hints at why he considers the MC-12 to be a “catastrophic success.” If a ground unit chasing an insurgent clears in on the compound he’s using for a hideout, that unit needs to know “which building he’s in and on which floor” he’s on to take him out. (USA Todaycredited intel from the MC-12 with taking down 20 insurgents in Afghanistan so far.)

To be clear: The MC-12 isn’t armed. It’s not going to shoot or bomb anything. “Of course,” Lee qualifies, “I consider knowledge a weapon.”

And, as the cliché goes, in a counterinsurgency, the best weapons don’t necessarily shoot. The MC-12 also helps ground forces “identify where civilians are or are not,” Lee says, thereby helping minimize civilian casualties and targeting insurgents more precisely. Like drones and other intelligence assets, the MC-12 can help provide information on other key indicators of civilian life: Are kids attending schools? Are people shopping at markets? “It gives us a picture of normal as well as abnormal,” Lee notes – all as the planes fly over the ground units who need that information immediately.

Briggs and Lee aren’t the only ones who have faith in the MC-12. The Air Force announced late last month that Beale Air Force Base in California will be its preferred home location of the MC-12, an indicator that the platform is here to stay (although a permanent basing decision is still pending). And as Nathan Hodge previously reported for Danger Room, the MC-12 was at work in Iraq before flying eastward to Afghanistan.

And that helps give the Air Force something that many in the service want to see: a platform for the intel mission with a pilot in the cockpit. For his part, Lee considers the UAV-versus-manned debate to be too reductive. Much as “you don’t want an Air Force of all fighters or all tankers,” he says, he doesn’t consider manned and unmanned platforms as an either/or proposition. And in any case, he’s focused on his mission.

“I’m a firm believer in warfare as a human endeavor,” Lee says, all the while noting that drones have human operators as well. They’re just stationed thousands of miles from their aircraft. “It always boils down to human versus human.”

Photo: Spencer Ackerman

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08/executive-plane-becomes-flying-spy-in-afghanistan/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WiredDangerRoom+%28Blog+-+Danger+Room%29&utm_content=Google+Reader#ixzz0wJm676pE

[buglerbilly]

USAF Realignment Affects 12,000 Airmen, 650 Planes

By BRUCE ROLFSEN

Published: 22 Aug 2010 11:46

A wide-ranging shakeup will find the U.S. Air Force retiring 650 planes and shifting the jobs of at least 12,000 airmen.

The shuffle consolidates F-22 Raptor units, assigns up to 350 F-35 Lightning IIs to four bases, retires F-16 Fighting Falcons as F-35s replace them, establishes a home base for the service's fleet of 37 MC-12W Liberty reconnaissance planes and names the U.S. Air National Guard wings that will be home to 38 C-27J cargo aircraft.

The big winners are Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., two of the largest F-16 Fighting Falcon bases. The installations will get F-35s to replace the F-16s they're set to lose.

The only loser is Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., which has to send its F-22s to Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., which also flies the stealth jet.

USAF officials announced the realignment July 29 after months of study and lobbying by lawmakers and communities looking to save or expand their local bases.

A summary of the basing decisions:

F-16 Fighting Falcon

Holloman gains an F-16 training mission to replace the F-22s departing. Two F-16 squadrons take the place of the two F-22 squadrons the base loses.

Standing up F-16 training should begin in October 2011 and be complete in July 2013.

The southern New Mexico base continues as home to training for MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper aircrews as well as hosting fighter training for the German Air Force.

F-22 Raptor

Air Force officials went on record last year in support of putting the F-22s together. They argued that consolidation would save money and better align the fighter force since Congress has capped the number of F22s at 188 and nearly 250 F-15s and F-16s are headed to the boneyard.

Holloman became a candidate to relinquish its F-22s because its role of training pilots and sensor operators of remote-controlled aircraft grew.

The new plan calls for one of Holloman's two F-22 squadrons to move to Tyndall, already home to the service's lone F-22 training squadron. The new Tyndall squadron will fly operational missions. The Air Force did not say which F-22 squadron will move.

Adding an F-22 squadron to Tyndall assuages lawmakers who were concerned that Tyndall - with just one flying squadron - would be vulnerable in future drawdowns.

The second Holloman F-22 squadron will be deactivated. Six planes each will go to F-22 units at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., gets the remaining pair of F-22s for combat training and testing.

F-35 Lightning II

Three existing F-16 bases will be among the first installations to transition to flying F-35s.

Gaining operational Joint Strike Fighters are the Burlington (Vt.) Air Guard Station and Hill in Utah.

The first F-35s should arrive at Hill in July 2013 with the initial squadron complete in 2015. Standing up two other squadrons will begin in 2015 and continue through 2019.

Burlington is expected to get its F-35s starting October 2018 and complete the transition by December of that year.

Luke, near Phoenix, picks up three F-35 training squadrons and phases out its F-16 training role, which moves to Holloman.

Luke's first squadron will be formed in August 2013. All three squadrons should be flying by October 2017.

The F-16s no longer needed at the bases will be retired.

Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., continues to be first stop for F-35 pilots. At Eglin, pilots and crew chiefs for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps will get their first exposure to the jets. The 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin will get 58 JSFs split between training squadrons for each of the services, the Air Force confirmed in a July 28 statement.

Once Air Force pilots complete their Eglin training, they'll move to Luke for follow-on training specific to the Air Force version of the jet.

Several more bases were candidates for the F-35s' first round of basing. Missing out were Boise Air National Guard Station, Idaho; Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho; Shaw Air Force Base/McEntire Joint National Guard Base, S.C.; and Tucson Air Guard Station, Ariz.

With the Air Force committed to buying 1,763 JSFs, there are still plenty of jets available for later basing decisions.

MC-12W

The reconnaissance mission at Beale Air Force Base in northern California expands with the recommendation to locate the service's operational MC-12W fleet there. Beale already is home to the U-2 Dragon Lady and the RQ-4 Global Hawk.

The recommendation does not change the training location for MC-12W crews. They will still fly out of the Mississippi Air National Guard's Key Field.

A final decision on stationing MC-12Ws at Beale can't be made until an environmental assessment is complete.

The Air Force intends to buy 37 of the twin-propeller planes. The military version of the commercial Beechcraft King Air 350 is outfitted with camera pods and other intelligence collection gear, and flies with a crew of two pilots and two sensor operators.

Just how many of the MC-12Ws will be at Beale isn't known. With the exception of planes needed for training, all MC-12Ws are flying missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. They won't return to the U.S. until commanders no longer require the planes.

Because there is no home base for the planes and crews, airmen trained to fly the MC-12W are sent back to their old units once their six-month deployments are finished.

The constant churn makes it difficult to establish a cadre of experienced aircrew members. Establishing a permanent home is a step toward treating MC-12W assignments the same as other tours.

Several bases competed with Beale for the MC-12W prize. Drawing blanks: Altus Air Force Base, Okla.; Key Field; Langley; Robins Air Force Base. Ga.; and Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.

C-27J

The July 29 announcement narrows down which installations could become the initial home of the C-27J, a twin-engine transport intended to fly Army supply missions and provide airlift for state National Guard units.

Potential sites for operational C-27J squadrons are Boise and Great Falls International Airport, Mont. Training squadron sites are Key Field and Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport in Ohio.

The service won't announce basing decisions until site survey and environmental assessments are complete, likely in 2011.

[buglerbilly]

Donley Pushes Major Space Changes

By Colin Clark Thursday, August 26th, 2010 6:03 pm



With the stroke of a pen Air Force Secretary Mike Donley engaged one of the most complex bureaucratic challenges faced by the service: how to buy, build and manage satellites and the rockets that move them into space. Donley, seeking to clarify what experts say was a confusing and sometimes ineffective system, ordered several important changes to how the Air Force’s space community is organized and to who makes what decisions.

In perhaps the biggest change declared in his memo, Donley vested the service’s undersecretary, Erin Conaton, with the responsibility for guiding all space policy activities overseen by the Air Force. The assistant secretary for acquisition will now lead all space acquisition, combining traditional fighter, bomber and other service acquisition with space.

In a separate report, the man who recommended the changes to Donley (one of the country’s most respected military and intelligence space experts) Richard McKinney, said the goal of the changes is to leave the Air Force with a “very visible and effective” focal point for space management.

Conaton knows relatively little about space but is a tireless worker. Given the unique nature of most space acquisition, she will need all the best advice she can get.

Donley also created a new space board, run by the undersecretary and the vice chief of staff, to manage interservice issues and the intricate and long-troubled relations between the military space community and its intelligence counterparts at the DNI, CIA and NRO. The National Security Space Office originally created to provide expert skills for both the NRO and the Air Force but now a rump service entity, will be melded into McKinney’s office of deputy undersecretary office. McKinney’s office will continue to serve as the service’s primary center of expertise on space, advising the new board and the undersecretary.

One of the most delicate policy issues the Air Force must deal with over the next 18 months is the best path forward on the international front for managing space debris and the question of who is responsible and what they must do when satellites collide or are destroyed.

[This story should be updated tomorrow when we get more reaction and analysis of these changes from summertime Washington.]

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2010/08/26/donley-pushes-major-space-changes/#ixzz0xlW8MNHT

[buglerbilly]

Global Strike Command on track, its leader says

By John Andrew Prime • jprime@gannett.com • August 28, 2010

The Air Force's newest major command, Air Force Global Strike Command, is on track for fall progression to its final stage of standup, full operational capability, its leader says.

The new command, in the former 8th Air Force headquarters building on Barksdale Air Force Base, but also staffing temporary trailers across the 22,000-acre facility, celebrated its first birthday here Aug. 7. It began about nine months before its debut as a provisional unit in January 2009 at Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.

Since August 2009, Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz says, "we have been developing the command in a very step-by-step methodical fashion. On that first day, Aug. 7, we had roughly 50 permanently assigned individuals. Right now, we have 700 permanently assigned individuals to the headquarters. By Oct. 1, we'll have 800, en route to our full complement of 900 officers, NCOs and government civilians assigned to this headquarters."

Over the intervening months, the command grew by careful steps, assuming and testing command and control avenues that had been used by predecessor commands. On Dec. 1, it assumed control of the nation's intercontinental ballistic missile forces, in three wings in three states under 20th Air Force. On Feb. 1, it took control of the nation's strategic bombing forces, at three bases in three states under the Barksdale-based 8th Air Force.

Oct. 1 is the start of the federal fiscal year.

"That's a good target goal," Klotz said. "We'll have the vast majority of our people on board, and we'll assume responsibility for our own 'checkbook' at that time. One of the rules of fiscal or financial management in the U.S. government is you can't change ownership of the checkbook in the middle of the fiscal year. Since we stood up or assumed responsibility for the ICBMs and bombers in the middle of the year, we have been working closely with their former parent organizations on the financial side. We'll have that on Oct. 1, and we'll have responsibility for developing our inputs to the future Air Force programs and future Air Force financial plan at that time."

The command also will hold its first incarnation of what under predecessor units had been called a Bombing and Navigation Competition, or "Bomb Comp."

Now called the Global Strike Challenge, it will match not only bombing, maintenance, munition and security wings and squadrons, but missileers as well. Competition among the units began in recent months. Official score-posting will be announced Nov. 15-18 at Barksdale, ending with the Global Strike Challenge technology symposium. That will focus on current and future concepts essential to the command's mission.

"One of things we value as a command is exquisite technical and weapons system expertise," Klotz said. "One of the ways in which we achieve that excellence ... is through competition. As our air crews, our missile crews, our maintainers, our security forces, are competing against one another to represent their bases, they are working overtime to master their weapons system in all of its intricate details. They become centers of excellence within their particular units. They become better airmen in terms of performing the task they have responsibility for.

"More importantly their excellence spills over and rubs off onto all the other members of their unit and all the other residents of their base. Competition, people working overtime, going the extra mile, putting in that extra effort to be the 'best of the best,' raises the level of excellence and expertise across the entire command. That's the fundamental, underlying purpose of competition and Global Strike Challenge."

Klotz is a member of the Air Force Academy Class of 1973, which produced about two dozen general officers, including Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, Air Education Training Command head Gen. Steve Lorenz and Air Force Special Operations Command chief Lt. Gen. Don Wooster.

But the name perhaps best associated with that class is Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III, the pilot who captured headlines and the popular imagination when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River off Manhattan, New York City, on Jan. 15, 2009, saving the lives of all 155 passengers and crew.

Klotz was one of those who watched and marveled there had been no loss of life, thanks to piloting skills and spontaneous, practiced rescue efforts by the first responders and ferry operators near the ditching site.

"That was a remarkable feat of airmanship, a feat that could only be carried out by someone who had honed and perfected their piloting skills over a long period of time," he said, adding that he had "obviously, great pride that a member of the (Academy) Class of '73 was piloting that aircraft."

Though Klotz is at his first Barksdale posting, he is no stranger to the area. He was born in Lubbock, Texas, and attended middle school in Alexandria when his father was stationed at the former England Air Force Base.

His father also was stationed at Barksdale, then was transferred to Texas, Klotz said.

"If my mom and dad had decided to have a family just a little earlier, I would have been born in Shreveport or Bossier City."
So he wasn't surprised by the warm reception he and his people have been given by a community that has long been supportive of the military.

"The welcome has been almost overwhelming in terms of the way our people in AFGSC have found places to live, schools to put their children in and have been readily accepted as members of this community," he said.

But he wouldn't commit to saying he'd settle here when the day came to trade his military hat for that of a retired officer in the civilian community.

"The problems of today are sufficient unto themselves," he said. "I'm developing all my energy, time and attention to standing up AF Global Strike Command and ensuring its mission and its airmen are well taken care of."

[buglerbilly]

U.S. Air Force Looks To Replace Aging T-38s

By MICHELLE TAN

Published: 30 Aug 2010 08:56

The next approach to teaching future U.S. Air Force pilots - be it a jet, a simulator or a mix of both - must be reasonably priced but do as good of a job as the aging trainer it will replace, according to the official in charge of analyzing the options.

Fighter and bomber pilots have been learning to fly some version of the T-38 Talon for the last 50 years and the time has come to find a successor, said Gen. Stephen Lorenz, outgoing commander of Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas.

"It takes years to procure a new trainer, so we need to start the process now," Lorenz said. "The T-38 is getting old."

A draft of the analysis underway by Air Force Training Command should be ready by the end of the year, according to Dave McDonald, who is leading the effort as program requirements manager for the advance trainer replacement program.

"We're looking at performance, operational effectiveness, operational suitability, the cost to meet your capability needs, at advantages and disadvantages," McDonald said. "Cost and capabilities are the big two, I would say."

McDonald, a former T-38 instructor pilot, and his team are looking at jets and simulators already on the market and those in development; they have asked for and received input from the defense industry.

"We need to build a new trainer that is economical, efficient and effective," Lorenz said.

About five years ago, the Air Force upgraded its 500 T-38s with digital and glass cockpit displays, similar to those in operational jets. The jets are now designated T-38Cs.

Despite the improvements, though, the Talons are showing their age, which averages 44 years.

Intended to fly 7,000 hours, the typical T-38C has logged 15,000 hours. By 2017, which is when officials expect the alternative to the T-38C to reach initial operational capability, the flight hours will be up to 17,500.

"We're working hard on this," Lorenz said. "We're trying to follow due procedure so that someday soon the Air Force will be able to procure a new trainer … because this will be a 30-year decision when we buy this trainer."

[buglerbilly]

DATE:31/08/10

SOURCE:Flight International

USAF invests in C-5 upgrade

By Stephen Trimble

An unfortunate flock of four storks with roughly 1.9m (6ft) wingspans crossed into the path of a Lockheed Martin C-5 on take-off from Incirlik air base in Turkey earlier this year. For the four-engined C-5, sucking even four large fowls into a single engine is normally an unremarkable event, as its three remaining turbofans provide easily enough power to bring the aircraft back to base.

But this incident proved unusual for what did not happen, inadvertently revealing the product of an $11.7 billion investment to dramatically improve Lockheed's giant airlifter.


The USAF's C-5Bs are more reliable than C-5As, but out of commission an average 35%. Picture: USAF

VIBRATION

As the storks sucked into the engine nacelle, the flightcrew noticed a "slight vibration". The engine's throttle was quickly pulled back to idle, but the crew expected a flameout. The engine, although damaged, never shut down.

"It was still producing thrust the whole time," marvels Capt Cory Damon, a C-5 evaluator pilot at Dover AFB, Delaware.

Such experiences may be relatively common among users of modern, large turbofan engines, but not in the US Air Force's C-5 Galaxy community until last year.

Twelve months ago, the USAF started flying the first of three re-engined and upgraded C-5Ms on operational missions.

The bird strike at Incirlik happened to involve one of those three C-5Ms, each now powered by four General Electric CF6-80C2s, which are at least a full generation of technology beyond the legacy C-5 fleet's GE TF39s.

"We've always had an airframe that was so much more capable, but we were limited by the engines," says Lt Col Michael Semo, chief of the C-5M integration office at Dover. "Now we have an engine that matches the capability of the airframe."

Since its debut, the new fleet of pre-production C-5M models has quickly made a favourable impression among pilots and maintenance crews, even as it has added a new layer of complexity to the USAF's calculations for determining the appropriate size and mix of strategic airlifters in the future.


Lack of light in the C-5B cargo compartment "could be a little bit of a hazard". Picture: USAF

Some new aircraft designs wait years to begin operations in combat zones despite being declared ready for service. The C-5M has received no such luxury. Within its first year of operations, the C-5M has completed a single sortie that broke 41 aviation records and participated in two real-world surges of equipment and troops into Afghanistan, with the latest airlift spike ending a month ago.

It is an airlifter that first started flying 41 years ago, but is now enjoying a second wind. The oldest version in the fleet is the C-5A model, and the 59 left in service are unavailable for missions due to maintenance and repairs more often than they are not. The 49 C-5Bs - manufactured about 25 years ago - are more reliable, but are out of commission on average by 35%.

The key factor driving the C-5's poor reliability record is the TF39 engine, a first-generation turbofan that represented a major leap in propulsion technology during the late 1960s, but falls well below modern standards. USAF officials have complained each TF39 must be removed from the wing for overhaul every 1,000h. The reliability of modern turbofans is at least an order of magnitude greater.

During the most recent, month-long surge, when two C-5Ms flew a combined 22 missions from Rota, Spain to three locations in Afghanistan, delivering about half the equipment for a newly inserted combat brigade, the improved reliability showed. Only one of the C-5M's 22 missions left Rota behind schedule due to a maintenance problem, Semo says.

The same surge also involved a combination of eight C-5A/Bs. Despite outnumbering C-5Ms by four times on the ramp at Rota, the C-5A/Bs delivered less cargo despite flying one more flight than the upgraded C-5M. Most tellingly, USAF mobility planners felt obliged to assign eight C-5A/Bs to complete a mission that could be performed by two C-5Ms.

Such performance may redefine how the C-5 fleet should be perceived. The C-5 is by far the USAF's largest airlifter, capable of carrying 50t more payload than the Boeing C-17. The C-5 is also the only aircraft that can carry the army's 74t mobile scissors bridge. But the fleet has been plagued by reliability problems since entering service in 1969. So far, the C-5M has shown greater payload performance with a fraction of the maintenance burden.

The M-model "really makes the C-5 what it was envisioned to be when it was designed", says Capt Matt Jaeger, chief of pilot standards evaluation at Dover AFB.

Replacing the troublesome TF39 provided the greatest improvement, but the C-5M programme funded 70 other reliability enhancements. Most of the list of upgrades are not visible to anybody but the maintainers.


A visible change in the C-5M upgrade is the addition of fluorescent lighting. Picture: USAF

HEALTH DIAGNOSTICS

A key example cited by Semo is an improved health diagnostic system, which is enabled by the even more significant upgrade to transition the C-5's electrical systems from analogue to digital format.

For the C-5A/Bs, a problem as simple as fixing a wheel brake could ground the aircraft for several hours, as maintainers sometimes needed to pull all 24 brake hubs to find the pair that was broken. It is a relatively simple repair job, but often the "crew would have to go into crew rest" before it was complete, Semo says, which led to even longer delays.

The C-5M's digitally based diagnostic system tells the maintainers exactly where to find the faulty brakes. "With the B-model that would take at least six hours," Damon says. "But with the -M , it's the first place you look."

Perhaps the most visible change among the C-5M upgrades is a new fluorescent lighting system in the cargo compartment. "The 'B' could be a little bit of a hazard with the amount of light in the cargo compartment," Jaeger says.

The next stage for the C-5M programme is ramping up production to convert the rest of the 49 C-5Bs. The first production version of the C-5M is scheduled for delivery before 1 October.

EXCESS CAPACITY

Meanwhile, the USAF is struggling to balance what it considers an excess of capacity in its strategic airlifter fleet.

The USAF acquired the Boeing C-17 to replace a fleet of 270 Lockheed C-141 Starlifters. Including 43 C-17s added by Congress since 2007, the USAF's C-17 fleet will add up to 222, with one aircraft lost to a crash in early August. Although the C-17 fleet is smaller, the Boeing airlifter can carry more than twice the cargo of the C-141.

In addition, the USAF also continues to lease the Antonov An-124, which can haul eight mine-resistant ambush protection vehicles compared with only five inside the C-5.

According to USAF statistics, the combination of 111 C-5s and 222 C-17s provides a capability to move nearly 36 million ton miles per day, but the service needs capacity to transport a maximum of 32.7 million ton miles daily.

To rebalance the fleet, the USAF has asked Congress to repeal a law banning the service from retiring any C-5As. Specifically, the USAF wants to retire 17 C-5As next year and five more in fiscal year 2012, slashing the A-model fleet by more than one-third. So far, lawmakers have been reluctant to allow any C-5A retirements, as certain bases, such as Westover AFB in Massachusetts, now depend on the aircraft's presence to justify their existence.

The C-5M's improved performance may complicate this debate by adding a new dimension. In 2007, the USAF decided to remove the C-5A fleet from the re-engining and reliability enhancement programme (RERP) after Lockheed's cost projections had grown by 58%.

The cost overrun followed a similar budget fiasco for the C-5 avionics modernisation programme, which is required for the Galaxy fleet to continue to operate in controlled airspace and as a precursor to the RERP upgrades.


The USAF's C-17s (above) and C-5s can move almost 36 million ton miles per day. Picture: USAF