USAF CV-22 OSPREY REACHES IOC

http://www.youtube.com/v/WfYfRg72Y7k&hl=en&fs=1

The United States Air Force has declared initial operational capability (IOC) with the USAF variant of the Osprey know as the CV-22. This aircraft differs some from its Marine MV-22 cousin in that it has a wider variety of sensors and other appliances for the USAF special operations mission.

IOC is a big deal. It means that the USAF has declared that the program has reached a milestone where it is less in test and development and more into normal combat operations and training. CV-22 is past the halfway point to reaching full operating capability where the non-test flying organizations in the field are considered mature enough to stand up having progressed through demanding qualifications needed for operational duty. IOC  means that the program has produced enough “knowns” and has shed all of the high risk elements of this very complex program.

What now? More steady work so as to get certified for full operational capability. It is no easier from here for the CV-22 community. They are still high profile and still under the microscope. 

IMPRESSIVE

Big time impressive. Congrats.

THE A400M IS DYING

Is it time to pull the plug from the troubled A400M transport program?

Some are considering it. This program is getting ugly quick and with the global financial meltdown, ailing programs are likely to get taken to the pound and put to sleep.

- “Under the current conditions we cannot build the plane,” Enders told Spiegel Online in an interview on Sunday, adding it would be better to make a painful break than draw out the agony.” -

Airbus CEO:  A400M could fail

H/T- DS

AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE WHITE PAPER DELAYED ?

I don’t know. This is only a news report. Here is some of what it says…..

So dire are the economic forecasts that the Defence Department’s long-awaited White Paper plan for the next 30 years, due out next month, is now expected to be delayed until after the May 12 Budget.

Defence spending has jumped since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks from $13.7billion to $22.4billion.

The Rudd Government last year agreed to continue a 3per cent real increase in defence funding through to 2017.

But senior ministers want to reduce the 3per cent hike for several years, promising to reinstate it once the Budget returns to a healthier state.

Instead it is likely the Defence Department will be granted an increase in real funding of much lower, perhaps just 1per cent.

This would save the Budget about $1billion over the next two years.

The Defence Department also will be asked to find savings by:

* Finding more than $1billion in efficiency savings.

* Sacrificing a $3billion warship.

* Reducing its front-line jet fighter fleet.

* Achieving savings of almost $500million via job cuts.

* Cutting supplier costs by $400million.

* Mothballing two Collins class submarines

Other initiatives on the drawing board include a plan to keep three ageing guided missile frigates and F/A-18 Hornet fighters operating well beyond their used-by-date.

REVISIT, F-35 vs. SUPER HORNET

This topic demands a revisit because the comparison is pretty damning. When one looks at the future of the U.S. Navy carrier air wing or what kind of U.S. fighter one wants, the hard choices can pin you into a corner.

The F-35 brings engine press releases that have wild disclaimers, unknown price of the jet, huge risks yet to be discovered in a mountain of flight testing yet to be done and a marketing strategy built on fairy dust. The F-35 is too much to gamble on at this point in time and maybe forever. Governments aren’t going to have any more money to waste on hope and insane blue-sky marketing.

If the advantages push toward a sloth-like weak airframe performance aircraft like the Super Hornet, which by the way has everything else covered to the lowest common denominator, then the F-35 has problems in its claims as a all singing all dancing great white hope. PowerPoint slides, spin and sophistry are not enough.

Lets look at the chart and see what the comparison shows.

Two-engine safety has already proven itself time and again with the Hornet family. However in the blue sky marketing world of the F-35, we are being lead to ignore this and hope no one notices that once you dump a one engine jet because it doesn’t have a backup engine, all your lower-cost-of-operating-a-one engine-jet-fleet goes out the window.

Two-aircrew attack. The U.S. Navy still believes in this and with the Block II Super Hornet, which as a radar system to match that of the F-35, two aircrew can be looking at completely different radar modes and doing different work. Add the crew coordination and you have a system that is superior in events like close air support.

Buddy tanker. This is a big deal and shows that the Super Hornet can do a lot more diverse kinds of work. Ditto with the ability to carry the SHARP recon pod.

The gun. It is possible that if you are flying a F-35B or F-35C that you may have left the deck that day without your gun. Gun pod vibration effect on the F-35 is yet to be seen too.

How a gun pod will affect flight performance for the F-35 is an unknown. This includes carrier approach speed for trap which already looks high for the F-35C.

While on the topic of carrier approach speed, asymmetric drag may be interesting for the F-35C for those times when you had to punch off something and it didn’t go. It stayed hung on one wing.

Known price. This one is like shooting fish in a barrel. Which leads to cost. When you wish upon a star, it shows just how gullible you truly are.

Known performance. The Super Hornet has a real record of aircraft carrier operations to back it up and not computer simulations. This includes the Super’s impressive flight safety record.

Balanced survivability. This is not as hard to figure out as it sounds. One knows what the limits are that the Super Hornet can get into and out of. The Super has the ability to take battle damage, proven when Hornet family jets return to base after a mid air collision with horrific damage. The Block II Super Hornets has stunning avionics. It has a true fused and practical defensive avionics suite with real wide aspect jamming and the ability to hand off that jam emitting to the ALE-55 towed decoy. While not a stealth aircraft, it has an airframe that is tuned to it’s jamming gear. The defensive system has a better known baseline of what is necessary for the jamming gear work to be done.

In the case of the F-35 you have some front aspect stealth, and weak stealth the rest of the way around. Trying to penetrate an air defense system with this aircraft requires a lot of faith because if there is a negative stealth event where the jet is naked, its only jamming ability is the front aspect of the radar and within the bandwidth of that radar. The electronic attack ability of AESA radars runs into some real world problems like sustainment of signals and cooling. If this is your prime jammer, you might be sucking air. After this you have some expendable decoys which means your ass is left hanging on a string if the threat can velocity detect and ignore decelerating expendable decoys.

The F-35 tries to make the clueless believe that stealth is the answer. The huge problem with this is that it doesn’t bring top-drawer stealth, super-cruise and extreme airframe performance. The blue-sky hype marketing of the F-35 doesn’t address any of the reality of facing down extreme threats. While the Super Hornet will have a tough go at stiff enemy air defenses, the F-35 doesn’t bring enough  to the table either.

So while the F-35 is a rebel without a clue, the Super Hornet doesn’t try and make unrealistic magic, even if it was also marketed with some pretty misleading claims.

So far, there isn’t anything that justifies throwing truckloads of cash into the Just So Farcical. For the U.S. Navy, the F-35C will start having spades of dirt patted down on its face if the UCAS-N shows it can handle carrier ops. Even without the UCAS-N, the U.S. Navy is better off looking for another solution. Which makes one wonder why the whispers of the F/A-XX are out there in the forest. The F-35C was originally marketed to replace ALL fighters on the carrier deck. As the reality of F-35C affordability and other unknowns come to pass, the original hype of the F-35 being the primary fighter for all services is now a lie that was spun a very long time ago in the 1990′s to make the clueless U.S. Congress take the bait. F/A-XX is pawned off as a Hornet replacement. What isn’t mentioned, is that it is another way besides the Super Hornet for the U.S. Navy to hedge their bets against an uncertain F-35C.

OSPREY AFGHAN DEPLOYMENT DELAYED

The aircraft that was “made for Afghanistan” the USMC  MV-22 Osprey will have its first deployment to Afghanistan delayed.

Many reasons are given. One being organizational issues of having enough people and machines available for the deployment. No mention was given if the recent grounding of the aircraft had anything to do with it.

Marine officials say that the MV-22 should deploy to Afghanistan later this year.  When it does it should have an all-quadrant 7.62mm Gatling gun fitted.

The Corps has been working with Special Operations Command to install the gun on seven Air Force Special Operations Command CV-22s, which are going through testing and qualification runs at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. Once the gun is qualified, the Corps will determine how best to deploy it on the MV-22, Dent said.

LINKS OF INTEREST

ISR blimp would fly for 10 years uninterrupted

Mabus for Navy Secretary

Fire damages C-5 at Wright Patt

Surface Fleet Under Stress

Russian President Rides in a SU-34

DISCLAIMER OF CONFIDENCE

This is a disclaimer at the end of a Pratt and Whitney press release which brags about their engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. PW has an Eagle in their logo so who knows, maybe it will work…

“This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning the operational prospects for certain engines and, accordingly, the potential for future business opportunities. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated as a result of certain risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to changes in the USAF’s funding related to the F-35 aircraft and F135 engines, changes in government procurement priorities and practices or in the number of aircraft to be built; challenges in the design, development, production and support of technologies; as well as other risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those detailed from time to time in United Technologies Corporation’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings.”

NATO HAS BECOME THE WARSAW PACT-updated

The whole idea of NATO expansion is nutty. Want to have a more unsecure Europe? Keep pressing for more countries from the east to join NATO. Adding Ukraine to that is just stupid. Sticking our nose into what is going on in Georgia adds to the stupidity.

Why? Russia has been pretty quiet over the years. The last thing we need is a reason for them to build up the military. Man can be stupid and is showing that with any expansion of NATO. This is the most dangerous kind of self-licking ice cream cone looking for a mission.

In the past it was the Warsaw Pact that was the biggest threat to European security. Now we have flipped into an alternate reality where NATO wants to get into the backyard of Russia. Yeah, keep pressing and see where that will go.

Time to just call it a day and close NATO. European security won’t suffer. It is time to grow up.

GENERAL BRADY-GLORY DAYS

The glory days of USAFE/NATO are long gone.

While one general speaks sanity, another goes off to the good old days. Unfortunately the good old days are long gone as USAFE and NATO don’t have much of a mission.

Air Force Magazine “Daily Report” has an item that should make the taxpayer think, “What the hell are we doing?” United States Air Forces Europe (USAFE) et al seem to think the Soviet threat still exists right on the other side of Fulda Gap. It doesn’t and someone should tell them that.

Stop Cutting USAFE: Echoing comments made earlier this year by US European Command leader Army Gen. Bantz Craddock that US forces in Europe may be too few for assigned tasks, the top airman in Europe told reporters that he believes further reductions of the USAF presence on the continent is not a good idea. “I think reducing assets is not a good thing,” said Gen. Roger Brady, commander of US Air Forces in Europe, to the Defense Writers Group in Washington Thursday. “I think it does not send the right signal to either our allies or to people whose motivations may be questioned.” Several NATO allies raised concerns about Russia’s actions in Georgia last summer and are looking for signs that alliance solidarity is intact—not diminishing. Brady added that his advice to senior leadership is to hold off on further reductions to help deter potential adversaries but also to be able to continue with all-important capacity-building activities with allies. Saying partnership building is “not just drinking tea,” Brady noted that the less iron on the ramp, the less manpower—whether pilots, maintainers, or firefighters—he has to partner with the 26 NATO allies across the theater. Achieving interoperability, such as with Poland’s recently acquired F-16 force, is critical, asserted Brady. “The less I have on the ramp, the less I have to build relationships with,” he said.

and…..

Brady Wants Accelerated F-35s for Europe: The F-35 partner nations are watching the development and testing of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) very closely, Gen. Roger Brady told defense reporters on Thursday (see above). The US Air Forces in Europe commander is pressing hard to make sure his own squadrons get their aircraft concurrently with their allies—and that would mean speeding up delivery of the fifth-generation fighter. “We have nations that have planned and programmed for this, and we are trying to transition in USAFE at the same time the allies do,” he said. “It’s very important for interoperability.” From bed down procedures to training and the development of tactics, techniques, and procedures, the issue of coordinating efforts with the six F-35 partners in Europe is becoming “more of a topic of discussion than it was in the past,” Brady added. “We have to have them the same time the allies have them,” Brady said of the JSF. “I’ve been un-shy about that,” he continued and explained that he believes the upcoming defense budget will show his efforts have paid off.

About all USAFE is good for is to have a good airlift hub. Yet somehow we still have USAF fighter aircraft stationed over there. This doesn’t make sense when our national air defense mission at home is going to be going out of business in the coming years for lack of airframes.

The USAFE sphere of influence should be something that the U.S. sends an occasional package of fighter aircraft over to exercise with the locals. How important is the USAFE mission? Well, how many F-22 deployments have been done there? Now tell me how many have been done in the Pacific.

General Roger Brady, commander of US Air Forces in Europe, wants the U.S. to accelerate the production of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft just so we will have some over there in Europe to show off when they get theirs. Whenever the heck that is.

General Brady, Sir, we don’t have the funds. Two, Europe is if anything spending less on defense in the area of fighter aircraft. They are so interested in air defense that they are selling excess jets to Jordan. Three, the U.S. has more important things going on. If any place needs beefing up it is the Pacific.

How do we fix the USAF if we have comments like General Brady’s that get out into the public?

For you sir I have a song that fits. I was over there long ago. Yeah the war training for the Soviet threat environment was pretty cool. But those days are gone.