Radar Refits: F-15s Looking for the AESA Edge

Before: APG-63 MSA

Most F-15C Eagle air superiority fighters use APG-63 radars, passive arrays mounted on a movable swashplate. While upgrades over the years have improved them, a new generation of radar technologies has appeared. With cruise missile defense rising in importance, and longer-range detection desired, upgrades are necessary. That requires new radars, using AESA technologies that dramatically improve range, while reducing maintenance. The USAF has also discussed a retrofit set that would turn the F-15C Eagless into multi-role fighters, and a next-generation AESA radar would be part of that, too. Meanwhile, they’ve started a program to upgrade select F-15C units with AESA radars, as an air-air improvement.

Those F-15C units will now be joined by the USAF’s entire 2-seat, multi-role F-15E Strike Eagle fleet, whose future AESA radar has received some improvements, and a new designation.

LAS in, LAS out: Counter-Insurgency Planes for the USA and its Allies

Winner

The USA needs a plane that can provide effective precision close air support and JTAC training, and costs about $1,000 per flight hour to operate – instead of the $15,000+ they’re paying now to use advanced jet fighters at 10% of their capabilities. Countries on the front lines of the war’s battles needed a plane that small or new air forces can field within a reasonable time, and use effectively. If these 2 needs are filled by the same aircraft, everything becomes easier for US allies and commanders. One would think that this would have been obvious around October 2001, but it took until 2008 for this understanding to even gain momentum within the Pentagon. A series of intra-service, political, and legal fights have ensured that these capabilities won’t arrive before 2015 at the earliest, and won’t arrive for the USAF at all.

The USA has now issued 2 contracts related to this need. The first was killed by a lawsuit that the USAF didn’t think they could defend successfully. Now, in February 2013, they have a contract that they hope will stick. The 3 big questions are simple. Will the past be prologue for the new award? Will there be an Afghan government to begin taking delivery of their 20 planes much beyond 2014? And will another allied government soon need to use this umbrella contract for its own war?

France Upgrading Their E-3F AWACS

E-3F AWACS

The French Armee de l’Air is upgrading its E-3F AWACS radar aircraft, in a $460 million program.

The E-3 Sentry AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft is based on a militarized version of the Boeing 707-320B. It remains the world’s most widely used large-jet AWACS platform, in service with the USAF, Britain, France, NATO, and Saudi Arabia. Over the years, the world’s E-3 fleet has required improvements to keep its radars and electronics current with advances in technology. France received its 4 E-3F aircraft between 1991-1992, and undertook its own RSIP improvement program from 2002-2006. Now, they’ve set their E-3F fleet’s upgrade path to Block 40/45 capability. At least, they had, until the US government suddenly got in the way…

US Department of Defense FY 2014 Budget Takes off in the House, Stalls in the Senate

By releasing its budget proposal for fiscal year 2014 in mid-April, the Obama administration was two months over the legal deadline and later than at any time in the modern record. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reiterated the gambit that failed and arguably backfired in the previous fiscal year by ignoring the sequester. In place, President Obama put again on the table the broad terms he had offered earlier to House Republicans, with a mix of spending cuts (translation from Washington lingo: mostly a decrease in the rate of real growth) and tax increases. That was received by most observers as a lack of realism, making the budget request directly interesting in terms of relative priorities at best.

To add insult to the injury, the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) budget and Green Book were released only weeks later, giving the impression of an administration scrambling to apply the Budget Control Act, a law that had been on the books for more than a year.

A number of systems, especially among UAVs and ground vehicles, see a decline in the quantity of scheduled buys, but the list of programs that are explicitly terminated or restructured is rather slim, reflecting the Administration’s choice to use its previous budget request as its baseline rather than plan within sequestration constraints. By June, the Administration had changed its tune with the recognition that the sequester may be here to stay. The initiative is back to lawmakers, who so far are proceeding expediently in the House, but cannot seem to agree on anything in the Senate.

AGM-158 JASSM: Lockheed’s Family of Stealthy Cruise Missiles

JASSM-ER from B-1B

The 2,000 pound AGM-158 JASSM (Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile) is intended to be a stealthy, inexpensive GPS/IIR (Global Positioning system/ Imaging InfraRed) guided cruise missile. It’s designed to attack well-defended targets without putting its carrier aircraft in the crosshairs of new long-range surface to air missile systems. JASSM has experienced a rocky development history, due to long-standing reliability issues. In 2005 it was threatened with cancellation following a series of poor test results. The program went through 2007 on an ongoing roller coaster of ups and downs, and by May 2009 it appeared the program was facing cancellation once again.

A production hiatus did take place between Lot 7 and FY 2010′s Lot 8 in FY 2010, but test results allowed the USAF to move forward, and the missile is beginning to win export orders.

The New Chinooks: Boeing’s Modern H-47 Heavy-Lift Helicopters

CH-47Fs take off

DII FOCUS articles offer in-depth, updated looks at significant military programs of record; this FOCUS Article covers the CH-47F/MH-47G Chinook helicopter programs, in the USA and abroad. These helicopters’ distinctive “flying banana” twin-rotor design stems from the brilliant work of aviation pioneer Frank Piasecki. It gives Chinooks the ability to adjust their positioning very precisely, while carrying a large airframe whose load capacity has made it the world’s most popular heavy-lift helicopter. The USA expects to be operating Chinooks in their heavy-lift role past 2030.

The CH-47F looks similar to earlier models, but offers a wide range of improvements in almost every aspect of design and performance. While the related HH-47′s $10-15 billion CSAR-X program win has been nullified by the program’s termination, delivery orders continue for CH-47Fs and for MH-47G Special Forces configuration helicopters. International orders or formal requests have also come in from Australia, Britain, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, and the UAE, with India and other countries expected to follow.

The USA’s C-27J Joint Cargo Aircraft

C-27J Spartan

When the WALRUS super-heavy cargo airship was canceled, combat commanders complained that front-line airfields were often too short for the C-130 Hercules that make up the USAF’s tactical transport fleet. Delays in buying a small cargo aircraft to fill that role were making that problem worse. Starved of useful help due to USAF-sponsored delays, and the lack of appropriate aircraft in the USAF, the Army carried on with its aging C-23 Sherpas, and repurposed aircraft like the unprotected C-12 Hurons, in order to ferry troops, supplies, and/or very small vehicles within its theaters of operations. From the start the US Army and US Air Force expressed different levels of urgency and priority that led to Congressional SNAFUs and an initial contract award.

The Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) could have been worth up to $6 billion before all was said and done, and the finalists were a familiar duo. After EADS-CASA’s CN-235 and a shortened version of Lockheed Martin’s C-130J were disqualified for failing to meet requirements, JCA became yet another international competition between EADS-CASA’s C-295M & Alenia’s C-27J. The C-27J team eventually won the delayed decision in June 2007, and prevailed in the subsequent contract protests from their rivals. What remained unclear was exactly what they had won. The joint-service decision and contract announcement didn’t end the inter-service and Congressional politicking, either, and the contractor side was equally fractious. This FOCUS article covers the JCA competition, and subsequent developments – including the Pentagon’s 2012 push to end the program, and sell its planes.

Pocket Gunship: From AC-XX to the MC-27J

C-27J 3-view

In July 2008, an Aviation Week report noted a $32 million budget reprogramming request from Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), in order to buy a C-27J light tactical transport plane and convert it into a small prototype AC-XX gunship, using “proven/known” weapons and systems. Their AC-130 gunships were wearing out, and AFSOC had investigated a number of alternatives [PDF], including smaller aircraft and even stealth designs. The AC-XX option chose an immediate, affordable stopgap that could let AFSOC try some new concepts, without foreclosing future options.

That effort foundered for good when the USAF canceled the C-27J, but programs to turn existing USMC and AFSOC C-130s into light gunships had laid the technical foundations. Italy’s Alenia Aermacchi figured that a C-27J gunship might have a lot of appeal on the international market. Especially if the gunship kit could somehow co-exist with its role as a transport. In 2012, they unveiled exactly that, thanks to a collaboration with America’s ATK.

Apres Harfang: France’s Next High-End UAVs

Harfang UAV, DGA

France is wondering what to do about its next high-end UAV buy. They bought mini-UAVs off the shelf, but turned to a build-in-partnership approach for their current set of Predator-class Medium Altitude, Long Endurance (MALE) machines. That sacrificed some fielding speed and cost more, in order to build the industrial capabilities of key French firms. Unfortunately, their Harfang/ SIDM IUAV Program to field an IAI Heron derivative hit some snags. Harfangs have been very useful in several conflicts now, but the fleet isn’t keeping up with France’s growing land and naval needs. Which leads to the question: what’s next?

The answers to that question remain unclear, several years after French efforts began. What is becoming clear is that France needs UAVs of this type – very possibly armed UAVs.

[NDIA] Joint Logistics Panelists Agree to Shed Weight

DoD logistics post-sequester: a self-assessment

Ed. note: we continue our coverage of last week’s NDIA’s National Logistics Forum.

Lt. Gen. Brooks L. Bash, Director for Logistics at the Joint Staff, centered his presentation on the constraints that logistics has and will always impose on warfighting. From that perspective, for the US to pivot to the Pacific only makes things harder with the huge distances involved. New threats to the US supply routes, which by and large have not been challenged since WWII, come in varied shapes from missile profileration to swarms of small ships. From a broader macro perspective, logistical chokepoints such as the straits of Hormuz or Malacca could severely damage the economy if they become hotspots.