X-48B BWB
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The US Aerospace industry remains one of America’s strong export successes, and serves as an important core of the nation’s high-tech manufacturing workforce. An improved set of aerospace industry tax incentives in 2005 was a start, but AIA and others have been pressing for more. In late December 2007, NASA announced a National Plan for Aeronautics Research and Development and Related Infrastructure under Presidential Executive Order (EO) 13419. That’s wouldn’t be a big event in Britain or Europe, but it’s a first for America. The plan will be updated every 2 years, and stretches over a 10-year horizon with near (<5 year) and longer term (5-10 year) goals. A supplemental report with additional technical content, a preliminary assessment of relevant Federal aeronautics R&D activities to identify areas of increased emphasis and of redundancy, and an infrastructure plan that will include an identification of RDT&E capabilities considered critical to satisfying the national aeronautics R&D goals and objectives are all under construction in 2008 as supplements to the basic plan.

A number of the plan’s goals are civilian, of course and relate to airspace traffic and safety. Others are more obviously military….

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ERJ-145 ACS: no
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In January 2006, “$8B ACS Spy Plane Program Shot Down By Pentagon” described the demise of the joint Army/Navy Aerial Common Sensor program. ACS intended to replace the King Air derived RC-12N Guardrail, Dash-7 derived RC-7B “Crazy Hawk”/ARL, and P-3 Orion derived EP-3E Aries aircraft, with a new multi-role reconnaissance platform based on a small regional jet airframe. The original Embraer ERJ-145 platform proposed by Lockheed Martin proved too small, and even an attempted move to the same Bombardier Global Express jet used in the UK’s new ASTOR Sentinel R1 reconnaissance platform did not avail them. The US Army expressed no confidence, and put the project back to square one as it revised both its specs and its approach.

The Navy, meanwhile, split from ACS and went its own way, initiating the EPX program to replace its EP-3s. Boeing has proposed a reconnaissance and electronic intelligence version of the same 737 aircraft that the Navy plans to use for its P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, and other entrants to the proposed manned aircraft program are likely.

Now the Army has also rethought its approach, and begun the process of revisiting the ACS project. A $460+ million program will refurbish and upgrade the RC-12N Guardrail fleet to extend their service life, UAVs have emerged to fill some of the short-range reconnaissance gap, and SIGINT capabilities are being added to the USAF’s RQ-4 Global Hawk UAVs reconnaissance sensors from Block 20 onward. The Guardrails will still have a limited lifespan, however, and this coverage set still leaves holes. Hence the new approach to ACS…

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MLP demo, 2005-09
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MacGREGOR USA Inc. in Cedar Knolls, N.J., is being awarded a $19.6 million firm-fixed-price contract for the detail design, fabrication, installation, and documentation of the Test Article Vehicle Transfer System (TAVTS). The TAVTS will demonstrate the transfer of vehicles between a Large Medium-Speed Roll-on/Roll-off (LMSR or Ro-Ro) ship, and a surrogate for the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) ship, which will be designed and bought for the US Navy as a key Seabasing component. The 2 primary components of the TAVTS are a self-deploying ramp system that will be installed on a surrogate MLP that can move around, and a self-deploying sideport platform that will be mounted to an existing LMSR ship – either a T-AKR 300 Bob Hope Class, or T-AKR Watson Class.

Work will be performed by Hagglunds subsidiary MacGREGOR in Chesapeake, VA and Cedar Knolls, NJ; and with MacGREGOR USA affiliates in Poland, Sweden, and Norway, and is expected to be complete by November 2009. This contract was competitively procured with proposals solicited via Federal Business Opportunities, with 2 offers received by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) in Washington, DC (N00024-08-C-2222).

Reader and US MSC veteran Lee Wahler comments that they have serious challenges ahead of them:

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F110-GE-129 testing
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The USA’s F-16 fleet is an aging fleet that is exceeding its “design life” of 8,000 Total Accumulated Cycles by an average 485 TACs. While most of the original F-16s were fitted with the Same Pratt & Whitney F100 engine that’s in the F-15 Eagle fleet, many of the F-16C/Ds were fitted with GE’s more powerful F110 instead.

Now General Electric Aircraft Engines of Cincinnati, OH has received a firm-fixed price contract modification for $15.6 million, to buy redesigned mixing ducts and 2 flame-holder segments. This is a sole source, 4 plus-year requirements type contract, with a basic period of 15 months and 3 one-year options. In combination with the F110 Services Life Extension Program (see $61.2M FY07 contract | $69.7M FY08 contract), this contract is designed to help extend the life of the F110-GE-100/129 engines to 2025. 748 CBSG/PKP at Tinker Air Force Base, OK issued the contract (FA8104-05-D-0042-P00006).

The redesigned hardware is meant to address the fact that…

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THEL/Skyguard concept
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Detachment 8 of the US Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base, NM is funding research to better understand and predict “the effects of lasers on various threat targets.” This is useful from a number of perspectives: ballistic missile defense, discussion of concepts like a laser-firing Mk15 Phalanx system or SkyGuard system to protect against rocket attacks such as the ones Israel experiences regularly, the use of modulated lasers to protect commercial aircraft, potential laser threats to civil targets, and more.

The specific contracts include:

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Base infrastructure contracts are a quietly substantial portion of defense spending in any country, including the USA. Which is why DID covers them on a semi-regular basis, and notes trends in key areas, even though this coverage are only a fraction of the contracts issued. A December 2007 announcement by the US Army has significant implications for base infrastructure projects at a number of locations, however, as the push to grow the US Army by 74,200 troops and 6 brigade combat teams (BCTs)/ 8 support brigades continues, and so does partial relocation of US troops deployed abroad.

The following lists break down the associated relocations and new unit stand-ups by timeline, and then by location:

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BAE’s EMRG
gun & ammo mock-up
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Back in March 2006, BAE Systems received a contract for “design and production of the 32 MJ Laboratory Launcher for the U.S. Navy.” Some hint of what they are talking about can be gleaned from the name. The project is an electro-magnetic rail gun that accelerates a projectile to incredibly high speeds without using explosives.

The attraction of such systems is no mystery – they promise to fire their ammunition 10 or more times farther than conventional naval gun shells, while sharply reducing both the required size of each shell and the amount of explosive material carried on board ship. Progress is being made, and a recent test set a record – but there are still major technical challenges to overcome before a working rail gun becomes a discussable naval option. This DID FOCUS article looks at the key technical challenges, the programs, and a history of key contracts and events.

• Rail Guns: Concept & Technology Developments
• Rail Guns: US Program Information
• Rail Guns: Key Contracts & Events
• Additional Readings & Sources
  
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CH-53E at work
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Stop us if you’ve had a laptop and heard this refrain before: your battery draws down when not being used. If it’s recharged, it may “remember” the level it was at and can’t be brought back to full capacity. The maximum level of charge also keeps dropping. This means more frequent battery replacements if you want them to be of much use. Turns out the US Navy has heard this one too, only the NiCad batteries weren’t in laptops. They were in F-5 “aggressor” aircraft at Top Gun, powering the inertial navigation system and emergency wingtip speed brakes on EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft, running fire suppression and emergency exit lighting on H-53 helicopters, and offering last-chance backup for items like aircraft flight-control computers in case the main engine-driven generator should fail.

On the H-53 heavy lift helicopters, for example, 1 in 12 NiCad batteries failed every month because of poor design. Constant charging, maintenance to remove “memory effect,” and replacement was taking a costly toll in batteries. At 37,000 hours a year for the H-53 fleet, it was also taking a heavy toll on maintenance time. Something had to be done – and NAVAIR’s Propulsion and Power Department had an idea…

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DARPA’s “Tango Bravo” project, aims to break a number of fundamental submarine design constraints, and create much smaller submarines via breakthrough technologies. In contrast, the Concept Formulation (CONFORM) contract is aimed at a more evolutionary set of improvements in manufacturability, maintainability, producibility, reliability, manning, survivability, hull integrity, performance, structural, weight/margin, stability, arrangements, machinery systems, acoustics, hydrodynamics, ship control, logistics, human factors, materials, weapons handling and stowage, submarine safety, and affordability of current and future submarine platforms; which can be applied to current and future submarine designs.

If all options under CONFORM were exercised, the program’s potential value was $78.5 million. Contracts under this banner include…


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DDG-1000 Destroyer

Alion Science and Technology in Chicago, IL received a $9.8 million cost-plus-fixed fee contract for research and development activities associated with the development of Integrated Power Systems Advanced Modules and Conceptual Engineering/Ship Implementation. The Contractor will develop shipboard electrical system architectures and characterize Next Generation Integrated Power System components. Work will be performed in Annapolis, MD and is expected to be completed by January 2013. Contract funds in the amount of $162,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via Broad Agency Announcement; 68 white papers were received, 19 proposals were requested, and 18 awards have been made. The Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, DC is the contracting activity (N00024-08-C-4201).

That’s a lot of activity. Why so much? Part of the reason is the strong trend, in the US Navy and in the rest of the world, toward all-electric ships that replace all steam powered, hydraulically powered, or pneumatically/mechanically powered components with electrically-driven components. These components, and the propulsion drive, would be powered as a single pool by a single set of generators linked to the ship’s turbines. The result would be a ship that is quieter, easier to maintain (with additional help from the F-35 program’s ‘intelligent wiring’ advances), has more internal space available, and uses less fuel. The cruise ship industry has led the transition toward all electric ships, the new T-AKE cargo ships employ a modified version of those advances, and the DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class destroyers/ light cruisers would be the first American ship with all-electric drive and fully integrated power management. Meanwhile, research into tougher electronics that can take advantage of this power continues, as does more overtly offensive research around electro-magnetic weapons like rail guns. See the NDIA’s “All-Electric Ship Could Begin to Take Shape By 2012” for additional background.