Dutch F-16, Kandahar
(click to view full)

Raytheon recently announced a competitive contract win in The Netherlands for 200 of their Enhanced Paveway II dual-guidance GPS/laser-guided bomb kits. The contract is a direct commercial sale rather than a Foreign Military Sale, and the kits will fit 500 pound bombs, turning them into precision-guided GBU-49s. Cost was not disclosed.

The GBU-49 has been used extensively in Iraq, and will not be blocked by haze, sandstorms, and other weather conditions. Adding it to the Dutch arsenal will give their F-16s potent options for close air support in Afghanistan. Dual-guidance precision bombs are becoming more popular; France and Britain have recently taken similar steps.

PAF F-16A drops Mk.82s
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On June 28/06, the US DSCA notified Congress via a series of releases of its intention to provide Pakistan with a $5.1 billion Foreign Military Sales package to upgrade the F-16s that serve as the PAF’s top of the line fighters. Some of these items had been put on hold following the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan & Kashmir, but the request for 36 new F-16 Block 50/52s is now going ahead following the required 30-day review period, along with new weapons, engine modifications, 60 F-16 upgrade kits that would cover Pakistan’s older F-16 A/Bs plus other aircraft it might buy second-hand, and related equipment.

These items are detailed below… along with controversies the proposed sales have created, and some of the conditions attached to the sale by the US government. Another piece of the contract has gone through via engineering change and support purchases.

• Item 1: 36 New F-16 Block 50/52s – $3 billion
• Item 2: Weapons for the New F-16s – $650 Million
• Item 3: F-16A/B Mid-Life Update Modification Kits – $1.3 billion
• Item 4: F-16A/B Engine Modifications & UP/STAR – $151 Million
• Deal Updates and Progress [updated]
• Potential Controversies (July 5, 2006)
  
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F-35A AA-1
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The F-35 Lightning II is a major multinational program which is intended to produce an “affordably stealthy” multi-role strike fighter that will have three variants: the F-35A conventional version for the US Air Force et. al.; the F-35B Short Take-Off, Vertical Landing for the US Marines, British Royal Navy, et. al.; and the F-35C conventional carrier-launched version for the US Navy. The aircraft is named after Lockheed’s famous WW2 P-38 Lightning, and the Mach 2, stacked-engine English Electric (now BAE) Lightning jet. System development partners included The USA & Britain (Tier 1), Italy and the Netherlands (Tier 2), and Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Turkey (Tier 3). Now the challenge is agreeing on production phase membership and arrangements, to be followed by initial purchase commitments around 2008-2009.

This updated article has expanded to feature more detail regarding the $300 billion F-35 program, including other contracts as well as notable events. As a result of reader feedback, we’ll make the new material more visible by putting it in green type. Recent news involves insight into the program’s integrated global design & production process, a weapons change, and an effort to make its engine lighter…

• The F-35 Family of Aircraft (i.e. “Continue reading…”)
• F-35 Program: Production Timelines & Structure
• F-35 Program: Events & Developments (FY 2007-08) [updated]
• F-35 Program: System Development & Production Contracts (FY 2006-08)
• F-35 Program: Ancillary and Sub-contracts [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
  
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Paveway-IV components
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In 2003, Raytheon UK operation won the GBP 120 million pound contract to develop and produce Paveway IV, beating Boeing’s INS/GPS guided JDAM. The GPS/INS and laser-guided 500-pound bombs are a British project, and will add a number of other enhancements including longer range than previous Paveway versions. See Raytheon brochure [PDF format] | RAF | Defence Suppliers Directory (not MoD).

The British military had wanted to deploy Raytheon’s latest Paveway IV bombs in Afghanistan by September 2007, on board its newly-upgraded Harrier GR9 aircraft. Unfortunately, a recent MoD statement reveals that testing problems with the Thales UK’s Aurora fuze have removed that option. Did that stop the British? No, and now a contract has been finalized to add another platform…

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Rafale, Mirage 2000D
over Afghanistan
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Projects to give GPS-guided smart bombs dual-guidance capability are popular these days. Israel has developed its GPS/EO Spice bomb, the USA has Laser JDAMs, and Britain has cobbled together a Paveway II+ as an interim step while working on its own Paveway IV. The combination provides the improved accuracy and ability to hit moving targets offered by laser-guidance, with GPS available as a backup that allows the pilot to drop bombs even through weather conditions that would defeat lasers. While the Spice is entirely autonomous thanks to its use of cameras + image recognition technology as a final guidance corrective, the laser/GPS combination relies on either a targeting pod or another targeting laser source to light up its quarry for final adjustments. If weather conditions allow laser use closer to the ground, it may even be possible to receive all the benefits of dual laser/GPS guidance despite poor conditions at altitude.

Now StrategyPage reports that France is will be spending $22 million to switch out the guidance units, and upgrade its U.S. made Paveway IIs to dual laser/GPS mode. In addition to the targeting benefits above, this combination offers France in particular some operational advantages. The Armee de l’Air has been using laser-guided weapons in Afghanistan, and American Paveway IIs were picked because the Safran AASM bomb was late, at an integration and testing cost of EUR 5 million for the Rafale. Unfortunately, the new Rafale fighters won’t have independent laser targeting capability until 2010, when Thales’ Damocles pods arrive. Instead, they’ve been relying on Mirage 2000Ds and Super Etendards equipped with older Atlis-II and PDL-CT pods to provide that surveillance, and using Link 16 et. al. to transfer the coordinates (interesting note re: Rafale F2 pilots’ use of binoculars as an equally valuable tool).

A quick program to add GPS capabilities to the Paveway-IIs would give the Rafales a whole new set of options, greatly increasing their flexibility.

A-10 over Germany
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The Precision Engagement modification is the largest single upgrade effort ever undertaken for the USA’s unique A-10 “Warthog” close air support aircraft fleet. when complete, it will give them precision strike capability sooner than planned, combining multiple upgrade requirements into one time and money-saving program rather than executing them as standalone projects. Indeed, the USAF has accelerated the PE program by 9 months as a result of its experiences in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The entire A-10 fleet will be modified over 4-5 years, at an estimated total cost of $420 million. While A/OA-10 aircraft continue to outperform technology-packed rivals on the battlefield, this set of upgrades is expected to help keep the aircraft current until the fleet’s planned phase-out in 2028. Overall, an April 2, 2007 GAO report places the potential total cost of upgrading, refurbishing, and service life extension plans for the A/OA-10 force at up to $4.4 billion.

This is DID’s FOCUS Article for the PE program, and for other modifications to the A-10 fleet. It covers the A-10’s battlefield performance and advantages, the elements of the PE program, other planned modifications, and the contracts that have been issued each step of the way. In the latest updates, the 100th A-10C has rolled off the line, and Boeing is laying the foundations for the wing replacement program…

• A/OA-10 Thunderbolt II: Experiences on the Ground
• The A/OA-10 Precision Engagement Modification Program
• A-10 PE, Other Planned Improvements
• Contracts & Key Events
• Additional Readings & Sources
  
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In “Saudis Seek Sniper ATP Supplementation for F-15S,” DID noted gathering opposition in the US Congressthat was slowing weapons requests, and had resulted in postponement of the planned request for JDAM GPS-guided bombs. On Jan 14/08, the US DSCA annouced the Government of Saudi Arabia’s official request for 900 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) tail kits: 550 GBU-38s for the 500 pound MK-82 bombs, another 250 GBU-31s for the 2,000 pound MK-84s, and 100 GBU-31s for BLU-109 2,000 pound “bunker buster” bombs). Also included are bomb components, mission planning, aircraft integration, publications and technical manuals, spare and repair parts, support equipment, contractor engineering and technical support, and other related elements of program support. The estimated cost is $123 million, and Boeing would be the prime contractor.

The JDAMs are specifically noted as being “for use on RSAF F-15S aircraft”; though its Tornado GR4 fleet would also present a logical set of candidates, JDAM requires a MIL-STD-1760 data bus. Implementation of this sale would require the assignment of approximately 4 contractor representatives to Saudi Arabia to provide technical assistance to integrate the weapons into the operational units, plus annual 1 week Program Management Reviews in Saudi Arabia with U.S military and contractor personnel.

If the sale goes through. Congressional opposition hasn’t gone away, and the Saudi sale will face a serious fight…

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Tornado GR4
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With the retirement of the RAF’s Jaguar fleet, the core of Britain’s land-based tactical air fleet rests in a pair of multinational European fighters. The new Eurofighter Typhoon is one of the top 3 air superiority fighters in the world, and enhancements are finally beginning to give it some precision strike capability. The mainstay of the existing fleet is made up of the British-Italian-German Panavia consortium’s Tornado aircraft, in both F3 air defense and GR4 low-level precision strike configurations.

The F3s are being pushed aside by the Eurofighters, but the GR4s are expected to remain in place for a while yet. A recent move added LITENING surveillance and targeting pods, to improve the aircraft’s close air support capabilities on the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan. Now a GBP 253 million (about $496 million) “Capability Upgrade Strategy (Pilot)” program seeks to take the next steps, and is intermeshed with the Tornado fleet’s successful ATTAC fixed-price through-life maintenance program…

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B-2 drops JDAM
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Precision bombing has been a significant military goal since the invention of the Norden bomb sight in the 1920s, but its application remained elusive. Over 30 years later, in Vietnam, the destruction of a single target could require 300 bombs, which meant sending an appropriate number of fighters or bombers into harm’s way to deliver them. Even the 1991 Desert Storm war with Iraq featured unguided munitions for the most part; the US Air Force did use some laser and TV-guided weapons like Paveway bombs and Maverick missiles, but they were very expensive and only effective in good weather. If precision bombing was finally to become a reality throughout the Air Force, a new approach would be needed.

The Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) became that alternative, an engine of military transformation that was also a model of procurement transformation. The DID FOCUS Article looks at the transformational history of the JDAM program, the ongoing efforts to bring its capabilities up to the level of weapons like Israel’s Spice, and the contracts issued under the JDAM program and its derivatives. The latest news is a $100+ million contract for most of FY 2008’s budgeted production, allied requests, and testing of an advanced anti-jam system…

• JDAM: A History of Transformation (i.e. Continue reading…)
• JDAM: Program & Variants [updated]
• JDAM: Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources

F-16F “Desert Falcon”
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Note: a technical issue in which this story’s database tag was mysteriously changed to a non-public setting may have affected viewing for some readers before it was reported and fixed. This is a problem we’ve had before with our back end, and we’re looking into more permanent fixes that will remove the problem entirely.

The F-16 has become what its designers intended it to be: a worthy successor to the legendary P-51 Mustang whose principles of visibility, agility, and pilot-friendliness informed its design. It is no exaggeration to call it the defining fighter of its age, the plane that many people around the world think of when they think “fighter.” The aircraft’s ability to handle future adversaries like the thrust-vectoring MiG-29OVT/35 and advanced surface-air missile systems is in question, but upgrades have kept F-16s popular and in production.

The most advanced F-16s in the world, however, are not American. That distinction belongs to the United Arab Emirates, whose F-16 E/F Block 60 are a generation ahead of the F-16 C/D Block 50/52+ aircraft that form the backbone of the US fleet and many others around the world. The Block 60 has been described as a lower-budget alternative to the forthcoming F-35A Joint Strike Fighter – and is being treated as such in countries like India and the Netherlands as they contemplate their future fighter needs. The UAE invested in the type’s development, and with that investment comes inevitable fielding, training, and equipping needs. This DID article showcases the F-16 E/F “Desert Falcon,” and offers a window into associated costs. The latest item is a significant weapons request to equip their fleet…

• The F-16E/F “Desert Falcon”
• Contracts and Key Events
• Additional Readings
  
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