Blackhawk’s Would-Be Demise Ires Congress, Governors

• The state-by-state politics of basing are expected to flare up, not just with the f-35 basing displacement decisions, but also with the seemingly vulnerable decision by the military to do away with National Guard Blackhawk assets. Because National Guard bases are necessarily state-based and distributed in a more geographically diverse fashion, few congressmen or governors will have weak opinions on the matter. Last year, congress blocked the wholesale removal of Blackhawks until at least 2016. The Army’s original suggestion had the Guard keeping just the Lakota multi-use helicopters. Some see a commission being created to offload the hot potato.

Asia

• Multiple reports, including this one from a conservative South Korean daily, indicate that North Korea is seeking to purchase Russian Su-35 fighters. North Korea has serially approached Russian and Chinese governments over the past few decades, seeking to purchase air-to-air capacity, and appears to have been consistently turned down.

• South Korea, meanwhile, selected IAI’s Heron UAV for a planned corps-level round of upgrades. The Heron has had a good run of late in Asia.

• China continues its drumbeat of beautiful military capability images, releasing still more photos apparently geared to domestic audiences. The optimistic interpretation of this is that it is for recruitment purposes. That appears to be the the case, as other reports continue to show the Chinese at pains to downplay military capabilities.

U.S.

• Raytheon sent out a release regarding a successful flight test of an improved APG-79(V)X AESA radar, but more interesting was the sub-header included: “New Capabilities Designed to Lengthen the F/A-18C-D Hornet’s Relevance.” The comparison and potential threat – if remote – to the complete dominance of the behemoth F-35 program is appearing more explicit.

• Boeing delivered immersive F-22 flight simulators to the Air Force, which feature both 360-degree surround imagery, and also consistent availability of oxygen.

• The U.S. Army issued an RFP for full rate production for its JTRS HMS radio system, with plans to test units over 2015-1016, “off-ramping” multiple vendors who do not meet requirements and going into full production in 2017. This, despite consistent reports that the design is less effective, heavier and much disliked by units who have operationally tested it.

• Today’s video shows the silence of electric motorcycles, something the video slowly conveys as one realizes that the rider’s breathing can be heard…

New Silent Motorcycles Eyed for U.S. Special Ops

Silent Hawk Prototype

Special Forces has had an abiding interest in silenced motorcycles as stealthy and quick insertion/extraction vehicles – and, not just from having viewed Chuck Norris’s 1986 cheesy Delta Force movie, where his trusty motorcycle was portrayed as a Batmobile-like source of plot moving tricks. Air force combat controller teams (CCTs) have been shoving dirt bikes out of airplanes at least since 2010. A 2012 Marine Corp report cited motorcycle use by MARSOC operators, and the Marines have been conducting dirt bike training by third party vendors contracted as early as February 2012. But the airdrop and landing can cause temporary fuel system issues at precisely the wrong moment.

Special Forces toyed with the electric Zero MMX concept a couple years ago, but ditched it due to battery concerns. That vehicle found a home at the LAPD a year later. The electric bike’s charge lasted for only a couple hours.

DARPA gave a grant to Logos Technologies around that time to develop a hybrid bike that could run on several fuels and also support an electric motor with about 50 miles of range. That grant was only $150,000. Things appear to have advanced adequately to have earned a second grant. A Logos representative contacted this morning indicated the new grant was for $1 million.

The bike, called now the Silent Hawk (not to be confused with the silenced SOF helicopters revealed in the aftermath of the 2011 Bin Laden operation), is based on an electric racing bike frame made by Alta Motors. The hybrid engine is Logos Technologies’ development, reportedly from one they developed for a secret drone project.

An example of the sound profile of current electric racing cycles can be seen in the video below. The bike used in the video is a Redshift model, the one employed by Logos for the first Darpa grant’s testing (although with a different engine than the one featured below):