US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Northrop Grumman will roll-out the first US Navy MQ-4C in June
By: Dave Majumdar Washington DC - 21 hours ago

Northrop Grumman will roll-out the first US Navy MQ-4C in June, company and USN officials say.

The first USN test aircraft is about to enter ground testing, says Captain Jim Hoke, Naval Air Systems Command's (NAVAIR) programme manager for the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned maritime surveillance jet. "Our goal is to have the first flight in early fall," he says-his slides say that date is expected in September. But before then, Northrop Grumman is planning on formally rolling-out the aircraft on 14 June.

The BAMS is expected to become operational in December 2015 with a four-aircraft orbit. The USN hopes to have a five orbit fleet, Hoke says. It will take 68 aircraft to sustain that force over the programme's life due to potential attrition and depot maintenance. But no aircraft will be needed for training, he says, since crews can train purely in a simulator.
In the future, the BAMS will be used as communications relay and it will also takeover part of the Lockheed Martin EP-3 Aries intelligence gathering aircraft's mission, Hoke says. While he says he cannot talk about specifics, the BAMS will likely absorb a portion of the signals intelligence part of that mission.
Captain Aaron Rondeau, programme manager for the new Boeing P-8 maritime patrol aircraft says that future Neptune crews could take partial control of the BAMS aircraft during a mission. That capability would be part of an Increment 3 upgrade for the P-8, Rondeau says.

Click to expand...

bladerunner said:

Interesting program about battleships on youtube

heres the first part

Click to expand...

kwaigonegin said:

any truth to this or just hogwash?

Click to expand...

FoxNews said:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The U.S. military has deployed several F-22s, the nation's most advanced fighter jets, to an allied base less than 200 miles from Iran.

The Air Force strongly denies this deployment is meant as a show of force against Iran or that it is in some way related to a potential strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Rather, it says this is all part of a routine deployment and "security cooperation with regional partners."

The Air Force won't say how many jets were sent or exactly where they are stationed, but privately, U.S. officials have told Fox News the jets are in hangars at the United Arab Emirates' Al Dafra Air Base, a fact first reported by Aviation Week.

The F-22 has not yet seen combat. The jets were not used in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. They are stealth, and they specialize in air-to-air combat, but can also strike air-to-ground if needed. As one Air Force official put it, "this is America's premier fighter jet. It has no rival."

Click to expand...

IN FOCUS: USAF receives last F-22 Raptor
By: Dave Majumdar Washington DC - 11 hours ago

The US Air Force has formally taken delivery of its last F-22 Raptor air dominance fighter from airframer Lockheed Martin.
In an elaborate ceremony held at Lockheed's Marietta, Georgia factory on 2 May, the company's F-22 programme manager Jeff Babione handed over a ceremonial key for the last Raptor to US Air Force (USAF) Chief of Staff Gen Norton Schwartz, who then handed it over to pilot Lt Col Paul "Max" Moga, who then passed it onto his crew chief, Staff Sgt Damon Crawford.

[...]

The delivery of tail number 10-4195 marks the completion of 187 production jets and eight pre-production test aircraft. A far cry from the 750 jets the USAF originally envisioned. The USAF took ownership of the jet with the signing of Form DD-250.

[...]

The USAF is continuing to field upgraded jets with the new Increment 3.1 modernisation package, which greatly increases the jet's air-to-surface punch.
Increment 3.1 adds synthetic aperture radar (SAR) ground mapping capability with which the Raptor will be able to select its own ground targets. It also allows the Raptor to carry eight satellite-corrected inertially-guided 113kg (250lb) Small Diameter Bombs (SDB). The upgrade allows a pilot to manually designate two ground targets at a time using two weapons each, which enables an F-22 to hit four separate targets with its eight weapons.

The USAF's previous Increment 2 configuration enabled each aircraft to strike two fixed targets using its two 454kg (1,000lb) Joint Direct Attack Munition satellite-corrected, inertially guided bombs.

The configuration also provides for improved electronic attack of enemy air defences and an upgraded geo-location capability.

"Currently, 10 aircraft have received the Increment 3.1 upgrade and by the end of 2012 we will have 23 aircraft retrofitted with the Increment 3.1 capabilities," says Col John Williams, chief of the F-22 modernisation branch at the USAF Aeronautical Systems Center. "The current plan calls for all combat-coded aircraft to be retrofitted with the Increment 3.1 upgrade."

[...]

Every Raptor from tail number 03-4045 through 10-4195 will be upgraded with Increment 3.1, according to Air Combat Command (ACC).

In 2014, the USAF will start to field Increment 3.2A. The software-only modification "incorporates new electronic protection techniques and improves the situational awareness of the pilot with the addition of new combat identification techniques", Williams says. It will also correlate data from the Link 16 data-link and fuse it with the F-22's integrated sensors.
That effort will be followed up with an Increment 3.2B upgrade. A Milestone B decision to go ahead with the procurement of Increment 3.2B is planned for December 2012, Williams says. "Kit procurement begins in fiscal year [2016] with kit deliveries in [the third quarter of] fiscal year [2017] and initial installations completed in [the first quarter of fiscal year [2018]," he says.

Increment 3.2B is a hardware and software upgrade that will fully incorporate the
AIM-120D and AIM-9X air-to-air missiles in addition to further upgraded geo-location and electronic protection capabilities.
But according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, it will no longer add the capability to independently re-target eight SDBs at eight separate targets or an automatic ground collision avoidance system (Auto-GCAS). A USAF Scientific Advisory Board study on the Raptor's ongoing oxygen system woes has recommended that an Auto-GCAS be implemented.

Increment 3.2B is a much more complicated upgrade than the previous efforts.
"We will be implementing a new enhanced stores management system, increasing the ability of the aircraft to communicate with the weapons," Williams says. "This change will provide a common split-bus architecture for the Block 30/35 aircraft to support the increased communication requirements of newer weapon systems."

However, the USAF cannot wait until 2017 to launch its newest air-to-air weapons from the Raptor. The service is planning to add a "rudimentary" capability to carry both the AIM-9X and AIM-120D before Increment 3.2B is completed.
The AIM-120D will be added first in Update 4, which the service plans to release to the fleet in 2013. The AIM-9X will be added in Update 5, which is set for a 2015 release. "The AIM-9X effort in Update 5 also serves as a risk reduction activity for Increment 3.2B," Williams says.
Every aircraft from Tail 03-4045 onwards will receive Increment 3.2A and B, says ACC. According to a recent Government Accountability Office report, the cost of the Raptor upgrade programme will total about $9.7 billion.

A further update called Increment 3.2C has recently been renamed Increment 3.3, but the capabilities that it might include have not yet been defined. Williams says it will focus on making sure the Raptor remains compatible with new air traffic control systems.
"The effort will be focused on maintaining airspace access and endeavour to include all of the current airspace mandates like Mode S and Mode 5 as well as other FAA/ICAO mandated requirements," he says.

The F-22 System Program Office is still working on trying to graft an open systems architecture to the jet's computers. [...]

Click to expand...

NATO inks $1.7 billion Global Hawk order
By: Craig Hoyle London - 15 hours ago

NATO has kicked-off its Chicago Summit by signing a €1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) production order for an Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) fleet of unmanned Northrop Grumman Global Hawks.

Inked with prime contractor Northrop on 20 May, the deal will lead to the delivery of five Global Hawks in the Block 40 configuration. Carrying Northrop/Raytheon Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program radar payloads, these will provide the coalition with a new joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability.
The aircraft and their related operating and command and control infrastructure will have their home base at NAS Sigonella in Sicily, alongside other Global Hawks operated by the US Air Force and US Navy.

The NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance Management Agency signed the long-planned deal after protracted negotiations involving the organisation's 28 member states. The programme had initially been expected to deliver a larger fleet of Global Hawks as well as manned surveillance aircraft, but was progressively scaled back because of funding pressures.
Thirteen nations are expected to participate in funding the system's acquisition, introduction and initial maintenance activities, says NATO, listing these as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the USA. "All 28 alliance nations are to participate in the long-term support of the programme," it adds.

Northrop will work with a variety of European companies to deliver the AGS capability. These include EADS defence arm Cassidian, Kongsberg and Selex Galileo, plus numerous subcontractors.
"The ground element, which provides real-time data, intelligence and target identification to commanders within and beyond line of sight, will be wholly produced by European industry, offering direct work in the programme for the participating nations," says Northrop.

Click to expand...

X-47B Advances To Anechoic Testing
By David Fulghum - Source: Aviation Week & Space Technology

David Fulghum/Washington

A pilotless X-47B is slated to be subjected to a burst of electromagnetic energy that will be 10 times that endured by other aircraft being tested to survive the electronic pollution found on an aircraft carrier.

Aerospace officials are pointing to that closely held plan as an important clue about a key mission that the U.S. Navy's next-generation, unmanned combat air system is being designed to perform. The mission is electronic attack—using bursts of high-power microwave (HPM) energy—against enemy electronics such as surface-to-air missiles and the radars that control them. Targets also could include computers, command-and-control centers or anything else that involves the heavy use of electronics.
Unlike other seagoing aircraft, the X-47B, a surrogate for the unmanned carrier-launched airborne surveillance and strike (Uclass) aircraft, will not be tested to an electromagnetic interference (EMI) level of 200 volts per meter. Instead, the design will have to survive and operate in a stunning environment of 2,000 volts per meter.

That means the Navy wants a design for its Uclass program that would be able to fire a permanently installed, rechargeable, anti-electronics weapon and withstand the sidelobes and errant electronic spikes that may occur when it is fired. Such an HPM device could be used at close range against enemy electronics without damaging the Uclass system's own electronics and flight controls.
As part of the testing, a trip to the anechoic chamber at NAS Patuxent River, Md., is next on the X-47B's test agenda.
“We will spend the better part of this spring doing electromagnetic compatibility testing,” says Capt. Jaime Engdahl, who represents the unmanned combat air system demonstration (UCAS-D) program.
“Does [the future Uclass aircraft] have to be the [X-47B size]?” he asks. “It was developed under the J-UCAS [Joint Unmanned Combat Air System] program and was sized for an internal weapons bay to carry 4,500 pounds of weapons and some electronic warfare weapons.”

Click to expand...