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Navy pleased with "Advanced" Super Hornet tests, wants more Growlers
Source: Flightglobal.com 3 hours ago
The US Navy says it is pleased with results of recent flight tests of a Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet that had been upgraded with conformal fuel tanks and an external weapons pod -- a configuration Boeing calls the "Advanced Super Hornet."

Captain Frank Morley, F/A-18 programme manager for the USN, says on 7 April that the tests give lawmakers additional options as they consider whether to add orders for Super Hornets or A/E-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft to the US military's fiscal year 2015 budget.

"The measures we were able to get on signature reduction and flying quality were spot on predications," Morley tells reporters during a press briefing at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space Exposition near Washington, DC. "It helps better inform decisions made through the budget bills and provides options as needed."

Conformal fuel tanks added to the upper fuselage of Super Hornets and belly-mounted external weapons pods are two primary upgrades that Boeing is pitching as its Advanced Super Hornet.

The Advanced model can also be improved with better engines, avionics and weapons systems, including an upgraded radar and improved infrared search-and-track abilities, Boeing has said.

The Advanced Super Hornet designation will be applied to new aircraft and existing aircraft that have been upgraded, Boeing has said.

asset image
Boeing F/A-18E/F Advanced Super Hornet with upper conformal fuel tank.
The US government's fiscal year 2015 budget, which is currently working through Congress, does not include money for more Growlers or Super Hornets, but the USN expressed interest in additional aircraft by adding 22 Growlers to an unfunded list of priorities sent to lawmakers in recent weeks.

Morley says Growler's electronic jamming and other capabilities are critical to the "blue kill chain", the process by which friendly military forces identify, track, target and fire upon enemy forces. They are equally effective in disrupting the enemys ability to do the same against US forces, he adds.

"Given the environment we are [moving] into, that type of airplane plays a major role," Morley says. "You could use a lot of them. You could continue to [identify] places where they could [be of] benefit."

The USN intends to operate Super Hornets through the 2030s, Morley says.

Boeing has been seeking additional orders for Growlers or Super Hornets so as to keep its production line in St. Louis running.

Unless it receives more orders, the line will run out of aircraft to build by the end of 2016, Boeing has said.

If Congress adds 22 Growlers into next fiscal years spending bill, the line would continue running until the end of 2017, Mike Gibbons, Boeing's vice president of the F/A-18 programme, says during the press conference.

Gibbons adds that Growlers are the only aircraft that provide a broad spectrum of electronic protection, allowing fighters and other aircraft to penetrate enemy airspace that is guarded by multiple layers of electronic defence.

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US Navy 'game-changer': converting seawater into fuel

The US Navy believes it has finally worked out the solution to a problem that has intrigued scientists for decades: how to take seawater and use it as fuel.

The development of a liquid hydrocarbon fuel is being hailed as “a game-changer” because it would significantly shorten the supply chain, a weak link that makes any force easier to attack.

The US has a fleet of 15 military oil tankers, and only aircraft carriers and some submarines are equipped with nuclear propulsion.

All other vessels must frequently abandon their mission for a few hours to navigate in parallel with the tanker, a delicate operation, especially in bad weather.

The ultimate goal is to eventually get away from the dependence on oil altogether, which would also mean the navy is no longer hostage to potential shortages of oil or fluctuations in its cost.

Vice Admiral Philip Cullom declared: “It’s a huge milestone for us.”

“We are in very challenging times where we really do have to think in pretty innovative ways to look at how we create energy, how we value energy and how we consume it.

“We need to challenge the results of the assumptions that are the result of the last six decades of constant access to cheap, unlimited amounts of fuel,” added Cullom.

“Basically, we’ve treated energy like air, something that’s always there and that we don’t worry about too much. But the reality is that we do have to worry about it.”

US experts have found out how to extract carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas from seawater.

Then using a catalytic converter, they transformed them into a fuel by a gas-to-liquids process. They hope the fuel will not only be able to power ships, but also planes.

That means instead of relying on tankers, ships will be able to produce fuel at sea.

The predicted cost of jet fuel using the technology is in the range of three to six dollars per gallon, say experts at the US Naval Research Laboratory, who have already flown a model airplane with fuel produced from seawater.

Dr Heather Willauer, a research chemist who has spent nearly a decade on the project, can hardly hide her enthusiasm.

“For the first time we’ve been able to develop a technology to get CO2 and hydrogen from seawater simultaneously, that’s a big breakthrough,” she said, adding that the fuel “doesn’t look or smell very different.”

Now that they have demonstrated it can work, the next step is to produce it in industrial quantities. But before that, in partnership with several universities, the experts want to improve the amount of CO2 and hydrogen they can capture.

“We’ve demonstrated the feasibility, we want to improve the process efficiency,” explained Willauer.

Collum is just as excited.

“For us in the military, in the Navy, we have some pretty unusual and different kinds of challenges,” he said.

“We don’t necessarily go to a gas station to get our fuel, our gas station comes to us in terms of an oiler, a replenishment ship.

“Developing a game-changing technology like this, seawater to fuel, really is something that reinvents a lot of the way we can do business when you think about logistics, readiness.”

A crucial benefit, says Collum, is that the fuel can be used in the same engines already fitted in ships and aircraft.

“If you don’t want to re-engineer every ship, every type of engine, every aircraft, that’s why we need what we call drop-in replacement fuels that look, smell and essentially are the same as any kind of petroleum-based fuels.”

Drawbacks? Only one, it seems: researchers warn it will be at least a decade before US ships are able to produce their own fuel on board.

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Yahoo News said:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy is planning sea trials for a weapon that can fire a low-cost, 23-pound (10-kg) projectile at seven times the speed of sound using electromagnetic energy, a "Star Wars" technology that will make enemies think twice, the Navy's research chief said.

Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder, the chief of Naval Research, told a round table group recently the futuristic electromagnetic rail gun had already undergone extensive testing on land and would be mounted on the USNS Millinocket, a high-speed vessel, for sea trials beginning in 2016.

"It's now reality and it's not science fiction. It's actually real. You can look at it. It's firing," said Klunder, who planned to discuss progress on the system later on Monday with military and industry leaders at a major maritime event - the Sea-Air-Space Exposition - near Washington.

"It will help us in air defense, it will help us in cruise missile defense, it will help us in ballistic missile defense," he said. "We're also talking about a gun that's going to shoot a projectile that's about one one-hundredth of the cost of an existing missile system today."

The Navy research chief said that cost differential - $25,000 for a railgun projectile versus $500,000 to $1.5 million for a missile - will make potential enemies think twice about the economic viability of engaging U.S. forces.

"That ... will give our adversaries a huge moment of pause to go: 'Do I even want to go engage a naval ship?'" Klunder told reporters. "You could throw anything at us, frankly, and the fact that we now can shoot a number of these rounds at a very affordable cost, it's my opinion that they don't win."

U.S. officials have voiced concerns that tight defense budgets could cause the Pentagon to lose its technological edge over China, Russia and other rivals, who have been developing antiship ballistic missile systems and integrated air defenses capable of challenging U.S. air and naval dominance.

Weapons like the electromagnetic rail gun could help U.S. forces retain their edge and give them an asymmetric advantage over rivals, making it too expensive to use missiles to attack U.S. warships because of the cheap way to defeat them.

Railguns use electromagnetic energy known as the Lorenz Force to launch a projectile between two conductive rails. The high-power electric pulse generates a magnetic field to fire the projectile with very little recoil, officials said.

The U.S. Navy has funded two single-shot railgun prototypes, one by privately held General Atomics and the other by BAE Systems. Klunder said he had selected BAE for the second phase of the project, which will look at developing a system capable of firing multiple shots in succession.

Current projectiles leaving a railgun have a muzzle energy of about 32 megajoules of force, said Rear Admiral Bryant Fuller, the Navy's chief engineer. He said one megajoule would move a one-ton object at about 100 mph.

"We're talking about a projectile that we're going to send well over 100 miles, we're talking about a projectile that can go over Mach 7, we're talking about a projectile that can go well into the atmosphere," Klunder said.

Ships can carry dozens of missiles, but they could be loaded with hundreds of railgun projectiles, he said.

"Your magazine never runs out, you just keep shooting, and that's compelling," Klunder said.

The 2016 sea trials will be conducted aboard the joint forces high-speed cargo ship because it has the space to carry the system on its deck and in its cargo bay. Officials said they would begin looking at integrating the system into warships after 2018.

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U.S. to cut nuclear launchers under treaty with Russia: officials
5:15pm EDT
By David Alexander
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will scale back its nuclear bombers, submarine launchers and ballistic missiles in the first cuts to its leftover cold war nuclear arsenal since ratifying a landmark treaty with Russia in 2011, officials said on Tuesday.
Under the treaty, known as New Start, the U.S. military will disable four missile launch tubes on each of the 14 U.S. nuclear submarines, convert 30 B-52 nuclear bombers to conventional use and empty 50 intercontinental ballistic missile silos, senior administration officials said.
The Pentagon, however, will not retire a missile squadron as some lawmakers had expected.
The treaty caps deployed strategic nuclear warheads, those meant to travel long distances, in Russia and the United States at 1,550 each by 2018, down from the previous ceiling of 2,200. It also resumes inspections of U.S. and Russian nuclear-weapons facilities that ended in 2009 when the original Start lapsed.
The New START treaty, agreed in 2010 and ratified in 2011, also calls for each side to reduce its total number of nuclear weapons delivery systems to no more than 800, with only 700 deployed at any given time.
The United States has 886 deployed and non-deployed delivery systems, officials said, comprising 454 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, 336 Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles and 96 B-2 and B-52 bombers.
To eliminate the 86 excess launchers and reach the total 800 deployed and non-deployed systems, the Pentagon will alter four launch tubes on each of the 14 Trident submarines to render them unusable, eliminating 56 delivery systems. It also will convert 30 B-52 bombers to conventional use, the officials said.
To ensure the number of total deployed launchers is no more than 700, the Defense Department will have two Trident ballistic missile submarines in overhaul at any given time, which would mean their 40 missiles no longer be deployed.
It would maintain six nuclear bombers in non-deployed status, including three test aircraft.
The Air Force has four missile silos for testing that would be considered non-deployed, the officials said. In addition it would remove the missiles from 50 launchers at the three U.S. nuclear bases: F.E. Warren in southeast Wyoming, Minot in North Dakota and Malmstrom in Montana, the officials said.
While some lawmakers had voiced concern an entire ballistic missile squadron would be eliminated under the treaty, officials said spreading the cuts over three bases made that unnecessary.
Critics said the Pentagon could make deeper cuts.
"The administration's plan for adjusting the force to meet New START goals is modest in the extreme and still leaves the U.S. with far more strategic nuclear weapons than the president and the Pentagon say they need for deterrence purposes," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, an antiproliferation group.
The cost of implementing the changes is expected to be about $300 million, with most of the expense being for inactivating the nuclear submarine missile tubes.
U.S. weapons makers are keeping a close eye on plans to modernize the platforms that carry nuclear arms, an effort analysts say will cost $355 billion in coming decades.
Boeing Co has teamed with Lockheed Martin Corp to compete against Northrop Grumman Corp to build a new bomber to carry nuclear weapons. General Dynamics Corp is leading early design work on a new submarine to replace the Ohio-class submarines that carry nuclear weapons.
(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Jason Szep, Andrew Hay, Paul Simao and Eric Walsh)

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Guard chief: 'Decision made' on shifting Apaches to active Army
Apr. 8, 2014 - 02:54PM |


By Michelle Tan
Staff writer Army times


Gen. Frank Grass, who just last week testified on Capitol Hill that he opposes the plan, said on Tuesday that he’s focused now on how to best implement the moves.

“As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we have fought and we have discussed many, many times these topics,” Grass said Tuesday while testifying in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He’s “given my best advice, but the decision has been made,” Grass said.

Air Force Maj. Shannon Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Guard, confirmed Grass’ remarks.

“These are very difficult decisions and there will be more difficult ones yet to come,” she said. “His focus now is to determine the impacts and how best to implement the decision.”

Under the aviation restructuring plan, which is in the Defense Department’s fiscal 2015 budget request, the Army would divest its fleet of OH-58 Kiowa helicopters and use the Apache to fill the Kiowa’s reconnaissance and scout role.

It would pull Apaches from the Guard inventory to fill the gap, and the Army would provide the Guard with UH-60 Black Hawks, which Army officials believe will give the Guard more capability.

Army officials have said the active Army would lose 23 percent of its aircraft while the Guard would lose 8 percent of its inventory under this plan.

It’s widely believed that the six-year aviation restructuring plan will become a reality, and the moves will be completed by the end of fiscal 2019.

Still pending, however, is legislation introduced by Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., that would establish a national commission to study the makeup of the Army and prohibit the service from divesting, retiring or transferring any aircraft from the Army Guard.

Last week, Grass told the House Appropriations Committee the Guard has “provided an alternative solution” that would transfer about 40 percent of its Apaches into the active Army. The Guard would then retain enough Apaches to keep six attack battalions in its formation. The Guard has eight Apache battalions.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, who testified alongside Grass Tuesday, said the aviation restructure allows the Army to “eliminate obsolete airframes, reduce sustainment costs and organize ourselves to meet our operational commitments and imperatives.”

In addition to the aircraft moves, the aviation plan includes inactivating three combat aviation brigades from the active Army and moving all of the active Army’s LUH-72 Lakotas to Fort Rucker, Ala., to be used as training aircraft.

The Army Guard will retain 10 aviation brigades and all of its Lakotas, and receive 111 Black Hawks.

“We must make sure we have the best Army possible, even under full sequestration,” Odierno said.

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

Super high tech low profile NVGs

Night-vision contact lenses may be in your future
Mar. 28, 2014 - 04:03PM |

By Patricia Kime
Staff writer military times
FILED UNDER
News
Military Technology
Night-vision goggle technology has become more effective, streamlined and nimble in the past 10 years. But what if you could ditch that bulky headgear and pop in a pair of night-vision contact lenses?

It may sound like science fiction, but such dime-sized, lightweight optics may be possible in the future, thanks to researchers at the University of Michigan who have created a material that absorbs infrared rays at room temperature and translates them into an electrical signal, much like a silicon chip works with visible light inside a digital camera.

Night-vision contact lenses are still years away, but the engineers working on the base material, Ted Norris and Zhaohui Zhong of Michigan’s College of Engineering, are building a simple camera to prove their material has commercial application.

“If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision,” Zhong said. “It provides you another way of interacting with your environment.”

Here’s what you need to know:

1.
What it is. Graphene is a single-atom layer of graphite. It’s the same material found in that No. 2 pencil you chewed on in school, but constructed so thinly that it’s actually considered two-dimensional. Graphene absorbs a large part of the electromagnetic spectrum, ranging from infrared — the wavelength picked up by NVGs that allows you to see in the dark — to ultraviolet.

2. How it works. Scientists have known since the mid-2000s that graphene absorbs infrared light. But at one atom thick, it can absorb only 2.3 percent of the light that hits it — and that’s insufficient to generate an electric signal strong enough for hardware to convert into a viewable image. “It’s a hundred to a thousand times lower than what a commercial device would require,” Zhong said.

Norris, Zhong and other researchers sandwiched an insulating layer between two graphene layers and then added electric current. When infrared light hits the layered product, its electrical reaction is amplified strongly enough to be converted into an infrared image.

3. What it could be used for (civilian): Norris and Zhong see possibilities that include chips in smartphone cameras for handy night vision, “smart” automobile windshields that improve night driving, improved thermal imaging in search and rescue robots, and new devices that allow doctors to monitor blood flow.

4. What it could be used for (military): This lightweight, super-strong material could eventually make its way into night-vision glasses or contact lenses and other imaging devices such as thermal imaging cameras, aircraft gimbal turrets, missile launch detectors and more.

5. What’s next? The researchers already have been able to produce infrared sensors the size of a pinky fingernail — also about the size of a standard contact lens.

“If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision,” Zhong said. “It provides you another way of interacting with your environment.”

Zhong and Norris are now working on their first camera but will need to pair up with commercial interests or rely on their own entrepreneurial efforts to move their material from the lab to contact lenses and other real-world applications.

“We’re materials scientists, not device people,” Norris said. “But what we do recognize is there are things we can do with these graphene layers that we couldn’t do with other traditional semi-conductors. It has opened up a lot of exciting possibilities,” Norris said.

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Equation said:

Uh oh, looks like nuclear powered submarines and air craft carriers will be a thing of the past in 20 years or so.

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