US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Air Force Brat said:

Notice that 123-678 throttles are "advanced" and he's got 4 and 5 throttled back, and just jockeying those two inboard engines in order to "join up" with the tanker,,, then he will have to fly an extremely close "intrail formation"....

that enables him to only use the inboard engines for minimal yaw affect, and those two engines allow him to adjust power in a "1/4" dose of what would be happening with all 8 engines...

So it takes a larger advance or retard movement of those two throttle levers, making "power management much easier as he eases into position, and once in position, it will be much easier to hold in position...

brilliant, and I never would have guessed??

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HII Awarded $29.4M Planning Contract for USS Fitzgerald Restoration; Total Repairs Estimated at $370M

The shipyard tasked restoring the guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) was awarded a $29.4 million for the initial planning work to repair the warship, according to a recent Pentagon contract announcement.

The service announced the ship would be repaired at Huntington Ingalls Industries yard in Mississippi in August.

Fitzgerald collided with a merchant ship on June 17 resulting in the death of seven sailors in a shipping channel off the coast of Japan. In addition to a hole punched in the ship below the waterline, the collision damaged to several high-end electronic systems, such as the integrated radio room on the ship and the starboard forward array of the ship’s A/N-SPY1D(v) air search radar.

“This initial planning and preparation phase of an availability will include a combination of restoration and modernization of USS Fitzgerald,” read the announcement.
“USS Fitzgerald is planned to arrive at Ingalls Shipbuilding in December 2017 via heavy lift ship.”

The service is set to award a modification to cover the full restoration in December, the announcement said.

According to an early Navy estimate obtained by USNI News, the total cost of the repair to Fitzgerald is about $367 million — to include the transport and refurbishment. The repair will take more than a year and be paired with a planned modernization for the ship that was planned before the collision.

The Navy is also evaluating repairs to USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) that was struck by a merchant tanker on Aug. 21 off of Singapore that resulted in the death of ten sailors. The ship set to be taken to the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Japan by heavy-lift transport for further evaluation. Early estimates put the repair cost at $223 million. It’s unclear if the ship will have to be transported back to the United States.

The following is the complete contract announcement.

Huntington Ingalls Inc. – Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi, is being awarded a $29,378,128 cost-plus-fixed fee contract for initial planning of USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) emergent repair and restoration. This initial planning and preparation phase of an availability will include a combination of restoration and modernization of USS Fitzgerald. USS Fitzgerald is planned to arrive at Ingalls Shipbuilding in December 2017 via heavy lift ship. A contract modification to incorporate full restoration and modernization scope is anticipated December 2017. The initial phase of work will be performed in Pascagoula, Mississippi and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2017. Fiscal 2017 operations and maintenance (Navy) funding in the amount of $29,378,128 will be obligated at time of award and contract funds in the amount of $29,378,128 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The contract was awarded on a sole-source basis under an unusual and compelling urgency basis (Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)) FAR 6.302-2 as outlined in Justification and Approval 41,320 dated Aug. 28, 2017. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity (N00024-17-C-4444).

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FORBIN said:

No i don't pilot a little bird as you

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The U.S. Air Force is changing the way it inspects, maintains and repairs the B-1B based on initial results from full-scale fatigue testing, but the service does not anticipate any major structural life extension to keep the “Bone” fleet flying through 2040.

B-1B wing and fuselage testing are being carried out by

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in Tukwila, Washington. The same company also is putting the airframes of the Air Force’s

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/D Eagle and F-15E Strike Eagle through their paces in St. Louis.

The B-1B entered service in 1986 and the Air Force retains an active inventory of 62 aircraft assigned to squadrons at Dyess AFB, Texas, and Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota. So far, of those aircraft, 32 have been modernized through the Integrated Battle Station upgrade process at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.

In 2012 and 2013, Boeing began fatigue testing the wing and fuselage, respectively, to validate the predicted life of the B-1B, which at the time was forecast to fly through 2050.

With 72% of wing testing and 20% of fuselage fatigue testing now complete, the Air Force estimates the B-1B can operate through 2040 without needing an expensive life extension.

Brig. Gen. Michael Schmidt, the Air Force’s program executive officer for fighters and bombers, says B-1B testing is extremely important and helps identify which parts of the swing-wing supersonic bomber need closer inspection and which need repair or replacing, and in what timeline.

“As of right now, we don’t plan a fully fledged life extension,” Schmidt confirmed during a Sept. 25 interview.
Like the Boeing B-52 and

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B-2, the B-1B was built tough and will fly longer than expected without needing new wings or other major structural upgrades, like smaller fighters and attack aircraft. The B-1B was originally designed to fly 9,681 equivalent flight hours. But data provided by the fighters and bombers directorate at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, shows it lasting far longer. The projected service life of the B-1B, originally built by Rockwell and acquired by Boeing, will reach 19,900 equivalent flight hours, the service says.

There are no plans to conduct fatigue testing or a life extension on the nuclear-armed B-2, the nation’s largest low-observable stealth aircraft, introduced in 1997. “Structurally, the program is great,” Schmidt says. “We don’t have full-scale fatigue testing going on in that platform, and it’s really not required.”

But parts obsolescence is a serious concern for the B-2 fleet, since only 21 aircraft were built and 20 remain in active service. New parts often need to be custom built.

The B-1B doesn’t carry strategic nuclear weapons, but has more payload capacity for guided and unguided weapons than any other aircraft in the U.S. inventory. B-1Bs stationed at Andersen AFB in Guam frequently fly to the Korean Peninsula in response to missile and nuclear warhead tests by Pyongyang.

The Boeing-led Integrated Battle Station is the largest single upgrade of the B-1B since it entered service, improving the front and aft cockpit and introducing a new diagnostics system and Link 16 data link to improve situational awareness and communications for the “Bone” crew.

The B-1B was the first aircraft to carry

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’s extended-range AGM-158B Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, and Schmidt notes that it is now the threshold platform for the Navy’s new AGM-158C Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (Lrasm). The B-1B tested Lrasm against a maritime target at the Point Mugu Sea Range in August, and Schmidt says another test is expected in November. Lrasm will enter service on the B-1B next year, followed by Boeing’s

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/F Super Hornet in 2019.

The B-1B is receiving the

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Multifunctional Information Distribution System-Joint Tactical Radio System (MIDS-JTRS) terminal for improved communications and networking. The bomber will be upgraded with Mode 5 Identification Friend-or-Foe and Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B Out) to meet the

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’s NextGen air traffic mandates.

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Jura said:

Mar 9, 2017

but
Future of JSTARS recap program in question as Air Force explores other options

14 hours ago

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A decision on the future of the JSTARS recap program appears to be imminent, with the U.S. Air Force’s top civilian doubling down on statements that the service would decide whether to cancel the program this month.


By the end of October, the U.S. Air Force will have completed a “rapid assessment” to determine whether the service can use existing platforms — including legacy aircraft, drones and other sensors — to accomplish the mission that a new battlefield management aircraft would be charged with, U.S. Air Force Heather Wilson explained.

“We really want the engineers to look at this. Is it possible to fuse the data? Do we have the technology developed and ready? We don’t want to do some hand-waving over a PowerPoint chart. Really show us that it is possible to do it this way, and what is the timeline by which we can do this. So that’s the scrub that we asked them to do,” she said during an Oct. 5 event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“And yeah, it’s a cycle with the budget, and we know that we’ve got a request for proposals out there, and we’ve got people making decisions. We should be able to make a rapid assessment and a decision so that we can explain to the secretary of defense through the budget process, as well as the other branch of government [Congress] what we think is the best thing to do and lay that out for them.”

Currently, three prime contractors are in source selection for the JSTARS recap competition, which will replace the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System that provides ground surveillance, targeting information and command and control. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and JSTARS incumbent Northrop Grumman have all submitted proposals for the recap program, and Northrop and Raytheon are duking it out to produce the radar that will be integrated with the aircraft.

The JSTARS recap program originated because of the perceived strain to the legacy E-8C fleet, which were thought to reach the end of their lifespans early next decade.

Now U.S. Air Force leaders believe they can fly the E-8Cs until about 2030, and they aren’t convinced a large airborne node is the most survivable way to conduct the mission going forward. As a result, the service is considering whether to cancel the recap program, using existing assets as a stopgap until a more advanced solution is developed.

Speaking broadly about changes to the U.S. Air Force’s space enterprise, Wilson described how the service is weighing how and when to disaggregate platforms, making them more distributed and less vulnerable to attack. “There are tradeoffs there,” she said, adding that the same conversation is happening in the JSTARS recap debate about future command and control.

Her statements don’t appear to bode well for the future of the program.

“We’ve got one large aircraft that we developed in 1991. It’s a great aircraft, a great concept, but technology has moved on from that. And everything is a sensor,” Wilson said.

“If an F-35 can send its picture and its radar image to another aircraft and we’re also pulling all of that down to a ground station in the Middle East, why can’t we do [this] distributed? We’re meeting only 5 percent of combatant commander requirements for battlefield command and control today. Can we do better than this?” she asked. “We’re asking ourselves those questions, and that does mean moving money among programs to try to meet more priorities.”

If the U.S. Air Force decides to move forward with the JSTARS recap, it is expected to award a contract next year to one of the three competitors. The program is worth an estimated $7 billion.

Following Wilson’s speech, Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners said the timing of an October announcement would be consistent with timing on fiscal year 2019 budget decisions.

“There might be more insight here from the Association of the U.S. Army meeting next week, as JSTARS is important for ground forces surveillance and support,” he wrote in a digest to investors.

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Jura said:

Navy-related parts are just
"... a Navy of 346 ships ..."
and
"Heritage calls the 276-ship Navy’s capacity “marginal” and pushes for increases of aircraft carriers from 11 to 12, large surface combatants from 88 to 104, attack submarines from 48 to 66 and amphibious ships from 34 to 38."
and the link to the original report is broken inside
‘A significantly weaker America’: Major study warns of eroding U.S. military
3 hours ago

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An influential Washington think tank with close ties to President Donald Trump’s administration is warning of a significant deterioration of the U.S. Air Force’s fighter capacity.

The Heritage Foundation’s “Index of U.S. Military Strength” shows a significant drop in deliverable fighter capacity in Air Force inventory compared to last year. The Air Force has 923 combat-coded tactical fighter aircraft today. That’s 236 below last year’s figure and 277 below the 1,200 that Heritage believes is needed to fight and win two simultaneous conflicts, the benchmark the think tank uses to measure military strength.

With a fighter pilot shortage approaching 1,000 and a maintenance shortfall of more than 3,000 personnel, the Air Force’s ability to meet wartime requirements will continue to wane, the report predicts.

Heritage scored the Air Force overall as “marginal” in capacity, capability and readiness. In other words, if the U.S. were to become involved in two major regional conflicts at once, the existing force could only just meet the requirements.

Although the overall assessment is unchanged from last year, the think tank warned that all three areas are trending dangerously downward due to increasing evidence of training and maintenance shortfalls, and pilots’ own assessment of their forces.

Heritage stressed that the service cannot afford this deterioration at a time when potential enemies are investing in building up their own forces.

“The Air Force’s overall military strength score continues to trend downward at a time when America’s dominance of the air domain is increasingly challenged by the technological advances of potential adversaries,” according to the report, released Oct. 5. The think tank is particularly concerned with the low number of legacy

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left in the fleet, just 106, and the capability gap created when those last aircraft retire.

There is some good news—the

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, though previously plagued by cost, schedule and technological setbacks, has begun to show signs of strength, the think tank says.

“Experienced fighter pilots now flying the jet have a great deal of confidence in their new fighter, and this program appears to be gaining traction,” the report says.

In the aggregate, Heritage scored U.S. military posture as “marginal” and trending toward “weak”—unchanged from last year’s assessment. This means the current force is likely capable of meeting the demands of a single major regional conflict, but would be “very hard-pressed to do more” and would be “ill-equipped” to handle two major contingencies at once.

Heritage scored the U.S. Army and U.S.

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as “weak,” and the U.S. Navy as “marginal.”

The think tank also scored U.S. nuclear capabilities as “marginal.” One major problem is that the force depends on a very limited set of weapons that are quite old, in “stark” contrast to the “aggressive” programs of potential adversaries. Heritage points to Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as examples, and particularly the aggressive pace of North Korea’s missile testing.

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The Navy plans to stand up two new squadrons to operate its Osprey tiltrotor aircraft for the carrier-onboard-delivery (COD) mission rather than converting its existing COD squadrons.

The current COD units, Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 30 (VRC-30) based at Naval Air Station North Island, Calif., and VRC-40, based at Naval Station Norfolk, Va., provide detachments of C-2A Greyhound COD aircraft on deploying aircraft carriers. The VRCs are units of the airborne early warning (VAW) community, which mostly flies the E-2, the aircraft upon which the C-2A was derived.

To operate the CMV-22B Osprey, which will replace the C-2A in the COD role, the Navy intends to stand up two new Fleet Logistics Support Multi-Mission (VRM) Squadrons, according to Lt. Leslie Hubbell, a spokeswomen for commander, Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet.

“The VRC squadrons will not transition or be redesignated,” Hubbell said in an email to Seapower. “VRM is new community, with a new wing [and], two new VRM squadrons (VRM-30 on the West Coast and VRM-40 on the East Coast).”

Hubbell said there also will be a Navy fleet replacement unit for the new CMV-22B in the future.

The E-2/C-2 type wing — commander, Airborne Command Control and Logistics Wing Pacific — in charge of the Navy’s E-2 and C-2 units has established a detachment at Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., to lay the foundation for Navy crew training in the Osprey in company with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Training Squadron 204.

The Navy plans to procure 44 CMV-22Bs, with deliveries beginning in 2020.

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When a $6 billion program gets nixed, people on the Hill want to know the colossal screw up that led to such a decision. When Air Force rethinks a much-anticipated new battlefield management aircraft, the collective defense community yells about inevitable capability gaps.

People assume some aspect of program planning or program execution went terribly wrong. Or maybe a company overpromised. Or it was just politics at work. These are, in the eyes of many, procurement failures.

But consider what actually inspired the recent decisions to shift the Army’s IT network strategy, and to look at alternatives to replacing the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System. In the case of the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical system, or WIN-T, the Army believed funds would be better filtered into capabilities that will deliver a more survivable, mobile and hardened tactical network. With more aggressive tactics out of Russia and unpredictably on the Eastern European flank, the tactical network, as it is today, didn’t cut it.

As for the JSTARS Recap program, the U.S. Air Force isn’t convinced a large airborne node is the most survivable way to conduct missions going forward. So perhaps cancel the recap program, the service figures, and use existing assets as a stopgap until a more advanced solution is developed.

These are not cases of failure. These are cases of technology progressing far more quickly than two very large, very complex programs could, and the military recognizing that fact before they were on the hook for billions of dollars. WIN-T was established more than 15 years ago. That’s multiple lifetimes by technology standards. Why would we be surprised, therefore, that a complete review of the tactical network identified vulnerabilities and a gap between the rate at which the service was able to modernize and the pace of threats? In the case of JSTARS, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson stated the obvious qutie well: “we’ve got one large aircraft that we developed in 1991. It’s a great aircraft, a great concept, but technology has moved on.” To what? Sensors for one, she said. But C4ISR today goes well beyond that.

These are not failures. The fact that programs are being reevaluated actually hints at progress, of military leadership recognizing that tackling today’s threats with yesterday’s tactics is counterproductive. A failure would more accurately be defined as a program that moves forward on autopilot, even when it’s clear that the approach or the technology no longer meet requirement.

Examples of that happening abound.

So then, maybe the Hill and Pentagon should focus their time not on rationalization for such decisions but rather the broken procurement system that drives so many programs, particularly those driven by advanced technology, to outlive their worth before they are even fielded.

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