Fun -n - Games with the Air Force

Ok, I am back. And why not come back having fun at the expense of the Boys-n-Blue, the USAF. A crew from the 411th Aircraft Maintenance Unit (an F-22 unit) beat out all commers for the highly prized "Weapons Loader" competition held at Edwards AFB. This 3-Man Person Crew from the 411 Aircraft Maintenance Unit (AMU) beat out all other competitors for the distinction of best Wewpons Loaders for the First Quarter of 2011. There is a long and drawn out history of quickly and safely loading aircraft with the weapons of war. An important skill and a competiton started before the Korean war during the very infantancy of the USAF. More here. What’s so funny You say? Well, when you read what these guys were actually doing you too will be saying “WTF” and I am not talking about winning the Future either. Look, way back when this competion started there was a huge need to quickly reload aircraft with the munitions necessary to prosecute a war. We are talking about dozens of bombs, rockets and even a few missiles were part of the war load on the old workload aircraft in the way back. Your FB-111s, F-4’s, B-66, B-58’s and the F-100 series of aircraft, these things could carry some iron. The competition described in the above dispatch from Edwards AFB was for each 3-person crew to load a single AIM-120 missile onto their target aircraft.. One, 1, uno, a single missile. And I am talking it was actually hauled around and held up to the aircraft using a spotting dolly, a self propelled one at that. In my day you loaded bombs the old fashion way, with a friggin hernia bar! Picture taken from MidwaysAircraft.org website. I amsuspecting this is a test load because of the Civilians doing the loading and the lack of markings on the weapons shapes. The Yellow bar they are gripping is the hernia bar and it is used to help load the store to the aircraft rack. On the really heavy stuff we would put a harnia bar out the back end of the bomb too and get several more knuckle draggers to lift the shape to the rack.

LIKE THIS: Oh and that is not the birghtest part of this, seems there were only TWO crews available for the competiton. The F-22 crew that won it all here and a Crew from the F-35 JSF Aircraft Maintenance Unit. All the other possible participants (F-15, F-16, B-1, and B-2s) well they were all busy, something about having to put aircraft in COMBAT, you know, out fighting 3 air wars all at once.

Yeah, you can keep that fancy and expensive F-22 here in CONUS fighting for prime space and per diem money at Air Shows while the rest of Air Combat Command is out you know, in COMBAT. And you can keep your SORRY ASS excuse for why the most formidable fighter known to mankind is sitting this one out. Hell, the B-1 and B-2 crews are flying from CONUS to Libia and back. Why not simply put some F-22's in Italy? Who knows, I am sure there is some lame ass reason for needing specialized basing and maintenance on site to keep it here. Good deal on that at some where over $400 Million bucks an airframe.

Oh, its good to be back. By the way, my dearly and most recently departed Father was in the Air Force and my SN1 serves today with the Indiania Air National Guard. But still, easy pickens!!

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Strike Eagle Down in Libya

A USAF F-15E Strike Eagle fell out of the sky over eastern Libya. The Eagle was assigned to the "Madhatters" of th 492nd Fighter Squadron out of Lakenheath, England.

The aircraft was felled by mechanical failure not enmey action and the Crew is safe. One having been recovered by a USMC TRAP Team using a MV-22 Osprey. The other crewman was found by people on the ground friendly with the push to oust the current regime and he was returned to another Allied CSAR crew.

Here is video of the crash site which shows clearly the aircraft is an F-15. The amazing part is that one of the AIM-120 Air to Air missiles survived the crash and people are standing around it like is was just another part of the aircraft.




Scary.

TRAP: This is what the Marines do that the USAF calls CSAR (Combat Search and Rescue): TRAP is Tactical Recovery of Aircaft and Personnel. My son who was assigned to the 1st Battalion of the 5th Marines was assigned to a TRAP team when he deployed on his MEU several years ago. Story here (My Son was actually part of this training evolution). Back then he performed this action out of either the MH-53 Sea Stallion or the CH-46 Sea Knight flown by the Heavy squadron in his MEU. They use the MV-22 for that now due largely to its impressive speed and range.

I am a fan of regime change in any country that has a history of killing Americans which this regime fall into. I wish the PresBO had handled this differently and was actually putting the U.S. in a Leadership role in this as oppossed to what will be a supporting role. Had we done this three weeks ago I am sure it would be over by now.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Tanker Wars - Update

Time for some KC-X Tanker news. The original a time frame for the award of this long awaited program has slipped into February however; this could slip as well since the Senate took up hearings on the program.

Specifically the Senate is looking at the inadvertent release of proprietary cost data from one bidder to another. So, no telling how much this meddling will cost the program. Now, that is not to play down the seriousness of a release of this nature but to keep the wheels on this apple cart you have to find out if the data actually caused comprise. A forensic examination of the computer system used by an EADS Administrative employee was conducted by the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center. They determined that a single page in one document was opened for 3 minutes. EADS claims that the people only looked at the data for about 15 seconds and claim no harm no foul. But they did move this person to another area not related to the KC-45 program which is the aircraft in their offer to the Air Force. Boeing testified that they did not open their set of data which was supposed to go to EADS. It seems their Administrative employee was smart enough to look at the labeling on the CD’s and see that it was proprietary to EADS and stopped. Bigger story here if you want.

In other news Boeing bowed out of the Indian Indigenous Tanker competition claiming they wanted to focus on the USAF KC-X program. Yeah, maybe they don’t want to get into another pissing contest over the size ambiguity in these requests for Tanker aircraft. The two aircraft the KC-767 and the KC-45 (based on an Airbus A330) are nowhere near the same size standard and since Airbus had so much help funding the building of the baseline aircraft it is very hard for Boeing to compete. I can understand that, if you are given the airframe for free you undercut anyone else trying to bid against you that had to pay for their fuselage out of their own pocket, and since no one seems willing to penalize Airbus for these illegal subsidies (to the tune of $200 Billion dollars, per the WTO) then you should walk. (WTO Story here)

Over in EADS land they had some interesting news. During a test of their A330 MRTT aircraft their much vaunted advanced Boom fell off. While in contact with an Spanish Air Force F-16. Both aircraft sustained damage and both returned safely to mother earth. I am sure the flight suit in one aircraft had to be changed, when you see that huge boom apparatus falling on you while you are at 15,000 feet I am sure you leave spots in the poopy suit. From Flightglobal is the big story but here is a quote from airbus:

”The boom detached at the root of the structural mast," says Airbus Military, responding to questions from Flightglobal. "There is no damage to the boom attachment, nor is there any significant damage to the [aircraft's] fuselage," it adds.

Photo from Airbus/EADS.

Meanwhile later in the month: “The Airbus Military A330 MRTT successfully passed fuel to receiver aircraft using the Fuselage Refueling Unit (FRU) for the first time.” (Source is Flightglobal, again) The FRU is the hose and drogue unit that is mounted on the aircrafts fuselage centerline (it is also equipped with wing mounted hose and drogue units). This is good news; Airbus had been having a lot of trouble getting the FRU to work. I guess getting that pesky Boom thingie out of the way really helped.

Well, I am sure Lawyers are circling just waiting to be called in and for Protest fire support in both camps. Even with an award today this program is far from over.

Shame on the DOD and USAF for doing such a lousy job all around on this program. Like the vampire that it has been it is almost time to put a steak into it and end all the misery.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Thanks to http://www.alert5.com/ Great site for up to the minute aerospace and military aviation news.

According to USAF personnel the exact cause of the first combat loss of a CV-22 Osprey may never be known. Right now the AIB or Accident Investigating Board for the crash is leaning on blaming the pilot for the crash however, one of the investigators seems to feel the aircraft itself has some blame as well if not completely. See Story here.

Be it power loss or Pilot Error (the usual when a crash cannot be explained) there are mixed opinions on the exact cause which may never be found largely because the aircraft went down in a combat zone and had to be destroyed after everyone was pulled out of the aircraft (16 wounded and 4 KIA including the pilot at the controls).

Now normally that would be the end of the story but, the question of the engine problem kept cropping up especially since the stock V-22 comes equipped with an extensive in-flight monitoring system designed to store away not just engine operating parameters but also flight control inputs and many other environmental and flight characteristics that would easily clear up this conflict. Designed to fit in the handy “crash proof” container. So, where is this magical black box? Was it not retrieved along with the Crypto gear and other high value and classified avionics from the aircraft carcass prior to it being intentionally destroyed?

Yeah, well actually it was left behind.

In this story from Defense Tech they relate the story of how the box was seen but left on the ground with the aircraft wreckage because it was not on the master list of items to retrieve prior to aircraft destruction. Left behind and it had all the answers or at least more clues. Destroyed or stolen either way it was not brought out of the field.

Quoting from here (emphasis added):

Several rescue and salvage crews failed to grab the critical device because the incident recorder was not among the items listed for recovery at the crash site, according to Harvel. This was apparently due to a translation problem between U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force manuals for the V-22.

AFSOC inherited instructional manuals — called “Dash-1s” — for the CV-22 from the Marine Corps’ MV-22B units. It was necessary to translate the manuals from Marine piloting and maintenance jargon to USAF terminology, but the translators made a few mistakes, Harvel says.

“Somehow in that translation there was nothing in [the AFSOC manual] that showed this aircraft had a FIR,” he says.

“They had absolutely no idea.”

As a result, he adds, the FIR “was never on the list to get that off the airplane” after a crash.

Ok then, it seems like there is a problem here with not having Translators available to the USAF to clean-up their manuals. Now, where does one go to get a Marine Translator? Well, maybe the Navy has them since they seem to have Marines on some of their ships, maybe the White House has them to spare also since they fly the President around in a Marine Helicopter. It seems to me that finding a Marine Translator would have been easier than say, a Klingon Translator.

And let us ask some other more poignant questions, if not more sincere. How many years has the USAF been flying the CV-22? I did some digging and found that the first production CV-22 was delivered to the USAF at Edwards AFB in September 2005. This particular aircraft was a version of the MV-22B that the Marines use but equipped with RADAR and IR equipment that the Marines do not use. The AFSOC received its first production fully combat ready aircraft in March of 2006. So the USAF had 5 years to get this “translation” done and the AFSOC had more than 4-years to figure out all that specialized Marine jargon and find the USAF equivalent terminology.

What a shame.

Now back to some snark. In the world of the US Military the Marines are labeled as the most serious organized killing machine in the world however, no one and I mean NO ONE in the US Military family claims them as the smartest. Not by a long shot. In fact I would guess that the USAF would claim being the smartest because they get all the latest gear and have found a way to keep from actually getting dirty during war time. So the USAF would claim to be the smartest. Yet, they can’t figure out Marine jargon? And they have had 4 to 5 years to carry those nasty dirty Marine manuals over to the nearest Navy base and ask them for some help with the Translation. / Snark off.

If people had not died and the fact that the AIB is willing to impune the reputation of the Pilot that died in this incident this would be laughable. But the whole AFSOC should be ashamed for not catching this and more importantly, using “translation” of a brother service’s jargon as the excuse. Especially since there are several Standards and Specifications that detail the use of acronyms and abbreviations used in the development of military documentation.

Back home here in the swamp, we live with a Marine and being a former Squid I know how to translate so that my wife and the mother of said Marine has a way to communicate without too many hand signals. I am available to the USAF to assist them in any further “translations” that they may need. Just saying.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Boeing versus Airbus - I Rant

It’s no secret around here that I do not like EADS/Airbus (not necessarily their products) and most especially in their competition with Boeing for the future of Big Wing Tankers in the USAF (known as the KC-X program).

I have been doing some reading more and more lately on the posturing between the two companies both trying to use the press and various public meetings (Associations and Conferences) to game the KC-X in their direction. It is understandable given the shear amount of money at stake.

For many years I would not book a flight on an Airline that had Airbus products in their inventory. I did not want to take the risk of wanting to get home and riding on an Airbus aircraft. Now this was not an irrational fear, it was based on how aircraft are certified in the US versus Europe and in the general philosophy in who or what runs the cockpit and what actually fly’s the aircraft. But, with all the consolidation that has occurred in the Airline business the fleets have not become mixed (except for Southwest but they don’t fly to Europe). These issues are not why I am not an Airbus advocate in regards to the KC-X program. They are more personal and subject of another post.

But what is it that really gets me going about this? Why do I have such animosity towards Airbus? Well, it’s because they are over here competing against US companies using our system against those very companies and all the while shielded by virtue of how they are organized and their business motives in the first place.

Let me try to explain.

Boeing is a “for profit” business. At the end of the day, they have to turn a profit. They owe that money back to grow the company, to expand their capabilities, conduct R&D and build new and upgrade their existing facilities (I am sure they are getting that Green Agenda shoved up their Ass too). And they also have to post a dividend to their investors. If they don’t do these things, especially this last item, they go out of business.

They are first and foremost a business proposition whose first rule is to make more money than it takes them to operate.

EADS/Airbus on the other hand is not such a company. Their first priority as pushed by their ownership is Jobs. That’s right, Jobs. You see, EADS/Airbus is what we call here a GSE – Government Sponsored Enterprise. As such the partner governments participate simply to put people to work. They actually negotiate in which country parts of the aircraft are built to keep folks in work or when they expand they negotiate a pro-rated share between themselves.

You see the “Investors” in EADS/Airbus are governments that do not care if the company itself makes a profit. In fact when the company is losing money on a project the governments all get together and decide on how to split the bill to make up the loss.

In the long and twisted development of the Airbus A380 the world’s largest commercial passenger aircraft, the company either miss-managed the program or vastly underestimated the complexity of building an aircraft of this dimension (most likely IMHO). To the tune of $3-Billion Dollars (which increased the per aircraft price by 25%). That is a huge number by any standards. But, the governments which all share in the EADS/Airbus consortium coughed up that overrun in order to keep the Job’s created by building that huge aircraft.

And that is not the only case, the A340 was heavily subsidized and so was the A330 aircraft which is the offering that EADS has in the KC-X competition (to the tune of $5 Billion on that airframe alone). More recently, their new Military Airlifter the A400M is also way over budget and getting extra influx of overrun money. And Here!

And that’s not all folks. As part of it’s overhead expense that Boeing has to deal with is the cost of Health Care and Retirement or Pension payouts which EADS/Airbus does not have on its ledger. You see, in all 4 of the countries in the Airbus consortium the government provides both the Health Care and the Pension for the employees of the Airbus company.

How is this fair to Boeing, to the USAF or even to the USA?

Oh many will say that Boeing gets plenty of subsidies in the way of US Military contracts or offsets in local and state income taxes. But these are stalking horse arguments. While the parent company holds domain over the entire company, the Commercial and Military parts are operated as separate cost centers. Each has to perform on its own independent of the other. So, the Commercial Airplane Company gets no benefit by the Military side winning contracts. As for the deferral of taxes at the local and state level, I can’t see how that would amount to enough to even argue about especially since most of this is granted as Tax Credits which come out on a year to year basis AT THE END OF THE EACH YEAR. Not a lump sum payout as is enjoyed by EADS/Airbus.

No it’s not fair by any measure.

My personal feelings are that the US Government should not allow competition between US manufacturers and offerings from the EADS/Airbus consortium unless they are penalized for these disparities or at the very least; the US Company is given a leg up in some way.

Not sure how this will play out in the KC-X program however the USAF is in that most unenviable position of being between a very big Rock and an even bigger Hard Place. Almost no room to get it right. Read more Here it is a Report by the Lexington Institute on the impact Airbus has on the US Aircraft manufacturing business.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Breaking Barriers

It is 14 October 1947, in the still cool morning at Muroc Army Airfield the modified B-29 is positioned over the loading pit (a large trench in the ground that allows for the attaching of the test article onto the aircraft belly) it's payload ready. Strapped to the belly of the "mother" or carrier aircraft is the experimental aircraft dubbed "Glamorous Glennis", the Bell Aerospace X-1 aircraft. Painted all in orange (easier to be found in case it crashed out on the desert), shaped like a 50 caliper bullet and equipped with a rocket motor built by Robert Goddard himself the small crowd gathered once again to attempt what up till now had been impossible. Or at least possible and living to tell about it.

Going faster than the speed of sound. Breaking what was known as the Sound Barrier had been attempted many times before, mainly by accident and always in failure, fatal failure in fact.

A Bell X-1 aircraft being loaded onto a B-29/B-50

carrier aircraft. Circa 1951. (NASA Photo)

Not today.

In amongst the crowd that had gathered that October morning was a gregarious Air Force Test Pilot. A war veteran having fought in the skies over France in the P-51 Mustang. He was shot out of the sky once and evaded capture for several months, assisting the French Reistance in the process. Once back in Allied hands he was re-instated to flight status and eventually shot down 11 enemy aircraft including 1 ME-262 Jet aircraft. As an Air Force Captain and Test Pilot Chuck Yeager had earned a reputation of being both through in flight test and evaluation but also of having no fear.

It was Yeager's turn in the X-1. He would not fail.

Today is the anniversary of that milestone; controlled and sustained flight above the speed of sound. Most people know of this event only from the Book and movie named "The Right Stuff". The movie accurately depicts the dangers of early flight testing at what was Muroc Army Airfield. Today it is called Edwards Air Force Base home of Flight Testing for the USAF and NASA which operates the Dryden Flight Research Center from the same dry lake bed.

Edwards AFB and NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on the edge of Rogers Dry Lake.

From this testing we learned so much that has advanced flying that today more than 10 million people will be in the air flying point to point, today in one day. Maybe only Electricity, indoor plumbing and the motor car are the only other items that have advanced the human condition more than manned flight. And much of the success of understanding the bounds of flight have come from that one flight in October 1947.

Not so much the raw intelligence gathered from the flight data, but from the Man and Men who came later, in subsequent flights of other "X-Planes", who would not back down at the unknown.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Tanker Wars Update - Long Overdue

It’s has been awhile since I have said anything about the Air Force Tanker Competition or KC-X as it is known. Well, not that anything is going on right now but here is a quick and dirty summary of activity on this huge contract that I have been holding onto.

First, the proposals are in and the Air Force is busy studying and evaluating them. They received two, one from Boeing pitching their Next Gen Tanker (a modified KC-767 based on the version they are building for Italy and Japan) and another from EADS/Airbus.

The EADS offering is a KC-45 the A330-304 MRTT aircraft that they are selling to Australia and Germany. In fact, the German Air Force (the Luftwaffe) just recently took delivery of their first MRTT aircraft.

There was a proposal submission that was not accepted that has created some news. A California based company; US Aerospace Inc. threw in with the Russian aircraft manufacturer Antonov to propose an all new built aircraft tentatively named the AN-112-KC. This aircraft was going to be built to US Air Forces specifications, even though the USAF did not publish any, they wanted to buy something off the shelf, in the Ukraine and then flown to the U.S. for finally assembly. Story here and here if you wish to learn more, there is not much out there.

The US Aerospace Inc./Antonov proposal was 5 minutes late. It seems that the “courier” that was carrying the proposal to the Contracts desk at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base got lost after getting through the Main Gate delivering the proposal after the Bid Closing time. They have filed a protest with the GAO. (Story here.) Now I have been there dropping off a Bid Proposal for contracts of several thousand dollars, nothing like a $30 Billion aircraft manufacturing contract. I think I would have camped out in an RV right out in front of the Contracts Office. Shame on them. They feel so strongly in their position that they have submitted a second Protest, just to be sure they get heard. (That story here.) If they had shown this kind of attention to the original bidding process they would not have required all the legal activity now that only slows things down. The GAO is scheduled to rule on the Protests in early November however they have made a ruling on some of the claims made by US Aerospace Inc. Specifically, the GAO has dismissed the “bad faith or intentional agency misconduct” charges that US Aerospace made. Their claim was that the Gate Guard intentionally gave them bad directions from the main gate to the Bid submittal desk in the Contracts building. (Story here.) Can things get any more funny?

Boeing KC-X News:

Boeing is bidding the KC-767 that they had bid previously, but it appears they are changing the cockpit design but details are scarce. The rumor is that some format of the all new and state of the are cockpit that is being put into the new 787 Dreamliner will be put into the NextGen Tanker. The question really is how much of it will go into the KC-767, all or a portion thereof. (Story here.) This would be an interesting blend considering the need to install a fair amount of Military equipment that the civilian market does not worry about, like UHF radios, TACAN’s, PAR ILS systems and of course secure encryptions for the voice and data communications. They are answering most of these issues on the Navy’s P-8 aircraft which is a military configured 737 that will see service as an ASW aircraft (replacing the P-3). Time will tell.

Here is a story about how Boeing is out talking up having their ability to reduce it’s currently Bid price on the Tanker package if the USAF puts out a “Best and Final Offer” to the two bidders. They have left themselves some room to move their offer lower putting pressure on EADS/Airbus. Since the EADS/Airbus is a much larger aircraft, and presumably much more expensive to build the pressure is in forcing the issue to lower pricing. So the Boeing PR machine is out talking this up in hopes of getting the USAF to issue a BAFO.

EADS/Airbus responded that they have room in their bid to trim some of their pricing too. (Story here.) But right away Congressman and Senators sensitive to the Boeing bid complained that EADS/Airbus would be “dumping” their aircraft in order to gain the contract. This is the policy of bidding at a price well below of what it costs to build. EADS/Airbus has responded by stating they will not build the USAF tanker under the actual cost that it takes to produce (that story here) saying that they have a lot of cost capacity because of them building these aircraft for other countries.

Sometimes a manufacturer will do that in order to win the contract and then they nickel and dime the government for cost increases. This is known in these parts as the Lockheed Business Model and I refer you to the F-22 and F-35 programs for how well that works, which it does but surely leaves a bad taste. Especially if you are the taxpayer!

EADS/Airbus News:

Besides the above story on EADS/Airbus not spiking their pricing on their Tanker offering is this bit of unusual news. The UK’s Parliaments’ Public Accounts Committee criticized the UK’s Ministry of Defense for signing a $16 Billion dollar deal to lease Airbus A330 tankers from a consortium that was formed to specifically sell and lease A330 tankers to European military organizations. Ouch, that’s got to hurt. (Story here.) The deal was for 14 of the Airbus tankers over a 10 year period but the committee complained that the deal was not good for the UK because the aircraft will not have the protective equipment necessary for taking any aircraft into a war zone (you know like Afghanistan). Now you make that aircraft huge like an Airbus A330 and you got yourself a nice fat target so I would guess they are going to need a lot of extra’s on that bad boy and none of this is factored into the $16 billion cost. Oh well, live and learn. I once leased a car a long time ago and that was the last time I’ll do that. Must really hurt when you lease an aircraft!!

And if the above is was unwelcome news there is more for EADS/Airbus to contemplate. The WTO has ruled that both companies have received what they are calling “illegal” subsides. In the case of EADS/Airbus the subsides came in the form of “Launch Aid” which is money given to Airbus from the various sponsoring governments in the EU that prop up Airbus. Launch aid is money given to Airbus when they overrun the development of their aircraft which apparently happens on every aircraft they have built. The running total is a whopping $200 Billion dollars. (Story here.)

Meanwhile, the WTO ruled Boeing has been receiving “preferential” treatment by the U.S. Government which they translate into a prohibited “subsidies” to the tune of $24 billion dollars. (That story here.) The WTO claim is that contracts with the U.S. Government and even the tax breaks given to the many Boeing Plants around the country by both local and State governments has translated into “aid”. Maybe so.

But there is in my mind several critical differences between the two which I don’t think the EU leaning WTO understands, first of these is the issue of Launch Aid. When Boeing runs out of money when trying to bring a new aircraft to market they go back to their investors and raise the cash they need privately. In Europe, Airbus runs out of money they go back to the sponsoring governments and request however much they think they need and that is what they get. This is a big difference and continues even with their latest aircraft the A400M (which is a military cargo aircraft) and the new XWB-A350 commercial airliner (which is to compete against the Boeing 787). So they don’t feel the pain like Boeing does since Airbus has no “skin in the game” so to speak, Boeing wagers stocks in the company and their own profitability. Not so Airbus.

Another difference is that any defense work Boeing wins in this country is done in a robust competitive market. That is not true in Europe where a lot of competitions are open only to European companies or if an American company is bidding they must have some kind of European company participation (called an offset). I am working a job that has a contract with a European Government and there is a 40% offset requirement meaning, my company has to spend 40% of the total value of the contract with companies in Europe. We don’t require that here in America, in fact the only “Buy America” provision passed by congress is for Fasteners (screws, nuts, bolts and rivets) and Electrical connectors. Oh, and by the way, Allies of the U.S. are exempt from this requirement so only U.S. manufactures such as Boeing have to buy American made fasteners and connectors while Airbus can populate their aircraft with parts made in China. Nothing like shooting ourselves in the foot but that’s what we get with our Congress.

There is a movement afoot to force the USAF to take into consideration the WTO rulings on the EADS/Airbus offering (that story here) but my guess is that this will be challenged and further delay the awarding of this contract. All the while the USAF racks up huge costs in flying this very old aircraft. In 2002 the cost of maintenance per flight hour was $11,000 per hour on this aircraft and with a 6.2% increase per year for that you can only imagine what it costs today to fly and operate this aircraft. So any delay in replacing this aircraft is a huge cost to the USAF. (Numbers come from this report.)

It’s time for the US to adopt a Buy American provision that covers something like this even if it means there is only one bidder. It is time for the FTC to stop these big defense companies from buy each other out, which is why we are down to the one company that builds large fuselage sized aircraft in this country from 4 or 5 we had back 20 years ago.

Anyway, folks, that it for this version of the Tanker Wars update. A little long but there is a lot here.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

C-17 Near Disaster

Scary incident here (by Amy Butler of Aviation Week) a C-17 with 176 Pakistani refugee's on board (they were escaping the recent flooding) was struck by Lightning causing massive systems failure, including the loss of all 4 Engines. Yeah, I'll bet it was very quiet in the back of that aircraft while it soared around.

Fortunately the crew nursed two engines back to life and the aircraft made a safe landing. Good on them, there were a lot of folks on that airlifter and this was a humanitarian mission. This would have looked ugly had that big airlifter augured in. I am glad the boy's in blue kept that beast in the air if even for a short time.

I wonder how many new flight suites were needed by that Flight Crew?

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Tanker Wars – Back On!

Ok it seems there could be a storm brewing on the KC-X horizon. When we last discussed the Tanker program it was to announce the end of the Wars between NGS and Boeing since NGS was not going to submit a bid.

Oh what a couple of weeks makes: now word is out that EADS/Airbus the former partner with NGS on the Tanker program will now attempt to bid with another American company fronting for them here in the USA. No one knows who that other company is but it won't matter. However there is one report that they may in fact go it alone. They have asked the DOD/USAF for additional time to prepare their "new" proposal. And the DOD/USAF is more than happy to give them that time. You know, in the name of "fairness" and competition. More of the story here .

Also, there was news that a Russian firm wants to throw a bid into the mix as well. United Aircraft of Moscow wants to off the USAF a modified Illyushion IL-96. The modifications include replacing the 4-tubro jet engines with new modern turbo fan engines and with a fuselage a little wider and longer than the existing KC-135 aircraft. They now claim that they are not bidding on the contract so we will have to wait and see what really shakes out of this one.

Could it get any better than this for us pundants? And I thought it was all over!

Boeing is holding it tongue right now, what was supposed to be a cake walk suddenly now has some IED's implanted throughout their AOR and there is still a movement out there to build two different Tankers.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Tanker Wars Fizzle

Northrop Grumman (NGS) has decided to bow out of the Air Forces next generation aerial tanker competition much to the dismay of EADS/Airbus. NGS claims the competition is hard wired for a smaller size aircraft than what they wanted to propose.

"After a comprehensive analysis of the final RFP, Northrop Grumman has determined that it will not submit a bid to the Department of Defense for the KC-X Program. We reached this conclusion based on the structure of the source selection methodology defined in the RFP, which clearly favors Boeing's smaller refueling tanker and does not provide adequate value recognition of the added capability of a larger tanker,"

So off they go, and I am sure Boeing is dancing in the streets around Paine Field in Everett Washington. And the Defense Department, they claim to be "disappointed" that NGS/EADS/Airbus will not be participating. But you know as well as I do that they are breathing easier right now because the pressure to "do the right thing" whatever that might be is off them. I mean, anyone can evaluate and award a contract with only a single bidder.

I just hope Boeing does not go off and pull a Lockheed-Martin bait and switch operation and jack up the price and/or "work" the program into a money hole al la F-22/F-35. We will have to wait to see what happens now.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Fire from the Sky – ABL Test

The Airborne Laser Test Bed aircraft (a highly modified Boeing 747) has successfully shot down two ballistic missiles by using nothing more than amplified light.

Story here and here. Short version: The massive flying laser shot the first missile down after a sea launch while it was on its initial assent only two minutes after launch. The second shot came just an hour later against a target that was launched from a land base. The tests were done off the Coast of California near about to the Navy Sea Range, a part of the NAWC-Weapons Division at Point Mugu.

The demonstration included both liquid fueled and solid fueled missiles. A great success for the combined/joint test team that brought all of this together. Now they get to pack their bags and throw away all they have done. The program was scrapped by PresBO.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Tanker Wars – Part VII

Hey, this might work. Velma Jackson asked the Mobile City Council to start a weekly prayer meeting in order to entice the Tanker God's to award the upcoming USAF Tanker contract to the team of Northrop Grumman and EADS-Airbus. Mobile City is the proposed site for the assembly of Airbus A330F aircraft that the NGS/EADS team will be bidding to the USAF. The region stands to get lots of Job's if the contract were won by NGS/EADS, along the order of thousands or so they say. There will be jobs to be sure but I don't see the numbers they are claiming as it defies logic that Airbus will transfer this assembly line to the US killing jobs in the various countries in Europe that build it now. I mean, they get direct grants of money by their partner governments that fund the building of these aircraft for precisely that reason, the Jobs. The reality is that the aircraft will be fully assembled in France and then flown to this new facility where all the military equipment and the actual Tanker package will be installed.

Meanwhile, in other news the government of India has announced it will not be buying any of the Airbus A330/KC-30 Tanker aircraft for its Air Force. This leaves Airbus with only the launch customer of Australia (4 aircraft), the UAE (3 aircraft), Saudi Arabia (3 aircraft) and the UK (14 aircraft) that they will be building aircraft for unless they prevail in the USAF contract.

Also for your digestion, the USAF announced that the Final version of the Tanker Replacement RFP will be released soon either at the end of this month (January) or in early February, and they are making changes from what was in the Draft. Both potential bidders for this large contract were enumerate with the draft RFP although the changes being made are described as minor in nature so it is not known how the NGS/EADS-Airbus Team will stay in the bidding process. We have to wait till the Final RFP is out and they have a chance to review it.

Still more fun than you can shake a flying boom at!!

BT: Jimmy T sends

Looking for Trouble in the AF

The first Project Liberty aircraft landed at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan this last weekend (27 January) bringing a dedicated manned ISR platform to the AF AOR. Sorely needed too, I might add. The sky above the AF is populated continuously with unmanned aircraft which is a good thing but when you really need to keep track of high value targets, nothing beats having a human along in the surveillance aircraft.

Project Liberty is the crash program brought on by the Air Force to address the lack of dedicated manned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. The aircraft are modified C-12 aircraft (formerly Beachcraft/King Air-200's now built by Raytheon) that carry a crew of 4 and an assortment of intel collection equipment that includes an EO/IR ball, SATCOM and numerous raido comm's to share the data collected by the aircraft.

This is the first of an undisclosed number of aircraft to be deployed to the AF. The Air Force has ordered some 38 of these aircraft and many are already deployed to Iraq.

Great Job there Air Force.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Tanker Wars – Part VII

More Tanker action, these guys are getting more action than Abrams in the AF!!

First we have statements from the DOD stating that changes to the Air Force Draft RFP are not out of the question and could be done in preparation of the final version. This assuages the NGS/EADS-Airbus team as they are hopeful for changes to make the competition more "fair", to them of course. A DOD representative, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be leaking this info in the first place, claimed that DOD "will make changes as is appropriate". Double speak for "in a pig's eye" we will be making changes. They also claimed that a split tanker buy was not being contemplated, meaning that no one is considering buying a few tankers from both manufacturers.

Now this: Split Tanker Buy gains momentum. Yeah, as fast as paint dry's we have this report about the growing support for a split purchase. Congressional support for this option is gaining support because well simply put it buys the most votes! You see when you are a member of Congress and you see this $179 Billion dollars you simply want to buy the most votes you can so, the best way to do that is to spread those bucks around. Left up to Congress that is what would happen. God save us.

And finally we have another group of U.S. Lawmakers that want NGS/EADS-Airbus banned from the competition altogether. The reason, the favorable ruling from the World Trade Organization that ruled Airbus has taken illegal subsides from their partner governments giving Airbus a competitive advantage over their rivals. The Air Force has steadfastly held that they will not factor into their deliberations the WTO ruling despite repeated complaints from Boeing that the base cost of the A330 airframe was under value because of these illegal subsides.

It don't get better than this, we should let the two companies fight it out the old fashion way, fist to cuff's! Winner takes all!

More to come I am sure.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Tanker Wars – Part VI

More, more, more – I love it!!

More whining by NGS regarding the terms and conditions in the draft RFP. Their complaint now is that the Air Force wants it to be a Fixed Price contract. On the one hand I don't blame them; a Fixed Price contract puts all the budget risk on the contractor, on the other it is what is best for the Taxpayer. They have threatened (or renewed their threats) to No-Bid this competition in hopes that Congressmen sympathetic to their cause.

MoreTanker updates.

Since the Air Force is insisting on this being a Fixed Price they are simply asking for "Off the Shelf" or COTS of some kind. In most cases you take it as you see it and go; no added extras, no requirements creep and no fancy bells and whistles from what is offered. That is something hard for the Government to pass on. Our military likes its bells and whistles not the ones that Australia or Italy or Japan have installed (these are customers of the KC-30 for Airbus and two of the customers for the KC-767) so the government sets itself up for cost overruns if it can't keep its hands and feet out of the cookie jar. If they can live with what is offered, absolutely no changes to what is offered, then it is a win for the Taxpayer.

More Air Force obtuseness:

Start-up the NGS/EADS-Airbus Bitching/Moaning/Crying Machine! This little bit about how the Air Force will not (NOT) be making any substantial changes to the Draft RFP in their work up to the release of the Final RFP which is expected in January. So, all them complaints about the Draft looking like procurement for a smaller aircraft will be in the Final. Expect more crying from NGS.

Boeing thinks it can now pass the minimum fuel transfer rate through their Boom. The Boom they are bidding is being used on the KC-767 being delivered to Japan, it would only transfer 900 pounds per minute but the Air Force is demanding 1200 pounds per minute. This greater capacity is required to refuel the C-5 Galaxy aircraft which holds something like 50,000 gallons when its thirsty. So getting the gas into the C-5 is the metric and Boeing was struggling but they claim to have a fix and that their "new" flow rate meets or exceeds this so, good on them. Any more from Boeing, oh yeah.

Boeing had a meeting with Air Force officials to formally complain about the evaluation factors in the Draft RFP which they feel is "unfair". They especially are questioning the fact that there is no benefit for or value attributed to the aircraft with the better fuel-burn-to-fuel-transfer-rate which the smaller KC-767 would presumably have. Maybe it was something that the DOD left out of the RFP re-write but the only ones that really seem upset is the NGS/Airbus team. I think Boeing needed to go through the process of meeting with the Air Force and of course having something to complain about, you know keep up those appearances. Can't have this thing look likes it's in the bag for them.

EADS-Airbus can at least feel good about taking $247 million US taxpayer dollars back across the Atlantic with their win of their second LUH contract with the US Army. They are going to be building 45 more UH-72A Light helicopters for delivery in 2010. The Lakota aircraft are built in Columbus Mississippi and are used by the Army and the National Guard domestically for training, troop transport and medic-vac missions that UH-60 Blackhawks would otherwise be doing. The Lakota's free up the Blackhawks for use in the more unfriendly places of the world. This 45 aircraft order brings to 178 total UH-72's that have been ordered by the US Army of an expected 345 so EADS-Airbus is doing good here in the US. They also sold 6 of these aircraft to the US Navy Test Pilot school and expect to bid on the Army's Armed Scout helicopter competition using this same basic airframe, adding some sharp teeth to an otherwise good looking airframe.

Where-Oh-Where will all this take us, I don't know but I love the blog fodder it generates!!

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Thanks to: Alert 5 and the Boeing Tanker Blog

Where there’s Pink Smoke there is ???

USAF Photo: Students in the Combat AirmanSkills Training Couorse use a smoke diversion tactic while practicing patrol maneuvers on Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. November 12, 2009. U.S. airman assigned to the 421st Combat Training Squadron teach the course to prepare airmen for upcoming deployments. The squadron is assigned to the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol.

You know what they say: Train like you Fight, Fight like you Train. So popping pink smoke goes where???

I think the idea is that smoke in general is used to cover your movement from your enemy. The USAF is using the color of the smoke to set the enemy off laughing their asses off while their "warriors" move. Works either way. I guess you got to have balls to light off Pink smoke on a battle field.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Interesting Aviation News

First Up: F-35 Activity

An F-35 flew off the production line in Fort Worth, TX as the 4^th F-35 to enter the test fleet. This aircraft is a CTOL or Conventional Take Off and Landing version of the aircraft that will be used by the Air Force. It was designated AF-1 and is part of the LRIP lot of 31 of which 13 should have been delivered by October (2009), so they are having some growing pains. One of the more unique items associated with this aircraft is that it is the first fighter aircraft to be built on a moving assembly line, like cars are made. Usually in the manufacture of an aircraft the hull is placed in a manufacturing bay and the various trades work the aircraft in place. Periodically the aircraft is moved to another station for assembly work and eventually it is rolled out to the paint hanger and then for flight testing. Here, they are literally laying the hull at the start of a long assembly line which moves the hull through the fixed work station. It is a novel concept and I think may actually bring down the cost of assembly of the aircraft. Given they are planning on building so many this may pay huge dividends over the long run.

Also from F-35 land: The first STOVL version F-35B was flown to the Naval Air Station Patuxent River Maryland for extensive tests to be conducted by the Navy and Marine Corps. The F-35B will replace the AV-8B's flown by the Marines and the Royal Navy. The base at Pax River is the home of NAVAIR and the home of Navy/Marine Flight Testing. The F-35B will add to the noise in the sky there at Pax that includes all the newest Navy/Marine equipment. I spent many years working there supporting the War Hoover and saw all the latest in Naval Aircraft. It was a fascinating place to work if you were an aviation buff.

Air Force Flying Safe:

The USAF finished their safest flying year ever in their history with only 17 Class A mishaps. The Class A is an accident that results in the total loss of the aircraft or the loss of life (or permanent total disability). Given they are flying their wings off supporting two Wars way over on the other side of the world this is huge feat. I am not sure what the total flying hours are or the total number of sorties but they have to be astronomical. My hat is off to the Boys in Blue. Great Job.

Fun with Ray Guns:

Boeing announced that they successfully destroyed in flight a UAV (5 of them in fact) using a mobile laser system and tracking system. In a program sponsored by the Air Force the Boeing system is designed to be installed and used from an aircraft although for this series of tests the system was ground based.

Cool Pic here:

This is a system we need more of and I hope they continue to receive funding for this. The big Airborne Laser program (the 747 based ABL program) was recently cancelled by the Obama Administration. Scary, you would think these kinds of advanced systems would be welcome into our military's inventory but not so for the Obama Administration.

Here in the heading of You have to Start Somewhere: "Scientist Stun Nematode Worms with UV Phaser" Straight out of Star Trek. They did a lot to make this work and it was just a bunch of Nematodes but they did use a "ray" on them and that did stun them so, lets just say that more research is required. Next maybe they can build up a Proton Torpedo!!

And Finally, "Shocker Doesn't Arrive in Time for Lobster Fundraiser": The Child and Family Resources in Tucson Arizona annually sponsors a Lobster dinner fund raiser. PETA objected and the good folks at the Child and Family Resources negotiated to use the all new "Crustastun" which would stun the Lobster in a humane way prior to cooking. Problem though, the Crustastun was sent via truck by UPS instead of air by FEDEX (it's a Union thing you know) and never made it in time for the fund raiser. PETA agreed to allow the Lobsters to be dispatched in the usual way; death by boiling water. Oh well. If all those Liberals could get on the same page they might actually get something right!!

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Tanker Wars - Update

Time to update everyone with some news, old and fresh off the wires on the USAF Refueling Aircraft procurement program. When last I noted Northrop Grumman was crying in its soup about the USAF having shared with Boeing its pricing details on its now ill-fated KC-45 offering. Seems they think that would be detrimental to future bidding as their opposition would know how they came to their overall cost and could you know, under bid them. Seems reasonable, but the USAF thinks otherwise, they claim, no harm no foul, Procurement moves on and forward.

Now some updates:

Round 1: After the crying session NGS claimed that they are finding numerous problems in the Draft RFP that required answers from the USAF. The USAF responded to their Questions. Boeing had no comment at that time, one of the complaints that NGS had was that the new specifications were tilted in favor of a smaller airframe. One of the cost drivers the USAF needed to factor in was the impact to existing infrastructure, things like making hangers larger at all the bases where the new aircraft will be repaired or maintained so to fit a bigger aircraft into if one is bids say a very large aircraft OR reinforcing the taxi ways, runways and parking aprons to accommodate a much heavier airframe if you bid something that carries say, three or four times the gas. NGS thinks this is unfair. Boeing: No Comment.

Round 2: After USAF responds that their proposal evaluation process will hold fast NGS threatens to Boycott the bidding process altogether. USAF responds by saying that they are "open" to maybe making some alterations to the evaluation scheme. NGS backs down on the Boycott threat.

Round 3: Then we have the AFL-CIO jumping in claiming that the Boeing offering would be better for the country. The Union, which also represents that the Boeing employees in Washington state says that the Boeing aircraft will create thousands of "family-sustaining union jobs" while the NGS/EADS aircraft will create mainly "only a few thousand lower-paying nonunion jobs." Wow, what an endorsement, I would never have expected that. Oh wait, this just in: Boeing purchases the Vought production facility in Charleston South Carolina and then elects to open a second production line for the new B787 Dreamliner at this facility. It's non-union.

Round 4: Then we have the World Trade Organization or WTO, weighing in and ruling that Airbus has illegally benefited from subsidies from the participating governments of the consortium. These payments have for many years allowed Airbus to price their aircraft well below its competitors, including Boeing. In particular are payments made "in kind" by countries investing in production facilities, dubbed "launch aid" facility improvements and improvements to infrastructure helps Airbus bring to market new aircraft well below their actual cost?

USAF continues to say it will ignore the WTO ruling while evaluating the proposed offerings.

Round 5: Now Senator John McCain has stepped into the mess, or maybe he never really left it in the first place. In any case he has released a letter he has dispatched to the SECDEF decrying the unfairness of the USAF proposal and how it favors a smaller aircraft that Boeing is most likely to bid. Well now, this begs: what did Boeing do to piss off John McCain? I mean at every turn of this 10 years of wiggling he turns up and throws wrenches into the works, and I am talking about great big wrenches too not those crappy craftsman ones. You would think he was flying a Boeing aircraft when he was shot down over Vietnam and tortured for flying Boeing. Oh, but he was in a McDonald Douglass aircraft; the old A-4 Skyhawk. Well, McDonald Douglass is now owned by Boeing but back then they were on their own. Who knows but here he is pissing on the process, and you know how those old fogies are about their bladder control.

Who knows where this is going but you got to believe there is a mess there waiting for them. Can it get any worse? It's too bad the DOD/USAF just won't strap on some balls and say that they are going to buy an X-aircraft and be done with it. Simply state what they want and pull out the Credit card and start buying them. But, they have no balls, no spine and no clue.

BT: Jimmy T sends.