Por Tierra Mar y Aire
Moderadores: Lepanto, poliorcetes, Edu, Orel
por Orel el Sab Oct 08, 2011 4:00 pm
Y a unas malas es posible que quitandole esta venta a Eads
En mi opinión el problema con la toma de decisiones no es de EADS, si no de los gobiernos europeos. Y ahí sí que difícilmente se puede mejorar...
por champi el Mar Oct 11, 2011 8:13 pm
(Source: BAE Systems; issued October 10, 2011)
LONDON, United Kingdom --- BAE Systems has been selected by Lockheed Martin, prime contractor for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), to supply a Night Vision Goggle Helmet Mounted Display (NVG HMD) system for the F-35 during the next phase of its development.
The NVG HMD will incorporate the latest Q-SIGHT waveguide display and feature detachable Night Vision Goggles for night operations. It will also incorporate an optical Head Tracking System for precise weapons delivery and carrier and land-based operations. The highly accurate optical head trackers allow the HMD to achieve traditional Head-Up Display (HUD) accuracies and Primary Flight Reference criteria.
BAE Systems will begin delivery of test assets in 2012 to support the F-35 development and integration laboratories, flight simulators, and flight-test platforms.
...
por champi el Lun Oct 17, 2011 6:51 pm
por champi el Mié Oct 19, 2011 7:46 pm
Posted by Amy Butler at 10/18/2011 8:26 PM CDT
A year ago, the F-35B was in the doghouse owing to lackluster performance in testing. Now, however, that has changed. The jets are up, operating and ticking off test points. And the timing for the turnaround is potentially fortuitous for the project as only miles inland in Washington, officials overseeing the F-35 development program are trying to defend it from bean counters on the prowl for savings in the defense budget.
In the final days of initial shipboard trials of the F-35B, the Pentagon gave a group of media a firsthand look at the testing Oct. 18. BF-2 and 4 are likely to leave the ship this week and return to NAS Patuxent River, Md.
Media were transported to the ship, which circles in a 20x20 mi. box off Wallops Island, Virginia, via MV-22.
Once onboard we received briefings on the status of the ship and the aircraft.
There have been many questions from Ares readers about why the aft section of the deck where spots 7-9 is darker than the front of the deck. Ansis Kalnajs, a Navsea test director, explained that the rear portion of the deck had been poured at a later time than the front, accounting for the difference in color. Both are made of standard nonskid material used on ship decks. However, there is a small portion in spot 9 of Thermion, a newer deck material that officials are testing out on the Wasp. Kalnajs says Thermion may prove to be a better future material owing to reduced maintenance demands. The nonskid deck material now need frequent replacing, he says.
The Thermion is in the area where you see the lighter yellow centerline.
Media spent a few hours onboard viewing multiple vertical landings and short takeoffs. Thus far, testers onboard the aircraft say the two aircraft have accomplished more than 60 vertical landings and STOs. BF-2, the first to arrive, conducted its first VL Oct. 3. BF-4 followed shortly after. Specific numbers were not available.
Though formal data hasn't yet been analyzed, Briggs says that the aircraft is performing as predicted by the models in terms of heat ingestion on the ship. Officials had been concerned that the F-35B would reingest its own hot exhaust, causing problems for the propulsion system. However, thus far, Col. Roger Cordell, F-35 naval variants lead at Pax River, said that there have been no performance impacts resulting from hot air ingestion. Overall, he says, the testing has gone better than expected. “We feel like we are running where we intended to crawl,”he said.
During this visit, BF-4 was conducting the testing; BF-2 had “returned to the beach”at Pax River for repairs, said Capt. Brenda Holdener, CO of the Wasp. Officials onboard did not say what repairs were needed. Last week, BF-2 was fixed after a fuel leak was discovered. Many routine repairs have been conducted on the ship, according to Tom Briggs, the integrated test team lead at Pax who is helping to oversee the trials on the ship.
Among the repairs conducted on the ship were replacement of a flat tire. Incidentally, Briggs says that the aircraft are using tires at a slower rate while on deck than during testing at Pax. There, testers found they were having to replace tires faster than expected in crosswind conditions.
Maintainers also replaced an upper lift fan door actuator on BF-4 while on the ship, Briggs says. The aircraft was down for maintenance Sunday mid-day for the fix and back flying Tuesday, he says.
Overall repairs “haven't gotten worse out there”than testers are seeing for operations at Pax, Briggs says.
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por champi el Sab Oct 22, 2011 9:33 am
09:54 GMT, October 21, 2011 Last week, on October 13, the Chairman of the JCS, General Martin Dempsey, scared F-35 advocates with the statement, “I am concerned about the three variants, whether as we go forward in this fiscal environment, whether we can afford all three.â€
...
Here are some issues that I am told the media writers missed:
1) Apparently, the two F-35Bs involved in the sea trials had been diverted to Patuxent River to be repaired the previous week—presumably for fixes the crew on the Wasp were unable to perform. One of the aircraft flying the displays for the press, BF-4, broke (again) after the media event. The upper lift fan door actuator—a component that was supposed to have been fixed already—apparently had a problem. It turns out the actuator has to be redesigned yet again.
2) When asked about maintenance on the Wasp, officials speaking on behalf of the F-35 did not say that more maintenance had been taking place than had been planned. It is not clear if that does or does not mean the extra maintenance that took place at Patuxent River.
3) Despite at least one media writer's descriptions of impressive landing parameters during the displays, I am informed that the effects of the Wasp's structure were causing the ship to slow down because the handling qualities resulting from the wind coming around that structure were not what they expected.
4) The testing was planned for a two week period, but it ran on into a third week. It would be interesting to know if there was anything beyond the extra maintenance that explains this.
There also appear to be some issues with the Air Force's “A”model:
1) It appears that the four Lot 2 F-35As at Eglin AFB are effectively grounded. The USAF airworthiness authorities haven't given the program the flight clearance to start flying the jets. The jets may have been cleared for ferry from the plant in July and August but not for training operations at Eglin.
There has been pressure to clear the aircraft for training operations notwithstanding the following:
a. The ejection seat and pilot escape system in the jets have not passed the required qualification tests. This is a particularly interesting because one media writer just reported on how the Air Force's Air Combat Command is considering a change in the manufacturer for the ejection seat, but the explanation is that it is for cost reasons. It is asserted that a change at this late stage would save money, but how is unclear and appears, at least to me, controversial.
b. There are problems with being able to restart the engine in flight if it flames out.
c. Braking on a wet runway is deficient—recently improved but not resolved; so jets will be restricted from flying after it rains until the runway dries out.
d. The airplane in the training configuration has about 70 hours on it. If you count all JSF testing, it is about 1,000 hours. Legacy aircraft training would start with at least twice that much on the fleet, and as much as five times that much in the configuration meant for training.
e. All of this also applies to the Marines F-35B that is supposed to start flying at Eglin in January.
Finally, I am told the cost to modify jets in lots 2-5 is about $30 million each. Lockheed has said these costs are already accounted for in the program. Specifically how this will be paid for, the impact on deliveries, and the size of the fleet that is funded are all questions that are unclear to me.
Happy hunting.
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By Winslow Wheeler, Center for Defense Information (CDI)
por champi el Lun Oct 24, 2011 8:10 pm
...
According to a calculation by a senior EADS radar expert, the Captor-E, which will use 1,426 T/R modules and is scheduled to be integrated onto the Eurofighter Typhoon in 2015, is capable of recognizing the F-35 at around 59 kilometers away.
He acknowledged that the chance is high for the F-35 to detect and fire missiles first against fourth-generation jets, such as the Eurofighter or Boeing's F-15, but claimed that the latter are capable of dodging missiles and successfully counterattacking at such a long range.
His calculation shows that the F-35's APG-81, which allegedly has 1,400 T/R modules, will be able to recognize the Eurofighter or semi-stealth fighter at 120 kilometers or farther based on the assumption both radars have the same capability.
In this regard, Scott said that an advanced fighter might be able to lock on to the F-35 momentarily upon its launching of a missile, but will not be able to keep track of it due to the latter's inherent low observable stealth design and as it would be busy dodging the missile for survival.
“Once the F-35 opens its weapons bay and fires a weapon, the enemy may be able to see something for a moment, but it disappears again,”Scott said.
“Being detected doesn't mean that you are being tracked and targeted with weapons. Now they know you are out there. They don't know where you are and will be busy avoiding the missile you just launched.â€
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Low price to purchase, sustain
O'Bryan stressed that the average unit recurring flyaway cost of the F-35 will be approximately $65 million when measured in 2010 economics.
“The economies of scale, coupled with the benefit of commonality, represent the opportunity for great savings for Korea regarding F-35 operations and support costs when compared to the other FX-III competitors,”he said.
O'Bryan noted that though it does not account for annual inflation projections, the $65M price tag includes much more than some media often speculate.
“It includes the engine and all mission systems such as the APG-81 AESA radar, internally mounted targeting system, electronic attack and warfare systems, self-protection systems, infra-red missile warning system, communication and navigation equipment, and the helmet mounted display that is also used as a night vision system.â€
He said that many of the mentioned systems are added on to the price of fourth-generation aircraft.
8,000 hour stealth guarantee
Randy Howard, Lockheed Martin's director of the Korea F-35 Campaign, said that the F-35 was designed from the very beginning to be VLO and its stealth coating is resilient enough that the aircraft's radar cross section will not suffer after numerous day-to-day operations.
“You can even take a knife and hardly scratch the finish of the F-35,”he said.
“Given what we know, it comes with a guarantee of the radar cross section at the end of 8,000 flight hours. It's essentially guaranteed to be a VLO for the life of the aircraft.â€
Howard said even if there is a scratch, there is a tool that allows mechanics to quickly find the impact of the scratch and whether it needs to be fixed.
“It is twice as cheap in maintaining the aircraft to remain as a VLO compared to the F-22. It is significantly supportable, cheaper and better than the F-22,”he said.
“It is a 21st century tool for 21st century aircraft to maintain VLO.â€
Howard added that the techniques and tools that maintain VLO will be locally trained so that it will be easier to maintain.
He also stressed that the F-35 provides an inherent capability to collect intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data and perform many of the command and control functions found on traditional high value but vulnerable assets.
por Orel el Mar Oct 25, 2011 3:51 pm
“Given what we know, it comes with a guarantee of the radar cross section at the end of 8,000 flight hours. It's essentially guaranteed to be a VLO for the life of the aircraft.â€
....He said that many of the mentioned systems are added on to the price of fourth-generation aircraft.
the Captor-E... is capable of recognizing the F-35 at around 59 kilometers away.
....
His calculation shows that the F-35's APG-81... will be able to recognize the Eurofighter or semi-stealth fighter at 120 kilometers or farther
)por polluelo el Mar Oct 25, 2011 7:19 pm
Eso no es cierto. Al menos no en ninguno de los contratos finales cuya cifra y cantidad conocemos públicamente, que son casi todos.
por champi el Mar Oct 25, 2011 7:49 pm
Posted by Bill Sweetman at 10/25/2011 6:54 AM CDT
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Before the system development and demonstration (SDD) program started — 10 years ago next week — the Pentagon spent about $4 billion on the Concept Demonstration Aircraft (CDA) stage. The lion's share of that went for prototype aircraft and their propulsion systems.
We already knew how to build stealthy supersonic fighters, and indeed had just done it, at least twice, with the Lockheed YF-22 and Northrop YF-23. (There may well have been some classified programs, too.) It was adding the Stovl bit to the stealth requirement that made CDA necessary. Charge it to the B.
Engines: We now know that the F135 engine, minus the lift system, weighs and costs more than two GE F414s (the weights in the link were confirmed in late 2010) and produces about equal thrust.
The only reason that the JSF has a single engine is Stovl. That's because nobody can design a twin-engine Stovl fighter that will survive an engine loss in powered-lift flight (it would require an enormous installed thrust margin), so a two-engine Stovl would be less safe than a single-engine aircraft, other things being equal.
...
Remember the great weight panic and redesign of 2004? The B was the most overweight version, and the only one on which the weight growth was critical. SWAT (Stovl Weight Attack Team) and the associated delay cost $6.2 billion, as estimated at the time.
The case can be made that SWAT has ended up costing much more than that, because the redesigned aircraft turned out to be harder to build, driving more delays. But disentangling those costs from the rest of SDD is next to impossible, so I will leave it out. So F-35B-unique and F-35B-driven SDD costs are at least $16.9 billion.
The Stovl jet also bears a share of the three-version costs. Subtract that $16.9 billion from the $56.4 billion in total SDD, divide the result by three. Add that to the $16.9 billion in unique costs, plus $4 billion for the CDA. That's $34 billion in then-year development costs for the F-35B.
Let's be generous again, and accept the official Navy estimate for average F-35B procurement cost, at $139 million — $47.2 billion for 340 aircraft (from the FY12 budget, page 68 of the PDF). So add that to the development cost and ...
Wait! There's more!
The F-35A and F-35C get the F135 engine too. Pratt & Whitney said in late 2010 that the unit cost of the F135 is supposed to be the same as the F119 (contract here), which is $4.9 million more than two F414s (see this contract). That's $10.5 billion in extra cost across the planned USAF and Navy production run of 2100 aircraft.
Total Pentagon investment for 340 F-35Bs, according to the program of record: about $92 billion, or $270 million per unit.
Now, does anyone want to start talking about the frugal Marine Corps, always doing more with less?
por polluelo el Mar Oct 25, 2011 8:11 pm
por Orel el Mié Oct 26, 2011 1:10 pm
Creo que lo que quiere decir es que los precios de estos nuevos aviones son tan superiores a los cuarta porque incluyen todos esos sistemas de los que estos carecian.
It includes the engine and all mission systems such as the APG-81 AESA radar, internally mounted targeting system, electronic attack and warfare systems, self-protection systems, infra-red missile warning system, communication and navigation equipment, and the helmet mounted display that is also used as a night vision system.
por champi el Mié Oct 26, 2011 7:15 pm
By Andrea Shalal-Esa
WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 25, 2011 8:42pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp is pushing back against Pentagon efforts to make the company pay for problems that arise with the F-35 fighter jet during testing as a way to lower costs of major weapons programs, according to sources familiar with the emerging dispute.
Company executives will raise the issue in a quarterly earnings report on Wednesday, the sources said.
The Defense Department's push to change the terms of its next production contract for the F-35, or Joint Strike Fighter, could expose Lockheed to possible losses in coming years, said consultant Loren Thompson, who has close ties to the company.
...
Assad and a team of more than two dozen pricing experts are finishing a review of what the fifth batch of F-35 production jets should cost this month, which will pave the way for Lockheed and the Pentagon to begin formal contract talks.
But defense officials have already told Lockheed that they expect it to share in the costs of "concurrency" or changes that must be made to the new warplane, which has already entered production as developmental testing continues.
The extent of the "share line" would be determined during contract negotiations, said one source familiar with the issue.
A second source said the government wanted the company to shoulder all those costs.
The last F-35 production contract already included a switch to fixed price terms with an incentive fee, abandoning the cost-plus type contracts usually signed early in the life of a new weapons program and compelling the company to share the costs if the program exceeded its budget.
MOVE COULD WIPE OUT PROFITS, ANALYST SAYS
Thompson said most changes to the weapons program resulted from government decisions, not contractor error. Forcing Lockheed to pay for such changes could reduce the company's ability to make any profit on the program, and would likely result in strong opposition from shareholders.
"If the government succeeds in shifting the ultimate risk to Lockheed Martin, then it could easily wipe out any profit on the program and leave the company unprotected against future liability," Thompson said.
Officials estimate it will cost $382 billion to develop and build 2,447 of the new radar-evading fighter jets for the U.S. military -- a cost that budget experts say makes the program vulnerable to big cuts as defense spending declines.
But Carter, who moved to the Pentagon's No. 2 job this month from his previous post as chief weapons buyer, has vowed to drive the cost down to a far lower "should cost" level.
...
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa, editing Bernard Orr)
por champi el Mié Nov 02, 2011 7:47 pm
So, the Pentagon's top weapons tester, J. Michael Gilmore is urging the Air Force to delay the start of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter pilot training by up to ten months in order for the program to accrue more flight hours and therefore reduce the risk of dangerous in-flight emergencies. His memo comes just as the Air Force had been hoping to get clearance to start flying the six F-35A training jets that are at the JSF schoolhouse at Eglin Air Force Base, Fl.
Gilmore argued, in an Oct. 21 memo to Frank Kendall in his acting role as the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, that starting training flights with the plane would pilots and civilians at risk because it doesn't have enough flight hours behind it. Historically, jets need 2,000 to 5,000 flight-hours before the number of flight “aborts”due to emergencies gets down to acceptable levels — 1,000 aborts per every 100,000 flight hours.
Now, you can say that the jet is unlike any ever flown or tested before so one can't accurately predict how many incidents the plane will have — this argument was frequently made in response to projections claiming that the F-35's operating costs will greatly exceed those of legacy jets like the Navy's F/A-18s.
However, the F-35A currently has about 1,000 flight hours under its belt and as of August (when it had about 800 hours), its abort rate was 3,000 per 100,000 flight hours, according to Gilmore's note. Furthermore, “the historical model predicted one air abort during the [July and August, 2011] maturity flights; four air aborts occurred,”states the memo.
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By Stephen Trimble
on October 31, 2011 6:39 PM
...
The evolution of the LRIP V is tricky, but it basically breaks down like this:
* Up until two years ago, the DoD and Australia plans to buy 47 F-35s overall in LRIP V.
* Australia postpones buying their first batch of four aircraft by two years, cutting the total LRIP V number to 43.
* The first DoD restructuring comes next in February 2010, trimming the LRIP V order by one to 42.
* The second DoD restructuring in January 2011 is more severe. This time, the LRIP V order plummets by 10 to 32 aircraft.
* Congress doesn't like this arrangement, so it proposes raising the LRIP V amount to 35 aircraft.
* Now, the DoD cuts the number back to 30.
Down, down, down, up and down again.
The number is continuing to fluctuate even one month after the fiscal year expired in which the contract should have been signed.
But the LRIP V award to Lockheed has been delayed by the most intense round of negotiations to date.
The DoD surprised Lockheed's negotiators about one month ago. Nearly six months after Lockheed submitted its proposal for LRIP V, the DoD decided to change the contracting terms. Now, Lockheed has to agree to pay at least some -- and maybe all -- of the extra costs caused by development mistakes. And the DoD is refusing to pay a $1.2 billion bill it owes Lockheed until the company agrees to the new terms.
By Andrea Shalal-Esa
WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department on Monday said it had finished an initial review of what the next batch of F-35 fighter jets should cost, and would brief the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin Corp , shortly.
Completion of the so-called "should cost" review will pave the way for the start of formal negotiations about a fifth batch of 30 F-35 or Joint Strike Fighter warplanes.
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By Richard Whittle
Published: November 1, 2011
...
"Corrective action" has been taken, he said, to solve problems with an innovative "lift fan" behind the F-35B's cockpit. The fan's 50-inch diameter counter-rotating blades turn when engaged by a clutch connected by a drive shaft to the jet's Pratt & Whitney engine, creating a column of air that produces 18,000 lbs. of thrust under the plane as it hovers or lands vertically. A swiveling engine exhaust nozzle at the aft of the F-35B directs another 18,000 lbs. of jet thrust downward while two "roll post" nozzles in the wings each funnel down yet another 2,000 lbs. of vertical thrust to provide lateral balance.
Lockheed has also redesigned and next year will flight-test two doors that open behind the lift fan atop the fuselage to provide extra air for the engine when the B variant is hovering, Lawson said. The original auxiliary air intake doors -- still being flown on F-35Bs performing flight tests -- oscillate when open, creating no safety problem but making it likely they will wear out far earlier than they should.
The company has also gathered "a lot of data," Lawson said, that will enable engineers to come up with ways to mitigate a phenomenon called "suck down," in which turbulence under the F-35B as it lands vertically can create a vacuum that pulls the plane down too rapidly -- a potential danger, especially for a pilot returning from a mission with unexpended bombs or missiles.
...
Don Kinard, deputy director of the F-35 Fighter Production System -- i.e., the factory floor -- said the latest F-35A took about 110,000 touch-labor hours to assemble rather than the roughly 250,000 hours the first A variants required.
Along with an increase in the number of aircraft ordered in Low Rate Intitial Production Lot 4 as compared to LRIP Lot 1, the learning curve drop is one reason the plane that left Fort Worth on Wednesday cost $111 million, roughly half the price the government paid for each of the first two LRIP F-35As.
"What to me is remarkable is that with three different variants, we're still able to maintain a legacy learning curve," Kinard said, meaning a curve that is falling at roughly the same rate as did the learning curves for Lockheed's single-variant F-22 and F-16 fighter planes. While 100 percent of mission systems, such as avionics and software, are the same in each variant of the F-35, the conventional takeoff A variant, the STOVL B variant and the C variant for use on aircraft carriers share only 20 percent common structure, Kinard said. The F-35C has a larger wing and heavier landing gear than the other two variants, for example, while the B variant is the only one with the lift fan and boasts a smaller weapons bay than the other two.
At the moment, Kinard said, it takes the factory two years to assemble an F-35. In the future, the learning curve should bring the amount of touch-labor hours down to about 50,000 and reduce the span of time the factory needs to produce a single aircraft to somewhere between 12 and 14 months.
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(Source: US Department of Defense; issued Nov. 2, 2011)
The Pentagon's Nov. 2 report to Congress of US-India Security Cooperation concludes with a paragraph which sums up the Pentagon's position regarding the possible sale of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to India, which has been widely reported but not previously confirmed. The paragraph follows:
Joint Strike Fighter and Potential Co-Development of Military Weapons Systems
The Department of Defense is continually looking for ways to expand defense cooperation with India. We are seeking opportunities for increased science and technology cooperation that may lead to co-development opportunities with India as a partner.
India has demonstrated its interest in upgrading its inventory of fighter aircraft. It intends to purchase 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft and is working with Russia on the development of the Sukhoi/HAL Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA).
The U.S. F-16 and F-18 competed, but were not down-selected, in the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) competition in April 2011.
Despite this setback, we believe U.S. aircraft, such as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), to be the best in the world. Should India indicate interest in the JSF, the United States would be prepared to provide information on the JSF and its requirements (infrastructure, security, etc.) to support India's future planning.
The United States has taken many steps in recent years to facilitate science and technology and research and development cooperation with India. In so doing, we have signaled our unambiguous intent to pursue cooperative opportunities on increasingly sophisticated systems. As our relationship continues to mature, we expect co-development of armaments to become a reality.
Clickhere for the report (8 pages in PDF format) on the US.Gov website.
por dacer el Jue Nov 03, 2011 9:34 am
por champi el Jue Nov 03, 2011 10:39 pm
14:47 GMT, November 3, 2011 MELBOURNE, Fla. | Harris Corporation, an international communications and information technology company, has been awarded a $32.7 million follow-on production contract from Lockheed Martin to supply avionics infrastructure components for the U.S. Department of Defense F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft. This Low Rate Initial Production contract brings the total value of the program for Harris to more than $500 million since 2001.
Harris is providing Lockheed Martin with next-generation avionics infrastructure components that house the radar and Integrated Core Processor (ICP) electronics on the F35. These are installed during F-35 assembly operations in Ft. Worth, Texas. Harris also provides state-of-the-art power distribution products and fiber-optic network solutions that are integrated throughout the aircraft avionics subsystems.
This latest contract covers production of up to 32 additional aircraft. More than 90 low-rate initial production aircraft are under contract to date, and plans call for production of more than 3,000 aircraft over the life of the F-35 program. The F-35 is a highly lethal, survivable weapon system that will serve as a cornerstone of future defense capability for the U.S. and its allied partners. It is designed to replace the A-10, the AV-8 Harrier, the F-16 and the F/A-18.
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