September 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace
While it's not unusual for companies to battle one another for weapons deals, these fights often occur behind the scenes, as lobbyists and executives spar inside the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.
But the fight over whether the U.S. Air Force should buy one or two types of $80 million fighter jets is spilling into the public view, in the pages of the trade press and in think tank reports. Air Force leaders say they need both the F-35 Lightning II, the newest fighter in the U.S. military arsenal, and the F-15EX, the latest version of the twin-engine jet first flown in 1972.
Early last year, Lockheed began to fight back against Boeing's reappearance on the service's tactical-jet shopping list.The battle became a war in July when the Air Force placed a $1.2 billion order for eight jets and said it might spend up to $23 billion to buy up to 144 new F-15s in the coming years.
It's rare for a conservative think tank to explicitly call for canceling defense programs; typically, they argue for increasing defense spending and buying more weapons. But the influential Heritage Foundation has consistently urged the Air Force not to buy the F-15EX.
“I'm just kind of surprised by the broadsides that have been occurring lately,” Jeff Shockey, vice president of global sales and marketing for Boeing Defense, Space & Security and Boeing Global Services' government services portfolio, said in an interview Friday.
The stakes are also higher now as defense spending has flattened and not expected to grow in the coming years. The latest attacks on the F-15 come as Congress is reviewing the fiscal 2021 defense spending and policy bills.
J.V. Venable, a retired Air Force F-16 pilot who is a senior research fellow at Heritage, compared the F-15EX to antiquated dial-up internet. “In deciding to fund the acquisition of the F-15EX, Congress has chosen the dial-up option,” he argued in Defense One last month. “When the Air Force signs that contract, it will be stuck with already-dated equipment for the next 30 years.”
This week, the Mitchell Institute, the Air Force Association's internal think tank, published a report that argues the F-15EX “ may address immediate shortfalls, but it ultimately fails to anticipate or prepare for a much more demanding future combat environment.”
More than a decade ago, as the F-35 struggled with a long list of development problems and cost overruns, Boeing and its surrogates pushed Air Force leaders to consider buying new F-15s or even Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets. Now as the service prepares to buy new F-15s for the first time in nearly two decades, the script has flipped.
The Air Force appears to have been persuaded by arguments that the F-15 is cheaper to fly than the F-35, and can more easily accept new applications and weapons.
But Lockheed is firing back with arguments that the fifth-generation F-35 has stealth, weapons, sensors, and data capabilities that make it a far superior choice.
“We believe the F-35 is a superior platform,” said Michele Evans, the president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, in an interview Thursday. "With its fifth-[generation] capabilities, we believe it brings capabilities that other platforms can't.”
The F-15EX is intended to replace F-15C Eagles, planes that are largely flown by the Air National Guard for homeland defense. The F-15C is considered an air superiority fighter — meaning it's fine-tuned for air-to-air combat — and cannot strike ground targets. But the Air Force also flies the ground-pounding F-15E Strike Eagle, of which the F-15EX is a modernized derivative.
“The F-35 and [F-15]EX are very complementary to one another,” Shockey said. “They do very different mission sets.”
Evans, who oversees Lockheed's combat aircraft projects, said she does not view the F-15EX as a threat to the F-35.
“I certainly respect the Air Force, that they've made a decision to procure the F-15EX and we're going to continue to make sure that we're driving upgrades and capabilities into the F-35 to keep it competitive and keep it the platform of choice for the U.S. Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps and our partner and [foreign military sales] nations,” she said.
August 28, 2023 | International, C4ISR, Security
The Norwegian Government will lead defence material cooperation between allied nations and Ukraine at a strategic level within Nato.
June 12, 2020 | International, Naval
June 11, 2020 - The U.S. Navy has awarded BAE Systems a contract to produce multiple types of Vertical Launching System (VLS) canisters with a total lifetime maximum value of $955 million. The initial contract was awarded in February with $24 million funded, followed by contract modifications of $99 million and $43 million received in March and May respectively. Options on the contract include additional canister types for future Navy production requirements. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200611005404/en/ “These canisters are a key element of the Navy's Vertical Launching System, and our experience includes 30 years of VLS production, integration and testing to support this world-class capability,” said Brent Butcher, vice president and general manager of the Weapon Systems product line at BAE Systems. “The Navy will continue to benefit from our high-quality canisters and lean, efficient operations, which translate into the best possible value for our customers.” VLS canisters serve in a multifaceted role as containers for missile shipping and storage as well as launch tubes when loaded into the VLS. They also provide identification and firing support to multiple missile types, including the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, Standard Missile-2, Standard Missile-3, Standard Missile-6, and the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile. Under this latest contract, BAE Systems will produce canisters not only for the U.S. fleet but also for allied nations under a Foreign Military Sales program. Deliveries for the initial order are expected to begin in early 2021, and if all options are exercised, the contract could support the production of canisters over a five-year period, with deliveries extending into 2025. Work on the new contract will be performed at the BAE Systems production facility in Aberdeen, South Dakota, with engineering and program support in Minneapolis. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200611005404/en/
January 26, 2021 | International, Aerospace
By: Andrew Chuter LONDON — A British initiative to develop an unmanned air vehicle known as a “loyal wingman” has received a boost with the announcement by the Ministry of Defence that a Spirit AeroSystems-led consortium is to build a full-scale test vehicle. The Belfast, Northern Ireland-based arm of Spirit and partners, including Northrop Grumman UK, have been awarded a £30 million (U.S. $41 million) deal to lead a partnership, known as Team Mosquito, for building the demonstrator vehicle in time to start a test flight program by the end of 2023. Work maturing the Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft, or LANCA, will run for three years until the conclusion of the flight trials, an MoD official said. Following completion of the demonstration phase, the Royal Air Force will analyze the data and use it to inform capability decisions, said the official. The unmanned vehicle is part of the air force's push to produce a low-cost machine in a fraction of the time of normal combat jets. The Spirit Mosquito team, previously known as Blackdawn and led by Callen-Lenz , secured the deal beating out proposals from partnerships led by Boeing and Blue Bear Systems. Spirit acquired the Belfast-based aerostructures operations of Canadian commercial and business jet builder Bombardier last year. Designing and building the airframe is a small but significant win for the company, which centers on building structures for the Airbus A220 airliner and other civil sector work. Northrop Grumman UK, the key partner alongside Spirit in Team Mosquito, said in a statement it will be providing model-based systems engineering and agile engineering expertise. The company said it will also integrate its advanced mission management (AMM) and airborne communication node technologies to enable seamless human-machine collaboration and cooperative mission management across distributed manned and unmanned assets. The MoD said further companies in the new team will be announced later. Work on LANCA has been underway since 2015, with the MoD's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory taking the lead pursing innovative combat air technologies and concepts that offer radical reductions in cost and development time. Defense Ministry officials previously said they want to produce a drone for 10 percent of the cost and in one-fifth of the time of a combat jet. “If successful, Project Mosquito's findings could lead to the capability being deployed alongside RAF Typhoon and F-35 Lightning jets by the end of the decade,” said the MoD. The drone is now a RAF Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO)-led project under the Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS TI). If the project is successful the Mosquito loyal wingman platform could eventually become the first unmanned platform in British service able to target and shoot down enemy aircraft. The Mosquito effort is one of several future air combat initiatives being pursued by the British, including development of swarming drones and the Tempest next-generation manned and unmanned combat jet. Air Chief Marshal Mike Wigston said the British were “taking a revolutionary approach, looking at a game-changing mix of swarming drones and uncrewed fighter aircraft like Mosquito, alongside piloted fighters like Tempest, that will transform the combat battlespace in a way not seen since the advent of the jet age.” The loyal wingman concept is generating increasing interest with militaries across the world, with similar work underway in the United States, Australia and Europe. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2021/01/25/british-shell-out-seed-funding-for-loyal-wingman-combat-drone/