Romania, Czech Republic advance F-35 acquisition plans

On the same subject

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  July 17, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Lockheed’s IRST Stealth Detection Pod Passes AF Milestones

  "The Legion Pod uses an advanced IRST technology that gives 4th generation fighters the ability to 'see' stealth aircraft that traditional radar cannot," says an Air Combat Command spokesperson. By THERESA HITCHENSon July 16, 2020 at 3:37 PM WASHINGTON: The Air Force is a step closer to fielding the Legion Pod infra-red search and track (IRST) system on its F-15 and F-16 fleets — a passive sensor that gives pilots a long-range ability to track stealthy aircraft without giving away their own presence. The Lockheed Martin-built IRST system just passed two major testing milestones: the first shot of an AIM-9X air-to-air missile from an F-15C Eagle using the Legion Pod for targeting; and the first flight of an operational F-16 Fighting Falcon with the Legion Pod, Air Combat Command announced Tuesday in a press release. “This is exceptionally important, as the Legion Pod uses an advanced IRST technology that gives 4th generation fighters the ability to ‘see' stealth aircraft that traditional radar cannot,” an Air Combat Command spokesperson says in an email. Because it uses infrared to track an airplane's heat signature, the system isn't affected by radar jamming. Further, IRST systems are passive, meaning the Legion Pod can act without emitting any radiation of its own that might allow an enemy to recognize they are being targeted. The Air Force is driving toward initial operational capability (IOC) for the Legion Pod by the end of the year, under a rapid testing program managed by the Operational Flight Program Combined Test Force (OFP CTF). The unit is unique in that it reports both to Air Combat Command and Air Materiel Command, and is empowered to do developmental and operational testing at the same time — unlike traditional sequential testing programs. “The OFP CTF's work on the Legion Pod is done differently than the traditional acquisitions method,” Lt. Col. Thomas Moser, the unit's commander, says in the press release. “We actually started testing the pod in a Pre-Developmental Test (DT) phase in early 2019 and got it to an eighty percent solution before it ever entered the official developmental phase. This ultimately allowed us to go through the developmental and operational testing quicker. What would normally take several years has been reduced to eighteen months from the start of DT to expected fielding.” The Air Force selected the Legion Pod to equip the F-15C fleet in 2017; and Lockheed Martin received a contract for the system from prime contractor Boeing in 2018 for development and low-rate initial production of 19 pods. “Currently, we are under contract for 38 LRIP systems,” Lockheed Martin spokesperson Dana Edwards Szigeti tells Breaking D in an email. “The next generation Block II systems are also under development with the U.S. Navy and we look to transition that to Legion Pod for the U.S. AF and Air National Guard over the next few years. Block II significantly increases system performance.” The new F-15EX jets also will be compatible with the pod, according to Boeing's program manager Prat Kumar — although there isn't a formal contract yet. The system is based on Lockheed Martin's IRST21 sensor, also being used by the Navy in its Block III F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fleet. In addition, Lockheed in May received an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract, worth up to $485 million, that will allow the US military services and allies to buy the IRT21 sensor, as well as other sensor products such as the Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod and the LANTIRN Extended Range pod, for five years at pre-set price points. That contract vehicle will allow the Air Force to equip the F-16 fleet with the Legion Pod, Edwards Szigeti said. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/lockheeds-irst-stealth-detection-pod-passes-af-milestones/

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  November 12, 2023 | International, Aerospace

  Kyiv hopes for conference next month on joint Ukraine-US arms production | Reuters

  Ukraine's presidential chief of staff said he hoped a conference on joint Ukrainian-U.S. weapons production would be held in December in the United States, Kyiv's most important supplier of military assistance.

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  March 26, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  FVL: Army Picks Bell & Sikorsky For FARA Scout

  The Bell 360 Invictus and the Sikorsky Raider-X will vie for the final contract to build FARA, with rival prototypes in flight by 2023. Bell and Sikorsky (with Boeing) are also facing off for the FLRAA transport. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR WASHINGTON: The Army has now narrowed its future aircraft choices to Sikorsky vs. Bell. This afternoon, the service announced that it had picked Sikorsky and Bell to build competing prototypes for Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), a high-speed optionally manned scout to replace the retired Bell OH-58 Kiowa. Just eight days ago, it picked the same two firms – plus aerospace giant Boeing, acting as Sikorsky's de facto junior partner – to compete for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), which will replace the Sikorsky's UH-60 Black Hawk as the military's aerial workhorse for everything from Ranger raids to medevac. The FLRAA transport decision was no surprise. The Army picked the two teams it had been funding for years to develop prototypes, the Bell V-280 Valor tiltrotor and the Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1 Defiant. There was more uncertainty over the FARA scout, because the service had given five companies Other Transaction Authority contracts to develop designs. Of those five, only Sikorsky had built and flight-tested an actual aircraft, the S-97 Raider, of which its Raider-X design is basically a super-sized version. Sikorsky and Bell now get to build FARA prototypes, while AVX, Boeing, and Karem have been cut. While AVX and Karem are design houses that have never built an actual aircraft, Boeing is a major aerospace player for which this is just the latest in a series of blows. Sikorsky and Bell have taken starkly different approaches to Future Vertical Lift. For both the FARA scout and the FLRAA transport, Sikorsky is offering its signature compound helicopters, descended from its record-breaking X2, that use a combination of ultra-rigid coaxial rotors and a pusher propeller to overcome the aerodynamic limits that cap the speed and range of traditional helicopters. No compound helicopter has ever entered mass production, but Sikorsky has built and flown two S-97 prototypes and, with Boeing, the much larger SB>1 Defiant: Raider-X will fall between the S-97 and SB>1 in size. Bell's marquee technology is the tiltrotor, most famously the widely used V-22 Osprey, using two massive rotors that tilt forward like a propeller for level flight and upwards like a helicopter for vertical takeoff and landing. It's a next-gen tiltrotor, the V-280 Valor, that Bell is flying for FLRAA. But Bell couldn't scale down their tiltrotor design – whose side-by-side rotors inevitably make for a wide aircraft – enough for the Army's FARA scout, which is meant to fly down city streets in urban warzones. So instead, their Bell 360 Invictus is, in essence, a streamlined conventional helicopter with wings: It has a single main rotor and a tail rotor, just like the old Kiowa, but it adds winglets to help with lift for high-speed fleet. Sikorsky argues their compound helicopter configuration is inherently much more efficient, pointing out that Bell's design requires more horsepower to achieve the Army's required speeds. Bell argues their time-tested single-main-rotor configuration will be less risky to develop, cheaper to buy, and easier to maintain. They each have three years to prove their case to the Army. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/fvl-army-picks-bell-sikorsky-for-fara-scout