AeroIndia 2019 : Lockheed Martin transforme son F-16 en F-21

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  16 septembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Raytheon Unveils Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile Project

  Steve Trimble Raytheon has unveiled an internally funded program to develop a new air-to-air missile called Peregrine that combines the reach of the medium-range AIM-120 and the maneuverability of the short-range AIM-9X, but in a smaller form factor to increase the magazine depth of tactical aircraft. The unveiling of a Peregrine mockup on Sept. 16 at the Air Force Association's annual National Convention in Washington comes just three months after U.S. Air Force officials confirmed the ongoing development of the Lockheed Martin AIM-260, which is intended to replace the AIM-120 with a longer-range missile of the same length. The Peregrine missile is being pitched to U.S. and international customers that want AIM-120 performance in a smaller package to double missile loads in the internal weapon bays of stealth fighters or triple the magazine depth on the external weapon stations of nonstealth aircraft, says Mark Noyes, vice president of business development and strategy for Raytheon Missile Systems. “What we see it as is a complement to our [AIM-120] Amraam and AIM-9X,” Noyes says Raytheon's internal development project follows the introduction of multiple weapons boasting longer range than the nearly three-decade-old AIM-120 design. In addition to the MBDA Meteor, the PL-15 is being developed by China and the Vympel K-77M has been ordered by the Russian government. The Peregrine also fits into a new category typified by the 2013 unveiling of Lockheed Martin's Cuda concept, which offered the Air Force a missile with AIM-120-like range—or slightly better—in a package half the size and weight. The Cuda received support from an Air Force Research Laboratory project called Small Advanced Capabilities Missile. Raytheon lists the Peregrine with a length of 6 ft. (1.8 m) and a total weight of about 150 lb. (68 kg), or roughly half the length and mass of the 12-ft., 335-lb. AIM-120. Although Peregrine shares a common stature with Lockheed's Cuda concept, there are distinct differences. Lockheed designed the Cuda as a hit-to-kill weapon, but the Peregrine destroys the target with a blast-fragmentation warhead. The missile is guided to the target with a “multimode autonomous seeker,” says Noyes, but he declined to elaborate. A multimode guidance system places the Peregrine in a different category than the radar-guided AIM-120 and infrared homing AIM-9X. It could more closely reflect the multimode guidance system installed in the Raytheon/Rafael Stunner surface-to-air missile, which combines radar and infrared sensors into a dolphin nose-shaped radome. A “new, high-performance propulsion section” will accelerate the Peregrine to supersonic speed to achieve potentially slightly better range than the AIM-120, but Noyes declined to describe the specific type of propulsion technology selected for the new missile. Several options are available to modern missile designers. The Stunner uses a multipulse rocket motor, while the MBDA powers the Meteor missile with a ramjet-augmented rocket. Missile developers also have been experimenting with new propellant technologies, including exotic gels. Even at a range equivalent to that of the AIM-120, the Peregrine should provide similar endgame maneuverability as the super agile AIM-9X, Noyes says. “It will go supersonic and that's attributable to that new lightweight airframe and high-performance modular control system,” he says. “That permits it [to] go and do incredible maneuvers, especially at the endgame where it's needed most.” How long Raytheon has been developing the Peregrine is not clear. In a blow to Raytheon's hopes to deliver the successor of the AIM-120, the Air Force awarded the AIM-160 development contract to Lockheed in 2017. Raytheon filed a trademark application for a new guided missile called Peregrine on Aug. 14, 2018. The company is testing components and is “seeing tremendous progress,” Noyes adds. “We are making a commitment to mature this so our service customers will resonate with its capabilities and demonstrated performance,” he says. https://aviationweek.com/defense/raytheon-unveils-medium-range-air-air-missile-project

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  4 février 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  The US Air Force wants to continue its light-attack experiment. Will industry buy in?

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — If the U.S. Air Force takes two years to conduct a light-attack experiment — made possible in part by industry investments — and then abandons it, why should defense contractors buy into the next one? That was the question posed to the Air Force's top uniformed acquisition official by one attendee of a Feb. 1 event held by the Air Force Association. "I think there's a skepticism out here,” said Mike Loh, a retired Air Force four-star general who now runs a consulting firm. “There's got to be a requirement or funding or both at the end of that, otherwise you've got guys in industry that are investing a lot of money, and they're looking back at light-attack aircraft,” he said. “What did you do? Nothing. You put it on the back burner.” Loh's question highlights the confusion surrounding the Air Force's path forward on the light-attack experiment, as well as unease about the way the service approaches industry investment in short-term experimentation or development campaigns with no clear contract award at the end of the process. Industry investments have already allowed the service to fly the aircraft, set up logistics infrastructure and try new capabilities Last month, Air Force officials confirmed the service would not put out a final solicitation for the light-attack program. Matt Donovan, its undersecretary, said on Jan. 18 that the service preferred to conduct additional experiments and wanted to broaden the campaign. This latest shift follows a failed attempt to acquire a light-attack plane about a decade ago. In 2009, the Air Force began the Light Attack/Armed Reconnaissance program, and its competitors — the Textron AT-6 and Sierra Nevada Corp.-Embraer A-29 Super Tucano — are the same two aircraft involved in the current experimentation campaign. That program fizzled out due to political reasons around 2013, but the Air Force is still hopeful it can press ahead with its latest light-attack effort. “I have ideas of how we go forward, and I think we know how we go forward,” Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, the military deputy for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, said of the light-attack experiment on Friday. ”We are planning to broaden the experimentation out and carry the experimentation forward, and I think when our budget hits, you'll understand more of what we're doing." Bunch said the experiment has helped validate the Air Force's requirement for a light-attack capability that can counter violent extremist threats in a low-cost manner. “What I don't want to do is end up in a position that I've got F-35s chasing small buses or mopeds or whatever else we may be trying to chase,” he said. But when it came down to it, Air Force officials looked at the new National Defense Strategy — which prioritizes a high-end fight — and decided against making a large-scale buy of light-attack planes in the upcoming budget, he said. The Pentagon's annual report by the director of operational test and evaluation, released Thursday, shed some light on what may have been the Air Force's initial plans for the light-attack program. The service would have purchased 359 aircraft for eight operational squadrons and three training units, with a contract for either the AT-6 or A-29 to be awarded before September, the report said. The Air Force also considered getting a waiver so that it conduct component-level, live-fire tests for both aircraft before making a final downselect. An Air Force spokeswoman confirmed to Defense News that the timeline and procurement quantities noted in the DOT&E report are no longer accurate. Expanding the experiment What becomes of the light-attack experiment remains unknown — Air Force officials haven't made it clear what the service wants to see in future stages of the effort. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein stressed the importance of getting buy-in from international militaries during a Jan. 26 interview with Defense News. He also said aircraft like helicopters and drones could be considered in addition to the turboprop planes that dominated the first phases of the experiment. On Friday, Bunch said the service could look at “technologies we may be able to put on platforms or solutions that we may not have thought of” during the first phase of the experiment. “I know many people have talked about specific platforms. What I want to talk about [is] not necessarily that,” he said. That may point to a systems-of-systems approach similar to what the Air Force is seeking with its Advanced Battle Management System — a replacement for its JSTARS ground surveillance planes that will be comprised of a network of existing and new sensors. But the Air Force will need to be clear with industry about what it wants, said Andrew Hunter, head of the defense-industrial initiatives group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. For example, “if the answer is that they need to do some kind of dramatic cost-cutting initiative, give them a number,” he said. It might also benefit the Air Force to incorporate prototypes in the large-scale international exercises it regularly holds with partners, which has the added benefit of giving foreign militaries more exposure to technology that the U.S. might buy, he said. “I think people will stick with it for a while because there's still a belief that the Air Force will invest and, more important, that there is still a broad international market for this capability,” Hunter said of the light-attack experiment. But, he added, the uncertainty regarding the future of the effort illustrates the constraints of rapid prototyping and experimentation: There's no promise of a program of record at the end of the road. “[While] there is some value of exercising the muscle ... not every one of these is going to lead to a production program,” he said. After two years of experimentation, the Air Force still doesn't have an answer for how it should fill its light-attack requirement, but Bunch, the acquisition official, was adamant the experiment has had value. "I may be the only one that believes it, but I actually believe it has been a success. We tried something we hadn't done. We built a partnership with industry. We experimented. We learned a lot, and we got to the point where we weren't ready to make a large buy decision at this stage. I still believe that is learning,” Bunch said. “And I believe it is something we will take the lessons learned and roll it into how we go forward,” he added. “We've got to look at ourselves in the mirror and say: ‘Was that good or was it bad, and how do we do it better?' We've got to do our own image check." https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/02/01/the-us-air-force-wants-to-continue-its-light-attack-experiment-will-industry-buy-in

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  30 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  How the Pentagon still struggles to explain its massive cloud contract

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Air Force looks to increase the size and capability of its aircraft inventory, the service should assess the possibility of using drones as a low-cost and highly available alternative to manned airplanes, posits a new study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The CSIS report, which was obtained by Defense News and other news outlets ahead of its Oct. 29 release, compares three recent congressionally mandated studies on the Air Force's future force structure by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank, the federally funded research organization MITRE Corp. and the service itself. All three studies were broadly supportive of retaining existing unmanned aircraft, or as the Air Force terms them, Remotely Piloted Aircraft or RPAs. However, the CSIS report makes the case that the low cost and high mission capable rate of RPAs like the MQ-9 Reaper or RQ-4 Global Hawk merits more attention when making future force planning. “I think we need a roadmap for RPAs in terms of what are the new missions that we can begin to transition over to RPAs and some new operational concepts for how we use them,” CSIS senior analyst Todd Harrison told reporters at a Oct. 28 briefing. “I say this more from a cost perspective and a readiness perspective because our RPA fleet stands out from the rest of the Air Force in that it costs a lot less to operate [them] and we utilize them much more,” he said. “We need to leverage that. That's a strength that we need to double down on.” Harrison pointed to two data points supporting a wider use case for RPAs. Despite clocking in the highest number of flight hours per airframe, drones boast some of the highest mission capable rates in the Air Force's inventory, averaging near 90 percent for the MQ-9 and its predecessor, the MQ-1, and around 75 percent for the RQ-4 Global Hawk. Those aircraft are also cheap to operate, with some of the lowest costs per flying hour or total ownership costs in the inventory, Harrison said. The Air Force, MITRE and CSBA studies provide solid support for keeping the Air Force's current RPA force. The Air Force's study, which proposes a growth to 386 total operational squadrons, would add two squadrons of unmanned strike aircraft, although it does not say what kind of aircraft should be acquired. It also recommends an increase of 22 squadrons of aircraft devoted to command and control or the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission sets, but does not provide a breakdown of what specific capability gaps need to be addressed or whether they could be filled by unmanned aircraft. The MITRE and CSBA study, by contrast, advocate retaining the current inventory of MQ-9 Reapers and RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drones. CSBA also recommends the procurement of a new, stealthy MQ-X drone that could be used for strike, electronic attack and other missions in a contested environment. Despite the broad support, the three studies do not necessarily portend a wider acceptance or demand for unmanned aircraft in the next budget, Harrison said. “I wouldn't count on it happening that soon. I think this is a wider term change that's going to be needed. Part of it is a cultural change within the Air Force and part of it requires some real strategic thinking about what are the types of missions where unmanned is going to make sense and how do we best leverage those,” he said. “The RPAs that we have today, they didn't come about overnight. They evolved. A lot of the time they faced a lot of institutional resistance, but they proved themselves. They proved themselves valuable in the kind of fights that we've been in in the past 20 years.” One mission area that could be flown by unmanned aircraft in the future is aerial refueling, Harrison said. The Navy in 2018 awarded Boeing a contract to produce an unmanned carrier-based tanker drone known as the MQ-25. That aircraft, like all Navy planes, will use the simpler probe and drogue for refueling. Refueling via a rigid boom, as utilized by Air Force tankers, makes for a more challenging development, but the remote vision system on Boeing's KC-46 tanker — which allows the boom operator to steer the boom using a series of cameras as his or her only visual cue — is a step in the right direction, he said. Another potential area for expanded RPA use could be the development of low-cost drones that can be flown in swarms or as “loyal wingmen” to manned aircraft, the CSIS report stated. These “attritable” aircraft can be expended during a conflict without making an adverse impact on the mission or putting human pilots at risk. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/10/29/unmanned-aircraft-could-provide-low-cost-boost-for-air-forces-future-aircraft-inventory-new-study-says/