1 août 2018 | International, Aérospatial

Air Force begins in-house JSTARS maintenance amid Northrop Grumman’s shortfalls

By:

The Air Force began conducting its own depot maintenance for JSTARS July 17 at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, in an effort to field the Air Force's primary ground surveillance and battle management aircraft quicker, despite contractor shortfalls.

Maintenance for the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft was previously done exclusively by Northrop Grumman at a facility in Louisiana, but the service has said the maintenance was too slow. Now, Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex will supplement the contractors to speed up the process.

“Historically, the contractor has averaged about 400 days per aircraft,” Air Force Material Command spokesman Derek Kaufman told Air Force Times.

“The driver has been to increase the number of aircraft available for operations and training. The Air Force intends to fly JSTARS into the mid-to-late 2020s, while the follow-on Advanced Battle Management System [ABMS] is developed," Kaufman said.

The Air Force has not released exactly what the ABMS entails, but it will fuse information from satellites, drones, ground sensors and manned ISR aircraft. Because Robbins AFB is also playing host to the initial elements of the ABMS program, Kaufman said the base will continue to play a role in the command and control mission.

In the meantime, maintenance delays for existing JSTARS must be streamlined, according to the press release announcing the push.

“We've been focusing intensely for a couple of years on improving contractor-led depot performance, but aircraft are still remaining in depot too long,” said Steven Wert, the Air Force's program executive officer for battle management, who oversees these efforts. “We have to find ways to increase throughput and overall depot capacity, and we believe this option is well worth exploring.”

The work done at the new facility will help the Air Force better understand the costs of performing JSTARS depot maintenance on its own.

“Should this first organic induction prove successful, we currently plan two more JSTARS aircraft to be inducted, one per year,” Kaufman said.

It's important to note that this maintenance plan is separate from efforts to retire the Air Force's fleet of 17 JSTARS. The 2019 defense authorization bill allocates funds for the ABMS program, but the Air Force will not be able to retire any of these planes until the second phase of that program is declared operational, according to Congress' bill.

As a result, service officials are anxious to get more JSTARS into the air for operations and training while waiting to bring the ABMS program online.

In addition to slow delivery, Northrop Grumman has had some issues with their maintenance in the past. An Air Force investigation released in March 2017 showed that contract maintainers left drainage holes covered on the bottom of a JSTARS' radome during depot maintenance between March 2015 and July 2016. This caused the radome to collect water and inflicted $7.35 million worth of damage to the aircraft.

That damage was discovered on July 28, 2016, when the JSTARS aircraft assigned to the 116th Air Control Wing at Robins experienced radar failures during checks conducted by Air Force radar specialists.

“When the specialists opened the radome for the radar, they discovered portions of the radar immersed in standing water with visible corrosion damage,” the report states.

In the future, inducting more aircraft into the Air Force's own depot maintenance facility could offer some advantages, according to the service. The program office, operational wings, functional check flight crews and Air Combat Command's flight test detachment are all co-located at Robins. These locality benefits could help cut down on transportation costs.

Additionally, start-up costs should be minimal because Robins already hosts the E-8C operational wings, according to the Air Force.

“Our dedicated professionals and mission partners have extensive experience in overhauling and modifying large aircraft like the C-130, C-17 and C-5 fleet. I'm confident our team can leverage this experience and help the JSTARS community improve aircraft availability,” said Brig. Gen. John Kubinec, commander of Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex, in another press release. “Our team is excited about this opportunity and we stand ready to support this effort by working closely with the PEO and Northrop Grumman.”

The Air Force still has an agreement with Northrop Grumman that runs through 2022, called a Total System Support Responsibility contract. The depot maintenance at Robins “would supplement, not supplant," the work being done by the existing contract, the Air Force clarified.

“In fact, the Air Force will need Northrop's help to successfully execute this proof of concept,” according to the release.

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/07/31/air-force-begins-in-house-jstars-maintenance-amid-northrop-grummans-shortfalls/

Sur le même sujet

  • In a future USAF bomber force, old and ugly beats new and snazzy

    28 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial

    In a future USAF bomber force, old and ugly beats new and snazzy

    Robert Burns, The Associated Press WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. — In the topsy-turvy world of U.S. strategic bombers, older and uglier sometimes beats newer and snazzier. As the Air Force charts a bomber future in line with the Pentagon's new focus on potential war with China or Russia, the youngest and flashiest — the stealthy B-2, costing a hair-raising $2 billion each — is to be retired first. The oldest and stodgiest — the Vietnam-era B-52 — will go last. It could still be flying when it is 100 years old. This might seem to defy logic, but the elite group of men and women who have flown the bat-winged B-2 Spirit accept the reasons for phasing it out when a next-generation bomber comes on line. “In my mind, it actually does make sense to have the B-2 as an eventual retirement candidate,” says John Avery, who flew the B-2 for 14 years from Whiteman Air Force Base in western Missouri. He and his wife, Jennifer, were the first married couple to serve as B-2 pilots; she was the first woman to fly it in combat. The Air Force sees it as a matter of money, numbers and strategy. The Air Force expects to spend at least $55 billion to field an all-new, nuclear-capable bomber for the future, the B-21 Raider, at the same time the Pentagon will be spending hundreds of billions of dollars to replace all of the other major elements of the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. The Air Force also is spending heavily on new fighters and refueling aircraft, and like the rest of the military it foresees tighter defense budgets ahead. The B-2′s viability suffers from the fact that only 21 were built, of which 20 remain. That leaves little slack in the supply chain for unique spare parts. It is thus comparatively expensive to maintain and to fly. It also is seen as increasingly vulnerable against air defenses of emerging war threats like China. Then there is the fact that the B-52, which entered service in the mid-1950s and is known to crews as the Big Ugly Fat Fellow, keeps finding ways to stay relevant. It is equipped to drop or launch the widest array of weapons in the entire Air Force inventory. The plane is so valuable that the Air Force twice in recent years has brought a B-52 back from the grave — taking long-retired planes from a desert “boneyard” in Arizona and restoring them to active service. Strategic bombers have a storied place in U.S. military history, from the early days of the former Strategic Air Command when the only way America and the former Soviet Union could launch nuclear weapons at each other was by air, to the B-52′s carpet bombing missions in Vietnam. Developed in secrecy in the 1980s, the B-2 was rolled out as a revolutionary weapon — the first long-range bomber built with stealth, or radar-evading, technology designed to defeat the best Soviet air defenses. By the time the first B-2 was delivered to the Air Force in 1993, however, the Soviet Union had disintegrated and the Cold War had ended. The plane made its combat debut in the 1999 Kosovo war. It flew a limited number of combat sorties over Iraq and Afghanistan and has launched only five combat sorties since 2011, all in Libya. The last was a 2017 strike notable for the fact that it pitted the world's most expensive and exotic bomber against a flimsy camp of Islamic State group militants. “It has proved its worth in the fight, over time,” says Col. Jeffrey Schreiner, who has flown the B-2 for 19 years and is commander of the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman, which flies and maintains the full fleet. But after two decades of fighting small wars and insurgencies, the Pentagon is shifting its main focus to what it calls “great power competition” with a rising China and a resurgent Russia, in an era of stiffer air defenses that expose B-2 vulnerabilities. Thus the Pentagon's commitment to the bomber of the future — the B-21 Raider. The Air Force has committed to buying at least 100 of them. The plane is being developed in secrecy to be a do-it-all strategic bomber. A prototype is being built now, but the first flight is not considered likely before 2022. Bombers are legend, but their results are sometimes regretted. A B-2 bomber scarred U.S.-China relations in 1999 when it bombed Beijing's embassy in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, killing three people. China denounced the attack as a “barbaric act,” while the U.S. insisted it was a grievous error. The Air Force had planned to keep its B-2s flying until 2058 but will instead retire them as the B-21 Raider arrives in this decade. Also retiring early will be the B-1B Lancer, which is the only one of the three bomber types that is no longer nuclear-capable. The Air Force proposes to eliminate 17 of its 62 Lancers in the coming year. The B-52, however, will fly on. It is so old that it made a mark on American pop culture more than half a century ago. It lent its name to a 1960s beehive hairstyle that resembled the plane's nosecone, and the plane featured prominently in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 black comedy, “Dr. Strangelove.” More than once, the B-52 seemed destined to go out of style. “We're talking about a plane that ceased production in 1962 based on a design that was formulated in the late 1940s,” says Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Washington think-tank. Rather than retire it, the Air Force is planning to equip the Boeing behemoth with new engines, new radar technology and other upgrades to keep it flying into the 2050s. It will be a “stand off” platform from which to launch cruise missiles and other weapons from beyond the reach of hostile air defenses. In Thompson's view, the Air Force is making a simple calculation: The B-52 costs far less to operate and maintain than the newer but finickier B-2. “They decided the B-52 was good enough,” he says. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2020/07/26/in-a-future-usaf-bomber-force-old-and-ugly-beats-new-and-snazzy/

  • US Air Force ready to test tech for new battle management system

    9 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial

    US Air Force ready to test tech for new battle management system

    Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The Air Force is ramping up its efforts to test and field a suite of new hardware and software that will become the military's command and control backbone. Since February, the Air Force has published three separate broad area announcements seeking technologies that could be funneled inside the Advanced Battle Management System, the service's effort to seamlessly connect all of the Department of Defense's equipment and pool together its data to form a complete picture of the battlespace. Then, in May and July, it awarded the first two mega-batches of ABMS contracts, with 46 companies in total winning $1000 and a chance to compete for more money down the road. “We want a wide variety of companies, and we definitely want fresh blood in the ABMS competition,” Will Roper, the Air Force's acquisition executive, told reporters on May 14. “There is a lot that can be contributed from companies that are commercially focused, that know a lot about data, that know a lot about machine learning and AI and know a lot about analytics. Those are going to be the most important parts of the Advanced Battle Management System.” ABMS is the Air Force's piece of the military's fledgling Joint All Domain Command and Control concept. The vision involves networking every shooter and sensor to a cloud computing environment and using artificial intelligence to ensure that relevant information is immediately sent to whichever platform needs it. In practice, that could look like compiling data from a Global Hawk drone and a naval destroyer to help cue a fighter jet to lock its missile on a nearby target. While the Air Force has some big picture ideas of the products that will comprise ABMS — such as cloud computing tools, machine learning technologies and apps — it hasn't set firm requirements or laid out exactly what products it needs to build out the system. Through the BAAs, the government plans on bringing in companies using different styles of contracts and agreements, which Roper said will allow startups, commercial tech firms and other nontraditional players to “find their fit with this mission.” Those companies will then bring their products and technologies for week-long field tests, held three times a year. The next phase of experiments is planned to start on Aug. 31. While the service had already performed one experiment with technologies that could become part of ABMS and had put several dozen companies on contract prior to May, the Air Force sees the broad area announcements as vehicles to capture a wider array of technology firms that may not already do business with the government, Roper said. Each BAA has multiple rolling deadlines, with the Air Force hoping to award contracts anywhere from four to six weeks after a company submits a proposal. The first announcement seeks out proposals for traditional indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contracts. The second solicits ideas and technologies through a two-step process, where industry would submit information about the concept before being invited to submit a formal proposal, which the service says will allow participation from contractors “who are unsure about how they want to proceed but want to share their idea.” The third announcement invites companies with existing products to join ongoing ABMS technology demonstrations — at no cost to the government — through cooperative research and development agreements. The service also held a series of industry days, starting May 13, to help answer questions about the effort, especially from businesses that don't usually work with the Defense Department. “We had over a hundred companies just in the first day, and we are expecting more than 300 before the end of this first event,” Roper said. “Three hundred companies for the first industry day ... is a good start. That's certainly broader than the number of defense primes that we have or even the major suppliers.” Each of the announcements specify seven broad areas where the service is seeking new technologies or ideas: Digital architecture, standards and concepts: The Air Force is looking for digital modeling and simulation technologies, trade studies and other standards development tools and processes that it can use to map out the entire ABMS architecture virtually and test how it would work in practice. Sensor integration: In essence, the service wants any hardware or software that will allow different equipment to share data. “A key interest of ABMS is the compatibility and interoperability capabilities through the use of open interfaces to enable improved control of systems and the processing of their data,” the service said in the BAA. Data: The Air Force is also interested in “cloud-based data repositories” that could pass information across domains to the different services. These libraries of data points will be “meta tagged,” analyzed and then fused using AI algorithms to help inform military decision makers. Secure processing: The service needs technologies that will be able to move the appropriate data across technologies with different security levels, ensuring that classified information stays protected while sharing what is feasible. It also includes deployment, training and support services for all devices and processing environments. Connectivity: These tools include line-of-sight and beyond line-of-sight communications networks, as well as technologies that can turn a platform into a data node, reduce latency, provide improved anti-jamming capabilities or other functions that improve the speed and breadth of communications gear. Applications: iPhone analogies have become Defense Department clichés at this point, but the Air Force is hoping to commission the design and development of apps to process, fuse and help present data to different audiences across domains. Effects integration: These involve networked weapons that can be integrated with existing platforms for a greater combined effect. “This includes, but is not limited to smart munitions and low-cost autonomous platforms” that can carry out functions such as data relay. The Air Force is slated to spend $300 million on the Advanced Battle Management System through fiscal year 2021, according to the Government Accountability Office, which has also warned that the nontraditional structure of the program could put it “at greater risk for schedule delays, cost growth, and integration issues.” Preston Dunlap, the Air Force's chief architect charged with overseeing the ABMS effort, said the the price of technologies will undeniably be an important criteria, and the service will try to reduce costs by using affordable and readily available commercial products whenever possible. “That's one of the core principles that we have to manage costs,” he said during a May 7 event hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “We're able to take advantage of the commercial pressures and marketplace to keep the costs down. That's different. Normally it's flipped. If we're the primary customer here, we've got to be very concerned about cost growth associated with that. Right now, in some sense, we're the small buyer.” While the Air Force will better be able estimate the total cost of ABMS as experiments go on, the current focus of the effort is figuring out how to inject innovative commercial tech into the military system as quickly as it becomes available, Dunlap said. “I'm less worried at the moment about some of those cost issues because if we're in that cycle we're probably not doing it right,” he said. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/c2-comms/2020/07/08/us-air-force-ready-to-test-tech-for-new-battle-management-system/

  • Pourquoi pas un porte-avions franco-européen ?

    25 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

    Pourquoi pas un porte-avions franco-européen ?

    OPINION. Le porte-avions offre une capacité militaire majeure à une marine. Son déploiement, lors d'une crise, représente un signal politique fort. L'apparition d'un porte-avions aux couleurs de l'Europe serait certes « hautement symbolique », mais le symbole ne suffit pas dans les questions de défense. Par un groupe de travail au sein de l'association EuroDéfense-France(*). « Le Charles-de-Gaulle aura besoin d'un successeur », souligna Florence Parly, la ministre des Armées, au salon Euronaval en octobre 2018, en lançant une phase d'études pour la construction d'un nouveau porte-avions, qui pourrait entrer en service vers 2030-2035. Ce successeur sera-t-il isolé ? Ou en couple, comme le furent naguère le Clemenceau et le Foch ? Cette solution serait militairement préférable, permettant à la France de toujours disposer d'un b'timent opérationnel, tandis que l'autre serait en période d'entretien ou en refonte. Elle aurait toutefois un coût élevé, celui d'un seul navire étant estimé à 4,5 milliards d'euros. Le porte-avions offre une capacité militaire majeure à une marine. Son déploiement, lors d'une crise, représente un signal politique fort. Dans sa mission Clemenceau, entre mars et juillet derniers, le groupe aéronaval, constitué par le Charles de Gaulle avec ses b'timents d'accompagnement, a participé à l'opération Chammal contre Daech au Moyen-Orient, puis a rejoint la région indo-pacifique pour une série d'exercices avec les marines de l'Inde, des États-Unis, de l'Australie, de la Malaisie et du Japon, et celle de l'Egypte au retour. Combat contre le terrorisme et coopération avec nos alliés ont ainsi conjugué guerre et diplomatie. Dans sa réponse aux propositions d'Emmanuel Macron en vue d'une réforme de l'Union européenne, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, alors successeure d'Angela Merkel à la présidence de l'Union chrétienne-démocrate d'Allemagne et désormais ministre fédérale de la Défense, a écrit en mars de cette année : close volume_off « Dès à présent, l'Allemagne et la France travaillent ensemble au projet d'un futur avion de combat européen... La prochaine étape pourrait consister en un projet hautement symbolique, la construction d'un porte-avions européen commun, pour souligner le rôle de l'Union européenne dans le monde en tant que puissance garante de sécurité et de paix. » Macron et Merkel ont plusieurs fois exprimé l'ambition d'une « armée européenne. » Si l'Europe veut tenir sa place dans le concert mondial, tel qu'il se dessine avec des puissances-continent comme les États-Unis, la Chine, la Russie ou l'Inde, elle doit se doter d'une capacité militaire d'action. Des progrès indéniables sont intervenus depuis 2017, notamment gr'ce à la coopération structurée permanente, le fonds européen de défense, l'initiative européenne d'intervention, mais l'Union européenne reste loin de disposer d'une véritable armée. Un porte-avions aux couleurs de l'Europe ? L'apparition d'un porte-avions aux couleurs de l'Europe serait certes « hautement symbolique », comme l'écrit la responsable allemande, et ce navire pourrait montrer le drapeau de l'Union sur les mers du globe et aux approches des continents. Cependant, le symbole ne suffit pas dans les questions de défense. Un porte-avions est un navire de guerre et, s'il peut remplir des missions diplomatiques de présence, il faut, pour que celles-ci soient crédibles, qu'il soit aussi capable d'intervenir militairement, qu'il sache effectivement combattre. À cet égard, la réalisation d'un porte-avions peut paraître prématurée à ce stade de l'intégration européenne. Florence Parly a, en effet répondu, sur les ondes de RMC en mai dernier qu'on « n'en est pas encore tout à fait là », en évoquant les conditions d'emploi d'un tel navire. Il ne suffit pas de construire un porte-avions, encore faut-il être capable de l'employer, certes pour des missions de présence, mais également, si besoin, pour un engagement armé dans une crise ou un conflit. Or, l'on n'en est pas encore là. La brigade franco-allemande est déployée au Sahel, mais seules ses composantes françaises se battent contre les djihadistes, la partie allemande intervenant dans le cadre d'un mandat de l'Union européenne pour la formation de l'armée malienne ou dans celui de la force onusienne Minusma. Conjuguer les besoins de la France et ceux de l'Europe ? Faut-il alors abandonner l'idée d'un porte-avions européen ? Ne pourrait-on conjuguer les besoins de la France et ceux de l'Europe ? Un second porte-avions serait utile à la marine française. Un porte-avions européen signifierait une étape considérable dans l'affirmation militaire de l'Union, qui est en chemin. Pourquoi la France ne partagerait-elle pas un porte-avions ? Pourquoi ne pas engager la construction de deux porte-avions, le premier français, le second franco-européen. Celui-ci naviguerait sous le pavillon national, celui-là naviguerait généralement sous le pavillon européen et arborerait le pavillon français, quand l'autre serait indisponible. Le premier serait financé uniquement par la France, le second le serait à parité par la France et l'Union européenne. Budgétairement, l'opération serait rentable : la France disposerait toujours d'un porte-avions opérationnel pour un coût probablement inférieur à celui d'un b'timent et demi, une série de deux s'avérant à l'unité moins couteuse que la construction d'un seul ; l'Union européenne acquérait, de même, un porte-avions pour un budget inférieur sans doute à la moitié du coût d'un navire isolé. Mettre en œuvre un groupe aérien de qualité Des questions sensibles seraient à résoudre, l'une des premières concernant le groupe aérien. En effet, la puissance d'un porte-avions réside dans sa capacité mettre en œuvre un groupe aérien de qualité. La France est le seul pays européen à utiliser, comme les Etats-Unis, des catapultes. La Grande-Bretagne, l'Espagne et l'Italie déploient des porte-aéronefs avec des avions à décollage court ou vertical, aux capacités moindres. Le groupe aérien, qui réunirait des appareils capables d'apponter sur les nouveaux porte-avions, serait logiquement composé du futur avion de combat européen, dont le projet a été lancé par la France et l'Allemagne, rejointes par l'Espagne. Des évolutions devraient intervenir chez nos amis, soit, comme en Allemagne, pour reconstituer une aviation embarquée, soit, comme en Italie, pour choisir un avion européen. Des décisions significatives seraient nécessaires, mais ces pays, voire d'autres, pourraient vouloir développer une composante aéronavale moderne, dès lors que le coût budgétaire, né de la coopération européenne, serait raisonnable. Rien, techniquement, n'interdirait de créer des flottilles européennes d'avions pouvant apponter sur ces porte-avions. Un autre sujet délicat est celui de l'équipage. Celui-ci rend opérationnel le porte-avions, qui accueille des flottilles d'avions et l'état-major du groupe aéronaval. Il doit être en phase avec son navire. Quand le b'timent franco-européen naviguerait sous pavillon français, son équipage devrait, au besoin, pouvoir être engagé au combat, y compris avec ses membres non français. Développer la participation, étendre le périmètre de discussion S'agissant du groupe aéronaval, d'ores et déjà l'habitude est prise que des navires européens intègrent celui du Charles-de-Gaulle, y compris dans des missions d'engagement armé. Ainsi, chaque fois que ce b'timent a été déployé pour frapper Daech, il a été accompagné par de tels navires (allemand, belge, britannique et italien). L'existence d'un porte-avions européen développerait la participation des marines européennes, en contribuant à leur excellence. L'accord devrait intervenir également sur le système de propulsion, nucléaire ou non, et sur le partage des t'ches entre les industries navales, la France étant la seule, à ce jour, à disposer des compétences pour construire des porte-avions dotés de catapultes. D'autres sujets seraient à traiter, comme le port d'attache, la formation et l'entrainement, la chaîne de commandement... La résolution de certaines questions serait indéniablement délicate, mais possible en présence d'une vraie volonté politique. Cette volonté témoignerait d'un pas nouveau et significatif de l'Europe pour sa défense et de son rayonnement dans le monde. https://www.latribune.fr/opinions/tribunes/pourquoi-pas-un-porte-avions-franco-europeen-831590.html

Toutes les nouvelles