30 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial
By Jen DiMascio
The U.S. Air Force's plan for acquiring future fighter aircraft may crimp the service's ability to grow in the future, a study of the USAF's force structure plans indicates.
The study, “The Air Force of the Future,” compares the service's force structure plans during times of peak budgets—in fiscal 2020 and fiscal 1985. In fiscal 2020, a budget of $205 billion could support 5,300 aircraft. This is a little more than half of the number that the same amount of money, adjusted for inflation, could support in 1985—9,400. The same holds true for the number of personnel, the report says. It was released Oct. 29 by Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which examined three different studies of the size of the future force.
As part of the report, Harrison drills further into the Air Force's spending habits to find that one factor underlying the inability to afford a larger force is the increase over time in operation and maintenance costs.
“The average O&M cost per plane is 74% higher today in real terms than in fiscal 2001,” the report says.
Looking more closely at maintenance costs, he finds that the most expensive aircraft to operate are the smallest fleets, such as the Boeing E-4 Advanced Airborne Command Post aircraft, the Northrop Grumman E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System and Northrop's B-2 bomber.
“This is because the fixed costs of operating the fleet are distributed across more aircraft in large fleets, which brings down the overall ownership cost per plane,” the report says. “The data suggest that the Air Force could reduce operating costs by divesting aircraft that are maintained in small numbers in the current inventory and consolidating the capabilities they provide into common multimission platforms.”
Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper is recommending an acquisition strategy dubbed the “digital century series.” It aims to build new fighter aircraft designed to last 3,500 flight hours in batches of hundreds, rather than the current model of pursuing advanced technology for an aircraft type that will last for decades.
But Harrison estimates that the operation and sustainment cost of sustaining five different aircraft types of 72 aircraft, or 360 total aircraft, would cost about the same as sustaining 1,800 aircraft of the same type.
“That's something the Air Force has got to consider,” Harrison said. “With the digital century series approach, they may end up with a bunch of small fleets and may limit the ability of the Air Force to grow in the future.”
https://aviationweek.com/defense/usaf-s-future-fighter-plan-may-limit-growth-study-says
12 juin 2023 | International, Aérospatial
Industry officials and military leaders have studied tactics as they craft their designs for a new generation of rotorcraft supporting alliance forces.
16 mars 2023 | International, Autre défense
India on Thursday approved purchases of missiles, helicopters, artillery guns and electronic warfare systems worth $8.5 billion as it sought to add more teeth to its military.
11 juillet 2018 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
By: Shawn Snow The Corps is looking to install antennas in its F/A-18 C/D Hornets to help the aircraft defeat GPS jammers. In a request for information posted in early June by Naval Air Systems Command, or NAVAIR, the Corps wants to install the anti-jam antennas known as the Air Navigation Warfare Program, or NAVWAR, in 120 of the legacy Hornets. The anti-jamming antenna “provides Global Positioning System (GPS) protection for Naval Air platforms by allowing for continued access to GPS through the use of Anti-Jam (AJ) Antenna Systems designed to counter GPS Electronic Warfare threats from intentional and unintentional interference,” Michael Land, a spokesman for NAVAIR, told Marine Corps Times in an emailed statement Tuesday. The development comes as U.S. aircraft have faced mounting electronic warfare attacks against aircraft in Syria. Army Gen. Tony Thomas, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, told audience members at a conference in April that adversaries were trying to bring down AC-130 gunships in Syria using electronic warfare, or EW. “Right now in Syria, we're in the most aggressive EW environment on the planet, from our adversaries,” Thomas said. “They're testing us every day, knocking our communications down, disabling our AC-130s, et cetera.” The Corps is amid an overhaul of its forces and equipment to prepare for a potential fight with near-peer adversaries like Russia and China. Both countries boast an impressive array of electronic warfare capabilities. Russia has been using the Syrian battlefield to hone its EW skills. The top Marine has oft repeated the threats posed to GPS systems from rising adversaries and says the Corps needs to be prepared to fight in GPS denied environments. The F/A-18 is the Corps' bridging aircraft as it moves to the new high-tech F-35. As the Corps transitions the older legacy Hornets are undergoing a service life extension, meaning the aircraft are being updated to handle the modern battlefield. “Installation in F/A-18 A-D helps ensure continued mission capability as the service life of the aircraft is extended and facilitates supportability by using more common equipment,” Land said. The Navy and the Marine Corps already use the anti-jamming GPS antenna in a number of airframes, according to Land. “Typical installations replace a platform's existing GPS antenna with a NAVWAR antenna and separate antenna electronics, while leaving a platform's GPS receiver in place,” Land added. The Corps expects the F/A-18 to be in sunset by 2030. As the Corps moves to the F-35 and phases out its Hornets, the legacy fighters will consolidate on the West Coast by 2018 with the exception of VMFA (AW)‐242, which will remain aboard the Corps' air station at Iwakuni, Japan until it transitions to the F-35 in 2028, according to the Corp's 2018 aviation plan. https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/07/10/the-corps-wants-to-protect-its-hornets-from-gps-jammers/