Next Gen Bomber Linked To Self-Funded F136

In a last-ditch bid to keep the F136 combat engine alive following cancellation by the U.S. Defense Department, General Electric and Rolls-Royce are developing a plan to convert the development effort into a self-funded demonstrator for the U.S. Air Force’s long range bomber as well as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The emerging plan follows a decision by Rolls-Royce on April 29 to commit internal funds to continuing work on the F136, which is 80% complete with six development engines tested. Although expected to be funded at a much reduced rate of around $100 million per year compared to $480 million at its government-funded peak, the program would be supported 60% by GE and 40% by Rolls-Royce.

A GE-Rolls Fighter Engine Team spokesman says, despite the inevitable slowdown in the pace of development because of reduced funding, ongoing delays to the JSF mean it will still be enough to enable competition with Pratt & Whitney’s F135 baseline engine on later production lots 8/9 of Lockheed Martin’s F-35.

However, following the April 25 contract termination by the Defense Department, the success of the plan is contingent on congressional support to enable continued use of the development engines, all of which are U.S. government property. The GE-Rolls Fighter Engine Team says more than $200 million in F136 hardware is located in 17 facilities, including nine engines under various stages of assembly. All F136 activity ceased following a stop work order issued on March 24 by Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Ashton Carter.

“We anticipate that next week the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) will be pursuing an effort to get the F136 back into the budget, but put down as a self-funded provision. So we’re asking for access to the hardware, test facilities and the Joint Program Office,” says the GE-Rolls spokesman.

In its planned markup of the defense authorization bill released May 3, the HASC subcommittee setting policy for the air and land forces would also hold money for “performance improvements” to the F135 hostage unless the Pentagon would make money available to two engines for the next-generation fighter jet. The bill would narrowly define those improvements to target plans under way at Pratt & Whitney to increase vertical landing thrust with the Marines’ short-takeoff and vertical landing variant (Stovl).

It is not surprising that the HASC, which has long backed an ongoing competition, would try to keep the program alive. But since Congress has already voted to de-fund the engine, it would be a feat if the language remains in the bill that eventually passes in both the House and Senate. However, GE-Rolls believes that self-funding, plus growing congressional interest in guaranteeing an engine competition for the bomber element of the Air Force’s emerging Long Range Strike family, will provide an additional incentive.

The subcommittee is scheduled to approve the markup on May 4. The following day, HASC chairman Buck McKeon is expected to hold a press conference to talk about acquisition reform and to likely discuss the self-funded F136 development initiative for fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2012.

VH-71 Program Following Right Course: GAO

A set of rigid requirements doomed the VH-71 program from the start, but the presidential helicopter replacement program now appears to be back on track, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report states.

“A key to successful development is the ability to make early trade-offs either in the design of a product or the customer’s expectations to avoid outstripping the resources available for product development,” the GAO said in its report, “Defense Acquisitions: Application of Lessons Learned and Best Practices in the Presidential Helicopter Program,” released this spring.

“The VH-71 program was not afforded room needed to pursue these needed trade-offs,” the report said. “Stringent performance requirements (some with no flexibility) were laid out for the system prior to the start of development and did not appear to involve significant consideration of trade-offs of cost, performance and schedule negotiated between the customer and the developer.”

In June 2009, the GAO noted, following the expenditure of close to $3 billion and a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach of the cost growth threshold, the Defense Department terminated the Navy’s VH-71 presidential helicopter acquisition program and contract because of cost growth, schedule delays and projected system performance.

“The VH-71 program’s failure to follow acquisition best practices was a critical factor in the program’s poor performance that led to its ultimate termination,” the GAO said.

“It started with a faulty business case, did not perform appropriate systems engineering analysis to gain knowledge at the right times, and failed to make necessary trade-offs between resources and requirements even after years of development.”

Program turned around

The VH-71 program’s experience, the GAO said, “validated the need to execute a knowledge-based acquisition process with discipline, confirming the danger of not replacing risk with knowledge earlier in the acquisition process.”

But the program has been turned around.

“VXX program officials seem to understand this lesson learned from the VH-71 program and appear to be establishing a knowledge-based acquisition process emphasizing early systems engineering,” the GAO reported. “One of the primary lessons they learned from the VH-71 program’s experience is that there must be an early, solid business case with a rational balance between requirements, cost and schedule. To accomplish this, they have stated that a rigorous, four-phase systems engineering and technical review process will be used.”

Early VXX program efforts, the GAO said, appear to reflect the intent to pursue a knowledge-based acquisition.

The VXX program is currently in the “materiel solution analysis phase of the acquisition process,” the GAO said, and program officials are documenting the capabilities required to perform the defined mission, the specific capability gaps that exist and the need to address them.

The GAO said its review of the updated program “indicates that it addresses all three of these areas and also appears to align with acquisition best practices.”

Tomorrow's Seabots and Their Magnetic Wheels

Pirate attacks more than doubled during the first three months of this year over the same period in 2010--shooting up from 36 to 77 attacks globally.

While attacks have increased, we’ve also seen an increased willingness on the part of U.S., French, Russian and South Korean special forces to get kinetic, boarding and forcibly retaking some of these pirated ships--a risky proposition given that they're facing an armed and unpredictable enemy--which makes attempts at gaining situational awarness a critical part of the operation.

In order to do that, some think it’s time to call in the robots.

Throwbot in action

ReconRobotics, Inc., maker of the Recon Scout Throwbot—a handheld 1-lb. self-righting camera on wheels that can be tossed into rooms ahead of police or special forces teams—is working with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems to develop a Throwbot with magnetized wheels that can “crawl” up the side of a ship and move around in interior spaces.

The company has been working with SPAWAR for “about six to nine months,” according to said Alan Bignall, President and CEO of ReconRobotics, who told me that the pair so far have “proven conceptually that [the robot] has the power and the fundamental capacity to climb vertical metal structures.” The next round of testing hopes to refine that ability while “taking it to the next level.” The tests that have already been completed were designed primarily to see if the magnetized robot could support its own weight and climb a vertical surface without sticking, all of which worked as planned.

Bignall said that other than the magnetic wheels, the new ‘bot is essentially the same as the Throwbot, of which there are about 1,500 models in action worldwide being used by special forces and law enforcement.

In a press release announcing the partnership, Bignall explained that the plan is “to further develop this robot and quickly bring it and the marsupial robot deployment system to market. In the future this system might also include other payloads and sensors which would increase its versatility and expand its mission profile.” The marsupial robot concept allows the operator of a larger robot to transport and deploy a smaller robot downrange using a customized, ejectable sabot.

There’s no time schedule to offer the ‘bot up to customers, since more tests have to be completed first, Bignall says, but a small, 1-lb.robot that can climb up the side of a ship and spy on pirates hiding out below deck would be a huge boost to those tasked with going aboard a hostile vessel.

Superjet Lands At Second Home (in video)

Superjet International has released this video of the first of the regional jets in airline service landing for the first time in Venice, home of the Russian-Italian joint venture helping support and market the Sukhoi-build aircraft, as well as bolster training.

The flight from Erevan to Venice took place on May 1, with the aircraft landing at Marco Polo International Airport at 1:30 p.m. local time.

Armavia received the aircraft on April 19.

New Name In Australian Skies

So after months of waiting, today we got to see what Virgin Blue’s new livery looks like. It has been an open secret that the carrier is re-branding itself as Virgin Australia, and the carrier finally announced the change on May 4.

Here's a link to a multimedia page about the rebranding, with a couple of videos.Two new aircraft – a Boeing 737-800 and an Airbus A330-200 – were flown into Sydney airport with the new livery. Pictured below is the A330 landing.

Also on hand was Virgin Blue/Australia shareholder Richard Branson, who arrived on the new A330 with the Australian carrier’s CEO John Borghetti (both waving Australian flags below).

The 737 took off today on its debut flight from Sydney to Ballina, and the A330-200 will be deployed on the Sydney-Perth route by the end of May. It is expected to take four years to completely repaint the Virgin Australia fleet, which is about half the time it takes for a regular fleet repainting cycle.

Here's another view of the new livery:

All photos from Virgin Australia

Japan Love: ANA's Special Livery

Airline Reporter's David Parker Brown highlights the special liveryAll Nippon Airlines debuted to support post-earthquake recovery efforts. 

[Photo credit: Manny Gonzalez/NYCAviation]

Brown has posted a selection of great photos here, and you can see the full series at NYCAviation.

ANA displayed a Boeing 777-300ER at New York JFK's airport on May 2 for media and photographers emblazoned with the special message: "Forward together as one, Japan"

Brown reports ANA will fly the livery this month but isn't sure how long it will fly beyond May.

Phantom Ray Under Way In First Flight

Washington – Despite a tight veil of security being thrown over Boeing’s Phantom Ray unmanned aircraft demonstration program, several industry officials say the stealth-shaped aircraft made its first flight at Edwards AFB, Calif., on April 27.

“Boeing conducted what appeared to be a successful 17-minute first flight and recovery,” said an observer at Edwards. “First turn was shortly after takeoff – just over lakebed. First two turns were surprisingly tight as commented by those observing near inner runway. Rest of flight other than final approach were too far away to see. Gear down for entire flight. The landing was observed to be air force style, flared.”

Boeing officials were only allows to confirm that the flight had taken place, and nothing more could be said until security has been lifted. Phantom Ray is considered one of the “starting points” for development of a U.S. Navy Uclass unmanned, stealthy, carrier-based strike aircraft.

The X-45C is the prototype vehicle for the Phantom Ray demonstration program. Another design, the Avenger (Predator C) is the product of General Atomics. Both aircraft are expected to be involved in the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike project, which is itself an offshoot of the Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration program. Northrop-Grumman’s X-47B made its first 29-min. flight from Edwards on Feb. 4. Lockheed Martin is expected to enter a design based on its Polecat and RQ-170 Sentinel.

In associated UAV events, the RQ-170 – sporting full-motion video capability since its return to Afghanistan operations last year – is thought to have participated in operations that led up to the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan by U.S. special operations forces.

“Our success was built on developing and confirming leads and information that in part relied on airborne ISR along the lines of what it took to terminate al Zarqawi in Iraq in 2006,” says a former intelligence specialist. “Remotely piloted aircraft were a big part of the development of the knowledge base that led up to this operation.”

An embargo was placed on any release of information about the Phantom Ray flight until the initial test data were analyzed and videos reviewed which could be completed by May 3-4. The Phantom Ray is a further development of the Phantom Works’ X-45C, which has a weapons bay designed to be the same size and carry the same weapons as Lockheed’s manned F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The Phantom Ray airframe was carried from Boeing’s St. Louis facility to Edwards on Dec. 14 atop one of NASA’s Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, where it was housed in the Dryden Flight Research Center.

AF447 Cockpit Voice Recorder Recovered

The French air accident investigation office, the BEA, has recovered the cockpit voice recorder for Air France flight 447.

The discovery and retrieval operation on May 2 follows the May 1 discovery and recovery of the flight data recorder’s crash survivable memory unit. Now both so called ‘black boxes’ are in the hands of investigators.

The BEA reports that a French navy patrol boat will be dispatched to pick both elements up from the Ile de Sein vessel that is conducting the search for debris of the Airbus A330-200 that crashed June 1, 2009 on its flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris killing all 228 onboard. The storage devices will be taken to French Guyana and then flow to Paris where they will undergo analysis at the BEA’s headquarters in Le Bourget outside Paris.

The cockpit voice recorder, in particular, could shed light on the exact crew composition in the cockpit at the time of the accident. The aircraft appeared to be flying through extremely turbulent weather. While the flight data recorder’s information -- if it is usable -- should help explain the sequence of events that brought down the A330, the cockpit voice recorder could contain equally important data on the decision-making process the pilot and copilot went through.

The cockpit voice recorder, like the other devices, were found and retrieved by the Remora 6000 unmanned underwater vehicle.

Mock Soyuz Countdown Under Way At Kourou

Washington – A mock Soyuz countdown is underway at the European spaceport near Kourou, French Guiana, validating ground operations up to but not including fueling of one of the first two Russian launch vehicles to reach the equatorial launch site on the north coast of South America.

The dry-run checkout started April 29 with transport of the flightworthy launch vehicle 600 meters from its “MIK” horizontal assembly building to the new pad on its transporter/erector rail car. At the pad, a strongback crane erected the vehicle to the vertical position, where it was suspended on four primary support arms over the concrete pad and flame pit

Up until that point the procedure closely tracked the one followed at the two Soyuz pads at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where Soyuz rockets routinely launch piloted Soyuz capsules and unpiloted Progress resupply vehicles to the International Space Station, as well as Russian unmanned payloads and commercial unmanned payloads managed by the European-Russian Starsem joint venture.

However, at Kourou the vehicle is enveloped by a 52-meter-tall mobile gantry that is rolled into place around it for installation of the payload, which is integrated horizontally at Baikonur and erected with the rest of the rocket.

At Kourou the ground-validation pathfinder vehicle includes a Fregat upper stage and payload fairing, but no payload. Those were stacked atop the vehicle – four strap-on boosters, the Block A second stage, and the Block I third stage – inside the moving gantry.

Testing of the medium-lift vehicle will continue at the pad until May 5, and will include all of the events leading up to a simulated countdown interruption on launch day. The vehicle will not be fueled with kerosene and liquid oxygen.

The countdown will be restarted on May 6, leading up to a simulated launch and downrange operations, according to Arianespace, which oversees Soyuz operations at Kourou and will market Soyuz launches from there.

[Editor's note: the launch vehicle was erected to its horizontal position April 29. An earlier version of this article misstated the position.

Bin Laden Raid May Have Exposed Stealth Helo

A previously undisclosed, classified stealth helicopter apparently was part of the U.S. task force that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 1.

The exact type of helicopter is unknown but it appears to be a highly modified version of an H-60 Blackhawk. Photos disseminated via the European PressPhoto agency and attributed to an anonymous stringer show that the helicopter’s tail features stealth-configured shapes on the boom and the tail rotor hub fairings, swept stabilizers and a “dishpan” cover over a five-or-six-blade tail rotor. It has a silver-loaded infrared suppression finish similar to that seen on V-22s.

See AviationWeek.com/ares for some photographs.

The aircraft was damaged during the mission and abandoned. The mission team destroyed most of the airframe but its tail section landed outside the wall of the target compound and escaped demolition.

Stealth helicopter technology is not new and was applied extensively to the Boeing/Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche, cancelled in 2004. Compared with fixed-wing stealth, more emphasis is usually placed on noise and infrared signatures.

Noise can be reduced and made less conspicuous by adding blades to the main and tail rotors. It can also be reduced by aerodynamic modifications and flight control changes that make it possible to reduce rotor rpm, particularly in forward flight below maximum speed. Infrared reduction measures are crucial - the Comanche had an elaborate system of exhaust ducts and fresh-air ejectors in its tailboom.

Radar cross-section (RCS) reduction measures include flattened and canted body sides, making landing gear and other features retractable, and adding fairings over the rotor hubs. It usually is not possible to achieve the same - you can’t make a helo as radar-stealthy as a fixed-wing airplane, but helicopters generally operate at low altitude in ground clutter. Reducing RCS also makes jamming more effective, whether from the aircraft itself or from a standoff jammer.

Click here to read our Ares post and comments: Stealth Helos Used In Osama Raid.