majalah militer

F-35B Lightning II. (Photo: JSF.mil)

January. 8, 2010, East Hartford, Conn. -- Pratt & Whitney’s F135 engine and Rolls-Royce LiftFan® successfully powered the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) fighter through the first in-flight engagement of its STOVL propulsion system. Pratt & Whitney is a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE:UTX) company.

“Pratt & Whitney is tremendously proud to celebrate this significant program milestone with our teammates from Lockheed Martin and the F-35 Joint Program Office, Rolls-Royce, and our sister company, Hamilton Sundstrand,” said Warren Boley, vice president of F135 Engine Programs. “After more than eight years of development and test and more than 12,850 hours of combined ground and flight testing, it is a testament to the hard work of thousands of people that the F135 propulsion system performed ‘as advertised,’ and validates the performance and capability of the Pratt & Whitney F135.”

During the flight, F-35 Lead STOVL Pilot Graham Tomlinson of BAE Systems engaged the shaft-driven LiftFan propulsion system at 5,000 feet and 210 knots, then slowed to 180 knots with the system still engaged, before accelerating to 210 knots and converting back to conventional-flight mode. The STOVL propulsion system was engaged for a total of 14 minutes during the flight. The successful test is the first in a series of planned STOVL-mode flights that will include short takeoffs, hovers and vertical landings.

“We look forward to continuing to support our customers as they transition flight test operations to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., and continue demonstrating the remarkable capability of the F-35 Lightning II,” Boley said.

The F135 System Development and Demonstration (SDD) program surpassed 12,850 hours of engine test time and has successfully completed 164 hours of flight time. Missions have included augmented takeoffs, supersonic flight, in-flight cycling of the weapons bay doors, air-to-air refueling, in-flight engine restarts, and cross-country flights to and from Eglin and Edwards Air Force Bases and Patuxent River Naval Air Station.

Pratt & Whitney has designed, developed and tested the F135 to deliver the most advanced fifth generation fighter engine for the U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, as well as eight international partner countries. The F135 is derived from proven technology of the only operational fifth generation fighter engine, the Pratt & Whitney F119. It has been further enhanced with technologies developed in several Air Force and Navy technology programs.

The F135 is the only engine powering the F-35 Lightning II flight test program. The F135 propulsion system has proven it can meet diverse aircraft requirements, and the ground and flight test experience demonstrates the maturity and the associated reliability of the F135 engine for armed forces around the world.

Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, space propulsion systems and industrial gas turbines. United Technologies, based in Hartford, Conn., is a diversified company providing high technology products and services to the global aerospace and building industries.

This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning future business opportunities. Actual results may differ materially from those projected as a result of certain risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to changes in funding related to the F-35 aircraft and F135 engines, changes in government procurement priorities and practices or in the number of aircraft to be built; challenges in the design, development, production and support of technologies; as well as other risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those detailed from time to time in United Technologies Corp.'s Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

JSF.mil/Erin Dick

F-35 Lightning II B-Variant . (Photo: jsf.mil)

January 8, 2010 -- Japan is risking a rapid loss of fighter engineering skills, an official review of the industry warns, while urging the government to avoid fully importing combat aircraft.

Estimates of future engineering effort starkly illustrate an unspoken argument for Japan to buy and develop advanced versions of the Eurofighter Typhoon, Boeing F-15 or Boeing F/A-18E/F to fill its requirement for 50 fighters.

“An industrial base is difficult to rebuild once experienced engineers and mechanics leave the industry, so it is essential to keep it for future fighter development,” says the Commission on Reform of Fighter Production Technology Base.

About 70 percent of the engineering work force for the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries F-2 fighter has already been assigned to other business units, the report says. Only 60 engineers are now working on the F-16-based effort, Japan’s only fighter production program.

Moreover, F-2 production is due to end in September 2011. With it will go IHI’s production line for the General Electric F110 engine. The development of the IHI XF5-1 engine for the ATD-X stealth fighter technology demonstrator “will only delay the decline in propulsion capability,” the commission says.

“For the fighters operated by our country, it is desirable to keep a complete in-country industrial base required for maintenance, technical support and capability enhancement.”

But in a notable concession, it accepts that Japan cannot be wholly independent: “Many other countries rely on foreign sources for part of their [fighter] industrial base for budgetary and technological reasons. Japan is no exception.”

That seems to undermine the implicit threat behind the ATD-X program: that if the U.S. refuses to supply Japan with the F-22, then Japan will develop its own stealth fighter.

The Japanese fighter industrial base is composed of 1,100 companies.

The airframe engineering effort for military aircraft is now at a peak above 1.1 million worker hours, about a third of that work applied to ATD-X development, a third to maintenance and the rest to the already declining F-2 program and the C-X transport and XP-1 maritime patrol aircraft.

The end of the F-2 program will alone cut military airframe engineering by 40 percent, and by 2014 there will be negligible fighter airframe engineering under way in Japan, reports the panel. The story for engines is similar, although electronics engineering will be maintained at a higher level thanks to upgrade work.

The implication of these figures is that to maintain the industrial base, Japanese engineers need development work. The Lockheed Martin F-35, a leading contender for the F-X requirement, is unlikely to yield much — or at least not until improved versions can be considered many years from now. Production work on the F-35 would, however, be available to Japan, since Lockheed has a large parcel of work that has not been allocated to partner nations in the project.

But Eurofighter and Boeing have both stressed that Japan can take their current fighter designs and add features if it wants to do so.

Eurofighter has gone as far as saying that Japan could do anything it wanted with the Typhoon design.

A further possibility to relieve the fighter work drought in Japan would be an extra batch of F-2s, featuring improvements over the current version. Such an order may not be far from official thinking.

A former chief of aircraft development at the defense ministry’s Technical Research and Development Institute has written in Japan Military Review that if additional F-2s were ordered, the price must go down.

Despite deflation in Japan, it has cost more to build F-2s in recent years than it did in the 1990s to build F-15s, which are much larger.

AviationWeek

Mladenov said that in theory the Drazki could be sent but currently the state budget would not allow it. (Photo: Sofia Photo Agency)

January 6, 2010, Sofia -- Bulgaria Defense Minister Nikolay Mladenov has stated that the “Drazki” (“Intrepid”) frigate will not be sent to the Gulf of Aden to participate in operations against Somali pirates due to a lack of money.

Mladenov said that in theory the Drazki could be sent but currently the state budget would not allow it. He added that Bulgaria's participation in military operations abroad is now at its limit.

"Basically it is a matter of a political decision, but I think that our participation in missions abroad currently is optimal.” Mladenov added. He continued that Bulgaria does have an officer who participates in the command of the EC “Atalanta” mission in the Gulf of Aden to tackle the Somali pirates.

On Monday Admiral Plamen Manushev, Chief of Staff of the Bulgarian Navy, said that the “Drazki” (i e “Intrepid”) could participate in operations against Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. His statement came days after two UK-flagged ships – the St. James Park and the Asian Glory – were hijacked by Somali pirates with a total of 13 Bulgarian sailors on board.

novinite.com

January 6, 2010, New Delhi -- Scrutinising the Sukhoi Corporation’s work on the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) — a project that India will soon sign up to co-develop — gives one an idea of Russia’s size, and its aerospace expertise. During daytime, in Moscow, the Sukhoi Design Bureau conceptualises FGFA components; by 10 pm the drawings are electronically transmitted over 5,000 kilometres to a manufacturing unit in Siberia. Here, at KnAAPO (Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Organisation) — seven time zones away — it is already 5 am next morning. Within a couple of hours, the drawings start being translated into aircraft production.

Having designed over 100 aircraft (including India’s Su-30MKI), built over 10,000 fighters, and with 50 world aviation records to its credit, Sukhoi understandably regards Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) — its partner-to-be in designing the FGFA — as very much the greenhorn.

But the newcomer wants its due. Bangalore-based HAL has negotiated firmly to get a 25 per cent share of design and development work in the FGFA programme. HAL’s work share will include critical software, including the mission computer (the Su-30MKI mission computer is entirely Indian); navigation systems; most of the cockpit displays; the counter measure dispensing (CMD) systems; and modifying Sukhoi’s single-seat prototype into the twin-seat fighter that the Indian Air Force (IAF) wants.

THE FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTER
Cost of development $8-10 billion
India's requirement 250 fighters
Russia's requirement 250 fighters
Cost per aircraft $100 million
Indian name FGFA
Russian name PAK FA

India will also contribute its expertise in aircraft composites, developed while designing the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). Russia has traditionally built metallic aircraft; just 10 per cent of the Su-30MKI fuselage is titanium and composites. The FGFA’s fuselage, in contrast, will be 25 per cent titanium and 20 per cent composites. Russia’s expertise in titanium structures will be complemented by India’s experience in composites.

With India’s work share almost finalised, the 2007 Russia-India Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) to build the FGFA will soon evolve into a commercial contract between Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) and HAL. Ashok Baweja, until recently the chairman of HAL, told Business Standard: “When HAL and UAC agree on terms, they will sign a General Contract. This will include setting up a JV to design the FGFA, and precise details about who will fund what.”

This contract will mark a significant shift in the aeronautical relationship between India and Russia. For decades, HAL has played a technologically subordinate role, assembling and building fighters that Russia had designed. Now, forced to accept HAL as a design partner, the Russians have negotiated hard to limit its role.

The reason: Russia is sceptical about India’s design ability in such a cutting edge project. In June 2008, Business Standard interviewed Vyacheslav Trubnikov, then Russia’s ambassador to India, and an expert on Russia’s defence industry. Contrasting the Su-30MKI with the Tejas LCA, Trubnikov pointed out snidely, “I know perfectly well the Russian ability. But I don’t know what contribution the Indian side might make. So, one must ask the question to the Indian designers, to HAL…what is their claim for building a fighter of the fifth generation type? Either avionics, or engine? What might be India’s contribution? To be absolutely frank, I don’t know.”

For long, the UAC argued that HAL could not expect a major role in the FGFA because Sukhoi had finished much of the work while New Delhi dithered about joining the project. UAC asserts that 5,000 Sukhoi engineers have worked for five years to design the FGFA. Such claims are hard to verify, but it is known that the Sukhoi Design Bureau has about 8,000 engineers, distributed between many different programmes.

With Sukhoi’s ploughing on alone, Minister of State for Defence Pallam Raju admitted to Business Standard: “The longer India waits to join the project, the lesser will be our contribution. But, we are not sitting idle. Through the defence ministry’s existing programmes [such as the Tejas LCA] we are building up our capabilities.”

Most Indian officials agree that India has not lost much. Even if the FGFA makes its much-anticipated first flight this year, it is still at a preliminary stage of development. Ashok Baweja assessed in early 2009, “The FGFA’s first flight is just the beginning of the programme. My understanding is that the Russians are going ahead (with the test) to validate the FGFA’s “proof of concept” (conceptual design). Whatever composite materials they have now, they’ll use. But, because the composites will change… the FGFA will keep evolving for a fairly long time.”

A top ministry official estimates, “It will take another 4-5 years to develop many of the FGFA’s systems. Then, the aircraft will undergo at least 2000 hours of certification flying and, possibly, some reconfiguration. The FGFA should not be expected in service before 2017. And the twin-seat version may take a couple of years longer.”

With just a 25 per cent share of design, South Block policymakers still believe that the FGFA project is a vital step towards India’s emergence as a military aeronautical power. “Developing 25 per cent of this fighter is far better than just transferring technology to build it in India, as we did with the Su-30MKI,” points out a defence ministry official.

Ashok Baweja puts the project in context. “India can only (develop the FGFA) by partnering with Russia. They have so much experience. It’s not just the design… you must also have materials… maraging steel, titanium, composite alloys, and the industrial base to convert these into high-tech components like gyros, sensors and optics. The FGFA will give us important experience for building fighters hereafter.”

Business Standard