via STLtoday.
Boeing’s defense chief remains optimistic about the F/A-18 fighter assembly line in north St. Louis County, saying there's a good chance the line could stay open beyond 2017, according to Bloomberg News.Something is going on behind the scenes. Can I prove it? Nope, not at all. Can I sense it? Yeah...absolutely.
Current orders will keep the assembly line open until 2016. If approved, a Congressional proposal to buy 12 EA-18G Growlers, an electronic warfare version of the Super Hornet carrier-based fighter, would allow Boeing to keep the line up running end of 2017.
However, the aircraft maker has more than a “50-50 chance” of receiving enough Navy and foreign orders to keep the Super Hornet line open beyond that date, Chris Chadwick, president of St. Louis County-based Boeing Defense, Space and Security, told Bloomberg News today.
All the announcements about the program being in trouble. All the talk about the manufacturers making new initiatives to lower cost. The extremely long development with continued engineering changes...
And finally the biggest booster of the program, the United States Marine Corps, has a new leader that hasn't said squat about the plane since he took office.
Add in the fact that we're looking at the probablility of Republican Senate with a serious mix of "small war" hawks, fiscal hawks, and Democrats that want to slash spending and you have one unmistakable conclusion.
Sequestration will continue and the days of killing programs and cutting personnel to wall off the F-35 from cuts are over. The F-35 is gonna take a haircut, the Navy will still need to fill those carriers and the F-18 will by default be the only thing that is affordable.
The craziest thing? We might see it in USAF colors. There is no way they're gonna get the F-35 in the numbers requested, the next gen bomber and the new aerial tanker in this budget environment. That means a new hi-lo-lo mix that will be the F-22, F-35 and new build F-18's or F-16's...with the idea of saving money and simplifying the Pentagons procurement, I can see the F-18 getting USAF colors.
Not just the USAF but the Marines too.
ReplyDeleteBoeing should propose an advanced version of the Harrier with Enclosed Weapons Pods and the next Gen Jammer.
http://media.defenceindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_Harrier_GR7A_Afghanistan_Frontal_Flares_lg.jpg
http://aviationweek.com/defense/new-strategy-would-cut-f-35s-boost-bombers-and-uavs
ReplyDelete(The limits on the effectiveness of fighters—including the “semi-stealthy” F-35,)
ReplyDeleteThis is something everbody new but they are finally talking about openly. I wonder how international partners will react to this, (Specially Koreans) considering that that was the justification for it's sideral price.
"... a new leader that hasn't said squat about the plane since he took office."
ReplyDeleteThat's how real leaders work, so there is hope.
Dunford is just an observer in a higher-stakes confrontation which is about to become a public issue.
DeleteFrank Kendall is the Pentagon's acquisition chief with close ties to Lockheed, and he's pushing Bogdan on the block buy and ramp-up (although there is little demand, and the plane itself is on life support).
And in the other corner is Bob Work who became the number two at the Pentagon last Spring, and he's a strong advocate of unmanned aircraft, also submarines and the new Long Range Strike Bomber. from the Daily Beast:
"Work has expressed more skepticism on the Pentagon’s biggest weapons-buying program, the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, than anyone even close to the level of his new job. He pointed out in 2010 that the likely proliferation of guided rockets and mortars could make it risky to put expensive F-35Bs into improvised forward bases. As deputy Navy secretary, he directed Navy and Marine commanders to identify lower-cost aviation options and to come up with hard comparisons between the F-35 and an upgraded F/A-18. At CNAS, Work oversaw a study published in January that warned of new threats to F-35-level stealth—particularly, VHF radars cueing high-power tracking radars —and advocated a balance of stealth and electronic attack in future plans."
Work was also involved in a recent CSBA report described by Bill Sweetman at AvWeek:
"New Strategy Would Cut F-35s, Boost Bombers and UAVs...It is intended to launch a detailed discussion of a major change in national strategy, inside and outside the Pentagon. . . As a CSBA analyst, Work was a vigorous proponent of a “high-end” Navy UCAS, and his influence has played a part in stalling Navy plans for a less capable and less costly solution to the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike requirement. . .The limits on the effectiveness of fighters—including the “semi-stealthy” F-35, so described to discriminate it from the wide-band, all-aspect stealth technology of the UAVs and LRS-B—include survivability and their dependence on tankers, which are vulnerable and difficult to protect."
Bob Work, as I said, is No. 2 at the Pentagon, whereas Kendall is somewhat lower. Oh -- I almost forgot -- Work spent 27 years in the Marine Corps retiring in 2001 as colonel. He was the first head of the Marine Corps' Strategic Initiatives Group, a small analytical group that provided advice directly to the Commandant of the Marine Corps
So who will Dunford listen to? Who will Hagel listen to? It's about to hit the fan.
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ReplyDeleteThe day the USAF adopts the Super Hornet (beyond working closely with the EA-18G like they have with the EA-6B) is the day the USAF decides to play out the events of Dr. Strangelove and start a Third World War.
ReplyDeleteIt offers them nothing upgraded F-15 and F-16s can't provide, it doesn't offer the stealth of the F-35A and it suffers many of the same flaws the rabid F-35 hate squad fixate on. Relatively slow top speed, average acceleration (the much criticized F-35C can match a clean F/A-18E), and range that (while respectable) isn't what the critics want.
Boeing has continued F/A-18 and F-15 production for some time to come, yet they need to look beyond that if they want to stay in the fighter business. And it would indeed be in the country's best interests if they stayed in that business.
That CSBA report is a load of BS as evidenced by their plan for the Navy. Cut the F-35C but no F/A-XX, instead put their hopes in these multi-role UCAVs that do not yet exist. Somehow the F-35's top speed is too low yet a subsonic UCAV with half the speed is just fine? The truth is the X-47B is no more a combat aircraft than the X-35 was back in 2001. The performance of the X-35 was fantastic, but the hard part is turning a proof-of-concept demonstrator into a real combat aircraft. It hasn't been easy for the F-35 and it won't for what they want this UCAV to be.
Back when the USAF was willing to sacrifice some F-35s for more F-22s Washington and probably many of these think-tanks told them to **** off. Now this think-tank is saying "cut the F-35 for XYZ"? When they cut back on the F-22 they made that larger number of F-35s all the more necessary for the USAF! They repeatedly fail to see the consequences of these decisions!
The Super Hornet is Stealthier and more maneauverable than the F-15 and F-16.
DeleteThe Advanced Super Hornet is 50% Stealthier.
With EPE engines will super cruise, will have better aceleration, top speed and range. With the new IRST HMD, Aim-9X3 and Growler sensors at the tip of the wins could locate and kill any stralth fighter passivelly at long range.
It would be a great replacement for the USAF F-15 and F-16 and maybe they could operate Growlers too.
Super Hornet Air Superiority Fighter: http://youtu.be/1nNajPYghAw
The Super Hornet has a speed of mach 1.8, the f-35 is mach 1.6. S-hornet is faster...in fact the 1.6 is the goal for the f-35b. Oh, wait. That's the goal of the A model for the Air Force. Right now for the F-35b for the Marines it is only cleared for mach 1.2 and only 5.5g's so it is less maneuverable than ... well anything. But the b's goal is mach 1.6 at 7 gs as opposed to the S-Hornet at mach 1.8 with 7.6 gs. So the Hornet can out dogfight an f-35b...and carry more ordinance...and has an AESA radar that works...and the EA-18 can jam the f-35b's or anything else in the air's radar, and still do air to air.
DeleteBut hey! the f-35b can go VTOL...but the Russians have been flying sukois off their remaining carrier without vtol or even a fricking catapult due to the thust to weight ratio...and not one VTOL take off and landing has been done by a Marine, just Lockheed pilots.
But the great news is that while the 414 engine in the Super Hornet has the lowest maintenance rate in fleet history, the Lightning's engine actually catches fire! What a bargain at $132million each for the low initial rate production and a only 100 mill for production especially when compared to a Super Hornet which is 60million and came in UNDER BUDGET.
But the important thing is the F-35B is that is was in "Live Free or Diehard" with Bruce Willis...who breaks the thing by throwing something into the fan which would actually work on a real one too.
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