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BULLHORN #40
UNCLASSIFIED// +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Debate Over Fighter Jets Intensifies (THE HILL 20 APR 09) ... Roxana Tiron A debate over how large the Navy’s
tactical aircraft fleet should be is heating up in Washington this
year, with l Navy officials have told lawmakers that
they anticipate a shortfall of more than 200 jets over the next
decade, This comes at a time when Boeing, one
of the nation’s two producers of fighter jets, is in danger of
getting out of Some defense industry executives now
worry that the aircraft industry and its suppliers find themselves
under Beyond lawmakers’ parochial interests
and Boeing’s bottom line is a debate about strategy and resources
that Congressional aides anticipate a fierce
debate in coming weeks over the troubling shortfall — which in The debate over the Super Hornets could
lead to tension between Congress and the Pentagon and leave the Navy officials did not respond to requests for comment by press time. Ever since Boeing lost out to Lockheed
Martin for the Joint Strike Fighter contract, the Chicago-based Boeing plays a major role in the
production of the Air Force’s F-22 Raptor jets, but Gates is
planning to cancel The cost of purchasing additional
tactical aircraft during a recession will be weighed against the
growing The Navy has been briefing
congressional staff that the shortfall could grow to 243 airplanes
over the next The Navy bases its fighter needs on
three assumptions: that older versions of the F-18 (the A through D
models) However, the Navy has uncovered
problems with plans to extend the life of its older F-18s. The Navy
last The Super Hornet is expected to share carrier decks with the JSF until 2030. It’s not clear whether Gates plans to
speed up the Navy’s carrier version of the JSF, or F-35, which has
received For fiscal 2010, Gates announced that
the Pentagon is planning to buy 31 F-18s, without offering details.
That The Navy’s complete plans will not be
known until the complete Pentagon budget is sent to Congress in
early Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman
of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee, is concerned Boeing has been fighting for several
years to get another multiyear contract for the Super Hornets it
builds in St. To reach another multiyear contract for
149 aircraft, the Navy would budget for an additional 60 fighter
jets
Boeing argues the Navy would save 10 percent by buying the
aircraft under a multiyear contract versus buying Replacing Third Aircraft May Not Mitigate Cut PM: E-2D Program Can Make Up For Testing Delays Without Pushing IOC (INSIDE THE NAVY 20 APR 09) ... Dan Taylor Despite a Government Accountability Office report that said the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye program was facing a four- to six-month test schedule delay due to problems with critical components of the aircraft, program officials said last week they have a plan to make up for that gap and avoid delaying the aircraft. The March 30 GAO report said due to issues with the aircraft, the program “completed fewer test points than planned” and was four to six months behind in testing. However, Capt. Shane Gahagan, the E-2D program manager, said it wasn’t all lost time. “We were flying at reduced power to continue flight tests,” he said during an April 10 phone interview with Inside the Navy. “We lost some flight test time, so when we started back we re-looked at all the test points, we determined where we could take advantage of the time we were flying at half power to knock off some test points, [and] we took advantage of that. “We’re on track for first quarter 2011 OPEVAL [operational evaluation], so we haven’t lost any time,” he continued. “We’re going to be on track, and we’re meeting our flight test plan right now.” Gahagan was joined by Jim Culmo, vice president of manufacturer Northrop Grumman’s airborne early warning and battle management command and control programs, who said that while the program was not officially completing test points for the weapon systems specifications, “we did an awful lot of integration-type work with radar and got a lot of integration problems worked out.” “We actually got a lot of kinks worked out of the whole system because we did have the whole system operating, it just wasn’t at the full power level,” said Culmo, who added that the aircraft is now running the systems at full power. “We haven’t had any additional problems with the radar . . . outside of correcting software deficiencies.” One of the concerns about the aircraft has been the radar, which has had problems with its cooling system in the past, drawing cuts from lawmakers. Gahagan told ITN last year that those problems had been taken care of and the radar was functioning normally. Though a preliminary Pentagon document obtained by InsideDefense.com in October that outlined aspects of the Navy’s program objective memorandum 2010 (POM-10) which suggested that millions more dollars would be needed for research and development on the radar, Gahagan said the program is not seeking any more money to fix it. “One of the reasons we’ve been able to capture some [test] time back was the initial performances of the radar have been very favorable,” the captain said. “We do not feel there is any redesign out there in the future to correct anything at all, because the radar is performing really well.” Culmo said that from Northrop’s standpoint, “we have not requested nor need any more money in the [research and development] budget to fix any radar issues, because there’s nothing to fix.” There are concerns about the aircraft’s initial operational capability -- currently scheduled for 2011 -- due to the cut of the third E-2D aircraft from the fiscal year 2009 defense budget, which would bump IOC six to 12 months, according to the program. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, told reporters recently that he planned to replace that aircraft in the FY-09 supplemental war spending bill. The Pentagon did not specifically request funds for the aircraft in its FY-09 war spending request sent to Congress earlier this month. Although such a move would be welcome, Gahagan wasn’t sure how much that would mitigate the IOC delay. “We’d have to look at that,” he said. “It may bring it back some, but there’s nothing hard and fast on how much it would.” The flat-out loss of the aircraft, plus lawmakers’ cut of $37 million in advanced procurement funding for the program, could cause IOC to slide anywhere from six to 12 months because the aircraft are required for standing up squadrons, Gahagan argued. Some estimates have put the IOC delay at up to two years, but that depends on whether more aircraft are cut in future budgets, he said. The captain said he expects a low-rate initial production decision for the aircraft very soon. “We are prepared to present the data to support that,” he said. The program is flying two test aircraft in St. Augustine, FL. The program will send one of the aircraft to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, MD, in early summer, with the second to follow a couple of months later, Gahagan said. “The rest of the flight tests will be executed out of Pax River in the August time frame,” he said. Northrop is in the process of building three pilot production aircraft, which are about 70 percent complete, Culmo said. The company expects to deliver the first aircraft in mid-2010. HS-3 'Tridents' Return HomeThe "Tridents" of Helicopter Squadron Three (HS-3), who aided in the capture and transport of 16 suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden back in February, returned home to NAS Jacksonville April 16 after a deployment on board USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). HS-3 deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom as a component of Carrier Air Wing Eight for seven and a half months flying more than 3,800 direct combat support flight hours. In January, the squadron provided three HH-60H aircraft to Commander, Combined Task Force 151 supporting counter-piracy operations on board USS San Antonio and USNS Lewis 'N Clark. With piracy continuing to be a huge problem in this area, Navy forces are on high alert. "All of our missions are dangerous but we just continue to do our job professionally," said HS-3 Commanding Officer Cmdr. Scott Starkey. The squadron was actually split up and tasked with new missions. "We're trained to handle all warfighting assignments," said Lt. Chris Brinkac. Of course, his best mission was arriving home to greet his family. "I'm just glad to be home. It's what I've been waiting for," he added. During the deployment, HS-3 along with the Roosevelt also made a historic port visit to Cape Town, South Africa in October 2008, marking the first visit of a U.S. aircraft carrier to the country of South Africa in over 40 years. While in port, the Tridents conducted an emergent at-anchor 80,000 pound vertical replenishment to aid in a cooperative engagement with the South African government. HS-3 is comprised of 24 officers and 174 enlisted Sailors. The squadron flies four SH-60F and three HH-60H Seahawk helicopters. Northrop Grumman: Gates' Proposal To Slow Carrier Building Has 'No Impact' (NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS 23 APR 09) ... Peter Frost Defense Secretary Robert Gates' proposal to slow Northrop Grumman Corp.'s aircraft carrier building program to produce a new ship every five years instead of four will have no impact on the company's near-term construction plans in Newport News, Northrop Chief Executive Ronald D. Sugar said Wednesday. While there's some talk of pushing the second aircraft carrier in the Gerald R. Ford class, the yet unnamed CVN-79, to a 2013 start date from 2012, Sugar said ongoing preconstruction work on that vessel will continue. "Our current read is that over the next several years, there will be virtually no impact on our plans," he said in an earnings call with analysts. If the CVN-79 is pushed back a year, Northrop wouldn't receive a full construction contract and the associated funding until 2013, and the ship wouldn't be scheduled for delivery to the Navy fleet until 2020. The local shipyard, Sugar said, has several additional carrier projects slated over the next decade to maintain a full slate of work. The USS Enterprise, the oldest carrier in the fleet, is scheduled to be decommissioned by 2013, and Northrop expects to be involved with dismantling that ship and its eight nuclear reactors. Workers also will be busy assembling the Ford carrier, for which the yard received a $5.1 billion contract to build in 2008, as well as a series of maintenance and refueling projects on other flattops. "As I stand back and look at (Gates') comments on carriers, I don't see in the next couple of years any significant changes to our workload," said Sugar. He also responded to concerns about a new aircraft catapult system planned for the Ford carrier that's being developed separately by General Atomics. The Navy recently completed a high-level review of that launch system and opted to stick with it for the Ford, despite concerns about rising costs and delays. "We're proceeding with the assumption" that the new launch system will be used, Sugar said. "At this point in time, we're going to proceed with that plan. We and the Navy are making every effort to barrel forward." If the Ford is delayed as a result of slow development of the equipment, Sugar said, Northrop and the Navy will discuss changes to the ship's contract. Those changes would likely include financial considerations for the company, allowing it to retain profits on the Ford because of a delay that wasn't the fault of the shipyard. Sugar made the comments on a call discussing the company's first-quarter earnings. Northrop reported Wednesday that its first-quarter profit increased by 47 percent, boosted in part by a turnaround in its Shipbuilding sector. In the quarter, the company earned $389 million, or $1.17 a share, topping analyst estimates of $1.08 a share. A year ago, Northrop earned $264 million, a figure drawn down by a pretax charge of $326 million in the shipbuilding sector. The charge was related to delays in the completion of the Makin Island amphibious assault ship and other problems in its Gulf Coast shipyards. Quarterly sales in the company's Shipbuilding division rose 9 percent to $1.38 billion, up from $1.27 billion in the same quarter a year ago. Northrop, the world's largest shipbuilder, raised its outlook for the remainder of 2009 by 15 cents a share. The company's shares closed down 1 cent to $47.78. Boeing's P8-A Test Jet Makes First Flight (SEATTLE TIMES 26 APR 09) Boeing's new P8-A test jet, a 737-based submarine hunter for the Navy, made its first flight Saturday from Renton to Boeing Field. A person close to the program said the three-hour test flight was successful. The jet will be fitted with advanced military sensor equipment at a plant beside Boeing Field before a formal flight-test program begins in the fall. The P8-A, also know as Poseidon, is based on the commercial 737 airframe but bristles with added military hardware, including a bomb bay on the underbelly, launching tubes for sonar listening buoys and multiple antennae along the windowless fuselage. The Navy has ordered 108 of the jets and India will take eight. The program should be worth about $40 billion over 25 years. =========================================================== Boeing's P-8 Takes To The Skies For First Flight (DEFENSE DAILY 28 APR 09) ... Geoff Fein Boeing [BA] conducted the first flight of its P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft Saturday, a significant milestone for the program, according to a Navy official. Capt. Mike Moran, P-8A program manager, told reporters the program is staying on schedule during a teleconference call Monday. Boeing worked the program real hard, overcame some challenges, and kept the program on track to meet a schedule where we could see this airplane flying for the first time Saturday, he added. "This is obviously a critical recapitalization of the P-3 airplane that has been in service for 40 plus years. So keeping this program on track and on schedule is of the upmost importance. We worked really hard together to do that," Moran said. "What was demonstrated Saturday clearly demonstrates our commitment, as a government and Boeing team, to go do exactly that." On Saturday, T-1, the first P-8 test platform, took off from Renton Field, Renton, Wash., and approximately three hours and 30 minutes later, landed at Boeing Field, Seattle, Wash. During the initial flight, Boeing test pilots ran the aircraft through a series of flight checks that included airborne systems checks, including engine accelerations and decelerations, autopilot flight modes and auxiliary power unit shutdown and starts, Bob Feldmann, vice president and P-8A program manager, told reporters during the teleconference call. The aircraft reached a maximum altitude of 25,000 feet during the flight, he added. "As we look back at Saturday, you are really looking back a number of weeks and months of preparation by the team...incredible sacrifice and resolve by that team...to keep this program on schedule," Feldmann said. He added that the significance of the first flight is that 75 percent of the airplane was designed from the ground up to meet the Navy's requirements. The P-8 is a military derivative of Boeing's 737-800. T-1 was on track for going to Naval Air Warfare Center, Patuxent River, Md., in September for flight tests, but the Navy is looking to extend that transition date to January '10, Moran said. "We are right now having that discussion. We asked Boeing to look at keeping the airplane out here a little bit longer because we really want to leverage the experience and expertise that they have out here," he said. Moran pointed to Boeing's recent completion of the flight test program of the Wedgetail. That expertise and experience Boeing has is going to be a benefit, he added. The S-1 and S-2 aircraft are non-flying assets, Feldmann noted. However, the two aircraft are part of the five airplanes in the System Design and Development phase, along with T-1, T-2 and T-3, Feldmann said. There are three operational test airplanes: T-4, T-5 and T-6, he added. "It's not formal yet, but we are going through the process of making that change to the program," Moran said. "We will fly T-1 to the 80 percent loads point, which is really going to be based upon our progress on S-2, which is out here in Seattle," he added. "Once we get the 80 percent loads completed, that's the part we will probably transition to Pax. We don't expect any delay to the test program. As a matter of fact we hope we will see some efficiencies keeping it out here, and that's quite frankly why we are looking at it." Moran: Boeing Strike Forced Re-Allocation Of Funds No Second P-8 Squadron In 2013, Navy Will Go With Original Plan (INSIDE THE NAVY 27 APR 09) ... Dan Taylor Since the December 2007 grounding of a quarter of the legacy P-3C Orion fleet, the Navy and Boeing had pushed to deliver P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft in 2012, or a year earlier than planned. But last year’s labor strike at Boeing forced the program to return to its original 2013 target, according to the program manager. The latest goal was to pay for the early training of air crews in order to field two squadrons when the aircraft reached initial operational capability (IOC) -- slated for fiscal year 2013 -- rather than just one. But an eight-week strike by the machinists union at Boeing last year forced the program to devote those resources to keeping the program on track, Capt. Mike Moran, the P-8 program manager, said in an April 13 phone interview with Inside the Navy. “The Navy had to make some decisions about giving up really the early sustainment and training aspect -- [to] get airplanes, crews trained earlier,” Moran said. “The Navy was making that decision and has made it now since then: We’re not going to do the early training and sustainment activities. We’re going to go ahead and overcome the strike and deliver the airplanes on time, so we’ll still meet our [acquisition program baseline] IOC, which is a squadron ready to deploy by July 2013.” Although the program office had always maintained that the program of record called for the aircraft to be fielded in 2013, officials had at first hoped that manufacturer Boeing would be able to deliver the aircraft by 2012 in order to help mitigate problems with the aging P-3C Orion fleet, which the P-8 is set to replace. In December 2007, the Navy grounded 39 P-3s -- a quarter of the fleet -- due to wing fatigue. In February 2008, then-Navy air acquisition czar William Balderson told reporters following an address at the National Press Club in Washington that “we are looking at the possibility of accelerating [the] P-8.” Vice Adm. David Venlet, head of Naval Air Systems Command, told ITN in May 2008 that “we in the Navy believe that within the boundaries of the program of record . . . that we can work some things with Boeing and our test community to try to get an [anti-submarine warfare] capability manifested in 2012.” Moreover, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, in a Sept. 25 address to the American Society of Naval Engineers at a conference in Falls Church, VA, suggested it was a done deal. “As you may know, we have a fourth of our P-3 fleet that is grounded because of cracking,” Roughead said. “We’ve been able to accelerate the P-8 airplane, and you’ll see in our fiscal year 2010 budget a pretty rapid growth in that airplane. We need it.” But a few months before, Chuck Dabundo, Boeing’s P-8 deputy program manager, told reporters in Renton, WA, that “our program of record has not been adjusted” to reflect such a change in IOC. In November, Moran told ITN that “we have convinced Navy leadership” not to accelerate IOC, and to instead opt to train pilots nine months sooner so that two squadrons of P-8s, instead of just one, would be available in 2013 to help mitigate the P-3C groundings. Moran said that such a move was achievable, but added the caveat that the Navy was examining the effects of an eight-week strike by the machinists union at Boeing that had ended less than two weeks before the interview. The strike halted the company’s 737 airliner production line. “We’re still working the details out,” Moran said in November. “We’re looking at, right now, are there methods to get the time we did lose on those airplanes being built?” But officials eventually determined that would be too risky for the program, the captain said April 13. “We had the potential to invest some of our resources into having two squadrons trained and ready to deploy at IOC -- that was that early training and sustainment investment,” Moran said. “Instead of investing in trainers early and to sustain it, we put that money into overcoming the strike, paying Boeing a little bit of overtime, working weekends to get it back on track, and that’s proved to be of value.” Problems at Boeing Before the Boeing strike forced the program to abandon the goal of training air crews early, officials had pushed to make the aircraft available in 2012, but that soon fizzled out. Late last month, a Government Accountability Office report titled “Defense Acquisitions: Assessment of Selected Weapons Programs” said the program saw $1.4 billion in cost growth. Moran said the growth was a direct result of an overly optimistic assessment that the P-8 could achieve IOC one year early and difficulty in inserting a militarized version of the 737 aircraft into Boeing’s production line. “The Boeing Company came in and said, ‘Hey, we can improve upon [the Cost Analysis Improvement Group assessment] in cost and schedule,’ so at the program we held them to account and we put them under contract for exactly that,” the captain said. However, two things happened, he added. First, almost immediately after contract award, the program increased the contract by $500 million “because we did not believe that the Boeing Company put [in] sufficient dollars to manage their software,” Moran said. “We knew that, historically, software is a huge problem on programs and we did not believe they were funded . . . to get that software on track. continued on next page “That was a conscious decision by the Navy to allocate those resources early on,” he said. Second, there were difficulties fitting the aircraft into the busy Boeing 737 commercial aircraft production line. “We told everyone back in 2007, when we were doing the drawings and . . . having Boeing Integrated Defense Systems work with Boeing Commercial, there were some challenges translating the drawings from one side of Boeing to the other, which put delays into the program,” Moran said. “So a year-long schedule the Boeing company thought they could buy back was, in essence, lost by seventh months.” That accounted for the remaining $900 million, he said. It was also the reason why the Navy and Boeing realized they would not be able to accelerate the IOC. “We incentivized Boeing to go ahead and try to do that,” Moran said. “Boeing is still going to beat it. They’re not going to beat it by 11 months to a year like they thought. They’re going to beat it by two or three months. That’s still a benefit. “Contractually, Boeing Company didn’t deliver as we asked them to, and that has been reflected in their award fee and their performance as we move forward,” he continued. “But still today, our [program baseline] IOC is July 2013. We think we’re going to be there a little bit early.” Chick Ramey, a Boeing spokesman, said April 17 that “2013 has always been the Navy’s date for IOC. It was a joint Boeing/Navy decision not to move any aircraft earlier.” Ramey pointed out that the company is “on track to meet all program-of-record milestones, including the start of the formal flight test program later this year.” “We haven’t missed a single program milestone,” he added. “Our success assembling and testing the first five test aircraft makes our team confident that we will continue to meet all future milestones.” Moran said the Navy had “never agreed or made that decision” to make the aircraft available in 2012. “The question [that] was asked was, ‘With the challenge of P-3s, can you deliver the P-8s earlier?’” he said. “The answer was, ‘No, you put the program at risk,’ and [Pentagon acquisition chief] John Young and leadership wasn’t willing to put the program at risk. “So what they decided was, ‘Let’s keep IOC in July of 2013, keep [system development and demonstration] on track . . . but can we make an earlier investment in training systems and sustainment so we can train a squadron sooner? So instead of one squadron ready to go in July of 2013, we could have two?’” he continued. “Those resources we have switched and applied them to overcoming the strike to keep the baseline airplanes on schedule to meet our IOC.” Program approaching first flight The program is working toward some major events this year. The first P-8 test aircraft will fly for the first time at the end of this month, Moran said. Formal flight testing won’t begin until around late August -- the flight is just a move from Renton, WA, to nearby Seattle for further modifications -- but it will allow the program to conduct a “functional check” of the aircraft to make sure it is safe to fly, Moran said. Moran said Young authorized the program earlier this month to “expend our first-lot advance procurement dollars for the first [low-rate initial production] airplane, so that’s a significant event for the program,” the captain said. “We’ve been working that pretty hard.” In order to get that authorization, the program had to convince Young that the aircraft was on track for first flight and that the P-8’s mission systems integration status could be demonstrated sufficiently. “We were able to do that,” he said. Currently, five P-8s are in the production line, “which is real good news,” he said. “All are progressing in accordance with the schedule,” he added. “I would say that’s where the focus is, and preparing for flight tests.” The aircraft has struggled with some weight issues in the past, but Moran said the program has been able to eliminate that problem. GAO previously reported that the aircraft was overweight, which potentially would have shaved about 45 minutes off the P-8’s flight time. “We knew if we didn’t do something differently, we had a very real possibility of not meeting the [key performance parameter],” he said. “We set a goal to remove 3,500 pounds from the airplane, and we’ve attained that, which has given us the margin to move on to flight tests.” Moran defended the decision to leverage the Boeing commercial production line, even though it has resulted in initial delays and cost increases. “I remind folks this is the first time it’s ever been done,” he said. “The Navy will realize benefit from this. We’re already seeing that the reason we were a month ahead of schedule with those airplanes after we couldn’t get T1 [test aircraft] done on time was because of the Boeing commercial production line. Once they got it understood, they were able to leverage the facilities to get their airplanes through faster.” It takes about 36 months to build a military derivate aircraft in the standard way and then deliver it, as opposed to about 28 months with the P-8, and “maybe a little less,” he added. “Even though the investment hurt us in [system development and demonstration], in the long run it’s going to yield some dividends for us,” he said. -- Dan Taylor
Moran: Navy May Seek Unmanned Solution To EPX Spy Plane (INSIDE THE NAVY 27 APR 09) ... Dan Taylor The Navy will conduct an analysis of alternatives this summer for EPX, the service’s next-generation spy plane, and officials are considering the possibility the aircraft will be unmanned, according to the program manager. “Basically, the general AOA guidance is, how do you meet the requirements that the Navy has on the table with every option, and what platforms are out there today for unmanned to manned, Air Force to Navy?” said Capt. Mike Moran, the P-8 and EPX program manager, in an April 13 phone interview with Inside the Navy. “Right now, all we’re doing is that analysis of alternatives to come up with a path forward, so not much more beyond that.” A milestone A review had been scheduled for this fiscal year, but now it will not take place until fiscal year 2010, after the AOA is completed. “We met with [Pentagon acquisition chief] John Young late last year,” Moran said. “He directed us to do a full-blown alternatives analysis, which now we’re putting under contract to go complete, so that’s going to be a six- to eight-month process to go look at everything.” The EPX is intended to be a multimission intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and targeting platform which will replace aging EP-3 aircraft and operate in concert with the P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft and the unmanned Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) system. In February 2008, the Navy awarded $1.25 million in development contracts to a Boeing and Argon ST team, Lockheed Martin and a Northrop Grumman and L-3 Communications team. Robert Watt from Booz Allen Hamilton was selected to direct the AOA in March 2009. Watt “is in the process of assembling the analysis team and initiating AOA work,” according to Sean Burke, Navy EPX team lead, in an April 24 e-mail response to questions from ITN. The date when the aircraft reaches initial operational capability “will be affected” by what solutions come out of the AOA, Moran noted. “IOC will be one criteria to evaluate that alternative,” he said. A few years ago, the Navy had been working jointly with the Army’s Aerial Common Sensor program to develop the capability. Although the Navy never formally joined, “we were working a partnership,” Moran said. That partnership was canceled and the Army continues to work on the ACS but with a different strategy, and leadership “separated the Navy from [the] Army requirement,” the captain said. There is still the possibility that the Navy and Army could reach a joint solution -- but officials will have to wait and see. “It really depends on the alternatives analysis and how the requirements are laid out,” Moran said. Dauntless Arrives (PENSACOLA NEWS JOURNAL 28 APR 09) The National Naval Aviation Museum will begin the one-year restoration of a Douglas SBD Dauntless at Pensacola Naval Air Station. The museum has completed the recovery portion of the plane from Lake Michigan. Recovery and restoration efforts were sponsored by the WWII Museum in New Orleans. The public can view the plane behind the National Naval Aviation Museum at the restoration hangar at the naval air station. The Douglas SBD Dauntless made its debut in WWII as the Navy's most-advanced dive bomber from mid-1940 until late 1943 and was credited with winning the Battle of Midway and turning the tide of the war. During this time, young American WWII pilots were also given their first opportunity to take off and land on aircraft carriers in Lake Michigan, and as a result, many planes missed their marks and ended up at the bottom of the lake. The Naval Aviation Museum’s Underwater Aircraft Program was initiated in 1990 to recover these lost WWII planes from Lake Michigan and restore them for public viewing. The recovery effort has yielded more than 30 vintage aircraft that had, prior to the program, been unavailable or nonexistent. Many of these restored planes are on display in the nation’s finest aviation museums and other public venues. Thanks to John Fry, CO San Diego squadron:
Reserve Pilot Picked For Assistant SecNav (NAVY TIMES 30 APR 09) President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated Juan Garcia, a former Texas state lawmaker, naval aviator and friend from their days at Harvard, to become assistant secretary of the Navy for manpower and reserve affairs. Garcia, who is now an attorney in Corpus Christi, Texas, was an active-duty Navy pilot from 1992 to 2004, when he became a reservist. Garcia, a commander, is the commanding officer of Naval Reserve Training Squadron 28 at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. Garcia’s service included time with Carrier Reserve Air Group Patrol Squadron 30; Patrol Squadron 47; a cruise aboard the carrier Constellation; and time with Navy Reserve Training Squadron 27. Garcia must be confirmed by the Senate; his confirmation hearing has not yet been scheduled.
Plan For 10-Flattop Fleet Coming Into Focus (NAVY TIMES 11 MAY 09) ... Philip Ewing The Navy's aircraft carrier fleet, now at 11 flattops, is expected to shrink in three years, and again in three decades. The questions now are: How deep will the cut really go, and how long will it last? The value of carriers as instruments of American will — globe-trotting sabers to rattle at potential adversaries; beacons to reassure friends — have helped the Navy resist past attempts at cuts by Congress and the Pentagon. U.S. law mandates that the Navy maintain 11 carriers, six of which must be available on 30 days' notice and another after 90 days. But that costs a lot of money. A carrier, its wing of about 80 air-craft and its four or five escorting surface ships represent an in-vestment of tens of billions of dollars, with billions more each year for operations and upkeep. As the U.S. struggles with the weakest global economy in eight decades, lawmakers, analysts and some Navy officials have be-come bolder than ever about saying that the U.S. doesn't need to keep paying for 11 giant ships to handle the missions of the 21st century. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said April 6 he wants the Navy to maintain an 11-carrier fleet until 2031, when it would drop to 10 flattops. But that figure also is expected to fall in the near term, during the three years between the decommissioning of the carrier Enterprise in 2012 and the commissioning of Gerald R. Ford in 2015. But keeping that gap to three years depends on a lot of things going right — not the least of which is Ford's Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System. If EMALS doesn't work, or if the myriad details that go into carrier construction prove disruptive, Ford's debut could be delayed. The Navy has asked Congress for an exemption to the 11-carrier law for that period of time. Law-makers declined to grant that exemption in 2008, but the Navy, which has no alternative, planned to ask again in 2009. Even apart from Gates' announcement, there have been rumblings in the Pentagon that planners will consider dropping a carrier or two in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review to free up money for other parts of the fleet. During the April 28 confirmation hearing for the Navy secretary and undersecretary, the Senate Armed Services Commit-tee asked both nominees about the potential for a smaller carrier force. Officials won't talk publicly about whether they're considering dropping a carrier, but that notion dovetails with a vision of a Navy with more small ships. Strategists predict the 21st century will bring more low-intensity missions, such as humanitarian aid and counter-piracy, for which aircraft carriers might not be the best tool. Carrier partisans, sensing this argument even before it has a formal champion, are lobbying aggressively to maintain an 11-ship fleet in the long term. Companies from across the U.S. sent representatives to Washington on April 29 to talk with Congress on be-half of the Aircraft Carrier Indus-trial Base Coalition. In a pep talk before their bus trip to the Capitol, Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., urged members to remind law-makers that carriers didn't just affect the coasts. The economic benefits of the giant ships touch factories and suppliers in all 50 states, he said. The House Armed Services Committee would need a "very compelling reason" to lower the formal requirement from 11 to 10 carriers, Wittman said, "and so far, we haven't heard that yet." From AFA 050409 -
All F-35 KPPs Green: Steve O'Bryan, Lockheed Martin's vice president for F-35 business development, said Friday the stealth fighter program is performing up to snuff. "We are making all our KPPs [key performance parameters] on the F-35," O'Bryan told reporters during a briefing on the three-service, multinational fighter on the eve of the Navy League conference that starts today in Maryland. O'Bryan said the F-35 is hitting its marks both in terms of the aircraft's performance and its planned slope of reliability and maintainability. As for the program's continuing affordability, O'Bryan said, "The key to affordability is to get up the ramp rate as quickly as possible," and he characterized Defense Secretary Robert Gates' plan to accelerate the F-35 as one way to do that. O'Bryan said there is "room" in F-35 ramp rates to accommodate even more aircraft in early lots, but it all depends on getting suppliers to increase their rates of production. "It's not the process" but the materials that will pace the project, he said. Due to long-lead requirements, the earliest lot that could be expanded would be the fifth low-rate initial production tranche, he said. LRIP 5 aircraft will be assembled in 2011.
RVAHNAVY Shipmates and Friends,
In approximately 45 days we will be meeting in Pensacola Florida for another GREAT RVAH Reunion. I hope you have already sent in your reunion registration. Don’t delay because the hotel is filling up fast.
We want to say a very heartfelt thank you to all of you who have either recently joined or renewed in the RVAHNAVY Association…Especially the lifetime members. WOW! Your response to that has just been incredible. We hope by now all of you lifetime guys have received your complimentary RVAHNAVY T-Shirt, Ball Cap and Challenge Coin. We appreciate all of you so much and we thank you for your generosity.
Update:
Ø Some of us will be arriving at the Crown Plaza on Thursday June 18…if you come early look around for Alvis or Wagner…they will have some kind of RVAH gear on Ø We will have a Ready Room on the second floor starting early Friday morning…come on up and say hello Ø There is an outside pool at the hotel…bring your bathing suit because the weather should be perfect Ø If you live in the Pensacola area and you are attending the events but not staying at the hotel please come by and hang out with us at the hotel Ø You really won’t need a rental car if want to save the $$...taxi’s are readily available and good restaurants and downtown is walking distance Ø We will be bringing RVAHNAVY gear to the Hotel if you want to get it there Ø The RVAH-3 Challenge Coins have arrived!!!!! Click here to see the RVAH 3 Challenge Coin! Ø We are planning to create a Challenge Coin for every RVAH Squadron after the reunion Ø We need some Acey Ducey and cribbage games if you have any Ø We also need a volunteer to help organize a Texas Hold’em game Ø The uniform of the day for the entire Reunion weekend is Island Casual…Shorts, Flowered Shirts and Flip-Flops are strongly encouraged for ALL events…think “relax” Ø Our Reunions are very casual and unstructured by design: o There is a multitude of recreation choices, fun things to do, excursions, restaurants and sight seeing available o Meet up with shipmates in the lobby and the bar area and go have fun o The beaches are some of the best in the world and there is a lot to do out there…enjoy it but take your sunscreen and your shades o Go out to NAS and tour the museum at your own pace before the memorial and banquet o Check out he things to do in Pensacola before you get there: Click here for "Things to do in Pensacola" Ø The Reunion is open to all…bring your friends as your guests Ø Bring your cameras, cruise-books, memorabilia and old photos (be sure to write your name and address on the back of each item) See you Pensacola! RVAHNAVY Team RVAH-3 Challenge Coin below:
From:
RubeBest@aol.com <RubeBest@aol.com>
========================================================================================================== V-22 Faces Mission Capable Rates Issues
Aerospace Daily and Defense Report
(Monday, May 4, 2009)
By Bettina H. Chavanne
“We’re working on it, but that’s one concern I have in the Osprey program,” Trautman told Aerospace DAILY April 30. Reliability and maintainability are “not meeting my full expectations yet.” The V-22 was sent into combat “sooner than we should have,” Trautman said. Typically, an aircraft is deployed only after its has passed its Material Support date, which the Osprey did Oct. 1, 2008. The first squadron was deployed a year prior, in October 2007. That early deployment had an effect on the way the Marine Corps purchased spare parts for the aircraft. With 55,000 flight hours on the V-22, it has become evident that early predictions of mean time between failures on certain parts were inaccurate. “If [mean time between failures] is worse on the kinds of spares that have a long lead time, you start getting into a problem of how you dig out of that hole,” Trautman said. The goal then is sparing models based on reality, not predictions. “We’re struggling with that a bit,” he said. The Marine Corps has told Bell Boeing that by 60,000 flight hours, the service would like to achieve 80 percent mission capable rates. Trautman is pleased with the company’s response. “The good news is they’re standing behind the product, they’re engaged,” he said. Sustained shipboard deployment of the V-22 also has posed a slight challenge to the service. It was discovered that on smaller deck amphibious ships, heat from the downward-pointing nacelles could potentially warp the stringers underneath the deck plates. “We’re concerned with heat on the LPD and LSD decks because the steel is so thin,” Trautman said, adding that the service has “worked through that challenge.” One solution is to tilt the nacelles forward slightly, which gives 35 minutes of operational time on deck. The other option is deck plates that provide protection up to 90 minutes. The Marine Corps is working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research to find coatings for the deck, particularly in light of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The exhaust from the JSF’s auxiliary power unit has the potential to cause similar heating problems, so the joint program office is working on the issue now, Trautman said. From CNO
Today's Rhumb Lines is the "First of the Month" look at CNO's areas of focus; how the Navy is executing the Maritime Strategy and the three main areas of CNO's Guidance - the readiness of our people, maintaining warfighting readiness and building the future force.
A product of... Navy Office of Information www.navy.mil May 4, 2009
“I would like to assure everyone that we are doing these force shaping measures very thoughtfully, very carefully and with an eye on making sure that we remain the best Navy in the world.” – Adm. Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead Remarks at the Sea-Air-Space Exposition May 4, 2009 It’s a pleasure to be here with you in this magnificent setting. It’s the first time I’ve been here but it’s also more of a pleasure for me to once again share the platform with my colleagues that have been so instrumental to where we are going as the nation’s maritime force into the future. It has been a busy year since we were last together. The Navy is being used aggressively and the Navy is being used very hard. In addition to the traditional deployments and formations that we have operating around the world, we have 14,000 Sailors on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are doing incredible work in assignments that just a few short years ago our Navy never thought that we would be involved in. We see increasing demands for things such as ballistic missile defense, intelligence surveillance reconnaissance, proactive humanitarian assistance, maritime security and of course the most newsworthy event in recent times is the counter-piracy operations that several nations are involved in off the coast of Somalia. So all of this has come together to make it a fairly busy time for the Navy. We have also recently completed the fiscal year 2010 budget, which here in Washington that tends to consume our attention but I think it’s always important to recognize, to realize and to go out periodically into the fleet and determine what it is that we’re really all about up here. And that is being able to provide the right things, the right programs and the right policies so that our great Sailors can go do the terrific work that they’re doing. I think some of the things in this year’s budget reaffirm the direction that we put in place about a year ago. I’m very pleased with the fact that we are now moving forward with littoral combat ship, in fact [USS] Freedom (LCS 1) will be passing by here in the next couple of hours to moor over in Alexandria. The second LCS is marching toward completion and I’m very pleased with what I see down there. We’ve also seen the realization of being able to restart the DDG 51 line and truncate the DDG 1000 at the three ships. We continue to use our maritime patrol aircraft very hard and just two weeks ago, the P-8, the new maritime patrol airplane, had its first flight so we’re seeing progress there. We also released a contract a for broad area maritime surveillance aircraft and fortunately it’s the same one that the Air Force has and I think there are some opportunities there as well. The ‘10 budget also will procure Hornets and Growlers for the Navy, and those airplanes as many of you so well know, are very much needed. We have institutionalized our irregular warfare approach by bringing that office in direct support to me. It had resided down at a lower echelon. We brought it up to make that a more permanent part of how we look at the future within the CNO staff. I would also say that with the elevation of our director of naval intelligence to three-star rank, Vice Adm. Jack Dorset who’s in the audience, we have also moved forward with initiatives there to restore naval intelligence to a position of prominence and dominance. Areas that we still have to deal with that I believe are of interest to everyone here, in particularly to the gentlemen to my right, as we get into QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review] are the issues and the approach that we will take as a Navy and Marine Corps, and as a department toward amphibious lift and the maritime prepositioning force of the future and I look forward to working with Jim on that. We’ve also made some pretty tough decisions in this past year. I’ve mentioned a couple of them. Early on in my tenure we cancelled two LCSs, the first LCS 3s and 4s. Because in my view the costs were taking off at an uncontrollable rate and I was concerned that we would lose the whole program. I already mentioned the truncation of the DDG 1000. Well run program, incredible technology; but not the type of ship that I envision us needing in the future. And then recently we made the decision to cancel some weapons programs that we had been pumping money into for years and nothing was coming out of the back end and I’m going to continue to do more of that in the future. Performance is going to be key. But even with all the pressures that we have I think there are some tremendous opportunities because it’s in those pressurized periods that we have to think anew and look anew and step off in directions and make decisions that we otherwise would not be forced to make. So I’m looking forward to that and as we get into the next couple of months, the QDR, putting the ’11 budget together, that is the time where I am eagerly looking forward to shaping the programs of the future. The areas that I think about the most are the total ownership costs of our Navy and what are we doing today? What are we acquiring today? And what will I be delivering to my successors many years down the road? And when I look at some of the cost projections, I believe that we have to have a fundamentally different way of acquiring things and it’s not simply to look at the acquisition cost of today, but what are we delivering to the future leaders and Sailors of the Navy. The other area is in the area of manpower. How are we going to man the fleet of the future? All too often I fear that when we look at a program or a policy, we don’t take into account the cost of people. And in an all volunteer force that is something that you must do because if you don’t we will not be able to realize our mission because at the end of the day, it’s all about people. In the news a couple of weeks ago you heard the names, USS Bainbridge (DDG 96), USS Boxer (LHD 4), USS Halyburton (FFG 40). The ships didn’t rescue Capt. Phillips, our Sailors rescued Capt. Phillips and those are the most important things that we’re going to deal with in the future. So I thank you for being here and I look forward to your questions.
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