BULLHORN #41
14 May 2009
There is a lot of activity everywhere – our military
are confronting terrorists in the GWOT through out the
world, especially in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters,
they are confronting pirates off Somali and maintaining
a presence for peace. Our Navy and Naval Aviation are
at the point of that spear, fully engaged to defeat our
enemies and fully engaged to maintain peace with our
friends.
The Navy is fully engaged in another theater –
Washington – where it is working hard on defining the
Navy of the future and establishing its part of the DOD
budget to achieve it. A great deal of current news
addresses those issues.
Now is the time to spread the word, to work to be sure
our friends and neighbors understand the vital
importance of Naval Aviation and the issues confronting
it, and to call and/or write our legislators to be sure
they understand how we feel about the issues.
Please pass this to ALL HANDS
“…to
educate and encourage an interest among the general
public as to the importance of Naval Aviation in the
defense of the United States and its allies….”
Navy Accepts Delivery Of Bush
Carrier
(NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS 11 MAY
09) ... Peter Frost
NAVAL STATION NORFOLK - The U.S.
Navy finally has its ship. The service today
officially accepted delivery of the George H.W. Bush
aircraft carrier from Northrop Grumman Corp., the
company and service confirmed.
The $6.26 billion carrier,
commissioned on Jan. 10 in Norfolk, is now an official
ship of the U.S. Fleet. It is the 10th and final of the
Nimitz class, all of which were built in Newport News.
"George H.W. Bush's delivery
completes the construction of Nimitz-class aircraft
carriers, but their legacy will continue," said Capt.
Frank Simei, the Navy's program manager for in-service
carriers. "This ship will be an important part of our
maritime forces for the next 50 years."
Its keel was laid in 2003 and it
was christened in 2006. The ship is scheduled to return
to Newport News in June for short after-delivery
maintenance, and make its first deployment in 2010.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Northrop Grumman Delivers Last
Nimitz-Class Aircraft Carrier
(DEFENSE DAILY 12 MAY 09)
The Navy yesterday took delivery
of its newest and last Nimitz-class aircraft carrier,
USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), from Northrop Grumman [NOC]
Shipbuilding, the service said.
George H.W. Bush is the 10th
Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
"George H.W. Bush has been eight
years in the making, with its keel laid in 2003,
followed by christening in 2006 and today's delivery.
It's a testament to the dedication and professionalism
of both the Navy and our industry partners," Capt.
Frank Simei, Navy program manager for in-service
aircraft carriers, said.
Bush is the nation's 10th Nimitz-class
aircraft carrier built at Northrop Grumman
Shipbuilding's shipyard in Newport News, Va., and is
the most advanced ship of its class., the Navy said
Relative to the last aircraft
carrier, USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) substantial design
features were modified and new technologies inserted,
the Navy added.
New design features for
the Bush include new propellers, a new underwater
hull-coating system, an updated aviation-fuel
distribution system, and modernized aircraft launch and
recovery equipment. Environmental upgrades have also
been designed into the ship, including a new marine
sewage system. It is the second carrier to have a
modernized island and a new bulbous bow design that
provides more buoyancy to the forward end of the ship
and improves hull efficiency. The ship's keel was laid
Sept. 6, 2003, it was christened Oct. 7, 2006, and was
commissioned Jan. 10, 2009, the company reported.
"George H.W. Bush's
delivery completes the construction of Nimitz-class
aircraft carriers, but their legacy will continue"
Simei said. "This ship will be an important part of our
maritime forces for the next 50 years."
Northrop Grumman has
already begun building the Navy's next generation
aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78).
Work is expected to be
completed by September 2015, according to the Navy.
CVN-78 is the Navy's
first major investment in aircraft carrier design in
more than three decades and features many improvements
over the 1960's Nimitz-class design. CVN-78 includes a
new flight deck with an improved weapons handling
system, advanced arresting gear, a completely
re-engineered Electro-Magnetic Aircraft Launch System,
new and simplified nuclear propulsion plants, a new
electrical power generation system and reconfigurable
design architecture, the Navy said (Defense Daily,
Sept. 11).
On Monday, the Navy
awarded Northrop Grumman a $77.2 million contract
modification for long lead time materials in
support of construction preparation efforts for the
unnamed CVN-79.
Navy Accepts Bush After
Debris Caused Delay
(NAVY TIMES 11 MAY 09)
The Navy took delivery
of the carrier George H.W. Bush on Monday, more than
two weeks after the discovery of debris in the ship’s
emergency diesel generators stopped the service from
taking final ownership of the $6.26 billion flattop.
Alan Baribeau, a
spokesman for Naval Sea Systems Command, did not
immediately have information about what kind of work
shipbuilder Northrop Grumman had done to resolve the
problems with the generators, nor how much it had cost.
Inspectors found the problems after the Bush returned
from its acceptance trials April 10; the Navy announced
April 24 it wouldn’t take delivery of the ship until
they were fixed.
The carrier is
powered by two nuclear reactors, but it would use
its emergency diesel generators for backup power in
case the reactors went offline. It is the 10th and
final Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, as well as the
last U.S. carrier designed from the keel up with
steam-powered catapults to launch its aircraft.
F/A-18 Dedicated To
Gulf War Aviator
(NAVY.MIL 11 MAY 09)
... Mike O'Connor
PENSACOLA, Fla.,-- An
F/A-18 Hornet was presented to the family of Capt.
Michael Scott Speicher, a pilot shot down Jan. 16, 1991
— the first night of Operation Desert Storm- during the
National Museum of Naval Aviation's Symposium 2009 in
Pensacola May 8.
The F/A-18 Hornet was
repainted with the squadron markings and insignia of
Speicher.
It was believed that
Speicher was the first combat casualty of the Gulf War.
On March 10, 2009, the secretary of the Navy
reclassified Speicher's official status as missing in
action (MIA).
Aircraft maintenance
specialists from Speicher's former squadron, the VFA-81
Sunliners, came to Sherman Field to apply the
squadron's markings, Speicher's name and a POW/MIA
insignia to the aircraft.
"I'm very proud to be
asked to be a part of this," said VFA-81's Aviation
Structural Mechanic 3rd Class (AW) Anthony Gist. "It's
an absolute honor to take part in such a meaningful
project for Captain Speicher and his family. We painted
it with VFA-81 colors, stabs and the modex number he
went down in. It's a 1991-era paint job."
"We think it's as close
as we could get it," Sunliners' Aviation Ordnanceman
Joanna Dillon added.
"All the stencils are
how they were in 1991. It's a tribute to Captain
Speicher; he deserves it."
Painting specialists
from the Navy's Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue
Angels, provided the base coat of aircraft gray.
"Everyone that wears
wings of gold -- Navy or Marine, officer or enlisted --
starts out at NASC," said Naval Aviation Schools
Command (NASC) Naval Aircrew Candidate School Division
Officer Lt. Cmdr. Clay Hester, who served as volunteer
coordinator for the project.
The idea for the
restoration and dedication of the aircraft was a group
effort on the part of NASC and the National Naval
Aviation Museum.
"This event represents
a lot of hard work by the NASC Sailors and the museum
staff involved in the restoration," said NASC
Commanding Officer, Capt. Patrick Dougherty.
The F/A-18 Hornet
will be returned to its stand outside NASC where it
is hoped that future generations of naval aviators
in training will take note of the aircraft as a
legacy never to be forgotten.
Navy Says No Structural
Changes To P-8; Program Is On Cost And Schedule
(DEFENSE DAILY 12 MAY
09) ... Geoff Fein
Boeing's P-8 Poseidon
maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft is on
schedule, on cost and has not undergone any redesign or
modifications, according to a Navy official.
In April, the P-8
completed its first flight a bit ahead of schedule,
Capt. Mike Moran, P-8 program manager, told Defense
Daily in a recent interview.
"It was a pretty big event
and milestone for the program...to get that done," he said.
T-1, the first of three
test aircraft, flew for more than three hours back on April
25. During the flight, the Navy and Boeing ran a complete
system checkout, which included the aircraft's autopilot
system and fuel transfer, Moran added.
"Everything went very, very
well. It landed in Seattle and is now undergoing some more
instrumentation," he said.
T-1 is designed to
demonstrate airworthiness and has no mission systems on
board, Moran noted. "We are going to use that airplane to
develop the envelope for the aircraft."
T-2 is a missionized
airplane and will be used to do all of the mission systems
evaluations, he added.
T-3 is also a missionized
aircraft and will be used to evaluate weapons delivery,
Moran said.
The Navy also has static
(S-1) and fatigue (S-2) test articles that are strictly for
ground testing.
The current plan calls for
the P-8 to carry Boeing's Standoff Land Attack Missile
(SLAM) and Raytheon's [RTN] Mk 54 torpedo in the bomb bay.
The Navy is currently
looking at an effort to add a wing kit to the Mk 54 under
the High Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapons Concept (HAAWC)
program.
The Navy is expected to
issue a draft request for proposals for HAAWC by the end of
the year.
Moran noted that HAAWC will
be a full-blown competition.
He also noted that the P-8
has not undergone any structural changes or modifications
to accommodate HAAWC.
"I can assure you the bomb
bay design has not changed since PDR (preliminary design
review). It meets our performance requirements as
articulated in the [specifications]," Moran said. "We have
done a fairly significant weight reduction activity over
the last year, but that had nothing to do with redesigning
significant structures."
The weight reduction was
really to explore whether the Navy needed some different
components in the airplane, he added. For example, taking
advantage of some of the commercial design that has reduced
the drag on the airplane. That reduction in drag equates to
weight loss, Moran noted.
"But we have not changed or
moved anything on the airplane of significance...fuel
tanks, or any of that stuff, that affected the bomb bay,"
he said.
Additionally, the program
remains on track to meet its initial operational capability
of summer 2013, Moran added.
"The program is on schedule
and on cost and meeting performance requirements in
accordance with our [specifications] since Milestone B," he
said. "So we are meeting our objectives...not even the
thresholds...but our objectives. [Summer] 2013 is our
objective in accordance with APB (acquisition program
baseline) at Milestone B and we are still on track to meet
that."
The P-8 is also meeting
cost estimates, at Milestone B, to the Navy's objective
values as well, Moran added. "And we are meeting our
performance requirements. The program is in good shape."
=====================================================================
Blake: Navy Cuts F/A-18E/F
Buys, Will Study Strike Fighter Gap In QDR
(INSIDE THE NAVY 11 MAY 09)
... Dan Taylor
The Navy’s decision to
slash F/A-18E/F Super Hornet buys from 18 to nine despite a
looming strike fighter shortfall of 69 aircraft in the 2017
time frame will not worsen the gap, and officials will
clarify the way ahead on the issue in the upcoming
Quadrennial Defense Review, Rear Adm. Terry Blake, the
deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget, told
reporters May 7.
The admiral said the
procurement of 22 EA-18G Growlers -- which utilize the
Super Hornet airframe – means the production line will
remain above its floor of 24 aircraft, allowing officials
to make the decision on whether to buy more Super Hornets
in the QDR.
“The strike fighter gap is
another issue that’s going to be taken up in the QDR,”
Blake said at a briefing on the Navy’s fiscal year 2010
budget request. “Within that line, we are well above the
24-per-year requirement to keep that line viable.
“One of the premises the
QDR will operate under is what is the right force
structure,” he continued. “There will be an issue as to
what is the right amount of strike fighters and what is the
right mix for us.”
In the meantime, the
service has requested to increase the procurement of F-35B
Joint Strike Fighters – the Marine Corps’ short-takeoff,
vertical-landing variant of the aircraft -- from 14 to 16
in this year’s budget. The requested buy for Navy F-35C
carrier variants remains at four aircraft, which will be
the first purchase of those aircraft.
The Pentagon also opted
once again to cut funding for the JSF alternate engine,
which officials have argued is unnecessary despite orders
from Congress to fund it.
Overall, the Navy reduced
the number of aircraft it wants to buy this year from 225
to 203, or three more than last year’s budget. However,
total spending on aircraft procurement jumped from around
$14.7 billion last year to about $19.3 billion under this
year’s proposed budget.
Previous press reports
stated that the Navy was considering cutting the P-8A
Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft program from six
aircraft this year to only two, but the service opted to
fully fund the program. The P-8s are slated to replace
aging P-3C Orion aircraft, a significant portion of which
were grounded due to fatigue issues in late 2007.
The Navy wants to buy only
two E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft this year due to
Congress’ decision last year to cut advanced procurement
funding -- as well as the third aircraft in the FY-09
budget -- in order to free up funding for other programs.
Program officials have warned that those cuts could result
in a delay in the aircraft’s initial operational capability
of up to a year. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), chairman of the
House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said he would
replace the third E-2D in the FY-09 war-spending
supplemental bill, but program officials said that may not
necessarily make up for the cut.
The cancellation of the
VH-71 presidential helicopter program was reflected in the
budget request as officials axed the three aircraft the
Navy originally planned to buy this year. The Navy is
calling for a reduction in research and development funding
for the aircraft from $832 million last year to only $85
million this year.
“Part of that is going to
be used for termination, part of it is going to be used for
the start of whatever the new program is -- it’s in there
right now as a placeholder,” Blake said.
Navy spokesman Lt. Clay
Doss said there is not yet a stop-work order on Increment 1
of the VH-71.
Pentagon Comptroller Robert
Hale, in an earlier briefing on the overall defense budget
request, told reporters that officials aren’t ruling out
the V-22 as a presidential helo platform.
“Who knows? What we’re
going to do though -- I mean, the issue there is, what is
the requirement?” he said.
“We’re going to work with
the White House, to try to better define that, do it from a
more fiscally informed perspective and what we can actually
achieve from technology.
“So one of the key
constraints that [Defense Secretary Robert Gates]
considered was, ‘Hey, we’ve got to go back; we’ve got to go
rethink this, because that is a valid concern,’” he
continued. “We want to make sure that we have something
that’s very reliable to transport the president.”
The service also proposed
to eliminate the two KC-130J tanker aircraft that were
originally called for and reduced the planned MH-60R
helicopter buy from 27 to 24 to free up funding for other
priorities, Blake said.
Procurement of MV-22 Osprey
tiltrotors, H-1 helicopters and MH-60S helos remain at
planned levels of 30, 28 and 18, respectively.
Officials added one C-40A
transport aircraft to the budget, which, along with the
Navy’s purchase of two aircraft last year, completes the
total buy of those aircraft at three, Blake said.
Finally, the budget
cuts buys of T-6A/B training aircraft from 44 to 38.
Navy Decommissions USS
Kitty Hawk
(NAVY COMPASS 12 MAY 09)
BREMERTON, Wash.-- The
aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) was decommissioned
May 12 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate
Maintenance Facility in Bremerton, Wash., after more than
48 years of service.
Members of the final crew
lowered the ship's commissioning pennant from the main mast
and the U.S. Flag and First Navy Jack from their staffs
after Kitty Hawk Commanding Officer Capt. Todd Zecchin
closed out the ship's deck log.
"It's hard to capture the
feeling in words," said Zecchin. "This is the second
aircraft carrier that I've decommissioned, and it doesn't
hit you immediately until you've lowered the commissioning
pennant for the last time."
Kitty Hawk's officers of
the deck have used the log to track shipboard activities,
both in port and at sea, since commissioning April 29,
1961.
Zecchin then transferred
the ship to the control of shipyard commander Capt. Mark
Whitney during a small ceremony aboard the ship.
"She has served her country
for almost 50 years – 48 years and 13 days, across the
globe," said Zecchin. "There have been a lot of Sailors
that have crossed her decks, a lot of airmen that have
flown off and on her decks."
Kitty Hawk arrived in
Bremerton Sept. 2, 2008 to prepare for its eventual
decommissioning. The ship spent the previous 10 years
operating from Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Japan.
While operating from Japan
as the Navy's only forward deployed aircraft carrier, Kitty
Hawk took part in dozens of exercises and operations,
including being the first aircraft carrier to take part in
Operation Enduring Freedom in the Arabian Sea, and her
aircraft took part in the opening strikes of Operation
Iraqi Freedom.
She was replaced by USS
George Washington (CVN 73), which is only the fourth U.S.
aircraft carrier to be forward deployed from Yokosuka.
Kitty Hawk's voyage to
Bremerton started when the ship left Fleet Activities
Yokosuka, Japan, May 28, 2008. Since then, the ship made
her final port visit to Guam, then on to Hawaii, where it
took part in the 21st biennial Rim of the Pacific exercise
with nine other nations.
On her way to Bremerton,
Kitty Hawk made a final stop at Naval Air Station North
Island, Calif., where she was homeported for more than 25
years. Dozens of former crewmembers, including 38
plankowners – members of the 1961 commissioning crew – rode
the ship from San Diego to Bremerton on its final at-sea
voyage.
The decommissioning brings
back a lot of memories for the 100,000 or so Sailors who
served aboard Kitty Hawk as part of ship's company or air
wing.
"In January of 1965 at the
young age of 17, I came on board the USS Kitty Hawk right
out of boot camp," said Kitty Hawk Veterans Association
President Jim Melka. "Being from a small town in Iowa, I
had never seen anything so massive. The Kitty Hawk was home
for me for the next 32 months. I learned a lot in those 32
months.
"The Hawk is a great ship
and has been very well taken care of by our young men and
women in today's Navy," he said. "I'm very proud to have
served on the USS Kitty Hawk."
Plankowner Jerry Warren
made Kitty Hawk's first and final at-sea voyages.
"I really felt proud to …
say I served on the USS Kitty Hawk, the oldest active ship
in the Navy," said Warren, the veteran's association vice
president. "She will always have a place in my heart. She
has been, and still is, a great ship with a lot of history
behind her."
Kitty Hawk had been the
Navy's oldest active warship since 1998 and turns over the
title to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS
Enterprise (CVN 65). Kitty Hawk was also the Navy's last
remaining diesel-fueled aircraft carrier.
Throughout its lifetime,
Kitty Hawk has had 407,507 arrested carrier landings and
448,235 catapult launches.
Now decommissioned, the
ship will remain in Bremerton for the foreseeable future as
part of the Navy Inactive Ships Program.
Mullen: Rising Manpower
Costs Will Require Procurement Funds
(INSIDE THE NAVY 11 MAY 09)
... Zachary M. Peterson
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD --
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said
last week that as rising manpower costs are included in the
services’ baseline budgets, procurement accounts will be
the only avenue for getting the additional funds.
“I think one of the biggest
challenges is when the overall manpower bills drop into the
baseline budget, and that happened, there’s basically only
one place -- assuming you’re going to fund your operations
-- to get the money and that’s in procurement accounts,”
Mullen said in a May 4 briefing with reporters following a
speech at an industry conference here.
The military’s top officer
said he doesn’t find the migration of manpower costs into
the baseline budget surprising.
“This isn’t a surprise,
I’ve predicted it for years and we’re going to have to
figure how to resource it and get it right,” he said.
Chief of Naval Operations
Adm. Gary Roughead said here earlier that same day that the
service must account for increasing manpower costs before
spending billions on new programs.
“We don’t take into account
the cost of people. At the end of the day, it’s all about
people,” Roughead noted.
Sean Stackley, the Navy
acquisition chief, told reporters May 6 here that he
expects procurement accounts to “bear its share of the
pressure” to pay for rising manpower costs.
“When it comes to managing
through decisions [to cut costs], that’s not an acquisition
decision [alone], it’s a requirements, budget and
acquisition team decision,” Stackley said.
On the subject of
individual augmentees, Mullen said as long as Army and
Marine Corps personnel remain deployed for the same amount
of time as they are home, the Navy and Air Force will need
to continue to provide forces to fill in.
“As long as we’ve got the
Army and Marine Corps in one-to-one dwell and not at
two-to-one, the Air Force and the Navy will need to
continue to provide that capability,” he said.
Current military operations
are more about a “joint force” than individual services,
Mullen argued.
“It’s pretty easy for me to
see now the ‘joint force’ as opposed to individual
services,” he said. “Both the Navy and the Air Force have
done an incredible job at providing support. One of the
untold stories in these wars is what we’ve learned about
enablers to operate in this kind of environment.”
Last month, the Navy had
2,210 active-duty and 416 Reserve personnel in Afghanistan
and another 4,508 active duty and 1,111 Reserve forces in
Iraq serving as what the service calls “individual
augmentees.”
Mullen said the need for
IAs will continue into the future.
“I see a requirement
out there for several years with respect to individual
augmentees,” he said.
Navy Requests $19.3 Billion
For Research And Development In Fy-10
(INSIDE THE NAVY 11 MAY 09)
... Zachary M. Peterson
The Navy is seeking $19.3
billion from Congress in fiscal year 2010 to fund myriad
research and development efforts for major acquisition
programs including Joint Strike Fighter, the P-8
surveillance aircraft and the DDG-1000 destroyer, according
to budget documents.
On the aviation side, the
Navy requests $1.7 billion for the JSF and nearly $1.2
billion for the P-8 Maritime Multimission Aircraft. The
service also seeks $795 million for the tactical unmanned
aerial vehicle, $572 million for the CH-53K helicopter and
$365 million for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye.
For shipbuilding research
and development, the Navy wants $539 million for the
DDG-1000 destroyer. These funds include R&D for software
releases, development qualification and testing for the
long-range, land-attack projectile and hull form testing,
according to the sea service. The Navy asks for another
$495 million for the nextgeneration ballistic-missile
submarine, $361 million for Littoral Combat Ship and $340
million for the next-generation cruiser (CG(X)).
The funding for LCS is
requested for class-design services and testing and
evaluation and systems engineering requirements stemming
from lessons learned from the first two vessels, a Navy
source said. The CG(X) funding covers air and missile
defense radar development for the nascent cruiser effort.
The Gerald R. Ford-class
aircraft carrier (CVN-21) would receive $296 million per
the request and the Virginiaclass attack submarine program
would receive $155 million in R&D dollars.
Additionally, the Navy
seeks $876 million in R&D funds for the Joint Tactical
Radio System, $712 million for command, control,
communications, computers and intelligence (C4I)
initiatives and $293 million for the Marine Corps’
Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. -- Zachary M. Peterson
Shipyard Gets Extra $77.3
Million For Future Carrier
(NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS
12 MAY 09) ... Peter Frost
NEWPORT NEWS - A contract
Northrop Grumman Corp. received from the Navy in January
for design, advanced planning and procurement of materials
for the second carrier in the Gerald R. Ford class has
grown by more than 20 percent.
The company will receive an
additional $77.3 million for additional materials needed to
support the construction of the yet-to-be-named CVN-79, the
Navy said Monday.
That's on top of $373.5
million the shipyard received in January for a 21-month
contract that provides for research and development efforts
with suppliers and the purchase of materials that take
years to produce, including machinery for the carrier's
nuclear propulsion plant.
It was unclear late Monday
why the additional funding was required.
By the end of the year,
Northrop said it planned to assign about 300 employees to
the carrier, which will be built in Newport News.
The company's local
shipyard, the only one in the country to make
nuclear-powered aircraft carriers for the Navy, is
scheduled to lay the keel of the CVN-79 in 2013.
Northrop in late 2008
received a $5.1 billion contract to build the Ford, the
lead ship of the class that's due to be completed in 2015.
Including advanced design
work and initial acquisition costs, the Navy projects the
price tag for the Ford to come in at about $13.9 billion.
Recurring costs for future
Ford-class ships, including the CVN-79, will be about $8
billion.
That $8 billion includes
all government-furnished equipment, such as combat systems,
radar and communications, and other new equipment.
The Navy plans to build
11 Ford-class aircraft carriers, and construction is
projected to continue through 2058.
Fire Scout Responding In
Tests Aboard Frigate, Maturing For LCS
(INSIDE THE NAVY 11 MAY 09)
... Rebekah Gordon
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- With
a second round of testing aboard a surrogate frigate
complete, the Fire Scout unmanned aircraft is “doing
everything we want to it do” and is yielding lessons that
will make for a mature aircraft when it is eventually
placed on the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship, the program
manager said last week.
Four test flights totaling
3.1 hours of flight time from April 26 to 28 aboard the
McInerney (FFG-8) off the coast of Jacksonville, FL, aimed
to demonstrate launch and recovery of the Northrop
Grumman-built MG-8B Fire Scout.
Tests for the vertical
take-off unmanned aerial vehicle included landings and
seven approaches and wave-offs using the ship-based radar
system which tracks the vehicle in flight (known as the UAV
Common Automatic Recovery System, or UCARS), said Capt. Tim
Dunigan, program manager for the Navy’s multi-mission
tactical unmanned aerial vehicle program office at Naval
Air Systems Command.
“We’ve already learned a
lot about the air vehicle getting ready to go to [the LCS],”
Dunigan said during a May 4 briefing at the Navy League’s
Sea Air Space convention here. “We’ve learned a lot being
on this ship. What we’re going to learn more than anything
else is how to use [Fire Scout], what’s the best way to use
[Fire Scout].
“What we’re looking for is
maturing the system in multiple ways,” he added.
Thus far, Fire Scout has
reached altitudes of 12,500 feet, high enough for meeting
all missions, although the vehicle’s ceiling is 20,000
feet, Dunigan said. It has not reached its desired full
speed of 120 knots, but the captain said “we don’t see a
problem getting out to 120.” And although not a
requirement, Dunigan said he also expected the bird to meet
an eight-hour endurance design parameter.
Besides this recently
completed technical evaluation (a first round scheduled in
February was cut short due to weather), a third round of
shipboard testing got under way last week. Operational
evaluation is set to be completed by the end of this
summer, including interoperability testing with the MH-60
Seahawk helicopter sometime in July.
A first operational
deployment for Fire Scout -- a counter-narcotics mission --
is set to occur aboard the McInerney this fall, which the
captain noted would help flesh out tactics, techniques and
procedures for the bird.
“Sometimes we’re going to
find something that has a failure mode that we didn’t see
or is less than the number of hours we desire. Now, we have
the opportunity to fix those earlier so when LCS comes out,
the [operational] tempo is significantly higher, the
aircraft’s more robust,” Dunigan said. “Operationally and
maintenance-wise, we expect it to really pay significant
dividends to the LCS program by doing this deployment.”
He said it would be 18
months beyond the end of the McInerney deployment before
Fire Scout would be operational on the LCS. Dynamic
interface testing on the Lockheed Martin-built Freedom
(LCS-1), which was delivered to the Navy in September and
is undergoing further sea trials off the coast of Norfolk,
VA, will occur during either the first or second quarter of
fiscal year 2010. The General Dynamics-built Independence
(LCS-2) is slated to undergo builder’s trials next month.
“We will do a very
conservative build-up and that will start over with maybe
10 knots over the deck right down the nose, we’ll increase
that, and then we’ll maneuver the ship such that the winds
will come from various angles, including the tailwind,”
Dunigan said about dynamic interface testing. “So we’ll do
that for both of the LCS ships, because they’re different
superstructures, which will have a different response for
our aircraft.” Fire Scout is intended play a key
surveillance role for the LCS, used in all three of its
interchangeable mission packages for antisubmarine warfare,
mine countermeasures and surface warfare. After it became
apparent that the first two LCS sea frames were going to be
more than a year behind schedule for delivery, the Navy
decided in February 2008 to proceed with Fire Scout testing
aboard a surrogate ship.
The $2.88 billion program
calls for 168 of the unmanned air vehicles overall, and
each vehicle costs about $6 million to $7 million, Dunigan
said. Two fully instrumented aircraft are being used for
testing on the McInerney, and nine will be built for
low-rate initial production. The Defense Department’s FY-10
budget request seeks funding to procure five Fire Scout
vehicles, one less than the Navy originally requested. Rear
Adm. Terry Blake, the deputy assistant secretary of the
Navy for budget, said during a May 7 budget briefing that
the Navy “adjusted it to match the LCS schedule.” The Navy
has requested funding for three more LCS ships in FY-10.
Dunigan noted the unique
challenge of configuring the McInerney for testing Fire
Scout, and that in particular “we had to figure out how to
get the ship certified to land Fire Scout without
decertifying it for the H-60.” The system consists of the
air vehicle, a ground-control station with consoles for air
vehicle and mission payload operation integrated in the
ship’s combat information center, UCARS, and a talon grid
for shipboard operations. Four UHF antennas and two
tactical common data link antennas, one forward-looking,
one aft-looking, were also added to the McInerney for data
relay to and from Fire Scout.
Dunigan also noted that
selection of vendors for an integrated radar in an upgraded
version of Fire Scout is currently under way. Integration
will occur primarily in 2010, and operational test and
evaluation will be completed in 2011. The Coast Guard has
expressed strong interest in procuring Fire Scout as its
shipboard UAV for maritime surveillance, provided it has an
integrated radar.
“There’s no doubt in my
mind that we will have radar integrated on the aircraft,”
Dunigan said. “There’s no risk on getting it. It’s whether
or not I can get it in for the cost and schedule that I
advertised.”
In September 2008, Dunigan
told Inside the Navy that differences between the McInerney
and LCS were negligible, noting that “there’ll be little
concern” that Fire Scout will do well aboard LCS if it
performs well on the frigate.
“We really don’t know
everything that we should know to be able to say, ‘Here
you go, fleet, have it,’” Dunigan said last week. “So
we’re learning lots of good stuff, but the aircraft is
responding the way we want it to.”
Culmo (Jim
Culmo, Northrop Grumman vice president of Airborne Early
Warning and Battle Management Command and Control Programs) said
the E-2D pilot production continues ahead of schedule on
the first three aircraft, and radar long-range detection
performance is exceeding expectations. "We are looking
forward to the aircraft's transition to NAS Pax River later
this year as we enter the carrier suitability testing
phase," he added.
May 13, 2009, 7:00 a.m. EST
Northrop Grumman's E-2D Advanced Hawkeye Completes 1,000th
Hour of Flight Testing; Program On-Track for Operational
Evaluation in 2011
BETHPAGE, N.Y., May 13, 2009 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) --
In the blue skies over St. Augustine, Fla., Northrop
Grumman's E-2D Advanced Hawkeye System Development and
Demonstration program aircraft recently reached its 1,000th
hour of flight testing. The aircraft, currently in flight
testing at Northrop Grumman's East Coast Manufacturing and
Flight Test Center, continues to successfully meet, or
exceed, all major program and performance milestones.
A
photo accompanying this release is available at
http://media.globenewswire.com/noc/
"This is a significant milestone for Northrop Grumman and
the U.S. Navy, and it is a testament to our company's
continued commitment to strong program performance and to
meeting our contractual obligations to our customers," said
Tom Vice, sector vice president of the Battle Management
and Engagement Systems Division for the company's Aerospace
Systems sector. "We know the value that the E-2D Advanced
Hawkeye will bring to our carrier fleets. It is the next
generation of force protection for those in our Navy who
lead our global force projection on the open seas."
Program officials say the joint Advanced Hawkeye team has
made great progress since its first flight in August 2007.
"This is just one of many milestones we have achieved over
the past year and a half and it's due to the hard work and
dedication of the entire team," said Jim Culmo, Northrop
Grumman vice president of Airborne Early Warning and Battle
Management Command and Control Programs.
Culmo said the E-2D pilot production continues ahead of
schedule on the first three aircraft, and radar long-range
detection performance is exceeding expectations. "We are
looking forward to the aircraft's transition to NAS Pax
River later this year as we enter the carrier suitability
testing phase," he added.
While a revolutionary weapons system today, the E-2D
Advanced Hawkeye is built upon Northrop Grumman's strong
legacy of providing world-class airborne early warning and
control (AEW & C) capability to the U.S. Navy for nearly 60
years and to its international customers for more than two
decades.
With
the advent of the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, carriers will have
expanded situational and battlespace awareness to support
them on today's and tomorrow's mission. "With surface
detection to 200 miles, air detection beyond 250 miles, and
the ability to communicate data and information to decision
makers ashore and afloat, as well as individual aircraft
and ships carrying on the fight, the improvements are
significant," Culmo said.
While the external appearance of the E-2D is similar to the
E-2C, the systems and capabilities contained in the E-2D
have been completely redesigned. "The aircraft, which was
designed using open architecture, ensures the aircraft is
equipped with the most up-to-date, leading-edge mission
tools. It also features a fully integrated state-of-the-art
glass cockpit," Culmo added.
At
the heart of the new E-2D Advanced Hawkeye is the
completely new, more powerful radar, the AN/APY-9, designed
and built by a radar team led by Lockheed Martin. "It
represents a two-generational leap in radar technology. The
AN/APY-9 can see smaller targets and more of them at a
great range than currently fielded radar systems," he
added.
Developed and fielded for the U.S. Navy, the E-2D Advanced
Hawkeye will provide maritime domain awareness including
airspace control for manned and unmanned assets, monitoring
of surface movements, civil support, and command and
control of tactical forces.
(Photo:
http://www.primezone.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=)
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global
security company whose 120,000 employees provide
innovative systems, products, and solutions in
aerospace, electronics, information systems,
shipbuilding and technical services to government and
commercial customers worldwide.
The Lexington Institute
(Wednesday, May 13, 2009) has published an issue brief on
electronic warfare by its Chief Operating Officer, Dr.
Loren Thompson. Brief follows excerpts.
Unfortunately, the Navy is the only service that has given
the mission proper priority since the Cold War ended. The
Air Force thought it could substitute stealth for jammers
in combating enemy air defenses, and was slow to grasp how
new information technologies were empowering
non-traditional adversaries...
The Air
Force is in especially deep trouble, since it has been
depending on aged Navy aircraft for jamming support, and
those planes are all due to be retired by 2013. Maybe it
has some secret plan to deal with the emerging threat to
its aircraft. If it doesn't, though, then
planners need to take a serious
look at buying more Growlers, because right now all
the planes the Navy plans to buy are dedicated to Navy
missions.
=====================================================================================
PENTAGON NEEDS CLEAR PLAN FOR ELECTRONIC WARFARE
Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.
Issue Brief
May 13, 2009
It
isn't easy to be nostalgic about the Cold War, but back
then military planners had at least one advantage that they
no longer enjoy today: everybody agreed on what the big
threats were. They originated mostly in Russia, and they
were really, really serious. So serious, in fact, that the
survival of civilization depended on dealing with them
effectively. Nowadays the threats are more diverse, they
come at planners from every direction, and there's no way
of knowing which ones will be most pressing over the long
run.
So maybe it isn't surprising that experts disagree about
which capabilities should get highest priority. But there
are at least a few core principles that most planners can
embrace, and one of them is that in the information age, if
you can't control the electromagnetic spectrum then you
probably can't win wars. Every facet of combat is
permeated today by technology such as sensors, networks,
navigation aids and smart bombs that depend on access to
the electromagnetic spectrum in order to function.
Even terrorists depend on electronic technology to
communicate with each other and trigger their bombs. Which
is why the joint force spends a lot of time trying to
monitor, jam or manipulate the frequencies on which the
most common enemy devices operate. In big state-on-state
conflicts, both sides try to dominate the spectrum, and the
resulting rivalry is called "electronic warfare." It isn't
quite the same thing as information warfare, but if you can
shut down the enemy's radars or scramble his
communications, it produces similar benefits on the
battlefield.
So being good at electronic warfare is important to the
joint force. It protects our warfighters from improvised
explosives and enables our aircraft to operate in contested
air space. Unfortunately, the Navy is the only service that
has given the mission proper priority since the Cold War
ended. The Air Force thought it could substitute stealth
for jammers in combating enemy air defenses, and was slow
to grasp how new information technologies were empowering
non-traditional adversaries. The Army and Marine Corps had
unique requirements that never got funded at the rate
needed to generate good solutions. Meanwhile, the Navy
forged ahead on its own to develop a new jamming aircraft.
Fast-forward to the Obama Administration. The Navy's
solution to future electronic warfare needs, dubbed the
EA-18G Growler, is ready to debut. The service plans to
buy 88 of the planes, based on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet,
to field the ten squadrons its carrier air wings require.
The Air Force has started and stopped two programs to
provide its own aircraft with jamming in the future, and
now has no clear plan. The Army has canceled the Aerial
Common Sensor to localize battlefield emitters. And the
Marine Corps plans to fly legacy jamming aircraft for
another ten years, until it fields a nebulously defined
alternative to the Growler.
The problem is that just because the joint force lacks a
coherent plan for meeting future electronic warfare needs
doesn't mean our adversaries are in similar disarray. The
Air Force is in especially deep trouble, since it has been
depending on aged Navy aircraft for jamming support, and
those planes are all due to be retired by 2013. Maybe it
has some secret plan to deal with the emerging threat to
its aircraft. If it doesn't, though, then planners need to
take a serious look at buying more Growlers, because right
now all the planes the Navy plans to buy are dedicated to
Navy missions.
Copyright C 2009 Lexington Institute. All rights reserved.
