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Bell-Lockheed Martin JV's V-280 Valor Upraising for US Military's FVL Program

As the Pentagon considers the future of military vertical lift, Bell Helicopter is talking with the US services about designing a next-generation tiltrotor solution that could begin low-rate production in the mid-2020s, one company official said.

Bell Helicopter's V-280 Valor concept

Bell is partnered with Lockheed Martin to build a rotorcraft flight demonstrator as part of the US Army’s Joint Multi-Role program, which will gauge the art of the possible for the path ahead. The demonstrator program will inform the Army’s Future Vertical Lift effort to buy a new state-of-the-art family of helicopters in the 2030s.

The demonstration effort may have implications beyond the Army. The Pentagon has indicated that FVL may eventually replace the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force military helicopters as well. But for now, Bell is working with the Army and Marine Corps to shorten the time line for fielding the aircraft, the V-280, program manager Chris Gehler told the media on Nov. 16.

“Bell Helicopter is working closely with the Army and the Marine Corps on informing the requirements of FVL, exploring the options for shortening the time required to field this aircraft,” Gehler said. “We’ll work with our primary customers in the Army and Marine Corps to explore different ways to enter into a low rate production by the mid 2020’s. We are in close communication with the DOD to bring the V-280 onboard as soon as possible with limited risk to better take advantage of the industry and DOD investment.”

The Bell-Lockheed team is offering its V-280 Valor tiltrotor, which builds on the technology developed for Bell-Boeing’s V-22. The competing team, made up of Sikorsky Aircraft and Boeing, is working on a coaxial helicopter known as the SB-1 Defiant for the demonstrator effort.

Although the demonstrator prototypes will fly in 2017, the Army is currently not planning a contract award until the late 2020s, Richard Harris, Bell’s vice president for international military business sales, said in an interview with Defense News. But he stressed that company officials believe the Bell-Lockheed team could achieve initial operational capability by 2025.

“The Army and DOD are exploring options for shortening the V-280 development timeframe, given the significant investment by DOD and industry,” Gehler said. “The Army intends to enter a technology maturation and risk review (TMRR) phase around 2020. We feel a case could be made to instead jump ahead to the Engineering Manufacturing and Development (EMD) phase, given the technology readiness levels we will demonstrate. This has the potential to move the entire timeline up, and deliver this leap-ahead capability to the warfighters years earlier.”

Bell’s goal is ultimately to replace all the Pentagon’s helicopters with the V-280, Harris said, touting the plane’s speed and flexibility. The Valor will have twice the speed and range of the Army’s UH-60 Black Hawk, more than doubling operational reach, according to Bell’s website. The future plane will also outperform the V-22, Harris said, with a combat radius of 1,200 nautical miles compared to the Osprey’s 900 nautical miles.

In one major difference between the two tiltrotors, the Valor’s engines remain in place for transition to forward-flying position, while the rotors and drive shafts tilt, Harris explained. The V-280 will also build on the V-22’s offensive capability. Unlike the Osprey, the Valor will have a forward-firing capability, likely achieved by integrating Hellfire missiles into the plane’s side panels, he said.

While the new aircraft’s cabin will look much like a Black Hawk’s, the advanced glass cockpit uses similar technology to the F-35, Harris said, touting the plane’s fly-by-wire flight control system.

Bell just received the first cabin, and is getting ready to integrate the wings and engine onto the plane, Harris said, adding that “it went together like Lego blocks.”

“When you take a look at the dynamic world that we live in these days and how fast things happen and how far away things happen, a conventional helicopter just does not meet the requirements of all the services,” Harris said. “We are trying to define the standard for what future vertical lift is based upon [Bell’s] legacy and the fact that we are the ones that developed the secret sauce for the V-22.”

KAI-LM T-X Demonstrator Rolling Out Videos

Videos are from Korean electronic media:

Royal Navy Awaiting for MoD's Clearance of Funds for FDUAS and JMUAS

The Royal Navy is looking to launch two new unmanned air system (UAS) programs, but is dependent on gaining funding for the projects in an upcoming review of Ministry of Defence spending in 2016 before it can take the projects forward. “We are trying to kick-off two programs at the moment,” Cmdr. Bow Wheaton , the Royal Navy's maritime capability (aviation) program manager told an unmanned air system conference in London earlier this month.

Royal Navy's Boeing Sea Eagle. 

The Flexible Deployable UAS (FDUAS) and Joint Mini UAS (JMUAS) programs are on the drawing board before the annual MoD budget planning round concludes for the financial year in April, known as ABC 2016, officials said. “The JMUAS is a capability option pending decision as part of the Joint Forces Command Annual Budget Cycle 2016 (ABC16) planning round. It is too early in the process to state whether this will be funded or not given other defence priorities,” said an MoD spokeswoman.

The spokeswoman said the FDUAS program was in the same position as JMUAS before ABC16 concludes. Earlier this year the British armed services received a better than expected budget settlement from the government for the remainder of the decade, in particular a hike in equipment spending.

But little new money is expected to be available in the early part of the funding cycle, giving the 2016 and 2017 planning rounds tough choices to make; including whether to fund either of the Royal Navy’s drone programs. The British only have one maritime unmanned air system operational, the contractor-operated Boeing Scan Eagle, that is machine-deployed on a Type 23 frigate in the Middle East.

But, Wheaton told the UAS15 conference in London that moves were afoot to improve on the present line-up with two new programs by the end of the decade before considering a larger tactical maritime unmanned air system. “We think of FDUAS as Sea Eagle Plus, as we would rather like to have a better find capability. We are also not writing off the fact the best way of delivering it [the requirement] may be by a family of systems,” said Wheaton.

Boeing showed one possible improved Scan Eagle design at September’s DESI defense show in London in September. The US company could find itself vying with rivals AgustaWestland, Camcopter and Raytheon if the FDUAS requirement gets off the ground. The program official said the Scan Eagle earned plaudits from navy commanders, but the deal expires mid-2017. Although the service wanted the capability handover to be seamless, Wheaton acknowledged resource constraints remain a challenge.

Wheaton said the program was “all about persistence and all about being complementary” to the manned Merlin and Wild Cat helicopter capability the RN has in service on its warships. Aside from the Scan Eagle replacement, the Joint Forces Command is also looking at a mini-drone program which can be used for a number of roles, including its use by the Royal Marines.

British land forces successfully used Lockheed Martin’s Desert Hawk mini-drone in the Afghanistan campaign against the Taliban. The system, originally purchased as an urgent operational requirement, has since been taken into the Army’s core equipment program. But Wheaton said that with the Joint Mini UAS, the Royal Navy is looking for something that worked better in the maritime environment for the Royal Marines and others.

“Desert Hawk is great, but as it’s name suggests, it doesn’t work very well in the maritime so we have also identified a clear requirement to get something for a joint capability in the mini [Joint Mini UAS] space,” he said. Lockheed Martin refuted the claim that Desert Hawk wasn’t maritime capable, particularly the latest 3.1 version, which the British don’t possess.

“With five decades of experience in unmanned systems for air, land and sea, we have a small UAS family of systems which could be suitable for a joint maritime UAS, depending on the capability that is required. We have a number of all environment platforms, including Desert Hawk 3.1, which could be considered as a solution and we look forward to hearing more about the specific requirements,” said a spokeswomen for Lockheed Martin.

Unconnected with the micro-requirement, the Royal Navy has been working with Southampton University on a small and cheap unmanned aircraft created on a 3D printer by the academics. The 3 kg vehicle was test-launched from a Royal Navy offshore patrol vessel in July and the Southampton University Laser Sintered Aircraft vehicle is now onboard the ice patrol ship HMS Protector ahead of an operational demonstration in the Antarctic in the first quarter of next year.

A major exercise, known as Unmanned Warrior 2016, is planned to take place in Scotland next year to test with the tactical employment of unmanned and autonomous systems. Beyond the next five years, Wheaton said the Royal Navy also had aspirations for a tactical maritime unmanned system. Britain’s main unmanned air vehicle programs — the Army’s Watchkeeper and the Air Force’s Reaper — also has “enormous potential" if the sensors are optimized for the maritime, said Wheaton.

“Although our priorities are elsewhere for the moment, I am absolutely confident we will start to exploit them in the maritime in the future,” he said. His PowerPoint presentation showed Northrop Grumman’s Fire Scout as being representative of the type of machine they would be looking at for PWAS and attack roles. AgustaWestland recently completed an unmanned rotary wing capability demonstrator program for the Royal Navy using a modified SW-4 helicopter.

Prototype Rolled Out by KAI-Lockheed Team for USAF's T-X Trainer Program

Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) has revealed the prototype that will form the basis of Lockheed Martin’s bid for the US Air Force’s T-X next generation trainer competition.

Based on the T-50 family of trainer/light fighter aircraft, the company’s “T-X demonstrator aircraft” will conduct ground and flight tests in 2016, says KAI in an email to Flightglobal. In 2017, KAI plans flight tests in the USA.

The aircraft features several new features, including a large area display (LAD), embedded training systems, and an aerial refuelling capability.

Aesthetically, the most striking change from the original T-50 is the addition of a large dorsal hump.

The original T-50, along with its variants, was developed via technology transfer from Lockheed Martin with offsets related to South Korea’s large F-16 fleet.

The lucrative T-X competition has always been a major objective of the T-50 programme, which is a source of great national pride in South Korea. The country's president Park Geun-hye was in attendance at the rollout ceremony.

The winner of the T-X competition will eventually replace the 55-year old Northrop T-38 Talon, which has served as the USAF’s advanced jet trainer since the 1960s. The procurement could reach up to 350 units.

The appearance of the Lockheed/KAI T-X technology demonstrator is notable in that it makes the Lockheed/KAI team the first competitor to show its hand. Over the years KAI and Lockheed have displayed models at air shows of a baseline T-50 with T-X markings.

The other T-X competitors are Northrop Grumman, Boeing (which is teaming with Saab) and Alenia Aermacchi.

On 12 December, Northrop Grumman grudgingly allowed journalists to a view of a model of its planned offering for the requirement, but allowed no photographs. Days later in an interview with Flightglobal, Boeing Phantom Works president Darryl Davis refused to provide any more details about the US firm’s planned clean-sheet offering with Saab.

First Japanese-built F-35 Begins Assembly

In a key milestone for the international program, the first Japanese-built F-35 joint strike fighter began its assembly today at a facility in Nagoya, Japan. The aircraft, known as the AX-5, officially began the “mate” process today when its wings, fuselage and tails joined together for the first time to form the structure, the joint program office said in a Dec. 15 statement.
 

First Norwegian Armed Forces Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II, known as AM-1 Joint Strike Jet Fighter, is unveiled during the rollout celebration at Lockheed Martin production facility in Fort Worth, Texas, on Sept. 22.

AX-5 is the first F-35A assembled in Japan and will join the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force fleet in 2017. The first four of Japan’s planned 42 planes are in various stages of production at Lockheed Martin’s F-35 facility in Forth Worth, Texas. The first, AX-1, is slated for delivery in 2016.

The remaining 38 Japanese aircraft will be assembled and delivered in Japan from the Nagoya factory, according to the statement.

Italy Takes Delivery of First F-35

Italy took formal delivery Thursday of its first joint strike fighter — the first F-35 to be built outside the US.

Italy has formally received its first F-35. Here, the aircraft rolls out of the Cameri production facility.

The handover took place at Italy’s Cameri Air Base, where Italy’s joint strike fighters are being assembled, after the aircraft made its first flight at Cameri in September.

The Cameri final assembly and check out (FACO) line is owned by the Italian government and operated by Italy’s Alenia Aermacchi and Lockheed Martin.

The aircraft, AL-1, is expected to fly across the Atlantic in February to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona — marking the first trans-Atlantic F-35 flight — where Italian pilots will train in it under US supervision. Enroute to the US, the plane will be refueled by an Italian 767 tanker.

The FACO line at Cameri is the only one of its kind outside the US and will also serve as a maintenance hub for European based JSFs after being designated for the role by the Pentagon last year.

AL-1, the first of Italy’s currently planned 90 JSFs, came off the line in March and its engines were turned on for the first time in June.

Italian pilots are already training at Luke. Last month, two Italian pilots completed initial F-35 training there, making the first F-35 flights under the control of Italian pilots. The US Air Force said one of the pilots flew an Australian F-35.

USAF Denies To Acquire More Fourth Generation Fighters

The US Air Force has denied any plans to purchase another tranche of Lockheed Martin F-16 or Boeing F-15 combat jets following reports it could seek bids for up to 72 new aircraft.

According to comments attributed to a senior US Air Combat Command official at an international fighter conference in London last week, the current Lockheed F-35 procurement plan could prove unaffordable, and another fighter wing of F-15s, F-16s or perhaps even F/A-18s is being considered to supplement the current fleet – which will serve into the 2040s as F-35s are delivered.

The air force is seeking 1,763 F-35As through 2038, and in the interim it intends to modernise and upgrade its F-16s and F-15s with new active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars and electronic warfare systems.

Asked to categorically confirm or deny any new fighter purchase, a spokesman for the service’s acquisition office says: “At this time the air force has no plans to acquire 72 new F-15s or F-16s, although the air force is always looking at options to be prepared for a dynamic global security environment.”

In his final press engagement at the Pentagon on 24 November, outgoing air force acquisition chief Bill LaPlante was dismissive of suggestions that another F-15 or F-16 fighter wing is being sought, but he agrees that the F-35 is difficult to afford.

“That story was news to me,” he quipped. “We’re always struggling to get the production rate as high as we can get it on F-35. That’s as true as saying it’s cold outside. It’s always true.”

The conventional take-off and landing A-model costs just shy of $100 million per aircraft, but LaPlante says the F-35 joint programme office and the Lockheed industry team are trying to reduce that to $85 million as the manufacturing process matures.

The service stopped acquiring fourth-generation F-16s and F-15s many years ago to instead focus on developing and procuring stealthy F-22s and F-35s, but both acquisitions were far more expensive and lengthy than originally planned.

The opportunity to purchase more legacy jets, which have been kept in production through foreign military sales, is closing fast, with the Lockheed F-16 and Boeing F-15 and F/A-18 assembly lines potentially closing before the turn of the decade if no more domestic or foreign orders materialise.

The air force has budgeted for 44 F-35s in fiscal year 2016 and 48 in 2017, and is building toward a production cadence of 60 jets per year by 2018 and then 80 beyond 2020.

Lockheed Martin To Integrate JASSM-ER On Vintage B-52H

The Boeing B-52H is the vintage bomber that just won’t quit, and now the Cold War-era “Stratofortress” is being outfitted with one of America’s newest and longest-range conventional cruise missiles.

Lockheed Martin has been put on contract to arm the 54-year-old aircraft – which has outlived many of those who predicted its retirement – with the extended-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Weapon (JASSM) under a $9.1 million contract announced earlier this month.

In a statement to Flightglobal, LM director of long-range strike systems Jason Denney confirms that the B-52 will be updated to carry the turbofan engine-powered cruise missile internally on a new digitised rotary launcher and externally on its pylons.

The bomber has long carried conventional cruise missiles, namely the non-nuclear derivative of the AGM-86 “ALCM” that has an unclassified range of 600nm and is being retired as supplies run low.

Boeing B-52s can carry up to 20 nuclear-armed Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs) and by 2018 will probably be carrying a similar number of smarter, non-nuclear Lockheed Martin JASSM-ERs.

US Air Force

Already equipped to carry the shorter-range baseline JASSM missile on its pylons, adding the extended range variant more than doubles the bomber’s JASSM strike distance to 500nm (926km). That allows lumbering, non-stealthy B-52H to punch out targets while keeping clear of hazardous air defence systems well into the future.

According to Lockheed, the B-52 has only ever captive-carried the JASSM-ER during operational testing, and the bomber now joins the Lockheed F-16 and soon the Boeing F-15E on the integration to-do list. The weapon is already deployed on the Boeing/Rockwell B-1B. B-52 integration will wrap up in 2018, as will the project to arm the F-16.

“F-15E integration will be next in line,” says Denney. “The expansion of the JASSM-ER employment aircraft set will significantly enhance the US warfighter’s first-day, first-strike capabilities.”

The baseline JASSM missile has been in serial production for over a decade but production recently switched to the new double-range JASSM-ER (500nm unclassified).

Lockheed Martin

The beefing up of Stratofortress weaponry for conventional warfighting comes as the air force removes nuclear weapons from dozens of B-52s previously assigned to the strategic deterrence mission to achieve compliance with new strategic arms limitations agreed with Russia.

The air force currently plans to retire the supersonic B-1B and the B-52H in the 2040s as their Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) replacement steps in.

JASSM-ER takes advantage of several concurrent digital upgrades that will allow every B-52 to carry smart weapons internally for the first time and on its pylons. The Boeing-led Combat Network Communications Technology improvement will further allow B-52s to update their missions plans via satellite and retarget weapons in flight – as most other combat aircraft have been doing for decades.

The B-52's rotary launcher, seen here carrying up to eight ALCM cruise missiles, is being upgraded to carry fully digital smart weapons and decoys.

Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles ( JASSM)

JASSM is a long-range, conventional, air-to-ground, precision standoff missile for the U.S. and allied forces. Designed to destroy high-value, well-defended, fixed and relocatable targets, JASSM’s significant standoff range keeps aircrews well out of danger from hostile air defense systems.

A 2,000-pound class weapon with a penetrator/blast fragmentation warhead, JASSM employs precision routing and guidance in adverse weather, day or night, using a state-of-the-art infrared seeker in addition to the anti-jam GPS to find a specific aimpoint on the target. Its stealthy airframe makes it extremely difficult to defeat.

JASSM is integrated on multiple aircraft including the B-1, B-2, B-52, F-16, and F-15E. Internationally, JASSM is certified on the Royal Australian Air Force’s F/A-18. Future integration efforts will focus on the U.S. and international versions of Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft and other international platforms.

With superior performance and affordable price, JASSM offers the best value of any weapon in its class.

Air Force ‘Confident’ Bomber Contract Award Is Airtight

The US Air Force is “confident” that the award of the Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) contract to Northrop Grumman can withstand the protest recently filed by losing team Boeing and Lockheed Martin, top leadership said here today.

“I am confident that we collectively — and again, 'we' the Air Force, but we had independent peer reviews, as well — that, collectively, we did a very thorough job,” Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said during a Nov. 10 press conference at the Dubai Air Show. “The evaluation was done according to the [Request for Proposal] evaluation factors.”

The Pentagon announced Northrop as the winner for the competition, which aims to provide 80-100 new bombers for the service to replace the B-52 and B-1 fleets, on Oct. 27. On Nov. 6, Boeing and Lockheed filled their formal protest with the Government Accountability Office.

The GAO now has 100 days to review the protest, examine the Air Force’s source-selection process and issue a ruling. The Air Force expects Boeing’s protest will delay the contract by that 100-day period, but no more, James indicated.

"What is now going to occur is about a 100-day period in which the GAO will be reviewing the contract award, so we expect that, after that 100 days is up, we will proceed accordingly," James said. "So that is the amount of the delay you might see, the period of the GAO review."

If the protest is successful, the GAO could force the Air Force to re-bid the contract, causing further delay to the Air Force’s decades-long effort to build a new bomber. However, James pointed out that the GAO may simply ask the Air Force to “redo” some aspects of the source-selection process.

“The GAO, if they found certain discrepancies, could ask that we redo some of the factors," James said. "It would not necessarily be an entirely new contract situation. So it really depends — it’s too early to say.”

The Air Force, clearly eager to avoid a repeat of the tanker saga of the last decade when a Boeing protest eventually reversed the original award to Airbus, has taken great pains to insulate the LRS-B award. James reiterated during the press conference that the service tasked not one, but two, independent cost estimators to evaluate the program.

“We had a very deliberate process, we took our time, it was key that we do it correctly, we believe that we did do it correctly,” James said. “It’s not just our belief, we had independent reviews at different levels within the Department of Defense to include a legal review, so I would just like to stand by and wait to see what the GAO assesses.”

But despite the Air Force's best efforts, a protest could delay the program and spark an ugly public relations battle, particularly given Boeing's clout on Capitol Hill.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin called the selection process for the LRS-B "fundamentally flawed" in a joint statement last week. Specifically, they take issue with the cost evaluation performed by the government, saying it did not properly reward the team's proposals to break the upward-spiraling historical cost curves of defense acquisitions, and did not properly evaluate the relative or comparative risk of Northrop Grumman's ability to perform, as required by the solicitation.

Northrop Grumman, maker of the stealth B-2 bomber, won the award in part because of a projected cost per plane of $511 million in 2010 dollars, well below the Pentagon's cost cap of $550 million in 2010 dollars. In fiscal 2016 dollars, those figures translate into $563 million and $606 million, respectively.

First Image Of F-35C Carrying Full Load Of Weapons (Externally)

On Jan. 13, RAF Squadron Ldr. Andy Edgell flew first F-35C, the U.S. Navy’s carrier variant of the Joint Strike Fighter,with external GBU-12s, AIM-9Xs air-to-air missiles and the centerline gun pod.

Obviously, a radar-evading plane loses some of its stealthiness with such an external payload…

Image credit: Andy Wolfe via Lockheed Martin

New US fighter jet exceeds budget by billions

Next generation F-35 fighter jet is years behind schedule and costing billions over its allocated budget.

As the White House scales back US military spending, the Navy has just drastically reduced its order of the new F-35 stealth fighter jet.

The deployment of the F-35 is years behind schedule and billions over budget.

Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan reports from Washington.

Arming F-22 Raptor With AIM-120 Amraam And AIM-9X Sidewinder Missiles

F 35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) With AMRAAM & AIM-9X Sidewinder Missiles

 

Lockheed Martin has announced that United States Air Force (USAF) version of the F 35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) has conducted test flights with AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, (AMRAAM) beyond-visual-range (BVR), AIM-9X Sidewinder heat-seeking, short-range,air-to-air missile (AAM) and 2,000 pound bombs.

 

Two AIM-120 AMRAAMs and two 2,000 pound bombs were carried internally while two AIM-9X Sidewinder were carried on two of the six external hardpoints.

Is thist new Chinese "Top Secret" stealth that will hunt U.S. Air Forces' F-22 Raptor in the sky?

Six F-22 Raptor fighter jets trailing three tankers over the Mediterranean Sea_Captured by A Photographer

Stealth planes might be invisible to radars but they can do nothing against human eye. This is what the following images prove.

Taken by Gian Luca Onnis, a (lucky) photographer and aviation enthusiast, on Jan. 25, the photographs show a flight of six F-22 Raptors trailing two KC-135 and a KC-10 tankers overflying Sardinia island, Italy, on their way back to the U.S..

The radar evading planes, returning to Holloman, New Mexico, from a deployment in South East Asia, were clearly visible because of the long white contrails they left over the Mediterranean Sea.

The six F-22 Raptors had deployed to Al Dhafra in the UAE via Moron, Spain, on Apr. 20, 2012. Whereas the six stealthy planes of the 49th Fighter Wing returned to the CONUS (Continental U.S.) six F-22 belonging to the 3rd Fighter Wing, were flying in the opposite direction (via Lajes, Azores) to replace them in the Persian Gulf area.

Noteworthy, unlike the Holloman’s F-22As the 3rd FW’s Raptors from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, in Alaska, are Block 3.1 planes capable to find and engage ground targets using the Synthetic Aperture Radar mapping and drop up to eight GBU-39 SDBs (Small Diameter Bombs) in the air-to-surface role.

Some Classical Photos of The F-16 Fighting Falcon Fighter Family