mabieI dont think they’ll go with that . The USAF/USN is in the process of drawing up a roadmap for the future of US BVR weapons . So far the roadmap has primarily consisted of technology requirments , and industry utilization however now they are fashioning out an actual demand for a MISSILE that they want which will most likely IOC by around 2016-2020 timeframe , expect atleast dual mode if not tri mode and the ability to target a2a and a2g targets in one mission . TVC might work best when the motor is hot however in the terminal phase it might not be that big of an advantage as the motor is free , that is why it is more important in Shorter ranged engagements where the missile has to make very agressive turns from the get go however with larger FOV at higher ranges it doesnt !! They would most likely include a ramjet packed into the Aim-120D in the 2010 timeframe as Aerojet would deliver the motor in 2009 for the JDRADM program which would be back compatible with the aim-120D ( same dimensions ) therefore expect a new Aim-120C9 or D+ designation to be fashioned very very soon . One thing is clear that the USAF would not be waiting for the JDRADM to start replacing its AIm-120 Stockpile which is close to 10,000 missiles IIRC , they will go with the C7 purchase simeltaniously procure the D and plan for the C9 varient while working out the JDRADM at the same time !! The aim-120D is a very very good missile and offers close to 50% increase in range over the Aim-120C which puts it in the 80-100Km category (coupled with the LO of the aircraft designed to carry it) and the seeker seems to be the LOVE of the DOD !! We’ll see it as the premium missile in the USAF/USN for a long long long Time to come !!
I was looking at an AMRAAM with TV and minus the fins as the best way to fit in more missiles into the F-22 and F-35 internal bays.. good as the D model is reputed to be, somehow I’d feel more comfortable if the Raptor and Lightning-II could squeeze in several more AIM-120s internally.
mabieI’m hoping they proceed to develop the thrust vectoring model of the AMRAAM. doing away with the missile fins may allow for more missiles to be packed into the F-22 and F-35 internal bays.
mabieThis is the type of weapon that Israel should have had during the latest campaign in Lebanon.
Collateral damage didn’t seem to be a major concern in Lebanon.. Israel appeared willing to inflict as much damage as necessary to try and sway Lebanese public opinion against Hizbollah. butdefinitely a SDB would be a lot better than using a 1000lb JDAM in an urban setting.
mabieMakes me wonder how much more capable the NCTR mode would be on a F-22 or F-35.. should really help minimize friendly fire incidents and validate the concept of BVR combat as the primary means of a2a warfare.
mabieHere’s a rare USAF pilot who isn’t interested in switching over to the F-22….
For Robins fighter pilot, the F-15 is much more than just an aging aircraft: It’s a friend
By Gene Rector
TELEGRAPH STAFF WRITER
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE – They’re old friends in every sense of the word, this red-haired fighter pilot and the gray, sleek F-15 he flies.
They’ve been almost inseparable for 16 years. Lt. Col. Kevin “Ice Man” Coleman was the first to fly 100 combat missions in the Boeing jet during Desert Storm in the early 1990s.
Since becoming the chief test pilot 10 years ago for the 339th Test Squadron at Robins Air Force Base, he has flown and certified every new or overhauled F-15 before it was transferred to an Air Force unit.
In the process, he’s logged more F-15 flying time – almost 4,700 hours – than any Air Force pilot.
“It’s almost my age,” the 44-year-old pilot said of the F-15. “It was first designed in the 1960s, first flown in the early 1970s and has been the predominant air-to-air and air-to-ground fighter for all those years.”
But that is changing. Time, new technology and budget pressures are slowly removing the F-15 from its lofty perch. The Air Force wants to retire more than 1,100 aging fighter, tanker, cargo and reconnaissance aircraft, including older models of the F-15.
Some F-15s will survive until 2025, say force planners. They will join forces with new, state-of-the-art F-22 and F-35 fighters along with a growing number of unmanned systems.
The F-22 Raptor, the F-15’s heir apparent now being fielded by the Air Force, is “in a league of its own,” according to the experts. Its stealthy frame, long-range radar and enhanced sensors are clearly superior to the F-15.
War games between the two aircraft have proven it. But even the F-22 can’t do everything better than the F-15, Coleman contends.
“When you make an aircraft stealthy, there are trade-offs,” he said. “You can’t hang stuff on the bottom of it like fuel tanks and bombs. The F-15 Strike Eagle is not as stealthy, but it can carry a tremendous, precision bomb load – a lot more than the F-22 – it can put those bombs on target and fly home without tanking (refueling).”
There is definitely a place for the F-15, insists Coleman. “There is still no replacement for it, nothing on the drawing boards,” he said. “I’m talking deep strike interdiction.”
The F-22, with its high price tag – at least $130 million a plane – and its sophisticated on-board systems, has a very important but specific role to play.
“Who wants to take a very expensive airplane nowadays and get in a knife fight?” Coleman pointed out. “You want to use your technology, your big stick, to reach the other guy before he can even see you.”
The Air Force Academy graduate takes a dim view of those who claim air superiority is no longer critical in today’s “ground-centric” warfare. He believes that argument is wrong today and perhaps disastrously wrong for the future.
“In order to fight the ground war without major losses, you must have command of the air,” the pilot said. “Nobody opposes us in Iraq. We own the skies and we can focus on the ground war.”
The growing threat from China and perhaps other nations means that investment in high performance aircraft must continue, Coleman said.
“Designing a new fighter takes 10-plus years,” he said. “Then you have another five years of growing pains to get it operationally capable. So we must invest now for wars that might come up in the future. Without air dominance, we’re going to have exponentially greater American casualty rates.”
That future mix of forces concerns him, particularly as he watches his son, Austin, scamper about the family farm near Cumming, northeast of Atlanta. The 10-year-old wants to be a fighter pilot and is already exhibiting the type-A behavior that Coleman said he had as a kid.
“He likes to push everything he’s driving to the limit,” he said. “We have these electric-powered vehicles and he’s always skidding and sliding them around.”
Coleman hopes Austin will first be able to fly the F-15 before he transitions to the F-22 or F-35. “The F-15 will teach him some things the hard way,” he said. “When I joined the Air Force, I flew the F-4. That was one of the airplanes that would hurt you if you didn’t fly it right.”
Those were valuable lessons, he insists. “Flying the F-4 gave me some good hands,” Coleman remembers. “So when technology fails, you can still accomplish the mission.”
In the meantime, Coleman – now a member of the Air Force Reserve and selected for promotion to colonel – has no desire to transition to the F-22. There are too many ties to the F-15, too many memories.
“It’s a great airplane,” he said. “I feel privileged to have flown it as long as I have. I’ve taken it into combat and it’s brought me home to my family. It’s a great friend and a great asset. I’ve flown it in more dangerous situations than anybody and I’ve never had to eject. I’ve really enjoyed it.”
mabieIt would probably help matters if we cut back on our low-level flying. TF operations really beat the jets up from what I’ve seen. However, we’re still clinging it to “just in case” the threat drives us low. In my opinion, any threat that would drive us low is probably a show-stopper anyways. In any event, I don’t think I’d like to fly low-level anywhere given the proliferation of MANPADS, etc.
A few years ago I was told that the B-1 was the 2nd most expensive jet in the AF flying hour wise (after the B-2) but if we dropped the low level mission we would drop to #10 or something. Can’t vouch for the veracity of that but I would think just the fuel savings would be huge.
I agree with ELP, the flight controls need to be fixed. It seemed like when I flew 80% of the maintenance issues I saw were either engines or flight controls.
One other factor plays into the maintenance issues of late and that is the merging of many maintenance career fields. For example, the defensive avionics techs used to only work B-1s or B-52s their whole careers and so senior NCO really knew the systems. Then they merged and can work on everything from the B-1s ALQ-161 to chaff launchers on a C-130. A lot of the experience isn’t there anymore.PBAR
http://bonewso.net Flying the Bone
I visited your website and just wanted to say “thanks”. I specially liked the section on the B-1 myths w/c cleared up some misconceptions I had but also confirmed my belief that it is a terrific aircraft. Nothing beats a first-hand narrative and I only wish there were similar sites for all the planes in the inventory.
mabieOn a related note, I was wondering what kind of ammunition a railgun would use, or more specifically, what material would it be made of to prevent it from vaporizing in flight? ceramic-based or depleted uranium perhaps?
mabieB-1s were built to terrible quality standards. Even with various fixes USAF continues to make mistakes on funding sustainment. A few years back where they had 51% mission uptimes, that was 2% better than what USAF was funding sustainment for the B1 fleet. Starting with Block D ( JDAM ability) this gave it a real, highly useful killing ability. As you may know, the nuke treaty doesn’t allow B-1 to carry nukes anymore. B-1 needs a bigger logistical footprint to deploy…. yet now it’s only mission is conventional. Where the B-52 now has a very low logistical footprint to deploy ( non-nuke role ).
What B-1 really needs is new avionics and flight controls. Part of the original B-1 fleet downsizing proposed a few years ago stated that the savings from this would be farmed back into B-1 upgrades. This was a lie. Re: the avionics and flight controls: This, given the current climate in funding, will drag on as a requirement but unless something changes, won’t get funded. These two things would give it better mission up times. It is a great CAS rapid response aircraft out of the JSTARS stack. It shows up to a GFAC request with a lot of weapons. Adding a laser pod will help.
Given the fact that it is expensive to maintain and part of that is because it isn’t being funded correctly and upgraded correctly, it will always have some kind of logistical woes. However, once you get one flying, it can do a lot of damage.
Airframe life issues will probably put these out by 2020 -/+, and the B-52 will still be around. With the B-52 able to carry JASSM and Stealth nuke cruise missiles which have some range, it will still be a useful aircraft to have around for a long time. Now with the common strategic rotary launcher or what ever it is called, ( the revolver in the bomb bay that can hold 8 ALCMs,) is being set up to carry 32 SDBs internally. If the smart wireless bomb bay rack ever gets done it will be able to carry other conventional PGMs in the bomb bay too. The jamming thing may be back on the table but it will be more of a common airframe thing I think. We need a real standoff jammer ( EA-6 and Growler are escort jammers ).
A lot of people may not realize it, but USAF is on hard times for funding everything it needs. Everything that is expensive to operate gets looked at hard. Even if the system doing the decison making, is too dumb to properly sustain the B-1 by funding it correctly.
That nice bomber roadmap white paper done about 5 years ago is pretty much not going to happen as planned with all the money we have to spend on expeditionary warfare. A lot of holes now in that very practical rodemap. ( Using the rotary ALCM revolver in the bombay of the B-52 to hold SDBs was never in that plan…however by doing this it was a cheaper way of getting SDB ability in the aircrafts bomb bay soon as opposed to a fancy smart rack that could carry a lot more SDBs ).Remember that PGMs such as Paveway and JDAM are carried on the outside of the B-52. The wireless smart rack and converted ALCM revolver are to get smart bomb ability for carry inside the bomb bay. The revolver is cheap/easy to do so it gets funded.
All these items show how things are being readjusted to make that famous saying ring true: Budget is policy.
Thanks for all the information.
mabieIn defense of the B-52 it can carry just about anything that can be dropped. The B-1 can’t.
Wouldn’t that just a question of certifying those weapons on the B1? Anyway, maybe Mad Rat has a point and they needed to retire the B1s for spares.. a pity if that’s the case.
mabiethe idea was to retire about a third of the fleet so they could afford to upgrade and improve the readiness of the remaining fleet. In typical fashion, they got pulled out of the fleet, congressmen whined because the voters lost jobs, the money got siphoned off to other projects, and you got left with a third less B-1s and not much else changed. That’s the last I heard though I’d love to be proven wrong on this one.
Politics at work once again, it would appear. Why not retire more B52s and use the money to upgrade the entire B1 fleet? guess that would take too much common sense? LOL
mabieI too don’t think the USAF is too thrilled with the idea. Despite Boeing’s claims that its fallback for the F-35, this could be seen as a threat against further acquisitions of the F-22, specially now that the Raptor lobby seems to be gaining momentum in its case for more jets in excess of the 183 authorized.
mabieWhy would Russia retain a red star as adecal on its plane? I thought they dropped this a long time ago..
mabieIf only there was a way to make the B-70 Valkyrie stealthy.. that would answer the Air Force’s requirements.
mabieFurther, its naive to think that the S-300’s and 400’s today are seriously going to be aiming for the F-22, the S-400 was clearly built with the AWACS killing role in mind. Kill the thing that is finding targets for the F-22 and the F-22 becomes dumb.
The day they make an EC-3 stealthy is the day the S-400 becomes obsolete.
Wasn’t it Dozer who was quoted as saying that F-22 pilots now often resort to switching OFF the AWACS feed simply because they were getting a much clearer picture of the unfolding tactical situation from the Raptor’s on-board sensors? Hardly a case of the F-22 becoming dumb without AWACS. What you lose without an AWACS is a 360degree perspective and a planeload of battle management / coordination capability.. but for the specific mission at hand, the F-22 can cope quite capably.
mabieMy flight commander is an H model Spectre driver and he said the bullets used on the -130’s would be similar to those on the A-10, but without the depleted uranium part, so I’m not sure if it will be the same round or not.
With the AC-130 having a very different attack profile than the A-10, the bullets might be configured or designed a different way to make it more effective in the way that the -130’s will shoot them.
Here’s the article re 30mm for the AC-130…
30mm Everywhere
September 19, 2006: The U.S. Air Force is spending nearly $10 million to repackage several hundred thousand rounds of 30mm cannon ammo used in it’s A-10 aircraft, for use in AC-130 gunships. Last year, the air force began replacing the 25mm and 40mm guns on its AC-130 gunships, with two 30mm cannon. The Mk44 30mm Bushmaster weighs 344 pounds and fires at a rate of 200 or 400 rounds per minute (up to 7 per second). While the 30mm guns used on the A-10 and AC-130 are quite different, they use the same size ammo.
The AC-130 30mm cannon has 160 rounds available, before needing a reload. That means the gunner has 25-50 seconds worth of ammo, depending on rate of fire used. Each 30mm round weighs about 25 ounces (depending on type.) The anti-armor shell weighs about half a pound. The armor piercing round will go through 25mm of steel at 2,000 meters range. This will get through the top armor of most vehicles, and spray the inside with fragments. At that range, time of flight is about 1.7 seconds. Explosive anti-personnel rounds are the most common round used in the Mk44. From higher altitudes (up to 20,000 feet), the AC-130 fire control system and night vision sensors, enable the 30mm gunners to accurately hit targets with high explosive shells.
The existing 25mm and 40mm guns are being phased out of military service, and the new 30mm gun is easier to operate. All 25 of the AC-130s are being converted to use the 30mm guns.
While the A-10 still gets a lot of work in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are still large stocks of 30mm ammo for it, that will never be fired given the current use rates. So it makes sense to repackage it for use on the new 30mm cannon on the AC-103s. The same ammo is being used in Mk46 30mm guns for the new U.S. Marine Corps amphibious vehicle (the AAAV) and for San Antonio-class (LPD 17) amphibious ships.
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