Originally posted by Flood
Thank goodness you posted the second shot… I was going to ask if you were part of the group in the middle!;)

Flood. (Sorry – I am in a funny mood at the moment…:D)

Nahhh, Flood….I never suited a smock and the cart’s off the road while the horse stars in panto 😀

No need to apologise or you’ll be setting a dangerous trend!

Linking this with another thread (Snapper’s punk one) the White Lion was also Slimey Toad from Johnny Moped’s local for years and years.

Chin, chin

Steve

Not as local as it was while growing-up, but still only 3 miles away. This is the pub where I bought my first round at 15 and spent most Friday and Saturday nights until Uni.

For the RAF buffs here it’s halfway in between Kenley and Biggin Hill, and only 5 miles south of Croydon. So now you know why I grew up loving aviation!

The White Lion in Warlingham. Hasn’t altered much since this pic as the oldest part (to the left of the pic) dates back to something like 1655.

More recent shot:

Merry Christmas one and all!

Steve

Mon plaisir, mpa

this is the Cougar RESCO that CEAM 5/330 have had for testing/trials, and it’s been for 4 years now (since September 1999) but I think it is still a MkII AS.532UL rather than the ‘new’ EC725 standard like the other 3 will be. From what I just read this one will then go back to Eurocopter for new engines and the other EC725 upgrades.

This was at Cambrai last summer for the Tiger Meet 2003:

The Aeronavale has a CSAR tasking doesn’t it, using Super Frelons? I assume the NH90 will take over that task in the future but I’m not sure.

Best regards

Steve ~ Touchdown-News

Originally posted by ELP
They are just getting around to certifying AMRAAM on the EF2000. They have a long way to go.

The AIM-120B AMRAAM certainly is fully integrated and cleared on Typhoon (tests began in 1997 and it has also been released against a target at Mach 1.6) but the newer AIM-120C-5 hasn’t been yet.

Best regards

Steve ~ Touchdown-News

Originally posted by ELP
Not twice but at an increased cost as the EF2000 is like a Rafale or F-18E/F for maintenance methods.

As the EF2000 is still not checked out on a lot of A2G weapons yet and the Rafale is, I wouldn’t put them in the same category of competition. Like I said before: This isn’t the South Korea Competition some time back. Now the Rafale is up and checked out on A2G weapons of a wide variety. This gives it an edge in a sales environment. The EF2000 is still not. ( captive carry tests don’t count) They are just getting around to certifying AMRAAM on the EF2000. They have a long way to go.

Details please, ELP! 😀

What do you mean specifically by the Rafale being “checked out on a lot of A2G weapons”? I’d love to know more!!

Cheers

Steve ~ Touchdown-News

Originally posted by Phil Foster
Blimey its a substantial aquisition then. 🙂

Blimey Phil where you been hiding!? 😀

The Danish and Portuguese deals were all signed and sealed in Dec 2001: 14 for Denmark and 12 for Portugal.

The first Danish one only ventured outside down at Yeovil for the first time this week, I believe, and I assume that’s the one flying in the green primer.

Just for Art it was noted as ZJ990.

Tingudu, not much chance of any ‘real’ photos yet: I think the 1st Danish one has only flown a couple of times so it’s still very early days.

Yo-ho-ho

Steve ~ Touchdown-News

Originally posted by Transall
Hi Steve,

The brain and thirst for knowledge may be less than 100%, but I’m curious.
Could you please tell us something about where the investment may go?
There’s some rumor that the USAF want 140 Strike Eagles of F-15K standard. I’m hoping it’s that and not UAV’s.

Cheers, Transall.

I haven’t picked up on the Strike Eagle rumour anywhere, but I would be mildly surprised if that’s in the pipeline: I certainly haven’t seen any lobbying for funding in that direction, but maybe one of the better-connected Americans like SOC or ELP can elucidate.

What I was getting at was more along these lines:

Saab Signs MoU for European UCAV Demonstrator with Dassault Aviation

Saab is signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with French Dassault Aviation, with the aim of defining a program for developing a UCAV demonstrator (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle).

“This is an extremely important step for the development of Swedish UAV- technology. With the Gripen we have shown that we are a world leader at integrating complete aircraft systems. This in combination with cutting- edge know-how of aerospace technology makes Saab a supplier of UAV- systems for the future,” says Lennart Sindahl, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Saab Aerosystems.

The project will be conducted in an international cooperation between several nations, the two leading aviation corporations in Europe — Dassault Aviation and Saab — being the main participants. Dassault will manage the project as commissioned by the French defence materiel agency, DGA, with Saab as principal partner.

The aim is to further develop the high level of expertise within Saab in the field of aerial vehicles, to the benefit of the Gripen and unmanned aerial vehicles. The purpose of the demonstrator will be to develop cutting-edge technology for the advanced UAVs of the future, including:

— Advanced aeronautics
— Unmanned flight technology
— Stealth technology
— Adaptation to network based defence

The signing of the MoU has been made possible as the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) has signed a Letter of Intent with the French DGA to take part in the project, with the intention of co- financing the UCAV project. France has already appropriated 300 million euros.

Saab is one of the world’s leading high-technology companies, with its main operations focusing on defence, aviation and space. The group covers a broad spectrum of competence and capabilities in systems integration.

The following files are available for download:

http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2003/12/22/20031222BIT00290/wkr0001.doc

http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2003/12/22/20031222BIT00290/wkr0002.pdf

Source: SAAB (22nd December, 2003)
—

New Horizons for Combat UAVs

Air Force planners say the Hellfire-equipped Predator UAV is only the beginning.

The Air Force is rapidly increasing the effort and funding it devotes to the development of unmanned aerial combat systems, in the hope that, in about a decade, unmanned aircraft will be ready to take on some highly dangerous missions now performed by manned aircraft.

An artist’s “operational concept” of an X-45 unmanned combat aerial vehicle. USAF believes it can become an important strike platform.

The success of unmanned aerial vehicles in recent conflicts has highlighted the potential of such systems. Predator UAVs, originally designed as reconnaissance drones, were armed with Hellfire missiles and successfully used to attack targets in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Iraq. Service officials say that initial cultural problems (pilots were reluctant to fly “drones” for fear of harming their careers) are being overcome.

UAV advocates contend the successful attacks on al Qaeda, Taliban, and Iraqi targets using weaponized Predators, now designated MQ-1s, provide just a glimpse of what unmanned systems can accomplish in the future.

According to its Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Roadmap, DOD projects it will invest $10 billion over the current decade for UAVs, compared to about $3 billion it spent during the 1990s. That investment largely will be overseen by a new joint systems management office the Pentagon created on Oct. 1 to guide development of the next generation of weaponized UAVs, known as unmanned combat aerial vehicles.

Currently, there are two key programs: USAF’s X-45 and the Navy’s carrier-capable X-47. Both projects will continue but under the aegis of the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) program. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which had been working with both services on their individual systems, will lead the joint effort.

Pentagon leaders believe that merging the two projects will lead to greater efficiencies and, potentially, reduced acquisition costs, but DOD has no plan to shift from two systems to a single UCAV.

There is “much less emphasis” than in the past on moving to a common platform, Dyke Weatherington, deputy director of the UAV planning task force for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told Air Force Magazine. He added that the Air Force and Navy will continue to determine their own requirements.

The services have pursued different goals in their respective programs. The Navy, of course, requires a vehicle suitable for use aboard a carrier and has placed more emphasis on surveillance than on strike. In contrast, the Air Force is interested in suppression of enemy air defenses and electronic attack capabilities.

Weatherington said that vehicle evaluation will continue until about 2007, at which time both systems will undergo a rigorous two-year operational assessment. Once that is complete, he said, decisions will be made on how to proceed to acquisition.

Questions Persist

Despite their promise, unmanned aircraft still have many problems, not the least of which is that the services still have poorly defined requirements.

Gen. John P. Jumper, Air Force Chief of Staff, has questioned blind devotion to unmanned systems per se. He said that, after the success of the armed Predator in Afghanistan, “everybody wanted to jump to the extreme conclusion.”

The popular position was to “take everybody out of cockpits,” said Jumper. “Let’s make them all go unmanned.”

Combat UAVs began with the Predator MQ-1, armed with a pair of Hellfire missiles. USAF is now pursuing a larger Predator B, which would carry a larger and more potent weapons payload.

However, he cited the challenges the Air Force faces in making UAVs effective strike systems. “We have a debate going on about the UCAV today,” Jumper said. “I asked a group one day, ‘If it weren’t for the novelty of not having a man in it, would we even be thinking about this vehicle?’ The room was silent because the answer is no,” the Chief said.

Jumper went on to say that he is not ruling out a vehicle “that absolutely advances the mission an order of magnitude [and] that happens not to have a person in it.”
Gen. Hal M. Hornburg, commander of Air Combat Command, put it this way: “I want them to do more than just be unmanned.”

The Air Force needs UAVs that can fly in tight formations, as do manned fighter aircraft. Without that capability, said Hornburg, the service cannot achieve the necessary “strike package density.” Additionally, despite their long loiter times—typically more than 24 hours— UAVs should be able to refuel in the air. “That’s a technical challenge,” noted Hornburg.

Without such improvements, said the ACC boss, UAVs have little to offer as strike platforms, so “take the argument somewhere else.”

Future systems should combine new capabilities with what is already desirable about UAVs, Jumper said. The future UAV “has to persist for long periods of time over the battlefield and be able to survive,” he said. “It has to be able to defend itself … [and] be able to air refuel in order to get that persistence.”

And, once it has an aerial refueling capability, Jumper emphasized, “it had better carry enough weapons to be useful to the people on the ground,” because the UAV is “no longer a razor blade that we consider dispensable. It is now a Norelco, and it costs a lot of money.”

That was Hornburg’s point, as well. “I remember the days when Predators crashed and no one really cared,” he said. “Now we care a lot. … These things are valuable.”

The unit cost for an MQ-1 Predator A air vehicle is roughly $4.5 million. When the Air Force starts building newer systems, such as the larger MQ-9 Predator B, with more expensive sensors, said Hornburg, “You’ll find the price of the sensors exceed the price of the airplane.” He added, “They’re not going to be expendable.” The more advanced UCAVs will see similar cost increases as new command, control, and weapons requirements drive up unit costs.

There is a balancing act. UCAVs must make unique contributions to the fight but do so without being overburdened by a requirements creep that threatens to make the systems too valuable to risk on high-threat missions. Hornburg said that Air Force leaders must think about what the UCAV mission is going to be before they start “spending the treasury” on them and conclude they should have “gotten more” for the money.

Weatherington agreed that UAVs should not simply replicate capabilities already present in manned fighters. “An unmanned system, without bringing any unique characteristics to the fight, is probably a novelty,” he said. “But those [unique] characteristics can be things like endurance, signature, lower operational cost.”

By taking “the man out of the system, you afford yourself design trade space” not otherwise present, he said.

For example, the Global Hawk intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance UAV achieves much greater endurance than is possible with a pilot aboard. “Does Global Hawk inherently have much better capabilities than a U-2 does?” Weatherington asked. “Outside of endurance, most people would say no,” he said, and added, “In fact … from a platform perspective, some people would make the argument that a Global Hawk is less capable than a U-2. It’s got less payload, less power on the platform.”

What Global Hawk does provide, though, is a level of endurance that the warfighter “has said is critical to the prosecution of the mission,” added Weatherington.

An unmanned system provides “design flexibility that I don’t have in a manned system,” he explained.

As an example, he cited signature control. The cockpit of a manned fighter is a significant contributor to the radar cross section of a fighter. Using an unmanned system for a specific mission, such as SEAD, would offer the potential for much greater signature control. UAVs could fulfill this type of “crying need” for more capability, said Weatherington.

Keeping Cost Down

UAVs should ultimately help with the bottom line in the cost of flying operations and maintenance, although, as Weatherington pointed out, when the current batch of UAVs were being developed, “some people would say [cost and performance] weren’t defined at all.” The Pentagon needs to make up for lost time. Once requirements are better defined, cost should actually work to the advantage of unmanned systems.

The X-45A, with open weapons bay. Much like next generation manned fighters, operational X-45s will be stealthy, featuring internal weapons storage.

About 90 percent of a manned combat aircraft’s flying life is devoted to flights other than combat—primarily training missions. With UCAVs, that “ratio should change pretty significantly,” said Weatherington.

Initially, UCAVs will fly a lot of training missions “because people generally will have some hesitancy that [UCAVs] can perform the mission,” he said. “Once we overcome that inertia,” the UCAVs will not have to be flown every day to prove they work. This means the total number of hours a tactical combat air system spends in the air “could be significantly reduced,” compared to comparable manned systems, he said.

That would translate into real cost savings through lower maintenance, fuel, and parts requirements. The majority of an aircraft’s life-cycle cost comes from long-term operating and maintenance expenses.

However, some analysts argue that UAVs have a reliability problem. An April 2003 Congressional Research Service report noted, “The current UAV accident rate … is 100 times that of manned aircraft.”

The Air Force stated that the 2002 accident rate for Predators was 32.8, which means that 32.8 Predators were damaged or destroyed per 100,000 flying hours. However, Weatherington pointed out that not a single UAV has actually amassed 100,000 flight hours. The accident rate was extrapolated from early developmental data.

In fact, Weatherington maintained that UAV reliability is not all that different from the levels shown by manned aircraft at comparable points in their development. He believes reliability will improve as the systems mature.

The Pentagon is counting on that. The UAV roadmap predicts that in 2012, “DOD will probably be operating F-16-size UAVs capable of supporting a variety of combat and combat support missions, including [SEAD], electronic attack, … and possibly deep strike interdiction.”

The X-45 UCAV

The Air Force’s new unmanned combat aerial vehicle—the Boeing X-45—is expected to take over suppression of enemy air defenses and electronic attack missions.

Gen. Hal M. Hornburg, commander of Air Combat Command, said that ACC sees great future benefit in a squadron of UCAVs that can “go in and kill an entire [integrated air defense system] network.”

Two X-45A prototypes, which were first flown successfully in 2002, bear little resemblance to the operational system USAF now expects to field around 2010.

The service scrapped plans for an X-45B, opting instead to go directly to work on an X-45C variant. The initial X-45C air vehicle will more closely approximate the objective UCAV system. It will have a new, larger airframe with dual internal weapons bays and demonstrate stealth characteristics. The X-45C will be able to deliver two 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions. First flight for X-45C prototype is expected in 2005.

At about 35,000 pounds, the C model will weigh nearly three times as much as the X-45A. Its length will increase by 10 feet to 36 feet, and its wingspan will grow nearly 50 percent to 48 feet.

As a stealthy, flying wing design, the X-45C will look somewhat like a B-2 stealth bomber.

Predator’s Larger Brother

The MQ-1 Predator A has become a known and trusted commodity to the warfighter through its successful use in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

Continuous upgrades and innovation have made the Predator A “something you wouldn’t think of going to war without,” Gen. Hal M. Hornburg, commander of Air Combat Command, told Air Force Magazine in September.

The Air Force determined it needed a multirole UAV “that would go faster, longer, [and] would process more,” Hornburg noted. The service also wanted the UAV to have a greater weapons capability.

The service began working with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems to develop a larger Predator, dubbed the MQ-9 Predator B, which first flew in February 2001.

The MQ-9, powered by a more powerful turboprop engine, has demonstrated in contractor tests the ability to carry up to eight Hellfire missiles, two Joint Direct Attack Munitions, and two air-to-air missiles, among other configurations. (USAF has not set the exact Predator B loadout requirement.) The MQ-1, for comparison, is limited to a pair of Hellfires.

The B model is also significantly larger—at five tons, it is more than four times heavier than an A model. Its 64-foot wingspan is more than twice that of the Predator A.

The Predator B shows great potential, “but right now it’s not proven,” Hornburg said.

According to DOD’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Roadmap, the Predator A and B variants will likely work together in future battle zones. “The MQ-9 could serve as the killer portion of an MQ-1–MQ-9 hunter-killer UAV team,” the roadmap reads.

Source: The Air Force Association’s “Air Force” magazine (by Adam Herbert)

Seasonal good wishes and a yo-ho-ho 😎

Steve ~ Touchdown-News