US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

How a $2.7 billion air-defense system became a 'zombie' program
JLENS was billed as the answer to an ever-expanding list of threats, from cruise missiles to explosive-laden trucks. But the blimp-borne radar system has yet to perform as promised.

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February 12, 2016

The U.S. Air Force’s KC-46A tanker made by Boeing Co. has completed its first aerial refueling of an F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet, the company announced.

The Chicago-based company on Friday said the refueling occurred on Feb. 10 during a more than four-hour test flight in Washington state and marked the program’s first time using the aircraft’s hose and drogue system, according to a press release. The aircraft were flying at 20,000 feet.

The milestone came a month after the aircraft used the boom to refuel an F-16 fighter.

The KC-46A is designed to refuel U.S. and allied aircraft using both its boom and hose and drogue systems, the release states. The boom can transfer as much as 1,200 gallons of fuel a minute, while the hose and drogue systems move up to 400 gallons a minute (mostly used for smaller aircraft such as the Hornet), it states.

Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, in September conducted the first test flight of the new tanker, known as Pegasus and based on the 767 twin-engine commercial airliner, after months of delays.

The Air Force plans to spend $49 billion to develop and build 149 of the planes to replace its aging fleet of KC-135s, according to Pentagon

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. Boeing forecasts an $80 billion global market for the new tankers, according to Trading Alpha.

Boeing plans to deliver the first 18 KC-46As to the service by August 2017 despite a recent string of

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on the program.

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Naval Air Systems Command is set to release a new draft request for proposal for its unmanned aerial refueling tanker to industry later this year, USNI News has learned.

Built from the work of its Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program, the draft RfP for the air segment

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will come out ahead of the a final RfP in FY 2017 and a contract award in FY 2018, according to several sources familiar with the program.

NAVAIR will oversee the continuing development of the control system and connectivity efforts of the RAQ-25 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program — the original Navy designation for UCLASS that will carry over to CBARS, Rear Adm. William Lescher, the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget said in a Tuesday afternoon briefing at the Pentagon.

The Navy expects to field CBARS in the 2020s.

Spokeswoman Jamie Cosgrove confirmed to USNI News NAVAIR will be the “lead systems integrator” for the connectivity and control system and referred questions on the air segment to the Office of Secretary of Defense.

“No decision has been made at this time,” OSD spokesman Air Force Lt. Col. Eric Badger told USNI on Thursday. Badger said the Navy has yet to present its CBARS acquisition strategy to the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer Frank Kendall.

During Lecher’s presentation on Tuesday the service outlined the shift in the program from in primary mission of the aircraft from a lightly armed, information, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) unmanned aerial vehicle that would orbit around the carrier strike group into primarily an aerial refueling tanker.

“I would cite as the main difference was penetrating strike, non-permissive ISR. So it was a much more aggressive increment of capability just to get that platform at the same time as that was going to be the platform to develop the learning of how to operate unmanned off-the-carrier big deck,” he said.
“The real value of this restructure is that it incrementally gets at the manned/unmanned interface and operation on the carrier deck in the air wing by the mid-20s… It’s a smart acquisition approach to incrementally burn down that risk and then, as I mentioned, we’ll continue to look at developing additional capability.”

Lescher added that CBARS would also retain a limited strike capability in addition to an ISR role for the carrier. Service officials told USNI News the three-part plan for developing RAQ-25 – divided between an the control system, the connectivity piece and the actual airframe – sets a path to use the same control systems and data links but with more sophisticated aircraft to follow after CBARS. The original UCLASS work for the control systems and the connectivity piece will remain unchanged.

The new direction for carrier UAVs was born from a Pentagon-wide strategic program review – led by Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work — that evaluated the entire Department of Defense ISR portfolios and stalled the release for the RfP for the then-UCLASS program. The results of the SPR led to the program restructure by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the Navy for the FY 2017 budget submission.

Prior to the SPR, the Navy was set to release a RfP only to four companies – Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman – for the UCLASS air segment amidst intense congressional scrutiny over the direction of the airframe.

House Armed Services seapower and projection forces Subcommittee chair Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) and Senate Armed Services Committee chair

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(R-Ariz.) both made calls for the Navy to invest more into creating a low-observable UAV that would strike deep into contested airspace.

“Developing a new carrier-based unmanned aircraft that is primarily an ISR platform and unable to operate effectively in medium- to high –level threat environments would be operationally and strategically misguided,” McCain wrote in March.

The UCLASS program itself was an adaptation of the

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that the Navy was directed to pursue as part of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).

UCAS was proposed to be a deep strike unmanned system with characteristics of a stealth aircraft that could strike deep into an adversary’s territory at ranges that could not be matched by current manned strike aircraft.

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Brumby said:

Unmanned CBARS Tanker Air Segment Draft RFP Expected Later This Year

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Pentagon budget 2017: Controversial army aviation restructuring again requested

The US Army's Aviation Restructuring Initiative (ARI) is again proposed in the White House's fiscal year 2017 (FY 2017) budget request, Pentagon comptroller and chief financial officer Mike McCord said during a 9 February briefing.
The ARI is under way but its most controversial element - transferring all attack formations from the National Guard to the active duty force - hit opposition from the National Guard and constraints were imposed this year by Congress.
Still, army officials on 9 February suggested they were open to re-evaluating the ARI plan based on a recently published army force structure study.
As part of the ARI two combat aviation brigades were inactivated in FY 2015 and the army has been divesting its fleet of OH-58D Kiowa Warrior armed aerial scout helicopters (to be phased out by FY 2018).

The ARI would, more controversially, inactivate and transfer four National Guard AH-64 Apache attack helicopter battalions in FY 2016 and begin converting seven reserve component aviation brigades into the objective Expeditionary Combat Aviation Brigade structure. However, in FY 2016 defence spending and policy legislation the US Congress has slowed such moves, instead asking a panel to study the issue.
That panel, the National Commission on the Future of the Army (NCFA), sent its report to lawmakers on 28 January and "concluded that the ARI is a well-crafted plan" but would result "in a lack of strategic depth, providing for no wartime surge capability in the Army National Guard".
Accordingly, the commission recommended the army maintain 24 manned Apache battalions but keep 20 in the active component and four in the National Guard. Carter Ham, a retired army general and chairman of the NCFA, told reporters on 29 January the commission's recommendation would be for the active duty battalions to be manned and equipped for 24 aircraft, but the four guard battalions would be manned for 24 aircraft and equipped with 18 aircraft.

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Jura said:

that's what I posted
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/aircraft-carriers-iii.t7304/page-76#post-388381
in
Aircraft Carriers III
Thread; I'm not going to gloat about it just saying because I think AFB and Jeff commented on it there

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US Navy shifts priorities for unmanned program
03 Feb 2016

In light of what appears to be a looming joint strike fighter shortfall, the US Navy has sought to repurpose one of its unmanned projects, following a directive from the Pentagon.

The USN's Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) effort will be adjusted towards the development of a Carrier-Based unmanned Aerial Refueling System (CBARS).

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reports the move will accompany an additional buy of Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets over the next several years and accelerated purchase and development of the F-35 JSF. In so doing, it will move more stealth capability sooner into the carrier air wing and create a development path for future unmanned systems onboard the Navy's aircraft carriers.

The move to accelerate the development of the F-35 comes on the back of the report from the Pentagon's chief weapons tester Michael Gilmore to Congress in which he has concluded that the F-35 Block 3F (warfighting capability)

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will not be ready by August 2017.

This poses a major barrier to the Navy's plan to regulalrly deploy the carrier variant of the JSF – the F-35C.

The Pentagon direction for UCLASS changes the character of the program from the Navy’s intended information, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform that would patrol while the rest of the carrier air wing was at rest, to an aircraft that will actively operate with the air wing.

In developing the new effort, Naval Air Systems Command will split CBARS into three efforts, developing the UAV airframe, the control system and the communications “connectivity segment,” with the Navy acting as the lead systems integrator, according to USNI.

The development of an unmanned tanker will serve to allay USN concerns as to the strain tanking missions were putting on its Super Hornets, with up to 30 per cent of the type's sorties being devoted to tanking.

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Jeff Head said:

But this idea of making the X-47B a tanker with some limited capabilities just does not make sense and I hope in November we see a change that gets this program (and a number of others) back on track to their intended ends.

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Brumby said:

I disagree with your view as IMO it makes perfect sense from a developmental path standpoint. My fundamental premise is that the original UCLASS effectively becomes a two stage program. .

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