US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Saturday at 8:37 PM
Is a Government Shutdown Looming? How about a Full-Year CR?
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I made sorta prediction Apr 6, 2017
now 'It'd be devastating': Air Force chief sounds the alarm how budget cuts will affect you
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ends with:
"All of this — if it comes to pass — will only serve to worsen the Air Force’s readiness and retention problems.

“Pilots who don’t fly, maintainers who don’t maintain, air traffic controllers who don’t control will not stay with us,” Goldfein told lawmakers, repeating a frequent refrain of his.

Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., a former A-10 pilot, expressed exasperation at the situation.

“We’re 1,000 fighter pilots short,” McSally said. “And you’re grounding pilots. And we’re expecting them to stay. That’s insane. You agree?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Goldfein replied."
 
this is something:
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by the way I've heard about 'anomalies' ("Lawmakers can pass exemptions, or “anomalies,” to accompany a CR bill that allows certain deviations from the previous year’s line item spending." inside Apr 5, 2017 ), now 'reprogramming': "But the Pentagon can move money from one account to another — known as reprogramming — and thus put the money where it needs to be. ... there’s a limit to the total amount of reprogramming ..."
 
Yesterday at 7:22 PM
Apr 7, 2017
now
T-45s Will Be Modified as Navy Determines Oxygen Problem

source is Military.com
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related:
Temporary Fix Identified for T-45C Trainer Oxygen System Failures; Students Still Can’t Land On Carriers Until Permanent Solution Found
Navy student pilots will resume some flights in the T-45C Goshawk this week after a 12-day operational pause to determine the cause of recent oxygen-generation system failures, but they will not be allowed to land on aircraft carriers or fly higher-altitude missions until a permanent solution is found.

Commander of Naval Air Forces Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker ordered an initial three-day operational pause on April 5 after increasing concerns that pilots in the two-seat jet trainer may be at risk of hypoxia due to problems with the On Board Oxygen Generator System (OBOGS). That pause was extended as engineers struggled to determine the cause of the OBOGS failure, which Naval Air Forces spokeswoman Cmdr. Jeannie Groeneveld told USNI News is unrelated to the OBOGS failures and other physiological episodes (PEs) experienced in the rest of the Navy’s jet fleet.

Groeneveld said that about 75 percent of the PEs that occur in the F/A-18A-D Hornets, F/A-18E-F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers have to do with cabin pressure problems from the Environmental Control System (ECS), and the remaining 25 percent are due to OBOGS. Two key factors with F-18 OBOGS failures have helped the Navy continue operating those aircraft, though: first, she said, the OBOGS system on the F-18s has consistently lit up an indicator light to tell pilots there is an issue before they start to feel sick, allowing the pilot to grab an “O-ring” bottle of pure oxygen to breathe from, which gives about 10 minutes to find a safe place to land. And secondly, once the pilots begin breathing from the O-ring, any symptoms of hypoxia – headache, tingly fingers, grogginess – have subsided.

With the T-45C, Groeneveld said “in every case in the T-45 we weren’t always getting an indicator light” from the OBOGS – which is not identical to the OBOGS found on the other jets. Additionally, if pilots began feeling sick and grabbed the bottled oxygen, their symptoms did not immediately subside.

Engineers have still not determined what the problem is, she said, though three T-45s involved in recent PEs are currently at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., to be studied. One is having its OBOGS completely disassembled to look for clues, and the other two are undergoing a process similar to a mishap investigation.

Until the engineers discover what is wrong and learn how to fix it, T-45 instructor and student pilots will not be using OBOGS during flights. A modified mask completely detaches them from the system and allows them to get back in the air for about 75 percent of their mission set, though Groeneveld said they could not land on aircraft carriers or exceed 10,000 feet cabin pressure without OBOGS.

“This is a temporary mitigation measure to get them back to some of their flights,” she said.

Operational Pause Timeline
On March 31, “94 flights were canceled between Naval Air Stations Kingsville, Meridian and Pensacola due to operational risk management (ORM) concerns raised by T-45C instructor pilots. Their concerns are over recent physiological episodes experienced in the cockpit that was caused by contamination of the aircraft’s Onboard Oxygen Generation System (OBOGS). Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA) immediately requested the engineering experts at NAVAIR conduct in-person briefs with the pilots,”
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. Those briefings took place on April 3 and 4 ahead of the April 5 operational pause announcement.

Shoemaker
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to meet with instructor and student pilots, hear their concerns and share with them the Navy’s latest efforts to address the physiological episodes problem, which has been increasing across the Navy’s jet fleet since at least 2010.

“After briefings and discussions with our aircrew, their training wing leadership, the engineers, and aeromedical experts, we have identified a way forward to resume flight operations safely by limiting the maximum cabin altitude to below 10,000 feet in order be able to operate without using the OBOGS system,”
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.
“We will be able to complete 75 percent of the syllabus flights with the modified masks while we continue the important engineering testing and analysis at PAX River [Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland] to identify the root cause of the problem. This will remain our top safety priority until we fully understand all causal factors and have identified a solution that will further reduce the risks to our aircrew.”

Beginning this week, instructor pilots will conduct warmup flights with the new masks and operating limits, after which they will brief the remaining pilots and students in their squadrons on the changes. As instructor pilots complete their warmups, warmups and training flights for student pilots will begin.

“We have energized the force, are working with outside agencies, and established an Integrated Project Team (IPT) at NAVAIR, along with an aeromedical crisis action team of flight surgeons, physiologists and toxicologists. All teams are immersed in this effort and working with the same sense of urgency to solve our physiological episodes across the fleet,” Shoemaker said in the April 15 statement.

Physiological Episodes History
The Navy created a Physiological Episode Team (PET) in 2010 to look into what was then a rising trend in the F/A-18A-D Hornets and the F/A-18E-F Super Hornets, which has since spread to the EA-18G Growler and T-45C Goshawk fleets as well. During these PEs, pilots either receive insufficient oxygen or contaminated oxygen – leading to hypoxia – or experience a drop in cabin pressure, leading to decompression sickness.

“Physiological Episodes (PEs) occur when aircrew experience a decrement in performance, related to disturbances in tissue oxygenation, depressurization or other factors present in the flight environment,”
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.
“PEs are categorized into two general groups, those related to Onboard Oxygen Generation Systems (OBOGS) or pilot breathing gas, and those caused by problems in the Environmental Control Systems (ECS), i.e. – unscheduled pressure changes in the flight station. These phenomena jeopardize safe flight.”

Shoemaker and others in the service have called finding a solution to the rising PE numbers a top priority for years and promised a “unconstrained resources” approach – offering whatever money or people were needed to find a solution. But the Navy’s testimony and other recent comments note the complexity in finding a root cause and a solution.

“The NAVAIR PET is currently addressing hypoxia and decompression events as the two most likely causes of recent physiological episodes in aviators. As symptoms related to depressurization, tissue hypoxia and contaminant intoxication overlap, discerning a root cause is a complex process. Episodes of decompression sickness typically accompany a noticeable loss of cabin pressure by the aircrew, while the cause of hypoxic related events may not readily apparent during flight. Reconstruction of the flight event is difficult with potential causal factors not always readily apparent during post-flight debrief and examination.”

Despite increased data collection since 2010, the Navy still doesn’t know what is causing these physiological events – but they are occurring at a growing rate.

For legacy Hornets, PEs occurred at a rate of 3.66 per 100,000 flight hours during Fiscal Year 2006, according to historical flight data, as the Navy hadn’t started collecting PE data yet. In November 2010 through October 2011, that jumped to 10.9 PEs per 100,000 flight hours, and from November 2015 to October 2016, the Navy’s most recent data, pilots experienced 57.24 PEs per 100,000 flight hours.

Similarly, on the Super Hornets, pilots saw 2.18 events per 100,000 hours in FY 2006, 8.65 from fall 2010 to fall 2011, and 31.05 from fall 2015 to fall 2016. On the Growlers, there were zero events until the fall of 2010; from the fall of 2010 until the fall of 2011 Growler pilots saw 5.52 events per 100,000 flight hours, and from the fall of 2015 to fall 2016 that figure spiked to 90.83 events per 100,000 hours.

On the T-45C, data collection only began in 2012 but has increased from 11.86 events per 100,000 flight hours in calendar year 2012 to 46.97 events in 2016.
...
... size limit reached; source is USNI News
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... the rest of that article:
“The process for investigating a physiological episode begins with the submission of data describing the event. Engineers from the ECS FST and the Aircrew Oxygen Systems In-Service Support Center work with the squadron maintenance department to identify which components of the aircraft should be removed and submitted for engineering investigation. The squadron flight surgeon also submits data on the medical condition of the pilot and in-flight symptoms that were experienced,” according to the Navy’s recent testimony.
“After completion of the component investigations, the incident is examined holistically by members of the engineering teams and Aeromedical specialists to identify the most likely cause of the incident. Of 382 cases adjudicated by the PET so far, 130 have involved some form of contamination, 114 involved an ECS component failure, 91 involved human factors, 50 involved an OBOGS component failure, 13 involved a breathing gas delivery component failure, and 76 were inconclusive or involved another aircraft system failure. Of note, some of the events resulted in assignment to more than one category.”

The new modified mask and modified operational envelop for the T-45C pilots are the latest in a string of ideas to mitigate the risk to pilots, short of an actual solution.

“Though the number of components and configurations of the aircraft make finding ‘smoking guns’ difficult, Naval Aviation has continued to implement multiple lines of effort across over the past couple years to mitigate the risks,” according to the April 8 news release.
“Naval Aviation requires pilots train in the simulator using a Reduced Oxygen Breathing Device to improve aircrew recognition of physiological symptoms related to hypoxia. The improved On Board Oxygen Generating System (OBOGS) [sieve, or filter] material has been installed in all T-45, and new oxygen monitors are being fielded as part of an operational test in Pensacola. Sorbent tubes, devices that detect contaminants in breathing gas air, are also are being provided to pilots and, as soon as our inventory supports, will be required on every flight to help ensure we capture any PE event that might yield clues to the contamination agent.”

The new sieve material will be installed on all OBOGS systems in all jets by the end of the calendar year, with the T-45 fleet already having completed the installation of the new material.

The Navy has also increased the intervals of inspections to improve the rate of detecting component failures before they lead to health hazards for pilots, and it has bought cockpit pressurization warning systems to field in the planes.

“Our aviators must be able to operate with confidence in our platforms and in their ability to safely execute their mission. To help ensure we eliminate this risk, collection and reporting of event data and your continued leadership is critical,” Shoemaker said in the Navy statement.

Shoemaker himself has issued three memos on PEs during his time as Air Boss – one in October 2015, one in May 2016 and one in January 2017. In the most recent memo, he said of future mitigation efforts, “until we fully understand contamination, our goal (partnering with ONR and academia) is the development of a small, lightweight physiological monitor that will detect degraded performance and provide immediate warning to the aircrew, but we are still a few years from that solution.”

“We are working diligently to determine all the root causes of PEs and find solutions, and we will continue to aggressively prioritize resources and engineering efforts. Alert aircrew remains our best line of defense against PEs. Your awareness and immediate actions at the first signs of something ‘not quite right’ are critical, leading to safe aircraft recoveries and the identification of key causal factors. Please continue your focused simulator training, review of PE immediate action items at every brief, and maintenance efforts to identify ECS and OBOGS systems that are not performing to standard,” he continued in the memo.
“You have my word that we will continue to focus all of our [Naval Aviation Enterprise] efforts on this problem, and until we have completely eliminated the PE risks across the force, this will remain our #1 safety priority.”
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Mar 11, 2017
even
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says "The USMC plans to receive 200 helicopters at a total cost of $25 billion." though:
"Lt. Gen. Gary Thomas, deputy commandant for programs and resources ... confirmed the $122-million cost ..."
Lawmaker Worries Marine Corps Investing Too Heavily In Aviation Over Ground Vehicles
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oops Lockheed Marine Helicopter Came With Unpublicized Cost Increase
  • CH-53K decision memo shows 6.9 percent rise to $31 billion
  • Cost per copter increases to $138 million from $131 million
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The Pentagon’s approval for the Marine Corps to start buying
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’s new heavy lift helicopter came with a hidden surprise: the projected total acquisition cost for the
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program has increased 6.9 percent to $31 billion.

The updated estimate was provided in an April 4 decision memo by James MacStravic, the Pentagon’s acting weapons buyer, that authorized production of the initial batch of 26 helicopters. The memo, labeled “For Official Use Only,” was obtained by Bloomberg News.

The estimate for the total acquisition cost -- which includes everything from research to purchase of the aircraft, including spare parts -- climbed to $31 billion from about $29 billion that the Navy reported in March 2016. No aircraft were added beyond the 200 planned.

Likewise, the “program acquisition unit cost” estimate, with everything included, increased to $138.5 million per copter from $131.2 million as of August 2016. The latest projection is a 20 percent increase from the initial goal of about $115 million established in late 2005, according to data in the memo.

It’s not unusual for cost estimates of major weapons programs to increase at a significant milestone, such as this month’s decision on the Lockheed helicopter, as Pentagon acquisition experts sharpen their pencils in order to budget for actual expenditures. But the new cost estimate may become a focus of congressional oversight when the Marine Corps’ fiscal 2018 budget is submitted to Congress.

‘Heck of a Lot’
Democratic Representative Niki Tsongas of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on a House Armed Services subcommittee that oversees the copter program, already has questioned the King Stallion’s basic cost as “a heck of a lot of money.”

The aircraft, designated the CH-35K, will be capable of lifting 27,000 pounds (12,246 kilograms.) It will be the same size as its predecessor, the Super Stallion, but able to haul triple the cargo, according to Bruce Tanner, Lockheed’s chief financial officer. He said in an interview in March that the new aircraft’s revenue potential was the biggest reason Lockheed bought the Sikorsky helicopter unit from
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in 2015.

The initial 26 helicopters will provide “a production ramp-up sufficient to lead to full-rate production upon the successful completion of operational testing,” MacStravic wrote in his memo. Full-rate production is the most lucrative phase for a defense contractor.

The decision memo calls for requesting $756 million in procurement funds in fiscal 2018, up from $528 million this year. It recommends requesting $1.2 billion for fiscal 2019 and $1.5 billion for fiscal 2020.

The Pentagon’s independent cost analysis group “identified additional schedule risk” in developmental testing for the helicopter, according to the memo.

The increase in the per-helicopter cost “is most likely due to continued development instabilities,” said Michael Sullivan, a director for the Government Accountability Office. Sullivan managed preparation of the agency’s latest annual assessment of major weapons programs, which listed the unit cost as $131.2 million based on August figures provided by the CH-53K program office.

‘Bad Start’
The recent increase might be a remnant of the program’s early development difficulties, such as a finding in 2010 that the helicopter’s design was unstable, Sullivan said.

“These guys got off to a bad start, and they are still churning through it,” Sullivan said in an interview.

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Eric Badger, a spokesman for MacStravic, referred all requests for response to the Navy. “As you know, information in” the decision memo “is not available before we submit the report to Congress,” Badger said in an email.

“My direction is not to discuss any figures” in the memo “because the document is not publicly releasable,” the King Stallion program’s manager, Marine Colonel Hank Vanderborght, said in an email.

“We reevaluate program cost every year, and our next program cost update will be included in the next SAR going to Congress in conjunction with the annual budget cycle,” Vanderborght said, referring to the Pentagon’s Selected Acquisition Reports on major weapons programs, including the CH-53K.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Apr 7, 2017
now
T-45s Will Be Modified as Navy Determines Oxygen Problem

source is Military.com
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T-45s flying again after brief grounding

  • 17 APRIL, 2017
  • SOURCE: FLIGHTGLOBAL.COM
  • BY: LEIGH GIANGRECO
  • WASHINGTON DC


The US Navy’s commander of Naval Air Forces allowed the service’s T-45 Goshawk trainer jets to return to flight 17 April, after US Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) temporarily grounded the fleet in light of persistent oxygen issues on the aircraft.

Earlier this month, more than 100 US Navy instructor pilots boycotted he T-45 flights until high-level Navy officials address the jets’ oxygen system issues. Pilots should resume operations early next but will be limited to flights under 10,000 feet, according to a 15 April NAVAIR statement. Although the on board oxygen generator system (OBOGS) is not needed at that altitude, pilots wear the mask in training and the communications mic is already established in the mask, a NAVAIR spokeswoman said in an email to FlightGlobal. The connection between the mask and the helmet reduces risk in case of ejection and in the event of an emergency, pilots can hook back into the oxygen, she adds.

Instructor pilots will conduct warm-up flights and will brief other pilots and students on the modified equipment.

"We will be able to complete 75% of the syllabus flights with the modified masks while we continue the important engineering testing and analysis at PAX River [Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland] to identify the root cause of the problem,” Vice Adm Mike Shoemaker says in a 15 April statement. “This will remain our top safety priority until we fully understand all causal factors and have identified a solution that will further reduce the risks to our aircrew."

The OBOGS represent a persistent problem for the Navy’s T-45, EA-18Gs and F/A-18F/Gs and hypoxia has plagued the service’s fleet of T-45s for years now.

The Navy is continuing to work with flight surgeons, physiologists and toxicologists to identify the root problem, Shoemaker says. Recently, an independent review team from NASA visited Pax River as part of ongoing review of physiological episodes.
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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Boeing Opposes F-15C Retirement Plan


Apr 17, 2017
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| Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

f-152040c-boeing.jpg

Boeing is still promoting its 2040C F-15 Eagle concept to the U.S. and potential international buyers.

Boeing

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is speaking out against a controversial proposal by the U.S. Air Force to retire the
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Eagle fleet, saying an upgraded
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is no substitute for its Cold War-era air superiority fighter.

The service has floated the idea of retiring all F-15C squadrons in favor of F-16s equipped with active electronically scanned array radars for the homeland defense mission. This would avoid a major structural service life extension of the F-15C, pegged at $30-40 million per airplane for new wings and a remanufactured center fuselage. Money saved could be spent on the development and production of a future air dominance aircraft, or perhaps free up cash to boost the Lockheed
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Lightning II buy rate.

Boeing says the F-16 cannot match the F-15 in terms of speed, range, payload or radar capability, and would make a poor Eagle replacement, even as a short-term stopgap.

Boeing is fatigue testing the Eagle and its air-to-surface attack variant, the F-15E Strike Eagle, at the company’s plant in St. Louis. The results suggest that a relatively simple and inexpensive longeron replacement will keep the F-15 fleet soaring into the mid-2030s and perhaps longer.

The $30-40 million cost cited by the head of Air Combat Command in March represents the total cost of remanufacturing the center fuselage and installing new wings, Boeing says. That cost estimate was provided at the service’s request, it adds.

“That approach, we believe, is the costliest solution and a worst-case scenario; it’s not something we believe is under serious consideration at this time,” Steve Parker, vice president of Boeing F-15 programs, said in an April 17 interview. “That would take it out another 40-50 years.”


Parker says the longerons are already being replaced by the Air Force as the F-15s cycle through programmed depot maintenance. The total cost is $1 million per aircraft for parts and labor.

Boeing says the Eagle is structurally viable out to 15,000 flight hours with this upgrade, allowing the fleet to continue in its current role until the mid-2030s, based on current flying rates.

The Air Force will replace the longerons on all 235 F-15Cs by 2023/24 based on the current timeline. In its fiscal 2017 budget request, the service proposed flying the aircraft through 2045, which would require major structural upgrades, beginning with a full wing replacement in the 2020s.

Parker said “$1 million per aircraft is just the standalone structural modification taking it into the 2030s.”

The F-15 structural modifications are just one aspect of continued F-15 service. The Air Force already has billions of dollars tied up in capability upgrades, many of which are well underway.

The service is most of the way through a major radar upgrade, installing
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’s all-digital APG-63(V)3 active electronically scanned array on the F-15C/D and APG-82(V)1 on the F-15E. The F-15E has already begun flying with the Advanced Display Core Processor II. Meanwhile,
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’ Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System (Epawss) electronic combat suite recently passed the government’s critical design review milestone and will transition to begin flight testing in early 2018.

Boeing says all these pieces will keep the F-15C’s talons sharp well into the 2030s. Retiring the F-15 early would diminish the service’s fighter capacity and capability, the firm says.

The Air Force’s F-15 to F-16 transition proposal is being considered as part of the fiscal 2019 “planning choices” process. It would mostly affect the Air National Guard, but also active-duty squadrons based in the UK and Japan.
“Why would you divest and replace [the F-15C] with an asset that does not have as capable of a radar system, doesn’t have the range, speed and payload and the same ability to protect the homeland?” Parker asks. “If we’re under attack, don’t you want the fastest, quickest platform that can carry more and take the threat out?”

The F-15 was originally meant to be replaced by the
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Raptor, of which Boeing was a key supplier. But the production run was truncated at 187 operational aircraft and closed in 2011.

The Air Force’s Penetrating Counter-Air/F-X program, which is in the analysis of alternatives phase, is meant to field enough aircraft by the 2030s to allow the 183-aircraft F-22 fleet to assume the Eagle’s homeland defense role. Separately, the service has approved a Lockheed-run service life extension of the F-16C/D, adding 4,000 hr. of additional structural life to 300 select Block 40-52 aircraft, keeping them around until 2048.

Even with the question mark hanging over the F-15C fleet, Boeing is still pitching “2040C Eagle” capability upgrades to the Air Force and potential international customers, such as Qatar.

The 2040C capability suite includes conformal fuel tanks, an infrared search-and-track sensor, a fifth-generation communications gateway, and quad-pack missile racks on weapon stations No. 2 and No. 8, in addition to the electronic warfare, radar and processor improvements.

Boeing says there is strong interest in these capabilities, and it recently signed a contract with the Air National Guard to conduct airworthiness tests of conformal fuel tanks.

The company also is developing the missile racks on its own dime to carry four
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Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles apiece instead of two. Boeing is demonstrating the quad-pack racks for an undisclosed international customer, with flight testing expected this year.

“We’ve seen renewed interest, even with the chitter-chatter about the predicational [retirement plan],” Parker says. “If you’re a nation and you need to defend your sovereignty, you need an air superiority fighter. We have the best, most advanced air superiority fighter currently in production.”
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Today at 12:10 PM
Apr 7, 2017
now
T-45s Will Be Modified as Navy Determines Oxygen Problem

source is Military.com
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LOL I quoted myself Yesterday at 7:16 PM with
Yesterday at 7:22 PM

related:
Temporary Fix Identified for T-45C Trainer Oxygen System Failures; Students Still Can’t Land On Carriers Until Permanent Solution Found

... size limit reached; source is USNI News
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