The Bush Administration may be promising to spend on defence, but question marks remain over key fighter programmes
Graham Warwick / Washington DC
With each passing week, the likelihood diminishes that the USA will cancel one of its fighter programmes. But questions remain over how the Department of Defense will fund the US Navy's Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, the US Air Force's Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor and the tri-service Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). All three programmes could survive, but with changes.
While the results of defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's review of US defence strategy have yet to be revealed, the Bush Administration has already made clear its intention to spend more on missile defence. Rumsfeld says the strategy review will feed into the Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR) to be completed later this year. This will determine the force structure on which the 2003 defence budget will be based.
A decision to cancel or restructure any of the fighter programmes could still be months away. Meanwhile, the information vacuum has been filled with unsubstantiated reports about two bomber programmes: that the DoD plans to restart production of the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit; or that it will retire the Boeing B-1B Lancer.
The big three
Rumours have also been swirling around the three fighter programmes, which together will represent the biggest outlay of defence procurement dollars over the coming years.
The three fighters are at different stages in their life cycles. The F/A-18E/F is in production, over 50 have been delivered so far, and it is heading for its first fleet deployment next year. The F-22 is still in development, approval for low-rate initial production having been on hold since late 1999. The JSF is nearing the end of concept demonstration, and selection of the winning team is set for later this year.
The USN was fortunate to win approval for full-rate production and multi-year procurement of the F/A-18E/F before the new administration took office and launched its defence review. Boeing received a five-year contract to build 222 aircraft in June 2000, the first of which will be delivered later this year. The company is also working on several upgrades to the aircraft which will be phased in during production.
Block 1, the first of these upgrades, will be introduced with aircraft produced in 2003 and will include advanced mission computer and displays (AMCD), a digital map system, an Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) pod; and Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS). Block 2, to be introduced in 2005-06, will add an active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar and an advanced crew station in the rear cockpit of the two-seat F/A-18F.
Raytheon's ATFLIR replaces the separate navigation and targeting pods carried by earlier F/A-18s, and provides both longer range and higher resolution, says Tony Parasida, Boeing F/A-18EF programme manager. The pod is in low-rate initial production and will be carried by the E/F on its first carrier deployment next year. NATO-standard Multifunction Information Distribution System datalink capability will also be introduced during 2002.
Navy F/A-18E/Fs will be the first operational US aircraft to be equipped with the JHMCS, produced by Elbit Systems Kaiser joint venture Vision Systems International. The helmet-mounted sight will allow Super Hornet pilots to exploit the off-boresight engagement capability of the AIM-9X short-range air-to-air missile, an improved version of the infrared-guided Sidewinder now entering production at Raytheon.
The E/F's new mission computer, produced by General Dynamics Information Systems, will feature commercial processor technology which increases throughput and introduces an open architecture to ease future avionics updates. The AMCD and new fibre-optic databus provide the backbone for further upgrades. This includes an advanced crew station, which will feature a large, 205 x 250mm (8 x 10in) situation-awareness display and sidestick weapon controllers.
Radar upgrade
But the most significant Super Hornet upgrade in the pipeline is the APG-79 AESA radar, under development by Raytheon. This will replace the company's APG-73 mechanically-scanned radar to give "two to three times the detection range and two times the target tracking capability", says Parasida, who adds the active-array radar will make the E/F more survivable by reducing the aircraft's radar signature.
Electronic beam forming and steering will enable simultaneous air-to-air and air-to-ground radar operation under independent control of the pilot and the rear-seat weapon system operator. In addition, the AESA will be able to operate as part of the E/F's electronic-warfare suite, both for passive listening and active jamming, with the array acting as a sensitive directional receiver and transmitter.
The Block 2 Super Hornet, incorporating all the Block 1 upgrades plus the AESA and advanced crew station, forms the basis of the F/A-18G Growler, an electronic-attack derivative of the two-seat F/A-18F which Northrop Grumman and Boeing are proposing to replace the USN's Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler jamming aircraft. The companies have submitted an unsolicited offer for 150 aircraft, which would reuse the EA-6B's ALE-99 jamming pods, combining them with new wingtip receivers and the nose-mounted AESA. "It's a pretty low-risk proposition," says Parasida.
Replacing the EA-6Bs is the subject of a DoD-level analysis of alternatives which is looking at options ranging from the F/A-18G to an EB-52 electronic-warfare version of the USAF's venerable Boeing bomber. A conclusion is not expected before next year. Meanwhile, Boeing continues to refine the Growler design, and recently conducted windtunnel tests of the wingtip receivers and fit checks of the jamming pods.
Block 2 is also the baseline for export Super Hornets - a baseline, which Boeing hopes to announce at Paris, to include the AESA. Negotiations with the USN on release of the active-array radar technology have continued in the run-up to the show. Boeing believes the capability, similar to that released for the F-15K on offer to South Korea, is essential to ensure the E/F is competitive with other fighters on the market in the second half of this decade.
Cutting costs
Also critical to the Super Hornet's marketability is the effort under way to cut unit cost to around $40 million - a reduction of some $10 million. Cost reduction initiatives include a new forward fuselage, moving the final assembly line and applying the "must cost" approach successfully used on Boeing's C-17 Globemaster transport. "The $40 million aircraft is a challenge." admits Parasida. "We do not have the total path to a $40 million aircraft defined."
Boeing plans to have export aircraft available in 2005, with current Hornet customers as its principal targets. "AllF/A-18A, B, C and D operators are key candidates, as are a few others interested in two engines and two seats," says Parasida. Malaysia, which operates eight Ds, is looking for new fighters and will be offered the Super Hornet. Competitions are also getting under way in Kuwait and Switzerland, both of which operate C/Ds.
While the F/A-18E/F's export prospects may look uncertain, those for the F-22 look unlikely, given that the aircraft will not be available before 2007 at the earliest and, even then, at a cost which will be out of reach of most countries.
Overcoming delays
But exports are a distant concern for the programme, as it works to overcome test delays and cost overruns.
Approval for low-rate initial production was scheduled for December 1999, but deferred after delays in completing development aircraft prevented the programme meeting its flight-test objectives. Production approval was tied to achieving 11 test criteria by the end of last year. After further delays the last of the milestones was accomplished in February, by which time the issue of F-22 production had become wrapped up in the new administration's defence review.
In the absence of a production decision, work is continuing on interim funding. In March, the US DoD released the funds required to sustain the programme through to 30 September, the end of the fiscal year, by which time the Rumsfeld review and QDR should be complete and the F-22's fate decided. The funds are supporting development, flight testing and work on the first 10 production aircraft.
By early June, almost 1,200h of flight testing had been accumulated, still well behind plan but accelerating with the availability of additional aircraft. Five aircraft are now based at the Edwards AFB, California, test site, and three more are due to arrive this year. Aircraft eight is in pre-flight testing and aircraft nine is about to roll off the assembly line. Raptors up through aircraft 18 are in various stages of construction.
From the first flight in September 1997, the programme has struggled to accumulate flight-test hours. Flying has been constrained by late aircraft delivery, canopy transparency cracks, flaperon repairs, problems with aileron hinge pins, the environmental control system and emergency arrester hook, and inlet delamination inspections. Over 2,500h of testing remains to be accomplished - including the bulk of the avionics testing.
More tests
As a result, the USAF has recommended slipping the completion of development, set for August next year, by up to six months to allow more time for avionics flight-testing. The USAF hopes to keep to the planned December 2005 initial operational capability date by deferring some items, such as the JHMCS helmet sight, to the follow-on test phase. Clearance of external stores has already been delayed to stay within the development cost cap.
With production of the planned 339 F-22s estimated by the air force to be more than $2 billion over the congressional cost cap of $37.6 billion, the government/industry team has launched a "war on costs" initiative. This is intended to bring the programme in under the cap by investing "up front" in production cost-reduction proposals. Funds for the four-year, $475 million initiative will come from slowing the ramp-up during low-rate initial production.
The F-22's $83.6 million average unit flyaway cost is based on 339 aircraft, a number set by the last QDR in 1997. That was a reduction of almost 100 from the previous procurement plan, and more than 400 fewer than originally envisaged when the programme was launched in 1985. The Rumsfeld review is widely reported to have looked at numbers both lower and higher than the current 339, with inevitable implications for the programme's cost.
The USAF is believed to be pushing for a substantially increased number of F-22s, for two reasons. The first of these is the ongoing reorganisation of the USAF into 10 Aerospace Expeditionary Forces (AEFs), two of which will be ready for deployment at all times. The Expeditionary Aerospace Force concept was adopted after the 1997 QDR, and 339 F-22s are not sufficient to equip all the planned AEFs. Equipping each of the 10 AEFs with two 24-aircraft squadrons would require up to 750 F-22s including 480 active aircraft and the remainder in training and maintenance reserve.
The second reason is the USAF's Global Strike Task Force (GSTF) concept, unveiled last year, under which B-2s and F-22s would work together to attack hostile air defences and other systems intended to deny US forces access to overseas bases in wartime. Although this "kick down the door" force is based around the currently planned 339 F-22s and 21 B-1s, "750 F-22s would give the GSTF concept real teeth", says Congressman Jim Gibbons, a House of Representatives Armed Services Committee member.
Flyaway cost
Increasing F-22 procurement to the originally planned 750 aircraft would reduce flyaway cost to $74 million, says Gibbons - "about the same cost as an F-15" - and allow the USAF to retire its Boeing F-15E Strike Eagles and Lockheed F-117 Nighthawks, and reallocate its Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon Block 50s to the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, "effectively replacing three airframes with one".
While it may seem like wishful thinking on the part of Raptor proponents, any talk about increasing F-22 production inevitably leads to questions about the need for the JSF.
The JSF programme is now entering the crucial final stages of the concept demonstration phase - flight testing of the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variants of the competing designs. After initial, conventional flights of its X-32B at Edwards, Boeing has relocated its demonstrator to the USN's Patuxent River, Maryland, flight test centre for the balance of STOVL testing. Lockheed Martin plans to begin testing its X-35B on 19 June with a handful of hovers before moving to Edwards and then on to Patuxent River for STOVL testing.
Flight testing of the conventional take-off and landing and carrier-capable variants of the respective demonstrators has been successfully completed. Both teams have been delayed in beginning STOVL testing by the complexity involved in clearing the software for the integrated propulsion and flight control systems.
Competing proposals for JSF engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) and production were submitted in February and evaluation of the bids is on track for a "downselect" in September. Because of the delays, both teams have been given until 15 August to submit data from their STOVL flight-test programmes. July promises to be a busy month at Patuxent River.
For the JSF programme, the timing of the Bush Administration's defence review is both fortunate and unfortunate: fortunate because there is every incentive to continue with the "winner-takes-all" competition in an effort to secure the best design at the best price; unfortunate because the only certainty facing the winner is that the programme will change. Whether the winner-takes-all strategy will survive past the downselect is just one of the questions.
Strong support
For now, industry believes support for the programme is strong within the customer services, the DoD leadership and Congress. "Everybody is feeling more positive," says Lockheed Martin JSF programme manager Tom Burbage. "There have been a number of fairly positive statements indicating Rumsfeld is supportive of the programme."
Unless the Rumsfeld review results in a major shift in defence strategy, it is hard to see how the USA can do without the JSF. "The multirole combat aircraft infrastructure currently required to support the national strategy has to be recapitalised," says Burbage. "[The administration] has to make a decision: they either don't want that infrastructure or they have to recapitalise. All the energy is going into figuring out how to recapitalise at the most affordable cost." The affordability imperative has driven the JSF programme from its outset, resulting in a high degree of commonality between the aircraft for the US Air Force, Navy and Marines Corps and the UK Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. "On the services side this has driven jointness. On the industry side we have developed and demonstrated aircraft which do not compromise the services' requirements," says Burbage.
Bob Cea, Pratt & Whitney's programme manager for the JSF119 engine powering both contenders, says the commonality provided by the JSF "is vital to the security of our allies. Coalition warfare requires commonality: the same command and control, the same bombs, the same pilot training. Interoperability was using NATO fuel; now it's using the same bombs and missiles and sharing command and control".
High capability
Industry refutes arguments that affordability and commonality have resulted in a reduction in capability. "This aircraft will defeat all threats it will meet in 2015. It is highly survivable and extremely capable - no other aircraft is as capable," says Dave Brower, director of affordability for Boeing's JSF. For example, the JSF will have "two to two-and-a-half times the combat radius of the aircraft it replaces", he says.
As a result of the concept development phase, JSF will enter EMD "with the lowest level of technical risk I've ever seen", says Burbage. "We have done things we did not do until four or five years after contract award on the F-22." Lower technical risk means higher cost credibility. "It's difficult to predict costs when a significant number of technical breakthroughs are required, as was the case with F-22. I think the costs for JSF are very credible," he says.
"This is the kind of programme the administration wants," says Cea. "We've demonstrated both concepts and met all the performance requirements. It's within budget and on schedule. JSF is not an immature product any more. Why do something different?"
Source: Flight International
