Graham Warwick/MARIETTA
LOCKHEED MARTIN is nearing completion of a study into upgrading the US Air Force's C-5A/B Galaxy transports, and believes that there is "significant interest" in proceeding with the programme. The company has also revealed details of the New Strategic Aircraft (NSA) it is studying to replace the Boeing KC-135, Lockheed C-141 and other tanker/transport aircraft, and is looking at several concepts for a Common Support Aircraft (CSA) for the US Navy.
The Marietta, Georgia-based company is studying conventional high-wing, blended wing/body and joined-wing concepts for the NSA. At least three versions of the high-wing design are being studied: a four-turbofan strategic transport and multi-point tanker; a twin-turbofan commercial freighter; and a twin-turbofan "global-range" military transport, with in- creased wingspan and a 22,200km (12,000nm) unrefuelled range.
Lockheed Martin is seeking international partners to develop the NSA as a commercial venture, an approach it has pioneered with the improved C-130J Hercules 2. The company is promoting the design as an alternative to Europe's Future Large Aircraft.
Other advanced studies under way at Marietta include the New Tactical Transport, a possible successor to the C-130, which resembles a scaled-up Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22. This concept combines stealth with speed, range and short-field/unprepared-airstrip capability.
The company is also studying a C-5 replacement, dubbed the New Large Aircraft, which would have twice the cargo capability of the Galaxy. In the near term, however, Lockheed Martin believes that the US Air Force will "move forward" with a C-5 upgrade.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems president John McLellan says that upgrading the C-5's avionics and engines would cost between $25 million and $35 million per aircraft.
The work would be performed at the USAF's San Antonio Air Logistics Center, which is to be privatised. Lockheed Martin is bidding to take over management of C-5 depot maintenance at San Antonio, McLellan says.
Aeronautical Systems is also studying several concepts for the CSA, with which the US Navy hopes to replace its carrier-borne anti-submarine, early-warning, electronic-surveillance and logistic-support aircraft after 2010. The concepts range from a revamped S-3 to a stealthy unmanned air-vehicle (UAV).
The US Navy has begun a two-year study to determine the requirements for, and feasibility of, a common airframe to replace its Lockheed Martin S-3s and ES-3s and Northrop Grumman E-2s and C-2s, which will reach the end of their operational lives by 2015. The study includes the development of notional aircraft.
Lockheed Martin has revealed four possible CSA concepts. The first designated the CSA-101, is an "evolutionary, low-risk" design which resembles an S-3 with a fin-mounted rotodome radar antenna. A more advanced version, the CSA-201, incorporates limited low-observability features, including a faceted airframe, and has an active electronically scanned-array radar in a triangular radome mounted on the fins.
The CSA-301 offers full low-observability, Lockheed Martin says, using conformal sensor arrays integrated into the leading and trailing edges of the diamond-shaped plan form to provide 360í coverage. Thrust-vectoring is used to control the tailless aircraft. The Marietta, Georgia-based company is also studying a UAV design, which resembles Northrop's Tacit Blue stealth-technology demonstrator, but with a twin-boom tail.
The USN is drawing up a mission-need statement for the CSA, and hopes to launch the concept-exploration phase in fiscal year 1998 (Flight International, 17-23 April, P15). Preproduction could begin as early as fiscal year 2009, and the initial CSAs could be deployed by 2013.
CSA missions will include: airborne early-warning; anti-submarine, anti-surface and mine war- fare; maritime and overland surveillance; command and control; electronic-intelligence; aerial refuelling; and logistic support.
Source: Flight International
