Bolivian Army Buys 6 Chinese Helicopters

LA PAZ - Bolivia signed a deal Dec. 22 to buy six Chinese H425 helicopters for its army, at a ceremony attended by Bolivian ministers and Beijing's ambassador, local media reported.

Foreign minister Carlos Romero and planning minister Viviana Caro signed the accord with China's diplomatic representative in La Paz, Shen Zhiliang, in the presence of army chiefs.

"We believe these helicopters are crucial for the diverse needs of our military," said army chief Antonio Cueto.

The 12-seater aircraft will be delivered in 2012 and will also be used for civil defense, officials said.

Bolivia ordered six K-8 fighter aircraft from China in January to help its fight against drug traffickers as part of cooperation accord between the two countries.

Pakistan blames “Afghan commander” for Nato attack: BBC

KARACHI: According to a BBC report, Pakistan’s military officials on Monday blamed an Afghan commander for the November 26 Nato strike on Salala check post in Mohmand agency, DawnNews reported.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported that the accused Afghan commander conspired on the instructions of Indian and Afghan intelligence to dismantle Pakistan’s ties with US and Nato.

According to the published report, Pakistani military officials were probing the incident on their own and also handed few details of the investigative report to their Nato counterparts across the border on Monday.

Pakistani officials demanded action against the accused Afghan National Army commander by Nato officials in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s investigative report did not indicate involvement of any American officials in the attack.

According to the report Afghani troops, without any prior notice, were patrolling an area at Pak-Afghan border which required 72 hours prior notice to Pakistani forces.

The troops deployed at Salala check post opened fire on Afghan patrol team considering them militants and subsequently Nato air defence helicopters, came to afghan team’s rescue, attacked the Pakistani post.

According to Pakistan officials, Afghans knew exact location of the post hence calling Nato for help was a pre-planned scheme.

However the ISPR rebuffed the BBC report calling it inaccurate.

U.S. Vows to Back Turkey Over Kurdish Rebels

ANKARA - The United States will maintain its support of Turkey in the fight against Kurdish rebels, visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Dec. 16.

"In my discussions here in Ankara, I made very clear that the United States would continue to assist Turkey in confronting this threat," Panetta told a press conference.

The United States said in October it planned to sell Turkey with three new Super Cobra attack helicopters for the campaign against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), in a deal worth $111 million.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community including Washington, took up arms in Kurdish-majority southeast Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives.

The United States also said in November it was redeploying four Predator drones to Turkey from northern Iraq, with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country.

"We're prepared to discuss further efforts to try to improve the capabilities" of Turkey regarding drones, Panetta said without elaborating.

Some members of the U.S. Congress are opposed to the possible provision of drones to Ankara as they are concerned about the strained ties between Turkey and Israel.

"We try to share that information with the Congress so that they understand why this is important we take those steps. We continue to explore other steps that can be taken to assist Turkey in the effort to deal with the PKK," Panetta said.

Relations between one-time allies Turkey and Israel plunged into crisis after Israeli commandos killed nine Turks on board a flagship of a flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip last year.

Malaysia Firm Wins $2.8 Billion Navy Ship Deal

KUALA LUMPUR - A Malaysian shipbuilder says it has won a 9 billion ringgit ($2.8 billion) deal from Kuala Lumpur for six naval vessels developed by French manufacturer DCNS.

In a filing with the local bourse Dec. 16, Boustead Naval Shipyard said it was given a letter of award by the Malaysian defense ministry to build and deliver six "second generation patrol vessels littoral combat ships."

"The delivery of the first of class ship is estimated in 2017 with follow on ships every six months thereafter," it added.

Last week Boustead said it had been selected by Malaysia's navy to build the corvettes, which DCNS says can stay at sea for three weeks and are designed to navigate coastal areas and island groups to fight piracy and patrol fisheries. The vessels are 330 feet long and can each transport one EC275 helicopter made by Eurocopter, a subsidiary of EADS.

DCNS already had a relationship with Boustead through a joint venture in 2009 to maintain two diesel-propelled Scorpene submarines used by the Malaysian navy.

DCNS has previously sold 11 frigates to Malaysia's neighbor Singapore, five of which were built in the city-state.

Final Upgraded Lynx Helo Returned to British

LONDON - AgustaWestland has handed over the last of 22 Lynx helicopters to the British Army in a deal aimed at improving the machine's ability to operate in Afghanistan.

The Ministry of Defence has spent 92 million pounds ($142.4 million) upgrading the light helicopter with a new engine, surveillance sensors, secure communications, a .50-caliber heavy machine gun and other equipment changes under an urgent operational requirement procurement which started in late 2008.

The first new Lynx Mk9As were delivered to theater in May last year and about a quarter of the fleet now operates in support of British troops and others in Helmand province.

AgustaWestland said the upgrade program, undertaken at its Yeovil plant in southwest England, had been completed on budget and three months ahead of schedule.

Prior to the upgrade, earlier versions of the helicopter using the Rolls-Royce Gem engine had been unable to effectively operate in the hot and high conditions of an Afghan summer. The M3M machine and new sensor suite allows the Mk9A to perform a variety of roles, including convoy overwatch, helicopter support, and surveillance and reconnaissance tasks.

The Italian helicopter company pulled through technologies such as the powerful CTS800-4N engine, which is destined for the Lynx Wildcat program being developed for the Royal Navy and British Army, to deliver the first Mk9A within 18 months of the project starting.

The Wildcat is now undergoing flight trials ahead of being delivered for duty with the Navy in 2014 and the Army a year later.

Kiowa Training Crashes Kill 4 U.S. Soldiers

LOS ANGELES - Two military helicopters crashed while on a training mission late Dec. 12 in Washington state, claiming the lives of four Army aviators, military officials said.

The cause of the crashes at a training area southwest of Joint Base Lewis-McChord is being investigated, said base spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield.

"We will conduct a thorough investigation," he said. "We will do everything in our power to support the families of the brave soldiers who died this evening."

Weather is not believed to have been a factor in the accident, as skies were clear when the two OH-58 Kiowa choppers went down.

Pakistan Warns of 'Detrimental Response' to Attacks

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani warned Dec. 9 the U.S. and its NATO allies that any future cross-border attack would meet with a "detrimental response".

U.S.-Pakistani relations plunged to a new low last month after a cross-border NATO air strike which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Gilani made the comments while meeting army chief of staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the prime minister's secretariat said in a statement.

"The democratic government would not allow similar attack on the country's sovereignty and any attempt in future will definitely meet the detrimental response," the statement quoted Gilani as saying.

Pakistani security officials earlier said they had upgraded the air defense system on the Afghan border to make it capable of shooting down aircraft.

Kayani informed the prime minister of the steps taken on the western boarders to revamp defense capabilities aimed at effectively countering any future incursion into Pakistani territory.

"The government and the people of Pakistan were ready to provide the armed forces all the necessary resources to bolster its defense and professional capabilities," Gilani said.

Pakistan shut its border to NATO supply convoys on Nov. 26, hours after the deadliest single cross-border attack of the 10-year war in Afghanistan.

The government also ordered the United States to leave the Shamsi air base in the southwest, widely reported to be a hub in the covert CIA drone war against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Pakistan's border area with Afghanistan.

The Nov. 26 attack brought the fragile Pakistani-U.S. alliance to a fresh low, already reeling from a covert American raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden near the Pakistani capital on May 2.

Analysts: Lost USAF UAV Likely Malfunctioned

Iran's claims to have brought down one of the U.S. Air Force's stealthy unmanned RQ-170 Sentinel reconnaissance aircraft are highly dubious, analysts and Pentagon officials said.

However, the loss of contact with the pilotless jet cast doubts on the service's claim that it has a good handle on maintaining uninterrupted control of such aircraft.

On Dec. 4, Iran claimed to have shot down the stealthy Lockheed Martin-built aircraft. Later, government officials claimed that it had used an electronic or cyber attack to bring down the bat-winged drone and that the aircraft was recovered largely intact. The Iranians have not produced any evidence to back up those claims.

While acknowledging that an unmanned aircraft is missing, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)-Afghanistan, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, declined to say whether the aircraft in question was an RQ-170.

"Reconnaissance missions are, by their very nature, sensitive and as a result, I cannot get into that kind of detail," Cummings said. "It was on a mission over western Afghanistan when the operators lost control of it and we have no indication that it was shot down."

Pentagon spokesman U.S. Navy Capt. John Kirby added that there is no evidence to that suggests any kind of hostile activity was involved in bringing down the aircraft.

"We have no indication that the UAV we know is missing was brought down by any hostile activity," Kirby said.

Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, Arlington, Va., said that the Iranians have no way to detect or engage the stealthy Sentinel.

"It would be almost impossible for Iran to shoot down an RQ-170 because it is stealthy; therefore, the Iranian air defenses can't see it," Thompson said. "Partly for the same reason, it is exceedingly unlikely that they used a cyber attack to bring down the aircraft."

Thompson said that from everything he has seen, the missing aircraft is a RQ-170. The Sentinel was designed to operate in contested airspace where ground-based air defense exists but where there is no severe airborne threat, such as swarms of patrolling fighters. In western Afghanistan, "it was operating in an area where it potentially could be susceptible to ground air defense attacks," Thompson said.

The Sentinel was developed in the early 2000s at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works facility in California at the same time as the company's X-35 Joint Strike Fighter concept aircraft. The aircraft is operated from Creech Air Force Base and Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, according to the Air Force. The service acknowledged the jet's existence in 2010 after the Sentinel was photographed in Afghanistan.

Thompson said the most likely scenario with the crash is a malfunction with the aircraft. If the plane crashed due to a hardware or software glitch, Iran is likely sitting on practically useless wreckage with little intelligence value, he said.

"The RQ-170 has a RTB [Return to Base] feature," Thompson said. "In the event of a loss of the command link, the aircraft will automatically return to its point of origin and land itself."

The very fact that the aircraft was lost suggests a malfunction rather than a shoot-down, Thompson said.

The RQ-4 Global Hawk has a similar built-in automatic feature to find and land at a divert airfield if the link is lost. The lost link, airfield diversion issue and the inability of UAVs' to avoid other aircraft traffic are bones of contention between the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration.

As such, the incident highlights a fundamental problem that plagues current unmanned aircraft, which is that they have little in the way of active defenses and very little situational awareness, Thompson said.

"I think it's kind of inescapable that incidents like this raise doubts about operating unmanned air vehicles in civil airspace," he said.

However, attrition rates for unmanned aircraft are going down steadily, Thompson said. Eventually, the mishap rates will match those of manned aircraft, he said.

It has been an unlucky year for disclosed stealthy "black" programs. Earlier in the year, a heavily modified stealthy version of the U.S. Army's UH-70 Black Hawk crashed during the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

This latest crash would be the second reported loss of a classified stealth aircraft in 2011. The Air Force would not confirm or deny if another RQ-170 had crashed earlier in the year.

U.S. Army Won't Fight if C-27J Is Canceled

The U.S. Army is not prepared to fight to keep the C-27J cargo aircraft program alive should an Air Force recommendation to cancel the program be finalized by senior Pentagon officials.

Gen. Raymond Odierno, the Army chief of staff, was briefed in October on options to address the Air Force proposal.

Since then, the Army backed off the option to reacquire the program, according to a second service official. An Army spokesman declined to comment on the move since the budget has not been finalized.Army aviation officials proposed Odierno insist the Air Force continue conducting direct support missions of critical Army supplies, and the Army National Guard recommended transferring C-27J procurement money and the mission back to the Army, according to a service official.

At the same time, the decision is likely to set up a fight between the Air Force and Air National Guard since a number of Guard wings gave up aircraft over the past few years in anticipation of receiving C-27Js.

The debate between the parties over the future of the C-27J, built by L-3 Communications and Alenia Aeronautica, has intensified in recent weeks in advance of the Pentagon finalizing its 2013 budget proposal, expected to determine the fate of the program.

The Air Force recommendation to cancel the once-joint program in its draft 2013 funding plan has become a hotly contested issue.

Certain lawmakers have voiced opposition to canceling the program, including the entire Connecticut congressional delegation, which wrote Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter urging him to "reject any recommendation to terminate the program or reduce the current [Air National Guard] beddown plan."

The Connecticut air guard has been slated to receive the planes but the Air Force has yet to purchase the aircraft for the wing. Other Air National Guard units are flying the C-27J.

Air and Army Guard officials say the C-27J is the best U.S. aircraft for delivering critical supplies and troops to hard-to-reach places on the battlefield. As the Pentagon's budget shrinks, the officials say it can conduct the so-called direct-support mission at a fraction of the cost of the four-engine C-130.

The C-27J is cheaper to fly than the C-130J and the CH-47 Chinook helicopter, according to Brig. Gen. Mark Bartman, the assistant adjutant general for air in Ohio. Flying one cargo pallet or 10 soldiers in a C-130J costs about $7,100 per hour, while the C-27J can accomplish the same mission for $2,100 per hour.

"It's not to say that the C-130J cannot accomplish the same mission as the C-27J; however, the C-27J is a much more cost-effective, 'right-sized' platform moving forward in the current budget environment, and also gives the Army the greatest amount of flexibility in fixed-wing airlift," Bartman said.

While the Chinook can accomplish the same mission, it is not the best use of the twin-rotor helicopter, according to a former Army division commander.

"We flew some of our CH-47s on routes that should have been fixed-wing routes at a cost in lost combat assault sorties and extended use of the CH-47," the former commander in Afghanistan said.

Since the August deployment of two C-27Js to Afghanistan, the 179th Air Wing of the Ohio Air National Guard has "removed the burden" of forward operating base resupply from the CH-47 fleet, the official said.

The 179th's C-27Js have flown more than 900 sorties, moving more than 6,900 people and almost 400 tons of time-sensitive, mission-critical cargo. Though the C-27J became an Air Force program, the Army's requirement to have organic, direct support airlift did not change.

The Air Force intended to buy 38 C-27Js. National Guard wings in Ohio, Maryland, Michigan and Mississippi are supposed to split the first batch. Other aircraft are set for wings in Connecticut, North Dakota and Montana, but they have not been funded.

The adjutants general from six of those states wrote Carter on Nov. 30 urging him not to cancel the program. A decision to cancel the effort would "negatively impact the National Guard and will weaken our national and homeland defense," they wrote.

The one-time Joint Cargo Aircraft program was turned over to the Air Force in 2009. At the time, Gen. George Casey, then-Army chief of staff, and Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief, struck a deal in which the Air Force would receive the C-27J aircraft, but would fly under Army parameters.

The decision was met with skepticism in Army and Air Force ranks. The Air Force typically flies fully loaded cargo planes between hubs, while the Army uses the C-23 Sherpa to move small numbers of troops and equipment to forward locations. The Air Force pledged to fly these "direct support" missions using the C-27J and C-130.

Now under a substantial budget crunch, Air Force leaders have proposed eliminating the aircraft from the service's inventory and conducting the mission with C-130s.

The Army, which led the Joint Cargo Aircraft program, originally intended to replace the C-23 with the C-27J. When it turned the program over to the Air Force, the decision to retire the Sherpa was not reversed, even though many aircraft can fly for another 20 years, one Army National Guard official said. ■

U.S.: Pakistan Not Cooperating in Air Strike Probe

WASHINGTON - Pakistan is refusing to take part in a U.S. military investigation of air strikes near the Afghan border that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead, the Pentagon said Dec. 2.

Pakistan was invited to cooperate in the probe into the Nov. 26 incident, which has enraged Islamabad and plunged U.S.-Pakistani relations into crisis, but officials have declined to do so.

"They have elected to date not to participate, but we would welcome their participation," said Pentagon press secretary George Little.

U.S. officials expected a refusal given the fury in Pakistan following the incident, which led Islamabad to block NATO supply convoys on its border and boycott an international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn set for Dec. 2.

The United States has voiced regret over the strikes but has stopped short of issuing an apology while the American military conducts the investigation.

"It's safe to say that the incident has had a chilling effect on our relationship with the Pakistani military, no question about that," spokesman Capt. John Kirby told reporters.

"Both sides deem it to be as serious as it was."

U.S. commanders and intelligence chiefs have long sought to cultivate relations with Pakistan's army, the country's most powerful institution, but the air strikes have caused outrage among the army's junior officers and fed popular resentment of Washington.

The Pakistani army called the strikes a "deliberate act of aggression" but U.S. officials have declined to discuss publicly what transpired at two Pakistani border posts.

Kirby suggested the U.S. military would review its operations and tactics for forces stationed in eastern Afghanistan in the aftermath of the deadly strikes.

"Clearly, an incident like this causes you - and should cause you - to take a step back and look at how you're doing things and whether there need to be improvements made or any kind of tactical decisions ...(to) do things a little differently," Kirby said.

"And General (John) Allen is doing that," he said, referring to the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.

Asked about reports that Pakistan's army has ordered troops to retaliate immediately if fired on, Kirby said that "every sovereign nation has the right of self-defense and the right to order their troops to defend themselves."

The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed officials, reported Dec. 2 that Pakistan approved the air strikes that killed their troops, unaware that its forces were in the area.

But at the Pentagon news conference, Kirby declined to confirm or deny the report.

USMC F-35B Training Likely To Begin in Aug. 2012

The U.S. Marine Corps could start training new students to fly its F-35B short take-off vertical (STOVL) landing version of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) in August 2012, a senior Defense Department official said.

The DoD has opted to use an approach based on reducing risks prior to starting training operations at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Fla., current and former officials said. As such the Pentagon has not set a specific date to issue a military flight release. Instead, the start of training will be "event driven."

Currently "[The U.S. Air Force and Department of the Navy] are waiting for aircraft flight clearance for test pilot maturation flights," a senior DoD official said. Further, "both services are still trying to determine how many maturation hours are needed by test pilots before instructor pilots and then students can be trained."

But if everything goes as currently planned, the Marine Corps students will probably start flying their version of the Lightning II around August 2012.

"Looks like training for STOVL students may go around August of this coming year," the official said. "Once student training starts, it will include all modes including STOVL."

Originally, the STOVL training was projected to start around April 2012. Air Force pilots will likely start training in the F-35A conventional-takeoff version months before the Marines, as previously planned.

But before Marines or any other students take to the air, the F-35 will have to undertake initial maturation flights, using the jet's conventional takeoff and landing mode in the case of the STOVL aircraft. Once clearance is received, the F-35B will fly using all of its modes.

"Nobody wants to go too fast, but on the other hand nobody wants to go too slow," said former Marine Corps deputy commandant for aviation, retired Lt. Gen. George Trautman. "At the end of the day it's going to be informed subjectivity where the leadership decides what sorties need to be flown in the maturation phase. I trust their collective judgment."

Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Emerson Gardner, a former aviator and deputy director of the Pentagon's Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office, agreed.

"This is a validation of the Marine Corps' event-driven process to achieving initial operating capability," he said. "Instead of identifying specific dates for levels of capability, they have identified which capabilities/levels of proficiency need to be demonstrated before moving to the next level and developed a stair step process to achieving it."

Trautman said that there is an ongoing debate about how many maturation hours the F-35 needs before operational pilots should start flying it.

"I'm actually hoping it doesn't take till August," he said. "There has been a dialogue going on about how many maturation hours are required."

The debate, which is taking place between engineers and other official at Naval Air Systems Command and the Air Force's Aeronautical System Center, stems from the fact the aircraft at Eglin are operational planes flown by fleet pilots, not instrumented like test aircraft at Edwards AFB, Calif., or Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River, Md., Trautman said.

But when it happens, the start of training operations will be an important milestone for the F-35 program.

"Whenever it occurs, absolutely it's a huge deal," Trautman said. "We want to start flying the airplane, we want to start getting the training cadre, the instructor cadre, up to speed so we can start getting students through there."

The sooner the maturation requirements can be met, the sooner the Marines can get pilots through the training pipeline, he said. Getting a base of trained pilots would then allow the Marines to move on to spooling up the first operational F-35B squadron at the Marines' base in Yuma, Az.

"It's been slower in the past year than we would have hoped, but there is lots of indication that the pace is going to pick-up. As it picks up, and things continue to go well for the program, that's the path that they're on, to stand-up that first squadron in Yuma," Trautman said. "It's just the normal evolution of things and it's good to know we're moving in that direction."

Gardner agreed.

"The Corps has begun the transition of all of its aviation inventory over the past decade, from MV-22s to UH-1Ys to AH-1Zs and now to the F-35B. Based on that history, they have learned to be event-driven and not calendar driven," he said. "The fact that they are continuing to move down this path confirms their confidence in the capability and should hearten supporters of the program."

Eurocopter Joins Turkey's Light Helicopter Race

ANKARA - Top European helicopter maker Eurocopter announced Wednesday that it will seek to become Turkey's key foreign partner in a program, worth more than $1 billion, to design, develop and manufacture hundreds of light utility helicopters, both military and civilian.

"We want to partner with Turkey in one of their top programs. The light utility helicopter program is a key project," said Thomas Hein, Eurocopter's vice president for sales and customer relations in Europe.

Under two multibillion-dollar contracts, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) is co-producing with Italy's AgustaWestland 59 T-129 attack helicopters and jointly is making with Sikorsky Aircraft more than 100 T-70 utility helicopters, with a single copter weighing about 10,000 kilograms. To meet its heavy-lift helicopter needs, Ankara earlier this year signed a nearly $400 million contract with Boeing to buy six CH-47 Chinook choppers.Light utility helicopters generally weigh between 4,500 and 5,500 kilograms. "We are developing our product range, and we would like to produce, with Turkey, a chopper from scratch," Hein said.

Therefore, light utility helicopters are the last major copter type Turkey wants to produce with a foreign company.

"In my personal view, all major helicopter producers in the world will seek this cooperation with Turkey," Hein said.

Formed in 1992 through the merger of the helicopter divisions of France's Aerospatiale and Germany's DASA, Eurocopter sold 20 AS 532 Cougar utility helicopters to Turkey's military and then co-produced with TAI 30 other Cougars. But since 2006, the company has been silent about major Turkish helicopter deals, and Wednesday's remarks by Hein, who is responsible for ties with Ankara, means Eurocopter is back in the Turkish market.

Although it mainly is a defense project, the light utility program also will manufacture many private and commercial copters. But the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM), Turkey's procurement agency, has not formally announced the program. The Turkish government is expected to select a foreign partner in 2013. As a result, the number of helicopters to be produced and the financial size of the program are not clear, although the cost is expected to exceed $1 billion.

Although Eurocopter has developed tens of helicopter types in several categories, SSM insists on the development of a new type, and Hein said Eurocopter is ready to produce a new light helicopter with Turkey.

Eurocopter is part of European defense giant EADS.

U.S. Navy Ship Set for Alt Fuel Demo

Having powered jet fighters, helicopters and small craft with alternative fuels, the U.S. Navy will conduct its largest-yet demonstration next week when a former destroyer takes to sea with a mixture of algal oil and diesel fuel.

The former destroyer Paul F. Foster will be the largest ship yet to operate with so-called alternative fuels. (U.S. Navy)

The Paul F. Foster, a Spruance-class destroyer now used for experimental purposes, will sail from Point Loma in San Diego to her base at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Port Hueneme, Calif., powered by a 50-50 blend of hydro-processed algal oil and F-76 petroleum, the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) said Nov. 10.

The alt fuel will power one of the ship's LM2500 gas turbines used for propulsion, and the ship's service gas turbine.
The short, overnight transit is part of a commitment by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to demonstrate a Green Strike Group in 2012 and deploy a strike group composed completely of alternatively powered ships, "the Great Green Fleet," by 2016, NAVSEA said in a press release.
In October, the Navy demonstrated the algal oil-F-76 fuel aboard a landing craft utility at Little Creek, Va., where a riverine combat craft also operated with the fuel mix. Yard Patrol training vessels at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., have also used the alt fuel.
Several different aircraft types have flown with alternative fuels, including F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-15 Eagle jet fighters, a T-45C Goshawk training jet, an EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft, an MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor, an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter and an MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter.
Another alt fuel test of a Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) vehicle is to take place in December at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Panama City, Fla.

U.S. Senate Panel Targets Counterfeit Electronic Parts

The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee is planning to crack down on counterfeit electronic parts, which more often than not originate in China and eventually make their way to U.S. military weapon systems.

Raytheon notified the U.S. Navy on Sept. 8 that counterfeit transistors had been found on a night vision or FLIR system used on the Navy's SH-60B helicopters. If the FLIR system were to fail, the Navy said the helicopter would be unable to conduct su (GETTY IMAGES)

The committee, led by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., released the results of a months-long investigation on Nov. 7. As part of the investigation, committee staff traced the DoD supply chain back to its start for more than 100 counterfeit parts and found that 70 percent of them originated in China.

"Nearly 20 percent of the remaining cases were tracked to the U.K. and Canada - known resale points for counterfeit electronic parts from China," a background memo from the committee said.
According to a January report from the Commerce Department, counterfeit electronics in the defense industry are on the rise. In 2005, there were 3,868 incidents detected, compared with 9,356 in 2008, according to the report.
Levin and McCain want the Pentagon to better enforce laws that protect the DoD supply chain, but they also admit those laws don't go far enough.
The Senate panel is considering adding language to the defense authorization act for 2012 that would hold contractors responsible for the costs of replacing a part that is discovered to be counterfeit, Levin said at a Nov. 7 press briefing.
Levin said that under cost-plus contracts it is difficult to make the contractor pay for a replacement part unless the government can prove the contractor bought the part knowing that it was counterfeit. Today, the multimillion-dollar price tag of replacing these parts more often falls to the government and the taxpayer, he said.
He would like to see the Pentagon use fewer cost-plus contracts and more fixed-price ones, where bargaining above the negotiated price is limited. Levin said this could help motivate companies to take stronger steps to avoid buying counterfeit parts.
The life of a counterfeit electronic part is long, with many stops along the way. It often begins as electronic waste, shipped from the United States and the rest of the world to Hong Kong. From there, the raw material makes its way to China, where it is broken down, "burned off of old circuit boards, washed in the river, and dried on city sidewalks," according to the Senate report. Part of this process includes removing any indentifying marks, including date codes and part numbers.
Once the old part is made to look brand new, it is shipped to the Chinese city of Shenzhen, which Levin described as the "epicenter" of counterfeit electronics. There, the part can be sold openly in the markets or on the Internet.
From China, the counterfeit part makes its way through the DoD supply chain, often passing through four or five subcontractors before a prime contractor has integrated it onto a weapon system.
The committee found that the Defense Department is particularly vulnerable to counterfeit electronics, because the life of a weapon system long outdates the production of a specific commercial electronic part.
"An electronic part may be manufactured for two years, while a defense system it is used on may be in service for more than two decades," according to the Senate report.
Quoting the director of DoD's Microelectronics Activity Unit, the Senate report says, "The defense community is critically reliant on a technology that obsoletes itself every 18 months, is made in unsecure locations and over which we have absolutely no market share or influence."
During the Nov. 7 press briefing, committee staff highlighted three examples of counterfeit parts making their way into and through the DoD supply chain.
In the first instance, Raytheon notified the U.S. Navy on Sept. 8 that counterfeit transistors had been found on a night vision or FLIR system used on the Navy's SH-60B helicopters. If the FLIR system were to fail, the Navy said the helicopter would be unable to conduct surface warfare missions using Hellfire missiles.
The committee traced the transistors back to Huajie Electronics in Shenzen. From there, the part passed through five different companies before it got to Raytheon.
The second example involved the Air Force's C-27J aircraft, for which L-3 Communications is the prime contractor.
On Sept. 19, L-3 told the Air Force that 38 video memory chips installed on the plane's display units were suspected to be counterfeit. Again, the part originated in Shenzhen with a company called Hong Dark. From there, it was sold to Global IC Trading Group, which sold them to L-3 Displays, a business unit of L-3 Communications.
According to the Senate investigation, L-3 first learned that Hong Dark was the source of counterfeit parts in October 2009.
"In total, the committee identified nearly 30 shipments, totaling more than 28,000 parts from Hong Dark to Global IC Trading Group that were subsequently sold to L-3," the report says.
The final example the committee gave to reporters was on the Navy's P-8A Poseidon, a Boeing 737 airplane that has been modified to include anti-submarine capabilities.
On Aug. 17, Boeing alerted the Navy program office that an ice detection module contained a "reworked part that should not have been put on the airplane originally and should be replaced immediately."
After a failure of that subsystem on the flight line, BAE Systems, which makes the ice detection modules, discovered many of the system's parts were not new.
This time, the committee traced the part to A Access Electronics in Japan, a company affiliated with A Access Electronics in Shenzhen. The company in Japan sold it to Abacus Electronics in Florida, which wired payment to a bank in Shenzhen. Abacus sold the part to Tandex Test Labs, which BAE had hired to "source the parts and screen them for signs of counterfeiting," according to the Senate report.
The Senate committee staff found that Tandex screened the first 50 and sent the remaining 250 to BAE without inspecting them.
In the case of the C-27J and the P-8A, the committee found the companies in question did not notify the government early enough about the suspected parts.
The Senate committee is schedule to hold a hearing on the subject Nov. 8, when three different panels of witnesses will testify, including the head of the Missile Defense Agency and several industry officials.

Chinese Helo to Enter Service

TAIPEI – China has modified a military helicopter for commercial applications, according to a Nov. 6 China Daily report.
The new AC313 is scheduled to receive an airworthiness certification by the end of the year and enter service in 2012, said Wu Ximing, chief designer of AVIC's China Helicopter Research and Development Institute (CHRDI).

The 13-ton AC313 is the largest civil helicopter developed by China, but the design is based on the Chinese military's Changhe Z-8 helicopter. In 1977 the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) took delivery of 13 Aerospatiale SA 321Ja Super Frelon helicopters. China reversed engineered the Super Frelon to produce the Z-8, now in service in all three branches of China's military.
PLAN operates an anti-submarine and mine countermeasures Z-8 variant, the PLA Air Force operates a combat search-and-rescue (SAR) variant, and the PLA operates a troop transport variant.
The AC313 set a record as the first domestically developed helicopter to fly over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at an altitude of 26,200 feet, according to the CHRDI.
"AC313 helicopter last September and in August-September this year on two occasions to test flights of the Tibetan plateau, has created a series of home-made helicopter flight records," said a CHRDI press release.
The AC313 was developed by Avicopter Corp. Ltd., a joint venture between Aviation Industry Corporation of China and the Tianjin municipal government. The new helicopter can carry 27 passengers and be outfitted for a variety of missions, including SAR.

U.S. Army Receives First of Latest Apaches

MESA, Ariz. - Amid fanfare and after an Apache tribal blessing, the most lethal and technologically sophisticated attack helicopter in the world has been delivered to the U.S. Army by its Mesa manufacturer.
Named after the Native American tribe, the AH-64D Longbow Apache Block III is geared to meet next-generation battlefield challenges with high-tech gear such as sensors that allow pilots to guide unmanned aircraft to their targets, Army officials said Nov. 2.

"Our enemy is ruthless," said Maj. Gen. Anthony Crutchfield, commanding general of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence at Fort Rucker, Ala. "They are determined. They are adaptive ... and we must be adaptive and innovative."
Crutchfield was among 500 Army officers and enlisted personnel, Boeing employees and international customers, and public officials who celebrated the delivery of the first five Block III Apaches during ceremonies at The Boeing Co. plant where the aircraft is made.
Although the festive event portrayed the helicopter's devastating power, White Mountain Apache Tribal Chairman Ronnie Lupe concentrated on its lifesaving ability as he blessed the helicopters in a spiritual ceremony.
Holding eagle feathers as white smoke from a nearby smoldering pot of sage dissipated in heavy wind gusts, Lupe and two other tribal members approached one of the helicopters, touching it with the feathers during the early morning ritual on an asphalt flight line.
"That prayer was to the creator for the warrior in hopes that the warrior would return," said Crutchfield, who is of Native American heritage.
Jerry Gloshay, Lupe's executive assistant, said the tribal leader views the aircraft as a "living bird that is sort of like the Apache warrior."
"He wants to have a blessing, not in the light of the helicopter being on the attack mode, but rather how it is going to protect the family's well-being in the future," he said.
Gloshay said Lupe, a Korean War veteran who served with the U.S. Marine Corps' 1st Division, blessed the original "A" model of the Apache helicopter when it was built in 1984.
The war, which began in 1950, gave birth to the Marines' first helicopter unit specifically formed for combat.
Public officials attending the ceremony talked of a different type of blessing from the continued production of the rotorcraft at The Boeing Co. plant.
"I like to say that Mesa is the epicenter of Boeing rotorcraft," Mesa Mayor Scott Smith said. "Apaches bring 4,500-plus employees to this site. ...We look forward to another 30 years of growth, accomplishment and pride."
The helicopters are being built under a $247 million deal with the Defense Department.
The first phase of production will lead to the manufacture of 690 of the Block III aircraft for the Army, which could extend production for nearly a decade or more, according to Boeing officials.
The Army plans to acquire the helicopters between now and 2026 at a production rate of about two battalions per year, according to the Army. Of this amount, 643 will be remanufactured aircraft and 56 will be new.
Since the first Apache, called the A model, was delivered, more than 1,700 various models of the rotorcraft have been manufactured for the Army and U.S. allied forces.

Pak frees Indian chopper

Pakistan gets hi-tech for F-16

Islamabad – Pakistan has bought the American ALQ-211 AIDEWS (Advanced Integrated Defensive Electronic Warfare Suite) pod for their F-16 fighters.
The ALQ-211 allows the aircraft to detect radar, jamming and laser signals hitting the aircraft, as well as the presence of chemical weapons. ALQ-211 also provides some jamming of its own, and assistance on where the signal is coming from, so the pilot can move the aircraft away from the threat, said a report published in U.S. magazine.
ALQ-211 is also installed in helicopters, but not as a pod. Rather, the individual components are installed in the helicopter where space is available.
Components of ALQ-211 are programmable, so that the system can quickly be updated for newly discovered enemy equipment. Pakistan will receive ALQ-211(V) 9 (version 9), which costs about $3.5 million per pod.