U.S. Navy Details JSF Buy

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps strike fighter picture will become clearer under an updated interservice agreement set to be signed March 14, according to a senior defense official.

The agreement reaffirms that Marine F-35Cs will rotate in and out of deploying carrier air wings. All F-35Bs will be ground-based. (U.S. Navy)

The Tactical Air memorandum of understanding ratifies the Navy Department's plan to buy 680 F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighters (JSF), and details the exact mix of variants and who will fly them. Of the total, 260 will be Navy F-35C carrier-based aircraft, 80 will be Marine F-35Cs, and 340 will be Marine F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (STOVL) planes.

The agreement also reaffirms that Marine F-35Bs and F-35Cs will continue to rotate in and out of deploying carrier air wings, sharing commitments with Navy F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets and F-35Cs. The Marines will raise the number of carrier-capable squadrons from three to five.
The agreement formalizes an earlier decision not to deploy F-35Bs from carriers, but rather to have all Marine squadrons deploying on carriers flying the same C version as their Navy compatriots. The STOVLs will operate from land bases and amphibious ships.
The first Navy F-35C carrier squadron is set to stand up in December 2015, with the first Marine F-35C squadron following a year later.
By the mid-2020s, according to Navy planners, each carrier air wing will include two Super Hornet squadrons and two Lightning II squadrons. Every fourth F-35C squadron will be a Marine unit.
The Navy continues to plan for a fleet of 10 carrier air wings, with 44 strike fighters per wing, organized into 10- and 12-plane squadrons. The Navy will field 35 strike fighter squadrons composed of Super Hornets or F-35Cs, and the Marines will field five F-35C squadrons.
Ultimately, the Lightnings will serve alongside a fleet of 556 F/A-18 Es and Fs.
There is no intention to field an all-F-35 strike fighter force with any carrier air wing, a senior Navy official said. A new, sixth-generation aircraft will be developed as a follow-on to the F-35, and those aircraft will replace the Super Hornets, the official said. Characteristics of the new aircraft - including whether it will be manned, unmanned or optionally manned - have yet to be determined, the official said.

STOVL Issues

Carrier planners have long wrestled with the issue of integrating the F-35B STOVL onto flight decks. The aircraft are not designed for catapult launch, and would require specific launch-and-recovery operations apart from other aircraft types flown from the ships, the senior Navy official said. They also have different range and ordnance-carrying capabilities than the carrier version.
Development of the STOVL version has hit a number of engineering snags, including weight, power and heat issues, and the program is currently on a two-year Pentagon "probation" to solve those issues.
Gen. James Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, said he believes those issues can be solved before that time, and that the Corps remains committed to the STOVL version.
The Marine F-35s will replace all aircraft in 19 strike fighter squadrons - 12 squadrons flying 261 F/A-18 Hornets, and seven squadrons flying 145 AV-8B Harrier jump jets. All of the current aircraft in those squadrons are to be phased out by 2023.
The new agreement also will relieve the Navy of the need to supply a Hornet squadron to meet Marine land-based expeditionary needs. Those aircraft deploy under the Unit Deployment Program to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan. Seven Marine F-35B squadrons will eventually handle those duties.
The updated agreement, a senior Marine official said, also provides for nine F-35B squadrons to work with the seven Marine Expeditionary Units that deploy aboard Navy amphibious ready groups.
Five Reserve squadrons will also fly strike fighters. Three Marine Reserve squadrons will fly the F-35B, one Navy Reserve squadron will operate the F-35C, and one other Navy Reserve squadron will fly single-seat F/A-18E Super Hornets.
Renewal of the Tac-Air agreement, the senior defense official said, allows planners to begin working out more detailed schedules of when individual squadrons will switch to the new aircraft.

Turkey Opposes NATO Libya Intervention: PM

ISTANBUL - Turkey on March 14 reiterated its opposition to NATO intervention in Libya, warning it would trigger dangerous consequences.
"Military intervention by NATO in Libya or any other country would be totally counter-productive," the Anatolia news agency quoted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying during an address here at an international forum.

"In addition to being counter-productive, such an operation could have dangerous consequences."
Turkey, a NATO member, has made it clear that the 28-member military alliance can intervene only when one of its members is attacked.
President Abdullah Gul on Monday echoed Erdogan's view, saying: "A direct NATO intervention in Libya is out of the question."
"The people, government and opposition in Libya do not want a foreign force in the country," Anatolia quoted Gul as saying.
The president added that an intervention would require a U.N. resolution "within the framework of international legitimacy."
During a visit to Germany late last month, Erdogan said a NATO intervention in Libya would be "unthinkable" and "absurd".
He also raised strong objections to imposing sanctions on Libya, saying innocent people would suffer and accusing world powers of making "calculations" over oil.
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen meanwhile said early this month that the alliance did not intend to intervene in oil-rich Libya but was planning for "all eventualities".
He has insisted that the U.N. Security Council would have to approve any military action in Libya, including the enforcement of a no-fly zone.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization appeared divided meanwhile on the usefulness of such a measure as well as the idea - attributed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy - to launch air strikes in Libya.
The organization decided to reinforce its naval presence in an area near Libya, and assess the humanitarian aid that the United Nations could request.
The no fly-zone issue is to figure prominently as a two-day ministerial session of G8 powers gets under way in Paris.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and their counterparts from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan are taking part.

India World's Biggest Arms Importer: SIPRI Report

STOCKHOLM - India has been the world's biggest weapons importer over the past five years, Swedish think-tank SIPRI reported March 14, naming four Asian countries among the top five arms importers.
The report also highlighted how the world's major arms supplying countries had in recent years competed for trade in Libya, and in other Arab countries gripped by the recent wave of pro-democracy uprisings.

"India is the world's largest arms importer," the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said as it released its latest report on trends in the international arms trade.
"India received 9 percent of the volume of international arms transfers during 2006-10, with Russian deliveries accounting for 82 percent of Indian arms imports," it said.
Its arms imports jumped 21 percent from the previous five-year period, with 71 percent of its orders being for aircraft.
India's arms purchases were driven by several factors, said Siemon Wezeman of SIPRI'S Arms Transfers Program.
"The most often cited relate to rivalries with Pakistan and China as well as internal security challenges," he wrote.
China and South Korea held joint second place on the list of global arms import, each with 6 percent, followed by Pakistan, on 5 percent.
Aircraft accounted for 45 percent of Pakistan's arms imports, which had bought warplanes from both China and the United States. Pakistan's arms imports were up 128 percent on the previous five-year period, SIPRI noted.
Greece rounded off the top-five list arms importers, with 4 percent of global imports.
Since the lifting of a U.N. arms embargo on Libya in September 2003, Britain, France, Italy and Russia had all competed to win orders from Moammar Gadhafi's regime, said the report.
Gadhafi's forces are currently using tanks, artillery and warplanes to reclaim territory held by the opposition forces.
Egypt had received 60 percent of its major arms imports from the United States between 2006 and 2010, said the SIPRI report.
They included "M-1A1 tanks and M-113 armored vehicles of the type present during demonstrations in the country in January 2011," it added.
A pro-democracy uprising forced Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to step down on Feb. 11, after nearly three decades of autocratic rule, after pro-democracy uprising.
But the conflict left at least 384 dead and more than 6,000 injured.
Russia, Montenegro, the Netherlands and China had also supplied weapons to the Mubarak regime, said the SIPRI report.
The United States remained the world's largest military equipment exporter, accounting for 30 percent of global arms exports in 2006-10, 44 percent of which went to Asia and Oceania, SIPRI said.
The rest of the top five arms suppliers were: Russia, with 23 percent of the total market; Germany (11 percent); France (7 percent); and Britain (4 percent).
"There is intense competition between suppliers for big-ticket deals in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America," said Dr Paul Holtom, head of the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program.
He cited the efforts of the Eurofighter consortium to sell their plane across the world against rival warplanes, with competition particularly fierce for the markets in Brazil and India.
Britain, France, Germany and Italy were also competing for orders for naval equipment from Algeria, noted SIPRI.
The think tank, which specializes in research on conflicts, weapons, arms control and disarmament, was created in 1966 and is 50 percent financed by the Swedish state.

BAE, Dassault To Work Together On MALE Vehicle

Europe's two leading military aerospace companies have agreed to collaborate in the design of a medium altitude long endurance unmanned aircraft system to compete for an emerging Anglo-French joint program.
BAE Systems and Dassault Aviation said they had signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate of the design, development, production and support of a MALE vehicle.

The two companies have been working toward a possible tie-up for months and have already completed a joint feasibility study on a MALE vehicle for the British and French Governments.
The MoU comes in the wake of the Anglo-French defense co-operation treaty signed by the two governments in November. A possible joint UAS program was touted then as one of the most likely projects to proceed in the short term.
The UAS could be loosely based on the work already done by BAE in its Mantis demonstrator program, said a BAE spokeswomen.
The Mantis vehicle, part funded by the UK government, tested a number of technologies, including autonomous flight in a limited flying program, which ended last year.
BAE said it had no imminent plans to get Mantis back in the air but was "considering how to get the best value from the work already done going forward."
"The new vehicle won't be Mantis with another name, but we will be looking at the technologies it used," she said.
The two governments are yet to formally launch a competition for joint MALE program, but are expected to do so in the coming months.
EADS with the Talarion system is likely to be among the other contenders for the requirement.
Kevin Taylor, BAE's managing director for military air and information, said in a statement that solution from the two companies will "ensure that the UK and France maintain their status as leading providers of aerospace capability.
BAE and Dassault both lead programs to develop the Taranis and Neuron unmanned combat air vehicles respectively. The BAE spokeswoman said for the moment the MoU was limited to the MALE system "but might lead to other things."
Both companies are seeking to fill the void in military aerospace design and production work beyond the rundown of the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale fighter programs, which currently sustain of thousands of jobs in the UK and France.
In Britain the new UAS would be aimed at a Ministry of Defence program known as Scavenger. The MoD has been looking at future ISTAR requirements ranging from MALE systems up to space-based capabilities for delivery starting around 2015.
General Atomics with new versions of the Reaper, Northrop Grumman with a variant of the Global Hawk and EADS have had discussions with the British over filling aspects of the requirement.
France has a near-term requirement for a MALE machine for Afghanistan but is looking to the deal with Britain to fill a long-term capability need.

S. Korea to Launch Marine Aviation Unit: Report

SEOUL - South Korea plans to create an elite Marine aviation unit equipped with scores of helicopters in a bid to bolster its forces near the tense sea border with North Korea, an official said March 13.
"We have 11 helicopter pilots to aid the Marine Corps' operations, but now we are trying to make it bigger to create a whole aviation squadron," South Korea's defense ministry spokesman said, not elaborating further.

Yonhap news agency said the unit for elite commandos will feature about 40 helicopters and begin operations in 2017 or 2018, citing a Seoul military source.
"We plan to equip our locally developed Surion helicopters with weapons to deploy them to the Marine Corps," Yonhap quoted an official of Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying.
The South Korean military is seeking to boost its number of Marines, currently at 27,000, by several thousand as part of a plan to beef up forces along its sea border with the North.
Cross-border ties collapsed after Pyongyang's alleged sinking of a Seoul warship that killed 46 sailors in March 2010 on the Yellow Sea, a scene of deadly inter-Korea naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.
Tensions were further heightened by the North's shelling of a nearby frontier island in November that killed two civilians and two Marines, and sparked brief fear of war.
Some 5,000 Marines are stationed at islands near the sea border with the North off the west coast. The military plans to deploy additional 1,200 troops to the flashpoint region later this year, Yonhap said.

Canada Opposition Unhappy With F-35's Costs

OTTAWA - Canada significantly overpaid for new fighter jets jointly developed with the United States and its allies, a parliamentary watchdog said March 10.
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page said in a report that Canada should expect to dole out as much as C$29.3 billion ($30 billion) for the purchase and maintenance of 65 F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter over 30 years.

The estimate is nearly double the amount suggested by the government, and opposition parties pounced on the report to criticize Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives.
The Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jet, set to replace a large part of the U.S. and Canadian warplane fleets, has become the most expensive weapons program ever, drawing increased scrutiny at a time of tight public finances.
The fifth-generation fighter was built with features designed to help avoid enemy radar and ensure supremacy in the skies for decades.
But it has been criticized for a series of cost overruns and delays, and now there is potential competition from China, which in January unveiled its first radar-evading combat aircraft.
At the same time, the contract awarded in 2001 had been planned to last 10 years, but has been extended to 2016 because of testing and design issues.
The United States is covering 90 percent of its development costs but has participation from Britain, Italy, Turkey, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Australia and Canada.
Other nations, including Israel and Singapore, have signed contracts to buy the plane.
Canada's main opposition Liberals, which committed to the F-35 program when in power in 1997, are now using the lack of open competition to replace Canada's aging fleet of fighter jets to press for a change in government.
Jay Paxton, spokesman for Defense Minister Peter MacKay, however stood by the government's procurement cost projections of C$9 billion ($9.2 billion) to buy and C$250-300 million ($256-308 million) annually to maintain over 20 years.
"The F-35 is the only jet that can meet the needs of the Air Force, as noted by Mr. Page," Paxton added. "Simply put, this is the best plane for the best price."

Britain in Eurofighter Talks with Indonesia: Report

LONDON - Britain is in talks with Indonesia on the possible sale of Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft despite concerns over Jakarta's human rights record, The Times newspaper reported March 10.

Britain is reportedly in talks to sell 24 Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Indonesia for about 5 billion pounds ($8.1 billion, 5.8 billion euros). (RAF)

Indonesia informally approached Britain over the potential acquisition of up to 24 jets. The previous Labour government banned defense exports to the country in 1999 amid claims it had used British-made planes to bomb civilians.

The sale would be worth around 5 billion pounds ($8.1 billion dollars, 5.8 billion euros) in total, the paper said, but would be hugely controversial in light of current concern over the source of weapons being used against Arab rebels.
British military company BAE Systems has separately offered to upgrade Indonesia's fleet of Hawk jets, it said.
Gerald Howarth, a British defense minister, will discuss the potential sale when he attends a defense summit in Jakarta later this month, the Times said.
"I fully expect that to be the case," Howarth told the paper. "Typhoon is on their agenda. Their interest shows the extent of interest by countries around the world in what is one of the most sophisticated aircraft anywhere."
Human rights group Amnesty International accuses Indonesia of rights violations including police torture and a restricted media.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour government blocked the sale of jets after it was claimed that Indonesia's Hawk fleet had bombed East Timor rebels.
Kaye Stearman, a spokeswoman for Campaign Against Arms Trade, told the Times: "From 1994 to 1999 Indonesia bought half of its military equipment from the U.K., backed by U.K. export credits.
"The people of Indonesia have accumulated huge debts which they are still paying off. The Hawk jets and other British-made weaponry were used by Indonesia in East Timor, West Papua and Aceh.
"With such a dreadful record, BAE and the British government should not be trying to sell more weapons to Indonesia," she added.
Eurofighters were grounded last year in several countries due to the problematic ejectors after a crash killed a Saudi pilot.