F-22 Deliveries Halt as Grounding Continues

Deliveries of F-22 Raptors to the U.S. Air Force have been halted due to the continuing suspension of flight operations for the stealthy fifth-generation air superiority fighter.

A new F-22 Raptor sits at the Lockheed Martin production facility at Marietta, Ga., one of four that have technically been delivered to the U.S. Air Force but have yet to fly to their home base at Langley AFB, Va., because of a service-wide grounding (Lockheed Martin)

Even though manufacturer Lockheed Martin continues to build the aircraft at its Marietta, Ga., factory, the company is unable to do required flight testing for each aircraft as it leaves final assembly. Nor can government test pilots from the Pentagon's Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) fly their acceptance flights for new aircraft as they are readied for delivery.

"Our final assembly is scheduled through December 2011. That is still ongoing at Marietta. We delivered aircraft 4181, and that was on June 22, to the Air Force, so they have that as their aircraft," said Lockheed spokeswoman Stephanie Stinn. "After that aircraft, we can't do the required acceptance flights."
Technically, four aircraft have been delivered to the Air Force, but are being stored at Marietta pending the lifting of the flight restrictions. When the Air Force resumes F-22 flight operations, those aircraft will be flown to Langley Air Force Base (AFB), Va.
Two further aircraft, 4182 and 4183, have been completed, but the company and DCMA can't do required flight testing on those jets, Stinn said. The aircraft are being stored in a near-flight-ready status, she said.
Aircraft "4182 and 4183 were scheduled to deliver in July, but they're not in a position to do any sort of test flights, so we can't deliver," Stinn said. "Maybe early August, but we don't have a definitive date."
Aircraft 4182 and onwards, which have not undergone any of their acceptance flights, have yet to receive their final stealth coatings. The coatings are applied only after a number of flight tests have been completed, and as a result, a backlog is slowly building up.
Before the stealth coatings are applied, the aircraft fly coated only with a primer.
The Raptors have been "stood down" since May 3, according to Air Force spokeswoman Capt. Jennifer Ferrau, due to a suspected problem with the aircraft's oxygen generator.
According to one Air Force document, after reviewing work on a study of the F-22 On-Board Oxygen Generation System (OBOGS), the chief of Air Combat Command, Gen. William Fraser, instituted a temporary flight restriction for the F-22 and directed a Class E Safety Investigation.
The investigation, which began in January, includes the OBOGS installed in the A-10, F-15E, F-16, F-22, F-35 and T-6 aircraft. Fraser appointed Maj. Gen. Steve Hoog, commander of Ninth Air Force, as the investigating officer.
The flight restriction applies to all F-22 crews, but test pilots at Edwards AFB, Calif., are operating under a flight waiver that allows them to fly certain test sorties. Air Force officials at Edwards could not immediately say what kind of test sorties those aircraft are flying.
The grounding is hurting the readiness of operational F-22 pilots, who cannot maintain their currency on the twin-engine jet. The Air Force is using simulators to ease the problem as much as it can.
"Pilots and ground crew continue to train in simulators and perform ground tasks to stay as proficient as possible. Once the aircraft are cleared to fly again, there will be a period where the pilots will need in-flight training to become fully proficient on the aspects of flying that simulators cannot replicate," Ferrau said. "Some live flight is required for high-G maneuvering flight, a true outside visual, and in-flight decision-making in a dynamic environment where simulators are lacking."

Reports of Taiwan Sub Missile Test False: Experts

TAIPEI - Recent local media reports that Taiwan test-fired an anti-ship Hsiung Feng 2 (Brave Wind) missile from a Dutch-built Hai Lung (Sea Dragon) submarine during an exercise in late June now appear to be false.
On July 7, the Chinese-language Liberty Times reported the missile test, which was picked up by an English-language media service in Taipei without confirmation. The Liberty Times is closely linked to the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, which opposes unification with China.

Taiwan's Hai Lung's have "absolutely no capability" of launching anti-ship missiles from their torpedo tubes, said a former Taiwan Navy official who worked with ordnance used on the submarines. "This is common sense since they still have problems with just launching torpedoes with the old fire control system."
A former U.S. defense official agreed the fire control system was antiquated.
"This technology is believed to require significant and costly annual care and maintenance," he said.
Taiwan has only two combat operational diesel submarines acquired in the 1980s from the Netherlands and midlife upgrades on both are on hold until the Navy can secure the funds. Taiwan also has two World War II-era Guppy submarines used for training. In 2001, the U.S. offered to sell Taiwan eight diesel submarines, but political and technical problems haunted the program from the beginning.
The U.S. released a $200 million package for 32 UGM-84L sub-launched Harpoon anti-ship missiles to Taiwan in 2008, but the Navy has not gone forward with the order due to submarine upgrade delays and other budgeting issues.
"One of the optimal solutions is to replace the existing fire control system with a new one that would have Harpoon processing and also the existing torpedo launch capability embedded in it - the upgraded or new fire control system also would be able to handle future torpedoes," the former U.S. official source said.
However, the Taiwan Navy appears to favor a stand-alone processing and control system with links to the Harpoon or Hsiung Feng missile. This creates problems because all interaction between the torpedo and the missile would have to be "manual and not automated - meaning more time, weight, efficiency; not to mention the missile would be fired with less accurate data," he said.
Taiwan's Air Force and Navy have been using Harpoon anti-ship missiles since the 1990s on fighter aircraft and surface ships, not submarines, and recent sales demonstrate a continued reliance on the U.S. system. On July 7, the Pentagon's Foreign Military Sales Program awarded Boeing a $27 million contract for the procurement of two Lot 86 Harpoon missile bodies, two exercise Grade B canister All Up Round (AUR) and eight anti-submarine rocket AURs for Taiwan.
Taiwan's military-run Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST) does have an indigenous anti-ship missile program. The Hsiung Feng family includes three variants and CSIST is now working on a land-attack cruise missile, the HF-2E, capable of hitting targets in China.

Merkel Defends Silence on Reported Saudi Tank Deal

BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on July 8 defended her government's silence on a reported secret deal to sell hundreds of tanks to Saudi Arabia, and said she was committed to democracy in the region.
"Deliberation and decisions by the federal security council are secret for good reason," she told the daily Mittelbayerische Zeitung, referring to the panel including the chancellor and top ministers that rules on arms exports.

Saudi Arabia is reportedly about to buy 200 Leopard-2s, Germany's main battle tank, which is also produced under license in Spain, for a multi-billion-euro sum.
Germany, which for two decades has declined to sell such heavy weapons to Saudi Arabia because of concerns over human rights and fears for Israel's security, has refused to officially confirm the reports citing a secrecy policy on such deals.
Opposition politicians and even members of Merkel's ruling center-right coalition have slammed the reported tank sale, particularly in light of democratic uprisings throughout the Middle East.
Selling tanks to Saudi Arabia at a time when that country has sent armored vehicles to help put down a peaceful protest movement in neighboring Bahrain is "a slap in the face for freedom movements in the whole region," Social Democrat parliamentary deputy leader Gernot Erler said this week.
Merkel insisted in the interview that her administration was "of course doing its part to continue to support democratic development in North Africa and the Middle East together with our partners."
When asked about criticism of Berlin's secrecy on a delicate issue, she said her administration was following official guidelines.
"Transparency about exported weapons and other armaments is assured because every year a detailed arms export report is published which is also given to the Bundestag" lower house of parliament, she said.
However, a leading deputy from the Free Democrats (FDP), junior partners in Merkel's coalition, said the government should go on the offensive now that the country was openly debating the issue.
"It damages the government and it damages Germany too when only those who oppose (the sale) are heard," the foreign policy spokesman of the FDP's parliamentary group, Rainer Stinner, told the daily Rheinische Post.
"The chancellor and the affected ministers cannot keep hiding behind the sign reading 'secret'."
Opposition deputies were to present motions to the Bundestag on July 8 demanding Berlin call off the deal. The Green party said it would file a lawsuit against unnamed executives at the tank manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann in a move to force the German government to shed light on the matter.
A parliamentary whip, Volker Beck, told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the suit was based on suspicion that selling the tanks to Riyadh would violate arms export laws.

U.S. Navy Rebuffs LCS Program Charges

Declaring that the U.S. Navy "is confident that we are on a path of success" in the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus on July 7 rebuffed calls by a member of the House Armed Services Committee to review and assess the entire LCS program.

Corrosion problems discovered on the USS Independence have renewed concerns about the Littoral Combat Ship program. (MC2 Justan Williams / U.S. Navy)

"We at Navy have faced and overcome the program's past cost and schedule challenges," Mabus wrote in his letter to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

The letter was a quick response to Hunter's missive to Mabus sent earlier this week. Copies of each of the letters were obtained by Defense News.
Hunter, reacting to reports earlier this year of problems with both LCS designs, charged that the Navy, "instead of enacting proper oversight of this program and development of the ship design … was concerned with appeasing Congress and what has been referred to in Congressional hearings as 'industrial base stabilization.' "
The result, Hunter wrote, was a "toxic environment where the Navy needed to contract to build more ships at a faster rate despite major technical design flaws."
Congress, Hunter added, "was just as complicit in this failed program" when, late last year, it approved the Navy's plan to buy both LCS designs instead of just one, despite risks identified by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Hunter called on the Navy "to immediately conduct a formal review of the entire LCS program, provide an assessment of the technical design flaws of the current fleet and determine the best way forward to include the possibility of rebidding this contract so that the program can be put back on a fiscally responsible path to procurement."
The LCS program has had a long, complex and often troubled development history since its inception in 2003. Sharply criticized from many quarters, it is nevertheless routinely cited by Navy leaders for its promise of providing new and more flexible warfighting capabilities while at the same time becoming a mainstay of the future 313-ship fleet. Two LCS types - one based on the Lockheed Martin-developed USS Freedom (LCS 1), the other on the General Dynamics/Austal USA USS Independence (LCS 2) - are being built and fielded.
One ship of each type is in service and more are building. By the end of the decade, the Navy plans to buy a 55-ship LCS fleet of both types.
Freedom and Independence have each suffered a series of teething problems. Superstructure cracks appeared in Freedom soon after the ship's 2008 completion, and in March a weld seam opened up while the ship was at sea, causing minor flooding.
More recently, reports have surfaced of corrosion problems on the water jets and water intakes on Independence. Hunter cited those problems on both ships in his letter to Mabus.
But Mabus, while acknowledging the problems, declared that neither of the events "can be attributed to out of sequence work or the lack of a stable design. Both LCS 1 and LCS 2 are first-of-class ships that have not completed all their test and trials."
New types of ships often have developmental problems, Mabus wrote.
"It is not uncommon for the Navy to discover and correct technical issues encountered on first-of-class ships during the post-delivery and trial period. In fact, this is one of the main reasons for the test and trial period," Mabus said in the letter.
"These issues are being repaired and corrected on both LCS 1 and LCS 2 and changes to the designs have been implemented for follow-on ships."
The hull crack in Freedom, Mabus wrote, was due to a weld defect, "a workmanship issue." The superstructure cracks were predicted and design changes have been made to later ships to lower the stresses in the superstructure, he wrote, and Freedom will undergo modifications later this year.
The corrosion issues on Independence, he said, "have been attributed to a design approach undertaken by General Dynamics and Austal USA that proved not as effective as anticipated."
An "interim repair" has been prepared for the ship, Mabus wrote, and a permanent fix will be installed next year during a scheduled maintenance period. A cathodic protection system will be installed on the next ship in the class and is included in the design for subsequent ships, he added.
Mabus noted the service recently established a new program executive office for the LCS program, combining the management and oversight of both the ship development effort and that of the complex mission modules that give the ships their primary warfighting capabilities.
"We are confident that cost and development risks have been retired with the construction experienced obtained [on] the first four ships," Mabus declared, noting the use of fixed-price contracts for current and future ships, as well as efforts to improve production quality and efficiency at both LCS shipyards.
"Rebidding the LCS contracts at this point would undoubtedly increase the cost and delivery time of future LCS platforms," Mabus concluded.

Sweden Continues Investment in Gripen for 2011

HELSINKI - The Swedish government has opted to continue state funding for further development and maintenance work on the Gripen fighter aircraft program, approving $163 million in spending this year.
The tasks covered by the funding include technical support, product maintenance, flight testing and flight simulator operation to ensure the Gripen's operational capability.

Under this latest contract-specific funding scheme run by state defense material development and procurement agency FMV, aircraft maker Saab will develop continual maintenance and updates for the Gripen C/D in compliance with the Swedish Armed Forces' long-term plan for the aircraft.
Moreover, the funding covers research work to further develop the Gripen's capability. This work includes renewed testing and verification of the Gripen system with the aim of strengthening the Gripen C/D's operational capability.
The $163 million is the latest capital investment by the Swedish government in the Gripen's development. In June, the FMV awarded Saab a $24 million contract covering advanced development of the Gripen C/D, to include delivering an enhanced function of the multirole aircraft navigation system by 2013.
Saab has obtained a number of other Gripen development projects, with a combined value of more than $50 million, from the FMV since January. These range from upgrade tasks to modification of materials used in the Gripen C/D's sub-systems.
Sweden's move to continue state investment in the Gripen comes as the government strives to increase the aircraft's international sales potential by highlighting Gripen's in-theater operational capabilities, demonstrated during Operation Unified Protector in Libya.
The Gripen has clocked more than 160,000 flight hours with the Swedish Air Force eight-fighter squadron in Libya since the end of March, with operations mainly centered on daily reconnaissance and air supremacy missions.
Upgrades to the existing Gripen C/D fleet include integration of two new weapons. In May, South African company Denel Dynamics completed the integration of the A-Darter fifth generation air-to-air missile on Gripen. Saab is integrating Small Diameter Bombs on the aircraf at the Swedish Air Force's test range in Vidsel, Sweden.

Indian, Turkish Navy Ships Meet for Exercises

NEW DELHI - Turkish Navy warships - three frigates and one tanker - are scheduled to arrive in India on July 7 for joint sea exercises planned during last month's visit of India's Navy chief, Chief Adm. Nirmal Verma, to Turkey.
The four Turkish ships, arriving from the Pakistani port city of Karachi, will begin anti-submarine warfare and coordinated attack drills July 10 with and Indian Navy destroyer and two Beas-class frigates, an Indian Navy official said.

While the two countries do not share a border, India considers Turkey part of the extended neighborhood of Central Asia, western Asia and the Arabian Gulf, an Indian Foreign Ministry official said.
India has been building bridges with central Asian countries, and Defence Minister A.K. Antony visited Kyrgyzstan early this week.
"India can take advantage of Turkey's influence in West Asia, Central Asia, the Caspian Sea and Europe by building bridges with Istanbul," said defense analyst Mahindra Singh, a retired Indian Army major general.
Indo-Turkish trade, now about $4 billion per year, is expected to rise as the two countries are negotiating opening their markets further, the Indian Foreign Ministry official said.
India and Turkey initiated military ties in 2008.

Turkey Still Hopes To Order First F-35

ANKARA - Although Turkey still plans to buy about 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, it has not formally committed to the U.S.-led program. To do so, it needs to submit a purchase order for a first batch of six aircraft before the end of this year.
"We will have talks [with the Americans] in the months ahead in an effort to resolve some matters," said Murad Bayar, chief of the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, the government's defense procurement agency. "If we manage to reach an agreement, we expect to order the first six aircraft this year. We expect to reach a deal."

The F-35, whose production is led by Lockheed Martin, will be built by a consortium of nine countries, including Turkey. Other members of the consortium are Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Norway and Denmark.
A few years ago, when Turkey's planned buy of about 100 jets was expected to cost approximately $10 billion, Turkish companies grabbed project work worth up to $5 billion. But the unit price has gone up over the past two years, exceeding $12 billion, according to Turkish officials.
Now Turkish companies seek to raise their share to around $6 billion to stay near the planned 50 percent figure. In addition, the U.S. remains reluctant to share millions of lines of source code that make the plane's flight possible. But Turkey wants access to part of the source code related to operational needs.
But placing an order for the first six aircraft before the end of this year is related mostly to early deliveries, around 2014 and 2015, and failure to do so would not undermine participation in the program, Bayar said.
"If we don't place the first purchase order by the year end, it would not necessarily mean that we have failed to agree. It may mean that we, at this point, may not have the finances," Bayar said. "Anyway, we hope that none of this happens."
The F-35 comes in three variants for conventional takeoff and landing, short takeoff and vertical landing, and for aircraft carrier operations.