Defense News reports that the US Air Force “is ramping up plans for incorporating drone wingmen into its fleet, and envisions 1,000 of the so-called collaborative combat aircraft in service as it sketches out ideas.” USAF Secretary Frank Kendall said the service will request congressional funding in 2024 for the CCA program so it can map out operations, organization, and support for the new systems, including the Next Generation Air Dominance program of futuristic fighter aircraft.
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Tag: USAF
USAF Awards Boeing Contract for Fleet of E-7A Aircraft
Air Force Times reports that the US Air Force (USAF) has awarded The Boeing Company a contract “worth up to $1.2 billion to start work on the first E-7A battle management and command-and-control aircraft, with plans to field a fleet of 26 in total, the service said Tuesday.” The E-7 is a “modernized battlefield management aircraft originally developed for the Royal Australian Air Force and dubbed the Wedgetail.” Countries currently flying or planning to fly the E-7 include the UK, South Korea, and Turkey. The USAF said that the E-7 “will provide advanced airborne moving target indication, battle management and command-and-control capabilities.” It will also “carry an advanced multirole, electronically scanned array radar for better airborne battle management, which will allow the U.S. and its allies to carry out long-range strikes against advanced enemies, the service said.”
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USAF Grounds KC-135 to Investigate Faulty Tail Assembly Part
Aviation Week reports that the US Air Force “has temporarily grounded its workhorse Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker fleet, along with reconnaissance variants of the airframe, until they can be inspected for a nonconforming part in the tail assembly.”
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Air Force AMC Seeking Plan for Launching 100 UAVs from Single KC-135
Aviation Week reported, “The U.S. Air Force’s Air Mobility Command (AMC) wants a plan within two months to launch 100 UAVs from a single aging KC-135 Stratotanker.” The goal was “one of several efforts outlined by AMC Commander Gen. Mike Minihan in an internal memorandum to commanders that was posted to multiple social media networks and confirmed by Aviation Week on Jan. 27. … The memorandum, the first of eight monthly orders from Minihan to commanders, outlines an aggressive timeline for the Air Force’s mobility fleet to be prepared for a possible conflict with China in 2025.”
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XQ-58A Valkyrie Test Flight Successful
Unmanned Systems Technology reports Kratos Defense & Security Solutions “recently completed a successful flight of its production XQ-58A Valkyrie aircraft for the Block 2 Valkyrie Maturation Program.” During a test flight performed at Yuma Proving Ground, the XQ-58A flew “longer, higher, at a heavier mission weight, and at a longer range than the platform has previously been approved for” and demonstrated. The flight also “demonstrated encrypted communications with redundant radios/communications” and “key autonomous capability for the end of mission phase of flight and recovery of the aircraft without RF comms.”
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NASA Tests Mars Crash Landing
CNET News reported that NASA JPL is testing Simplified High Impact Energy Landing Device (SHIELD), which uses a crumple cone to lessen the effect of impact on future Mars landing craft. “JPL shared a video on Thursday showing SHIELD in action during a drop test from a 90-foot-tall (27-meter-tall) tower. The device takes a hard landing at 110 mph (177 kph) into a thick steel plate to mimic the worst conditions it might experience during a Mars arrival.” A SHIELD system could be an improvement on the current parachute and thruster to slow landing designs used in Mars landing craft. “If the lander ends up working under Mars conditions, it could potentially be used for other interesting places in the solar system, including moons.”
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B-21 Debut Set for December 2
FlightGlobal reported that Northrop Grumman said it would debut its B-21 Raider on December 2. “Northrop won the $21.4 billion engineering and design contract for the new strategic bomber in 2015.” Currently, there are six B-21s in testing and final assembly.
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USAF Grounds Most of its Older C-130H Hercules Cargo Planes, Variants
Defense News reported that the US Air Force has “grounded most of its older C-130H Hercules cargo planes and variants due to a problem with their propeller barrels.” The unofficial Facebook page Air Force amn/nco/snco “posted a screenshot of a slide that said the propeller barrels in question had been installed in 100 C-130Hs, as well as the entire inventories of eight MC-130H Combat Talons, seven EC-130H Compass Calls, and one TC-130H.” In a statement to Defense News, Air Mobility Command (AMC) “said a maintenance crew at Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex in Georgia found a persistent leak coming from a C-130H propeller while test running the plane’s engine after it had undergone depot maintenance. That propeller assembly was removed and sent to the complex’s propeller shop, AMC said, where a technician found a crack in its barrel assembly.” AMC added that “further inspections found two more propeller assemblies had the same problem.”
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Aviation Week Profiles US Air Force Modernization Programs
Aviation Week reports on the US Air Force’s major modernization programs. The Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider “will be the U.S. Air Force’s next generation, long-range stealth bomber, replacing the company’s B-2 Spirit and the Rockwell B-1B Lancer. The Air Force and Northrop now expect the public rollout of the bomber to take place this year, ahead of its first flight next year. Six of the aircraft are in production at the secretive Plant 42 complex in Palmdale, California, and the first airframe recently completed loads calibration testing.” The most important “modernization project in the Air Force’s tactical aircraft portfolio is also its most secretive, with limited on-the-record information about the sixth-generation fighter that will replace the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.” The Boeing Company, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are all in the running to develop the new fighter aircraft. The US Air Force remains committed to the F-35 Lightning II program and is intent on procuring upgraded engines for the aircraft. Orders for the F-15EX Eagle II have been reduced to 80, and there are plans to request $321.9 million in 2024 for procurement of the T-7A Red Hawk trainer. The US Air Force plans to make a decision on further procurement of the KC-46A Pegasus by next spring and is to accelerate development of “its next-generation ‘KC-Z,’ with a preliminary analysis of alternatives planned to start in 2024 – well ahead of its original schedule of 2030.” Production of the LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM is expected to begin in 2026, and the US Air Force expects to introduce the Lockheed Martin AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile and several new cruise missiles in the coming years.
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USAF’s CV-22 Ospreys Cleared to Resume Flying Amid Unresolved Gearbox Issue
Aviation Week reported that on September 2, US Air Force Special Operations Command “returned its CV-22 fleet to flight after more than two weeks of grounding because of an issue with the tiltrotor’s gearbox for which the service still does not have a root cause.”
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