Manufacturers Dogfight Over Fighter Programs - Aviation Week
Jul 18, 2008
By Douglas Barrie, Amy Butler and Robert Wall
Despite the more than $40 billion in fighter purchases up for grabs soon, governments are concerned about the long-term health of the industrial base for combat aircraft.
Contractors have started to engage in a spate of hotly contested fighter competitions around the world, with decisions pending in the next 24 months.
But in the U.S., the three major military airframers - Lockeed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman - are participating in a far-reaching "war game," a Pentagon-backed study intended to assess the status of the future industrial base and secure capabilities required for future fighters and bombers.
One question is whether a second source is needed for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Boeing has briefed the Pentagon about how it could build the F-35, but JSF program officials say the cost is prohibitive and runs counter to the original affordability strategy underpinning the program.
In Europe, the four Eurofighter partner nations are struggling to strike a deal for the third Typhoon production tranche, while France is pushing for further consolidation of the region's combat aircraft sector. Russia is also on the brink of consolidating its fighter manufacturers.
Present fighter competitions - notionally totalling in excess of 400 aircraft - are being given an added edge by the pending arrival of the F-35, and the risk of closure of some of the competitor type production lines if additional orders are not secured in the next few years.
The Pentagon study will consider what technologies, skills and resources are in place for the next generation of strike aircraft beyond the F-35, including potentially an evolution to what some contractors refer to as a sixth-generation capability. This could include unmanned systems eligible for the U.S. Air Force's next-generation bomber as well as the Navy's F/A-XX. Northrop Grumman is vying with a Lockheed Martin/Boeing team for the bomber work.
After the industrial consolidations in the 1990s, the U.S. was left with two manned fighter production lines. A bomber hasn't been built since the 1990s.
Wall St. analysts will participate in the Pentagon study as neutral brokers.
Already, Boeing and Northrop Grumman are trading jabs. Chris Chadwick, president of Boeing Military Aircraft, says, "Does Northrop want to get back into the game? Sure." Boeing's future as a mainstay airframer of tactical aircraft is in question as the F/A-18 and F-15 production lines are expected to wind down in the next decade and the company has yet to secure new military work.
Northrop Grumman is building two Unmanned Combat Air System demonstrators for the U.S. Navy and has been upgrading the B-2 fleet with new coatings, communications and radar systems. Gary Ervin, president of Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems, notes that his company is also providing the center fuselage for the F-35. He says the industrial base exercise is merely a series of "what-if drills."
The pipeline is a concern for all of the companies. Chadwick says Boeing is working on flying prototypes in this area, though he declined to outline their purpose specifically. Boeing Advanced Systems President Darryl Davis says he's pushing the idea inside his company of doing more rapid prototyping partially because there are fewer Pentagon programs to tap into.
The Pentagon study is to follow the example of a similar one conducted before the downselect of the Joint Strike Fighter to Lockheed Martin.
The extremely high stakes in play in the ongoing fighter competitions are also spilling over into the F-35 program. Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, the F-35 program executive officer, wants manufacturers to set aside their rivalries and focus on exploring how their products will operate with the aircraft, rather than "wasting energy" trying to undermine it.
Davis recognizes that "the thinking has been slow so far" in developing the concept of operations for the F-35, both in the U.S. force structure and in the nine partner nations. He suggests that neither the USAF nor the Army have adequately addressed the conops implications of introducing the F-35 or discussed its relationship to the Future Combat System (FCS). The Marines, however, have grasped this issue: "The U.S. Marine Corps planned out from day one how the aircraft is going to integrate with the private on the ground," says Davis.
Boeing is overseeing the FCS program to field a suite of ground vehicles fitted with new weapons, communications and to operate with associated unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Talks with the Army about linking soldiers to the fighters have only just begun, Davis says. "We've had no discussions of any substance with them," he says, though he adds that the Army's interest has now been kindled.
Davis is critical of Boeing's aggressive marketing of its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet as an F-35 alternative, particularly at a time when the U.S. Congress and foreign defense ministries are closely watching the rising cost of the aircraft.
The F-35 will be an integral part of the Pentagon's emerging Anti-Access Denial Strike Force, a recasting of the "kick-down-the-door" concept to link the future stealth strike force of F-22s, B-2s and F-35s. Its goal is to defeat the most sophisticated integrated air defenses.
Washington's struggles with its future air combat platform needs - and the industrial implications - are also mirrored in ongoing deliberations in Europe.
A meeting between defense ministry representatives of the four Eurofighter partner governments is expected in August to find a way forward on Tranche 3 negotiations for the Typhoon, says EADS Defense and Security CEO Stefan Zoller.
Talks with industry have effectively halted because governments can't agree on how many aircraft to buy - the U.K. and Italy want to reduce the totals they've committed to. Nominally, Tranche 3 should encompass 236 fighters. The meeting will be held among senior defense ministry representatives to assure progress can be made.
A breakthrough must come soon if the Tranche 3 contract is to be signed by year-end or early next year, says Eurofighter CEO Aloysius Rauen. Delaying signature would risk unnecessarily driving up program costs, should a production gap emerge between the end of Tranche 2 work and commencement of Tranche 3. Eurofighter was asked to price options for the U.K. and Italy to buy half their allocated number or to take no aircraft in Tranche 3. However, one industry official says talks have moved beyond that.
Saudi Arabian interest in Tranche 3 aircraft, on top of the 72 Tranche 2 Typhoons already on order, could offset reductions in the British buy.
Additionally, the Eurofighter team is also trying to sharpen the upgrade strategy for the fighter, particularly with an eye on more quickly maturing capabilities needed to be successful in the export market. For instance, Rauen says a review is underway of the so-called phase 2 enhancement capability package, that could see the earlier introduction of an active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar.
The exact timeline hasn't been set, although Rauen suggests the AESA capability will not emerge until after 2012; a system fielded before then would not beat the performance of the existing Captor-M radar, he insists.
One of the issues under review is whether to field an interim AESA, marrying the existing radar backend with an active antenna, or whether to go directly to a new radar with greater capability.
So far, none of the Typhoon partner countries has a stated requirement for an AESA, although the U.K. appears to be moving toward defining such a need.
Program officials also plan to discuss with governments ways to streamline requirements, which could accelerate some activities without adding cost.
source:
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/ ... 20Programs
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