Abolish the U.S. Air Force? Perhaps one could look at Robert Farley’s Viewpoint ( AW&ST July 28, p. 50), which espouses two important policy aims of folding the Air Force back into the other two services, from a different perspective.
Prof. Robert Farley expressed an important point of view about our national security. We do have too many air forces. Airpower is needed, but not the way it is constructed now. But good luck finding any politician willing to say a separate air force is unnecessary.
Robert Farley’s count of five air forces is too low by a factor of 10. He should have added in all the reserve and state guard air forces. However his basic point has merit, and I hope it engenders a serious debate about the structure of the U.S.’s military aviation resources. Based on my experience, the defense budget could be reduced by 20% with no loss in capability if the remaining 80% was spent more effectively.
Budget reductions over the last three years are hurting the military’s ability to support the nation’s security strategy, contends a high-level bipartisan panel in a report delivered to Congress. “The growing gap between the strategic objectives the U.S. military is expected to achieve and the resources required to do so is causing risk to accumulate toward unacceptable levels,” says the National Defense Panel led by former Defense Secretary William Perry and Army Gen. (ret.) John Abizaid.
Along with its fiscal 2015 budget rollout early this year, the U.S. Army announced it will replace Bell -TH-67 helicopters with UH-72 Lakotas to train pilots at the Army Aviation Center of Excellence at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Industry officials argue that the decision sets up what is a sole-source contract award to Airbus for at least 100 aircraft, and they note that over the long-term, cheaper options may exist. Now the Army’s proposal is facing some scrutiny from Congress and the Pentagon.
India and the U.S. are working during U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s visit there to finalize defense deals worth $2.5 billion, an Indian government official says. India’s Defense Procurement Board met Aug. 7 to discuss issues of pending purchases of 15 Chinook heavy-lift and 22 Apache attack helicopters. “The negotiations for $2.5 billion in contracts [with the U.S.] are almost over and the Defense Procurement Board will clear the off-set proposals as per the procurement policy,” he says.
Even though the FAA predicts the U.S. will be home to 7,500 active unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in the next five years, the agency regulating the nation’s airspace has a long way to go to make the skies safe for UAS to fly, according to the Transportation Department’s inspector general (IG). The FAA continues to work toward the goal established by Congress of integrating UAS into the national airspace by September 2015, a report from the IG states. But progress has been held up by a number of technological, regulatory and managerial barriers.
“TRDI’s Baby” ( AW&ST July 21, p. 32) states: “The solution was to develop . . . a set of radial vanes or battles . . .” Shouldn’t this be “baffles”? (The reader is correct—Ed.)
U.S. Navy sailors demonstrated the Electronic Warfare Battle Management (EWBM) for surface defense system during the recent Rim of Pacific (Rimpac) exercise. Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), EWBM “could transform the future of electronic warfare and defense of ships at sea,” Navy officials say. The system helps sailors and Marines coordinate electronic-countermeasure responses to threats faster than is possible through traditional voice communications, reducing the need to respond with expensive munitions, Navy officials say.
Robert Farley’s recent Viewpoint was thought-provoking. Just the money saved by not duplicating individual air forces within five military branches would be huge. He states: “Airpower enthusiasts made dramatic claims for the ability of air forces to win wars without resorting to significant land or naval combat.”
Avic subsidiary Joy Air will expand to more than four times its current size with an order for 30 MA60 regional airliners from sibling Xian Aircraft. Deliveries are due to begin next year. The carrier has eight MA60s in service and, before the latest order, was awaiting delivery of one more. In the new contract, it took options on another 30 aircraft of the type. Avic developed the MA60 by fitting the Antonov An-24 airframe with Pratt & Whitney Canada PW100 engines and other Western equipment. Joy’s network has a main base at Xian, where Avic makes the aircraft.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) expects to increase production of 787 outer wingboxes in 2016 to support Boeing’s plan to build the aircraft at a rate of 14 a month by the end of the decade. MHI, one of three major Japanese suppliers of 787 structures, will expand product facilities at its Shimonoseki Shipyard & Machinery Works and Nagoya Aerospace Systems Works with an investment program to begin in October. The plants are now building 10 shipsets of 787 outer wingboxes monthly.
Two former SpaceX employees have filed a class-action lawsuit in a California court against the company, alleging it failed to notify workers of a mass layoff that was announced in July. California’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires employers to notify workers 60 days before an impending layoff. The lawsuit, filed Aug. 4 in state Superior Court, seeks unpaid wages and interest, including back pay for the failure to provide timely notice. The suit was filed by two structural technicians who worked at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California, facility.
Northrop Grumman will continue supporting the U.S. Air Force’s Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) gateway on its modified Global Hawk Block 20s and on Bombardier Global Express business jets under a new $89.7 million modification to the company’s existing contract, which is worth about $1.2 billion. The BACN payload was developed in 2005 and is used to allow systems in Afghanistan to communicate despite operating on different frequencies or waveforms. Four of the business jets and three of the Global Hawks are outfitted with BACN.
Damage to the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) is hindering efforts to discover why a Spanish-registered MD-83 airliner crashed in Mali last month. French investigators from the country’s BEA safety board, who are leading a multinational team of experts, say damage to the magnetic tape in the CVR has made the recordings from the final minutes of flight AH5017 unusable.
