India Spending Almost $25 billion for Next Aircraft Carrier

The Indian Navy is moving ahead with a big-ticket proposal for acquiring its third aircraft carrier which is expected to cost around Rs 1.6 lakh crore along with the additional component of 57 fighter aircraft.

The Navy has one operational aircraft carrier in the INS Vikramaditya while another one, INS Vikrant, is under construction at the Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) and is expected to join service in the next few years.

“The Navy is planning to field its Rs 70,000 crore proposal before the defence ministry in near future which will cost around Rs 1.6 lakh crore at the approval stage itself along with the fighter plane component and the actual costs will go higher further as the programme moves ahead,” government sources told Mail Today.

The Navy has plans of buying 57 twin-engine fighter planes for the third aircraft carrier for which American F-18 and French Dassault Rafale are in the race.

“If one goes by the cost of the 36 Rafales acquired for the Air Force, the 57 planes are not going to cost us less than Rs 90,000-95,000 crore,” the sources said.

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Some think it is a waste.

US Air Force is NOT Looking to buy 72 new 4th Generation Fighters

The US Air Force has denied any plans to purchase another tranche of Lockheed Martin F-16 or Boeing F-15 combat jets following reports it could seek bids for up to 72 new aircraft.

According to comments attributed to a senior US Air Combat Command official at an international fighter conference in London last week, the current Lockheed F-35 procurement plan could prove unaffordable, and another fighter wing of F-15s, F-16s or perhaps even F/A-18s is being considered to supplement the current fleet – which will serve into the 2040s as F-35s are delivered.

The air force is seeking 1,763 F-35As through 2038, and in the interim it intends to modernise and upgrade its F-16s and F-15s with new active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars and electronic warfare systems.

Asked to categorically confirm or deny any new fighter purchase, a spokesman for the service’s acquisition office says: “At this time the air force has no plans to acquire 72 new F-15s or F-16s, although the air force is always looking at options to be prepared for a dynamic global security environment.”

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Boeing Hints at F/A-18E/F Sales to Kuwait

Boeing on Saturday gave its strongest indication yet about a near-term sale of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to Kuwait, although the world's second-largest weapons maker said lower oil prices were delaying some arms purchases by Gulf states.

"There are things that we're waiting on... those things are going to be cleared and we think they're going to be cleared soon," Boeing's Paul Oliver said in response to a question on whether discussions about a reported $3 billion F/A-18 deal with Kuwait talks were making progress.

Oliver, vice-president of international business development in the Middle East and Africa for Boeing's defense business, did not name Kuwait specifically.

The United States has not publicly acknowledged talks to sell Boeing fighters to Kuwait, but sources familiar with the matter have said it is in negotiations about selling 24 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to the Gulf nation in a deal valued at over $3 billion.

Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters they hoped it would clear final regulatory hurdles before the end of the year.

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Apparently the deal is being held up the US government giving approval.

Some Naval and Marine Aviation News, Including UCLASS, From DOD Authorization Act

Here's a short list:

1.  6 Additional F-35Bs for the US Marine Corps, bring their total for 2016 to 15.

2.  12 Additional F-18Es for the US Navy.

3.  An additional MQ-4C Triton.

4.  $350 million for UCLASS (navy asked for $135M).   Up to $305M may be used for competitive prototyping and at least some of it is supposed to be used for the X-49B testing to reduce the risk of UCLASS.  The committee also said:

“The conferees believe that the Navy should develop a penetrating, air-refuelable, unmanned carrier-launched aircraft capable of performing a broad range of missions in a non- permissive environment. The conferees believe that such an aircraft should be designed for full integration into carrier air wing operations—including strike operations—and possess the range, payload, and survivability attributes as necessary to complement such integration,” according to the statement.

“Although the Defense Department could develop land-based unmanned aircraft with attributes to support the air wing, the conferees believe that the United States would derive substantial strategic and operational benefits from operating such aircraft from a mobile seabase that is self-deployable and not subject to the caveats of a host nation.”

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The Stealthy Franken Super Hornet is Something Odd

go read.

US Navy Asks Congress for Additional 12 F/A-18E/Fs and 8 F-35Cs Outside of Normal Budget

The U.S. Navy included 12 Boeing Co F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets and eight Lockheed Martin Corp F-35s on a list of "unfunded priorities" prepared for Congress, defense officials and other sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The Navy's list was reviewed by senior Pentagon officials and the Joint Chiefs of Staff this week, and should be sent to U.S. lawmakers in coming days, said the sources, who asked not to be named because the vetting is still under way.

Top Pentagon officials are skeptical about the weapons wish lists, and worry they help lawmakers "cherry pick" specific weapons programs to fund, while crowding out bigger priorities. However, they say they will not stand in the way of the military services complying with requests from lawmakers.

The total value of the additional 12 Boeing jets is around $1 billion, while the eight extra Lockheed jets would be just over $1 billion, the sources said.

A decision by Congress to fund the extra Boeing jets as part of the Navy's fiscal 2016 budget would help the company extend its St. Louis production line beyond the end of 2017, although it was not immediately clear for how long.

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New Pentagon Budget Adds Aircraft, Ships

Military aviation officials and defense contractors will have a merry Christmas if the $1.1 trillion fiscal year 2015 budget is approved as agreed upon on 10 December passes both houses of the US Congress.

The Department of Defense netted $93.8 billion in procurement funding, of which $31.9 billion is slated for aircraft purchases by the air force, army and navy.

Congress authorised the purchase of a total 38 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs, nine more than were bought in fiscal year 2014 and four more than the Obama administration requested. The order funds two additional F-35As for the air force at $224 million and two F-35Cs for the navy at $255 million.

The navy also will receive authorisation to purchase 15 Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft for $1.46 billion. Those aircraft were not included in the navy’s 2015 budget request, but the service included atop its list of unfunded priorities. Twelve EA-18Gs were added into a bill passed by the House that died without a vote on the Senate floor.

Though it rewards the navy, the bill denies the air force authority to retire its Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolts by funding the fleet’s maintenance at $337.1 million. The plan, pitched as a cost-saving measure by a cash-strapped air force, met with strenuous opposition on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have been promising to preserve the A-10.

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Additionally, The Ohio SSBN Replacement was also fully funded and a new LPD-17 San Antonio Class Amphib was also paid for.  UCLASS naval UCAV  was fully funded (with some restrictions) and the Long Range Strike Bomber was also fully funded.

Canadian Government Report Questions Utility of F-35 Purchase Given "Canadian engagement in future state-on-state conflicts will be highly unlikely"

A new Canadian government report suggests other fighter jets are just as capable as the Lockheed Martin F-35A at fulfilling the nation’s most likely mission needs, potentially opening the door to a competitive acquisition process to replace a fleet of 77 Boeing CF-18s.

Four aircraft – the F-35, the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon – were compared in the report, called the Evaluation of Options for the Replacement of the CF-18 Fighter Fleet.

Each was assessed on its ability to carry out six mission sets including defence of Canadian airspace, responding to an “international event”, such as the Olympics, in Canada or a terrorist attack, peace enforcement, humanitarian disaster relief and state-on-state war fighting.

All aircraft were deemed low-risk candidates to perform each of the missions up to 2030 and beyond, except in fighting another peer nation. In that category, all the aircraft were deemed a higher risk platform beyond 2030 and none distinguished itself.

Canada does not intend to fight state-on-state wars and rated that contingency as highly unlikely. In the state-on-state war fighting mission, the range was from low to significant in the first timeframe and medium to high in the second timeframe “largely due to the higher level of potential threat confronting fighter aircraft in that mission and the evolution of those threats”, the report says.

“The mission needs analysis undertaken as part of the evaluation of options makes clear that Canadian engagement in future state-on-state conflicts will be highly unlikely,” the report says.

It is more likely that Canada will join in on coalition military actions not “clearly defined state-on-state warfare or explicitly humanitarian assistance missions but rather, as in the case of Libya or Kosovo, something in between,” the report says.

For now, the Harper Administration in Canada still intends to buy 65 F-35s beginning in 2020. Its third annual report on the cost of potentially replacing its fleet of CF-18s with the jet assumes an average per-unit cost of $88.9 million over the period of acquisition. That tallies up to a total $45.8 billion over the life cycle of the fleet, a $141 million increase over the estimate in the 2013 report.

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Because James' Tears are Delicious to me: Leak of Canada's Next Fighter Procurement

Canada is likely to choose between two major U.S. firms when it buys a new fleet of jet fighters, excluding two European competitors, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.

The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 stealth fighter and Boeing Co's F-18 E/F Super Hornet were deemed more suitable for the variety of tasks the military has laid out.

The source said that while the F-35 had scored well on the various tests laid out by the military, the Super Hornet was almost as capable and had the advantage of being cheaper.

If so, the choice would mean the widely expected elimination of Dassault Aviation SA's Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon, jointly made by BAE Systems PLC, Finmeccanica SpA and Airbus Group NV.

The fighter selection has proven enormously problematic for Canada's Conservative government, which in 2012 scrapped a sole-sourced plan to buy 65 F-35s for C$9 billion ($8.3 billion) after a parliamentary watchdog savaged the decision.

Ottawa then set up a special secretariat to compare the merits of the four contenders. It is deciding whether to hold a competition or go ahead with the initial plan to buy F-35s, which could prompt accusations that it was acting in bad faith.

The secretariat was not asked to make a recommendation about which jet to buy, but the new revelations will likely bolster the increasing conviction in Ottawa and Washington that the F-35 remains the front runner.

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Joint X-47B & FA-18E Operational Tests on the USS Roosevelt

Write up link.

Belgium Offers RFI for F-16 Replacement

The Belgian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has issued a request for information (RFI) to five foreign government agencies regarding various aircraft that could replace the national air force's ageing F-16 Fighting Falcon fleet.

Several defence ministry officials were quoted by Belga News Agency as saying that the RFI does not commit to a future purchase nor to the selection of a specific aircraft, but "aims to gather information" beyond the open-source data used for initial evaluation.

One of the sources said that the RFI was issued following approval from the outgoing defence minister Pieter De Crem, and does not mention the number of aircraft to be acquired.

Issued to the Joint Program Office (JPO), the Navy Integrated Program Office (NIPO), the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) of the French Ministry of Defence, the Swedish Defence and Security Export Agency (FXM) and the UK Ministry of Defence, the RFI marks the first step in a process that will lead to the acquisition of a new fighter before the retirement of the F-16s starts in 2023.

While JPO is in charge of Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II programme, the NIPO, DGA, FXM and UK MoD look after Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet, Dassault Rafale, Saab JAS-39 Gripen, and Eurofighter Typhoon multi-role combat aircraft, respectively.

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Is the US Navy Waffling on the F-35?

Boeing’s recent strategy to question the effectiveness of the F-35’s stealth capabilities against the latest air defense radars brings to mind similar questions that were raised about another expensive next generation stealth aircraft about 13 years ago.

In 1991, Pentagon tests found that Northrop Grumman’s B-2 Spirit was less capable of evading radars with its stealth bat wing design than initially expected. These problems along with cost overruns cut the B-2 program by more than 70 percent.

The Air Force had planned to field 75 of the B-2 bombers, but Congress ended the program at 21 aircraft as costs skyrocketed. If you include all procurement costs, the B-2 cost $929 million per aircraft. It almost makes the F-35 sound like a steal with its procurement costs at $162 million per aircraft.

However, the current debate deals with the F-35 and doubling down on more EA-18 Growlers to increase the Navy’s electronic attack capabilities. Boeing has pushed the Navy to buy more Growlers. The Navy has requested 22 Growlers in its unfunded priorities lists with the possibility of buying up to 50 more.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said its a top Navy priority to increase the number of Growlers aboard each carrier from five to seven. The logic had been that with F-35Cs, the Navy’s need for electronic attack aircraft would diminish, not increase. But that’s assuming the Navy stays on board with the Joint Strike Fighter Program.

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F-35 not Capable to Fight Without EF-18G Support?!

Stealth is being outpaced by software, radar and computing power so electronic warfare and cyber attacks are growing in importance. So the F-35, though it may possess excellent — if circumscribed — electronic attack and cyber capabilities, needs help from the Navy’s EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft.

That means, Boeing and the Navy are arguing, that the Navy needs more of the electronic attack versions of the F-18, known as the Growler, to fly with the F-35 on the first day of combat to protect the F-35 and to help protect the service’s precious carrier strike groups.

“The Growlers were highlighted as a priority need by the Chief (of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert) in his request to Congress. Our assessment is that the DoD needs 50 to 100 additional Growlers, so we will continue to work with Congress to add 22 Growlers to the Fiscal Year 2015 budget and later with the Navy for future Growlers to be inserted into the baseline Fiscal Year 2016 budget in the next cycle,” Mike Gibbons, the Boeing vice president in charge of the F/A-18 and EA -18G programs, said in a statement.

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