USAF News

[sapao]

A USAF, ate pelo menos o ano passado, estava desativando a sua frota de helicopteros repassando os CH-53 para os Marines e utilizando o HH-60 até que os MV-22 suplantassem o seu espaço.

[passarodeferro]

Uma parelha de bombardeiros B-52 da USAF sobrevoou a Zona de Identifiação e Defesa Aérea imposta pela China sobre as ilhas Diaoyu/Senkaku no passado fim de semana:

Notícia: http://www.passarodeferro.com/2013/11/e ... aerea.html

[passarodeferro]

Último QF-4 entregue à USAF par uso como alvo aéreo:

Notícia: http://www.passarodeferro.com/2013/12/u ... m1308.html

[arcanjo]

Boeing e Saab anunciam parceria para desenvolver nova aeronave para o T-X da USAF

http://www.defesaaereanaval.com.br/?p=33944


abraços


arcanjo

[passarodeferro]

USAF debate-se com problemas de falta de pilotos e a tendência é para piorar, à medida que a aviação comercial aumenta a pressão e há cada vez menos horas de voo disponíveis devido aos cortes orçamentais nos militares.

Notícia: http://www.passarodeferro.com/2013/12/f ... m1356.html

[passarodeferro]

Oficial de sistema de armas da USAF ultrapassa 1000 horas de voo me combate (F-15E Strike Eagle):

Notícia: http://www.passarodeferro.com/2014/01/1 ... m1404.html

[cabeça de martelo]

USAF Leaders, McCain Clash Over Future of A-10s

http://www.defensenews.com/article/2014 ... upts-Again

Dá-lhes McCain!!!

There was palpable tension in the air during Sen. John McCain’s remarks to US Air Force leadership on Tuesday. A sample of the dialogue between the two sides:
Secretary Deborah Lee James: In terms of the A-10, what is intended to replace the percentage the A-10 was doing in terms of close-air support in the immediate future, would be the other aircraft such as F-16, F-15E and so forth that are ...
McCain: What’s so forth? Tell me again, “so forth.”
James: F15-E, F-16s, B-1 bomber, some of our unmanned ...
McCain: B-1 bomber will now be used for close-air support?
James: It is my belief that the B-1 bomber has done some close-air support in Afghanistan. [pause] So we would cover it with some existing aircraft and of course down the line ...
McCain: That’s a remarkable statement. That doesn’t comport with any experience I’ve ever had, or anyone I know has ever had. See, this is an example. You’re throwing in the B-1 bomber as a close-air support weapon to replace the A-10. This is the reason why there is such incredible skepticism here in the Congress, and believe me, under the present environment — I can’t speak for the committee, I can only speak for myself and several others — you will not pursue the elimination of the finest close-air support system in the world with answers like that. So I hope you will come up with something that is credible for those of us who have been engaged in this business for a long time.
Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh: Senator, can I offer some additional data?
McCain: Sure.
Welsh: The B-1 has been performing close-air support missions in Afghanistan for a number of years ...
McCain: And it has been able to perform a very, extremely limited number of missions of close-air support. General, please don’t insult my intelligence
Welsh: Sir, may I finish my answer?
McCain: Yes.

[hades767676]

Mais de 400 drones caíram desde 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/invest ... m-the-sky/

[akivrx78]

35 anos após a sua chegada a base aérea de Kadena, caças F-15 permanecem potente
Por Matthew M. Burke
Stars and Stripes
Publicado em: 28 de setembro de 2014

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeU7xdUQHrc#t=730

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Capt. Jonathan Mahan is the stereotypical fighter pilot: calm, confident, with a steely gaze and a sharp sense of humor. He has a cool nickname and a mustache so perfectly groomed that it would make “Top Gun” character Goose proud.

However, being an F-15 pilot in the 67th Fighter Squadron’s Fighting Cocks — one of two storied squadrons stationed at Kadena Air Base, Japan — couldn’t be further from a cute cliché.

Its members constantly train to keep their combat skills sharp in case they are called upon by their Japanese allies to defend the island nation or maintain air superiority in the Asia-Pacific.

Monday marks the 35th anniversary of the tactical fighters’ arrival on Okinawa, and despite the aircraft’s age, upgrades have continued to make it one of the most reliable platforms in the U.S. air arsenal.

“It’s the best at what it does,” Mahan said of the McDonnell Douglas Corp. fighter. “It can perform well with just about anything today. We’re training against stuff that’s being built right now.”

For Mahan — dubbed “River” for his Texas hold ’em poker luck — being an F-15C Eagle fighter pilot is a dream come true.

“It’s like an old muscle car,” Mahan said affectionately. “It handles pretty awesome. It can keep up with pretty much everything you can throw at it.”

Threats

The Asia-Pacific is like a high-stakes game of poker, with allies like Japan and South Korea sitting at a table with potential adversaries like North Korea, China and Russia. There’s a lot at stake, so the Fighting Cocks and their comrades in the 44th Fighter Squadron are constantly training for combat.

“I don’t think everyone realizes that here in Okinawa, we’re in everyone’s backyard,” Mahan said.

Lt. Col. William Denham, the 67th Fighter Squadron commander, said the threats in the region are real.

“I think if you look at East Asia altogether and the potentials for conflict that you see in the news … there is a huge potential for conflict in this area, so the U.S. presence here with the Air Force and our joint partners makes a big difference in providing stability,” he said. “So there’s not one specific threat we’re concerned about; there’s a number of them.”

The F-15’s age certainly hasn’t made it any less potent over the years.

“We like to talk about our air-to-air combat record in the F-15 being 104-0, and that is a record that no other aircraft in history has ever had,” Denham said. “We have continued to upgrade it, so especially with our radar today and the modern weapons that we carry, it is still an extremely lethal airplane.”

The standard payload for the $29.9 million F-15C on a combat sortie is six AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles and two AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles, in addition to an internally mounted canon, according to Air Force fact sheets.
History

The first F-15A flight came in July 1972, according to Air Force histories. Four years later, the first Eagle destined for a combat squadron was delivered.

On Sept. 29, 1979, 18 F-15Cs from the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia arrived at Kadena for the 67th Fighter Squadron, whose history in combat stretches back to Guadalcanal, Korea and Vietnam.

The base newspaper exclaimed, the “F-15 Eagle is landing.”

Since then, the Eagle has proudly maintained air superiority in the Asia-Pacific, eventually giving way largely to Japanese Air Self-Defense Force F-15 pilots, who currently fly the intercepts of foreign aircraft infringing on Japanese airspace.

Now, the Kadena jets are what Mahan calls the “break glass in case of emergency” option.

The Fighting Cocks work in close concert with the Japanese. Deployments have ranged from Singapore to the Mideast to Florida in recent years, Mahan said.

Next month, they will be on the Japanese mainland for exercises with the JASDF pilots. They will also train with them on Guam in February.

The reliable choice

Throughout history, new fighter models have rolled off stateside assembly lines seemingly every few years, depending on the day’s technology, wars and threats, according to outgoing Kadena historian Casey Connell. However, thanks to its reliability as a maneuverable bomber and fighter, as well as timely upgrades, the F-15 Eagle always remained the go-to aircraft to maintain air superiority.

“What’s interesting is the evolution of fighter aircraft in U.S. history,” Connell said. “For the F-15 to last 35 years of service is pretty remarkable.”

Mahan likes the F-15 because there are a lot fewer automatic systems than in the newer aircraft, so finesse makes flying it an art form. When he buckles in, he feels like the fighter becomes an extension of his body as he reaches speeds of upward of Mach 2 and heights of 50,000 feet.

Denham likes the Eagle because it is easy to fly and has high survivability in combat. He described how an Israeli F-15 had a wing almost entirely sheared off in a midair collision in the 1980s and was still able to land.

“As far as a combat survivable airplane, it is hands-down probably the best design that we still come up with, and it’s been tested in combat,” he said.

The Fighting Cocks currently hold the Air Force’s Raytheon Trophy, which is awarded annually to the top-ranked air superiority and air defense squadron. Participants are graded on a multitude of factors, from mission performance to inspection results.

Despite the rise and rollout of the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F-15 Eagle isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It will remain an Air Force fixture for at least another 10 years and possibly even longer, according to Air Force fact sheets and members of the Fighting Cocks.

“There are a lot of new platforms,” Denham said.

“No one expected the F-15 to be around this long, but the longer they continue to test the airframe and do in-depth analysis, they’ve continued to find that we are still viable to the fight, and where that ends, nobody really knows at this point.”

burke.matt@stripes.com
http://www.stripes.com/35-years-after-t ... t-1.305485

[Carlos Lima]

Mais F-35, Growlers, etc à caminho com o novo orçamento das FAs americanas...

US 2015 budget deal improves on Pentagon request

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.

On the plus side, the air force will secure $100 million for its new combat rescue helicopter to “help pay down the Air Force identified shortfall in fiscal years 2016 and 2017”, a summary of the bill says.

The service also will net $102 million for a single Lockheed Martin MC-130J special operations tactical airlift aircraft and $90.5 million to fund continued operation of the 31-aircraft fleet of Boeing E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system radar aircraft.

Aircraft development programs also will come out ahead. The air force’s three primary modernization programs – F-35, long-range strike bomber and Boeing KC-46 aerial refueling tanker – all were granted full funding for fiscal 2015. The navy’s unmanned carrier launched airborne surveillance and strike (UCLASS) also will receive full funding.

The army's aviation branch will receive an extra $341 million to upgrade up to 12 additional Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and nine Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks. The bill also “limits” the transfer of Apaches from the national guard to active units – part of the Army’s aviation restructuring plan – until enactment of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... st-406974/

[]s
CB_Lima

[cabeça de martelo]

3502 MILHAS SEM REABASTECIMENTO

http://www.passarodeferro.com/2015/03/3 ... m1809.html

[DSA]

Northrup Gruman apresentou o design do novo Bombardeiro de devera substituir substituir B1 B2 e B52 ate 2030
http://www.defensenews.com/story/breaki ... /80976160/

[cabeça de martelo]

Air Force Faces Rocky Road Ahead For Replacing the A-10
Valerie Insinna

WASHINGTON — Two years after the Air Force tried to force its aging A-10 Warthog fleet into retirement, officials are exploring whether to procure a potential replacement for the aircraft famed for its powerful defense of troops on the ground.

But whether the service chooses a clean-sheet design or tries to modify a currently available jet, experts say the service will face an uphill battle in terms of getting funding during a tight fiscal climate where it may have to battle other modernization programs for money ­– despite hopes that foreign customers may be interested in such an aircraft.

The Air Force in recent years has had a complicated relationship with the Warthog, the common name given to the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. The service attempted to retire the plane in fiscal 2015 and 2016 due to the spending constraints caused by mandatory budget cuts, and was rebuffed by Congress both years. Finally, in its fiscal year 2017 budget request, it opted to retain the aircraft until 2022 in part due to the platform’s utility in the fight against the Islamic State.

Both the outgoing and incoming Air Force chiefs of staff have been banging the drum for a follow-on close air support (CAS) aircraft in recent weeks, describing one that would be cheaper to operate and incorporate modern technologies. That would require an expansion of the service’s budget, former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told reporters days before his June retirement.

“I'd like to build a new CAS airplane right now while we still have the A-10, transition the A-10 community to the new CAS airplane, but we just don't have the money to do it, and we don't have the people to fly the A-10 and build a new airplane and bed it down,” he said.

Starting a new program is never easy, but the service doesn’t necessarily have to spend huge amounts of time and money to develop a new platform, he told Defense News in an exclusive interview earlier in June.

“I think you can do it much quicker than people think you can,” he said. “We don’t have to come up with sensors and weapons that are cosmic. That’s not what we need. We’re talking about something that can do the bulk of the low threat, maybe a little bit of medium threat work in rugged environments all over the world.”


DEFENSE NEWS
USAF Has Big Plans, But Little Money, For 'Warthog' Replacement

Welsh’s likely successor, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein, told a Senate panel in June that the service needs to retain the A-10 for the time being, but begin thinking about how to conduct close air support in the coming decades.

“My focus is going to be on ensuring that I go back to the doctors of CAS, the A-10 fleet and the A-10 operators, and say what is the future of close air support? That is the conversation we need to have,” he said. “We need to maintain what we have for the current fight, but where are we going in the future?”

Export Opportunities

In his interview with Defense News, Welsh said he believed the development of a new close air support platform could generate numerous foreign military sales.

“It’s something we can teach our allies to fly, something we could probably sell overseas. There’s lots of air forces looking for this kind of capability,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of interest in lots of places to developing this kind of a platform."

Analysts, however, were skeptical that an A-10 replacement would find a wide market, particularly if it was a single-mission aircraft.

“The A-10 is arguably the best CAS aircraft of its generation, yet to date the U.S. has remained the only operator,” Douglas Barrie, IISS senior fellow, said in an email. “At a time when defense spending in many countries remains under pressure, finding the resource for a single-role platform, rather than a multi-role combat aircraft, strikes me as a challenge.”

Talking up the export potential of a new CAS plane is beneficial to the Air Force if it can get industry to start investing their own funds into new designs or concepts, said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of the Teal Group. However, most countries would rather funnel their money to multi-mission fighter jets.

Some analysts even suggested the Air Force’s newfound enthusiasm for replacing the A-10 with a new CAS plane should be understood as a backdoor approach to finally mothballing the Warthog for good.

"It's pure and simple a way of rationalizing the A-10s retirement,” Aboulafia said. “And I'm not saying I'm against the A-10’s retirement. I think on balance, I might be for it. But the only way to resist the intense political pressure associated with the A-10’s retirement is to conjure up an imaginary CAS acquisition program."

Dan Grazier, a fellow at the Project on Government Oversight, agreed that talk about procuring a new CAS platform was probably “a ploy to call off the dogs” and retire the A-10, but said it was unlikely that Congress would fall for it. Enough lawmakers on Capitol Hill understand the value of the A-10 to block the plane’s retirement until a replacement capability has made it through development and hopefully into full-rate production, he said.

However, Mark Gunzinger, senior fellow at the Center for Budgetary and Strategic Analysis and a former Air Force colonel, disputed the idea that Welsh and Goldfein’s comments represented a veiled attempt to retire the jet. Instead, they should be seen as a “huge signal” that the service remains committed to the close air support mission, he said.

CAS Platform of the Future

If the Air Force does press on with a new program, the service will have to establish what capabilities will be needed to perform the CAS mission in a more highly contested environment. Potential adversaries in the Asia-Pacific and Europe already maintain capable air defenses, but Middle Eastern and African state and nonstate actors also are gaining access to more sophisticated weaponry capable of bringing down a slow, low-flying aircraft like the A-10, Gunzinger said.

With that in mind, an A-10 replacement should look a lot like an F-35, Gunzinger said: stealthy, capable of data fusion with other aircraft, and with the ability to fire off a variety of precision-guided munitions, including joint direct attack munitions and small diameter bombs,

Couldn’t the F-35 just be used for close air support missions, as was the Air Force’s original plan? “The Marine Corps thinks so,” Gunzinger said, but added that another option is to develop an A-10 replacement with lower operating costs than the F-35, perhaps with less stealth and a larger payload.

Technology has leapt forward since the Warthog was fielded in 1977, opening the door for a variety of improvements that could be integrated onto a new jet.

“Why is it that I only get a minute and a half of trigger pull on a 30mm [cannon]? Why don't I get 10 minutes, and why is not every bullet precision guided?” Goldfein asked during his confirmation hearing. “Why do I have to spend so much time figuring out who is friend and foe on the ground when we have technology to be able to help us do that? Why is it that I have to do all the work for collateral damage estimates when I have a machine that can help me do that?”

Welsh, for his part, opined that a future CAS plane could look very similar to the Warthog, albeit cheaper to fly at about $4,000 to $5,000 per flying hour. The aircraft would provide a near-constant defense of troops on the ground in low to medium threat environments, and it would spit out different kinds of a munition like a “flying Coke machine” dispenses soda.

"You have a Coke machine overhead, you put in a quarter, and you get whatever kind of firepower you want, when you want it. In a perfect world that's close-air support of the future,” he said.

Either a clean sheet design or an existing one could meet the service’s requirements, depending on the presumptive schedule or cost, Welsh said.

The Warthog is the only purpose-built close air support plane in existence, which makes it difficult to find a direct replacement already on the market, Aboulafia said. Embraer’s Super Tucano remains popular among countries that operate in permissive environments, such as Chile or Brazil, and offers a lower operating cost than the Warthog, which drains about $20,000 per flight hour. But the A-10 is much more capable for the CAS mission than the Super Tucano, he said.

Another option continually floated as a potential Warthog replacement is Textron AirLand’s Scorpion, a multi-mission attack jet that can be purchased for $20 million and flown at $3,000 per flight hour.

However, Aboulafia said he was not convinced acquiring the Scorpion would generate any substantial cost savings, given the upfront expense of having to purchase new planes during a budget crunch. Any added capability would also be minimal, he said.

“You've just spent a whole bunch of procurement cash to vastly dumb down your CAS with a jet that's even less survivable? Bravo. Someone here deserves a medal,” he said.

The Air Force has a long list of platforms it plans to buy over the next decade—including the F-35, the B-21 bomber, the KC-46A tanker and a combat rescue helicopter, to name just a few—and those platforms rightly are optimized for future fights against near-peer competitors with anti-air capabilities, Aboulafia said. But if the service truly believes it needs to maintain a single-mission CAS plane for low-threat missions in the Middle East and elsewhere, it should consider a simpler option: keeping the A-10 and modernizing it as needed.

“It’s the best you're going to do given the budget environment, and it’s eminently upgradable,” Aboulafia said, adding that a new engine could boost the Warthog’s range and survivability. "If they choose to actually devote cash into a unique system, that's complete strategic-thinking poverty, pure and simple.”

Gunzinger was more supportive of buying a purpose-built A-10 replacement, but the service should not rush procurement of a new aircraft during the near term, when so many acquisition programs are in their beginning stages. Until those programs mature, “fly the wings off the A-10,” he said.

Email: vinsinna@defensenews.com

[akivrx78]

The US Air Force may make history and buy this ridiculously cheap jet

David Choi

Armed Scorpion Jet from Textron AirLand Textron AirLand's armed Scorpion. Courtesy of Textron AirLand

Years after initial development, Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II finally seems like it's well on its way to enter the US's fleet of fighter jets. That doesn't necessarily mean, however, that the US Department of Defense isn't seeking alternative jets to supplement its squadrons.

According to Defense News, the US Air Force announced that it would begin testing aircraft that were not planned to be in its inventory. After signing a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Textron AirLand, the Air Force will begin a series of tests to determine if Textron AirLand's flagship jet, dubbed "Scorpion," will be airworthy.

"This is the first of its kind, we have not done a CRADA like this before and we have never had a partnership with industry to assess aircraft that are not under a USAF acquisition contract," an Air Force representative said in a statement from Defense News.

The Scorpion is a different beast compared to the other jets around the globe. Starting with its cost, Textron AirLand's president, Bill Anderson, said in a Bloomberg video, "The Scorpion ... was designed to be very effective and very affordable."


Textron AirLand Scorpion Courtesy of Textron AirLand

"The goal was to create a very mission-relevant aircraft for today's security environment that's below $20 million in acquisition costs, and below $3,000 an hour to operate," he said.

By comparison, a Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) costs about $13 million and $1,500 per hour to operate, while the conventional F-35A costs $98 million per unit and $42,200 an hour in 2015.

The Scorpion features a tandem cockpit and a composite airframe in order to keep its weight and costs down. In addition to its twin turbofan engines that are able to achieve a flight speed up to 517 mph, it houses an internal payload bay that's capable of holding 3,000 pounds.

"It's quite maneuverable," said Scorpion test pilot Andy Vaughan. "It reminds me of my days when I used to fly the A-10 in the US Air Force."


First Flight Anniversary of Textron AirLand’s Scorpion Courtesy of Textron AirLand

From start to finish, the construction of the Scorpion was kept secret to maintain a competitive advantage. Nevertheless, the secret wasn't kept very long: Textron AirLand was able to conduct testing soon after the aircraft's conception.

"In a classic DoD acquisition program, they can spend up to 10 years just developing and fielding an aircraft — and we've done it in less than two," Anderson said.

But it's still too early to determine whether this move by the Air Force will also move the sale of Scorpion units in the US and abroad. According to Defense News, the program has attracted only one potential customer.

http://www.businessinsider.com/air-forc ... jet-2016-7

[arcanjo]

26 jul 2016
USAF quer novos modelos para substituir A-10

Por Tecnodefesa


A-29 Super Tucano é forte candidato ao AO-X (Imagem: USAF)

A Força Aérea dos Estados Unidos (USAF) está pensando em dois novos modelos de aeronaves para as missões de suporte aéreo aproximado, incluindo soluções prontas para operar em diversos ambientes com baixos custos, dotados de design simples para substituir seus Fairchild Republic A-10.

Durante briefing, a USAF divulgou seus planos correspondentes aos programas OA-X e A-X2 para substituição, a curto prazo, dos seus A-10.

Com relação ao AO-X a pretensão é para que um lote inicial de 20 aeronaves seja encomendado em 2017. Com propósito de atender com rapidez as necessidades da USAF, dois modelos estão sendo examinados, o AT-6 da Beechcraft e o A-29 Super Tucano da Embraer.

De acordo com o portal Flight Global, o jato de ataque leve e treinamento Scorpion da Textron Airland foi excluído como opção do AO-X por ainda estar na fase de desenvolvimento.

Com a revelação das possíveis aquisições, a USAF invalidou as discussões correspondentes ao emprego dos futuros jatos de treinamento do seu programa T-X para cumprirem missões de suporte aéreo aproximado. As declarações da USAF deixaram claro que a intenção é adquirir dois modelos de plataformas, ou seja, AO-X e A-X2, além do T-X.

O AO-X deverá voar em missões contraterrorismo em áreas como Iraque, Síria e Afeganistão. O perfil das missões terão como característica voos a médias altitudes com armas ar-solo capacitadas para determinado nível de precisão, como por exemplo, foguetes guiados a laser Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System da BAE Systems.


A USAF também analisa o AT-6 da Beechcraft (Imagem: USAF)

Vale lembrar que a USAF, no âmbito do programa Light Air Support (LAS), está repassando para a Força Aérea do Afeganistão aeronaves Super Tucano equipados com canhões .50 e bombas guiadas a laser de 250 libras.

Com relação ao AX-2, a USAF está caminhando para uma aquisição também relativamente rápida, mais barata e que poderia estar operacional dentro de cinco anos. A aeronave seria projetada para uma vida útil de 20 anos e dispensaria custos adicionais de longo prazo, tais como de programas para extensão de vida útil.

Ivan Plavetz
Fonte: Flight Global

http://tecnodefesa.com.br/usaf-quer-nov ... tuir-a-10/

abs.

arcanjo