Copters' Missile Threat (and How to Stop it)

We do not have any direct evidence that insurgents in Iraq are using advanced surface-to-air missiles (sometimes called MANPADS – from MAN-portable Air Defense System); just best guesses, for now. But with the loss of five (and maybe even six or seven) helicopters in quick succession -- and an insurgent video apparently showing the latest loss to be a missile casualty -- the possibility needs to be considered.

Early MANPADS like the Russian SA-7 are fairly primitive, homing in on exhaust heat. As they steer towards the hottest object in their field of view, they can easily be lured away by decoy flares (or even the sun).

With more advanced missiles, it becomes a game of cat and mouse between the electronics in the missile seeker head and the countermeasures seeking to confuse it. Advanced seekers can not only discriminate flares from engines, but they can be smart enough to home in on the source of the flares. Advanced laser-based countermeasures like CLIRCM do not blind or dazzle seekers as is sometime supposed, but produce a signal which generates false targets and sends the missile off course.

Some missile makers claim that their seekers can beat all known countermeasures; some countermeasures manufacturers claim to be able to defeat all known missiles.

Certainly better missiles need better countermeasures. It's interesting that the proposed defenses for civilian airliners against terrorist MANPADS only goes up to the level of Stinger Basic, a technology now 20 years old.

Earlier missiles were intended to get close enough to have some chance of damaging an aircraft with shrapnel; modern warheads are contact fuzed, indicating that they are expected to actually hit the target. And hit in a specific place: the missile can discriminate between single-engine, multi-engine aircraft and helicopters and select the optimum point of vulnerability. The recent models are designed to send a dense pattern of high-speed fragments through the target for maximum damage, and the explosion may be enhanced by fuzing which detonates any unused fuel. Their destructive power is formidable.

This leads to last-ditch defenses like aim-point biasing, relatively cheap countermeasures (compared to the multi-million dollar laser jammers) to get the warhead to strike the less flight-critical parts of a helicopter and make the difference between a hit that results in a hard landing and one that destroys the helicopter completely.

Another way of dealing with the threat is to gets the MANPADS first. While Rules of Engagement are unlikely to be changed to alow helicopters to open fire at will, the AirCrcaft CounterMeasures (ACCM) laser provides one option. This is a laser dazzler fitted to helicopters to illuminate potential threats on the ground. The laser makes it much harder to target a helicopter, but more significantly the reaction of the person targeted gives a clue as to whether they are an insurgent getting ready to fire or an innocent civilian.

Another new approach, Ares notes, is DARPA's Battlefield Helicopter Emulator, an expendable decoy drone which produces the same noise and heat signature as a real helicopter. It may seem like an expensive option -- but losing helicopters is a far more costly prospect.

Helicopters operate at low speed and low altitude, making them especially vulnerable to MANPADS. Heavy armor is not an option except for attack choppers like the AH-64 Apache; transport, utility and scout craft carry much lighter protection. And in Afghanistan, even the Soviets' armored Mil-24 Hind gunships proved vulnerable to Stinger MANPADS.

The situation in Iraq has its parallels with the conflict then. The main importance of new missiles would not be in shooting down helicopters, but on the morale of both sides. The Mujahideen took new heart that the previously invincible ‘Devils Chariot’ could be defeated. Soviet helicopter crews found themselves facing an opponent who could shoot back, and were forced to adopt more evasive tactics which limited their effectiveness.

A similar decrease in effectiveness could happen in Baghdad.

"Based on what we have seen, we're already making adjustments in our tactics and techniques and procedures as to how we employ our helicopters," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell was reported as saying earlier.

Previously, US helicopter cover has prevented insurgents from operating from rooftops. If exposing helicopters becomes too risky, then that cover will be more limited. In this way, just a handful of MANPADS could have a significant impact on the ground battles. Which makes the timing of these latest helicopter losses -- just before the surge of US troops arrives for a make-or-break operation in Baghdad -- highly significant.

(My thanks to Jim O'Halloran, editor of the authoritative Jane’s Land Based Air Defence for providing an insider view on this topic.)

-- David Hambling

Bump: New Weapon Targeting Copters?

I've put this post back up at the top of the site, after today's tragic events in Iraq.

When three American copters crashed over Iraq in about a week, Kiowa Warrior pilot ME chalked it up to dumb luck and thinly-armored aircraft. Now that a fourth and a fifth have been shot down, ME is having second thoughts. It could be that Iraq insurgents have gotten their hands on a new, more deadly strain of surface-to-air-missiles (SAMs), he thinks.

"Sunni militants" have recently boasted that "'God has granted new ways' to threaten U.S. aircraft," the AP says. And that could be a major problem for U.S. commanders, the wire service observes, in another story. American forces "rely heavily on helicopters not only in combat but also to move soldiers and supplies around the country. Helicopters have been used more and more as the war progressed to avoid a bigger threat from roadside bombs."

The latest helicopter casualty, an Apache, "exploded in a ball of fire" on Friday, according to witnesses.

"That's unlikely to happen due to small arms fire," ME says, "and the odds of hitting an Apache heads on with an unguided RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] are pretty slim."

The fuel cells are crashworthy, and unless they are hit by something like an API (armor piercing incendiary - like a .50 cal or higher) shell, I don't think they are going to explode. Hitting munitions onboard isn't likely to make a fireball either. But the explosion of a SAM hitting it might look like a fireball.

If a copter pilot does get attacked by an advanced SAM, he has a couple of ways to defend himself. He can fire off flares to confuse heat-seekers. He can set off radar or infrared jammers. Or he can fly "NOE" ("Nap of the Earth"), very low to the ground, following the contours of the landscape. That "minimize[s] the amount of time to acquire, and shoot a targe -- whether it's an AK[-47 assault rifle], RPG, or SA-7/14/18 [SAM]," according to ME.

But in training for Iraq, ME recalls, "we weren't too worried about SAMs... [W]e didn't think they had very many of them, in operating condition, in the hands of trained users. The more likely threat was massed fire from the vastly more common AK and RPG."

That threat assessment seems to be changing, quickly. "Based on what we have seen, we're already making adjustments in our tactics and techniques and procedures as to how we employ our helicopters," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told reporters.

But there are only so many changes that can be made. These copters don't have a lot of armor. And not much more can be added, without "trading off fuel, weapons, or some other weight," ME notes. "Helicopters are already at very near their max weight... Improved electronics/avionics would help save a lot of weight, but most pilots would rather have the improved flight performance that reduced weight provides, rather than more armor."

"The real problem," he adds, "is the idea of using an anti-armor bird like the Apache or a scout like the Kiowa to slug it out with insurgents on the ground. Neither were really built for it, and the pilots aren't trained for it (unless its done at the individual unit level). TF160 [160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment] teaches and trains the best air to ground engagement tactics, but the rest of the aviation community doesn't get the ammunition, or range time to really teach it."

OK, sure. But now that we're in this counterinsurgent fight, what choice do those pilots really have?

UPDATE 02/08/07 11:10 AM: "The two military and intelligence sources believe al-Qaeda has organized a grouping of cells [with a mission of] deny[ing] Coalition forces the free use of helicopters to ferry troops, resupply outlying areas, and conduct assault missions," Bill Roggio reports.

Al-Qaeda wants to force Coalition forces to use ground transportation, where it believes heavier casualties can be inflicted on U.S. forces via roadside bombing and mine attacks (IEDs). Helicpoter shoot-downs also "make for compelling television," according to a military source, which "helps project the image of a deadly, unbeatable enemy." Al-Qaeda is believed to have deployed multiple anti-aircraft cells along the known overflight routes in and around Baghdad.

The cells are thought to be armed with Russian made Strela SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles, a first generation shoulder fired anti-aircraft missile which is widely distributed throughout the world. These weapons are not as sophisticated as U.S. made Stingers, which were used with deadly consequences by mujahideen in Afghanistan against Soviet fixed and rotary wing aircraft. U.S. aircraft have systems to deter missile threats (jammers, flairs, chaff) but there are no reports these systems were deployed during any of the engagements.

Giant Blimp Deflated; Laser Jet Delayed

The big weapons -- the destroyers, the aircraft carriers, and the stealth jets -- all emerged pretty much unscathed in the Pentagon's latest budget. Some of the more bleeding-edge projects weren't so lucky. Especially at the Missile Defense Agency, which took about a half-billion dollar hit for fiscal year 2008.

Take the High-Altitude Airship, for instance. Just a year ago, the Pentagon handed Lockheed a $150 million contract to build the missile-spotting dirigible. No, it wouldn't be 25 times bigger than the Goodyear Blimp, as originally planned. Nor would it be powered by lasers. But it would still be built to "hover above the jet stream at an altitude of 65,000 feet for months at a time." That is, if major advances in solar panels, fuel cells, aerodynamic controls, and flexible materials could be overcome.

Lockheed won't get the chance any time soon, however. The High Altitude Airship "has been canceled due to funding constraints," according to the Missile Defense Agency. But get too distraught, blimp-lovers; the budget for the Aerostat Joint Program Office just jumped from $243 million to $481 mil.

The Airborne Laser -- the modified 747, meant to zap missiles as they take off -- still gets more than $500 million in the new budget. But its first live-fire test has been delayed, again. Originally scheduled for 2002, the blast has now been rescheduled for 2009, Inside Defense notes. The Laser Jet's alternative -- the "Kinetic Energy Interceptor," a non-explosive interceptor missile -- has been pared back, as well. There's no longer a "kill vehicle," or warhead, part to the program, Defense News observes. Instead, the KEI has been tweaked, to become a "common booster" for all sorts of missile interceptions.

There's much, much, much more in this budget to explore. Expect lots of posts in the week to come.

Osprey Ready for Primetime? Part Two

Like a bad stain, it seems the V-22 Osprey can't wash away the stigma that it's crash-prone. The main culprit: so-called vortex ring state, a circulating, donut-shaped air flow that can cut a copter's lift, almost instantly. VRS helped down a pair of Ospreys seven years back, killing 23. And those blood spots should be hard to get out. But how accurate is the recent criticism that the V-22 remains dangerously and uniquely susceptible to VRS and blade stall?

After months of flight testing, the Marine Corps and Osprey's makers, Boeing and Bell Textron, said VRS is no more of an issue than for other rotorcraft: something that pilots need to be aware of, but not something they should freak about. And it's not something that only test pilots are qualified to avoid. Contrast that with Lee Gaillard's critical report which depicts VRS as a monster waiting to devour any distracted pilot who wanders outside of a very narrow arrow of the flight envelope.

What's the objective bystander to think? Gaillard makes much ado about how the Osprey is limited to vertical descents of 800 feet per minute (only 9.1 mph, he emphasizes). He says such a slow descent would make the Osprey a fat target in a hot landing zone. But 800 fpm is a meaningless number when separated from horizontal speed; and the report never mentions that the 800 fpm limitation only applies when forward airspeed is less than 40 knots.

Above 40 knots, the limit on vertical descent grows dramatically until, in full airplane mode, the Osprey can, like any airplane, drop like the proverbial brick. NAVAIR says the 800 fpm-descent limit at less than 40 knots applies to ALL Marine Corps helicopters, and that flight testing showed that the V-22 doesn't get close to VRS until 2000 fpm. Furthermore, the V-22 can swoop in from high altitude at more than 200 knots and not start slowing down until it's a minute and a half from the landing zone, minimizing its exposure, says NAVAIR. And it's 75 percent quieter in aircraft mode than the CH-46 and CH-53 it's supposed to replace.

But what does the Navy know? For comparison, look at the UH-60 Black Hawk. A Black Hawk pilot told me he sometimes sees 2500 fpm descents when coming into an LZ doing 60 or 70 knots. That's a vertical speed of 28 mph (only!), but apparently it's no problem for the ubiquitous, beloved and combat-proven Black Hawk. Why would anyone think a V-22 carrying 60 knots forward airspeed would be any worse?

So while critics are all hung up on 800 fpm, it's really no big deal. The Gaillard brief has lots of information, but, in the end, creates more heat than light. At least on this issue. For his work mapping the V-22's VRS envelope, Boeing test pilot Tom Macdonald was honored by the Society of Experimental Test Pilots in 2003. Macdonald wrote the book on VRS and how fleet pilots can avoid it. I met Macdonald, an ex-Navy helo pilot, at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who would hide facts that would endanger other pilots or Marines. Ditto for his testing partner, Marine Col. Kevin Gross, who has written a detailed piece about the V-22 and VRS.

Is the Osprey perfect? No, but what aircraft is and who defines perfection anyway? Is it a widow maker as its critics claim? If yes, than it seems doubtful that VRS will be the culprit. But the jury is out. While it seems Osprey critics may be wrong about VRS, that doesn't mean their other criticisms are off the mark. Make no mistake: the Osprey is a historic achievement. But it is crazy expensive and still has flaws such as its lack of defensive firepower and a pressurized cabin, which will seriously reduce its advertised range and speed while carrying troops. The question is whether those issues can be fixed or whether operators can find practical ways to work around them. We'll wait and see what the guys who fly and fight in it have to say.

--Ron Laurenzo, cross-posted at War Is Boring

Starving Iran's Tomcats

The U.S. government has stepped in to halt the auctioning of spare parts for the Northrop Grumman F-14 Tomcat fighter jet, Defense News reports:

The sales of all F-14 parts were suspended on January 26 pending a review, the Defense Logistics Agency said in a statement. Dawn Dearden, a spokewoman for the agency, told AFP the sales were frozen “given the current situation in Iran.” Iran bought 79 F-14s from the United States before the fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979. The move comes amid growing U.S.-Iranian tensions over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program and what Washington sees as Iranian subversion of U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.

Not to mention Iranian agents have been fingered in the recent Iraq commando raid that killed five U.S. troops, according to The New York Times:

Investigators say they believe that attackers who used American-style uniforms and weapons to infiltrate a secure compound and kill five American soldiers in Karbala on Jan. 20 may have been trained and financed by Iranian agents, according to American and Iraqi officials knowledgeable about the inquiry.

With a confrontation looming, the U.S. is trying to strangle the Iranian air force in advance of a bombing campaign. As I reported last year at Defense Tech, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force has managed to maintain or even increase its combat power despite embargoes:

All told, the IRIAF flies as many as 300 fighters. All are older designs, but have been maintained and, in many cases, upgraded by the indigenous aerospace industry, which has become proficient in reverse-engineering weapons and spare parts -- and perhaps even engines. And the IRIAF has aerial tankers too -- a force multiplier only the most advanced air forces maintain.

Iran's air defense network would be a tough nut to crack, even with our F-22 fighters and aircraft carriers. We could do it, of course, but probably not without loss. But then what?
And don't forget: there is still no direct evidence of state-sanctioned Iranian meddling in Iraq. If there is, our government hasn't entrusted us with it.

-- David Axe, cross-posted at War Is Boring

Armor Lack Behind Copter Crashes?

Three American helicopters have gone down in Iraq in a little more than a week. Is there anything behind this collection of crashes? Or is just lethal coincidence -- part of what happens when troops do something death-defying, over and over again? I asked Defense Tech pal ME, a former Kiowa Warrior pilot who served in Iraq, to weigh in with his thoughts.

I haven't heard of any reason as to why we're losing more lately, but we also haven't lost any in a long time prior to this - I think it's reflective of somewhat of the odds catching up to us and an increased combat operations tempo.

[That said], I would point out that US helicopters aren't that heavily armored. [Something David Axe noted about last week's Blackwater copter crash -- ed.] They have blocks of armor protecting some key parts of the engine, and crew compartments, but it's not nearly comprehensive. Most don't have flare systems, and their only active countermeasure against IR missiles is an ALQ-144 jammer. Relatively speaking, there is very little protection from direct small arms hits.

In my opinion, our greatest threat was from small arms and RPGs while operating at low altitude and low airspeed. My troop was under standing orders not to fly above 500 feet AGL (above ground level) or under 60 knots - and never hover unless absolutely necessary. At low altitude - we felt that it was key to minimize the time available to acquire us as a target. We used the ALQ's but at the time I was there, we didn't see much threat from SAMs [surface-to-air missiles]. Towards the fall of 2003 we did start getting more reports of SAM engagements - spiral smoke trails arcing up, rather than lob shots from RPGs, but in our flight regime, AK's and RPGs were the biggest threat.

The Kiowa Warrior... has very little armor [see the pics]. The Blackhawk is similar, and the Apache has relatively more. A friend of mine who was a troop commander in the (in)famous deep strike to kick off OIF said the only positive from that mission was that they learned that the Apache could soak up a lot of small arms fire and keep flying. When you look at the armor though, it's easy to see how a few small arms rounds in the wrong place can bring a bird down.

There are some other issues with the ALQ-144. Some of them are classified. Some are mundane: they're difficult to keep operational in the desert, and must be cleaned to be effective. They also must be turned off and on as part of a landing checklist (see my next point). The Blackwater birds don't appear to have them at all. If there are new supplies of SAMS coming in, they may be much more effective than RPGs and AKs.

…Complacency kills, especially in an environment as unforgiving as Iraq is. With high temps and flying at high gross weights, there is little performance margin. Combat maneuvers take power, and familiarity (read boredom) take their toll, even on experienced pilots. After a few months, I could fly from Baghdad to Al Asad without a map, and knew every neighborhood in between - and it made me too casual at times, about mission prep and procedures. As pilots go back for repeat tours, they may fall into that even more quickly.

"Since May 2003, the U.S. military has lost 54 helicopters in Iraq, about half of them to hostile fire," according to the AP.

Osprey Ready for Primetime? Part One

“It’s a great aircraft, powerful, stable, twice as fast as a Frog and goes over six times as far.” That’s Lieutenant General. John G. Castellaw, the Marine Corps’ Deputy Commandant for Aviation, comparing the new Bell/Boeing MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor to the 40-year-old Boeing CH-46 “Frog.”

More than 20 years after beginning development, and seven years after a spate of crashes that killed 30 people, the $130-million-per-copy Osprey is finally prepping for its first combat deployment. One of the Marines’ two operational squadrons will head to Iraq or Afghanistan sometime this year. Meanwhile, deliveries continue to the Marines and the Air Force, with more than 50 aircraft in service against a planned total of 410.

Despite the Osprey program’s advanced state, critics are still calling for its cancellation. None have been more vociferous than the wonks at Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C. On January 18, freelance writer Lee Gaillard presented his CDI-backed report V-22 Osprey: Wonder Weapon or Widow Maker. “This glitch-plagued program … is poised to reveal fundamental flaws that may cost even more lives.”

* The Osprey is prone to stalling while descending at 800 feet per minute or faster
* The cabin is too small to haul the advertised two squads (around 26 Marines)
* The cabin isn’t pressurized, limiting how high it can fly with troops
* Its range is no greater than that of many heavy helicopter designs
* Lacking guns, it’s vulnerable in hot landing zones

Many of these flaws were revealed in the military’s operational evaluation that wrapped in 2005. Still, the Pentagon cleared the Osprey for service. Gaillard chalks this up to “unstoppable political momentum” resulting from the Bell/Boeing team lining up contractors in 45 out of 50 states.

Of course, the military contests Gaillard’s claims. It says that after the bugs were ironed out, the Osprey not only works – it’s revolutionary.

I'm on the fence. On one hand, I’ve been around long enough to know that defense contractors sometimes lie … and that the Pentagon sometimes lets them get away with it. On the other hand, last year I heard a similarly scathing CDI brief on the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighter jet, a brief that didn't really match with what I saw, once I had paid a visit to a Raptor squadron to see for myself. So while the documents Gaillard offers as proof – military evaluations, Government Accounting Office reports (PDF!), etc. – I'd like to make up my own mind, thank you very much. In this series, I'll try to nail down: Is Osprey right for emerging missions in the Long War?

-- David Axe, cross-posted at War Is Boring and Ares

ALSO:
* Tilt-craft Still not Ready to Fly
* Osprey Springs a Leak
* On its Way
* Osprey Cleared for Take-Off
* Osprey OK'd

Merc Chopper Shot Down (Updated)

The tens of thousands of foreign mercenaries fighting alongside coalition soldiers in Iraq aren't just tooling around in up-armored SUVs sporting submachine guns. These guys have got helicopters too that they use to escort convoys -- and one of them has just been shot down over Baghdad, according to the Associated Press:

Five civilians died in the Baghdad crash of a helicopter owned by the private security company Blackwater USA, according to a U.S. military official. The helicopter was shot down Tuesday over a predominantly Sunni neighborhood, a senior Iraqi defense official said. The crash came three days after a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter crashed northeast of Baghdad, killing all 12 soldiers aboard.

Blackwater should have seen this coming. Unlike U.S. military helicopters, which are armored and equipped with countermeasures to defeat shoulder-fired missiles, Blackwater's McDonnell Douglas MD-369FF Loaches are essentially defenseless, unless you count the two mercs hanging out the cabin doors with their rifles.

Note that Blackwater's choppers -- which fly from the same Green Zone helipad used by the U.S. Army and Marines -- are just civil versions of the Hughes OH-6 Cayuse that the Army began phasing out after the Vietnam War due to their vulnerability. U.S. Special Forces fly updated H-6s, but only at night, when it's safer. It's not clear what time of the day the Blackwater bird was shot down, but I've witnessed these choppers buzzing around in broad daylight.

It's too early to tell what this shoot-down means for Blackwater and for merc ops in Iraq. But one thing's for sure: with the military struggling to scare up another 20,000 troops for its so-called "surge," the demand for private soldiers isn't going away.

UPDATE 1/24/07: Four of the dead Blackwater men were apparently killed execution-style, perhaps after surviving the chopper crash, while the fifth was a member of a second chopper crew also at the site of the crash. All this according to the Associated Press:

In Washington, a U.S. defense official said four of the five killed were shot in the back of the head but did not know whether they were still alive when they were shot. The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. ...

Another American official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said three Blackwater helicopters were involved. One had landed for an unknown reason and one of the Blackwater employees was shot at that point, he said. That helicopter apparently was able to take off but a second one then crashed in the same area, he added without explaining the involvement of the third helicopter.

The New York Times, citing unnamed American officials, reported that the helicopter's four-man crew was killed along with a gunner on a second Blackwater helicopter.

--David Axe, crossposted at War Is Boring

UPDATE 01/24/07 11:01 AM: Who do ya trust?

Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, an industry group that includes security contractors, said the type of helicopter downed, known as a "little bird," is among the safest modes of transportation in war zones.

"Their crews are the best -- they really know their stuff," he said in an e-mail. "They are very good at avoiding fire, flying low and fast -- and the tiny helicopters are very hard to hit."

Doug is a nice guy. But I'll put my money on Axe as the more objective observer.

UPDATE 01/24/07 11:07 AM: Robert Young Pelton has details on the incident -- and recent footage of Blackwater choppers in action.

New "X" Plane's Twisty Wings

The wings on the Air Force's latest experimental "X" plane can't stay on straight. And that's a good thing.

The X-53 -- formerly known as the "Active Aeroelastic Wing research vehicle," or AAW -- is pretty much your standard /A-18 fighter jet. Except its wings are flexible, twisting as the plane races through the air at transonic speeds -- and giving the plane better maneuverability, in the process.

Every plane's wings bend a little, when air pressure hits 'em. But that "aeroelastic effect" is usually a bad thing for the aircraft, dragging it down. So, "traditionally, air vehicles have been designed with stiff geometry in order to minimize aeroelastic instabilities," the Air Force notes.

The X-53, on the other hand, is built from the start to bend with the wind. Its flaps, ailerons, and actuators are repositioned, so that the air pressure bends the wing in a way that provides lift, instead of drag. A thinner skin allows the outer wing panels to twist up to 5 degrees.

The idea, a NASA fact sheet observes, dates back to the earliest days of flight.

When Orville Wright first took to the air on Dec. 17, 1903, he didn't have ailerons or flaps to control his airplane. Instead, the Wright brothers had chosen to twist or "warp" the wingtips of their craft in order to control its rolling or banking motion. Rather than using one of the craft's two control sticks to make the wingtips twist, they had devised a "saddle" in which the pilot lay. Cables connected the saddle to the tips of both wings. By moving his hips from side-to-side, the pilot warped the wingtips either up or down, providing the necessary control for the Wright Flyer to make turns.

The X-53 -- a cooperative effort between the Air Force Research Lab, NASA, and Boeing's Phantom Works, in the works since the beginning of the decade -- should give engineers "more freedom in designing more efficient, thinner, higher aspect-ratio wings for future high-performance aircraft while reducing the structural weight of the wings by 10 to 20 per cent," NASA says. "This will allow increased fuel efficiency or payload capability, along with potentially reduced radar signature. The technology also has application to a variety of other future aircraft, such as high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft, transports, and airliners."

(Big ups: AF Daily Report)

JSF's First Flight, Cut Short

Uh-oh. America's brand-spankin', new, whiz-bang stealth jet, the Joint Strike Fighter, "took off for the first time Friday but landed about 30 minutes into a planned hourlong flight," according to the AP. Murdoc has some pics.

So Long, Key West

The Secretary of Defense, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, dropped in at our FOB in Iraq on Saturday, and I got to ask him some questions. On the subject of the Key West Agreement -- the one that splits the skies between the Army, Air Force, and Navy -- Mr. Rumsfeld said that people in the Pentagon do not operate under "antiquated agreements." So I guess that means the Key West Agreement is no longer in force. It's open season for Army Aviation!

One glaring gap in Army aviation is in the light attack role, currently filled by the AH-64 Apache, designed in 1972. As aviation programs now take decades to develop, we need to start looking at the follow-on Apache replacement.

Apache ably fulfills its primary role, which is conducting anti-tank ambushes in the deep battle against enemy armor formations in approach march. However, it is doubtful if we will ever see a hostile enemy armor formations in an approach march situation in this century. The Army's needs will be close air support, armed reconnaissance, and helicopter escort, which Apache does right now. However a fixed wing platform like the old OV-10 will be more efficient at these missions most of the time. In general, helicopters require more maintenance per flying hour than fixed wing aircrafts. On an engine thrust basis and fuel consumption basis, prop-driven fixed wing aircrafts are more efficient than helicopters in delivering payloads. For a given payload, a fixed wing aircraft is cheaper than a helicopter. With a stall speed of 55 mph, the OV-10 can take on the slower spectrum of helicopter missions. What helicopters give you is the ability to VTOL, which is not a requirement in the light attack mission set. In fact, the only reason the Army went into the attack helicopter game in the first place was because of the Key West Agreement.

An attack helicopter can operate from a very small forward arming and refueling point to increase sortie rate, but the Army does not use small FARPs very often. In a fast-maturing theater like Iraq, the FARPs rapidly evolve into full-on Army Airfields, rivaling the size of Third World air force bases. On the Army airfields, there is plenty of space for the 400-meter runway a light attack plane like OV-10 might need.

[Edited to add: My bad, FARPs don't evolve into army airfields. The aviation brigade assembly areas become army airfields. However, the OV-10 can make the round trip to the airfield before an AH-64 comes back on station from a FARP.]

Army aviation's experience in Iraq provides evidence supporting a prop-driven fixed wing platform. Apache crews trained to fire their weapons from a hovering position, reflecting the anti-tank ambush scenario. However, in the 360 degree security environment in Iraq, a hovering helicopter will quickly draw fire from hidden insurgents. Apache crews now use a shallow dive when they deliver their munitions to minimize exposure to ground fire. Since we're not hovering to fire anymore, an OV-10 would do much better for our missions here.

I am not advocating the elimination of attack helicopters. The ARH will be very useful, and it will fill the missions where the light attack plane is not as optimal. And there are many situations where a Ka-50 may out-perform an OV-10. For the follow-on platform for the Apache, though, we should opt for a prop-driven fixed wing aircraft.

-Jimmy Wu

Coasties Cover D.C.

Sometimes they buzz my apartment on the summit of Columbia Heights in northwest Washington, D.C. They're bright red with white stripes and black noses, and they make a noise like giant lawnmowers. They're Eurocopter HH-65C Dolphins belonging to the U.S. Coast Guard, and they've inherited an unusual mission, patrolling the skies over the nation's capital to intercept infiltrating light aircraft like the one that crashed onto White House grounds in 1994.

It used to be this mission belonged to the Customs Service's air branch (PDF!) with its sharp black-and-gold Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawks, aka "Customshawks". Sharpshooters aboard the aircraft could, in a pinch, put a bullet or twelve into the infiltrator's engine to prevent it crashing into anything important such as, oh, my apartment. Or my favorite breakfast spot. Or Congress.

But Customs has been busier now that it has merged with the Border Patrol and finds itself responsible for 2,000 miles of porous southern border. And besides, the Coast Guard has, in recent years, refined the so-called "airborne use of force" mission using a small squadron of MH-68 choppers based in Jacksonville, Florida. These nimble birds are ideal for chasing down drug smugglers' fast boats and positioning snipers to shoot out their engines so Coast Guard cutters can move in for an arrest. It was a small step for the Coast Guard to perform a similar mission using its standard HH-65 rescue choppers, targeting airplanes instead of boats. Details about the D.C. detachment are classified, but the choppers' presence is pretty obvious when they're flying right overhead.

Five years ago, armed Coast Guard helicopters were a rarity. But the service has beefed up since 9/11 to tackle a wider range of increasingly lethal threats, from smugglers to terrorists and even, while deployed alongside the Navy, waterborne insurgents. The future of warfare is looking more and more like policing on steroids. So the nation's coastal cops are becoming more like warriors every day.

I went flying with an HH-65 unit over Atlantic City this week. It was great fun. Check out my Flickr stream for pics.

--David Axe

Look Out Below!

Sikorsky cuts quality control inspectors from 70 to 8. Chopper rotor blades start "depart[ing] the aircraft." The POGO Blog has details.

Recon Planes vs. I.E.D.s

Since the Iraq insurgency began, the U.S. Air Force has been looking for ways to use its planes to fight roadside bombs. Electronic warriors like the EC-130H Compass Call jam frequencies used to set off explosives. Drones patrol highways, looking for new, suspicious mounds along the road. Sometimes they even take out the bomb-planters.

Inside Defense reveals another Air Force tactic: Using ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) aircraft "to help coalition units round up insurgent cells believed to manufacture lethal improvised explosive devices."

Military officials -- working backward using surveillance video -- were able to successfully trace IED placers’ moves using targeting pods and ISR aircraft like the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), Lt. Col. Clint Hinote said during a Nov. 21 telephone interview...

[T]he Air Force has used its surveillance assets to find insurgent IED makers, as opposed to solely working to find or disarm the deadly devices, Hinote said...

“You can have a security camera in the sky,” he said. “We actually have aircraft that have that capability of just taking shots of what’s going on.”

After IEDs detonate in places like Iraq or Afghanistan, Air Force ISR officials begin marking tapes of radar sweeps in an attempt to pinpoint the explosion, he said. They then essentially rewind the tapes, trying to discover any movements in the specific area prior to the blast.

“Maybe you can find the car that was involved and backtrack it to a certain house,” Hinote said. “We’ve got several ISR assets that right now are working on this backtracking plan.

“That’s actually led to a couple of good successes where we’ve rounded up some IED cells,” he added.

The ultimate goal is to track the IED maker to a bomb-making equipment storage location -- “and then even further back,” Hinote said.

Pimp My Gunship 2: Directed Energy

The AC-130U Spectre is a byword for high-precision fire support. But equipping it with directed energy weapons (DE) will take close air support to an entirely new level. The technological breakthrough needed to get there is a radical $22m superconducting generator which the Air Force will demonstrate by 2009 and which is specifically indended to fit on a C-130.

Instead of conventional copper wiring, the generator uses metal foil coated with superconducting material. This can carry very high currents with no loss, making it suitable for high-power uses. Maintaining superconductivity means staying at low temperature, requiring a liquid nitrogen cooling system.

Driven by a turbine, the new generator is about the size of a small beer keg, and is designed to generate five megawatts. Power sytems based on existing generators weigh over 20,000 lbs, the new system should cut that in half. It will also pave the way for further improvements and even smaller and more powerful generators.

The suggestion of a laser-armed F-35 has also been floated, but this is much less practical for attacking ground targets. A laser or other DE weapon can take several seconds of 'dwell time' to be effective, so what is needed is an aircraft which can keep a weapon aimed at the same point for an extended period -- exactly what AC-130s do best.

DE weapons have a deep magazine, as they can keep firing for as long as the fuel supply lasts. Ivan Oelrich, director of strategic security programs for the Federation of American Scientists, estimates here that "To operate a thing like that requires a few tons of fuel per hour."

To get the benefit of this sort of firepower you need an aircraft which is going to stay around over the battlefield rather than disappearing after a few passes. Again, the job is tailor-made for the AC-130, and there have been several proposals for weapons that the generator could drive:

- Electric lasers are already looking likely to supercede the primitive and toxic chemical oxygen iodine lasers like the one developed for the Airborne Laser and Avanced Tactical Laser. Last month Northrop Grumman unveiled Vesta, a 15 kW electric laser which can run for twenty minutes at a time. This is a major step towards achieving the Joint High Power Solid State Laser Program's goal of a 100 kW solid state laser weapon in FY 2007. Such a weapon would have sniper-like accuracy, being able to pick out one person from a crowd or destroy pinpoint tagets like aerials or radar without collateral damage. The weapon could fire continuously extended periods, creating a significant morale effect, and the 5-Megawatt generator could power several beams at the same time.

- The Active Denial System, the Air Force's non-lethal beam weapon which hurts without harming. A high-power version mounted in an AC-130 would have a variety of uses, providing for the first time a non-lethal means of dealing with distubances on the ground. I'll be looking more closely at this one later in the week. More advanced non-lethal RF weapons may also be in the pipeline.

- A High Power Microwave Weapon (HPM), a directed-energy beam weapon equivalent of the "e-bomb" which destroys electronics at a distance. It would also be useful for knocking out command centres, air defense sites and other targets which depend on electronics -- like television stations -- without harming anyone. It would also be a formidable tool for interdictiction: an HPM-armed Spectre could flying down a hundred miles of road and knock out every single vehicle on it.
However, with this sort of weapon there is a big risk of 'friendly fire' accidents and this is likely to be a major issue.

The civilian suprconducting generator program ground to a halt earlier this year when GE dropped its $27 million generator program, a move which "leaves the superconducting generator concept squarely in the hands of the military," according to Mark Bitterman, Executive Editor of Superconductor Week. This means Air Force's superconducting generator program will take on new significance as the sole source of this technology. There is a growing demand for small, powerful and efficient generators and electric motors -- and yet again the military are pioneering technology which will have much wider use.

-- David Hambling

Pimp My Gunship - 1: Get Smart

Does a slow, Vietnam-era gunship have a place on the modern battlefield? Can you upgrade the old warhorse into a 21st century charger?

The fixed-wing gunship idea goes back to barnstorming flyers who invented to the ‘pylon turn,’ pointing one wing at an object such as a pylon on the ground as they turned around it (...there is quite a story behind this one). By extension, if you have weapons firing out of one side of the plane they can maintain accurate fire on a fixed point even though the plane is moving at relatively high speed. The idea worked well in Vietnam, and now the latest version of the gunship is the AC-130U Spectre, packing a 105-mm howitzer, a 25mm 1,800-round-a-minute Gatling gun and a 40mm Bofors gun. It can provide impressively accurate fire support; this video from Iraq apparently shows one destroying moving vehices outside a mosque without hitting the building.

To F-22 Raptor enthusiasts who think air power should be supersonic and stealthy, the Spectre might look like a dinosaur. It’s slow and noisy and has to come in close to the target, making it vulnerable to portable SAMs. But the old-style Spectre could be the basis for an ultra-modern gunship, according to Bill Elliot of the Naval Surface Warfare Center. His Future AC-130 Gunship Integrated Weapons Systems Concept is the cutting edge of close air support.

The basic idea is to upgrade from dumb, short-range munitions to smart long-range ones. Out goes the 105-mm howitzer in favor of a 120mm smoothbore – you’d call it a mortar, except that a downward-firing mortar is weird. Add to it racks of smart Viper Strike glide bombs. And instead of relying on onboard sensors, the Spectre will be able to launch its own fleet of drones to locate and designate targets. This increases the range at which targets can be engaged from 3 miles to 15 miles or more, so opponents will no longer be able to hear the Spectre coming before it strikes.

Pallet-loaded Dominator UCAV/munitions might also be a useful addition to the mix; in fact, the Future Spectre could be a veritable Arsenal Aircraft carrying a range of weapons and drones depending on the mission.

Instead of short-range, high-volume firepower, it will be delivering long-range precision strikes. Both Viper Strike and the XM395 120mm smoothbore rounds can be laser guided, with designation can come from the aircraft itself, from accompanying drones or from ground troops. Targets under hard cover can be destroyed rather than just suppressed, with "top floor, third window from the left" precision.

There are plenty of other ammunition options for the 120mm smoothbore - it can fire a full range of mortar rounds. This includes developments like the M971 cargo round, which can saturate an area the size of a football pitch with bomblets, a gun-launched UAV, and even non-lethal rounds delivering CS gas and flash-bangs for crowd control. New monopack containers reduce the packaging weight by 60% and significantly increase the amount which can be carried. This should greatly increase the versatility of the Spectre. But it is the precision strike which will make the biggest difference, greatly increasing the chances of single-shot kills and so extending the number of targets that can be engaged.

Instead of orbiting around a fixed point and firing at a sngle target, the upgraded Spectre will be able to tackle multiple targets at dispersed locations simultaneously. And the accuracy of that fire will be enough to destroy targets under cover rather than suppressing them, as well as preventing 'friendly fire' accidents and collateral damage. In effect, Bill Eliot is bringing 'smart bombs' to the gunship, which could increase its effectiveness as much as precision-guided bombs have for strike aircraft.

Eliot quotes a memo from the Secretary of Defense:

"We need more weapon systems like the AC-130, where the ordnance can be directed in a more precise way”

What better solution than an upgraded AC-130? The Future Spectre is still doing the same job as before, providing close air support to those who need it most, but doing it better. But it would be the heart of a network which includes drones, munitions and ground troops. It will continue to provide the persistence, firepower and high precision that has earned the Spectre its reputation. And it will be able to do it all from a range that greatly reduces risk to the aircraft.

It may not be the vision of those who want to conduct airstrikes from mach 1 and 50,000 feet, but when things get messy on the ground, then a gunship with smart weapons looks like a very good investment.

-- David Hambling

Personal Copter, Lifespan-Chopper

Feel like you've lived a wee bit too long? Looking for a spectacular way out -- one that'll keep your family crying in disgust for years on end?

Well, has Popular Mechanics got a gizmo for you: the personal helicopter. This $30,000, assemble-yourself "Gen H-4" mini-chopper relies on "two blades on the same axis and rotating them in opposite directions to counteract each other's torque, eliminating the need for a tail rotor."

The contraption meets "the FAA's rules for ultralight aircraft: a top speed of just over 60 mph and a 5-gallon gas tank, for about an hour of flying. That means you don't need a license to own or fly one."

Oh, joy!

Pop Mech is also featuring a slightly safer model, just in case you want to take a few trips before the big crash.

Bombs Over Afghanistan

Today's Times has a fascinating story out of Afghanistan. Well, more like above it, really. Reporter David Cloud hitched a ride on a "B-1 bomber orbit[ing] at 20,000 feet, responding to radio calls from American and Canadian troops who asked the plane to use its radar to watch for insurgent forces and to be prepared to drop bombs."

The Air Force has conducted more than 2,000 airstrikes in Afghanistan over the past six months, a sharp increase in bombing that reflects the growing demand for American air cover since NATO has assumed a larger ground combat role, Air Force officials said...

The NATO forces are mostly operating without heavy armor or artillery support, and as Taliban resistance has continued, more air support has been used to compensate for the lightness of the units, Air Force officials said. Most of the strikes have come during “close air support” missions, where the bombers patrol the area and respond to calls from ground units in combat rather than performing planned strikes...

To carry out the heavier mission load, the Air Force’s entire complement of B-1 bombers was shifted over the summer from the British air base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to a Middle Eastern airfield closer to Afghanistan. The new basing arrangement shortens the flying time to Afghanistan by two hours, allowing bombers to remain overhead for longer periods between refueling by aerial tankers...

The 2,095 attacks by American aircraft since June is many times greater than the number of airstrikes in Iraq, where the terrain and nature of the conflict are less susceptible to bombing campaigns. There have been only 88 attacks by American aircraft in Iraq since June, according to Air Force figures. Unlike in Afghanistan, insurgents in Iraq are largely in urban areas and do not often mass in groups large enough to warrant use of airstrikes, Air Force commanders said.

I think we al know how effective close air support can be. But is it really a substitute for having fewer troops on the ground?

Chinooks To the Rescue

Boeing's HH-47 Chinook has won the $10-billion CSAR-X contest to provide 141 Combat Search and Rescue choppers to the Air Force, beating out the Lockheed Martin US.101 and the Sikorsky H-92. The new birds will replace around 100 decrepit Sikorsky HH-60G Pavehawks that are too small, too flimsy and underpowered. As Boeing puts it in a press release,

The tandem rotor, heavy-lift, high-altitude HH-47 is based on the CH/MH-47 Chinook transport helicopter, with performance capabilities that have been widely demonstrated in the ongoing global war on terrorism and in numerous U.S. and international humanitarian relief operations.

Damn straight. When the Pavehawk was procured, C-SAR was all about nabbing downed fighter pilots from Soviet-held Germany -- a short-range mission in a cool climate requiring minimal lifting capability. These days C-SAR is about much more: reinforcing outnumbered ground troops on some distant mountaintop, spiriting noncombatants away from a remote warzone and plucking hurricane survivors off rooftops. That takes speed, range and powerful engines, things the Chinook has in spades.

The award comes hot on the heels of a search-and-rescue shuffle that saw the Pavehawks and their crews get bumped from the regular Air Force to Special Operations Command then back. It was SOC that favored the HH-47, and this preference apparently stuck despite the reshuffle.

The decision means that the 40-year-old Chinook design will remain in production until around 2020 at least. In addition to the new Air Force models, the Army is buying 400 new CH-47Fs and Special Forces MH-47Gs ... and international customers are starting to line up too.

--David Axe

Boeing Goes Begging ... Again

When the Air Force threatened last year to cap production of Boeing's C-17 airlifter, a major cash-cow, the company freaked out -- and wasted no time blackmailing Congress with the threat of lost jobs. (C-17 production employs 25,000 people in many states.)

The result? Last month Congress tacked another 10 of the $200-million C-17s onto the program, for a grand total of 191. Combined with foreign sales to England (5), Australia (4), Canada (4) and NATO (3-4), this keeps the Long Beach, Calif., C-17 plant humming until 2009.

But, already, Boeing is begging for more USAF orders, with an eye to sustaining C-17 production until the company can secure civil or more foreign orders, as reported in Aerospace Daily:

The next opportunity to secure more C-17s will occur in the second FY '07 supplemental, which is expected to be at least $40 billion if not more. Top defense officials are scheduled to finalize their request in November. Otherwise, industry representatives can try for more funds under regular FY '08 budgetmaking, which will be hammered out between the White House and the Pentagon by the end of the year.

Lawmakers forcing airplanes onto the military is not a new phenomenon -- nor is it always unwelcome. For decades, the Air Force has counted on Congressional add-ons to top off its Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules fleet. (Congress likes the C-130s because they keep a lot of people employed and because they're good state-level assets.) But with the C-17, the Air Force seems genuinely reluctant to divert too much cash to further production, as it's struggling to find money for the upcoming Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning, the new KC-X tanker and another long-range bomber.

But it's not that the Air Force doesn't need the C-17s. The fleet is too small as is, Aerospace Daily continues:

Onlookers suggest the Pentagon did not take into account the heightened need for airlift to support natural disasters, homeland security missions and perhaps of most concern, the Army's Future Combat System deployments. The Army's shift to a U.S.-based expeditionary force will allow it to use smaller vehicles and network-centric systems, but industry officials question whether the Pentagon has taken into account how this strategy will affect its need to have airlift at the ready to quickly react to situations around the globe.

It's proof of the bleak budget picture that the Air Force is resisting airplanes it truly needs for other airplanes it needs even worse.

--David Axe

Axe Hearts Marines

So I'm a tacair junkie. Sue me. And of all the U.S. tactical air forces, the Marines' small force flying Boeing F/A-18 Hornets and Boeing AV-8B Harriers is my favoritest. These guys pull off minor miracles every day with ancient airplanes, a tiny budget and operational commitments (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan and aboard Navy aircraft carriers) that keep them very very busy.

On top of this, the Marines must be ready for a wide range of contingencies, perhaps requiring forced entry against a conventional foe flying sophisticated fighters. To that end, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 312 "Checkerboards" based in Beaufort, South Carolina, is honing its dogfighting skills with live missile shoots, exercises against adversary fighters and by sending pilots to Topgun at Fallon, Nevada. I go into detail over at Military.com:

"Is there an air-to-air threat in Iraq? No. but if we start training just to fight right now, when that fight's over, something else pops up and we're unprepared," says Major Bruce "Flesh" Gordon, a 34-year-old Checkerboards pilot with more than 1,600 hours in the Hornet. He says the Marine Corps' small community of 14 Hornet squadrons -- each flying a dozen jets and half of which are based in Beaufort -- needs to be ready to deploy on 48 hours' notice to cover Marines storming some foreign shore to meet an unexpected threat.

"If a [Marine] commander wants to make a landing in, say, Bashir, Iran, he needs a secure beachhead. He won't have that if the Iranians are launching [Sukhoi Su-25] Frogfoot [attack planes] and [F-4] Phantom [fighters]," 34-year-old Captain Hank Thomas says by way of a hypothetical example.

Hopefully that example never becomes a reality. But if it does, the Marines will be ready.

-- David Axe

Falcon Fills Blackbird's Shoes

A decade after the final retirement of Lockheed Martin's Mach-3 SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, the Air Force is preparing to test a plane that flies more than three times as fast. Two Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicles, built by Lockheed Martin with input from NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), will take to the air in 2008. The $100-million program aims to field a Mach-10 unmanned aircraft that can spy on foreign powers, drop bombs or even lob satellites into orbit.

The Blackbird, which was first retired in 1990 then briefly resurrected between 1995 and 1997, reached its Mach-3 top speed by way of its hybrid Pratt & Whitney J-58 engines, which featured a conventional turbojet engine installed inside a ramjet optimized for supersonic flight. At low speeds, the turbojet did most of the work; at high speed the turbojet throttled back and the ramjet took over.

Engineers are improving on this so-called "combined cycle" to propel the Falcon, using a more powerful "scramjet" in place of the ramjet. "We need propulsion that transitions seamlessly from Mach 0 to Mach 9 or 10," says Lockheed Martin's Bob Baumgartner.

"For low speed, we're looking at turbine engines that can perform at speeds from Mach 0 to Mach 4, then a scramjet ... that takes over anywhere between Mach 2 and Mach 4 and goes up to higher Mach numbers -- depending on the fuel, up to Mach 10," says Steven Walker, a Darpa researcher. "For sure, we know how turbines work, but we don't have turbines that work at Mach 4."

"The scramjets are still at a low-technology readiness level," he adds. "Combining both flow-paths and looking at how you transition from one to the other and the transition back ... that's all new, break-through technology."

"Thermal protection ... is the next major enabling technology," Baumgartner says, referring to ways of coping with the high temperatures that Mach-10 flight generates. "We're looking at durable metallic thermal protection panels to withstand heat and keep it away from structure. We're also looking at ceramic panels."

Foil insulation is an option too, he continues. And for the engines, developers are looking at new ceramic or metal-alloy coatings that can withstand temperatures reaching thousands of degrees.

Lockheed Martin's Craig Johnston, who works on a hypersonic engine project, sees many applications for Falcon and similar vehicles. "I can easily envision this technology eventually making its way into advanced aircraft ... something like long-range strike aircraft, supersonic bombers or future fighters."

Darpa also foresees using Falcon to cheaply launch small satellites. "Falcon will develop a low cost, responsive Small Launch Vehicle that can be launched for $5 million or less," an agency statement reads. "The SLV will be capable of launching small satellites into sun-synchronous orbits and will provide the nation a new, small-payload access to space capability."

--David Axe

Paint-On Antennas Take Off

The military would like to use blimps as eyes -- and cell towers -- in the sky. But, for the plan to really work, the antennas attached to those airships have to be light, flexible, and fit perfectly on the blimp's hull. And so far, building those antennas has been hard to do.

A crew of Air Force-funded companies has a new approach: paint-on antennas that can be slopped right on the side of an airship. The goop is "a combination of polymer-based dielectrics and highly conductive paint," Aviation Week says. And during a recent flight test, a spherical blimp with "paint-on electromagnetic antennas communicated voice and data to an Iridium Global satellite."

The key, apparently, is a product called Unishield, a coating which "creates an electrical field that can be specifically tuned to absorb or reflect radar frequencies." Which means that the stuff can not only be used to make paint-on antennas -- but can create magnetic fields to make planes more stealthy, too.

Drones, Blimps Lose Out in Border War

For those of you hoping for hordes of drones and blimps to start patrolling the Mexican and Canadian borders, there's bad news this morning. "After a face-off among large military contractors, the Boeing Company was picked by the Homeland Security Department to lead a high-tech effort to secure borders," the Times reports. And unlike proposals from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and others, Boeing's plan for the Secure Border Initiative, or SBInet, doesn't rely that much on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or airships.

"Boeing's proposal relied heavily on a network of 1,800 towers, most of which would need to be erected along the borders with Mexico and Canada. Each tower would be equipped with a variety of sensors, including cameras and heat and motion detectors," the Washington Post notes. Boeing teamed up for the project with an Israeli company that built a bunch of the imaging equipment used in Israel's controversial fence along the West Bank. That gear, Boeing said, would be less risky and expensive than UAVs or airships -- even though both have been used to watch over southern Arizona for illegals.

But, not to worry: the Times says that there are still a few drones in the Boeing plan -- "small, relatively inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicles that can be launched from a pickup truck by an agent in the field and then fly for, perhaps, 90 minutes." I'm guessing the paper means these drones here.

"Homeland Security has been criticized harshly in recent years for initiatives that have either failed or far exceeded their budgets. In one case, cameras that the department installed on the borders broke down in bad weather," the Post observes.

"The administration has spent $429 million of the taxpayer's money to try and secure our borders with two already-abandoned border security programs," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss). He expressed concern that the same thing will happen to SBInet.

Mindful of that record, Boeing emphasized that all its technology has been proven to work. "The low-risk approach is probably going to carry weight here."

"The contract will at least initially be much more limited than some industry officials had expected, valued at $80 million instead of the $2 billion estimate given for the six-year deal," the Times writes.

Area 51: Hype vs. Reality

In the October Popular Science, veteran aviation journo Bill Sweetman writes about secret airplanes he believes might be under development at the Air Force's remote Groom Lake test facility in Nevada, a.k.a. Area 51. Sweetman describes three demonstrators unveiled in recent years -- the Northrop Grumman Tacit Blue and Boeing Bird of Prey manned stealth planes and the Lockheed Martin Polecat drone -- but insists these are just consolation prizes offered up by a military that is keeping its major black airplane programs under wraps.

Not that he has a ton of proof. "Hint[s]" and guesswork, mostly. The new construction at Groom Lake must mean something, he figures. And then there are those "obvious... significant gaps in the military’s known aviation arsenal -- gaps that the Pentagon can reasonably be assumed to be actively, if quietly, trying to fill."

It's a strange series of calculations to make. The perceived holes -- high-speed, penetrating reconnaissance and long-range, stealthy strike -- are fairly well plugged up, at least until 2020. And the proposed gap-fillers are some of aviation history's more discredited flops and boogeymen.

In his story, Sweetman speculates about "possible all-weather attack vehicles now in testing -- ones available sooner than [the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning's] 2014 [debut] and capable of carrying significant bomb loads."

A hint about [the plane]... could reside, aerospace historian Peter Merlin pointed out, in a test pilot’s unclassified biography. Daniel Vanderhorst, who flew Northrop’s [Tacit Blue] Whale and six other secret aircraft in a 20-year career, evidently “tested modified landing gear and conducted initial tests of internal weapons bays and weapon separation tests.” What’s unusual about this is that most prototypes are simple aircraft without weapon bays, which suggests that this airplane was closer to an operational type. Specifically, I’m guessing, it could be an extension of the heavy-payload, all-weather attack jet A-12 Avenger II, which then–Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney canceled in 1991 because it was overbudget and not meeting its technological goals.

Never mind that the plane only got as far as the mock-up stage -- and even the mock-up was a mess, according to insiders. The airplane was an unmitigated disaster from the outset, as the lovable nerds at Globalsecurity.org explain:

The A-12 proved to be the most troubled of the new American stealth aircraft in large part because of problems found in the extensive use of composites in its structure. These composites did not result in anticipated weight savings, and some structural elements had to be replaced with heavier metal components. The weight of each aircraft exceeded 30 tons, variously estimated at between 10% and 30% over design specification, and close to the limits that could be accommodated on aircraft carriers.

The Department of Defense terminated the contract [in 1991] after the contractors failed to deliver a single airplane after receiving more than $2 billion in payments. Instead, the contractors refused to continue with the contract unless they received extraordinary relief in the form of relaxed terms and extra funds. At the same time, they would or could not assure delivery of an aircraft by a time certain, specify the aircraft's performance capabilities, or commit to a specific price for the aircraft.

For more than a decade, the U.S. governme