US military news, discussions and history

[Aepsilons]

No, I think Armstrong's already won the "who's the most girly person on PDF" competition, though I hear Sven gave him a run for his money too.



I was in the US around Girl Scout cookie time, I felt like this afterwards:

Hahahahhajahahahahaha


*chokes*


Hahahaha..... X_x

 

[AMDR]

Air Force Plans Bomber Contract for September
Air Force Plans Bomber Contract for September | Defense Tech

The Air Force plans to announce a contract award for their new stealthy long-range bomber aircraft in September of this year, service officials told Military.com.

The contract award for the aircraft was initially expected to arrive earlier this summer. In fact, this new timeline comes on the heels of a series of delays for the award.

The new Long Range Strike Bomber, or LRS-B, is slated to fly alongside and ultimately replace the existing B-2 bomber.

Senior Air Force officials told Military.com that taking extra time at the front end of the process to make sure the selection is the right one will ultimately save much more time and money throughout the longer-term acquisition process. The service plans to field the new bomber by the mid-2020s.

“It will be done when [the contract award is] done. It is fair to say we are in the closing parts of it. This is something that will be with us for 50 years. To build fast, you’ve got to go slow,” William LaPlante, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Acquisition, said at recent event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington D.C.-based think tank.

The Air Force ultimately plans to acquire as many as 80 to 100 new bombers for a price of roughly $550 million per plane, Air Force leaders have said.

Over the last two to three years, the Air Force has worked closely with defense companies as part of a classified research and technology phase. So far, the service has made a $1 billion technology investment in the bomber.

Northrop Grumman is competing against a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed Martin for the rights to build the bomber. Northrop Grumman ran a regional Super Bowl ad pitching the company’s experience building Air Force bombers.

The new LRS-B is slated to replace the Air Force’s bomber fleet to include the B-2 stealth bombers.

Although much of the details of the LRS-B development are not publically available, Air Force leaders have said the aircraft will likely be engineered to fly unmanned missions as well as manned missions.

The new aircraft will be designed to have global reach, in part by incorporating a large arsenal of long-range weapons. The LRS-B is being engineered to carry existing weapons as well as nuclear bombs and emerging and future weapons, Air Force officials explained.

In particular, the aircraft is being engineered to evade increasingly sophisticated air defenses which now use faster processors and sensors to track even stealthy aircraft at longer ranges.

 

[AMDR]

Lockheed Martin Receives SEWIP Block 2 Contract from Navy
SEAPOWER Magazine Online

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The U.S. Navy has awarded Lockheed Martin a $154 million contract to upgrade the fleet’s electronic warfare defenses against evolving threats, such as anti-ship missiles, the company reported in a July 23 release.

Under this low-rate initial production contract for Block 2 of the Navy’s Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP), Lockheed Martin will provide additional systems to upgrade the AN/SLQ-32 systems on U.S. aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and other warships with key capabilities to determine if the electronic sensors of potential foes are tracking the ship.

“We’re proud to continue supporting the U.S. Navy with capabilities delivered on schedule to rapidly introduce new technology to the sailors,” said Joe Ottaviano, Electronic Warfare program director for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training. “Our fleets are facing a rapidly changing threat environment in theaters across the globe. This contract allows us to continue providing much needed technological advances that will help outpace our adversaries and protect our warfighters.”

Block 2 is the latest in an evolutionary succession of improvement “blocks” the Navy is pursuing for its shipboard electronic warfare system, which will incrementally add new defensive technologies and functional capabilities. In 2013 and 2014, Lockheed Martin was awarded 24 systems as part of low-rate initial production, the first 10 of which have been delivered to the Navy on schedule.

Work on the SEWIP program will be performed at the company’s Syracuse facility.

Cost of US Air Force Decoy Systems Reduced
Cost of US Air Force Decoy Systems Reduced | Military.com

TUCSON, AZ -- A carbon-fiber airframe for U.S. Air Force miniature decoy systems has been developed using robotic and formula racing technologies, Raytheon reports.

Raytheon said the airframe for the Miniature Air Lanch Decoy, or MALD, and MALD-J systems was developed in partnership with Fokker Technologies of the Netherlands and Italy's Dallara and reduces the airframe production cost by 25 percent.

"MALD is a cost-efficient, modular system that can protect manned aircraft from the need to engage threats and make stand-off munitions even more lethal," said Scott Muse, Raytheon's MALD programs director.

"Driving affordability is a key element of customer success. Through the partnership with Fokker, Dallara and the U.S. Air Force, we delivered MALD's capabilities at a lower price."

Raytheon said Fokker Technologies, which develops and produces advanced structures and electrical systems, helped to adapt robots to wind the carbon fiber fuselage of the composite airframe and Dallara applied the lightweight, strong structural technologies used in Indy car racing to airframe accessories.

Previously, the carbon-fiber fuselage of the decoy system followed a conventional, hand-built approach.

The new innovative composite design will be included in this year's Lot 7 production of the systems.

MALD is a modular, air-launched and programmable flight vehicle with a range of 500 nautical miles that protects aircraft by confusing incoming missiles by duplicating the combat flight profiles and signatures of U.S. and allied aircraft.

MALD-J adds radar-jamming capability to the basic MALD platform.

 

[Fenrir]

Om Nom Nom Nom

 

[AMDR]

Om Nom Nom Nom

This picture raises so many questions I don't know where to begin

 

[Fenrir]

This picture raises so many questions I don't know where to begin

Hahaha. Who knows what it means?

 

[AMDR]

Hahaha. Who knows what it means?

Lmao "Swamp Gas"




I love OAF so much. Funniest posts on Instgram ever

U-2 uses F-22 data to help re-target anti-ship missile
U-2 uses F-22 data to help re-target anti-ship missile - 7/22/2015 - Flight Global

A high-flying Lockheed Martin U-2 spy plane has enabled a mission control station to dynamically re-target a simulated Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), using data passed from an F-22 Raptor over the deserts of Southern California in a recent flight trial.

During the tests, targeting data was passed from the F-22 to a ground station via an L-3 Communications modem on the U-2, says Scott Winstead, Lockheed Martin's head of strategic development for the U-2 programme. This allowed the ground station to re-target the LRASM surrogate, essentially a cruise missile mission systems flown on a business jet.

In addition, the U-2 was able to translate and pass data between the F-22 and a Boeing F-18 Hornet during the series of flights, which took place in June. The tests were designed to evaluate new US Air Force open mission system (OMS) standards using a Skunk Works product called Enterprise Open System Architecture (E-OSA).

Company officials told Flightglobal in a recent interview that the U-2 testbed was on loan from the operational fleet, and has been modified to comply with open standards the air force has been developing through an “OMS consortium” involving the top aircraft manufacturers and suppliers.

These recent tests build on the success of Lockheed's internally-funded Project Missouri in 2013, which tested Link 16 communication between an F-22 and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It also follows the SYERS-2C multispectral imagery sensor integration and test last December.

Renee Pasman, senior manager for the Lockheed open system architecture roadmap, says that the programme team was able to integrate seven OMS-compliant payloads with the modular U-2 Dragon Lady in just three months, as opposed to the 12- to 24-months it normally takes to integrate a new pieces of equipment with a military aircraft.

She adds that the work supports the air force OMS project, established to speed up and reduce the cost of integrating new capabilities by having standardised interfaces and software.

“The payloads for this latest demonstration were primarily communications payloads, for example Link 16 terminals as well as other radio equipment and some communications signals intelligence payloads integrated from our industry partners,” she says. “The communications payload was a fourth- to fifth-generation translator, fighter to fighter.”

It is no coincidence that Lockheed is testing communications relays, since the air force is exploring a programme called Multi-Domain Adaptable Processing System (MAPS) that would let new and old fighter jets share battle information.

“This demonstration was not done in support of the MAPS programme, but certainly the approach we demonstrated and technologies we demonstrated would be applicable to solving the MAPS requirements,” Pasman says.

The open standards are being developed as a requirement for whatever platform is developed to replace the Northrop Grumman E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) as part of the air force’s “owning the technical baseline” initiative. It could also be used on the T-X next-generation trainer and Long-Range Strike Bomber. The air force is also exploring ways to make these standards interoperable with the open mission system standards designed for the US Army and Navy.

The U-2 testbed is currently stationed at the Lockheed Skunk Works facility in Palmdale and will be returned to the operational fleet in December.

 

[Fenrir]

Awesome Video Showcases Historic Cruise For C-2 Greyhound Detachment One

The U.S. Navy’s VRC-30’s Detachment One, the “Hustlers,” just ended a ten month long cruise with the USS Carl Vinson. This was the longest Carrier Onboard Delivery detachment since the Vietnam War. During the historic cruise, with just 45 sailors and two C-2 Greyhounds, the Hustlers racked up some ridiculously awesome statistics:

• 724 combat logistics sorties in direct support of Operation Inherent Resolve
• Transported 7,966 passengers
• Performed 33 life-saving medical evacuations
• Supplied over 1,000,000 pounds of high priority cargo and mail
• 96 percent mission completion rate
• Over a two month period provided support to both the USS Carl Vinson and the French aircraft carrier FS Charles de Gaulle
• Recipient of Carrier Air Wing 17’s 2015 “Golden Wrench” Award for maintenance excellence

Check out the awesome cruise video VRC-30 “Providers,” the parent squadron of Detachment One, put together to highlight their awesome contribution to the USS Carl Vinson’s historic deployment:

The Hustler’s accomplishments over the last year underlines once again just how critical the C-2 Greyhound and its Carrier Onboard Delivery mission is when it comes to projecting and sustaining U.S. Naval power abroad. This is especially relevant considering the Pentagon’s pivot toward the vast Pacific and heightening regional tensions over maritime claims in the region.

Controversially, the C-2 will be replaced by the HV-22 Osprey in the not so distant future. Although there are some benefits to using the tilt-rotor for this mission, such as the ability to provide point-to-point resupply of other ships in the Carrier Strike Group, it also has massive drawbacks, some of which could present strategic vulnerabilities to American flotillas.

Regardless of the changes to come, here’s to you, the hard working men and women of Detachment One and VRC-30, who do so much with comparatively little.

And just remember folks, that at any given time, there is at least one VRC-30 detachment out there somewhere around the world, supplying our water-borne armadas with the most essential people and material they need. It is a mission that truly never ends.

 

[Fenrir]

 

[Place Of Space]

This picture raises so many questions I don't know where to begin

Where is pilot cab of this plane?

 

[Fenrir]

Where is pilot cab of this plane?

Blocked from view in that angle:

Same deal other large aircraft like the AN-124:

 

[Armstrong]

Om Nom Nom Nom

 

[Fenrir]

I know, hot dogs!

Yuck

 

[Armstrong]

I know, hot dogs!

Yuck

What ?

Hot Dogs !

Giant planes that can gulp you in !

 

[Place Of Space]

Blocked from view in that angle:

Same deal other large aircraft like the AN-124:

All right, got it. The first picture in my brain lol, you know, pilot in the cab.