The Air Force Wants a Robo-Pallet For Loading Transports

The Danger Room reports that since it takes so much energy to move, strack and organize standard cargo pallets the Air Force is looking into building a robotic cargo pallet that moves itself.

     The cargo pallets the Air Force uses today are basically the ones dad or your uncle pushed on and off transports during the Vietnam War. The designation for the Air Force's pallet of choice is the 463L Master Pallet or HCU-6/E, developed in the late 1950s by the Douglas Aircraft Company and a company now known as AAR Corporation. The HCU-6/E is 88 inches wide, 108 inches long , 2-1/4 inches high and can carry 10,000lbs of cargo. The HCU-6/E is constructed with a balsa wood core wrapped in a thin aluminum skin and, has 22 hooks surrounding the edge to use in tying the pallet down, each hook is rated at 7,500 lbs. Here is an illustration of the HCU-6/E's interior and surface:

     As I said in a previous post the Pentagon has a disease called "expensiveprogramitis" the disease of and fear of future expensive programs so, if the 'robo-pallet" does what most programs do and skyrockets in cost I think it is a safe bet that the "robo-pallet" will be canceled.

      

     

Photo Credit: U.S. Navy, Federal Government

Boeing Is Still Sore About JSF Loss 15 Years Later

     Thats right folks, Boeing is still sore about losing the JSF contest to the Lockheed Martin 15 years ago and is calling Lockheed on the F-35's rising costs as Ares reports.

     Boeing has recently been getting more and more vocal about the fact that the F-35 continues to rise in cost and continues to be delayed. Boeing's main focus appears to be on the F-35C which is the naval variant of the F-35 as it continues to push for the for either the cancellation of the F-35C or increased purchases of the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, I am not sure which. Boeing's most recent accusations against the F-35 hinge on the F-35C's costs, as Boeing says that Super Hornets would be cheaper than the F-35C.

     As the F-35 program continues to be delayed and rise in cost it it will be interesting to see how Lockheed Martin handles increasing dissent about the F-35, especially with Boeing entering the fight.   

Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force

What Happend To the 600-Ship Navy?

     During the 1980s at the height of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan pushed a massive military modernization and expansion plan that for the Navy would have resulted in a 600-Ship Navy. My question is what happened to that idea?
     When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, governments around the world began to make massive budget cuts to their military's, one example is the so called Royal Navy and British Army, both of which are skeletons of their former selves. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union most governments have begun rearming (Britain hasn't) and putting their military's back together. Since 1991 the U.S. has expanded it's military but, the 600-Ship Navy idea is nowhere to be seen. The 600-Ship Navy has become a victim of several groups, socialists/communists who want to redistribute wealth and want a larger government, cost cutters who think now the the USSR is gone we can put the money into other programs, peace groups who think there should be no military at all and the list goes on.
      Few poeple outside the military realize how dire the situation really is, since 1987 the Navy has gone from the 1980s high of 594 ships to about 290 ships in service in 2011. Since 1987 our Navy has been more than halved and almost nobody in the media, the government or the people realizes it. Our Navy has been second to none since the end of WWII when we had over 6,000 ships and still are larger that the next seven navies combined but, China is rabidly increasing the size of their Navy and as of 2011 are second in size to only to the U.S. and climbing.
     The Navy is starting to begin building ships a higher rate in the last couple of years but, as I said a couple of articles ago the Navy is crumbling before our very eyes. And if we do not correct this situation, the cosequences could be extremly bad to say the least.



Photo credit: New Wars

No! It can't be true!

DoD Buzz reports that the Air Force is going to slim the B-1 Lancer force down by 6 aircraft to a total of 60 B-1s in service. 

     The reason the Air Force says it is cutting the B-1 is to save 357 million dollars over the next 5 years. What I personally am wondering is, with the ability to pulverize terrorists that the B-1 has shown, why is the B-1 force being cut? As anyone who has any knowledge of current events has seen the increasing tensions between China and the U.S., why would an excellent long range bomber like the B-1 with a range of almost 7,500 miles be cut at a time when it is needed in both the Pacific and Afghanistan? The Air Force in my opinion is being extremely shortsighted in slimming down the strategic bomber force from it's Cold War high down to just, 85 B-52s, 20 B-2s and 66 B-1Bs. 

  

     

    

     

Photo Credit: Ellsworth AFB

It's That Time of Year

Thats right, its time to endlessly haggle over money for welfare, earmarks, Defense and those other things, all that equals = FY 2012 Federal Budget! I could go on and on about all the money being wasted on projects like, testing the effects of cocaine on monkeys, or expanding an airport in the middle on nowhere in Pennsylvania (incidentally the airport is in the deceased John "King of Earmarks" Murtha's district). But, alas this blog talks about defense not politics. So, where was I? Oh, yes the FY 2012 defense budget, well the DoD (short for the Department of Defense) is asking for roughly $553 billion dollars ($553,000,000,0000) for fiscal year 2012. Here is some of the procurement budget that the DoD is asking for:

The F-35 program gets roughly 9.5 billion dollars for 32 F-35's, variant makeup for the purchase is as follows, 19 F-35A's (the Air Force variant), 6 F-35B's (the Marine Corps variant, which has more problems than parts and needs to be canceled) and 7 F-35C's (the Navy variant).

The Air Forces new bomber program gets 2 billion dollars for, obviously the bomber and the sustainment of the Minuteman III ICBMs and modernizing the Navy's Trident D5 SLBMs (which both desperately need to be replaced). 

The Air Force is also requesting 2 billion dollars for modernizing F-15 radar systems.

The Air Force is requesting 1.1 billion dollars for 48 MQ-9 Reaper drones and 36 MQ-1C Grey Eagle drones. 

The Air Force wants 307 million dollars for a new high speed trainer.

The Air Force is also requesting 1.3 billion dollars for satellites and heavy lift vehicles

The Navy gets 1.1 billion dollars for research on its new SSBN(X) class of submarines.

The Navy also asking for money for extending production of the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet through 2014 with an injection of 2 and a half billion dollars to buy 28 more Super Hornets, and the Navy also is asking for more money to buy F/A-18G Growlers.

The Navy also is requesting money as follows:

5 billion dollars for 2 Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines, 2.1 billion dollars for DDG-51 AEGIS destroyers, 1.5 billion dollars for AEGIS ballistic missile defense, 2.3 billion dollars for Littoral Combat Ship purchases, 1.9 billion dollars for a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, 2 billion dollars for America-class amphibious assault ships, 426 million dollars for the Mobile Landing Platform.

The Army is requesting 800 million dollars for the development of a new family of armored vehicles, and 200 million is going to developing the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.

Other budgets highlights are 877.1 million dollars for the KC-X program, purchases of 10 HC/MC-130Js, 1 C-130J, 9 C-27s, 6 CV-22s (one is coming from the war budget), 9 Light Attack Armed Reconnaissance aircraft, 4 HH-60G Pave Hawks (one is coming from the war budget), 2 Common Vertical Lift Support Program, 63.1 million dollars for purchasing C-5 Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program (RERP) kits, refueling and overhaul of the USS Abraham Lincoln CVN-72, and finally the budget allows for the advance procurement of CVN-72 of the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers.

Remember, this is most of the procurement budget which does not includes the war budget, health care costs and everything else, this is just part of the procurement budget.