US Air Force: Discussion and News

US Air Force Awards $485Mln Contract for Precision Weapons Guidance Pods

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/military/20150328/1020127862.html#ixzz3VgUHiDLM

US Air Force transport fleet consists of 52 C-5M and 223 C-17A.

US Air Force confirms hypersonic SABRE engine is feasible

http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/04/us-air-force-confirms-hypersonic-sabre.html

US to Produce Bomb Retargeting in Mid-Flight


Raytheon said in a statement that the US Air Force and defense contractor Raytheon have passed a final review of the Small Diameter Bomb II, an advanced bomb that can change direction and target in midflight.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US Air Force and defense contractor Raytheon have passed a final review of the Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II), an advanced bomb that can change direction and target in midflight through the use of a secure datalink, Raytheon said in a statement on Monday.

"The Milestone C decision enables us to begin putting this game-changing capability into the warfighters' hands," US Air Force SDB II program manager Col. Kevin Hickman in the statement.

Hickman explained that the ability to strike moving targets with extreme precision in adverse weather “reduces an aircrew's time in harm's way and limits collateral damage in the battlespace."


The SDB II can strike moving targets from a distance of 45 miles through radar, infrared and laser sensors, as well as change direction and targets after being fired from aircraft.
The US Department of Defense has invested more than $700 million in the SDB II program.


The final review will enable initial production of the missile.

Raytheon is one of the top US defense contractors with $23 billion in sales in 2014.



http://sputniknews.com/military/20150518/1022293398.html#ixzz3afqTpOxA

Mach 5 passenger plane ? Thats nice . I guess US must be looking to use SABRE engine for their space industry

US Air Force looks to future gunship modernization

http://www.janes.com/article/51603/sofic-2015-us-air-force-looks-to-future-gunship-modernisation

DARPA tests laser weapon for fighters, drones

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2925588/emerging-technology/darpa-tests-laser-weapon-for-fighters-drones.html

Hahhahaha... I wonder which country relies the most on technology and therefore would be most vulnerable to this sort of weapon system....

Obviously never heard of a faraday cage either...  Power surges can be dealt with and contained.

But these electronic killer missiles were made to render russian/chinese defense systems isnt it ? Btw how do such electronic killer missiles work / can do a successful attack ? Or is it more of PR sensationalism ?

Air Force issues call for next-gen, U.S.-made space launch systems

http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/tech/2015/06/02/air-force-industry-call-space-launch/28365087/

AirCargo wrote:Air Force issues call for next-gen, U.S.-made space launch systems

http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/tech/2015/06/02/air-force-industry-call-space-launch/28365087/

They have just opened the bid to end their reliance on Russia's space launch rockets . Let's see who all will bid for this tender .

US to attack enemy with iron-spraying bombs instead of Cluster Munitions


http://sputniknews.com/military/20150620/1023637499.html

US to Replace Strategic Bomber Fleet With New Long-Range Bombers

The United States is working to fully consolidate its existing strategic bomber fleet under the Long-Range Strategic Bomber (LRS-B) program, US Eighth Air Force Commander Major General Richard Clark said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Clark made the comment in response to a question whether the existing US strategic bomber fleet would be fully replaced by the LRS-B in the future.
The Air Force hasn't been known to be the most accurate in predicting costs for their stealth bombers, or the most reliable in getting them built.

“Eventually it will replace, it will be the long-range strike bomber for us at a point,” Clark said during a US House Armed Services hearing.

Until the new LRS-B comes online, the United States will have to continue modernizing the existing B-2 and B-52 bombers as well as associated weapons, Clark explained.

He noted the roadmap for modernization is “critical to preserving our dominance against next generation capabilities.”

The B-52 bombers are more than 50 years old, and the B-2’s have been fielded for slightly over 25 years.

The US Air Force previously estimated a 2020 timetable for the fielding of the LRS-B. The United States is expected to purchase 80 to 100 of the next generation bombers at an estimated cost of $550 million each.

The US Air Force program to replace the older strategic bombers has faced multiple delays, and the LRS-B predecessor program was scrapped altogether in 2009.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/military/20150625/1023859508.html#ixzz3e9W3QN28

Boeing jet engine powered by lasers and nuclear explosions







Future aircraft could be powered by lasers and nuclear explosions if Boeing has its way. The aerospace firm claims a new-type of engine could produce energy-efficient thrust by firing lasers at radioactive material, such as deuterium and tritium. The technology could mean that planes and spaceships will require only a fraction of the power to operate, according to a recent patent filed by the company.



The engine outlined in the patent would work by using high-powered lasers to vaporise the radioactive material producing a fusion reaction.

'At least one laser is positioned to vapourise the propellant with at least one laser-beam into a thrust producing flow,' the company wrote in the document.

A report in Business Insider compared the process to a small thermonuclear explosion.




The by-products of the process would be hydrogen or helium, which would leave the back-end of the plane creating thrust.




Meanwhile, the inside wall of the engine's thruster chamber will react with the neutrons created by the nuclear reaction.

The resulting heat can then be harnessed by placing a coolant on the sides of the combustion chamber.

The idea is to use this heat to produce electricity that can then drive the engine’s lasers.

Other than the radioactive material, the engine requires very little in terms of external energy.




Boeing’s Dreamliner is currently driven by turbofan engines that compress air and ignite fuel to create thrust.

But it's expensive. The 787-8 Dreamliner. for instance, uses roughly $24.53 (£15.97) worth of fuel per nautical mile flown

The latest application, approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office last week, was filed by Boeing's Robert Budica, James Herzberg, and Frank Chandler.

It is unclear when, if ever, Boeing plans to create a prototype of the engine




The inside wall of the engine's thruster chamber will react with the neutrons created by the nuclear reaction. The resulting heat can then be harnessed by placing a coolant on the sides of the combustion chamber. The idea is to use this heat to produce electricity that can then drive the engine’s lasers

Sounds safe....really, really safe. 

Could be worth it...... if it were being done in space.

Definitely something that shouldn’t be tested in our atmosphere.

Sorry for my rudeness and ill-tempered nature but WHAT THE F*** IS THIS SHIT ?????

http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/5-most-lethal-us-warplanes-the-planet-13364
http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/russias-5-most-dangerous-warplanes-13255

When it comes to air power, it’s no secret that the United States and the West have often held an edge over Russia.  
(...)Warsaw Pact was numerically superior to NATO but the latter held the technological advantage, including in terms of aircraft.    And even today, Russia’s Air Force doesn’t yet boast anything comparable to the latest American fifth-generation fighter jets like the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).      

Since at least the end of World War II, America has usually boasted the most advanced warplanes in the world. Indeed, the Soviet Air Force often built planes in response to new U.S. variants, and these were almost always inferior.       American designs are still some of the most sought-after around the world, as the F-35        Joint Strike Fighter program has demonstrated.

It is weird that the author didn't mention F-15 in the list. Clearly F-15 is the best American fighter, much stronger than the disaster named F-35. In fact, F-15 is the mightiest fighter of the West.

We always knew that US strong fanatics always thought USA Crap was totally superior to anything and all things soviet was crap except that which is copied from the west which is slightly inferior because they can't even copy well... of course that means Chinese stuff is even worse because it is an inferior copy of an inferior copy.

Let them believe their fantasies... Su-35s and MiG-35s and PAK FAs are all inferior to F-16s and are no real threat and it all doesn't matter because they only fight third world countries with MiG-21s anyway...

On the one hand are the US military trumpeting from the rooftops how wonderful the capabilities of their stealth and networked systems, whilst down in the engine room they are muttering this stuff.

In an effort shore up its missile defense capabilities, the US military has conducted a massive electronic warfare exercise. The concern? Russian radar jamming technology. Last spring, the US Army conducted a highly classified exercise deep in the New Mexico desert. Held at White Sands Missile Range, the electronic warfare drills were designed to find weaknesses in the Pentagon’s missile defense capabilities. To accomplish this, the military mimicked a series of offensive jamming attacks to test the readiness of the defense system. Evidently, those networks need a lot of improvement, as the results of the exercise produced nearly 70 terabytes of data, roughly twice the size of Wikipedia.

But the prime reason for the drills is concern that Russian and Chinese technology is too advanced for the US military to confront. According to Brig. Gen. Neil Thurgood, the Army’s Program Executive Officer (PEO) for Missiles & Space, America’s principal foes have developed advanced digital jamming far beyond old-school analog technology. That advanced tech is not only capable of blocking missile defense radars from intercepting incoming signals, but can also fool the defenses with a false radar pulse. Essentially, Russian and Chinese jammers can trick US missile defense networks into firing at empty sky.

To improve those defenses, the Army is hoping to streamline its computer networks. Testing the Integrated Air & Missile Defense Battle Command System, the exercise at White Sands experimented with combining multiple radars into one, fluid, detection apparatus.

"Today, we don’t hook all those together. We don’t see one single air picture, one composite track for one target," Thurgood told Breaking Defense. "[But in the exercise] we had the Patriot weapon platform, the Sentinel [radar], the Avenger weapon platform, all linked to IBCS, all making the composite track, one track from all the sensors, and we practiced engagements…" By relying on multiple radar platforms, it will prove more difficult to fool any one installation.

Of course, even with new ideas for improvement, it could still take over a year to fully analyze the results of the exercise, and even longer to implement any corrections.

This isn’t the first sign that Western missile defense systems need drastic overhauls. On Wednesday, the head of the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) announced that the organizations missile defense program “will not work” against an enemy attack. While NORAD’s concerns don’t involve radar jamming, specifically, it is adopting a similar strategy to fix its flaws. By developing a global network capable of quickly transmitting targeting data, the defense organization hopes to improve its response time. "We have the technology," Admiral Bill Gortney told Breaking Defense. "The technologies are probably all out there. It’s getting it aligned."

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/us/20150815/1025770505.html#ixzz3isJX3Mme

US army learnt how far Russia has advanced in EW when they were in Ukraine. US quickly claimed like in you above post that they will roll out similar advanced EW systems by 202x ( https://www.russiadefence.net/t860p60-u-s-army-news ) but the thing is by that time Russia will move to photonics based EW. They have made one photonic based ew system already.


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A U.S. Air Force F-16 jet crashed in southern Germany

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-f-16-jet-crashes-germany-pilot-survives-police-n407716

Just a bit of finger trouble on the old calculator Guv. Anyway, what's $25B between friends (that's politicians and cash holding lobbyists) when there is a juicy new gravy train on the horizon?


The Air Force this year estimated the cost of the new Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) to be $58.2 billion for the next 10 years, up from the previous year’s estimate of $33.1 billion. Unnerved by the price hike revealed in an Air Force report to Congress, Representative Jackie Speier, of California, demanded answers from Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James and General Mark Welsh, the service's chief of staff.

The Air Force chalked up the $25 billion miscalculation to human error, saying the cost should have actually been $41.7 billion. "We were surprised by the number when we saw it as well once it had been pointed out to us that it looked like the number had grown, because we've been using the same number," Welsh said.

The price gap for the new aircraft is another budgeting snafu by the Air Force, whose F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is notoriously over budget – it is also the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program ever.

The Air Force's most recent fighter program, the dogfighting-optimized F-22 Raptor, produced 187 units between 1996 and 2011 at the cost of $157 million each, reported Blake Stilwell, of We Are The Mighty. The Raptor was not used in combat until 2014.

The LSRB is estimated to cost $500 million per plane, with a total cost of $55 billion to replace the Air Force’s 77 aging B-52 (first developed in 1955) and 21 B-2 (1989) bombers, Stillwell reported.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/us/20150831/1026413268/air-force-bomber-speier-budget.html#ixzz3kQoY8dAl

Seems like a considerable number of U.S. weapons have a tendency of cost skycraping.

AIM-9X Block II approved for full production



Full-rate production (FRP) of the latest instantiation of the AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile has been approved by the Pentagon.

The AIM-9X Block II introduces a full lock-on-after-launch capability - enabled by improved electronics, upgraded software, and a new weapon datalink - to support beyond visual range (BVR) engagements.

The FRP milestone was achieved on 17 August 2015 when Sean Stackley, assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, signed off the Acquisition Decision Memorandum allowing the Naval Air Systems Command's Air-to-Air Missile Systems Program Office (PMA-259) and industry partner Raytheon Missile Systems to move forward into volume production.



http://www.janes.com/article/53985/aim-9x-block-ii-approved-for-full-production

US Plans to Boost Sensor Integration Against Russia, China Gen5 Aircraft


A new US aerospace strategy to boost warfighting and technological capabilities will improve sensor integration to battle Russian and Chinese generation five (gen5) combat aircraft, retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Carl Baker told Sputnik on Wednesday.
Colonel Carl Baker said that "the current threats from Russian and Chinese gen5 aircraft are driving the concern with sensor integration and in hypersonic weapon development."

On Monday, US Air Force Secretary Deborah James said the US military would unveil a new aerospace operating strategy to enhance warfighting and technological capabilities to counter claims that the United States was losing its technological edge against potential adversaries.

Baker explained that the main effort by the military was going into the fields of command and control, networking and integration of sensors and data velocity.

"There are also important organizational issues that must be addressed to maintain superiority in the OODA (observe-orient-decide-act) loop cycle including decentralization of command and control facilities and inter-organizational training and operational interface," Baker said.

Baker also noted that the gen5 aircraft strategy is focusing on stealth qualities and information fusion.

"[Drone development]creates some concern with cyber protection and a diffusion of battle space management capabilities," he said.

Drone development is mainly tied to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance issues, Baked concluded.

Boeing KC-46 Pegasus is alive.

https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/Boeing/767/41275/N462KC-Boeing