The C-130 gunship lab at Robins AFB is updating fire control systems to allow targeting two weapons simultaneously:

“The way they described it is ‘We want to be able to shoot the ant hill, and then kill all the ants as they leave the ant hill,’” said Steve Pollard, the lead C-130 gunship test engineer.

After months of work and close contact with combat flight crews about how they wanted it to work, software engineers in the 402nd Software Maintenance Group did just that. After testing it successfully in the lab, the new capability was put to use.

I didn’t realize that only one gun could be targeted at a time. It’s also unclear whether this upgrade is for the AC-130H, the AC-130U, or both.

Last week I pointed out a story which claimed that the Prince of Wales, the second of two new British aircraft carriers, could be switched to a helicopter-only commando carrier.

British defence equipment and support minister Quentin Davies called the report “complete rubbish.”

He also noted that the British have no intention to cut back on the number of F-35s they plan to purchase. This had been the reason cited for the downgrading of the carrier.

Female Soviet WW2 Pilots near a US-built P-39 Airacobra

A reader sends a link to a BBC audio slideshow about the 588th Night Bomber Regiment (later called the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment) in the Soviet military, an all-female attack unit.

Despite the photo above and an IL-2 in the slideshow, the Night Witches actually flew Po-2 biplanes.

The graphic novel mentioned in the slideshow is available from Amazon.

F-35B
A Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter aircraft is on display at the production facility in Fort Worth, Texas, Aug. 31, 2009. (DoD photo by Cherie Cullen/Released)

Rising costs, changing threats and rival aircraft — manned and unmanned — could cut nearly in half the number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that ultimately are built, a Dutch defense analyst said in a report to the Dutch parliament. And if fewer planes are built, the price for each, already $100 million or more, will undoubtedly increase, analyst Johan Boeder warned.

A “likely estimate” is that 2,500 F-35s eventually will be built, Boeder wrote in a report delivered to Dutch lawmakers in September.

Lockheed Martin disputes that conclusion, but Barry Watts of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments thinks it might be accurate.

Current plans call for the U.S. military to buy 2,443 F-35s, “but if history is any guide, I would not hold my breath waiting” for that many purchases to be completed. “I think the number is going to be about half of that,” said Watts, who is a retired Air Force combat pilot and former chief of the Pentagon’s Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation.

Watts said he expects the Air Force to buy 800 to 1,000 F-35s instead of the 1,763 in current service plans. The Air Force can get by with fewer F-35s because it has decided to keep its A-10s and F-15Es in service.

One thing to keep in mind is that the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have meant a lot more flying for our planes than in a normal peacetime environment. The option to just keep flying the older fighters isn’t going to be there in ten years like it is today.

[Lockheed spokesman Chris Geisel] said that the U.S. still intends to buy 2,443 F-35s, Britain plans to buy 138 and the seven other nations participating in the F-35 program plan to buy about 700. “There are no indications from any of the partner countries that they are going to trim back,” he said.

As noted last week, Great Britain is considering cutting its buy to around 50 and turn its second Queen Elizabeth-class carrier into a helicopter carrier.

Now that F-22 production is being ended, in part because the F-35 can more cheaply do a lot of what’s needed in today’s world, are we going to see F-35 procurement further hamstring our air superiority?

UPDATE: (05 Nov 2009) A British official stated that they have no plans to reduce the number of F-35s they’ll buy or to downgrade the carrier to helicopters only.

Jonathon Johnson, an air interdiction agent for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, pilots a Predator B unmanned air vehicle (UAV), April 3, 2009 at the Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D. The Predator B has been flying and observing flood dangers along the Red River.(DoD photo by Senior Master Sgt. David H. Lipp, U.S Air Force/Released)

Daily transition between battle, home takes a toll on drone operators

Call it combat as shift work, a new paradigm of commuter warfare that is blurring the historical understanding of what it means to go off to battle. And the strain of the daily whiplash transition between bombs and bedtime stories, coupled with the fast-increasing workload to meet relentlessly expanding demand, is leading to fatigue and burnout for the ground-based controllers who drive the drones.

“We have 5,000 years of one type of warfare and only a couple of years of this new kind,” said P.W. Singer, author of “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.” “These guys are simultaneously at home and at war. It may be that human psychology isn’t designed for that. We don’t know yet.”

With all due respect (and Murdoc’s got a TON of respect for our guys in uniform), I’m not sure if I’m really buying the “war during the day, home at night” description because the “war during the day” part is nothing like the war that soldiers have fought for the past 5,000 years. Isn’t UAV operation more like air traffic control than infantry?

“It can be very surreal,” Capt. Zeb Krantz, a former C-130 pilot, said about stepping into the ground control station and entering the battle space. “You think: ‘I was just at home this morning.’ ”

What I find surreal are some of the examples:

“The family pressures don’t go away, they heighten,” Singer said. “You’ve just been on a combat mission and half an hour later your spouse is mad at you because you’re late to soccer practice.”

and

For those stationed at Creech, there seems to be an ever-receding finish line. The Air Force hits one target of production only to see it get bumped higher.

and

“It’s hard to forge that esprit de corps, that tribe mentality when you can’t all go to the bar after work and decompress together,” Mathewson said.

and

Overall, Predator and Reaper crews tend to be “tired, disgruntled and disillusioned,” Kent said.

Not to minimize the stress issues, and I have no personal experience to compare it with, but I’m guessing that a lot of troops deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan would be happy to deal with the issues facing drone operators.

(I’m sure I’ve pissed off people here. That wasn’t my intent. What do you guys think?)

Operation Champion Sword, in Khowst province, Afghanistan, Aug. 2, 2009. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Matthew Freire/ Released)

Popular Mechaincs: A deadly day of helicopter accidents in Afghanistan highlights the risks rotorcraft crews face in and out of combat. Is the ride worth the risks?

Helicopters are powerful, fragile machines. They are used heavily every day in Afghanistan, and they stay in the war zone when troops rotate home. Mechanics do their best to keep them in good shape, but the tempo of operations and the conditions make crashes nearly inevitable. In a place like Afghanistan, the terrain is as deadly a foe as the armed enemy.

Helicopters provide some great advantages, but they are vulnerable. I’ve written before about The danger of helicopters:

The same vulnerabilities that attack choppers face make support choppers vulnerable. But despite these problems, the advantages that helicopters provide far outweigh the danger. Air transport has cut down on enemy opportunities to bomb roadways, making our supply lines far more secure. The ability to patrol (and pursue) from the air has undoubtedly contributed to our effort to limit insurgent attacks.

But helicopters remain fragile. And their operating environment and the severity of consequence that mishaps bring make them more than a little dangerous at times.

On that post, a commenter added:

I hate to point this out, but Murdoc, you need to stress one word in this article with a little more emphasis. That word is FRAGILE.

In Afghanistan, many of the risks helicopters bring are accentuated due to the environment.

Here’s a photo of Dr. Werner Dahm from the Airman Magazine story Good, Clean Science: Top Scientist Directs Research to Save Money and the Environment:

Because science is so crucial to the Air Force, the service created the position of Chief Scientist in 1950. Dr. Werner Dahm is the current chief scientist and is the primary science adviser to senior Air Force leaders. With a background in aeronautical engineering, he also directs which programs the $2 billion budget is spent on. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Stan Parker)

Get a load of that painting of the XB-70. Click photo for a better look.

Sweet.

Meanwhile,

Recently, Dr. Dahm and members of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board showed striking impacts on fuel economy that can be obtained by flying aircraft in formation to take advantage of the vortex produced from each wing tip through flight.

He said by having as few as two aircraft fly in formation, a 14 percent improvement in fuel efficiency could be realized. What’s even more impressive is that it isn’t just the trailing aircraft that reaps the benefits, both aircraft benefit.

“If the trailing aircraft can fly in the ’sweet spot’ produced from the lead plane it decreases the drag on both,” he said. “The main challenge is that sweet spot is constantly shifting, so pilot fatigue increases if they have to stay in that spot manually. Technology can solve that by relatively simple software that automatically uses trim adjustments find the sweet spot and stay in it.”

Dr. Dahm said the aircraft can be separated by a considerable distance and still see most of the benefit and that even dissimilar aircraft benefit from flying in formation.

“The benefit small aircraft see when they fly in formation with large aircraft can be so large that the fuel savings can actually equal the fuel those small aircraft would need flying solo.”

No bump drafting allowed, though.

The Day of the Atlas

Fifty years ago this month, the United States stepped briskly into the ICBM era, and it has never stepped out. Three long-range, liquid-fueled Atlas D missiles armed with nuclear warheads went on full combat alert at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on Oct. 31, 1959.

A lot of great footage in this video:

UPDATE: Plus: United Launch Alliance’s 600th Atlas Mission

MV-22B Ospreys with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 (Reinforced), 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, fly over the Egyptian coastline during Exercise Bright Star 2009 in Egypt, Oct. 12. The multinational exercise is designed to improve readiness, interoperability, and strengthen the military and professional relationships among U.S., Egyptian and participating forces. Bright Star is conducted by U.S. Central Command and held every two years. Elements of the 22nd MEU are currently are participating in the multi-national exercise while serving as the theater reserve force for U.S. Central Command. Photo by Cpl. Justin Martinez

More photos here: 22nd MEU Conducts Urban Training During Bright Star 2009