Commander’s Intent
COMMENTARYBy Bill SweetmanRead Sweetman’s posts on
our blog Ares, updated daily:
AviationWeek.com/ares
[email protected]The latest of a Lowe’s-
contractor-pack box of
nails to be hammered
into the cofn of the
“two-way street,” as it
was once jokingly called,
is the Air Force’s March
17 release of a request
for information (RFI)
on the T-X advanced
trainer. T-X had started
with the premise that
the world had enough
advanced trainers, one
of which would meet
the Air Force’s needs.
But the sustained G-requirement in
the RFI (6.5g threshold, 7.5g objective)
has eliminated BAE Systems’ Hawk,
and presents problems for the Alenia-
Aermacchi M-346.
Lockheed Martin is talking publicly
about dumping South Korea’s T-50 in
favor of its own design, in which case the
non-U.S. content in T-X would comprise
Saab’s partnership with Boeing. This is
a second snub to Alenia, which cut back
its U.S. operations after the Air Force
canceled the C-27J Spartan program.
In the same week, MBDA CEO
Antoine Bouvier said the company was
close to ending eforts to promote the
Brimstone II missile in the U.S., which
included flight tests on a General Atom-
ics MQ-9 Reaper UAV. MBDA ofered
Brimstone as a gap-filler until the Joint
Air-to-Ground Missile is ready; and
there is undeniable value in a short-
flight, highly accurate, low-collateral-
damage weapon that can be fired from
fast jets, helicopters or UAVs.
These disappointments are the
latest in a long series. Congressional
pork-producers have repeatedly tried
to shoot down U.S. acquisition of the
T
he U.S. defense industry, the Pentagon and Congress should
admit that they see the rest of the world as a market andnot a supplier, except at the build-to-print and commodity
level, or in a dire emergency.
No Exit
Potholes on the two-way procurement street
Embraer A-29 Tucano light attack
aircraft, whether for its own or allied
forces, in favor of the Textron Beech-
craft AT-6. The Army walked away
from the international Medium Ex-
tended Air Defense System (Meads),
and the U.S. is promoting modernized
versions of the Raytheon Patriot. In
the $43 billion competition for a new
refueling tanker, the Air Force’s final
requirement meticulously excluded
any credit for the Airbus competitor’s
greater size and lift capacity.
Exceptions are few. Airbus Heli-
copters has provided the Army with
the UH-72 Lakota. The Coast Guard
and Customs and Border Patrol have
been more willing to buy from Europe.
Norway’s Nammo has produced a lot
of AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range
Air-to-Air Missile motors because the
U.S. producer fell on its bottom and
could not get up.
But in default mode, the two-way
street comprises an eastbound super-
highway and a westbound cow path
littered with potholes and barbed wire.
Aside from U.S. industrial overcapac-
ity and congressional xenophobia, arethere good reasons for this?
The details of U.S. requirements
sometimes dictate the outcome of a
selection or narrow the field—but the
operational case is not always sound.
The commercial market had spoken
unequivocally about the relative ef-
ciency—as transport machines—of the
Boeing 767 and Airbus A330-200.
As for T-X, it’s understandable
that the Air Force wants students to
experience sustained and rapid-onset
Gs before they do it (solo) in a $100
million F-35. The Pentagon will pay,
big-time, for this capability, and will
pay even more if T-X is expanded into
companion trainer and aggressor
roles. (Maybe the service needs to
think about a lead-in fighter trainer.)
Charles Darwin can illuminate the
fate of the C-27 and Meads. Many pro-
grams go through difcult times, and
the absence of a claque on Capitol Hill
can be decisive.
In cases like Brimstone, eforts to
sell foreign systems into the U.S. hit
an armored-glass wall. The unspoken
message from the customer appears to
be: “My life is complicated enough, and
I have trouble getting my top priorities
through the procurement maze. Please
don’t try to sell me anything else.”
To take another example: MBDA’s
unique Meteor is close to operational
status, it’s compatible with Amraam
installations and USAF intends to keep
air-superiority F-15s well into the 2030s.
Meteor’s proven throttleable, solid-fuel
ramjet technology (which the U.S. has
never mastered) is a match for the
Navy’s requirement for a longer-range
anti-radar missile. However, the chance
of any formal U.S. interest is near zero.
Neither will the picture change
much, as long as sequesterphobia
holds Washington in its icy grip. But
for the Europeans—and emerging
export industries—this realization is
liberating. There’s no need to hire an
expensive bigwig to be CEO North
America, along with a platoon of
retired four-stars to staf the proxy
board. And when U.S. representatives
turn up in the home country to remind
everyone that their duty is to sustain
true partnerships by writing checks to
U.S. contractors, pat them indulgently
on their heads, and get back to work
addressing the customers’ needs. c26 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/MARCH 30-APRIL 12, 2015 AviationWeek.com/awst
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