In a follow-up to our big piece on Top Aces’ recently acquired fleet of second-hand F-16A/B ‘Netz’ fighters from Israel, the company has now taken one of these jets aloft for the first time. This also marks the first time a 4th generation fighter of any kind has been flown by a private adversary support firm.
The maiden flight originated from Top Aces’ newly minted F-16 Center Of Excellence at Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona. This is where the aggressor firm, which has its main headquarters in Canada, became a truly global operation and is now making a home for its budding F-16 operations. Ultimately, its fleet of Vipers is set to swell to 29 jets.
Kyler Noe
The flight of F-16A 78-0322, which had “Billy Bob” at the controls, lasted roughly an hour and saw the aircraft venture to the west of its home base for a number of checks, before safely returning to Mesa Gateway Airport. The aircraft itself is historic. It took part in Israel’s famous attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 and is also a MiG killer. You can read more about the jet’s history in this past piece of ours on Top Ace’s second-hand jets and their unique exploits.
ADSBexchange.com
Top Aces plans to use its private 4th generation fighter fleet to support the Pentagon’s growing demand for adversary air support, acting as advanced aggressors for Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps flight crews. Currently, adversary service providers largely use 3rd generation fighters, some of which are deeply upgraded, to mimic more advanced threats at a cheaper cost than using actual 4th generation fighters.
It will be interesting to see Top Aces make its business case for more complex, and potentially far more expensive, private adversary capabilities. Although, the Air Force, in particular, has taken a methodical approach and upgrading the complexity of these services, so adding F-16s to the mix would seem to be a logical next step, at least conceptually speaking. Fiscally speaking, that could be another story.
Kyler Noe
For more information on Top Aces’ F-16 fleet, make sure to check out our special feature on the topic here. Beyond that, it looks like they threw a GoPro in the cockpit, so we may get some great video from the company of this historic first flight in the not-to-distant future.
In a 28-second video, which was posted to Twitter this week by a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip appeared to launch rocket attacks at Israelis from densely populated civilian areas.
Instead, the video that he shared, which can be found on many YouTube channels and other video-hosting sites, was from 2018. And according to captions on older versions of the video, it showed militants firing rockets not from Gaza but from Syria or Libya.
The video was just one piece of misinformation that has circulated on Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media this week about the rising violence between Israelis and Palestinians, as Israeli military ground forces attacked Gaza early on Friday. The false information has included videos, photos and clips of text purported to be from government officials in the region, with posts baselessly claiming early this week that Israeli soldiers had invaded Gaza, or that Palestinian mobs were about to rampage through sleepy Israeli suburbs.
Five F-35A Joint Strike Fighters and a single F-22 Raptor “talked” with each other using their proprietary stealthy datalinks via a U-2S Dragon Lady spy plane carrying a specialized communications gateway payload, during a recent demonstration. This marks the first time that the Air Force’s two stealth fighters were able to exchange data freely in flight, something that has been years in the making. The U-2 was also able to simultaneously share information with assets on the ground and at sea, as well as with non-stealthy combat aircraft, all in near-real-time. That info was used to initiate strikes from ground-based artillery and naval assets as part of the high-stakes capability demonstration.
This demonstration event was known as Project Hydra. The company’s Skunk Works advanced projects division worked together with the Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to carry out the tests. Elements of the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy were also involved.
It only took 10 years or so. For a military so entrenched in netcentric engagement to have their premier aviation assets not be able to communicate at all for so long is a major embarrassment. That they can only do it using a U2 within range is pretty weak.
Both Russia and China appear to have employed information manipulation during the COVID-19 pandemic in service to their respective global agendas. This report uses exploratory qualitative analysis to systematically describe the types of COVID-19-related malign and subversive information efforts with which Russia- and China-associated outlets appear to have targeted U.S. audiences from January 2020 to July 2020 and organizes them into a framework. This work lays the foundation for a better understanding of how and whether Russia and China might act and coordinate in the domain of malign and subversive information efforts in the future.
[..]
Key Findings
Both countries disseminated messages through a wide variety of channels and platforms, including social media.
Both countries attempted to tarnish the reputation of the United States by emphasizing challenges with its pandemic response and characterizing U.S. systems as inadequate.
Both countries falsely accused the United States of developing and intentionally spreading the virus.
The two countries appeared to differ in their principal goals for COVID-19-related information efforts: Russia aimed to destabilize the United States; China aimed to protect and enhance its own international reputation.
Both countries modified their COVID-19-related messaging over time, focusing on conspiracy theories about the virus’s origins and impacts from March 2020 to April 2020 and later moving to concentrate on perceived U.S. failure in responding to the pandemic.
While Russia deployed media with wide-ranging ideologies and a variety of audiences, China-linked messaging was ideologically uniform, consistent across multiple information outlets, and appeared to target audiences that were less varied.
Countering apparent Russian and Chinese malign and subversive information efforts will require campaigns that consider the capabilities and thematic emphasis of each of these actors.
Profiling Russian and Chinese sources known to frequently create and disseminate disinformation and propaganda can also inform counter-messaging efforts.
China and Russia appear to amplify one another’s messages, when opportune. This might eventually lead to some collaboration, albeit limited in nature.
Public health messaging should account for potential impacts of Russian and Chinese messaging on vaccination uptake
The U.S. Air Force has, for the first time, live-streamed data directly from the F-35A stealth fighter and onto a commercial computer tablet in the cockpit, during ground tests at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. The March 31 trial, part of the Fighter Optimization eXperiment, or FoX, demonstrated that data from the jet could be used to communicate with mobile apps running on the tablet and there are hopes that the same concept could be used in the future on other manned fighters, as well as drones.
In the initial trial, the flight test instrumentation system was streamed from the F-35’s onboard systems and onto the tablet, on which apps were running. The first two such apps, developed under Project FoX, are designed to help the pilot of the stealth jet negotiate hostile air defense systems, and to use artificial intelligence (AI) to combat the same types of threat.
U.S. Marine Corps
A pilot at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, using an F-35 Full Mission Simulator.
Until now, although F-35 pilots regularly fly with a tablet on their knee, these haven’t been fully integrated with the cockpit and were not able to be physically plugged into the jet and receive real-time data from its own mission computers and its hugely powerful sensor suite. Now, as well as at Nellis, F-35s at Edwards Air Force Base and at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, both in California, are also trialing the FoX Tablet interface. So far, the work had only been conducted with the jets on the ground but, once safety and security aspects are addressed, they will be used in the air, too.
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Previously, this type of information would be presented to the F-35 pilot on the all-glass touchscreen display, which can be customized to present different data, and via the helmet-mounted sight. Both have been the subject of various criticisms in the past, with pilots, for example, pointing to the apparent high degree of latency in information reaching the helmet, which has also been compared unfavorably to a traditional head-up display. The touchscreen doesn’t have any tactile feel or feedback, which can make tapping-in commands a bit challenging during certain environmental and combat conditions.
Even with these existing cockpit interfaces working seamlessly, there is still an argument to be made for having an additional source of situational awareness (SA), especially for the demanding SEAD mission, or other highly complex roles that the F-35 is increasingly finding itself used for, in the form of a tablet. A tablet is portable and, thanks to apps, can present a different tactical picture, or data set, than the other displays. Indeed, tablets are now a frequent fixture in the cockpits of — typically older-generation aircraft — to provide, for example, a means of displaying targeting pod data, or datalink-provided tactical and SA information, as well as flight manual and procedural info.
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“There is no reason why I can’t test the same capability and app on F-18 before F-35 or risk reduce software on F-35 for use by unpiloted aircraft,” LeClair explained. “By connecting a tablet to an aircraft’s data bus, the warfighter and tester will be able to utilize an entire DoD Combat App store of tools, customized to help solve tactical problems in real time.”
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As to how pilots will adapt to the FoX Tablet, LeClair said that “They want this, and they want it yesterday,” noting the “tremendous support from combat aviators.” LeClair likened the tablet concept to an electronic flight bag, the electronic information management device that has replaced the paperwork previously used for flight management tasks. In this way, the FoX Tablet would likely include flight maps, operating manuals, and perhaps even aircraft diagnostic data, as well as a range of apps optimized for different missions or test programs.
The tablet could also allow data to be displayed differently than what an aircraft’s cockpit displays will allow. For instance, 3D situational awareness display rendering, where threats and other situational and navigational information are displayed in a spatially volumetric form, can provide a huge advantage for aircrews trying to survive in a very dynamic and hostile environment. Some of the latest aircraft have wide area displays and graphics capabilities to do this. As far as we know, the F-35, whose systems are based on nearly 20-year-old tech today, is not capable of being able to generate this type of visual interface. But a tablet could be able to without upgrading the entire cockpit and its backend computing systems that drive its visual interfaces.
Boeing
The Super Hornet Block III’s wide-area display and powerful display processing technology can show a 3D instead of a 2D render of the situation around the aircraft at any given time.
After the FoX Tablet comes the FoX BoX, which should optimize its utility in the cockpit. This is being developed at NAWS China Lake, home to ongoing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet mission systems test work. It aims to use a cyber-secure chipset to run “high-level, AI-capable computer processors that will serve as an operating system to communicate to aircraft, allowing the FoX Tablet to function mainly as a visual interface for aircrew.“
Meanwhile, ground tests of the tablet will continue on the F-35, before moving to the F/A-18, F-16, and the F-22. A first test flight — aboard an as yet unconfirmed platform — should take place later this year.
The Marine Corps has been working on a futuristic experiment recently. In collaboration with innovation centre MIND, the GRAVITY Fly Suit has been tested. This makes it easier for special forces to overcome vertical obstacles.
In the flight suit, a person can move through the air in a harness with jet engines. The suit has been tested in various situations, for example when boarding ships. It has also been tested in a built environment.
Thanks to the Fly Suit, the soldiers can get to places that were previously virtually unreachable. As a result, the suit gives new options for tactical deployment. It can also offer civil emergency services new opportunities. The experiment stemmed from a desire for new ways of boarding operations.
Belgium’s entire fleet of F-16 fighter jets, the backbone of its combat air force, has been grounded since yesterday after one of the Vipers experienced problems with its Pratt & Whitney F100 engine. As of today, the air defense of the European country has now been taken over by the neighboring Netherlands.
“While technicians work hard to get our Vipers airborne asap and the Belgium Control and Reporting Center monitors the airspace above Belgium 24/7, the Koninklijke Luchtmacht [Royal Netherlands Air Force] will temporarily take over the Quick Reaction Alert from the Belgian Air Force to safeguard the BENELUX skies as from 12 o’clock,” the Belgian Air Force tweeted today.
Belgian Ministry of Defense
The view from the cockpit of a Belgian F-16.
Belgium’s F-16 grounding order follows a February 11 incident at Florennes Air Base, in which one of the jets had engine problems on takeoff and immediately made a precautionary landing, leaving some debris within the confines of the base and on the end of the runway.
The F-16 in question had a “nozzle burn through,” in which the engine’s “turkey feather” exhaust petals begin to disintegrate due to excessive temperatures. The engine of the affected aircraft was dismantled and sent to the Patria Belgium Engine Center, the contractor that handles maintenance of the powerplants.
Satellite imagery shows that, earlier this year, construction began on a new, approximately 6,150-foot-long runway on Perim, an island right in the middle of the highly strategic Bab Al Mandeb Strait, which links the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In addition to its location inside this critical maritime junction, which is an important route for both naval and commercial ships, Perim is situated less than five miles off the coast of Yemen, making it a valuable potential staging area for military operations in that country, possibly against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, as well as elsewhere in the region.
Images from Planet Labs that The War Zone reviewed show that construction of the airstrip, which is around 165 feet wide, on the northwest portion of Perim, also known as Mayyun, only began sometime between Feb. 18 and Feb. 22, 2021. The full outline of the runway, with a turnout at the western end, was visible by March 3.
A satellite image showing Perim island in the Bab Al Mandeb Strait as of March 9, 2021. The new runway is plainly visible in the northwest portion of the island.
Available imagery also shows that two new small hangar-like structures appeared on a concrete pad to the south of this runway work sometime after Feb. 24. That paved area is part of an apron left over from a separate, now-dormant project that began in 2016 and that was working toward the establishment of an air base with a nearly 10,000-feet-long runway.
There has been no active work on this larger facility since 2017. It’s not entirely clear what happened, but Perim, a remnant of an ancient volcano, has an unforgiving climate that has frustrated attempts to build military outposts on it for centuries.
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As to who is carrying out any of this work and what their ultimate goal is, it’s unclear, but the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as Saudi Arabia, are distinct possibilities. There has already been significant discussion about this construction being linked to the UAE. This follows earlier satellite imagery that The Associated Press obtained indicating that the Emiratis had dismantled many, if not all of their facilities at Assab in the East African country of Eritrea on the other side of the Bab Al Mandeb Strait sometime between January and February of this year.
Satellite images provided by @AP confirming the evacuation of the UAE military base in Assab, Eritrea.
The base was established in late 2015 to serve as FOB & a logistical hub for the UAE forces which participate in the Saudi-led coalition military operations in Yemen. pic.twitter.com/RFfP2ZEmP9
The UAE had begun expanding airfield and port facilities in Assab just months after it, as part of a Saudi Arabian-led coalition, had intervened in Yemen to push back Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. That Eritrean base became an important hub for the UAE’s contribution to that campaign, including as a forward base to launch airstrikes against the Houthis and as a point through which to funnel various forces, including Sudanese troops and foreign mercenaries, onto the Arabian Peninsula.
It is certainly possible that some of the UAE forces that had been based at Assab have now moved to Perim. The Intel Lab suggests that the two-new structures could house a small UAE contingent, with at least some of that space serving as a headquarters of some kind. In addition, the runway being built now would definitely be long enough to support tactical airlift aircraft, such as C-130s, as well as the UAE’s Boeing C-17A Globemaster III airlifters, among other types.
Jamming of the essential navigational satellite signal has caused enough headaches for the EU air traffic control organisation to prompt an investigation, complete with an instrumented aircraft designed to detect signs of GPS jamming.
Airliners rely on GPS to a great extent, and air traffic management (the science of making sure airliners don’t come dangerously close to each other) is almost solely focused nowadays on building approach paths and airways that are defined by GPS waypoints.
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Eurocontrol “started collecting GNSS outage reports by pilots in 2014, following up significant numbers of outage reports in a given area to determine cause and impact, and to support the [air traffic control company] and operators in question,” said the organisation in its report [PDF], adding that between 2017 and 2018, reported outages increased by 2,000 percentage points, rising from 154 in 2017 to a whopping 4,364 the following year.
Most of this jamming is focused on the Eastern Mediterranean and specifically affects Cyprus, Eurocontrol said. During a three-hour period in February 2020, a fifth of all flights passing through Cypriot airspace were affected, said the air traffic control org, extrapolating from a research flight it operated with an instrumented Airbus A320 that flew south of Cyprus itself.
The eastern Med, especially around Syria and Lebanon, has long been a conflict zone – and air forces from West and East alike have long been jamming GPS as part of their military operations there.
“Larnaca could become an absolute shitshow when the Americans jammed it,” an airline pilot told The Register. Describing one incident, where a radar* contact that was “going at least 50 per cent faster than us” passed below his aircraft, the pilot said it seemed to be on course for Sicily shortly before his own aircraft had a GPS failure.
“Luckily at that point, because at high altitude, it’s irritating, but not a major issue. Because for short term, you’ve got your eyes and your internal navigation system,” said the pilot.
It has deeper effects, however. “The main issue is when it happens in Larnaca (eastern Cyprus), because you’re right next to mountains and [you’re following a] GNSS approach. And if you get jammed, it causes the map to shift and the plane then decides that it’s currently inside a mountain. Sets off all of your terrain warnings.”
[…]
Triggering a terrain warning means immediately having to perform a prescribed escape manoeuvre that can mean breaking off an otherwise safe approach to land, said the pilot, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman for his airline. This causes delays and potentially extra costs to the airline and its passengers.
[…]
As for Eurocontrol, the body plaintively concluded: “At national level, local RFI [radio frequency interference] mitigation measures need to be taken, ideally including the ability to conduct in-flight RFI measurements.
“While the majority of RFI hotspots appear to originate in conflict zones, they affect commercial aviation at large distances from these zones, reflecting a disproportionate use of jamming that appears to go well beyond simple military mission effectiveness.”
So far the problem’s been formally identified: but, other than flying around jamming zones, what else can pilots do?
British Army troops in Mali are now reportedly using tiny unmanned aircraft that can be fired from standard 40mm grenade launchers. These diminutive quad-copter-type drones can be fitted with various payloads, ranging from full-motion electro-optical video cameras to small high-explosive or armor-piercing warheads, and that can fly together as a swarm after launch.
Overt Defensewas first to report that members of the U.K. Task Group in Mali had received “several hundred” Drone40s from Australian firm DefendTex. British forces are in Mali as part of the country’s Operation Newcombe, which provides support to Operation Barkhane, a French-led regional counter-terrorism effort, and the United Nation’s Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, also known by its French acronym MINUSMA.
Crown Copyright
A British Army soldier holds a Drone40 during an exercise.
The Drone40, which DefendTex unveiled publicly in 2019, was among various new systems that British Army troops from the Light Dragoons and Royal Anglian Regiment were seen training with during a Mission Rehearsal Exercise (MRX) in October 2020. That MRX was part of the workup for members of those units that headed for Mali in December. It’s not clear if the British Army has decided to acquire Drone40s for widespread use among its units or if it is conducting an operational evaluation through Operation Newcombe.
The Drone40 can be fired from launchers designed to fire standard 40mm low-velocity grenades. Its overall length is variable depending on the type of payload installed, but DefendTex says the length of the core body is close to five inches. As such, a launcher designed to fire over-sized 40mm cartridges, such as variants of the Heckler & Koch AG36 under-barrel grenade launcher, which are in service with U.K. and U.S. forces, among others, is necessary to employ them. Some older launchers, most notably the very popular American-made M203, can only accommodate relatively short 40mm rounds.
Crown Copyright
A British Army soldier holds an L85 assault rifle equipped with a variant of the Heckler & Koch AG36 40mm under-barrel grenade launcher.
The Drone40 can also be deployed by hand, as was demonstrated during the British Army’s MRX in 2020, as seen in the video below. Its design would mean that, regardless of the employment method, troops could carry them in web gear intended to carry standard 40mm grenades.
While Drone40s configured with the video camera payload were shown in videos from the MRX, it’s not clear if British troops in Mali have received any other types. DefendTex says that payload can be readily swapped in the field and that when fitted with the cameras, the drones can be recovered and reused.
The feed from Drone40s equipped with the cameras is transmitted back to the operator via a line-of-sight link and is on a hand-held tablet-like device. This is also how the drone’s movements are controlled after launch, via a GPS-enabled navigation system.
The camera configuration by itself would be an obvious boon for troops, especially those operating in small units. Drone40s with these payloads offer a way to scout ahead for enemy forces or other hazards, especially in areas full of natural or man-made cover, such as dense urban environments.
In addition, though, DefendTex offers high-explosive and anti-armor warhead options, as well as smoke and less-than-lethal flash-bang payloads. There is also an option to fit the drones with small electronic warfare jammers or laser designators to mark targets.
DefendTex
The official Drone40 product sheet from DefendTex.
These other payloads would give units equipped with Drone40s a host of other capabilities. Friendly units safely behind cover could send out armed examples to fly over enemy positions and launch attacks from above. They could also deploy smoke screens to shield their movements or jam enemy communications systems or sensors to confuse or disorient them. Laser pointer-equipped types could paint targets for other units to engage with precision-guided munitions.
On top of all this, DefendTex says that Drone40s can operate together as at least semi-autonomous swarms after launch. They also offer was it described as multiple round simultaneous impact (MSRI) capabilities.
What this means is that a single individual could fire multiple Drone40s with kinetic payloads and then they could be directed to fly to a designated point, after which they would all drop at the same time. With a mix of different warhead types, this could allow for more effective engagement of complex and dispersed targets all at once, such as troops standing in the open near light armored vehicles.
Combined with a camera-equipped type, the Drone40s could act as loitering munitions, hovering over a certain area, waiting for targets to emerge, and then being directed to engage them when they do. DefendTex says that the unmanned aircraft have a range of at least 12 miles and can remain airborne for 30 to 60 minutes, all depending on what type of payloads they’re carrying. Of course, line-of-sight restrictions exist for the command links between the operator and the drones, but it may be possible to use another drone to work as a relay.
For British troops in Mali, who are tasked with conducting patrols over broad areas in a region where various militant groups are very active, the benefits of just having small drones to provide additional immediate situational awareness are obvious. If they have received other types of payloads for their Drone40s beyond the camera package, it could provide them with an additional means of engaging enemies in the event of an ambush or any other kind of firefight.
For these exact reasons, very small so-called nano-drones are becoming increasingly popular among military forces around the world. Interestingly, the U.K. armed forces had previously employed early versions of the Black Hornet, a tiny hand-launched drone helicopter, in Afghanistan, starting in 2012, before withdrawing them from service in favor of larger individually-launched types sometime between 2016 and 2017. You can read more about the Black Hornet, variants of which are now in service in almost 20 different countries, in this past War Zone piece.
The Drone40 is also not the only drone intended to be launched from a 40mm grenade launcher presently on the market. The U.S. Army evaluated another type, Skyborne Technologies’ Cerberus GL, during its annual Army Expeditionary Warfare Experiment AEWE in 2019. It’s interesting to note that Skyborne Technologies is also based in Australia.
Last year, researchers at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) filed a patent on another camera-equipped 40mm drone design, known simply as the Grenade Launched Unmanned Aerial System (GLUAS). That unmanned aircraft can remain aloft for up to 90 minutes, but has a maximum range of just over one mile, indicating that it may be slower than the Drone40 and more limited in range in terms of its command and control interface options.
US Army
A rendering of the US Army-developed Grenade Launched Unmanned Aerial System (GLUAS) drone.
All told, the British Army’s fielding of the Drone40, even in limited numbers with forces in Mali, is another example of how drones and other unmanned capabilities are only becoming more and more ubiquitous, including at the very lowest operational levels, among military forces around the world.
The U.S. Air Force has described its bedeviled KC-46A Pegasus tanker as a “lemon,” amid ongoing problems that prevent it from performing its primary aerial refueling mission on a day-to-day basis. Now the Air Force is trying to find other ways to make use of these aircraft, of which it has already received 42 examples located at four operating bases.With deliveries set to continue at a rate of two aircraft per month, the service is now looking to put the Pegasus to work by fast-tracking at least some of the aircraft already delivered into “limited operations,” but probably not involving its core mission set of aerial refueling. Nevertheless, the move could enable the Pegasus to at least provide some utility during real-world operations as the Air Force counts down to the declaration of full operational capability, which won’t happen until late 2023 or 2024 at the earliest.U.S. Air Force/Louis BrisceseA KC-46A Pegasus arrives at Travis Air Force Base, California, in March 2017.“As I look over the 10 years, I have to say… right now where we’re at in the program is we’re making lemonade out of lemons,” General Jacqueline Van Ovost, the head of Air Mobility Command, told members of the press, as reported by the Defense One website. The embarrassing setbacks that have become an all-too-familiar aspect of the next-generation tanker program were also highlighted yesterday in an unusually candid tweet from the U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), which admitted that problems with the tanker put “America’s ability to effectively execute day-to-day operations and war plans at risk.”
The uncrewed combat aircraft will be designed to fly at high-speed alongside fighter jets, armed with missiles, surveillance and electronic warfare technology to provide a battle-winning advantage over hostile forces. Known as a ‘loyal wingman’, these aircraft will be the UK’s first uncrewed platforms able to target and shoot down enemy aircraft and survive against surface to air missiles.
In a boost for Northern Ireland’s defence industry, Spirit AeroSystems, Belfast, have been selected to lead Team MOSQUITO in the next phase of the Project. Utilising ground-breaking engineering techniques, the team will further develop the RAF’s Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft (LANCA) concept, with a full-scale vehicle flight-test programme expected by the end of 2023.
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This game changing research and development project will ensure the final aircraft design will be capable of being easily and affordably updated with the latest technology so we remain one step ahead of our adversaries. The aircraft’s flexibility will provide the optimum protection, survivability and information as it flies alongside Typhoon, F-35 Lightning, and later, Tempest as part of our future combat air system.
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ANCA originated in 2015 in Dstl to understand innovative Combat Air technologies and concepts that offer radical reductions in cost and development time and is a RAF Rapid Capabilities Office led project under the Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS TI). The UK MOD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) provides the project management and is the MOD’s technical authority for LANCA and Project Mosquito on behalf of the RCO.
In a setback for the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter program, the U.S. Department of Defense has formally decreed that a decision on full-rate production of the jet is on indefinite hold. The Milestone C decision on whether or not to ramp up the manufacture of Joint Strike Fighters had been due in or before March 2021, but has now been on hold pending completion of the final phase of operational testing of the F-35.
Bloomberg was first to report news of the verdict, which was made by Ellen Lord, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment in the Trump administration. There had been previous suggestions that a delay was at least likely, before today’s official confirmation.
U.S. Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. Dalton J. Payne
U.S. Marine Corps F-35Bs assigned to VMFA-121 await refueling at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Okinawa, Japan, December 17, 2020.
While more than 600 F-35s have been manufactured so far by the Joint Strike Fighter enterprise, including 123 examples delivered in 2020, wrapping up the Initial Operational Test & Evaluation (IOT&E) is a formal requirement before the formal launch of full-rate production. Once that happens, it will signal that the Pentagon officially has confidence in the program’s maturity and that the jet is able to perform as required in all operational conditions. Ultimately, the manufacturing run of the F-35 could reach 3,200 aircraft, depending on different nations’ requirements and emerging new customers. The U.S. Air Force alone has a program of record to eventually buy 1,763 conventional takeoff and landing F-35As, 241 of which had been delivered as of last summer.
Furthermore, the production-related milestone is supposed to confirm that the F-35 meets maintenance requirements, which have fallen short in the past, and that the manufacturing effort is running efficiently. This year, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic mean that fewer F-35s have been delivered than was originally planned.
The latest hiccup in the F-35 program is a result of delays to operational testing in the Joint Simulation Environment. The F-35 needs to prove itself in these trials in order to complete the IOT&E phase and kickstart the full-rate production review.
This a critical, roughly month-long testing phase was originally supposed to begin in 2017. That schedule subsequently slipped and there had been a hope that those trials would begin this month. Now, the F-35 is not likely to enter the Joint Simulation Environment until mid-to-late 2021.
For Star Wars fans, an X-Wing fighter isn’t complete without R2-D2. Whether you need to fire up converters, increase power, or fix a broken stabilizer, that trusty droid, full of lively beeps and squeaks, is the ultimate copilot.
Teaming artificial intelligence (AI) with pilots is no longer just a matter for science fiction or blockbuster movies. On Tuesday, December 15, the Air Force successfully flew an AI copilot on a U-2 spy plane in California: the first time AI has controlled a U.S. military system.
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With call sign ARTUµ, we trained µZero—a world-leading computer program that dominates chess, Go, and even video games without prior knowledge of their rules—to operate a U-2 spy plane. Though lacking those lively beeps and squeaks, ARTUµ surpassed its motion picture namesake in one distinctive feature: it was the mission commander, the final decision authority on the human-machine team
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Our demo flew a reconnaissance mission during a simulated missile strike at Beale Air Force Base on Tuesday. ARTUµ searched for enemy launchers while our pilot searched for threatening aircraft, both sharing the U-2’s radar. With no pilot override, ARTUµ made final calls on devoting the radar to missile hunting versus self-protection. Luke Skywalker certainly never took such orders from his X-Wing sidekick!
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to trust AI, software design is key. Like a breaker box for code, the U-2 gave ARTUµ complete radar control while “switching off” access to other subsystems.
[…]
Like a digital Yoda, our small-but-mighty U-2 FedLab trained µZero’s gaming algorithms to operate a radar—reconstructing them to learn the good side of reconnaissance (enemies found) from the dark side (U-2s lost)—all while interacting with a pilot. Running over a million training simulations at their “digital Dagobah,” they had ARTUµ mission-ready in just over a month.
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That autonomous future will happen eventually. But today’s AI can be easily fooled by adversary tactics, precisely what future warfare will throw at it.
U.S. Air Force Maj. “Vudu”, U-2 Dragon Lady pilot for the 9th Reconnaissance Wing, prepares to taxi after returning from a training sortie at Beale Air Force, California, Dec. 15, 2020.
A1C Luis A.Ruiz-Vazquez
Like board or video games, human pilots could only try outperformingDARPA’s AI while obeying the rules of the dogfighting simulation, rules the AI had algorithmically learned and mastered. The loss is a wakeup call for new digital trickery to outfox machine learning principles themselves. Even R2-D2 confused computer terminals with harmful power sockets!
Reports in the Danish media allege that the United States spied on the country’s government and its defense industry, as well as other European defense contractors, in an attempt to gain information on its fighter acquisition program. The revelations, published online by DR, Denmark’s Danish public-service broadcaster, concern the run-up to the fighter competition that was eventually won by the U.S.-made Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter.
The report cites anonymous sources suggesting that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) targeted Denmark’s Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the defense firm Terma, which also contributes to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
Allegedly, the NSA sought to conduct espionage using an existing intelligence-sharing agreement between the two countries. Under this agreement, it is said the NSA is able to tap fiber-optic communication cables passing through Denmark and stored by the Danish Defense Intelligence Service, or Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE). Huge amounts of data sourced from the Danish communication cables are stored in an FE data center, built with U.S. assistance, at Sandagergård on the Danish island of Amager, to which the NSA also has access.
This kind of sharing of confidential data is not that unusual within the intelligence community, in which the NSA is known to trade high-level information with similar agencies within the Five Eyes alliance (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States), as well as other close allies, such as Germany and Japan, for example.
It would be hoped, however, that these relationships would not be used by the NSA to secretly gather information on the countries with which it has agreements, which is exactly what is alleged to have taken place in Denmark.
A source told DR that between 2015 and 2016 the NSA wanted to gather information on the Danish defense company Terma in a “targeted search” ahead of Denmark’s decision on a new fighter jet to replace its current fleet of F-16s. This is the competition that the F-35 won in June 2016.
Flyvevåbnets Fototjeneste
A Danish F-16 painted in the same colors as the upcoming Danish F-35, over the capital, Copenhagen, in October 2020.
According to DR, the NSA used its Xkeyscore system, which trawls through and analyzes global internet data, to seek information on Terma. An unnamed source said that search criteria had included individual email addresses and phone numbers of company employees.
Officially described as part of the NSA’s “lawful foreign signals intelligence collection system,” Xkeyscore is understood to be able to obtain email correspondence, browser history, chat conversations, and call logs.
In this case, the sources also contend that the NSA used its access to Danish communication cables and FE databases to search for communications related to two other companies, Eurofighter GmbH and Saab, who were respectively offering the Typhoon and Gripen multi-role fighters for the Danish F-16 replacement program. While the Gripen was withdrawn from the Danish competition in 2014, the Typhoon remained in the running until the end, alongside the F-35 and the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
[…]
The whistleblower reports are said to have warned the FE leadership about possible illegalities in an intelligence collaboration between Denmark and the United States to drain Danish internet cables of information that the intelligence services could use in their work. Furthermore, the reports allegedly warned that the NSA was also targeting a number of Denmark’s “closest neighbors,” including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden and that some of the espionage conducted by the NSA was judged to be “against Danish interests and goals.”
[…]
Regardless of how the FE and the government react to the latest allegations, if they are substantiated, then the terms of the current U.S.-Danish intelligence-sharing agreement may be judged to be in need of at least a major review. If there is any substance to these allegations, then it’s possible other countries that have made controversial choices to select the F-35 may come under new scrutiny, as well.
Italian defense contractor Leonardo says that it has conducted a successful demonstration in cooperation with the U.K. Royal Air Force of an autonomous swarm of unmanned aircraft, each carrying a variant of its BriteCloud expendable active decoy as an electronic warfare payload. Using the BriteClouds, which contain electronic warfare jammers, the drones were able to launch a mock non-kinetic attack on radars acting as surrogates for a notional enemy integrated air defense network.
Leonardo announced it had carried out the swarm demonstration, which it conducted together with the Royal Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO), as well as private unmanned technology firms Callen-Lenz and Blue Bear, on Oct. 7, 2020. The latter two firms, as well as Boeing, are working on prototype semi-autonomous “loyal wingman” type drones for the RAF, which that service also refers to as “remote carriers,” as part of Project Mosquito, which is itself a component of the larger Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft (LANCA) program.
“During the demonstration, a number of Callen Lenz drones were equipped with a modified Leonardo BriteCloud decoy, allowing each drone to individually deliver a highly-sophisticated jamming effect,” according to Leonardo’s press release. “They were tested against ground-based radar systems representing the enemy air defence emplacement. A powerful demonstration was given, with the swarm of BriteCloud-equipped drones overwhelming the threat radar systems with electronic noise.”
For reasons that are unclear, Leonardo has since removed its press release from its website, though an archived copy of the page remains available through Google. The company also deleted an official Tweet with an infographic, a copy of which is seen below, regarding BriteCloud and this demonstration.
Leonardo
Leonardo did not offer any details about the unmanned aircraft used in the demonstration. Artist’s conceptions of a drone swarm strike that the company released along with the announcement, seen at the top of this story and in the infographic above, showed a tailless fixed-wing design with a single, rear-mounted pusher propeller and fixed undercarriage. However, there is no indication one way or another if this in any way reflects the Callen-Lenz design employed in the recent test.
The standard BriteCloud is what is known as a Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) jammer that first detects incoming radar pulses from hostile platforms, including aircraft, ships, and ground-based air defense systems, as well as active radar guidance systems on incoming missiles. It then mimics those signals in return, creating the appearance of a false target. As Leonardo said in its own press release, this effect can “confuse and overwhelm” radars and lure missiles away from friendly aircraft.
Unlike a plane dropping expendable BriteClouds, in the recent demonstration, Leonardo noted that “the decoy packages were programmed and navigated to work collaboratively to cause maximum confusion.” Placing the jammers inside drones offers the ability to help space them out for optimal coverage across a wide area. The entire swarm provides immense additional flexibility by being able to rapidly shift its focus from one area to another to respond to new developments in the battlespace. Above all else, they allow BriteCloud to employ its bag of tricks over longer periods of time and even execute multiple electronic attacks instead of just one.
At the same time, the off-the-shelf electronic warfare expendables are just that, expendable. If you lose one and its drone platform, it isn’t a big deal as they are meant to be expendable in the first place. As such, they are the very definition of attritable. This term refers to designs that could be recovered and reused, but that are also cheap enough for commanders to be willing to commit them to higher-risk missions where there is a significant chance of them getting knocked down.
The RAF is not the only one to be looking at drone swarms, or otherwise networking munitions and other expendable stores together to reduce duplication of effort and otherwise improve the efficacy of strikes and other missions. The U.S. Air Force is in the midst of its own networked munition program, called Golden Horde, and the Army recently revealed plans to develop swarms of air-launched drones carrying electronic warfare systems and other payloads, efforts that you can read about in more detail in these past War Zone pieces.
The Air Force was already familiar with the possibilities of the ‘SmartShooter’ smart aiming system. The only thing that was unknown was whether it is also effective in combination with the Colt C7 5.56mm long-range automatic rifle.
Operation
The system uses video analysis. A shooter aims his weapon at the target with the SmartShooter. So far, it is the same as with a normal aiming system. With the SmartShooter, the shooter selects the target by pulling the trigger, and holds the pulled trigger while continuing to aim at the target.
As soon as the system ‘sees’ that the target will be hit, the SmartShooter automatically will fire the weapon. So, it does not work autonomously, and the shooter selects the target, aims and pulls the trigger.
Effective
When the Dutch Army organized a shooting day to experiment with the SmartShooter system, the Air Force joined in to test its effectiveness against drones. A section of the top ten UAS detected by the Air Force in the Netherlands was fired.
The Colt rifle in combination with the SmartShooter system proved to be very effective: all targets were eliminated with a few rounds.
The British Army has reportedly developed AI-equipped killer drones armed with twin-linked shotguns designed for blasting enemies of the Queen hiding inside buildings.
As if that wasn’t terrifying enough, the Army is already looking at strapping a chain gun or rocket launcher to its i9 drone instead of the shotguns, according to The Times.
“It is the UK military’s first weaponised drone to be able to fly inside, using a combination of physics and AI that allow it to overcome ‘wall suck’, which causes drones with heavy payloads to crash because of the way they displace air in small rooms,” the newspaper reported this morning.
The weaponised craft is said to be loaded with “twin stabilised shotguns” as well as making use of “machine vision” to identify its targets. A human operator will have to press a button to actually fire the shotguns, though that is potentially the least of the civilised world’s worries from this thing.
We want weaponised urban drones flying through your house, says UK defence ministry as it waves a fistful of banknotes
Assuming that the drone is genuinely capable of firing a shotgun while hovering or in flight, this would mean the “unnamed British company” behind it has overcome some rather large challenges of physics. Basic Newtonian theory tells us that flinging an ounce of lead forwards at great speed causes an equal and opposite reaction backwards. In ballistics this force is called “recoil”. It takes little imagination to realise that recoil in a confined space is likely to push a drone backwards into a wall, rendering it useless.
[…]
The Ministry of Defence is but four years behind Russia in its armed drone endeavours. Back in 2016 a group of students designed an armed drone which first flew in 2019, though that appears to be an outdoors-only craft. The Belarusian Army also strapped an RPG to a drone in 2018, though footage doesn’t show it actually being fired
The U.S. Air Force has quietly built and flown a brand-new aircraft prototype that could become its next-generation fighter, the service’s top acquisition official announced Tuesday.
Dr. Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, revealed during the virtual 2020 Air, Space and Cyber conference that the new aircraft is part of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, which defies the traditional categorization of a single platform, featuring a network of advanced fighter aircraft, sensors and weapons in a growing and unpredictable threat environment.
“NGAD right now is designing, assembling, testing in the digital world — exploring things that would have cost time and money to wait for physical world results,” he said. “NGAD has come so far that the full-scale flight demonstrator has already flown in the physical world.”
During a roundtable with reporters, Roper declined to give specifics on the project, except that the craft was created using digital engineering, which allows the service to bypass the regular manufacturing process for parts and gives developers more flexibility to design and change blueprints. The service announced Monday that any weapon made using digital concepts will have an “e-” prefix in an effort to showcase these innovative processes.
The new aircraft has “broken a lot of records and is showing digital engineering isn’t a fluke,” Roper said. He declined to comment on whether the defense industry has taken part in the endeavor.
While he touted the expedited process of digital methods, “we don’t want our adversaries to know what they are,” Roper added.
The news comes four years after the Air Force laid out initial plans for what its future fighter jets might look like.
The most widely used variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is currently unable to fly in thunderstorms after the discovery of damage to one of the systems it uses to protect itself from lightning, its prime contractor Lockheed Martin said Wednesday.
To safely fly in conditions where lightning is present, the F-35 relies on its Onboard Inert Gas Generation System, or OBIGGS, which pumps nitrogen-enriched air into the fuel tanks to inert them. Without this system, a jet could explode if struck by lightning.
However, damage to one of the tubes that distributes inert gas into the fuel tank was discovered during routine depot maintenance of an F-35A at Hill Air Force Base’s Ogden Logistics Complex in Utah, Lockheed said in a statement.
[…]
“As a safety precaution, the JPO recommended to unit commanders that they implement a lightning flight restriction for the F-35A, which restricts flying within 25 miles of lightning or thunderstorms,” Lockheed said. “We are working with the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) on a root cause corrective action investigation to determine next steps.”
[…]
Bloomberg, which obtained a JPO memo dated June 5, reported that flawed tubes were found in 14 of the 24 “A” models inspected.
The JPO did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
For a plane nicknamed “Lightning II,” the F-35′s lightning protection systems have, ironically, become an embarrassing problem issue for the jet at times throughout its development.
The F-35 was prohibited from flying within 25 miles of lightning in the early 2010s after the Pentagon’s weapons tester discovered deficiencies with the original OBIGGs system in getting enough inert gas into the fuel tanks. Those restrictions were rescinded after the OBIGGS was redesigned in 2014.
India claims it flew a perfect scramjet test at Mach 6 on Monday.
A government announcement says the vehicle hitched a ride on a rocket that ascended to an altitude of 30km before launching the “Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle
“The cruise vehicle separated from the launch vehicle and the air intake opened as planned. The hypersonic combustion sustained and the cruise vehicle continued on its desired flight path at a velocity of six times the speed of sound i.e., nearly 02 km/second for more than 20 seconds,” the announcement added. “The critical events like fuel injection and auto ignition of scramjet demonstrated technological maturity. The scramjet engine performed in a text book manner.”
Telemetry from the craft and observations led Indian authorities to state: “All the performance parameters have indicated a resounding success of the mission.” India hasn’t released details or images of the vehicle, but did publish the launch video below.
India’s prime minister chipped in with a canned quote about the test being a fine moment in the nation’s drive for self-sufficiency in defense hardware.
Reg readers may recall that India’s done this sort of thing before, notably in a 2016 test flight that saw a scramjet ignite for five seconds. Yesterday’s test lasted rather longer, suggesting India is on the way to developing vehicles with longer ranges.
Which is where things get interesting because China, Russia and the USA are all developing hypersonic weapons. Such craft are strategically significant because they’re so fast that detecting an incoming strike is horrendously hard and developing countermeasures harder still. It’s also vastly difficult to build hypersonic craft because anything moving at 7,000km/h has all sorts of challenges with heat and vibration.
India already has a substantial and capable military and is one of few nations to possess nuclear weapons, operate a blue-water navy and run a space program.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has invested in the development of technologies that allow the human brain to communicate directly with machines, including the development of implantable neural interfaces able to transfer data between the human brain and the digital world. This technology, known as brain-computer interface (BCI), may eventually be used to monitor a soldier’s cognitive workload, control a drone swarm, or link with a prosthetic, among other examples. Further technological advances could support human-machine decisionmaking, human-to-human communication, system control, performance enhancement and monitoring, and training. However, numerous policy, safety, legal, and ethical issues should be evaluated before the technology is widely deployed. With this report, the authors developed a methodology for studying potential applications for emerging technology. This included developing a national security game to explore the use of BCI in combat scenarios; convening experts in military operations, human performance, and neurology to explore how the technology might affect military tactics, which aspects may be most beneficial, and which aspects might present risks; and offering recommendations to policymakers. The research assessed current and potential BCI applications for the military to ensure that the technology responds to actual needs, practical realities, and legal and ethical considerations.
The USA and UK have alleged that Russia last week trialled an in-orbit satellite-killer weapon.
US Space Force chief of operations General John Raymond put his name to a statement that says on July 15th Russia “injected a new object into orbit from Cosmos 2543”, a satellite that Moscow insists is a maintenance vehicle but which the USA believes is a weapons platform.
Cosmos 2543 sidled up to another Russian satellite before releasing the object that moved at around 700 km/h.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence popped up a Tweet about the incident:
Air Vice-Marshal @HarvSmyth, director of the UK’s Space Directorate, has responded to a recent Russian satellite test in space: pic.twitter.com/zGdGwCemmR
The Outer Space Treaty prohibits the use of weapons in space, so if Moscow has conducted a weapons test it has been very naughty indeed. However it is widely believed that several nations posses missiles that could reach space to attack satellites.
Such attacks are important because satellite play a significant role assisting and directing terrestrial conflicts.
In an extraordinary reversal, the U.S. Navy has recommended reinstating the fired captain of the coronavirus-hit aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, whose crew hailed him as their hero for risking his job to safeguard their lives, officials said on Friday.
The Navy’s leadership made the recommendation to reinstate Captain Brett Crozier to Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Friday, just three weeks after Crozier was relieved of command after the leak of a letter he wrote calling on the Navy for stronger measures to protect the crew, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
[…]
sper’s deliberations raised questions about whether political or other considerations might override the Navy’s recommendations in a case that has seen Democrats vocally critical of the Trump administration’s handling of the matter.
Sources say Crozier is one of the 856 sailors from the Roosevelt’s 4,800-member crew who have tested positive for the coronavirus, effectively taking one of the Navy’s most powerful ships out of operation.
Crozier was fired by the Navy’s top civilian, then-acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, against the recommendations of uniformed leaders, who suggested he wait for an investigation into the letter’s leak.
Modly’s decision backfired badly, as members of the crew hailed their captain as a hero in an emotional sendoff captured on video that went viral on social media.
Embarrassed, Modly then compounded his problems by flying out to the carrier to ridicule Crozier over the leak and question his character in a speech to the Roosevelt’s crew, which also leaked to the media. Modly then resigned.
News of the Navy’s recommendations could boost morale among sailors on the Roosevelt, who were caught between the Navy’s desire to keep the ship operational and its duty to shield them from unnecessary risk in peacetime.
[…]
The disclosure of the Navy’s recommendation, which was first reported by the New York Times, came just hours after the Pentagon announced that at least 18 sailors aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer – the Kidd – had tested positive for the new coronavirus.
It was another blow to the military as it faces fallout over its handling of the Roosevelt, raising additional questions about whether the revamped safeguards in place to protect U.S. troops are sufficient.
The crisis being triggered by the coronavirus is the biggest facing Navy leadership since two crashes in the Asia Pacific region in 2017 that killed 17 sailors.
Those incidents raised questions about Navy training and the pace of operations, prompting a congressional hearing and the removal of a number of officers.
Kyler Noe
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