Lockheed C 5 B AMP

[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] North America has offered a plan for the US Air Force to purchase 118 [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] using savings from retiring most [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and all [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].
The EADS proposal was submitted last year to the Air Mobility Command (AMC) upon their request, says Neil F. Smith, director of [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] programme for EADS NA.
The concept proposes to stand-up about eight squadrons of A400Ms within the US mobility force structure, Smith says.
"We get a very good reception" at AMC, Smith says.

EADS has been [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] in the US market for several years, arguing that the increasing size of ground vehicles has out-grown the box size of Lockheed's C-130. The A400M features a 3.96m (13ft) cabin diameter, versus the C-130 family's 2.74m-wide cargo bay.

The size difference would allow the army to load an armoured Stryker vehicle on the A400M, Smith says.
In response, a Lockheed executive challenged EADS' assumptions about the cost of the A400M, especially with the programme currently in negotiations with European governments over a reportedly $7 billion cost overrun.
"I think that's the ultimate in fuzzy math," says Jim Grant, Lockheed vice president of business development for air mobility and special operations programmes.

Despite the ongoing uncertainty about the programme's financing, EADS plans to continue making a big push in the US market. One of the programme's test aircraft could even travel to the US in early 2011 for a marketing tour, the company says.

EADS NA also believes it will need to partner with a major US prime contractor to be successful with the A400M proposal. The company has already partnered with Northrop to offer the KC-45 tanker and with Lockheed with the AS645 helicopter. EADS also would even consider partnering with [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] to bring the A400M into the US market, Smith says.

Another concept under review is to bring the Europrop consortium's TP400 engine manufacturing into the US market, as well. Smit noted that Rolls-Royce, a member of the Europrop consortium, has established an engine manufacturing plant in Richmond, Virginia, with extra capacity. That production facility could be used as a domestic source for TP400 production.

Maco a écrit:Merci Sevrien !
C'est très joli cette "proposition", mais je n'y crois pas du tout.

Le programme de modernisation C 5 de l'USAF prouve qu'il restera.

Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) officials provided details on how the C-5M is cost-effective, saves fuel and increases strategic airlift reliability for the warfighter.

This is an exciting time for the C-5 program," said Lorraine Martin, Lockheed Martin's vice president, C-5 program. "The C-5M is a game-changer for the warfighter and strategic airlift by being able to complete missions sooner, conserve fuel and carry more than any other U.S. airlifter while saving more than $9 billion for the taxpayer over the lifetime of the aircraft."

"During the surge, the C-5M avoided more than 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and was the first to meet stage four noise compliance and certification, making the M an environmentally friendly strategic airlifter," said Martin. "The RERP [Reliability Enhancement and Reengining Program] production is on-track and we look forward to continuing the partnership with the Air Force to sustain and modernize the C-5 fleet for the total force, including the Guard and Reserve."

Current Air Force plans call for Lockheed Martin to deliver 52 C-5Ms by 2016. Three C-5Ms have been delivered to the U.S. Air Force at Dover Air Force Base, Del., with a fourth scheduled for delivery in September 2010.
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 140,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation reported 2009 sales of $45.2 billion.
For additional information, visit our Web site:
[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]martin.com
SOURCE Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company
PR Newswire

Maco a écrit:S'il devait être retiré, il ne fait pas de doute que c'est le C 17 qui en bénéficierait.

USAF invests in C-5 upgrade

An unfortunate flock of four storks with roughly 1.9m (6ft) wingspans crossed into the path of a Lockheed Martin C-5 on take-off from Incirlik air base in Turkey earlier this year. For the four-engined C-5, sucking even four large fowls into a single engine is normally an unremarkable event, as its three remaining turbofans provide easily enough power to bring the aircraft back to base.
But this incident proved unusual for what did not happen, inadvertently revealing the product of an $11.7 billion investment to dramatically improve Lockheed's giant airlifter.

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The [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]'s C-5Bs are more reliable than C-5As, but out of commission an average 35%. Picture: USAF

VIBRATION
As the storks sucked into the engine nacelle, the flightcrew noticed a "slight vibration". The engine's throttle was quickly pulled back to idle, but the crew expected a flameout. The engine, although damaged, never shut down.
"It was still producing thrust the whole time," marvels Capt Cory Damon, a C-5 evaluator pilot at Dover AFB, Delaware.
Such experiences may be relatively common among users of modern, large turbofan engines, but not in the US Air Force's [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] community until last year.
Twelve months ago, the USAF started flying the first of three re-engined and upgraded C-5Ms on operational missions.
The bird strike at Incirlik happened to involve one of those three C-5Ms, each now powered by four General Electric [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]-80C2s, which are at least a full generation of technology beyond the legacy C-5 fleet's GE TF39s.
"We've always had an airframe that was so much more capable, but we were limited by the engines," says Lt Col Michael Semo, chief of the C-5M integration office at Dover. "Now we have an engine that matches the capability of the airframe."
Since its debut, the new fleet of pre-production C-5M models has quickly made a favourable impression among pilots and maintenance crews, even as it has added a new layer of complexity to the USAF's calculations for determining the appropriate size and mix of strategic airlifters in the future.

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Lack of light in the C-5B cargo compartment "could be a little bit of a hazard". Picture: USAF

Some new aircraft designs wait years to begin operations in combat zones despite being declared ready for service. The C-5M has received no such luxury. Within its first year of operations, the C-5M has completed a single sortie that broke 41 aviation records and participated in two real-world surges of equipment and troops into Afghanistan, with the latest airlift spike ending a month ago.
It is an airlifter that first started flying 41 years ago, but is now enjoying a second wind. The oldest version in the fleet is the C-5A model, and the 59 left in service are unavailable for missions due to maintenance and repairs more often than they are not. The 49 C-5Bs - manufactured about 25 years ago - are more reliable, but are out of commission on average by 35%.
The key factor driving the C-5's poor reliability record is the TF39 engine, a first-generation turbofan that represented a major leap in propulsion technology during the late 1960s, but falls well below modern standards. USAF officials have complained each TF39 must be removed from the wing for overhaul every 1,000h. The reliability of modern turbofans is at least an order of magnitude greater.
During the most recent, month-long surge, when two C-5Ms flew a combined 22 missions from Rota, Spain to three locations in Afghanistan, delivering about half the equipment for a newly inserted combat brigade, the improved reliability showed. Only one of the C-5M's 22 missions left Rota behind schedule due to a maintenance problem, Semo says.
The same surge also involved a combination of eight C-5A/Bs. Despite outnumbering C-5Ms by four times on the ramp at Rota, the C-5A/Bs delivered less cargo despite flying one more flight than the upgraded C-5M. Most tellingly, USAF mobility planners felt obliged to assign eight C-5A/Bs to complete a mission that could be performed by two C-5Ms.
Such performance may redefine how the C-5 fleet should be perceived. The C-5 is by far the USAF's largest airlifter, capable of carrying 50t more payload than the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] C-17. The C-5 is also the only aircraft that can carry the army's 74t mobile scissors bridge. But the fleet has been plagued by reliability problems since entering service in 1969. So far, the C-5M has shown greater payload performance with a fraction of the maintenance burden.
The M-model "really makes the C-5 what it was envisioned to be when it was designed", says Capt Matt Jaeger, chief of pilot standards evaluation at Dover AFB.
Replacing the troublesome TF39 provided the greatest improvement, but the C-5M programme funded 70 other reliability enhancements. Most of the list of upgrades are not visible to anybody but the maintainers.

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visible change in the C-5M upgrade is the addition of fluorescent lighting. Picture: USAF

HEALTH DIAGNOSTICS
A key example cited by Semo is an improved health diagnostic system, which is enabled by the even more significant upgrade to transition the C-5's electrical systems from analogue to digital format.
For the C-5A/Bs, a problem as simple as fixing a wheel brake could ground the aircraft for several hours, as maintainers sometimes needed to pull all 24 brake hubs to find the pair that was broken. It is a relatively simple repair job, but often the "crew would have to go into crew rest" before it was complete, Semo says, which led to even longer delays.
The C-5M's digitally based diagnostic system tells the maintainers exactly where to find the faulty brakes. "With the B-model that would take at least six hours," Damon says. "But with the -M , it's the first place you look."
Perhaps the most visible change among the C-5M upgrades is a new fluorescent lighting system in the cargo compartment. "The 'B' could be a little bit of a hazard with the amount of light in the cargo compartment," Jaeger says.
The next stage for the C-5M programme is ramping up production to convert the rest of the 49 C-5Bs. The first production version of the C-5M is scheduled for delivery before 1 October.
EXCESS CAPACITY
Meanwhile, the USAF is struggling to balance what it considers an excess of capacity in its strategic airlifter fleet.
The USAF acquired the Boeing C-17 to replace a fleet of 270 Lockheed C-141 Starlifters. Including 43 C-17s added by Congress since 2007, the USAF's C-17 fleet will add up to 222, with one aircraft lost to a crash in early August. Although the C-17 fleet is smaller, the Boeing airlifter can carry more than twice the cargo of the C-141.
In addition, the USAF also continues to lease the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], which can haul eight mine-resistant ambush protection vehicles compared with only five inside the C-5.
According to USAF statistics, the combination of 111 C-5s and 222 C-17s provides a capability to move nearly 36 million ton miles per day, but the service needs capacity to transport a maximum of 32.7 million ton miles daily.
To rebalance the fleet, the USAF has asked Congress to repeal a law banning the service from retiring any C-5As. Specifically, the USAF wants to retire 17 C-5As next year and five more in fiscal year 2012, slashing the A-model fleet by more than one-third. So far, lawmakers have been reluctant to allow any C-5A retirements, as certain bases, such as Westover AFB in Massachusetts, now depend on the aircraft's presence to justify their existence.
The C-5M's improved performance may complicate this debate by adding a new dimension. In 2007, the USAF decided to remove the C-5A fleet from the re-engining and reliability enhancement programme (RERP) after Lockheed's cost projections had grown by 58%.
The cost overrun followed a similar budget fiasco for the C-5 avionics modernisation programme, which is required for the Galaxy fleet to continue to operate in controlled airspace and as a precursor to the RERP upgrades.

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The USAF's C-17s (above) and C-5s can move almost 36 million ton miles per day. Picture: USAF

Lockheed's Super Galaxy: C-5 Becomes A ‘Superstar’

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Another Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] C-5 is being transformed into the world’s most capable strategic airlifter, the C-5M Super Galaxy. With more than 70 improvements, the Super Galaxy is rapidly becoming the linchpin of success in achieving global reach. The next C-5M Super Galaxy will be delivered on Sept. 30, 2010 and will be stationed at Dover Air Force Base, Del. The C-5M Super Galaxy recently achieved a 96 percent departure reliability rate while delivering critical cargo to troops in Afghanistan and was called upon to carry the 7.5-ton Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to be launched on the last space shuttle flight next year.

Jeannot a écrit:Airbus pourrait vendre l'A400M en extrême orient comme avion d'assistance aux secours.

Airbus expects Far East orders for tsunami rescue aircraft


Both Japan and New Zealand have inquired about the A400M to handle humanitarian crises


Far Eastern governments have contacted Airbus about ordering its latest military aircraft, which can cost more than $80m (£49m), to tackle humanitarian crises.



The A400M was originally designed for the defence needs of seven European countries, including the UK, Germany and France. Last year, the governments of those nations agreed a ¤3.5bn (£3.04bn) deal to salvage the much-delayed programme.

The aircraft is extremely flexible. Countries such as Japan and New Zealand have looked at buying it for humanitarian aid and rescue purposes after recent tsunamis and earthquakes. The Britain's Department for International Development (DfID) has also looked at the A400M.

Neighbouring Far Eastern governments are understood to have started looking at the possibility of teaming up in partnerships of two to three to afford the aircraft. There is no fixed cost because different clients have their own specifications, but the cost – tens of millions – puts them out of reach for most humanitarian groups.

At present, the Airbus parent company, EADS, is not officially trying to push A400 sales until 2012. But a soft marketing push, including conference presentations, has started.

Ian Elliott, the head of defence marketing at Airbus Military, said: "There's been quite some interest shown from affiliates of NGOs – government departments, like DfID.

"There has been interest from Far Eastern governments. You've only got to look at the disasters in the area to see how the A400 could help."

Mr Elliott added that the A400 had "enormous potential" in disaster relief, anti-piracy and illegal immigration control. For example, the advanced radar and communication facilities could easily track pirates.

He also confirmed that "informal contacts at mid-level staff levels" had started with some countries. "We will kick-off the export campaign next year," he said. "The full potential of this aircraft will really begin demonstrating itself when entering service."

The first delivery of the A400 is expected to be made to France in 2013. The other four initial clients are Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain and Turkey.

The news comes after a significant week for Airbus. The World Trade Organisation announced that it was partially overturning a 2010 verdict that the European Union had given Airbus $18bn in illegal subsidies to develop the A380 jumbo. Boeing, its US rival, had challenged the subsidies. Confusingly, both sides claimed victory. Airbus's president, Tom Enders, claimed the group had won on "all the key elements" and Boeing's Jim McNerney said it was "a clear, final win" for the US.

Lord Mandelson, the former European trade commissioner, urged the two parties not to continue the seven-year dispute because of the potential threat from emerging economies.

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