Pilot Safe at US Military Plane Crash in S. Korea

During a training mission, an F-16 jet fighter of the US Air Force crashed in Gunsan, South Korea. Fortunately, the pilot ejected to safety before the aircraft crashed into a rice paddy around noon on Wednesday.

According to a US military statement: “The (lone) pilot safely ejected before the plane crashed. Emergency response teams are on scene at this time.” The statement also said that there are no serious injuries or damage to the ground.

Earlier reports from a local fire station officer misstated that the pilot was injured and that the aircraft involved was an A-10 Tank Buster.

South Korean and US troops are currently conducting “Foal Eagle,” an annual joint military exercise. However, it is not clear whether the F-16 is part of the exercise.

North Korea ferociously oppose the joint military exercises of the two countries, tagging it as a rehearsal for invasion. But South Korea and the US stated that the exercises are just for defensive purposes.

Currently, there are 28,500 US troops in South Korean. US military presence has been in the country since the 1950-53 war.

 

Pacific Aircraft offers desktop model planes of F-16 jet fighters and other US military model airplanes. Each custom model airplanes are handcrafted and painted intricately, capturing more detail than other model airplanes in the market.

 

Source: AFP

Canadian DND figures shows little wiggle room in replacing CF-18s with stealth fighters

Ottawa, CANADA – There’s little wiggle room to prolong the life of Canada’s CF-18 jet fighters beyond 2020 and they may have to be flown gently if there are further delays in the F-35 program.

A Defence Department chart that tracks maintenance on all 77 aircraft shows the CF-18s had used up about 73 per cent of their airframe life prior to last year’s Libya bombing campaign.

National Defence has acknowledged there is no back-up plan if the multi-national F-35 stealth fighter program encounters more problems or postponements.

The retirement date for all but three of the CF-18s is set at 2020, according to the spreadsheet tabled in Parliament last year in response to written questions by Opposition parties.

On average, each aircraft is expected to end its service life with just over 7,000 hours in the air; most had already surpassed an average 5,151 hours at the time the snapshot was taken in late 2010.

The aging fighters have gone through a decade-long $1.8-billion upgrade to their weapons systems and sensors, and senior defence officials say they’ll “easily be effective” for another eight years.

All of the jets were purchased between 1984 and 1989. Aircraft No. 925 is expected to clock out with the airtime at 8,637 hours, according to the documents.

The first of the problem-plagued F-35s is supposed to be delivered in 2016, with the bulk of the planned 65 aircraft arriving in 2020.

The New Democrats say it’s foolish that the Harper government has not prepared a solid back-up plan, even if that contingency is simply investing in some sort of airframe life-extension.

“The way they are proceeding simply confounds me,” said NDP critic Matthew Kellway. “I don’t know how they could have painted themselves into this corner without a back up, and if they have one they refuse to tell us what it might be.”

But for the Harper government, the figures underscore the need to replace the aging fighters.

“Canada’s CF-18s are nearing the end of their usable lives,” said Chris McCluskey, a spokesman for Associate Defence Minister Julian Fantino.

“We have set a budget for replacement aircraft and we have been clear that we will operate within that budget. We will make sure that the Air Force has aircraft necessary to do the job we ask of them.”

Other nations, notably the United States, have invested in programs to keep their F-16 Fighting Falcons and F-15 Eagles flying because of delays in the US $328-billion stealth fighter, which is the most costly weapons program in American history.

In fact, Lockheed Martin, which manufactures both the F-35 and the F-16, announced last week that it would offer upgrade kits to keep older Falcons in the air and might even build new ones.

Industry observers see it as a hedge against more possible delays.

The current Defence Department plan in Ottawa sees the first F-35s arrive in 2016 and enter service in the 2018 time frame, at which point the oldest of the current fighters would be retired. But development setbacks and delayed orders from other allied nations have cast doubt on that.

Defence experts have been pushing the government since last fall to consider a further upgrade to the CF-18s.

Retired air force lieutenant-colonel Dean Black has said it’s something that should be considered rather than going down the road of Australia buying new Super Hornets, the beefed up version of the F-18.

 

-whistlerquestion.com

US seeks military ties, not base, in Philippines

WASHINGTON (AP) – The United States says it shares a common interest with the Philippines in protecting freedom of navigation in the South China Sea but is not seeking to re-establish a military base on the territory of its Southeast Asian treaty ally.

Despite impending budget cuts, the U.S. has signaled its intent to reinforce its presence in the Asia-Pacific, where there is some trepidation over China’s rising military capabilities. In recent months it has announced plans to station troops in Australia and dock Navy ships in Singapore. That has fueled speculation the U.S. could seek to re-establish the permanent military presence it had in the Philippines until the early 1990s.

As senior diplomats and defense officials from the Philippines and the U.S. began two days of annual strategic talks in Washington on Thursday, both sides said the focus was on intensifying military cooperation in other ways, such as more joint exercises.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. is interested in increasing training and cooperation in areas including search and rescue, freedom of navigation, countering terror and countering piracy.

“The idea that we are looking to establish U.S. bases or permanently station U.S. forces in the Philippines, or anywhere else in Southeast Asia, as part of a China containment strategy is patently false,” said Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde, a Defense Department spokeswoman.

The Philippines has turned to Washington for military hardware after accusing Chinese ships last year of repeatedly intruding into areas it claims in the South China Sea’s disputed Spratly Islands and disrupting oil exploration in its territorial waters.

The U.S. says it has a national interest in peaceful resolution of the territorial conflicts and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea – where Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan also have claims. The waters are also home to some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

“Certainly freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is something we share an interest in and something that we are interested in protecting together,” Nuland told a news conference.

Earlier, in Manila, Philippines Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said any additional joint military activity would conform with the 1999 agreement that allows U.S. ship and aircraft to visit and resupply, and for joint military exercises in the Philippines.

The Philippine Senate voted in 1991 to close major U.S. military bases in the country, but since 2002 hundreds of U.S. troops have been training and arming Filipino soldiers fighting al-Qaida-linked militants in a Muslim-majority region of the southern Philippines.

The talks in Washington involve the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Kurt Campbell, and Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Lavoy. Their Philippine counterparts are Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Erlinda Basilio and Defense Undersecretary Pio Lorenzo Batino.

During the talks, the Philippines will discuss requests for an additional U.S. Coast Guard cutter, a squadron of F-16 fighter jets and other weapons the Philippines needs to bolster its territorial defense, Philippine defense spokesman Peter Paul Galvez said.

 

-ktvn.com

“Red Tails” film honors Tuskegee Airmen

Yesterday, Jan. 20, was the special screening of the new George Lucas-produced film “Red Tails” at Rave Cinemas Franklin Park, Toledo, Ohio.

The all-black unit Tuskegee Airmen of the Army Air Corps in the segregated military of World War II didn’t often get recognition, let alone applause, as its members flew successful missions over Europe.

The Airmen believe the new film, directed by Anthony Hemmingway, will bring long overdue attention to their service.

“What we did was to pretty much change the course of history in terms of civil rights and everything that came after it,” said Harold H. Brown of Port Clinton, 87, who was a pilot flying escort missions as part of the Airmen’s 332nd Fighter Group — the Red Tails that are the subject of the film and so named for the bright red painted on the tails of the P-51 Mustangs they flew.

“There was an awful lot of history in terms of breaking down barriers,” said Mr. Brown, of the Airmen’s Ohio Chapter, in a conversation before a dinner to honor the Airmen.

“This movie is important because it tells a story that needs to be told without the usual Hollywood embellishments,” said John M. Stewart, of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. Detroit chapter. He served stateside in the Air Force from 1949 — the year after the armed forces were integrated — to 1954. Unlike Mr. Brown, he is not an “original,” as the Airmen call those in the contingent trained at Tuskegee, Ala., for the war effort. But he joined the organization to honor those who were.

“If it wasn’t for the Tuskegee Airmen and the black Marines, we’d all be marching with a swastika flag in front of us,” Mr. Stewart said.

A poster for the movie — which features vanquished Nazi planes aflame and headed earthward — was on prominent display at the dinner, held at the Elephant Bar & Restaurant. Under the movie title was the legend, “Courage has no color.” The Airmen autographed the poster and stood in ones and twos in front of it as comrades or family members took pictures.

In a program at the theater, Mayor Mike Bell, who was made an honorary Tuskegee Airman last summer, said: “The idea of what these Tuskegee Airmen still stand for is a great thing.”

He said that he realized when took a ride aboard an F-16 fighter jet courtesy of the 180th Fighter Wing not only what that unit of the Ohio Air National Guard has done for America, “but also about what these gentlemen have done for America, and at how smart and how quick you have to be able think and how much you have to know to be able to fly.

“It made me think as we were riding home how safe America is because of people like the Tuskegee Airmen and the 180th that protect our country every day.”

The audience in the packed theater included the mayor, Mr. Brown, and U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (R., Bowling Green), whose newly constituted Fifth District will include Toledo Express Airport. About 450 were members of the 180th Fighter Wing of the Ohio Air National Guard, which is based at the airport.

Lt. Col. Mike Digby of the 180th Fighter Wing said the screening was held “to recognize the heritage and history and to see how far we’ve come.” They turned out to be one of the best flying squadrons in World War II.

By chance, when the 180th deployed to Iraq, it was assigned to the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, a successor to the Red Tails’ fighter group. Airspace over Balad Air Base was divided into “Tuskegee North” and “Tuskegee South,” and when Colonel Digby was a supervisor there, he was designated Red Tail 1 or Red Tail 2.

“It all ties together,” Colonel Digby said.

The Tuskegee connection to northwest Ohio goes back to World War II. Art Jibilian, who grew up in Toledo, was one of three who parachuted behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Serbia to orchestrate the air rescue of more than 500 downed U.S. airmen. The Tuskegee Airmen — the Red Tails — provided air cover for what was called “Operation Halyard,” which took several months.

Brian McMahon, a Perrysburg real estate developer, helped arrange honors for Mr. Jibilian and for the surviving Tuskegee Airmen in 2009 at the largest private air show in the world. He and Colonel Digby helped arrange the dinner and screening.

The story of Mr. Jibilian and the Airmen will have to wait for another movie. But Mr. McMahon hopes that awareness created by Red Tails leads to a Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. military honor. Mr. Jibilian died in March, 2010, in his Fremont home. A resolution for the medal was co-signed by Mr. Latta and U.S. Rep Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo).

After the movie showing, some airmen commented on how realistic it was.

“They had to jazz up a few things, but if you don’t do that, you don’t have a good movie,” Mr. Brown said.

His favorite part was the raid on Berlin, but he noted that all of the accounts in the movie occurred in real life.

Before the screening, four Tuskegee Airmen in attendance, including Mr. Brown and Alexander Jefferson, both of whom were shot down and became Nazi prisoners of war, were honored with coins — a military tradition, Brig. Gen. Mark Bartman said — and congratulations.

Mr. Bell also was made an “honorary Buckeye colonel” and thereby an official member of the militia in the state.

 

-toledoblade.com

Iraq can’t get enough F-16s, will buy 18 more

Iraq is likely to order a second batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 combat jets following last month’s contract to buy 18 of the aircraft, Iraqi officials say.

This appears to be a concerted, but belated, drive by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to give the country’s emerging postwar air force a credible defensive punch funded by windfall oil revenues and to shore up an important gap in Iraqi defenses as U.S. forces withdraw.

Ali Musawi, a close Maliki aide, said the 18 F-16 jets were “a first installment and hopefully there will be another 18 to make a total of 36.” He said the first batch of F-16s with enhance Iraqi capabilities to protect its airspace, but 18 aircraft will be far too few to effectively cover an area of 169,234 square miles.

Mudher Khidr Nasir, a member of the Iraqi Parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, has told the Iraq Daily Times the 18 F-16 Block 52 aircraft order — enough for one squadron — was so small as to be “ridiculous.”

The contract is worth at least $3 billion but will probably swell to $4.2 billion once training programs, spare parts, maintenance and weapons systems are included. The first of the aircraft Baghdad has ordered aren’t expected to be delivered until the fall of 2012 and most likely not until 2013.

Ultimately, Iraqi commanders have said they want 96 F-16s, enough for five squadrons deployed around the country at air bases built by the Americans following the 2003 invasion.

The F-16s now on order will be the first combat aircraft for the Iraqi air force. The first batch of 10 pilots is already undergoing supersonic training with the U.S. Air Force.

Source: UPI.com

Iraqi parliamentarian seek for more F-16s

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s decision to purchase 18 F-16 fighter jets will provide a “very robust capability” where today there is none and will allow the country’s military to protect its airspace, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq said Thursday.

But an Iraqi parliamentarian who sits on the defense oversight committee said the size of the order was so small as to be “ridiculous.” Top aides to Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said a follow-up order for the “Fighting Falcon,” which Lockheed Martin manufactures at Fort Worth, Texas, is a near-certainty.

The deal, worth $3 billion, was announced this week after Iraq, its treasury flush thanks to high oil prices, made a $1.4 billion down payment.

Ali Musawi, a spokesman for Maliki, said the 18 planes were “a first installment, and hopefully there will be another 18 to make a total of 36.”

While the fighters “will enhance” Iraq’s abilities to protect its airspace, land and waters, “They will not, by themselves, be enough, because our neighboring countries have a large number of fighter planes,” Musawi told McClatchy, referring to Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. “So looking to Iraq’s position in the region, having those planes is not much, but it is a beginning.”

Mudher Khidr Nasir, a member of parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, said the committee hadn’t received official notification of the contract, but added: “I find the number 18 ridiculous.”

The chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq said in the context of the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of this year, Iraq had taken a major step forward.

“The F-16 is a good example of them taking a step to reinforce their sovereignty, increase their self-reliance and deal with one of those security gaps that they still have,” Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan said.

Concerns about Iraq’s lack of air defense capabilities had been one reason some have advocated that the United State leave substantial numbers of troops in Iraq after the Dec. 31 pullout deadline.

But Buchanan said Iraq had made a number of advances toward regaining full sovereignty over its airspace after eight years in which the United States exercised control.

Next month, Iraqi air traffic controllers will assume responsibility for flights below 15,000 feet in the central part of the country, the only part of Iraqi airspace where the U.S. remains in control. Iraq’s air defense radars and long-range radar systems will be fully functional by the middle of next year. And the Iraqi military now has a modern air-operations center that controls military aircraft throughout the country and is able to sound a warning if the borders are breached.

What Iraq has lacked “is the ability to defend their airspace,” Buchanan said. The F-16s will provide help provide that.

“It gives them a very robust capability right now, where they currently have none.” He said that one squadron of F-16s could cover the entire country. He acknowledged that this was likely to be a first installment. “Could you do more with 36 than 18? The answer would be yes, he said.

One additional element still to be set up is ground-based air defense — missiles and guns — which will be deployed to key locations that the Iraqi authorities say must be defended. This is still under discussion with U.S. experts, Buchanan said.

With just 90 days until the deadline for full withdrawal, the U.S. troop presence now stands at 44,000, down from 92,000 at the start of the year. The military has redeployed 1.5 million pieces of equipment, with 800,000 left to go. American forces are still on 34 bases, down from 505 in 2008, Buchanan said.

It’s still unclear whether any U.S. troops will stay on after Dec. 31 as trainers and advisers. Top Iraqi politicians are at loggerheads over whom to appoint to head the Defense and Interior ministries, a decision that’s become inextricably linked to Iraq’s request for the American advisers and trainers.

Tahseen al Shaikhli, a government spokesman, said this week that Iraq and the United States had agreed in principle to have some 3,000 American trainers remain, but he acknowledged that an agreement to provide them immunity from Iraqi prosecution hadn’t been concluded.

In July, Shaikhli had said Iraq was hoping to have some 13,000 U.S. advisers and trainers remain in the country after Dec. 31.

Buchanan said the F-16 deal had been due to be completed in January but that Iraq had postponed it for budgetary and political reasons, including concerns that the country didn’t have enough money to provide for staples for Iraqis receiving food rations.

But with oil at more than $100 a barrel for much of the year, the government, which draws 90 percent of its income from oil sales, found itself with an unexpected windfall of at least $14 billion, Buchanan said.

“Based on that, they decided to go back and see how they were prioritizing spending their money,” he said. Recognizing that they still needed combat aircraft, “they allocated money to it.”

-miamiherald.com

F-16 pilot had important mission after 9/11 attacks

Lt. Col. Scott Crogg can still remember the little things as he sat in the cockpit of his F-16 Fighting Falcon 10 years ago.

Clear blue skies, his wingman Maj. Scott Brotherton and no other planes in the sky — except for the large jet trailing behind him.

It was Air Force One, and Crogg was charged with protecting “a valuable package.”

“It was an interesting day,” he said.

Crogg, a reservist and commander of the 44th Fighter Group at Holloman Air Force Base — he’s also a licensed commercial pilot for Delta Airlines — was tasked that day with protecting President George W. Bush and Air Force One as it trekked across the heartland of America in the midst of terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa.

“I was in an F-16 unit in the Texas Air National Guard, which ironically is the same unit President Bush spent his military service time in — the 111th Fighter Squadron at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base in Houston,” he said. “I was sitting alert the day before 9/11. I never sleep well on alert because there are a lot of other guys out there and you might be awakened in the middle of the night to check out some unknown aircraft or helicopter.”

No sooner had Crogg drifted off to sleep after his 24-hour shift, news of an airliner striking the north tower of the World Trade Center was broadcast. Soon after came live video of a second plane crashing into the south tower.

“When I saw the second airplane hit, I think that triggered something in all of us. I made the decision to go into work,” he said.

As Ellington’s director of operations at the time, Crogg began calling his crew into work. He also began preparing his F-16 for takeoff.

“I took the first person who came in to work — Maj. Shane Brotherton — and we left,” he said. “Two planes had already scrambled to meet President Bush on his way west from Sarasota, Fla. We jumped into our planes and proceeded to meet Air Force One.”

Air Force One was destined to land first at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., to refuel. That is also where the president recorded a quick statement for nationwide broadcast.

But before Air Force One could land, Crogg first had to “sanitize” the area above Barksdale.

“We set up a combat air patrol, which basically is sanitizing the area and making sure there were no threats over the base in Louisiana,” he said. “When (Air Force One) got airborne, we followed them to Nebraska. We visually picked them up around 10 a.m. Central Time.”

Crogg said the combat air patrol flights over Barksdale that day reminded him of earlier missions he had flown in the Middle East.

“I’ve flown over that patch of the United States lots of times, but to be flying over that area doing circles, looking for threats and sanitizing — the same thing I’d been doing for years taking off from Saudi Arabia and flying over Iraq as part of NATO’s no-fly zone … that really hit home. And there we were doing it over the United States.

“I think it was at that moment when everyone knew things were going to be different.”

rogg said he was unaware of Air Force One’s intended destination, and since military pilots aren’t capable of stowing maps of the entire country in the cockpit, he had to rely on maps of Texas and Louisiana — at least for a short time.

“We didn’t know where we were going and no one would tell us over the radio, which I don’t blame them,” he said.

Crogg followed Air Force One for the next hour to Offutt Air Force Base, Neb. After that, he remembers gathering as many maps of the country as he could just in case his mission wasn’t complete.

“We weren’t sure when we were going home,” he said.

After several hours of waiting at Offutt, Crogg learned his mission was to continue.

“I was informed that Bush didn’t want other escorts between Nebraska and Washington, D.C.,” he said. “He specifically requested that he would like for us to go with him.”

Like most Americans on that day, he wanted to get in touch with his family to let them know of his safety.

“Being military members, all we could do was make a phone call and say, ‘I can’t tell you where I am. I can’t really tell you what I’m doing. I’m fine. I’ll call you tonight.’ We couldn’t talk about it until that mission was done,” he said.

As the lead escort, Crogg felt a sense of loneliness piloting the skies between Nebraska and Washington, D.C.

“It was surreal because there was nobody else airborne,” he said. “I’m also a pilot for Delta Airlines. It was bizarre being one of the only airplanes to be airborne. Any airplane that was spoken about by AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) was something we needed to identify. We couldn’t allow anything to get close to the president.”

If an unidentified aircraft were to approach Air Force One, Crogg said he would have been forced to engage — even if it meant killing a fellow commercial airline pilot, the crew and passengers.

“I guarantee you nobody wanted to be that guy,” he said. “We had explicit guidance that (downing a commercial jet) was now on the table. This came down from the top. We would have waited until it was absolutely 100 percent obvious because there’s one guarantee: when you shoot down an airliner, at least 200 people are going to die.

“We just had to have a lot of faith that someone else had more information than we did that an airplane was worth more to us down than up — and also knowing that those people were probably going to perish anyway if it flew into something.”

Crogg escorted Air Force One to Andrews Air Force Base. He watched from the end of the runway as Bush deplaned and boarded Marine One, the presidential helicopter that eventually took him back to the White House.

“By the time we got our airplanes in the hangar, shut them down and got to our hotel, the president was addressing the nation from the Oval Office,” he said. “It was then that we felt like we did our part, so we called our families and told them what we were doing.”

Crogg remembers the following day when he returned home to Houston.

“It was a really long, early morning — and lonely — flight back,” he said. “I talked to no one on the way back to Houston, other than to hand off air traffic control centers. Being an airline pilot, I’m used to hearing the radio going nonstop and not being able to get a word in edge-wise. I think I talked with three people on that flight back. It was really bizarre.”

Crogg continues to fly for Delta, which has granted him a military leave of absence for almost five years. But, he said things “just aren’t the same” as before Sept. 11, 2001.

“It went from being a fun job where you could leave the door open and talk with the rest of the air crew to being sealed up behind a reinforced steel door,” he said. “When you shut the door for a flight, you don’t come out unless you absolutely have to use the restroom or there’s something else going on.

“I think we’ve all gotten used to it.”

And Crogg said passengers have approached him and the flight crew about “suspicious-looking people.”

“It freaks people out if someone on a plane is speaking Arabic … and he’s a young male. People must have faith that TSA did their job, baggage handlers did their job and everyone that has access to restricted areas did their jobs.

“Myself and the flight crew … we all have families, too. If we thought a flight was unsafe, we wouldn’t go. It’s not worth it.”

 

-deseretnews.com

Wikileaks: Pakistan has problem paying for U.S. security checks on F-16s

The F-16 deal of Pakistan and U.S. requires a U.S. security personnel at Shahbaz airbase and Islamabad to safe guard the F16 aircraft for five years. However, a WikiLeaks cable suggests Pakistan has problems paying the $150 million needed.

According to one  US embassy cable “The security notes also mandate a five-year, 24/7 US technology security presence for the F-16s. SAF/IA has determined that when fully in place, the US security presence should consist of 45 US personnel – 40 at Shahbaz (five US military and 35 contractors), and five in Islamabad (two US military, one US Government civilian, two contractors). The estimated cost of the US security presence is $30 million per year, or $150 million for the full five-year period.”

The F-16 aircraft are subject to security restrictions that the aircraft, armaments, related equipment and technical data need to be housed at a separate air force base which does not have “non-US/non-Pakistani origin personnel and aircraft.”

A January 2009 cable explained this further, stating that “there have been other US government concerns about illegal technology transfer relating to Pakistan’s co-production program with the JF-17 Chinese fighter aircraft.” The cables also note Pakistan’s difficulty in making payments for the security presence.  According to the October cable, Pakistan also had to make upgrades and security enhancements to the airbase, which it estimated would cost $210 million.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) said in public statements that the base was under Pakistan’s control and denied that there were American officers stationed there.

Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar told the Senate in January 2010 that the base had been used for “covert operations in Afghanistan two years ago” but the Shamsi, Pasni and Shahbaz bases were not being used by the US.

Source: The Express Tribune

Offsetting Pentagon cuts through exports

Lockheed Martin Corp’s (LMT.N) political backers are stepping up a drive to meet Taiwan’s request for 66 new F-16 fighter jets, a sale that would help the Pentagon’s largest supplier weather possible cuts to its big-ticket weapons programs.

Such a sale, valued at more than $8 billion, would anger China, which deems self-ruled Taiwan a wayward province subject to unification by force if necessary.

Arms sales will be among the subjects explored at the annual Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington September 6-8. Company executives, Pentagon officials and analysts will discuss projected cuts in U.S. military spending that nearly doubled in the decade after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Notwithstanding the possible harm to U.S.-China ties, nearly half of the 100 U.S. senators and 181 of the 435 members of the House of Representatives have urged President Barack Obama to move quickly to meet Taiwan’s F-16 request, informally pending since 2006.

“We are deeply concerned that further delay of the decision to sell F-16s to Taiwan could result in closure of the F-16 production line,” 45 senators said in a May 26 letter to Obama.

Economic arguments in favor of sensitive arms sales may gain traction as the U.S. jobless rate is stuck above 9 percent and campaigning for the 2012 elections is starting in earnest.

The Obama administration has begun consulting Congress on plans to sell Global Hawk spy planes made by Northrop Grumman (NOC.N) to South Korea, Reuters reported this week. This would require a waiver of the Missile Technology Control Regime, or MTCR, a voluntary arms control pact involving at least 34 countries.

Then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in October 2008 that the United States was “very sympathetic” to South Korea’s interest in the high-flying drone but that there were MTCR issues to overcome.

The Global Hawk’s range and payload capacity subject it to the pact created in 1987 to curb the spread of unmanned systems that could be used to deliver weapons of mass destruction.

The State Department declined to comment on a possible MTCR waiver pending formal notification of Congress of any such proposed Global Hawk sale.

Northrop Grumman Chief Executive Wes Bush complained in an August 17 speech that export curbs on unmanned systems were harming U.S. industry without making the United States any safer.

“The good news,” he said, “is that the Defense Department is promoting what is clearly the best export reform policy — build higher walls around fewer things.”

Arms sales to the Middle East, India and East Asia have always been freighted with diplomatic and political considerations, including maintaining balances of power.

Now they are increasingly important to U.S. and European arms makers preparing for security-related spending cuts sparked in part by an August 2 debt-ceiling deal between President Obama and Congress.

The Pentagon is trimming at least $350 billion from its previously projected spending through the next decade under that deal. Additional defense-related cuts of up to $600 billon are set to kick in if Congress fails by the end of the year to find at least $1.2 trillion more in deficit reduction over the same period — a “doomsday mechanism,” as current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta puts it.

Such cuts may mean there is not enough work to go around for Western firms, on top of a recent round of defense-related budget belt-tightening in Europe.

Foreign military sales are “clearly a way to grow to fill the revenue gap which is expected,” said Tom Captain, head of global aerospace and defense business at professional services company Deloitte.

Boeing Co (BA.N), the Pentagon’s No. 2 supplier by sales, is aiming to boost its defense, space and security-related sales toward 25 percent by 2015 from about 17 percent in 2010.

Defense unit Boeing Military Aircraft expects its foreign sales to account for as much as 40 percent of Boeing’s total warplane sales by the end of next year, up from 25 percent in 2010, said Jeffrey Kohler, a Boeing vice president for business development.

 

-reuters.com

Other Taiwanese officials say US won’t sell F-16s

SINGAPORE — Some Taiwanese defense officials are continuing to argue that no final decision has been made on whether the U.S. will sell the island nation Lockheed Martin F-16C/Ds. But others in the government are starting to come out publicly and say what people in the U.S. defense industry have suspected all along: President Barack Obama will not sell the country new F-16s.

Taiwan’s parliamentary speaker, Wang Jin-pyng, told the China Times newspaper that the U.S. has changed its mind about selling F-16s to Taiwan and that the campaign is “all but hopeless.” Wang added the U.S. plans to sell Taiwan equipment to upgrade its F-16A/Bs. Wang is a senior member of Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang Party.

The defense ministry’s spokesman, David Lo, and some in the U.S. government have been downplaying the prospect that Taiwan’s bid for F-16s will fail. They say “no final decision” has been made and point out that the U.S. has until Oct. 1 to decide. Whether the decision is final or not, industry executives tell Aviation Week it is unlikely the U.S. will sell new F-16s to Taiwan, but they say the U.S. may allow Taiwan’s F-16s to be upgraded.

Some of the upgrade equipment that Taiwan is seeking, and may succeed in obtaining, includes active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radars and new targeting pods. But this has caused consternation among some industry observers. An Aug. 19 editorial in The Asian Wall Street Journal says if Taiwan gets AESA radar and the other equipment it wants for its F-16s, the aircraft could end up being more technologically advanced than the U.S. Air Force’s F-16s. But the newspaper says what Taiwan needs is more fighter aircraft, rather than a small number of highly advanced fighters. If war breaks out between Taiwan and China, the editorial asserts, then Taiwan will be overwhelmed by the number of Chinese aircraft, and the advanced technology on Taiwan’s F-16s could end up in Chinese hands.

Another danger is that China may succeed in gaining the AESA radar technology through its network of spies in Taiwan. The issue of espionage has come to the fore in recent weeks. Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said earlier this month that the island needs to actively prevent any leak of secrets to China and must stop infiltration attempts by beefing up its counterintelligence. His remarks came after a Taiwanese army general and an intelligence officer received life sentences for spying for China.

Meanwhile, on Aug. 17, Ko-suen (Bill) Moo was repatriated back to Taiwan after completing a 6.5-year prison sentence in the U.S. for seeking to export defense equipment – including a GE F110 engine for an F-16 – from the U.S. to China. Moo is a former sales agent for Lockheed Martin in Taiwan. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security statement says Moo was sent back to Taiwan on Aug. 17.

 

-aviationweek.com