B-52 drops hypersonic AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- A B-52H Stratofortress successfully released the first All-Up-Round AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon off the Southern California coast, Dec. 9.

This test was the first launch of a full prototype operational missile. Previous test events focused on proving the booster performance. Following the ARRW’s separation from the aircraft, it reached hypersonic speeds greater than five times the speed of sound, completed its flight path and detonated in the terminal area. Indications show that all objectives were met.

“The ARRW team successfully designed and tested an air-launched hypersonic missile in five years,” said Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei, Armament Directorate Program Executive Officer. “I am immensely proud of the tenacity and dedication this team has shown to provide a vital capability to our warfighter.”

The 412th Test Wing at Edwards AFB, California, executed the ARRW test flight.

ARRW is designed to enable the U.S. to hold fixed, high-value, time-sensitive targets at risk in contested environments.

"Merchant of Death" traded to Russia for basketball player Griner.

So notorious are the exploits of the former Soviet air force officer that they inspired a Hollywood film, and garnered him an impressively fearsome nickname.

But who is the man known as the Merchant of Death?

Bout was extradited from Thailand to the US in 2010, after a sting operation by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) two years earlier.

Agents from the DEA posed as potential buyers from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as Farc. That group - which has since disbanded - was classified as a terrorist organization by the United States.

Bout claimed he was simply an entrepreneur with a legitimate international transport business, wrongly accused of trying to arm South American rebels - the victims of US political machinations. But a jury in New York didn't believe his story.

He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April 2012 after being found guilty of conspiracy to kill Americans and US officials, delivering anti-aircraft missiles and aiding a terrorist organisation.

His three-week trial heard that Bout had been told the weapons would be used to kill US pilots working with Colombian officials. Prosecutors said he replied: "We have the same enemy."

Bout - a Russian national born in Soviet-ruled Tajikistan - began his career in air transport in the early 1990s, after the fall of the USSR.
According to a 2007 book - Merchant of Death, by security experts Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun - Bout built up his business using military planes left on the airfields of the collapsing Soviet empire in the early 1990s.

The sturdy Antonovs and Ilyushins were up for sale along with their crews, and were perfect for delivering goods to bumpy wartime airstrips around the world.

Bout - who was 45 when he was sentenced - is said to have begun channeling weapons through a series of front companies to war-torn parts of Africa.

The UN named him as an associate of former Liberian President Charles Taylor - who was convicted in 2012 on charges of aiding and abetting war crimes during the Sierra Leone civil war.

"[Bout is a] businessman, dealer and transporter of weapons and minerals [who] supported former President Taylor's regime in [an] effort to destabilize Sierra Leone and gain illicit access to diamonds," UN documents state.
Media reports in the Middle East claimed he was a gun-runner for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.


He is also alleged to have armed both sides in Angola's civil war and supplied weapons to warlords and governments from the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo to Sudan and Libya.

In an interview with the UK's Channel 4 News in 2009, he flatly denied ever dealing with al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

But he did admit to flying arms to Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, saying they were used by commanders fighting against the Taliban. He also claimed to have helped the French government transport goods to Rwanda after the genocide, and to have transported UN peacekeepers.

But law enforcement agencies pursued him throughout the 2000s. He left his home in Belgium in 2002 when the authorities there issued an arrest warrant. It is thought Bout travelled under several aliases, moving through countries such as the United Arab Emirates and South Africa before resurfacing in Russia in 2003.

In the same year, British Foreign Office minister Peter Hain coined the nickname Merchant of Death

After reading a 2003 report about him, Mr Hain said: "Bout is the leading merchant of death who is the principal conduit for planes and supply routes that take arms... from East Europe, principally Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine to Liberia and Angola.

"The UN has exposed Bout as the center of a spider's web of shady arms dealers, diamond brokers and other operatives, sustaining the wars.

RELATED:

60 Minutes Link: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/viktor-bout-russia-arms-dealer-merchant-of-death-brittney-griner/

VICKTOR BOUT INDICTMENTS FROM 2008

V-280 Valor could be worth 80 billions

(C) Steve Douglass 

AIN ONLINE:

The U.S. Army has selected Bell's V-280 Valor tiltrotor as the basis for the design that will replace the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter as its next Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA). In a decision announced on December 5, the Textron subsidiary prevailed in the long-running competition against the Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant propulsor-compound coaxial rotor design based on Sikorsky's X-2 technology program.

The FLRAA program was designed to produce aircraft to eventually replace up to 4,000 Sikorsky Black Hawks. Bell started developing and testing the V-280 Valor next-generation tiltrotor as part of the Pentagon's Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR TD) program that began in 2013. 

The initial production aircraft are expected to be operational by 2030 and the entire program could have a value of up to $80 billion. The most recently announced target price per V-280 (2018) is $43 million. The announced development contract is valued at $232 million and covers the final design of the production prototype aircraft and any changes specified by the Army, including weapon system design, sustainment, digital enterprise, manufacturing, systems integration, flight testing, and airworthiness qualification. 

“This is an exciting time for the U.S. Army, Bell, and Team Valor as we modernize the Army’s aviation capabilities for decades to come,” said Bell president and CEO Mitch Snyder, president and CEO of Bell. The award is a potential financial bonanza for Bell and guarantees its continuation as U.S. military long-term rotorcraft supplier. 

A Bell/Boeing team currently produces the larger V-22 tiltrotor for the Air Force, Navy, and Marines, but that aircraft is currently nearing the end of its production cycle after manufacturing more than 400 units. The smaller V-280 significantly differs from the V-22 tiltrotor in several respects. On the V-22, the engines, gearboxes, and prop-rotors all have to rotate as the thrust direction is changed; on the V-280 only the gearboxes and prop-rotors rotate. The V-280 also eschews the forward wing sweep of the V-22.

Going to a straight wing on the V-280 eliminates the need for a mid-wing gearbox and makes the wing easier to manufacture, according to Bell. The V-280 also is significantly more agile with about 50 percent more flapping capability in its rotor system than the V-22, enabling greater agility in all axes—longitudinal, lateral, and vertical. 

Before being retired in 2021, the V-280 demonstration aircraft flew 214 hours over three years. During testing the V-280 achieved a maximum forward speed of 305 knots and demonstrated a combat range of 500 to 800 nm, a self-deployment range of 1,734 nm, low-speed agility, and rapid mission systems integration. It was flown by both Bell test pilots and U.S. Army experimental test pilots.

Bell successfully flew the V-280 with a new tactical common data link (TCDL) and completed external sling load sorties. With onboard sensors and TCDL, the V-280 could provide targeting information to enhance the lethality of precision long-range weapons. The V-280 also transmitted data collected by the Lockheed Martin Pilotage Distributed Aperture Sensor (PDAS) system. 

The V-280 and the SB-1 were semifinalists in the Army’s FLRAA competition and the Sikorsky-Boeing team is expected to file a protest. However, the SB-1 lagged in demonstrated forward speed compared to the V-280 and a refined version under development, the Defiant X, has yet to fly. 

Bell and Sikorsky remain in competition for the Army’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program.

                           VIDEO COPYRIGHT STEVE DOUGLASS WEBBFEAT@GMAIL.COM

BREAKING: TEXTRON’S BELL V-280 VALOR CHOSEN AS NEW U.S. ARMY LONG-RANGE ASSAULT AIRCRAFT

(c) Steve Douglass 

TEXTRON’S BELL V-280 VALOR CHOSEN AS NEW U.S. ARMY LONG-RANGE ASSAULT AIRCRAFT

The V-280’s unmatched combination of proven tiltrotor technology coupled with innovative digital engineering and an open architecture offers the Army outstanding operational versatility for its vertical lift fleet

PROVIDENCE, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Textron Inc (NYSE: TXT) announced today that Bell Textron Inc., a Textron company,has been awarded the development contract for the U.S. Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program. The award is based on Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor that was developed and tested as part of the Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR TD) program that began in 2013. The V-280 progressed through design, manufacturing, and more than three years of rigorous flight testing that provided extensive data validating the technical and operational advantages of the aircraft for the long-range assault mission.

"We are honored that the U.S. Army has selected the Bell V-280 Valor as its next-generation assault aircraft," said Scott C. Donnelly, Textron’s chairman and chief executive officer. "We intend to honor that trust by building a truly remarkable and transformational weapon system to meet the Army’s mission requirements. We are excited to play an important role in the future of Army Aviation."

“This is an exciting time for the U.S. Army, Bell, and Team Valor as we modernize the Army’s aviation capabilities for decades to come,” said Mitch Snyder, president and CEO of Bell. “Bell has a long history supporting Army Aviation and we are ready to equip Soldiers with the speed and range they need to compete and win using the most mature, reliable, and affordable high-performance long-range assault weapon system in the world.”

This award builds on a decade of the V-280 Valor’s progress through design, manufacturing, and thorough testing to demonstrate that this aircraft will deliver on the FLRAA program requirements. Bell and its industry partners have systematically validated the V-280 aircraft and their modular open systems approach in collaboration with the Army.

“For the past several years the Bell team demonstrated the exceptional operational capabilities, digital thread synergies, and platform affordability enhancements the V-280 provides,” said Keith Flail, executive vice president, Advanced Vertical Lift Systems at Bell. “Bell stands ready with our world-class manufacturing facilities to apply our nearly seven decades of tiltrotor expertise to deliver a modern FLRAA fleet to the Army.”

The initial contract refines the weapon system design, sustainment, digital enterprise, manufacturing, systems integration, flight-testing, and airworthiness qualification.

This award builds on Bell’s history of more than 85 years delivering over 30,000 trusted vertical lift products to military and commercial customers in the U.S. and around the world. To learn more about the V-280 Valor, Team Valor, and the FLRAA program, please visit https://www.bellflight.com/products/bell-v-280 and textron.com and follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

                                          VIDEO (C) STEVE DOUGLASS

Behold - the B-21 Bomber

click to enlarge

PALMDALE, Calif. – Dec. 2, 2022 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) and the U.S. Air Force unveiled the B-21 Raider to the world today. The B-21 joins the nuclear triad as a visible and flexible deterrent designed for the U.S. Air Force to meet its most complex missions.

“The Northrop Grumman team develops and delivers technology that advances science, looks into the future and brings it to the here and now,” said Kathy Warden, chair, chief executive officer and president, Northrop Grumman. “The B-21 Raider defines a new era in technology and strengthens America’s role of delivering peace through deterrence.”

The B-21 Raider forms the backbone of the future for U.S. air power, leading a powerful family of systems that deliver a new era of capability and flexibility through advanced integration of data, sensors and weapons. Its sixth-generation capabilities include stealth, information advantage and open architecture.

“The B-21 Raider is a testament to America’s enduring advantages in ingenuity and innovation. And it’s proof of the Department’s long-term commitment to building advanced capabilities that will fortify America’s ability to deter aggression, today and into the future. Now, strengthening and sustaining U.S. deterrence is at the heart of our National Defense Strategy,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. “This bomber was built on a foundation of strong, bipartisan support in Congress. And because of that support, we will soon fly this aircraft, test it and then move into production.”

The B-21 is capable of networking across the battlespace to multiple systems, and into all domains. Supported by a digital ecosystem throughout its lifecycle, the B-21 can quickly evolve through rapid technology upgrades that provide new capabilities to outpace future threats.

“With the B-21, the U.S. Air Force will be able to deter or defeat threats anywhere in the world,” said Tom Jones, corporate vice president and president, Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems. “The B-21 exemplifies how Northrop Grumman is leading the industry in digital transformation and digital engineering, ultimately delivering more value to our customers.”

The B-21 Raider is named in honor of the Doolittle Raids of World War II when 80 men, led by Lt. Col. James “Jimmy” Doolittle, and 16 B-25 Mitchell medium bombers set off on a mission that changed the course of World War II. The designation B-21 recognizes the Raider as the first bomber of the 21st century.

Northrop Grumman is a technology company, focused on global security and human discovery. Our pioneering solutions equip our customers with capabilities they need to connect, advance and protect the U.S. and its allies. Driven by a shared purpose to solve our customers’ toughest problems, our 90,000 employees define possible every day.