Boeing Eyes High-Flying Torpedo

By RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor

Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is proposing a new weapon that would enable sub-hunting aircraft to fire at targets from high altitudes, reducing the time between target acquisition and attack.

Steven L. Wingfield, manager of JDAM Business Development for the Boeing unit, said the proposed antisubmarine warfare (ASW) weapon for the High-Altitude ASW Weapon Concept (HAAWC), would be launched from the P-8A Multimission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) at an altitude of 30,000 feet and glide seven to 10 minutes to the water entry point, where it would shed its wings and activate a parachute to lower the torpedo into the water to begin its run toward the target.

Currently, ASW aircraft such as the P-3 have to make a time-consuming descent from their surveillance altitudes of 30,000 feet to a release altitude of 300-1,000 feet and release a torpedo, Wingfield said. “That descent down to the release point and then the climb back up to surveillance altitude uses a lot of [fuel], reducing orbit and surveillance time. While you are climbing, (it) reduces your ability to surveill, as well.”

The HAAWC would enable the P-8 to launch the weapon from a high altitude based on targeting information generated by its own sensors or the sensors of other platforms. This would save time in deploying a weapon, and obviate the need for the aircraft or other ASW platforms to enter threat zones.

“I don’t know what the descent rate of MMA will be,” said Steve Morrow, Boeing’s manager for advanced development of naval weapons, “but it’s intuitive that we can probably get a torpedo down from altitude faster than you can get the airplane down.” That would be an advantage in “a fast-reaction attack based on a pop-up radar contact of a periscope,” he said.

Wingfield said the HAAWC proposal is a derivative of the new Mk 54 antisubmarine torpedo that entered service in 2004. The Mk 54 is an all-digital lightweight torpedo that marries technology from the older Mk 46 and Mk 50 air- and surface-launched torpedoes with advanced software algorithms from the large submarine-launched Mk 48 torpedo.

Stephen G. Sherrick, manager of business development for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, said that last fall “one of the Mk 54 torpedo guys asked us, ‘Hey, can you put a wing on that thing and guide it for us?’”

The HAAWC comprises parts from other munitions. An Mk 54 would be fitted with the wings designed for a Standoff Land-Attack Missile-Expanded Response cruise missile to enable it to glide to the target area. The tail assembly would include the guidance kit designed for the Joint Direct-Attack Munition, which contains a Global Positioning System receiver for precision guidance.

The HAAWC also could be equipped with a data link to transmit target position updates while the weapon is in flight, further improving the weapon’s accuracy, Wingfield said.

The HAAWC concept, with its standoff capability, may offer tactical collateral advantages to offset some of those submarines have in the cat-and-mouse game of ASW. When running silent underwater, a submarine’s sensitive hull-mounted or towed-array hydrophones can detect a helicopter or patrol plane as it flies overhead. In addition, an attack on hostile submarines operating in the vicinity of enemy air-defense ships or shore-based air-defense networks currently would put the attacking aircraft at risk.

Boeing “has provided NAVSEA (Naval Sea Systems Command) and the Naval Air Systems Command with a technical feasibility assessment and a [rough] cost assessment to conduct a high-altitude ASW weapon concept demonstration,” Morrow said. The information was provided at the request of those commands, he said.

Spokespeople for the two systems commands and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center declined comment on the HAAWC because it is not a program of record.

Joint Strike Fighter Pieces Coming Together

The aft fuselage for the first F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) was shipped May 25 by its builder, BAE Systems in Samlesbury, England, to the Lockheed Martin assembly plant in Fort Worth, Texas, a major step in the fabrication of the new aircraft.

The structure is to be joined to the center fuselage that was built by Northrop Grumman in Palmdale, Calif., and delivered to Fort Worth May 3. Lockheed Martin is manufacturing the forward fuselage and wing in Fort Worth.

Will the three structures manufactured thousands of miles apart fit together?

“There’s absolutely no doubt it’s going to fit when we put it together,” said Mark Hodge, BAE Systems’ vice president for business development for the JSF program, who told Seapower the sections will be trial-fitted before actually being joined.

“A lot of what we learned in manufacturing the F-22 [fighter] applies directly to JSF, in that the JSF is a totally paperless airplane for design and manufacture,” Hodge said. “All of the drawings reside in one central database, so it doesn’t matter if your designer is across the hall, across the street or on the other side of the world, because the design all stays the same.”

The sections being joined ultimately will fly in August 2006 as A-1, the first F-35A conventional takeoff and landing version of the JSF that will equip the U.S. Air Force. The manufacturers are now fabricating fuselage sections for B-1, the first F-35B short-takeoff/vertical-landing (STOVL) version that will be operated by the U.S. Marine Corps, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. B-1 is scheduled to fly in 2007.

Hodge said that aircraft A-1 will not incorporate most of the weight-reduction measures designers have had to implement to meet criteria for the STOVL version.

“Most of the new design initiatives came along too late in the manufacture of A-1, but they will be caught in B-1, which caused us to get a little later start on B-1,” Hodge said.

Under the current System Development and Demonstration contract, the Lockheed Martin JSF team will build 23 F-35s, 15 for flight test and eight for ground test. Initial flight testing will be conducted at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Testing of the Navy and Marine Corps versions will be conducted at Patuxent River, Md.