I noticed the following contract announcement this morning when I read the DoD’s daily roundup:
Boeing Co., of Huntington Beach, Calif., is being awarded a firm fixed price, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract for $7,521,000. The Speed Agile Concept Demonstration program seeks to achieve a technology readiness level of at least five 2010 on an integrated mobility configuration in the areas of high lift, efficient transonic flight, and flight control, in order to support future technology development and acquisition activities. At this time $800,000 has been obligated. Department of the Air Force, 84 CSW, 518CBSS/PK, Hill AFB, Utah, is the contracting activity (FA8212-08-C-0006).
Sounds interesting enough. “Speed Agile” concept demonstrator? So, I scanned around for some more info. Looks like back in August the Air Force published a solicitation for a concept demonstrator for a new generation of lifters that can operate with capabilities somewhere in between the C-130 and the C-17. Could this be the FCS Lifter?
The Speed Agile Concept Demonstrator, or SACD (I bet the Hill staffers love that acronym), will be able to take off in less than 2,000 feet [EDITOR: corrected], carry 65,000 pounds of gear or troops and fly around 1,500 nm unrefueled. This is what the Air Force is thinking about for a standard mission, and they’re asking for a cruise speed of greater than .8mach at more than 30,000 feet, which means the aircraft will have to be pressurized.
The Air Force also wants the plane to be able to perform a special operations mission, carrying 20,000 lbs about 1,000 nm with a specialized flight profile that performs a 250 nm “low ingress cruise” and a similar egress cruise at “best range mach, best range altitude.” The specs are intended to provide a plane that can “maximize radius and minimize mission execution time for given payload and mid-mission field length,” according to an Air Force solicitation document.
The plane will have to be able to handle seven standard-sized pallets, with one on the ramp. The cargo bay dimensions would be an objective of 158″ wide at the bottom of the loading bay, where the C-130 checks out at about 123″ at its widest point.
This is just a “concept” and the Air Force is careful to point out:
The mission profiles and performance goals provided are only intended to provide a basis for the physical scaling of concepts and are not official USAF requirements. They are intended to represent an amalgam of various physical capabilities that are of interest, and a common point of departure for comparison/parametric sensitivities to assess the robustness of integrated mobility vehicle concepts.
Well, we’ll keep an eye on this and see what comes out of it. But, clearly, Boeing’s getting a pretty hefty chunk of change to put this SACD together.
– Christian
Believe you misread the take-off/landing distance which is 1500′ Objective and 2,000′ Threshold in the link. 4000′ is the airfield elevation where that performance is required on a 95 degree Fahrenheit day.
Kind of wondering where you got that photo and if the fat parts next to the fuselage are engines with vectored thrust or something.
The picture doesn’t really jive with Boeing’s JCALS which proposes a common fuselage and either jet power (USAF) or Optimum Speed Tilt Rotor (Army) in the combined Joint Future Theater Lift program. Those wings and fat fuselage wouldn’t align with a tilt rotor too well.
Guess the speed agile part is related to capability to fly 90 knots for STOL up to Mach 0.8 en route. That might work for the Air Force version. But 1500–2000′ landing distance isn’t much improvement from a C-130/C-17. It still realistically requires an austere airfield if it has a 12′ wide internal fuselage and those big old wings/engine pods out the side. Try to land on a road? Better be a wide road with no trees in sight.
Thought Boeing also once proposed an even shorter landing C-17?
What we need is something that can carry real combat vehicals into the field and drop in on very short fields. The C-130 is great, but with a max lift of between 14 and 16 tons it can’t even carry a Striker (19tons) let alone Bradley (25tons). It’s nice to see they are working on something that might be able to drop true combat power into a small/hostile field.
But honestly, as much as I love new tech. What we need to do more than anything is stop spending so much. Remember $650billion a year is more than all other countries on the planet put together. Maybe we could cut a few bucks out of that and say work on internal national issues for awhile. I’m not asking for much, say 10%, that will be about what China spends each year.
“But honestly, as much as I love new tech. What we need to do more than anything is stop spending so much. Remember $650billion a year is more than all other countries on the planet put together. Maybe we could cut a few bucks out of that and say work on internal national issues for awhile. I’m not asking for much, say 10%, that will be about what China spends each year.“
We pay a lot to keep our advantage. China buys and steals technology more than they develop their own. R&D is one of our strengths and it would be foolish to weaken it.
Military spending is less than %4 of the GDP (3.8%) despite the two wars. 4% of the GDP is really historically where spending should be. Our GDP is bigger than everyones, so we spend more on defense.
We shouldn’t be spending more money on domestic issues. If there is extra money it should be returned to taxpayers. Taxpayers and businesses invest money far more efficiently than government. Every time the US has cut defense for domestic spending increases it has regretted it.
“Maybe we could cut a few bucks out of that and say work on internal national issues for awhile. I’m not asking for much, say 10%, that will be about what China spends each year.“
*eye roll*
Fighting 2 wars right now. Maybe the IRS can provide audit bombs and red tape body armor to help the war effort.
I can’t imagine that one can get very far in a major aerospace R&D effort with $7 million. Add three zeros and then you’re talking.
Recent development programs for new, technologically advanced aircraft have cost tens to hundreds of billions of 2008 dollars (e.g. F-22, F-35, B-1, B-2). A $7 million budget isn’t even enough to design an unambitious guides missile. It isn’t even enough to build a single, full scale prototype of an aircraft that uses only existing technology.
the real problem isnt how much where spending its the overruns ad redtape spending get the generals away from the engineers and R&D guys. A10 best plane for a buck we ever built generals hated it it wasnt sexy it was ugly!!! omfg.
why do i have that sudden horrible feeling some guys gonna tell us it will be stealthy!!!!!!!!!
Blue Falcon I intentionally left of options of what to do with that money. Tax relief is a domestic issue, so is paying down the debt. To be honest, those are really the only things I would like to see done with the money.
If we can pay down the debt, we will have money money left for tax relief and Military spending. Last year the govt. spent $406 Billion on the intrest on the debt it has. We owe $9.4 trillion, the $65B I am talking about would take 145yrs to pay that off if there was no intrest. It’s a problem that we can’t aford to ignore if we want to have money left over for anything including the military in the coming decades.
The only priority the federal govt should set above the military, it making sure they have the money to keep paying for the military.
We need for this TransPac missions & to EU & Asia alone.
Must produce this & retire the C130?
Or the C17.
Neat.
Now a Transonic Civil transport would be nice.
Ideal for Air Cargo use alone.
Kinda reminds me of the dropship from Aliens II. Mk I?
@Brad:
One war, two fronts.….that we know of.
The Cenobyte,
Tax cuts DO NOT cost the government money. They MORE THAN pay for themselves through INCREASED revenue.
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