Disclaimer: I am not nor have I ever been an employee of N-G. Yes,
I have over 3,000 hours in their E-2C and it is with that time, and the
experiences it has brought across a wide playing field that the
following is submitted. - SJS
The final deliveries of supplies and materials for the venerable E-2C
Hawkeye will take place this year, thirty-six years after the baseline
model reached IOC and seventeen years after the Group II’s IOC. The
replacement, the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye is a major advance in
capabilities available to maritime forces that is unmatched anywhere by
any other platform. But it’s rationale isn’t found in posting bragging
rights - there is a
real and growing threat to maritime forces whether the water is blue, green or brown:
“Advanced cruise missiles don’t get
much press today. They should, because several very capable types have
been around quite a while. Land-attack cruise missiles like a
French-built missile called the Scalp have been sold in Europe and the
Persian Gulf under the name Black Shaheen. It’s big, stealthy, and
flies about 500 mph. Then there
are the anti-ship cruise missiles. Just about every nation with a
coastline has them. It takes constant vigilance with a big and
high-powered radar search volume to pick out cruise missiles flying
over land or water.”(ed. …and don’t think the Russians have entered into a joint partnership with the Indians on development of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile out of any altruistic leanings either - SJS)
“The US Navy has prepared to meet the threat with a little-known
program with the far too bland name of Naval Integrated Fire Control -
Counter Air (NIFC-CA). What that means is the Navy is pushing the
technology to link fire control for the missiles 
carried
by its ships and airplanes into a network that can pick out and shoot
enemy cruise missiles when they are farther away. Cooperative
engagement capability is part of the NIFC-CA, and that’s where E-2D
comes in.
What the Navy says publicly is that the
E-2D crew can keep track of many more targets at once in an area 300%
greater than the older plane. Work stations inside have all the links
needed to make NIFC-CA effective in its expanded mission: flat-screen
glass displays, satellite communications and the latest secure
networking.
Although the whole NIFC-CA piece is
still maturing, the anti-cruise missile capabilities in E-2D work with
systems ready today. None question the Navy’s need for E-2D - the
threat is too compelling. Links to the Army’s ground-based Patriot air
and missile defense batteries are designed in…More links to surface
ships come later.”
The E-2D was approved for LRIP of 3/yr in
2008 and 2009, completed its 125th flight milestone this last July and
is on track for Milestone C this spring. Compared with the original
E-2A and the E-2C developments, both of which encountered major
developmental problems and ultimately failed their OPEVALS, the E-2D
has successfully completed its Operational Assessment with over half the flight time involved with radar operations - and it was successfully tracking towards an IOC of 2011. So what’s the problem ?
‘$200m+ Congressional Cut to E-2D Advanced Hawkeye Puts 350 U.S. Jobs At Risk’
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla., Feb. 6, 2009
(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Calling a $200-plus million cut to production
procurement for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye a “high risk” move that will
put U.S. jobs and global security at risk, Northrop Grumman Corporation
(NYSE:NOC) and its 280-member supplier team is calling on Congressional
leaders to restore the funding. The reduction in funding jeopardizes
the building of production aircraft initially planned in fiscal years
2009 and 2010.
“We’ve just completed a very successful
Operational Assessment with our two E-2D Advanced Hawkeye System
Development & Demonstration (SD&D) aircraft and we are on
schedule with our three pilot production aircraft. There is a great
sense of urgency today to restore production procurement dollars into
the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye budget-otherwise hundreds of U.S. jobs will
be lost and taxpayers will not derive the benefit of economies of
scale,” said Tom Vice, sector vice president for Northrop Grumman
Aerospace Systems sector. “We have the manufacturing capacity now to
accommodate up to ten E-2D’s a year, which certainly supports the
Navy’s plan to contract for 70 more aircraft. More importantly, these
budget cuts may delay Initial Operating Capability beyond the Navy’s
current program of record.”
This is how it starts - the death by a
thousand cuts. The ‘it’s only one airplane a year for two years’
mentality will only increase overall costs, delay IOC and virtually
guarantee a period of spares shortages and cannibalization early in the
aircraft’s life - just like it did with the E-2C in the late 70’s and
early 90’s. As a good friend and fellow VAW CO wrote me earlier today:
“Sigh, this is very similar to what
happened when Group II’s first got fielded. We did not buy enough
aircraft up front, and as an extra added bonus it meant the Navy did
not have a lot of spares. The result was the Group II squadrons gave up
engines and other things and sat with hulk when they got home-so the
other squadron could make enough aircraft to go on cruise.
Of course in those days the buy was six per year.”
I remember those days. I remember
coming back from 7-9 month deployments and spending the post-cruise
period frantically stripping boxes, engines, even outer wing panels to
help a sister squadron get ready for deployment. I remember going
through workups with critical pieces of equipment tagged out because
their replacements were unavailable. When you finally got the
replacements - a week before deployment if you were lucky, you just
practiced as best you could on the trans-Lant and hoped to be ready
when on the line in the Med or IO.
As we see billions thrown at saving
banks from their own egregious behavior, as we throw millions down
ratholes labeled for honey bee factories, parking garages in Utah, and
“pig odor research” we see DoD hit with budget cuts across the board,
for forces that require re-equipping and rearmament to face a growing
multitude of threats on a variety of fronts.
Integrated air and missile defense is a
must for operations in the littorals, especially for assets with
limited self defense capabilities and which depend on an extended
umbrella from surface- and air-assets operating in associated or direct
support. In a future marked by proliferation of cruise missiles of all
sorts - land-attack, anti-ship, supersonic, stealth, sea-skimming and
high-diving, the requirement for a platform that is able to pick these
difficult targets out of the clutter presented by the land-sea
interface and overland environments is a firm “must-have.” Yet it is
not enough to just pick the targets out of the clutter - a system for
the future must be able to transmit fire-control quality data over
secure networks and ensure that everyone - sensor, shooter, evaluator
is working from a common picture.
The E-2D not only matches up well in
that arena, it is a pre-requisite if we expect to successfully execute
the maritime strategy.
On Oct. 19, 1962, the Pentagon’s Bureau of Aeronautics contacted Koch while he and Ecker were fishing in Orange Park, Fla. The bureau had a top-security mission in mind. “They called up and said, ‘Can you really take pictures this good?’ ” Ecker recalled. “We said not only ‘yes’ but ‘hell yes.’ ” A few days later, Ecker got his assignment to fly over Cuba. Ecker and the pilot of a plane that flew just off his starboard wing were assigned to photograph a suspected missile site at San Cristobal. After the Havana skyline appeared, Ecker banked to the west, flying right over a fleet of Cuban 
trawlers.
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