Military Dropping Chaff - The 107th Airlift Wing departed on a night formation training mission on 25 September 2012, fully loaded with live flares for use in a training scenario. Flare is a countermeasure against enemy infrared surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. (Senior Master Sgt. Raymond Lloyd/US Air Force)
Two companies responsible for producing chaff and flares for U.S. military aircraft could be in a major shakeup, and critics in the Pentagon and Congress have begun sounding the alarm about this small, vulnerable segment of the defense and industrial base.
Military Dropping Chaff
In an October report to the White House on the state of the defense and industrial base, the Pentagon expressed concern about the small number of domestic manufacturers of chaff and flares, saying weakened demand, particularly for missiles, could leave companies with few incentives. internal investment.
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Esterline, which also makes flares, is joined by another local flare maker: Kilgore Flares Co., part of Chemring Countermeasures USA, itself a subsidiary of a British company.
This already precarious industrial situation could be further shaken by TransDigm Group Inc.'s proposed acquisition of Esterline, two lawmakers said.
In an Oct. 29 letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Reps. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and Walter Jones (R-NC) urged the Defense Department to block the deal until its inspector general completes an investigation into TransDigm's business practices. . The letter was first reported by The Capitol Forum.
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"TransDigm has repeatedly acquired companies that are sole suppliers of items to the Department of Defense and engage in price fixing," Speier and Jones wrote. "The abuses have been frequent enough and serious enough to warrant a general investigation by the Defense Inspector General. Not surprisingly, Esterline is the DoD's sole supplier of chaff and one of only two suppliers of flare. Alarm bells should be ringing."
Flares and flares are countermeasures used by military aircraft and helicopters to help avoid missile attacks from enemy aircraft. For the non-stealth fourth-generation assets that make up the majority of the service's inventory, these systems are critical to the defense of this aircraft.
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The pellets, which consist of "millions of tiny aluminum or zinc-coated fibers," are stored on planes in tubes and dropped behind the plane to disrupt radar-guided missiles, according to a report from the Pentagon's Defense and Industrial Base.
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Meanwhile, the flare distracts the heat-seeking, infrared-guided missiles by "throwing magnesium pellets from the tubes to ignite behind the aircraft," the report said. These pellets are so hot — more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit — that they exceed the temperature of an airplane engine or exhaust, which lures an infrared-guided missile into the plane's path.
According to the industrial base report, "Defense's unique requirements and declining DoD demand crowded out other suppliers, leaving a qualified source of chaff."
In a Nov. 9 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Peter Navarro, director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, drew attention to the fragile chaff supply base, calling it "a single point of failure."
Meanwhile, the outlook for flare companies looks even bleaker as the report notes a series of explosions that have hit both Esterline and Kilgore in recent years, often causing factory-wide shutdowns that delayed product deliveries to the Defense Department.
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"Since the accidents, both companies have had quality and delivery problems," the report said. "As program offices strive to improve quality and cost, they are beginning to look for more advanced facilities offshore, where there are fewer quality and safety issues."
The Pentagon predicts that one-third of the weaknesses in the industrial base could be addressed within a year. According to a US government report, the defense industrial base has 300 critical vulnerabilities.
One of the biggest challenges chaff and flare manufacturers face is the fluctuating demand signal from the Department of Defense – their only product customer – based on military needs, the Association of Old Crows, a professional organization focused on electronic warfare and other countermeasures. , Defense News said in a statement.
"Spending on countermeasures in the United States and among several NATO allies increased during Operations Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom and then declined sharply when those conflicts slowed operations or ended," the organization said.
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"The industrial base is small, but it must be able to meet large swings in customer demand. This presents a formidable challenge that could be better managed by better coordination among US military customers or even among NATO partners.
Staff Sgt. Brian Chatham and Rashid Harris, 455th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron weapons loader crew chiefs, arm an A-10C Thunderbolt II aircraft with a flare at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, June 11. Flares are a defense mechanism used to avoid enemy detection and attack. anti-aircraft system. (Staff Sgt Steven Wade/US Air Force)
While chaff and flares usually fall under the radar of the defense press when they appear in the media, it is usually in connection with life-threatening accidents in factories or the like.
In May 2016, Esterline was forced to temporarily suspend operations at its East Camden, Arkansas plant after an explosion injured two workers. The local El Dorado News Times reported that one of the victims was "shot in the face" with burns to the arms, chest and face and shrapnel up to the elbow, according to a relative of the victim on Facebook.
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Kilgore Flares has also suffered a number of high-profile accidents in recent years, most notably a 2014 explosion that killed a worker at its plant in Toon, Tennessee. The same facility was the site of an explosion in 2016 that did not injure anyone, WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News reports.
According to an Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation of the 2014 incident, an employee was removing remnants of flare material that ignited and caused the explosion.
"The investigation found inconsistencies in process safety information, process hazard analysis and ... operating procedures. The employee suffered severe burns to multiple parts of his body and was taken to a hospital where he received medical attention and treatment for burns, but died of his injuries," the administration said.
Kilgore also came under U.S. Justice Department scrutiny in 2016 for selling military flares made from magnesium by a supplier, ESM Group Inc. — illegally imported from China. The company was fined $8 million for violating a requirement that all magnesium used in the flares come from American or Canadian suppliers, Memphis-based CBS affiliate WREG reported.
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Pat Kumashiro, former director of maintenance for the Air Force's Logistics, Technology and Defense Directorate and currently LMI's director of Air Force markets, said China is focusing on weaknesses in the U.S. defense and industrial base.
"They're pretty smart about understanding global supply chains, and when they have the opportunity to buy mineral rights — and you see them doing a lot of work in Africa and being very aggressive — they're doing it for a reason," he said. said.
If an adversary, such as Russia or China, finds that there are limited sources of chaff and flares, they could find ways to influence U.S. suppliers, which in turn impairs the fourth-generation aircraft's mission capabilities, Kumashiro said.
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"Operational pilots will not cause damage without an operational chaff [and] flare system," he said.
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"Our overall goal in this area is to encourage competition among contractors, but also to ensure that DoD pays fair prices for the best, most appropriate products it can obtain," Rep. Speier's employee.
But Speier and his colleague Jones believe TransDigm can artificially inflate prices by claiming there is a commercial market for the products, which would limit the ability of Defense Department procurement officials to access pricing information, the official said.
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If the Defense Department decides to allow the TransDigm deal to proceed, Speier could move next year's defense authorization bill to include language that would impose additional restrictions on what products are considered "commercial," or he could call on the Pentagon to examine the level of competition over the industrial base. , the employee said.
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For the Kilgore Flares, the change seems more traditionally positive. In May of this year, Chemring Group announced that it would spend $40 million to expand its Kilgore facility
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