Category: Aviation

This Business Will Get out of Control. It Will Get out of Control and We’ll Be Lucky to Live through It.

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It appears that Russia may be building a military base in Syria:

The anonymous officials say Russia has set up an air traffic control tower and transported prefabricated housing units for up to 1,000 personnel to an airfield serving the Syrian port city of Latakia.

 Russia has also requested the rights to fly over neighbouring countries with military cargo aircraft during September, according to the reports.

 The claims, which will raise fears that Russia is planning to expand its role in the country’s civil war, will ratchet up tensions between Moscow and Washington over the future of Syria and its brutal ruler.

 Mr Obama on Friday met King Salman of Saudi Arabia to repeat their demand that any lasting settlement in Syria would require an end to the Assad regime.

 It leaves the US and Russia implacably opposed in their visions for Syria.

I would argue that the vision expressed by Obama is being driven by the House of Saud and the rest of the antediluvian absolute monarchies that dot the Persian Gulf.

 They supported radical Islamic opponents to the Assad regime, because they want to replace a secular Arab regime with Sunni dominated theocracy, because, I guess, it worked so well in Syria.

 ………

 “We are already giving Syria quite serious help with equipment and training soldiers, with our weapons,” he said during an economic forum in Vladivostok on Friday, according to the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency.

 Until now, Russia’s backing has included financial support, intelligence, advisers, weapons and spare parts. Mr Putin insisted it was “premature” to talk of a direct intervention.

………

 Last week the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth cited Western diplomatic sources saying that Russia was on the verge of deploying “thousands” of troops to Syria to establish an airbase from which the Russian air force would fly combat sorties against Isil.

 Those details appear to be backed by satellite images of a Russian base under construction near Latakia, according to anonymous intelligence officials quoted by several American newspapers.

 “If they’re moving people in to help the Syrian government fight their own fight, that’s one thing,” one told the Los Angeles Times. “But if they’re moving in ground forces and dropping bombs on populated areas, that’s an entirely different matter.”

 Moscow increasingly justifies its support for the Assad regime by pointing to the rise of violent jihadists in Syria.

………

 Syria is already home to Russia’s only base outside the former Soviet Union – a naval station in Tartus.

 The reported build-up of military activity, centred on Latakia and Idlib province, is in areas dominated by the Alawite sect, which counts President Assad among its number.

The House of Saud, the other petty tyrants of the Persian Gulf, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (the increasingly authoritarian, and increasingly unstable President of Turkey) have been actively supporting both the civil war and the most extreme religious fanatics in the region.

This did was a disaster in Libya, and it will be a disaster in Syria.

Getting rid of Assad in Syria would be a good thing, if the alternative were not immeasurably worse.

Of note, it appears that there are indications that the Russians might be sending Russian manned MiG-31s to Syria:

Rumours, comments and half-truths are very common in fluid environments such as this. Various news-outlets are offering different theories regarding a large-scale Russian operation about to start in Syria. With information and evidence being often sketchy at best, it is most likely that various players in and outside the region are trying to push their agenda, either vis-à-vis Syria or vis-à-vis Russia. Trusting partisan and biased information, i.e. MSM accounts quoting “official sources“, would obviously be a mistake. That is why this piece offers a totally different read on the reasons and goals of the Russian move, just for the sake of argument.

Preventing a another Libya

Before getting to the core of the scenario that could explain events on the ground, it may be useful to recall the Libyan precedent: a “no fly zone” implemented by NATO under a UN-resolution was hijacked – in the Russians’ view – to support the anti-Gaddafi insurgents and give them close air support for several months, until the Libyan dictator was finally ousted from power.

Ever since the start of the civil war in Syria, the Russians have always made it clear that they would not tolerate another version of the Libyan precedent. In 2013 already, Russian officials made numerous statements formally objecting to a “no fly zone“. A few very strongly worded declarations by President Putin himself didn’t leave any doubt as to the Russians’ willingness to actively oppose such a development.

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Based on the developments mentioned above, but also taking into account some of the recurrent background noise and chatter that can be heard way outside the beltway – remember Petreaus’ suggestion about “Jabhat al Nusra reconcilables” or Anne-Marie Slaughter’s recent call for a “no fly zone” over Syria – it is pretty easy to figure out what some of the armchair strategists in DC had in mind.

Quite simple in its premises, their strategy is based on increasing the tempo of Coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State, particularly in Syria, thus winning over public opinion for such operations, and supporting Kurdish YPG militias all over the North. At the same time, efforts – quite unlucky and unsuccessful so far – to recruit and train parts of the FSA, and possibly the “reasonable fringe” of Jahbat al-Nusra, are continuing.

The aim is to arm these groups and turn them loose – officially – on the Islamic State, giving them the same air support YPG groups have been receiving, provided the main thrust is against ISIS held territory or disputed areas. Territory that is firmly in the Syrian government’s hands would be off limits in such a scenario, but given that these areas have become quite small in recent months, it is pretty safe to assume that about 75 % to 80 % of Syrian territory would be up for grabs.

In other words, the support of Kurdish peshmergas on the one hand, the help and training of “moderate” Syrian rebels on the other, would be combined with the benefits of a “no fly zone” or at least extensive air support. The official rationale for such a “no fly zone” would be solely the struggle against ISIS, of course, because that would be the easiest way – and actually the only one –to sell such a strategy to the US public.

………

Needless to say that if the Syrian air force was unable to support its ground troops not just in the North, but anywhere in Syria, the balance of power would inexorably shift towards the opposition groups and a de facto partition of Syria would be unavoidable. To the Russians, this is unacceptable. They may be willing to let Assad go, but not to abandon Syria as an ally and a Russian asset in the “grand game”.

Syria is still a sovereign country and there hasn’t been any UN-resolution that could bolster foreign intervention without the consent of the Syrian government. Furthermore, Syria has an extensive defense agreement with the Russian Federation and it would be perfectly within President Bashar al-Assad’s prerogatives to call in Russian military help in his fight against “terrorism” or foreign aggression.

………

What came out of these talks – or should we say negotiations ? – is only rumour, but this rumour has it that a deal was struck for the nomination of a new intelligence chief, if a ceasefire and transitional phase are indeed implemented. The man for that job is supposedly no other than General Mustafa Tlass, formerly a close associate of the al-Assad clan, who jumped ship in 2011 but never formally sided with the rebels. He has been living in France ever since he left Syria.

Now of course, such a settlement to which the US administration would not have been part to would have the potential to drive the Neo-Cons, R2Pers and other D.C. hawks absolutely mad. Not only would it mean that the Syrian regime would not be destroyed, but it would possibly keep a strong foothold in Syrian politics, even if the country was to be partitioned along areas of influence. The biggest downside to such a negotiated solution though would be, that fighting the Islamic State could not be used anymore as a pretence for supporting the actions of the anti-Assad rebels.

The Syrians – and the Russians – certainly realize that contingency plans are also a necessity for them, whether the alleged settlement initiative succeeds or fails. The recent announcement of a second and larger Russian base on the Syrian coast is certainly part of such contingency plans. Both a naval base and a logistics base, it could help stabilize the heartland of the Al-Assad clan and bolster the Alawi minority’s claim and dominance over these lands, cutting of any sea access to whatever Sunni/Jihadi political construct could be established further inland.

………

This is why the establishment of a “no fly zone” and increased operational tempo is so crucial to its most vocal proponents. Short of destroying the regime before any settlement is announced, Bashar al-Assad has to be weakened and his power base eroded to the point where even opposition groups currently willing to sign off on a negotiated peace might possibly change their mind.

This is the context in which Russian troop and equipment movements were recently spotted, allegedly. It all started on August 16th, when a Turkish News Agency (BGN) published a statement announcing that Russia had delivered 6 MIG-31s to Syria. Those planes’ specifications and weapons systems make them an unlikely candidate for close air support to Syrian ground forces, which makes the delivery all the more interesting.

Actually, the MIG-31s, possibly with a Russian crew aboard, are interceptors. They are designed to track, identify and destroy hostile aircraft. The fact they were stationed in Mezze airbase, with a large Russian security and logistics detail, implies the Russians meant business. What aircraft could these planes be possibly intercepting though ? Obviously, not the Coalition jets flying missions against the Islamic State. The Russians aren’t that mad … or dumb.

However, if a “no fly zone” was imposed over Syrian skies without any form of basis in international or UN-law, what would there be to prevent the Russians from answering a call for help from the sill legitimate Syrian government ? Now that would be a worrying development and it should be taken seriously ! However, should there be any truth to such a theoretical construct, the MIG-31s would probably target something totally different from Coalition fighter jets.

………

If you take Libya as the example of what the Russians want to avoid at all cost, it’s fairly easy to guess what their interceptors would be looking for. It’s not the Patriot missiles stationed in Turkey. They only have a limited reach, meaning they can destroy targets up to a distance of about 70 km, enough to interdict Syrian air force operations all along the border, but they are useless for any action deep in Syrian territory.

Furthermore, the Patriot’s radars don’t bring any added value when it comes to identifying enemy moves on the ground. The key component in both a “no fly zone” and in monitoring moves on and off the ground, all over Syrian territory, are AWACS warning and control aircraft.

The Coalition is currently using such aircraft. Several countries are equipped with such planes, notably the United States and Saudi Arabia, but also The United-Kingdom and France. As long as the areas of interest for possible coalition airstrikes are limited to territory close to an international border, AWACS planes can remain out of Syrian airspace.Their powerful radars can monitor anything that happens from a safe distance.

However, if the goal of the coalition was to extend “interdiction areas” or to create “safe areas” deep inside Syria, there would be only one way of doing this: AWACS planes would need to fly over Syrian territory, as any operation of that kind while remaining outside Syrian airspace would require a unreasonable number of planes to cover enough ground.

………

That is where the MIG-31s come in. Sending in these planes, their crews, as well as all the necessary logistics into Syria, could be a clear message intended at disrupting any idea the Coalition might have of establishing “safe zones”, “security perimeters” or “no fly zones”, whatever you want to call them, without actual backing from international law.

Based on current Syrian-Russian defence agreements, Russian – or Syrian – MIG31s would be fully justified in shooting down any aircraft deemed hostile over Syrian territory. The MIG-31s are well equipped for that kind of mission: they can take off and reach a flight altitude of over 30 000 feet in under three minutes, making them immune from any MANPADs the rebels might be armed with.

Coordinates of an AWACS plane – or any other aircraft for that matter – could be sent in from radar stations on the ground, and the signal could not be jammed nor intercepted. The MIG-31 is also equipped with multimode radar, allowing for onboard monitoring over long distances, and it is armed with BVR missiles that have a reach of up to 400 km. Due to the ballistic trajectory of these missiles, their interception also would be very difficult.

In other words, once they are in the air, the MIG-31s could fire their missiles and, at that point, nothing could stop them from reaching their target, whether that is an AWACS or possibly even a fighter jet preparing for close support mission of anti-government forces.

Now, of course, if an AWACS was shut down by a Russian jet, that could be the starting point to something like WW3. The Russians don’t want that, and neither do we. So what this means, is that their troop deployment is signalling us something: they know what we are up to and they are not willing to let go of it.

This aircraft, NATO Designation Foxhound, an update on the MiG-25 Foxbat is a single purpose aircraft designed as an interceptor.

It is designed to do one thing, get to high altitudes and high speeds quickly, and fire big missiles at long ranges to shoot down other aircraft, particularly large and highly visible aircraft, like AWACS,

We really need to tell the House of Saud that we will no longer support their moves for Sunni hegemony in the region, nor will we support the (over a thousand years old) “Great Game” between Sunni and Shia.

Doing the House of Saud’s bidding serves no one but the house of Saud.

While we are at it, perhaps it would be a good idea to drone the guy who founded ISIS, Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who as head of the Saudi intelligence services, was instrumental in getting the group up and running.

This is a Lot of Additional Bang for the Buck

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It looks like Eurofighter has engineered some significant improvements in performance to the Typhoon fighter with some almost invisible aerodynamic tweaks:

Flight tests of a Eurofighter Typhoon with a suite of aerodynamic modifications show they have measurably improved the fighter’s subsonic agility, say engineers and pilots involved in the project. The alterations can be easily retrofitted to any Typhoon, it is claimed, and have been demonstrated to pilots from Typhoon partner nations. The Aerodynamic Modification Kit (AMK) is being considered as part of future improvement packages for the aircraft.

 The AMK comprises small leading-edge root extensions (Lerxes), new delta-shaped fuselage strakes that replace the existing rectangular “step” strakes beneath the canopy sills, and larger flaperons (13% inboard, 8% outboard) that provide more forward sweep to the wings’ trailing edge. The primary function of the Lerx and reshaped fuselage strakes is to make vortex flows more stable and predictable as the angle of attack (AoA) increases. The larger flaperons provide more roll authority and also counteract the larger nose-up pitching forces introduced by the Lerxes and strakes. “We already have the most unstable production aircraft in the world,” one engineer says. “We don’t need any more pitch-up.”

 No new surfaces are added and the existing structure and flaperon actuators can cope with the changes, Eurofighter says, so the main tasks for transition to production would be the design of series-type AMK components and definition of a retrofit process.
The effects of the AMK changes are dramatic, Eurofighter says. Operational AoA limits are increased by 45% and total lift by as much as 25%. The corner speed—defined as the lowest speed at which the aircraft can generate maximum g force, and hence the speed at which the aircraft achieves its highest turn rate and tightest radius—has been “significantly reduced,” increasing maximum turn rate. The usable pitch rate is increased “by far,” according to project test pilot Raffaele Beltrame, and roll rate by up to 100%. The largest improvements are at lower speeds, but performance and handling are also improved in the subsonic regime, and supersonic maneuverability—where the Typhoon is second only to the Lockheed Martin F-22—is unaffected.

 ………

 At low speeds, limits on AoA, pitch rate and other parameters are often associated with vortices that form around the forebody and canard at high AoA, and which can cause severe lateral-directional instability if they develop or burst asymmetrically. Very small features toward the front of the aircraft can cause strong vortices.

 The step strakes on Typhoon were designed to generate stable vortices, based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology available then. “Today we have much better tools,” Osterhuber says, and CFD is better integrated with wind tunnel testing. (The AMK configuration underwent extensive testing by the German-Dutch DNW wind tunnel consortium, and in Calspan’s transonic tunnel.) He also notes that, in the past few years, Airbus has improved the sharing of expertise and tools between its commercial and military divisions, including its work with government research institutions.

This is some impressive engineering.

This is a pretty impressive expansion of the flight envelope at a marginal cost of €0.00.

So, It Appears That It Wasn’t Aliens

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A piece of debris found washed ashore on a beach in the Indian Ocean came from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, the Malaysian prime minister has announced, confirming the first trace of the plane since it vanished last year with 239 people on board.

“Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts has conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris … is indeed MH370,” Najib Razak said on Wednesday.

Razak said he hoped the positive identification of the two-metre fragment, which was found last week on the French island of Réunion, would “lift the fog of uncertainty” for grieving relatives.

This is not a surprise.

The conspiracy theories were bullsh%$.

I Need Some Pictures to Understand This

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Click for big honking image slideshow


Skylon
Saber Engine


Schematic of engine

Reactions Engines, the British company working on a partially air breathing cryogenic engine which would power a single stage to orbit spacecraft, Skylon, as well as a hypersonic transport, the A2.

This project has taken a major step forward with both the European Space Agency and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) have found the basic concept sound, including a heat exchanger that cools the incoming air by hundreds of degrees in a fraction of a second without choking up without being choked with frost:

It is a well-established truism in aerospace that leaps in propulsion technology almost always precede major advances in spacecraft or aircraft design.

As the clamor for affordable access to space continues to grow, there is mounting interest in the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (Sabre) concept under development by U.K.-based Reaction Engines. This hybrid powerplant is designed to bridge the infamous power gap between air breathers and rockets, potentially enabling a vehicle to accelerate from a standing start on the runway all the way to low Earth orbit.

Such an engine could power high-speed aircraft, suborbital craft or even multi- and single-stage-to-orbit vehicles. Even more encouraging to Sabre proponents is that, while earlier attempts to harvest oxygen from the atmosphere succumbed to thermodynamic reality, the Reaction design continues to pass muster with experts in Europe and the U.S. The company’s most recent—and possibly most valuable—vote of confidence comes from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), which analyzed Sabre under a cooperative research and development agreement.

AFRL’s validation followed a detailed study of the entire concept, particularly the precooler heat exchanger technology, which allows for the practical extraction of oxygen from the air without clogging up the mechanism with frost and ice. Reaction unveiled initial details of the methanol-based frost-control system at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Hypersonics and Spaceplanes conference in Glasgow in early July.

AFRL program manager Barry Hellman says analysis “confirmed the feasibility and potential performance of the Sabre engine cycle. While development of the Sabre represents a substantial engineering challenge, the engine cycle is a very innovative approach and warrants further investigation.” As a result, Reaction Engines and AFRL plan to continue collaborating on Sabre, with potential follow-on work focusing on evaluation of various air-breathing-powered vehicle concepts and testing of specific engine components.

The AFRL study will also evaluate other potential uses for the Sabre’s heat exchanger technologies, including looking at broader defense applications. “The question to answer next is what benefit the Sabre could bring to high-speed aerospace vehicles compared to other propulsion systems,” says Hellman. “AFRL is analyzing vehicle designs based on the Sabre engine concept. We are also considering testing their heat-exchanger technology at Mach 5 flight conditions in a high-temperature wind tunnel.”

While AFRL acknowledges that Sabre’s original target—a single-stage-to-orbit space access vehicle dubbed Skylon—remains technically “very risky as a first application,” Hellman says: “Sabre may provide some unique advantages in more manageable two-stage-to-orbit configurations.”

………

The precooler chills the incoming air from more than 1,000C (1832F) to -150C in less than 1/100th of a second, before passing it through a turbo-compressor and into the rocket combustion chamber, where it is burned with subcooled liquid hydrogen fuel. For higher altitude operation and the jump to orbit, the engine switches to an onboard liquid oxygen supply and runs as a conventional closed-cycle rocket engine (AW&ST Nov. 26, 2012, p. 47).

What this means in the short term is not space travel, but it does mean that they are far more likely to get government and private sector funding.

Good folks at Av Week have a description of how Reaction Engines made this work, but I cannot make heads nor tails of it:

………

But after endorsement of the basic technology from the European Space Agency and, more recently, the U.S. Air Force’s Research Laboratory, the company’s synergetic air-breathing rocket engine (Sabre) concept is being taken far more seriously. Designed to power a vehicle from a standing start to Mach 5.5 in air-breathing mode, and from the edge of the atmosphere to low Earth orbit in pure rocket mode, the Sabre engine with a heat exchanger at the heart of the design is attracting widespread interest for potential application on a range of atmospheric and space vehicles.

With patents pending and negotiations with new industrial partners apparently at an advanced stage, Reaction Engines has made the surprise decision to unveil the first details of the critical technology at the core of its hybrid hypersonic propulsion system.

………

“It is pretty mind-bending stuff,” says Reaction Engines technical director and chief designer, Richard Varvill. Speaking at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics International Space Planes and Hypersonics conference here, he says the system counters the frost that precipitates out of the air as it becomes saturated with increasing relative humidity during the rapid cooling process. The precipitation “looks like the white feathery frost you’d see on a cold winter’s day. Unfortunately, that frost is sufficiently mechanically strong that it can bridge the gaps between the tubes and will block the matrix solid in about 3 sec. flat if you don’t do anything about it.

“So—surprise, surprise—we use an anti-freeze, and in this case it is methanol. But we use the methanol in a rather sophisticated way, with the objective of minimizing the amount you need. Also we don’t want to spray the methanol in and leave it in the air flow because we are actually cooling down the air to the point at which the methanol would freeze itself,” he says.

To do this, Reaction Engines has “borrowed a trick from the chemical process industry,” says Varvill. “We inject the methanol at one of the coldest points, and we effectively get the mix of water and methanol to flow forward in the matrix—against the direction of the airflow.” He concedes this seems counterintuitive, but explains the system generates an effective reverse flow by catching the water-methane mix and reinjecting it further upstream. “We have multiple injection and extraction points in the matrix, but the overall effect is the mix of methanol and water is actually flowing forward in the matrix against the airflow direction.”

The reasoning, he says, is that the condensate composition at the cold end of the matrix is nearly all methanol, and as it flows forward the methanol picks up the water. “At the inlet [of the matrix] it is nearly all water, so the composition is more methanol-concentrated at the cold end than it is at the warm end,” Varvill says. “That then reduces because you have extracted most of the water at the warm end, and that reduces the absolute amount of methanol you need to throw into the pre-cooler to stop it freezing.” And because the amount of liquid water reduces so does the relative humidity. “Eventually you end up with a situation where you have extracted all the water vapor as liquid from the airflow, and that leaves you essentially with dry air below 215K. The partial pressure of the water vapor at this point is so low that you can allow it to pass through the heat exchanger and it does not freeze.”

………

Reaction Engines decided to go public on the frost-control technology because of pending patent applications. “The trigger for patenting was the awareness that to execute this program we are going to have to involve other companies,” says Mark Thomas, the former chief engineer for technology and future programs at Rolls-Royce and now managing director at Reaction Engines. “You can’t keep trade secrets very long in that situation, so it is better to be protected formally and legally on the clever stuff.”

This is all going on while the engine is moving faster than mach 5, though it is slowed to subsonic speeds (the cooling allows the system to avoid the complexities of a scramjet, the shock cone in the inlet is the tell here).

I would really like to see an animation of this, because for the life of me I cannot see how they get coolant to flow forward against that sort of air flow.

It’s weird, but it is a good kind of weird.

What a Surprise

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We now have a $1,000,000,000 cost overrun on the new Boeing Tanker:

Boeing is, once again, taking a charge on its books to keep the U.S. Air Force’s KC-46 aerial refueler program on track.

The after-tax charge is $536 million; that is $835 million before taxes. The lion’s share – $513 million – comes from Boeing Commercial Airplanes, which is providing the 767 baseline platform, while Boeing Military Aircraft, a division of Boeing Defense Space and Security, is paying $322 million. More detail is expected in an earnings call for the second quarter scheduled for July 22.

The past two years of Boeing KC-46 charges amount to a pre-tax burden of $1.26 billion for the program.

This most recent overrun is a result of technical problems with the tanker’s complex integrated fuel system, which provides fuel to fly the KC-46 as well as to receivers taking on fuel from a centerline boom or wing-mounted pods. The fuel system is the heart and soul of an aerial tanker, and Boeing’s extensive experience building tankers was a major selling point in its bid against Airbus for the KC-X competition. The problems arose as the company “prepared for and conducted test and verification of that system during the second quarter,” the company’s July 17 announcement says. Multiple Boeing spokesmen declined to say when the test problems came to light beyond pointing to the second quarter, or April – June.

On May 26, however, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney told Aviation Week the program appeared on track. “If there were any cost overruns [anticipated] we would tell you. Could things go wrong? A test [anomaly] that would cause a delay or an extra charge? It’s a possibility. But it’s not what we see today. We have a high degree of confidence,” he said.

This raises the question of when the design failures came to light and when they were briefed up the company’s chain of command. The spokesmen declined to provide input on this point, citing the forthcoming earnings call.

“[Boeing is] working through the qualification process of the complete KC-46 weapon system, and not surprisingly the integrated fuel system is a large part of that effort,” said Brig. Gen. Duke Richardson, program executive officer of tankers for the Air Force. “With EMD-1 exiting fuel dock and preparing to return to flight and the entry of EMD-2 into fuel dock, Boeing continues to make solid progress. While we have more heavy lifting coming up, we believe it is achievable and do not see any technical showstoppers.”

Boeing took a $272 million after tax charge – or $425 million pre-tax – last summer due to an inadequate design for wiring bundles on the aircraft. The Air Force requires redundancies and “safe separation” between some wiring components in the militarized 767, and the design fell short, prompting an extensive redesign and months-long delay to the first flight of the tanker.

………

Following last year’s charge, Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall predicted more overruns, to the chagrin of the company. “Boeing has taken a pretty large loss that they recently booked against the tanker. We expected that. There’s potential for additional loss that Boeing would have to absorb. But there’s a lot of business for Boeing at the end of this, and that’s one of the reasons we did it this way. They have a business case to finish the program and deliver the tanker,” he told Aviation Week in November.

How the f%$# does Boeing, which pretty much invented the airborne tanker, manage to f%$# up making a tanker out of a design that has its origins from about 40 years ago, when Israel has already deployed and sold 767 tanker conversions to foreign customers, and the Airbus A330 tanker is currently flying with 4 nations.

How the hell do you have a 22% cost overrun on crap like this?

This is happening because Boeing knows that the Washington State Congressional delegation has its back, so they delivered an unrealistic bid, and executed it poorly, because it is a heads Boeing wins tails the taxpayers lose.

And from the Only Country with a More Dysfunctional Weapons Development Program than Ours………

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It appears that India’s Tejas light fighter ,already more than 30 years in development, will face further delays:

Delayed by more than 15 years, India’s homegrown Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Mark-1 is ready for critical test flights necessary for its final operational clearance (FOC) at the end of the year, but analysts and Indian Air Force (IAF) officials say that clearance will slip again, to next year.

Though he did not provide a date for the test flights, a Defence Ministry official said they will include firings of a variety of weapons, including air-to-air missiles and Israeli-made Derby beyond-visual-range missiles. The Russian-made close-combat missile R-73 has already been integrated on the aircraft.

………

“FOC would most probably slip to sometime in 2016,” Kak said. “But given the track record, these kind of slippages have over the years been accepted as par for the course.”

The Air Force ordered 20 of the Mark-1s after the aircraft’s initial operational clearance in December 2013, and is set to order an additional 20 following FOC. State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) will produce all 40 aircraft under limited series production and says it has the capacity to produce eight LCA Mark-1s a year once the full order is placed.

But so far the Air Force has received only one aircraft to use for weapon integration and testing, not the four it wanted to have at this stage.

“Weapons integration has been on for quite some time and the LCA has fired the R73 missile and laser-guided bombs during [the Air Force’s] firepower demonstration in February 2014,” said Daljit Singh, retired Air Force air marshal. “However, more weapons are required to be integrated. In addition to weapons integration, test flights are also required to integrate and test other avionics and systems.

This program has been in development for 32 years, and they still cannot deliver the number of aircraft needed for qualification trials, and those that they do develop will have a lower performance engine than the original domestic powerplant.

This is a complete cluster f%$#.

The F-35 is Dysfunctional in Long Range Air to Air Combat as Well

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In the recent discussions of the failings of the F-35 in close in combat, it ignored the other rather obvious bit which is that it is sub par in a longer range combat involving missiles as well:

The Pentagon’s new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is dead meat in a close battle against even a dated two-seat F-16D fighter jet, according to a scathing test pilot report War Is Boring obtained.

Don’t sweat it, JSF-maker Lockheed Martin responded. “The F-35’s technology is designed to engage, shoot and kill its enemy from long distances,” Lockheed’s F-35 team wrote in a press release on July 1

As a rebuttal to the test pilot report, Lockheed’s claim is a cynically useful one — it sidesteps the criticism without really confirming or denying it. But that doesn’t mean the company’s test-report rebuttal is actually true.

Can the F-35 really engage, shoot and kill its enemy from long distances? There are reasons to believe it can’t. The stealth fighter lacks the sensors, weapons and speed that allow a warplane to reliably detect and shoot down other planes in combat. Especially when those planes are shooting back.

In short—the F-35 isn’t much of a dogfighter. And it’s probably not very good at long-range aerial combat, either.

………

To this end, the F-35 does have a high-tech radar, high-fidelity cameras and other advanced gear that can detect airplanes. But foremost, Lockheed optimized these sensors for spotting targets on the ground — and at relatively short distances.

The F-35 can see great. It just can’t see all that great into the air. At least not compared to modern Chinese- and Russian-made jets — the planes the F-35 is most likely to face in battle in some future war.

First, we have to look at how the F-35’s sensors compare to its rivals. The latest Russian radars, such as the one on the new Sukhoi Su-35, at least match the JSF’s APG-81, according to data compiled by Carlo Kopp at Air Power Australia.

While the specific details remain secret, Kopp estimates the APG-81 can detect an aircraft with a radar cross-section of three square meters—a MiG-29, for example—just over 100 miles away. Russian radar-maker Tikhomirov claims the Su-35’s Irbis-E can spot a similar-size target at greater than twice that distance.

………

JSF pilots shouldn’t expect to automatically get the jump on their enemies. And once everyone has detected everyone else and the long-distance shooting starts, the F-35 is in even more trouble.

The American AIM-120, the Russian R-77 and the Chinese PL-12 are all comparable long-range missiles, each with a nominal range of around 60 miles. But the F-35 is slower than rival Russian or Chinese fighters, making it a less effective missile-shooter.

A fast-flying jet can impart extra energy to any weapon it fires. That means a “supercruising” fighter such as the Su-35 — that is, a fast-flying plane that exceeds the speed of sound without a fuel-guzzling afterburner — can potentially fling its missiles farther than a missile’s advertised range.

Unable to supercruise like its rivals, the JSF can’t launch its own weapons with nearly as much extra power.

More importantly, depending on the variant, the R-77 boasts radar guidance or can home in on heat signatures — a fighter pilot can also use his plane’s radar to point the weapon near its target, at which a passive sensor on the missile takes over.

………

Not that the F-35 has much room for different kinds of missiles. In stealth mode, with its weapons tucked into an internal bay, the F-35 can only carry four AIM-120s. And that’s only if it’s not also carrying its standard load of GPS-guided bombs.

The Chinese J-20 apparently has room for four missiles inside its main weapons bay, along with two more missiles in smaller bays on the sides of the fuselage. The more conventional Su-35 can carry a whopping 10 missiles under its wings and fuselage.

………

“You up your chances of success with a multiple-missile shot,” says Thomas Christie, an analyst who worked with legendary Air Force Col. John Boyd on his “energy-maneuverability” dogfighting concept. In the past, fighter pilots trained to fire two missiles at a time, Christie explains.

Using this method, a JSF flier might get just one shot or two before he’s out of missiles. Meanwhile, Russian or Chinese jets could easily manage twice as many individual engagements — or boost their chances of a kill by firing three or more missiles at a time

As I’ve noted before, this may not as big a deal as one would think, as achieving air superiority comes down to training and tactics, so even with an inferior platform, particularly when backed up by superior numbers and logistics.

With limited sensors, compromised stealth, not enough energy and too few weapons, the F-35 is probably already outclassed in a long-range fight. Never mind merely staying out of short-range dogfights. America’s new stealth fighter should probably avoid aerial duels at any distance.

The F-35 is going to be a major pig, and advances in sensor fusion and computing are are currently in the process of eviscerating what might be its sole advantage, stealth.

From a tactical perspective, as I’ve noted before, this may not as big a deal as one would think, as achieving air superiority comes down to training and tactics, so even with an inferior platform, particularly when backed up by superior numbers and logistics.

The consequences of flushing trillions of dollars down the toilet, particularly when bridges, roads and water mains are falling apart are a much bigger deal though.

White elephants do not come cheap.

The New Brewster Buffalo

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A test pilot with a wide range of fighter experience engaged in mock dogfights with an F-16, and the result was Not pretty:

A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can’t turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy’s own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles back in January.

 “The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage,” the unnamed pilot wrote in a scathing five-page brief that War Is Boring has obtained. The brief is unclassified but is labeled “for official use only.”

 The test pilot’s report is the latest evidence of fundamental problems with the design of the F-35 — which, at a total program cost of more than a trillion dollars, is history’s most expensive weapon.

 The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — not to mention the air forces and navies of more than a dozen U.S. allies — are counting on the Lockheed Martin-made JSF to replace many if not most of their current fighter jets.

 And that means that, within a few decades, American and allied aviators will fly into battle in an inferior fighter — one that could get them killed … and cost the United States control of the air.

 The fateful test took place on Jan. 14, 2015, apparently within the Sea Test Range over the Pacific Ocean near Edwards Air Force Base in California. The single-seat F-35A with the designation “AF-02” — one of the older JSFs in the Air Force — took off alongside a two-seat F-16D Block 40, one of the types of planes the F-35 is supposed to replace.

 The two jets would be playing the roles of opposing fighters in a pretend air battle, which the Air Force organized specifically to test out the F-35’s prowess as a close-range dogfighter in an air-to-air tangle involving high “angles of attack,” or AoA, and “aggressive stick/pedal inputs.”

 In other words, the F-35 pilot would fly his jet hard, turning and maneuvering in order to “shoot down” the F-16, whose pilot would be doing his own best to evade and kill the F-35.

 ………

 The F-35 was flying “clean,” with no weapons in its bomb bay or under its wings and fuselage. The F-16, by contrast, was hauling two bulky underwing drop tanks, putting the older jet at an aerodynamic disadvantage.

 But the JSF’s advantage didn’t actually help in the end. The stealth fighter proved too sluggish to reliably defeat the F-16, even with the F-16 lugging extra fuel tanks. “Even with the limited F-16 target configuration, the F-35A remained at a distinct energy disadvantage for every engagement,” the pilot reported.

 “Insufficient pitch rate.” “Energy deficit to the bandit would increase over time.” “The flying qualities in the blended region (20–26 degrees AoA) were not intuitive or favorable.”

 The F-35 jockey tried to target the F-16 with the stealth jet’s 25-millimeter cannon, but the smaller F-16 easily dodged. “Instead of catching the bandit off-guard by rapidly pull aft to achieve lead, the nose rate was slow, allowing him to easily time his jink prior to a gun solution,” the JSF pilot complained.

 ………

 And when the pilot of the F-16 turned the tables on the F-35, maneuvering to put the stealth plane in his own gunsight, the JSF jockey found he couldn’t maneuver out of the way, owing to a “lack of nose rate.”

 ………

And to add insult to injury, the JSF flier discovered he couldn’t even comfortably move his head inside the radar-evading jet’s cramped cockpit. “The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft.” That allowed the F-16 to sneak up on him.

In the end, the F-35 — the only new fighter jet that America and most of its allies are developing — is demonstrably inferior in a dogfight with the F-16, which the U.S. Air Force first acquired in the late 1970s.

 The test pilot explained that he has also flown 1980s-vintage F-15E fighter-bombers and found the F-35 to be “substantially inferior” to the older plane when it comes to managing energy in a close battle.

This is what happens when you allow the USMC’s supposed need for a STO/VL airframe to dominate all other considerations with regard to basic airframe, which is the reason for poor rear vision, and hence the need for the humungous high tech helmet, with visor mounted display, which prevents adequate view to the rear.

I would note that the real problem here is not that our pilots might have inferior equipment, in WWII the F4F Wildcat achieved a 6:1 kill ratio, and the lamentable F2A Brewster Buffalo achieved a 26:1 kill ratio in Finnish service.

Achieving air superiority comes down to training and tactics, so even with an inferior platform, particularly when backed up by superior numbers and logistics.

If the US goes into combat with the F-35 it will not be a disaster.

The real disaster is that we are spending over a Trillion dollars on something that provides no advantages over existing aircraft.

We could buy homes for more than 4 million families, or provide health insurance for 10 million families for a decade, or fix around one third of our deferred infrastructure needs.

The opportunities that have been missed while we are spending money on a white elephant are the real disaster here.

Bad Day at the Office ……… Or Maybe a Good Day at the Office

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You definately owe him a pint


Shorthouse is on the left

A jumper for the Red Devils UK army parachute team had his chute fail.

One of his fellow paratroopers caught his failed parachute with his legs, and lowered both of them into the a nearby harbor:

A Red Devil parachutist had a lucky escape when his chute failed to open during an airshow – but a team-mate caught him in mid-air.

The Army freefall parachute display team was performing at the Whitehaven Air Show in Cumbria on Friday night when the parachute failed.

Pictures on social media show the men coming down together and crashing into the harbour waters.

A message on the show’s Facebook page said both were all right.

It said: “We can confirm that the Red Devil parachutists are both safe and sound. For the first time in 25 years they had a parachute fail.

“One team member caught his team-mate and brought him into Queens Dock. Our safety procedures worked perfectly and a huge thank you to Whitehaven Marina for getting them out of the water so quickly.”

………

“It’s a testament to the training and the skill of the British Forces and we are just happy that last night’s drama had a happy ending.

“Within ten minutes of landing the lads were tucking into pie and peas and a pint and there was an audible sigh of relief in the crowd when we were able to announce they were both safe.”

………

An Army spokesman said: “We can confirm that there was an incident during the Whitehaven Air Show, when a member of the Red Devils display team’s parachute failed to open correctly.

“A team mate assisted in his safe landing, both men were unharmed, and we are now investigating to find out the cause of the incident.”

You have to love the understated response of both men:

Cpl Mike French, 34, was performing at the Whitehaven Air Show in Cumbria on Friday when the accident happened.

His parachute wrapped around Cpl Wayne Shorthouse but they managed to land in the harbour.

Cpl Shorthouse, 32, said he was no hero and both men had been trained for such a scenario.

Cpl French said the plan had been for his parachute to be caught by Cpl Shorthouse as the first stage of building a formation.

“As soon as I had made contact with Wayne from the back, I looked up and saw the parachute was a little bit wrapped around,” said Cpl French.

“It was pretty much straight away you realise it’s not exactly how we planned to do it but then training kicks in and members of the Parachute Regiment, the British Army, we always train for every eventuality.

“Display parachuting and especially canopy formation within display parachuting is a very difficult and dangerous aspect of sky diving so constant training is one of the things that kept us [safe], the communication and Wayne having a good parachute above his head.”

Asked if he could repay his colleague, Cpl French said: “A pint of beer maybe.”

Cpl Shorthouse, however, said he was “just doing his job”.

Both men said they were looking forward to the next display.

Both of their responses are seriously bad-ass.

Cpl French should definitely get Cpl Shorthouse a pint of bitter.

This is Not as Impressive as it looks

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Boeing has released a video of the Paris Air Show routine intended for its 787-9.  (Facebook followers, click through to see it)

It is pretty impressive, but it is not as impressive as it appears:

First, it’s not climbing vertically. That is a function of camera angle and a long lens which creates a forced perspective that makes it look that way.

Also, the pilot is keeping the aircraft on the runway longer than is normal for the pull-up.

First, some facts:

  • The 787-9 has an MTOW of 557,000 lb, and a operating empty weight of about 304,000 pounds. (Probably less, because they probably haven’t installed the passenger seats, etc. to make the aircraft handle more spiritedly.)
  • It has about 142,000 lbs of installed thrust, and at sea level and the engines specific fuel consumption is somewhere in the 0.3 lbs fuel/hr-lbs thrust.

For the airshow display, the aircraft will have 2-4 crewmen and perhaps about an hour’s worth of fuel, which means that it has a weight of about 350,000 lbs, and a thrust to weight ratio of 0.4:1, which is similar to that of a fully loaded F-4 Phantom on taking off.

I would also note that for this flight, the fuel is almost certainly not in the wing tanks, to keep down the rotational inertia so that it can roll more aggressively.

Still, I wish I were in Paris to see it.

Hell, I wish that I was in Paris right now.

H/T Firedoglake.

Sikorsky S-97 Raider Takes Flight

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Click any image for popup slide show


Flight


Taxiing


Tethered Tests


Rendering showing rotor and hub fairings

Sikorsky’s S-97 Raider advancing blade helicopter prototype has
taken flight at their test center in Florida:

Sikorsky’s “big bet” on the future of rotorcraft took a sizable step forward on May 22, when the S-97 Raider high-speed helicopter made its first flight, almost eight decades after founder Igor Sikorsky set the mold for the helicopter by flying the VS-300.

With its single main rotor and anti-torque tail rotor, the VS-300 solidified a configuration that has come to dominate the rotorcraft market, but also set a speed limit of around 150 kt. that has not changed significantly for 30 years.

With its rigid coaxial rotors and pusher propulsor, Sikorsky believes the Raider and subsequent designs can change the vertical-lift market by offering twice the cruise speed while retaining the low-speed attributes of conventional helicopters, but with higher hot-and-high performance, efficiency and maneuverability, and lower noise, vibration and pilot workload.

The aircraft flown on May 22 is the first of two prototypes of the Raider light tactical helicopter being built under a $200 million industry effort funded by Sikorsky and its supplier partners. This follows on from the $50 million company-funded X2 Technology Demonstrator, which flew 23 times from 2008-11 and exceeded its speed goal of 250 kt.

On its first flight at Sikorsky’s development flight center in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Raider flew for an hour, versus the 30 min. planned, says Mark Miller, vice president of research and engineering, completing three takeoffs and landings, and forward, rearward and sideward flight. The aircraft was flown by Raider chief pilot Bill Fell, with X2 test pilot Kevin Bredenbeck as co-pilot.

Where the 6,000-lb.-gross-weight X2 proved the physics of the rigid coaxial-rotor compound helicopter, Miller says, the production-representative 11,400-lb. Raiders are intended to show their operational effectiveness through customer demonstrations. They will also reduce risk for the 30,000-lb. SB-1 Defiant Sikorsky is building with Boeing for the U.S. Army’s Joint Multi Role technology demonstration.

Rolled out in October, the first Raider had completed 36 hr. of shakedown ground runs since February. This culminated in an untethered ground run on May 20, clearing the aircraft for flight. On the hour-long first sortie, which was limited only by fuel, all 97 points on an “aggressive” test card were completed, including piloted frequency sweeps in all axes, something normally too risky for a first flight, says Fell.

Initially, the Raider is flying with its triplex fly-by-wire flight control system in back-up degraded mode to reduce complexity and focus on basic airworthiness in the low-speed regime. “There is phenomenal control power with the rigid rotors,” he says. “You can make an input in roll or pitch and the aircraft responds immediately. And with no tail rotor, you do not have to manage the pedals.”

………

The Raider will be flown to 140-150 kt. in pure helicopter mode, says Miller. Toward the end of Phase 1, software will be upgraded to Block 2, bringing in the variable-pitch propulsor and articulating tail to increase speed and enable the full flight envelope. Hub and inter-rotor fairings will be fitted to reduce drag.

Phases 1 and 2 will demo the hover KPP carrying the equivalent of six troops and two crew, as well as an endurance objective. Phase 2 will focus on demonstrating—and likely exceeding—the speed objective when fitted with stub wings carrying weapons. “Raider is a balanced design optimized for more than 220 kt. fully weaponized, but the inherent speed of the configuration is more than 250 kt.,” says Miller. “That’s 100 kt. faster than anything else.”

Phase 3 will demo the maneuverability potential of the rigid coaxial rotor and propulsor. In addition to enabling level-attitude acceleration and deceleration and pushing the helicopter to higher forward speeds, the variable-pitch propeller can be used to produce reverse thrust, enabling the Raider to “hang on the prop” to point sensors and weapons toward the ground.

………

The Raider will be flown to 140-150 kt. in pure helicopter mode, says Miller. Toward the end of Phase 1, software will be upgraded to Block 2, bringing in the variable-pitch propulsor and articulating tail to increase speed and enable the full flight envelope. Hub and inter-rotor fairings will be fitted to reduce drag.

[Aircraft 1 is instrumented for envelope expansion, Hub and inter-rotor “sail” fairings for high speed are not yet fitted. Credit: Sikorsky]
Aircraft 1 is instrumented for envelope expansion, Hub and inter-rotor “sail” fairings for high speed are not yet fitted. Credit: Sikorsky

Phases 1 and 2 will demo the hover KPP carrying the equivalent of six troops and two crew, as well as an endurance objective. Phase 2 will focus on demonstrating—and likely exceeding—the speed objective when fitted with stub wings carrying weapons. “Raider is a balanced design optimized for more than 220 kt. fully weaponized, but the inherent speed of the configuration is more than 250 kt.,” says Miller. “That’s 100 kt. faster than anything else.”

Phase 3 will demo the maneuverability potential of the rigid coaxial rotor and propulsor. In addition to enabling level-attitude acceleration and deceleration and pushing the helicopter to higher forward speeds, the variable-pitch propeller can be used to produce reverse thrust, enabling the Raider to “hang on the prop” to point sensors and weapons toward the ground.

The early tests will involve low, conventional helicopter, speed.  As the test moves to higher speeds, fairings will apply to the mast and rotor hubs.

Right now, there are two competing technologies for high speed vertical lift for the US military,  advancing blade, and tilt rotor.

Tilt rotor appears to offer superior performance in horizontal flight, at the cost of increased down wash issues, less capable low speed handling, and a larger ground envelope.

I’m inclined to go with the advancing blade.  I think that it is an inherently safer technology (autorotation), and the implementation seems to involve a lot less “bleeding edge” technology.  (The V-22’s high pressure hydraulic system, necessary to keep weight down, has been a maintenance nightmare).

Our Private Little War Is Going so Well

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ISIS just took over Ramadi, the capital of al Anbar provice:

Islamic State fighters used a sandstorm to help seize a critical military advantage in the early hours of the terrorist group’s attack on the provincial Iraqi capital of Ramadi last week, helping to set in motion an assault that forced Iraqi security forces to flee, current and former American officials said Monday.

The sandstorm delayed American warplanes and kept them from launching airstrikes to help the Iraqi forces, as the Islamic State fighters evidently anticipated. The fighters used the time to carry out a series of car bombings followed by a wave of ground attacks in and around the city that eventually overwhelmed the American-backed Iraqi forces.

Once the storm subsided, Islamic State and Iraqi forces were intermingled in heavy combat in many areas, making it difficult for allied pilots to distinguish friend or foe, the officials said. By that point, the militants had gained an operational momentum that could not be reversed.

“The dust storm at the very least neutralized capabilities that could have been decisive,” said one former senior military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential battle assessments.

Translation, the Iraqi army cannot find its ass with both hands, and needs extensive air support not to fold up like overcooked cabbage.

There is a reason that, “A column of 3,000 Shiite militia fighters, many supported by Iran, has arrived at a military base near Ramadi as part of the effort to reclaim the city,” because the US trained army lacks the competence, leadership, and toughness to successfully prosecute this conflict.

Bush’s folly continues.

Bad Day at the Office

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Click for slideshow


Yes, I think that this is a class 1 mishap

I think that this is the wing

Because of some as yet undetermined braking issue, a Hungarian Gipen overran the runway at the Lion Effort 2015 military exercise: (Google Translate, original here)

Air base in Caslav Gripen crashed Hungarian army. He slid off the runway and ended up in a field. The pilot ejected. Both are fine. The army said that the aircraft not brake, but it is not clear whether it was pilot error or a technical fault to blame. Damaged aircraft is probably damaged beyond repair.

“At this moment I can say that the aircraft slid off the runway. Pilots are in accordance with the provisions ejected. If the machine is uncontrollable and threatens serious accident, they must leave the plane. Both, however, are in order and nothing dramatic happened in the outcome, “said iDNES.cz Defense Ministry spokesman Petr Medek.

Airport spokesman Tomas Maruscak on Czech Television said that the aircraft not brake. “At the moment it is not possible to say whether it is to blame pilot error or a technical failure,” he said. According to him, the aircraft ended up in a field.

The airplane rolled out of the runway at approximately 13:40. Until the sixteenth hour airport was closed because of an accident and other flights are diverted to the airport in Pardubice. “Aircraft accidents being examined by the Commission of the Department of Military Aviation Section of Supervision and Control of the Ministry of Defense,” said Magdalena Dvorakova of the Communication Department of the General Staff.

The fact that both men escaped without injury, it is not obvious. Ejection from an aircraft that is on the runway, is a very difficult matter. “Ejection at zero altitude for pilots is a big adrenaline rush when I say it in quotation marks,” he told ČTK former military pilot Jan Vachek. According to him, it can only seat state of the art, which are equipped with Gripen fighters.

According to another expert, who asked not to be named, the Gripen crashed beyond repair. Damage could increase antenna systems located at the end of the runway, which is likely to aircraft at high speed when landing entered.

In Caslav held an international exercise Lion Effort 2015, air exercise States whose armies have any versions of the JAS-39 Gripen. Outside the Czech participates just Hungary, and Sweden. The Kingdom of Thailand participating without their aircraft.

Martin Baker ejection seats save another two unlucky aircrew.

I am not so Eager to Fly in a 787

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One of the innovations on the aircraft is a move from hydraulic to electric actuators.

The need for higher led to the use of Lithium-Ion batteries, which are more prone to fires, and briefly grounded the aircraft.

It now appears that a counter rolling over could cause a complete loss of electrical power:

A software vulnerability in Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner jet has the potential to cause pilots to lose control of the aircraft, possibly in mid-flight, Federal Aviation Administration officials warned airlines recently.

The bug—which is either a classic integer overflow or one very much resembling it—resides in one of the electrical systems responsible for generating power, according to memo the FAA issued last week. The vulnerability, which Boeing reported to the FAA, is triggered when a generator has been running continuously for a little more than eight months. As a result, FAA officials have adopted a new airworthiness directive (AD) that airlines will be required to follow, at least until the underlying flaw is fixed.

“This AD was prompted by the determination that a Model 787 airplane that has been powered continuously for 248 days can lose all alternating current (AC) electrical power due to the generator control units (GCUs) simultaneously going into failsafe mode,” the memo stated. “This condition is caused by a software counter internal to the GCUs that will overflow after 248 days of continuous power. We are issuing this AD to prevent loss of all AC electrical power, which could result in loss of control of the airplane.”

………

 The memo doesn’t provide additional details about the underlying software bug. Informed speculation suggests it’s a signed 32-bit integer overflow that is triggered after 231 centiseconds (i.e. 248.55 days) of continuous operation.

This is computer programming 101, and it’s bullsh%$ that no one thought of this.

This was something that was present in in Windows 95 and 98 in the last millennium, where the system would crash after 49.7 days (equal to 232 milliseconds).

The embarrassing part for Microsoft was that it took about a decade before it was found, because no one could keep the systems running that long.

Seriously?  New electrics, new actuators, new structures, new manufacturing configuration, all done at the same time ……… I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop.

If You are the Subject of the Sentence, “Some Moron in an Autogyro………,” It Will not End Well

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He says that, “No sane person would do what he is doing.”
The insanity defense might be a good idea.


And here is the landing, and the inevitable freakout.

Case in point:

U.S. Capitol Police said that a small gyrocopter with one occupant landed on the West Lawn of the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon.

 One person has been detained, Capitol Police spokeswoman Kimberly Schneider said in an e-mail.

 Eyewitnesses in Capitol offices reported seeing police run toward the aircraft and take the pilot away. The small craft landed in the middle of the West Front Lawn, where the annual Christmas tree and Fourth of July concert stage are set up.

 All was calm as of about 1:45 p.m., but police blocked access to the lawn. Schneider, at about 3:13 p.m., sent out an e-mail saying bomb squad had cleared the craft and was preparing to move it to a secure location.

………

The Tampa Bay Times wrote about Doug Hughes, a 61-year-old mailman from Florida, who planned to fly to the Capitol.

 From their report:

His stated intent: to buzz through the air at 45 miles per hour at about 300 feet up in an ultralight gyrocopter toward Washington, D.C., toward protected airspace, where, if his plan works, he’ll land on the lawn of the United States Capitol building and deliver the mail.

Of course, Doug Hughes might be shot out of the sky. He knows this. He has thought about it day and night for more than two years, wrestling with the tiniest details of his insane plan.

“No sane person,” he said, “would do what I’m doing.”

Rather unsurprisingly, he is currently in custody.

I don’t expect a long jail sentence, but I would expect that he is likely to be fired by the US Post Office, and his pension might be at risk, and he is going to be in for a world of petty harassment by the authorities.

No, Just No. No Accomodations.

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Here is an interesting article in the New York Times about how Heredim (literally “fearful ones”) are disrupting air travel when they freak out about having to sit next to women on airline flights.

Sorry, but this is bullsh%$. Jews are supposed to engage the world as it is, not as if it were some long gone era.

If you want to do that, go Amish:

Francesca Hogi, 40, had settled into her aisle seat for the flight from New York to London when the man assigned to the adjoining window seat arrived and refused to sit down. He said his religion prevented him from sitting beside a woman who was not his wife. Irritated but eager to get underway, she eventually agreed to move.

Laura Heywood, 42, had a similar experience while traveling from San Diego to London via New York. She was in a middle seat — her husband had the aisle — when the man with the window seat in the same row asked if the couple would switch positions. Ms. Heywood, offended by the notion that her sex made her an unacceptable seatmate, refused.

“I wasn’t rude, but I found the reason to be sexist, so I was direct,” she said.

A growing number of airline passengers, particularly on trips between the United States and Israel, are now sharing stories of conflicts between ultra-Orthodox Jewish men trying to follow their faith and women just hoping to sit down. Several flights from New York to Israel over the last year have been delayed or disrupted over the issue, and with social media spreading outrage and debate, the disputes have spawned a protest initiative, an online petition and a spoof safety video from a Jewish magazine suggesting a full-body safety vest (“Yes, it’s kosher!”) to protect ultra-Orthodox men from women seated next to them on airplanes.

 And if you go Amish, then you do not fly.

You could also charter single sex flights, but I’d rather you just do the no modern travel bit.

If you want to be medieval, you should not do so by half measures.

The Germanwings Crash Begins to be a Bit Less Mysterious

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They have not yet found the flight data recorder, but they have released the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), and it appears that one of the pilots was locked out of the cockpit:

As officials struggled Wednesday to explain why a jet with 150 people on board crashed amid a relatively clear sky, an investigator said evidence from a cockpit voice recorder indicated one pilot left the cockpit before the plane’s descent and was unable to get back in.

A senior military official involved in the investigation described “very smooth, very cool” conversation between the pilots during the early part of the flight from Barcelona, Spain, to Düsseldorf, Germany. Then the audio indicated that one of the pilots left the cockpit and could not re-enter.

“The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door, and there is no answer,” the investigator said. “And then he hits the door stronger, and no answer. There is never an answer.”

He said, “You can hear he is trying to smash the door down.”

While the audio seemed to give some insight into the circumstances leading to the Germanwings crash on Tuesday morning, it also left many questions unanswered.

It’s now beginning to sound like deliberate action by one of the pilots, though it’s curious that the descent was not steeper.

Really Bad Day at the Office

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Line width is altitude, circles represent speed


Little pieces indicate high speed impact

Germanwings Flight 9525 flying from Barcelona to Düsseldorf has crashed in the Alps, there appear to be no survivors. The flight profile is kind of weird:

A passenger jet carrying 150 people crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday. Officials expect no survivors.

 Germanwings Flight 9525 left Barcelona at 10:01 a.m. CET for Dusseldorf and went down about 430 miles south-southeast of Paris. The plane, a 24-year-old Airbus A320, was operated by the Lufthansa-owned budget carrier.

Images from the crash site show small pieces of the plane scattered throughout the mountainside, suggesting a violent impact — and significantly decreasing the likelihood of any survivors.

 “Appalling images in this mountain landscape,” said Christopher Castaner, deputy mayor of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, near where the plane crashed. “There is nothing left but debris and bodies.”

 Germanwings officials initially said Flight 9295 sent a distress signal about an hour after takeoff before crashing into a mountainous zone at an altitude of about 6,550 feet.

 The descent from 38,000 feet lasted nearly eight minutes.

 However, France’s aviation authority reported that the plane never sent a signal, and officials lost radio contact with the flight. The plane went down in mid-flight — an uncommon occurrence as the majority of plane crashes happen during takeoff or landing.

(emphasis mine)

This is weird.

The flight profile appears to be consistent with a loss of pressure incident, where the pilots try to get down to safe altitude, and if this situation led to a loss of situational awareness as well, it could end with a CFIT (Controlled Flight Into Terrain).

But they should have gotten a call out, or at least change the transponder code to the emergency setting, but they did neither.

Another possibility is some sort of air data sensor problem, but I would expect something like an Air France 447 scenario, with a stall or some other departure under those circumstances.

Also, it appears that while the flight did divert from its assigned altitude, it did not deviate from its planned course.

That’s just plain weird:

  • The aircraft appeared under control throughout the flight.
  • There was no distress call.
  • They did not divert to a nearby airport.
  • The aircraft had been checked out by maintenance on the previous day. (First link)

This is, to quote Alice, “Curiouser and curiouser.”

Absent some conspiracy theories that sound like they came from the short-lived X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunman, I am at a loss.

Here’s hoping that the flight data recorder will provide a clue.

Lockheed Martin Promises a Pony………

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Lockheed Martin is now saying that it will be able cut the cost of the F-35:

Lockheed Martin is on track to slash 30 per cent from the cost of each F-35 joint strike fighter, bringing the price of the controversial aircraft below that of previous, less capable generations of fighters, Marillyn Hewson, the company’s chief executive, said on Wednesday.

The reduction would bring the cost of each F-35A — the version for the US air force — down to less than $80m from between $110m and $115m each. Such a saving could save billions of dollars in procurement costs for the programme, currently estimated at $396bn for more than 3,000 aircraft for the US and key allies.

Winslow Wheeler, of the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) estimates the cost of the F-35 to be at least twice that.

I would also note that the F-35, as delivered, is not combat capable.

It will will have beta software, its maintenance software will not be close to operation, and it will be unable to carry the bomb that is crucial to its mission until 2022.

Am I the only one who thinks that Lockheed’s price estimates are based on the economics of the 1954 Looney Tune Design for Leaving?

You know that one. Daffy Duck is trying to sell a push button house of the future, and the final punch line is, “For a small price, I can install this little blue button to get you down!”

All I can say is that whoever is going to deploy this clusterf%$# is going to be paying for a lot of blue buttons.