Category: technology

The Return of the Airship

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It appears that plans for long duration unmanned lighter than air surveillance platforms continue apace, with a subscale demonstrator, the High Altitude Long Endurance Demonstrator (HALE-D), due to fly in August. (paid subscription required)

This aircraft, which relies on solar cells and batteries to maintain station for 2 weeks at 60,000 feet altitude with a 50 lb sensor payload, with successor operational aircraft extending both payload and range significantly, though they would be huge, as this demonstrator is already twice the size of the Goodyear blimp.

Me, I’m dubious of the return of the airship, if just because takeoff and landing are so troublesome in anything but absolutely calm weather.

Airbus Looking at GTF On A-320?

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That certainly is what this patent application filed by EADS , which shows a modified wing-fuselage fairing that is supposed to reduce drag from the installation of a larger engine, seems to indicate.

The problem would seem to be directly associated with the installation of the Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan (GTF) which has a significantly higher bypass ratio, and fan size, as compared to the engine currently used on the A-320 series.

The new fairing is the bottom of both pics.

Basically, it appears to be a sort of area ruling which accommodates the changes in air flow from a larger nacelle.

Electro-Magnetic Catapult on Ford Class CVN in Trouble

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It looks like there are serious problems with the Navy’s new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), which is intended to replace steam catapults on the new carrier.

The GAO is highlighting potential delays and cost overruns, and the fact that testing is not intended to start until next year, even though the keel of the lead ship, the Gerald Ford, has already been laid.

It makes me wonder if SecDef Gates proposed slowdown on carrier production might be in some part by concerns over the maturity system, as retrofitting steam catapults would involve major changes to the ship, and possibly to its propulsion, which was not designed to supply steam to catapults.

Of course, as always, the US Navy is being less than forthcoming about potential problems, and continues to paint a happy picture, though there are stories suggesting that EMALS would be shelved, though it is unclear if replacing the system with steam would save money or keep the program on schedule, at least for the Ford.

Why the US Mobile Phone Industry is a Horrible Model for the Internet

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The advocacy group Free Press has filed a complaint with the FCC over Apple and AT&T’s ban on the use of Skype on their network.

The money quote on this is from a typically clueless AT&T spokesman, “Customers are free to download and use the apps they want, but we have no obligation—nor should we have—to facilitate or subsidize our competitors’ businesses.”

It sounds reasonable, but what is really going on here is that AT&T is using monopoly power, it is the exclusive licensee for the iPhone in the US, and it’s customers incur hefty roaming charges on other networks, in order to lock a potential competitor out on a service that their customers have paid for.

This is why network neutrality is necessary, and it is yet another example as to how the US privatized largely unregulated telco markets do not serve the consumer: it creates businesses whose model is largely predicated on creating, and maintaining, a monopoly.

Wanker of the Day: Henry Porter

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Mr. Porter is complaining about Google and Youtube, because in negotiating with Performing Rights Society, the UK music licensing organization, Google, “took down the videos of the artists concerned,” when the PRS demanded £0.22, about $0.40, for each video watched.

I would be surprised if Google grosses $0.04 per video watched on Youtube, and they are demanding nearly half a dollar, so Google tells you to pound sand, and it appears that he’s also angry because Google “only” takes down infringing material promptly when notified, when required by law, as opposed to…well, it’s not clear, but he thinks it’s bad.

Tough.

This is where the idea of IP as “property” as opposed to “temporary exclusive license” gets us, and it does not encourage the useful sciences and arts, which is what it’s there for, at least in the USA.

Hypersonic Developments

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Alliant Techsystems (ATK) isworking on getting its Thermally Throated Ramjet (TTRJ) onto the X-51B hypersonic demonstrator (paid subscription required) that is due to succeed the X-51A demonstrator (2nd pic down) that will be conducting flights later this year.

The flight weight engine is now in test (see inlet diffuser and combustor combination, top pic), and as opposed to using the rather exotic, and difficult to ignite JP-7 that was used for the SR-71, it uses the more common JP-10 missile fuel, with the fuel cooling the combustor walls and being vaporized prior to ignition.

It’s interesting in that the boundary between subsonic and supersonic flow inside the engine is controlled thermally, rather than through inlet geometry, with the heat of forward (subsonic) combustion taking the stream to supersonic speed.

In the meantime, the X-51A scramjet demonstrator appears ti be continuing on both budget and schedule, (paid subscription required) largely because the development team has limited requirement creep and “bleeding edge” technology wherever possible, with a first flight in October of this year.

There are a number of potential technical breakthroughs, a hydrocarbon fuel cooled scramjet, unstable aerodynamics, and long powered flight time (300s as vs NASA’s 10s for its X-43-A), but structurally, it’s simple, with a tungsten nose cone, aluminum structure, and an old fashioned ablative coating for much of its thermal protection.

Additionally, the 4 planned flight tests are designed to be identical, in order to provide redundancy.

While it’s not an issue for the relatively slow (!) Mach 5-6 X-51A, future hypersonic vehicles, which can be expected to exceed Mach 10, will have issues with communication, as the speeds create an ionized sheath around the vehicle that will cause a communications blackout, which makes getting telemetry out of a vehicle problematic.

The potential solutions are interesting, ranging from using lasers or magnets to poke holes in the plasma, dropping capsules with the telemetry as the flight progresses, using the plasma to generate a signal, magnetic fields, etc.

France, U.K. To Qualify New Cannon – Defense News

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France and the UK are set to qualify a new 40mm case telescoped ammunition cannon for their armored vehicles, and they are looking to be at System Readiness Level 8 (“Actual System Completed and Qualified Through Test and Demonstration”) by year’s end, with the cannon and ammunition qualified some time in 2012.

When I looked at this system last year, it looked promising, with a much simplified ammunition feed, no need to eject cases, and more punch in the same volume.

CTA International (CTAI), a “joint venture of BAE Systems and Nexter” say that this is compact enough to be a drop in replacement for the Bradley’s 25mm Bushmaster cannon, but that it will pack the punch of a 50mm cannon.

I, for One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords

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Honda has developed a EEG based controller for its Asimo robot.

It’s currently has a, “90% success rate at recognizing and then carrying out four commands,” so the capability for “mind reading” is really pretty rudimentary, but it is of interest.

Of course, it is only a matter of time before our robot friends become our robot masters, and this technology is used to monitor and punish us, so it’s the end of humanity.

On the bright side, if our new lords and masters look like the bottom picture, it will take some of the sting off the soulless regime which will soon dominate our existence.

Noting that the date has flipped to April 1, let me state that the story is not an April Fools gag, though obviously I am milking the news for laughs.

Patents Reveal Shap of Northrop Grumman Bomber

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Rather unsurprisingly, Northrop Grumman’s design for the “Next Generation Bomber” (NGB) looks rather a lot like the cranked kite concept that has been floating around for some time.

Among other things, it’s supposed to provide much lower drag, and better high altitude performance than the original B-2, giving improved range, though some of the additional range appears to be at the expense of weapons load: word is that payload is in the 20,000 pound range, or about ½ that of its predecessors.

There is an additional interesting bit of information in another Northrop-Grumman patent application, which shows the aircraft with a mustache.

Given the stealth requirements for the aircraft, and the fact that it will generally be operating at high altitude at relatively high mach numbers, the obvious conclusion is that this is a retractable canard, much like the Tu-144 Charger and the Mirage Milan. (in the latter, the retractable canards were actually called a “mustache”)

The advantages on takeoff and landing are clear, giving a whole lot more pitch authority than is generally available with a short coupled tailless design, which can increase max takeoff and landing weight, decrease takeoff and landing speeds, and shrink the landing gear and breaking systems.

Space Debris Cleaning, My Ass!

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So, the National Reconnaissance Office and Space Command are looking to set up a ground based laser system to clean up space debris. (paid subscription required)

And I’m Anna Nicole Smith….This isn’t an attempt to set up a cleaning system, this is an attempt to develop a laser based anti-satellite weapon, not withstanding their fig leaf of some sort of multinational effort:

To help offset such a negative reaction, [Andrew Palowitch, director of the “Space Protection Program”]Palowitch says, five lasers could be built and installed in five countries—­Russia, China, India, France and the U.S. All would be ­operated by an international consortium with “everybody participating equally with free access to the particular sites in a coordinated activity.”

Propose a regime, that you could never get the French to agree to, much less China, and then go and develop a satellite zapper on your own.

Seriously, how stupid do they think that we are?

FCS Active Protection System is Not Working

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The Active Protection System (APS) is designed to intercept RPGs, ATGMs, and long rod penetrators, to protect the smaller and lighter manned vehicles of the Future Combat System (FCS), and it now seems that it simply does not work, according to the latest GAO report.

The interesting thing is that the Israelis have a system that does work, Trophy, though it is less ambitious than the APS, but it was rejected and hundreds of millions of dollars directed towards Raytheon.†

One of the interesting bits about FCS is that is as much an industrial base preservation system as anything else, with bizarre separations of work to ensure that various contractors get sufficient workshare.

I believe that the high technology band tracks are the responsibility of the BAE Systems†, and the suspension is the responsibility of General Dynamics, for example, which makes no sense whatsoever.


Army Rejects Trophy


Trophy Promotional Video

*Full Disclosure, I worked for Raytheon a number of times, both in Texas and in Maryland over the past 15 years or so.
†Full disclosure, I worked on the Future Recovery and Maintenance Vehicle, FRMV, “wrecker” variant of the FCS-MGV from 2003-2006 at United Defense (later BAE Systems after the Carlyle Group sold me to buy Dunkin Donuts).‡
‡Yes, I have worked everywhere. Maybe I can’t hold down a job, but more likely this has been my role as “technical hit man”, where you are parachuted in to take care of a specific need.

More JSF Problems

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The first is a report from the GAO revealing the least well kept secret in defense procurement, that the JSF is over budget and behind schedule, to the tune of about $2 billion, the GAO also believes that the F-35 will need about 1000 additional flight test hours than the F-35 Joint Programme Office (JPO) does, and notes that the time to assemble the first production airframes was 40% greater than predicted.

Additionally, as I have noted before, it appears that there are some very concerning issues regarding thermal management for the aircraft, and it looks like the fuel-air heat exchanger, which not only cools the avionics, but the electro-hydrostatic flight controls is not sufficient in hot weather conditions, like the Middle East.

Additionally, the author of the linked article, Bill Sweetman, notices another potential heat issue, this one having to do with IR signature, that the location of the exhaust for the integrated APU/EPU exhaust has been relocated in the production models.

In the pre-production models, it was located on the top of the aircraft in front of the left vertical stabilizer (you can see where the heat cooked off the paint in the top picture), but in the production models, it has been relocated to the bottom of the fuselage.

The exhaust does not look particularly stealthy from a radar perspective to my untrained eye, and I would have to imagine that it would be a big infra-red “kick-me” sign for Marine STOVL JSFs which would be minutes from the battlefield with APUs running on unimproved strips when the aircraft is used to provide close air support.

Body Armor for the Judean People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad

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Judean People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad!
What, you haven’t seen Life of Brian? Rent it now!

You may, or not, be aware of the concept of reactive armor.

It’s used on a fair number of armored vehicles out there: It’s a box with explosives in it, and when struck by a round, it explodes, dissipating the jet from a shaped charge or altering the path of a kinetic energy penetrator dart.

Well, someone has taken the next forseeable step, and submitted a patent application for an exploding bullet proof vest:

As Dave Barry would say, “I am NOT making this up!”

Check out patent number 6474213, Reactive stiffening armor system, which proposes:

A reactive armor structure having an outer layer and a reactive element adjacent to and integral with the outer layer is provided. The reactive element provides an amount of support to the outer layer effective to restrain movement of the outer layer and to delay fracture of the outer layer when the outer layer is impacted by a projectile.

I wonder what happens when a limb is in the path of the detonation of:

10. The structure of claim 1, wherein the explosive material has a detonation velocity of from about 2 km/s to about 5 km/s.

…

24. The structure of claim 15 wherein said reactive material comprises a material selected from the group consisting of TNT, RDX, Comp-B, Octol, and nitromethane.

I’m not sure if it would be worse to be the guy in the armor, or the guy standing next to the guy in the armor.

Boeing Unveils LO F-15

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It appears that Boeing is looking to extend the life of the F-15 Eagle with a technological update (also here and here) called the Silent Eagle.

The two most obvious changes are creating weapons bays in the conformal fuel tanks and the canted tails, though it is also reported that there is a fair amount of radar absorbent material (RAM) added, including a frangable gun cover that hearkens back to how armorers treated the guns in WWII.

There are apparently no radar blockers in the inlets, even though Boeing has extensive experience with them in the F/A-18 E/F, because of potential export issues.

This implies that Boeing has decided (correctly IMHO) that they have no chance of selling these to the USAF, who have eyes for nothing for the F-22 and F-35.

They are suggesting a $100m unit price, though it is not made clear in any of the articles as to whether this is unit price, or fly-away cost.

The implication is that $100m will be cheaper than the F-35 JSF, and perhaps this is less an exercise to sell more F-15s than it is to sell more F/A-18E/Fs by implying that the JSF will break 9 figures in cost.

If they are implying this, they are probably right. The JSF shows a lot of signs of cost escalation and schedule slippage.

Powerpoint courtesy of The DEW Line, video of missile actuator courtesy of Boeing.

Yadda, Yadda, Yadda

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Another flying car. This one from Terrafugia.

It appears to be very much on the “roadable plane” side of the roadable plane/flying car divide, and I rather expect that it will be like the rest: single digit production followed by an exit of the business.

In any case, here is a vid of their first flight.

It really appears to love the ground a lot, but that may be because of its relatively long wheel base relative to dedicated aircraft, requiring more force to rotate.

Worldwide War Pigs: Drop Tank IRST Tests Well For Supers

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About 1 ¾ years ago, I wrote about how Boeing was looking into putting an Infra-Red Search and Track (IRST) on the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet by fitting it to the front half of a center-line drop tank.

Well, Boeing has completed successful flight tests on the system, which is supplied by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control*.

There hasn’t been an aircraft in the US inventory with an IRST for air-to-air since the F-14 Tomcat was retired, but Russian and European fighters have embraced this technology.

The advantages of going passive are real, though I would wonder about the reliability of the system under the very turbulent and vibration laden environment beneath the Super Bug.

My original post on this.

H/t Worldwide War Pigs

*Full disclosure, I worked at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in the late 1990s.†
†Yes, I have worked everywhere. Maybe I can’t hold down a job, but more likely this has been my role as “technical hit man”, where you are parachuted in to take care of a specific need.