And earlier than expected, reports were that it wasn’t to leave the ground until sometime in 2009.
In any case, it made a 30 minute test flight (also see here).
This was a fairly conservative flight, basic maneuvering with the tail propulsor shut down, as can be seen in the pics.
They plan to expand the envelope to a speed of 250kts, and then make a decision as to whether to manufacture helos with the technology.
Or maybe European when they develop a manned space craft, but I’m not doing NASA.
Why, do you ask, am I down on NASA?
Because they had a virus infestation on the laptop computers on the space station, and because the virus spread around via a contaminated USB “thumb” drive because no one thought to turn off autorun on the computers.
Jeebus.
As I’ve mentioned before, the F-22 Raptor is the roach motel of data. Data goes in, but it doesn’t get out.
The USAF has been looking at adding software to its radar to allow it to communicate via the AESA transmitter modules in its radar.
Well, it now appears that USAF had placed the program on hold, my guess is because Iraq is sucking up too much money.
It was the first flight of the ALV-X1 rocket, and the Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition (HYBOLT) and the Sub-Orbital Aerodynamic Re-entry Experiment (SOAREX) were lost when the rocket lost 27 seconds into flight.
Huh….I guess some times rocket science is rocket science.
Boeing has proposed a whole series of upgrades to create a C-17B, in a desperate attempt to keep the line open, and they are going to offer them on an individual basis.
The upgrades are:
They are offering them individually for two reasons, some of them could also be sold as simple upgrades to the existing fleet, and because all together, they might be considered a new development program, which means that the groundlings at the Pentagon would have to spend a few years writing up specifications.
At its core, of course, this effort is really about keeping the line open as quietly as possible.
The testing is actually a big more than a marketing gimmick, because the original test aircraft, a Boeing 747 SP used old noisy engines, and as such acoustic data for the Geared Turbo Fan was hard to get, though I’m sure that working with Airbus on this will help in future sales.
They are claiming a “near double-digit” improvement in fuel economy.
Basically, the F-35B STOVL appears to be a bit light in bring back weight, so the Royal Navy is looking at landing at slow speed,shipboard rolling vertical landing (SRVL).
The aircraft would land at an air speed of somewhere around 60 kt airspeed (the ship would be doing 25 kts, so the deck speed would be 35 kts) to allow for an additional ton or so of fuel or ordinance brought back at landing.
The delays in certification and testing, along with a backer pulling out, have resulted in them filing for reorganization as they attempt to complete their all-composite Jet program, the SPn.
Russia says that it is pulling troops out of Georgia, though Pentagon sources are disputing this.
My guess is that there is a withdrawal going on, the Russians don’t want to deal with an insurgency, but that it is proceeding with all deliberate slowness.
Aviation Week has analysis of the relative success of Georgian air defense systems (Paid Subscription Required), specifically of the SU Tu-22M3, and suggest that it was shot down because of Israeli aid in upgrading the Soviet era air defense systems.
Additionally, they note that the Georgian air defense system was less sophisticated, less networked, and less automated than the Syrian one, and as such, it may have been less vulnerable to the cyber attacks that were allegedly used by the Israelis when they struck the Syrian reactor complex.
Shades of Battlestar Galactica, the new one, not the old one.
As to the Su-25 losses, they suggest that these were shoulder launched SAMs, and I agree, as the Su-25 is really a close air support aircraft, which puts them in the sweet spot of such weapons.
Certainly the ability to launch their own satellites is a capability that most nations desire, though I would note that a rocket that can put 100 lbs in low earth orbit could most likely put a 1000 lb warhead on a sub-orbital flight to almost anywhere on earth, based on my limited sens of orbital mechanics.
That being said, the Pentagon is saying that they doubt that the launch was successful.
Galrahn at Information Dissemination has review the Navy budget, and found a nugget, that the Navy is intending to upgrade the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class ships to be able to launch the Standard SM-2 missile.
The lack of this capability was given as one reason to can the entire class, and Galrhan is angry that the Navy, upon canceling the program, did not tell Congress about the upgrade proposal.
Me, I’m upset that the navy was willing to accept delivery of a ship that was incapable of defending itself. I’m even more upset that they did so knowingly.
So the first first littoral combat ship got underway at the end of last month, more than a year behind schedule, and at twice the forecast cost.
The ships, the size of a large corvette or small frigate, are intended to work in coastal waters.
Interestingly enough, the Israelis are considering the conventionally hulled LCS as the basis of a ship for their navy, but they are ditching the modular weapons system, because they feel that it leaves the ship too lightly armored.
In yet another indication that the Diamond-Thielert split is permanent, Diamond Aircraft showed its 168-hp. AE 300 Austro Engine diesel at Oshkosh.(Paid Subscription Required)
It is based on the same block as the Thielert, the Mercedes A-class four-cylinder engine, but heavier, since they replace some of the aluminum parts with cast iron for greater reliability, which has always been the Thielert Achilles heel.
It’s currently being test flown in 3 aircraft.
Constant Volume Combustion (CVC), pulse detonation and constant detonation, should be about 10% more efficient than conventional combustors, and they are looking for the technology to bridge the gap between the top end limit of turbines and the bottom end limit of scramjets.
They are looking at an 80k lb demonstrator, and the turbines would be cocooned at around Mach 3, and the CVC would operate from Mach 1.5 to Mach 4+.
While I am familiar with the PDE, the CDE is new to me:
Various CVC concepts are likely to be proposed, says Bussing. “We’ve left the door open. They include classic [pulsed-detonation engines] in which tubes can be arranged axially, valved at the front and back, or they could be rotating or stationary, or they could be valveless.” By contrast, the CDE (sometimes called a continuous-detonation wave engine) typically includes a combustion chamber consisting of an annular cylindrical tube with one end closed and the other open. A mixture of fuel and oxidizer is injected from the closed end through a ring slit or a number of regularly arranged small holes, and the detonation wave travels in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. Exhaust products flow toward the open end and discharge through a diverging nozzle at supersonic speeds.
Have I mentioned that Randall Munroe is a genius?
H/T xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language – By Randall Munroe
First, the obligatory Real Genius reference:
Of course, the conceit of that movie was that it could make a human being vaporise from orbit.
Well, this laser ain’t gonna do it.
Nor will it, as this PowerPoint presentation implies, allow one to kill someone with plausible deniability.
First, one needs to understand the language of weaseling in defense procurement, and PowerPoint presentations are the slate upon which weaseling is written.
Then, there is the baisc physics: Human beings are basically water bags, and water is hard to heat, the specific heat of water is: 4.186 joule/gram-°C, which means that the laser, which is supposed to be in the 100KW range, would take about 3.14 seconds to heat up 75 kg (165 pounds) of water from body temp to boiling.
Human reaction time is around 200ms, so in order to burn a hole through someone (100cm deep x 1cm 1cm, 100 g water), you would need about 2.09kw, but once the tissue started to ablate, the resultant steam cloud would start degrading the beam.
Also note that you would carbonize the tissue, and carbon melts at 3500°C, and a person being lasered would be a reducing atmosphere, so it would burn.
Additionally, you would need to hit a vital part. When you hit a liver or a femoral artery with a bullet, death follows in minutes (or less) with a bullet, but a laser wound would be cauterized, so basically, you need a heart or a head hit, and even then the damage is localized along the beam path.
The physical characteristics of a laser wound mean that any post mortem would point to a laser, which in turn, given the cost of lasers, would point back to the US, after all who is going to drop all that money on a few tons of chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, and iodine.
So this won’t be a people killer.
Basically, it’s easier to poke holes in or cut tissue, and more difficult to vaporize tissue relative to metal (Steel’s specific heat is about 0.5 joule/gram-°C, 1/8 that of water)
On the other hand, if you used it on something like a SAM missile motor to trigger an explosion, it might work, or to set off an explosion in an ammo dump, it might very well work.
As the technology gets smaller, and lighter, and cheaper, I could see more applications though.
Posts by David Hambling here and here, and Boeing’s press release here.
I would say, as is de regeur with the USAF, they are overselling the technology.
What Mr. Hambling noted as a scenario, from an orbiting aircraft, with all the shaking involved, along with a claimed 20km of air currents bending the light, is not credible:
According to the developers, the accuracy of this weapon is little short of supernatural. They claim that the pinpoint precision can make it lethal or non-lethal at will. For example, they say it can either destroy a vehicle completely, or just damage the tires to immobilize it. The illustration shows a theoretical 26-second engagement in which the beam deftly destroys “32 tires, 11 Antennae, 3 Missile Launchers, 11 EO devices, 4 Mortars, 5 Machine Guns” — while avoiding harming a truckload of refugees and the soldiers guarding them. It reminds me of how the Lone Ranger could always shoot the gun out an opponent’s hand without injuring them; if that could really be done from an aircraft circling overhead, it would certainly be an impressive feat.
It is potentially useful in limited circumstances, but in most circumstances, something like a missile will do just as well for a lot less money.
When a solid state laser can do something north of 5KW, you will start to see wider application of the technology.
A jury has indicted former Winnfield police officer Scott Nugent for manslaughter. He tasered Baron “Scooter” Pikes 9 times after he was subdued and handcuffed.
Considering that there had been 14 uses of the taser by the Winnfield department, and Nugent had used it 10 of those times, he was clearly a problem before this.
Had I been the prosecutor, I would have put felony murder on the table, because he was committing a felony, aggravated assault and battery, when the death occurred.
I’m sure that Nugent will get the best defense that Taser, International can buy, because they don’t want this to be a precedent in product liability cases.
The USAF is conducting drop tests of an unmanned space plane (Paid Subscription Required) as a prelude to launching a full up variant on an Atlas missile.
Aerodynamically, it’s very similar to the shuttle, in fact, they are hoping to reuse the control laws for reentry.
The issues of handling reentry and landing of an unmanned system have been solved before, albeit by the Soviets, when they did this on an unmanned test flight, actually the only flight, of their Buran shuttle.
Automated landing.
A better view of its configuration, showing its Shuttle-style double delta wings.
Concept of craft in orbit
Dyna-Soar Concept, Circa 1962
NASA will test the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) plasma engine on their space station
It promises something in excess of 40 times the specific impulse (fuel efficiency) of chemical rockets, and its thrust is a lot higher than alternate technologies, something on the order of about 10N (around 2 lbs) as opposed to the millinewton thrust levels of ion engines.
It should be interesting.
Previous posts here.
That is the money quote on the cancellation of the DDG-1000 at 2 ships. It appears that while it could technically carry Standard missiles in its vertical launchers, it could not guide the missiles, and would have had to rely on another ship to do so:
However, in the current program of record, the DDG-1000 cannot perform area air defense; specifically, it cannot successfully employ the Standard Missile-2 (SM-2), SM-3 or SM-6, and is incapable of conducting Ballistic Missile Defense.
(emphasis mine)
No Standard missile capability, so it’s just point defense (Sea Sparrow), and ground attack. As Galrahn notes, that makes it a more expensive variant of the Arsenal Ship canceled in the late 1990s, despite the fact that the navy very strongly implied, through the DDG designation (the “G” standing for guided missile air defense), and through its expansive descriptions of the sensor suite, that the ship could provide air defense.
It appears that the threats from new generations of anti-ship missiles will have the navy buying more Burke class DDGs, though some DDG-1000 tech would make into the new build destroyers, primarily electric drives and the new gun, along with systems to allow for a reduced crew size.