At one point there was talk of a JDRADM (Joint Dual Role Air Dominance Missile) that could hit aircraft or SAM radars. I wonder if this will do that.
133rd Airlift Wing Welcomes First Eight-Bladed Propeller C-130
The 133rd Airlift Wing received their first C-130 Hercules with an updated eight-bladed propeller on May 11, 2022.
Producing New B-21 Bomber Will Cost $20 Billion Through 2027 | Air & Space Forces Magazine
The Air Force expects the B-21 cost for production to approach $20 billion through 2027 but doesn't say how many bombers that will buy.
www.airforcemag.com
Lasers, water landings, crewless ops: Upgrades are coming for the C-130 family
The 1960s-era design continues to transform.
www.militarytimes.com
DARPA testing new X-Plane
“Leveraging Boeing’s targeted investments in active flow control, our advancements on the CRANE program aim to further validate the technology’s potential benefits to improve efficiency and performance for both commercial and military aircraft,” said Laurette Lahey, Senior Director, Boeing Research and Technology, Flight & Vehicle Technology.
Using a 25% scale model, Aurora conducted tests over four weeks at a wind tunnel facility in San Diego, California. In addition to 11 movable conventional control surfaces, the model featured 14 AFC banks with eight fully independent controllable AFC air supply channels. Over 14,000 data points were collected, including 8,860 AFC control power points, forming the foundation for a flight-quality aerodynamic database to enable rapid execution in future program phases.
The test team consisted of Aurora and Boeing engineers with expertise in aerodynamics, conceptual design engineering, and test & evaluation. Test data has since been incorporated into vehicle models to characterize active flight control performance across the operational envelope and continue progressing design development.
BAE now also selected for Phase 1 on CRANE
www.aerospacetestinginternational.com
Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing Company, recently conducted wind tunnel testing of its X-plane candidate for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) program. The data collected provides a rigorous foundation for developing flight control laws using active flow control (AFC) as a primary control effector.
Wind tunnel testing was conducted as part of phase 1 of DARPA’s CRANE program, which includes system requirements development, initial design work, software development, and initial airworthiness activities. The CRANE program, overall, aims to design, build, and flight test a novel X-plane that demonstrates quantifiable benefits of designing with active flow control.Aurora is designing an X-Plane that uses AFC for multiple effects, including flight control at tactical speeds and performance enhancement across the flight envelope. This work is widely applicable, across tactical and non-tactical aircraft, and aims to provide the confidence needed for future aircraft requirements to include AFC-enabled capabilities.
“Leveraging Boeing’s targeted investments in active flow control, our advancements on the CRANE program aim to further validate the technology’s potential benefits to improve efficiency and performance for both commercial and military aircraft,” said Laurette Lahey, Senior Director, Boeing Research and Technology, Flight & Vehicle Technology.
Using a 25% scale model, Aurora conducted tests over four weeks at a wind tunnel facility in San Diego, California. In addition to 11 movable conventional control surfaces, the model featured 14 AFC banks with eight fully independent controllable AFC air supply channels. Over 14,000 data points were collected, including 8,860 AFC control power points, forming the foundation for a flight-quality aerodynamic database to enable rapid execution in future program phases.
The test team consisted of Aurora and Boeing engineers with expertise in aerodynamics, conceptual design engineering, and test & evaluation. Test data has since been incorporated into vehicle models to characterize active flight control performance across the operational envelope and continue progressing design development.
BAE now also selected for Phase 1 on CRANE
DARPA's CRANE project moves to next phase | Aerospace Testing International
DARPA's CRANE project is developing new ways to control future electric aircraft
www.aerospacetestinginternational.com
New High-Speed Propulsion System Paves Way for Hypersonic Flight up to Mach 16
A team of researchers from the University of Central Florida has found a way to stabilize the detonation required for hypersonic propulsion.
interestingengineering.com
New High-Speed Propulsion System Paves Way for Hypersonic Flight up to Mach 16
"The Weekly Debrief: Boeing Reveals Concepts For High-Speed SPEAR, HyFly 2 Boeing has released concepts of two different, carrier-compatible missiles—one powered by a dual-combustion scramjet and the other by a high-supersonic ramjet—for the first time. The HyFly II scramjet and the Supersonic Propulsion Enabled Advanced Ramjet (SPEAR) programs moved forward in late 2020 based on a common capability: Unlike the two-stage, scramjet-powered Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) in development by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy needs a long-range, high-speed missile that fits on a carrier’s weapons elevators and will not scrape the deck during landings. Credit: Boeing"
Lockheed Martin, L3Harris, Northrop Grumman Get Stand-in Attack Weapon Contracts | Air & Space Forces Magazine
Three of five competitors for the Stand-in Attack Weapon, or SiAW, got small contracts to get the project going.
www.airforcemag.com
Safran Announcement Hints At Secret Lockheed Aircraft | Aviation Week Network
A cryptic news release by Safran Landing Systems Canada Inc. hints at the existence of a secret Lockheed Martin aircraft project.
aviationweek.com
Oh the US has aircraft that is more advanced that this. Aircraft that has been flying for decades that to this day is still classified. President Reagan gave us a little hint of it.Safran Announcement Hints At Secret Lockheed Aircraft | Aviation Week Network
A cryptic news release by Safran Landing Systems Canada Inc. hints at the existence of a secret Lockheed Martin aircraft project.
Tuesday, June 11, 1985
Had a group of Dem. & Repub. Congressmen in the Roosevelt Room for a session on why they should support the bi-partisan bill before the house to give aid to the Nicaraguan freedom fighters. I think we did some good.
Lunch was with 5 top space scientists. It was fascinating. Space truly is the last frontier and some of the developments there in astronomy etc. are like science fiction except they are real. I learned that our shuttle capacity is such we could orbit 300 people.
Diary Entry - 06/11/1985
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation provides education, scholarships, exhibits, events, and media related to the lives of Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
www.reaganfoundation.org
I hope our boy Anonymous swallows his ego and hurt feelings and comes back I sorta miss him.
Northrop Grumman's Plan To Replace The MQ-9 Reaper With Stealthy Autonomous Drones
We talk to Northrop Grumman Vice President Richard Sullivan about what his company has potentially in store for the Air Force's MQ-Next tender.
www.thedrive.com
n the 2000s, semi-autonomous unmanned air combat vehicle (UCAV) technology was proving to be the greatest revolution in air combat since the jet engine, then it disappeared totally from the Air Force plans and nomenclature. It was as if the idea of stealthy, long-range drones simply never existed. Now, as the U.S. faces growing threats from peer state competitors with highly capable integrated air defense systems, environments in which the Air Force's current fleet of MQ-9 Reaper drones cannot survive, the UCAV has suddenly become the next big item on the Air Force's shopping list.
Dubbed the MQ-Next, the exact requirements for the Air Force's next-generation combat drone initiative remain undefined, but the service has reached out to its industry partners to see what they have to offer. Northrop Grumman, a company known for its low-observable (stealth) design capabilities and its bright history with advanced unmanned systems—namely the X-47 demonstrators and the RQ-4 Global Hawk—has thrown their hat in the ring for what will be an emerging highly-lucrative tender in the coming years.
With that in mind, Richard Sullivan, a Vice President of Program Management at Northrop Grumman, talked in-depth with The War Zone not just about their own potential drone offerings under the MQ-Next initiative, but also about their shadowy Distributed Autonomy Responsive Control (DARC) advanced mission management system that aims to control not just the MQ-Next vehicles, but what will be a family of interconnected unmanned systems that will rule the skies in the not so distant future.
What Sullivan describes in our discussion is exactly what the author posited half a decade ago, down to the platform-agnostic command and control software that will control future autonomous swarms and the other assets that will enable them. You can read all about that, as well as a deep examination of the mysterious disappearance of the UCAV from the Air Force's portfolio around 2010 and the massive implications of that reality in this past War Zone feature. In fact, to understand the potential UCAVs offer and what MQ-Next truly represents, it really is a must-read.