U.S. drones to be nuclear powered? April 11, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in Drones.Tags: Aviation, drones, Military Aviation, Northrop Grumman, Nuclear Power, Sandia National Laboratories, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
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It has emerged that Sandia National Laboratories, the U.S. government’s principle nuclear research and development agency, and defense contractor Northrop Grumman are working on powering the next generation of drones with nuclear power.
With nuclear powered drones, endurance could stop being measured in hours and would be measured in months with excess power used to power better communications and surveillance equipment.
Sandia and Northrop started the project to try and resolve three problems associated with drones with what they call “ultra-persistence technologies”: insufficient “hang time” over a potential target, lack of power for running sophisticated surveillance and weapons systems, and a lack of communications capacity.
The Sandia-Northrop project team looked at power supplies for large to medium sized UAVs before finally settling on nuclear power: not surprising, since Northrop Grumman patented a Helium Powered nuclear reactor as long ago as 1986 and its widely known designs for nuclear powered aircraft date back as far as the ’50s.
The project team found that nuclear power provided far more time on target and intel per mission than any other power source by quite a margin. It was also the most cost effective power source in that it eliminated the need for expensive support infrastructure near hostile territory.
And it would enable drones to carry more weapons or reconnaissance sensors.
Sandia went out of its way to say that the project is now complete and that no equipment was built or tested and this project was nothing more than a feasibility study, perhaps showing how sensitive this technology is.
There are worries that public opinion would not accept the idea of such a potentially dangerous technology, hence Sandia’s rather over the top statement.
Fears of this technology are understandable after the amount of drones that have been lost, both during combat operations and training. The risk is turning the drone into a sort of dirty bomb or the sensitive technology falling into the wrong hands of terrorists or enemy forces.
Therefore there will be no nuclear powered drones. For the moment….
Richard Clements for TheAviationist.com
Image credit: Reuters
F-16 reaches 4,500 milestone. With a cool desert camo Block 52 model for Morocco. April 5, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Military Aviation.Tags: Aviation, Aviation News, F-16, F-16 Block 52, Fort Worth Texas, General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, Lockheed Martin, US Airforce
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With a ceremony for employees, customers, former executives and elected officials, including U.S Rep. Kay Granger and Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, Lockheed Martin celebrated the 4,500th delivery of the F-16 at its Fort Worth production facility, in Texas, on Apr. 3, 2012.
The 4,500th example is a F-16 painted in desert camo and is a Block 52 model destined for Morocco.
The first production orders for the F-16 date back to 1975. Since then the Fighting Falcon (nicknamed “Viper” in the fighter pilots community) has been produced in partnership with 5 countries and sold to a grand total of 26 countries.
The Fort Worth company has a further 70 F-16s on order book, planes destined to Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, Oman and Iraq, which should keep the production line open until at least 2016.
Lockheed Martin, that has recently announced a new variant, the F-16V, including a new glass cockpit, a new mission computer and data-link architecture, as well as a brand new active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, is hoping to surpass the sales figures for the F-4 Phantom which stood at 5,195 many of which were replaced by the F-16.
Image credit: Lockheed Martin
One of the highlights of the ceremony was a video of an interview with retired test pilot Phil Oestricher, who also attended the ceremony, which included footage of the January 1974 accidental first flight, when Oestericher took the plane airborne during a high speed taxi test after encountering severe control problems. The video below (although not being the one showed at the ceremony) shows that first flight test “accident”.
Written with Richard Clements
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Sun n’ Fun 2012 air show April 4, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Airshow.Tags: Aviation, Commemorative Air Force, Florida, Lakeland Florida, Lakeland Linder Regional Airport, McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II, Sun n Fun, VFA-106
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Sun ‘n Fun is a “Fly-in” and airshow held each annually at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport in Lakeland, Florida, usually in April.
Participants include pilots flying their own homebuilt, vintage, restored ex-military aircraft, as well as some current display team and soloist. Among the others (including the Commemorative Air Force’s B-29 “Fifi”, world’s last flying Superfortress; the Black Diamond team and several military and civil aircraft in static display), this year’s edition featured the USAF Thunderbirds, the U.S. Navy F-18 East Tactical Demo of the VFA-106 “Gladiators” and the USMC AV-8B Harrier Demo of the VMA-542.
The accompanying selection of photographs was taken by Al Clark during the practice airshow, Friday, Mar. 30, and during the official airshow on Saturday, Mar. 31. The photos were taken from off the airshow grounds in order to facilitate better photographic opportunities.
If you want to know which other planes were at Lakeland during the last weekend, the following video provides an overview on some of the hundred other aircraft attenting Sun n’ Fun 2012.
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Azerbaijan to host Israeli Air Force planes in case of attack on Iran? March 30, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in Iran.Tags: Aviation, Azerbaijan, Combat Search And Rescue, Ehud Barak, Heyl Ha' Havir, Iran, Iron Dome, Israel, Israeli Air Force
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Several news agencies have been running a news story, that appeared first on the Foreign Policy website, according to which Israel has secured the use of at least one of four former Soviet era airbases in Azerbaijan. Something that was often speculated in the last weeks.
At what first appears an unlikely alliance is anything but. Even Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev described his country’s relationship with Israel as an iceberg: “Nine-tenths of it below the surface” in a leaked memo by Wikileaks during 2009.
Azerbaijan and Israel signed a $1.6 billion arms deal for drones and missile defense systems as recently as February. Israel is also Azerbaijan’s largest oil customer so once all of this is pieced together the bigger picture starts to become apparent, even if no one really knows the full extent of the military links between the new allies.
Foreign Policy mentions that one former CIA analyst doubted that Israel will actually launch strikes from Azerbaijan describing it as “too chancy” politically and Azeri officials have already denied the possibility that IAF was granted access to local airbases.
Image credit: U.S. Air Force
Indeed, the likely scenario is that the strike jets will not launch from the Caucasus but that they could recover to the airbases in Azerbaijan after the strikes on the nuclear facilities in Iran and could either return home or launch follow up strikes thereafter.
What makes this scenario favoured is also that the main airbases in Azerbaijan are supposed to be closely monitored by Iranian observers and, unless the Israeli plans to use improvised airfields, any deployment of Israeli planes before the attack would be a clear sign of an imminent kick-off of the strike.
On the other hand, having an airbase close to Iran would also the IDF the opportunity to deploy and eventually launch ELINT or SIGINT sorties prior to the strike as well as Combat Search And Rescue (CSAR) missions should the need arise.
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Video: Iranian F-14 Tomcats on combat patrol. Unarmed. March 26, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in Iran.Tags: Aerial refueling, Aim-54, Aviation, F-14 Tomcat, Grumman F-14 Tomcat, Iran, Iranian Air Force, Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force
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Update Mar. 27 09.40 GMT
This short but interesting video (which looks like the result of several footages mixed together) shows one of the most intruguing planes operating with the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force: the F-14 Tomcat.
Along with scenes seemingly excerpted from Top Gun movie, the video (most probably coming from from the Iranian TV series Shoghe Parvaz) shows some AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles, with several live examples being shown, even if the majority of the F-14s is filmed flying unarmed.
In case of war the IRIAF F-14s could play a (marginal) role perfoming some sortie aimed at disturbing the strike packages and make them waste some fuel.
Noteworthy, as could be noticed on a previously published video, the IRIAF F-14s fly without the IFR (In-Flight Refueling) probe cover because, as explained by Dario Leone, a reader of this blog and an F-14 expert, when they were produced and delivered to Iran they were supposed to be refueled by the U.S. KC-135s whose basket is different (and the cover could get jammed with it) from the ones used by the U.S. Navy S-3s or KA-6s.
For the same reason, during Desert Storm, the U.S. F-14s, that had to be refueled also by Air Force tankers flew without the cover.
There are also images dating back to the early 2000s of U.S. Navy F-14s flying without the cover. According to other sources since the “hatch” blocked quite frequently, especially during low temperature operations, it was removed to prevent it from making air-to-air refueling impossible.
Written with The Aviationist’s Editor David Cenciotti
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Iranian indigenous aircraft and micro-drones: Mach 2.5 stealth plane and scale models (with no military significance) February 11, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in Drones, Iran.Tags: Aviation, Iran, Iranian Air Force, Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, military avaitiom, Shafagh-2, UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
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It is no secret that the sanctions held against Iran are crippling the influx of military equipment forcing Iran to make its own aircraft to replace ageing U.S. types as the F-4 and the F-14 recently seen escorting the Russian Knights display team.
In 2002, the idea of a light weight stealth fighter came to light when a model surfaced during an air industry exhibition. It showed a single seat, single engine fighter with outward canted twin vertical stabilisers. It took Iranian news footage in 2004 for the first full size and seemingly working example to reach the public domain.
Although there are rumours Russian experts from both Sukoi and Mikoyan and possibly Yakolev were also involved in its development, which would explain its striking resemblance to the forward fuselage of the Yak-130, it had been developed by the Students and scientists of the Aviation department of the Malek Ashtar University and reported to have made its maiden flight some time in 2004 using an Iranian version of the Klimov RD-33 engine.
The news footage showed a twin seat example with a semi-matt black fuselage suggesting that it could have been made from Radar Absorbing Materials, and from certain angles, the aircraft looks like a two seat F-35. Even if it has never been ratified, the use of radar absorbing materials are said to significantly reduce the Radar Cross Section.
The light fighter bomber has been named “Shafagh-2″ or “Aurora” and is said to have a special twisting ability that gives it better manoeuvrability and roll rate. This may be one of those times where things get lost in translation and the twisting might refer to thrust vectoring (!) rather than roll rate.
The Shafagh is designed as a single seat or twin seat multi role fighter; it has seven hard points, three under each wing and one centreline station and can carry a mixed Air-to-Air load or Air-to-Ground weapons. The use of pylons under the wings would surely hinder any stealth capability the aircraft has, although the level of stealthiness in comparison to that of the F-22 Raptor or B-2 Spirit should be somewhat less.
The aircraft is certainly real and has flown; it’s unknown in what capacity it has flown but certainly has never entered service. Its last known activity was in 2008 and it should have remained an unfinished project.
Even if some performance data seem to be quite strange or at least hopeful, its reported figures are of a climb rate of 21650 fpm, a service ceiling of 55,000ft and a top speed of Mach 2.5.
Image credit: iranmilitaryforum.com
Micro-drones
Since the U.S. stealthy RQ-170 drone was captured, Tehran has been using the media to display its capability to reverse engineer or build its own drones.
However, some of them seems to be modified radiocontrolled models rather than real UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems). Anyway, those made by the students at the Nasr Toosi Technical University, are believed to give a hint at where Iranians are in their Micro-UAV development.
For instance, one of the University’s micro-drones is a model helicopter modified to carry a small video camera. As the images show, the tail boom and the landing skids have the word “ALIGN” written on them in English. A quick visit to Google brings up the manufacturer as ALIGN-TREX, a British Radio controlled helicopter specialist with an online shop, while the camera set up suspiciously looks like a ‘SONY’ handycam again commercially available.
The intended use of this device is quite hard to understand. The camera must have an internal memory as the model does not look to have a transmitter to send the real time images back to a receiver/base station (that would also need a power supply which is not visible). This discounts a urban battlespace ‘eye in the sky’ for a normal drone used to record images to view at a later date.
The second model has a twin tail boom, a size that would suggest a greater payload capacity and perhaps a real time video transmission capability.
The third model (UAV) looks more like a classical drone. Grey in colour, a rounded nose and what looks like a moveable nose area with a small camera able to move up and down in the slot giving a 180 degree field of view, the drone seems to be powered by an electric motor powering a push propeller.
Image credit: www.yjcphotos.ir
As said, just technology demonstrators that don’t really show anything of military significance.
Written with The Aviationist’s Editor David Cenciotti.
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Iranian space program update: rats, turtles and worms already launched. Manned spacecraft expected in 2019. February 6, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in Space.Tags: Aviation, Aviation News, Iran, satellite, Tehran, weather satellite
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Sea, Air and Space: Iran is quite active these days.
Local media have been reporting that Tehran has launched a new satellite on Feb. 5, to celebrate the 33rd anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in the country.
According to PressTV the new satellite called Navid-e Elm-o Sanat was launched using a Safir satellite carrier. Its purpose is weather observation and data collection through high resolution photos. PressTV also reported that Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi had said on Jan. 16 that Iran planned to launch a new Satellite during the 10-day Dawn celebrations and kick off some other military projects. News of those “other” projects has not been reported as yet.
The FARS news agency gave a few more details about the satellite: it weighs 50kg, suggesting it’s not that large, and was launched with a 55 degree orbital angle. This is not Iran’s first satellite launch (first one took place in 2009) but does suggest an ambitious space program that is making advances despite UN sanctions. In 2010 Iran has launched animals into space: a rat, some turtles and some worms aboard a capsule carried aloft by the Kavoshgar-3 rocket, another indigenous design. Iran has plans to put a manned flight into space in the 2019 time frame; time will tell if this indeed takes place.
Surely, Iran is very eager to join the manned space race; whether it achieves that, is another story. For the moment, its activity is limited to satellites whose purposes could be much more than weather observation. Articles seem to suggest that the high-resolution photos will not be confined to the Persian Gulf area and Iran specifically but will include other areas of the globe. Which does pose the question: which bits of the globe does the weather interest Iran? The U.S. or Israel?
You never know but it would be very interesting to find out.
Richard Clements for TheAviationist.com
Image credit: PressTV
Global Hawk: Northrop Grumman launches campaign to save program. On Twitter. January 29, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in Drones, Military Aviation.Tags: Aviation, Global Hawk, Military avaition news, Northrop Grumman, Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, Pentagon, Rq-4
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The Aviationist wrote a post the other day relating to the fact that industry insiders had leaked that the Pentagon was planning on cancelling the whole Global Hawk program not only not buying any further aircraft but to retire the fleet they already have.
This would actually appear to be true going by some of the unusual tweets posted by Northrop Grumman itself. In one, the company announced that they had been loaning parts for the U-2 program surveillance sensors to keep those aircraft in the air. They have also tweeted a link to a website urging visitors to lobby their member of congress, even having a box for the visitor to fill in their zip code so they could work out who that person is. If you would like to take a look at this website please look here.
All very unusual actvities, suggesting that this isn’t the last we have heard of this.
Northrop Grumman did release the following media statement on the Jan.26:
“The Pentagon announced today that it is planning to cancel the Global Hawk Block 30 program and plans to perform this mission with the U-2 aircraft. Northrop Grumman is disappointed with the Pentagon’s decision, and plans to work with the Pentagon to assess alternatives to program termination.
“The Global Hawk program has demonstrated its utility in U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, as well as its utility in humanitarian operations in Japan and Haiti. Just a few months ago, the Pentagon published an acquisition decision memorandum regarding Global Hawk Block 30 that stated: ‘The continuation of the program is essential to the national security… there are no alternatives to the program which will provide acceptable capability to meet the joint military requirement at less cost.’
“Global Hawk is the modern solution to providing surveillance. It provides long duration persistent surveillance, and collects information using multiple sensors on the platform. In contrast, the aging U-2 program, first introduced in the 1950s, places pilots in danger, has limited flight duration, and provides limited sensor capacity. Extending the U-2′s service life also represents additional investment requirements for that program.
“Northrop Grumman is committed to working with our customers to provide the best solutions for our country and our allies. We are pleased with the continuing support for the Global Hawk Block 40 system, as well as for the Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance system and our other unmanned systems.”
It’s looking like North Grumman is going to fight this tooth and nail to try and reverse this decision.
Richard Clements for TheAviationist.com
RQ-4 Global Hawk in shock cancellation news: old planes better than new? January 27, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in Drones, Military Aviation.Tags: Airbus, Airbus 380, Aviation, Dragon Lady, drone, Global Hawk, Military Aviation, Northrop Grumman, Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, Pentagon, U-2, United States Air Force, US Air Force
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Is new better than old?
It would seem not. Industry insiders have leaked that the Pentagon is to cancel the RQ-4 Global Hawk program not just stopping buying new aircraft but to retire the Air Force active fleet, in favor of keeping the U-2 flying into 2020.
Air force times writer Dave Majumdar wrote: “The Air Force had been planning to buy 42 Block 30 aircraft. According to 2011 budget documents, the cost of each aircraft was around $215 million. It was not immediately clear how many Global Hawks the Air Force has.”
The aircraft is being killed off due to its high cost to buy and to maintain; also the program hasn’t lived up to its early promise. A knowledgeable industry insider confirmed the project cancellation and said “Yes, this is accurate — been a lot of discussion on the possibility of this a long while,” said the source, who was not authorized to speak to the media. “There is a high probability it will come to pass now unless Congress takes a major exception.”
The industry source also said “I don’t think that’s likely in the economic environment of this year’s DoD budget, and there are no real ‘hawks’ in Congress from California,” he said. The aircraft is both built and based in the Golden State.
Majumdar said that Northrop Grumman declined to comment whilst Air Force officials would neither deny nor confirm the reports.
Oddly the US Navy is going to keep its version of the aircraft therefore keeping the option open that it could, if needed, be used by the air force.
Surely, Global Hawk has not enjoyed the best of safety records with three prototypes lost and a failure rate much higher than many manned planes facing lethal threats in combat.
However, the U.S. RQ-4Bs belonging to the 9th Operations Group/Detachment 4th of the U.S. Air Force, based at NAS Sigonella, in Sicily, the base of the NATO AGS (Air Ground Surveillance) Global Hawk program were the first drones to operate in the Libyan airspace where they performed high altitude Battle Damage Assessment sorties.
Anyway, all of this is good news for the U-2, a 50 year old program that has ironed out all its techncal issues many years ago.
Affectionately known as “Dragon Lady”, the U-2 entered service in 1957. Since then, it has undergone many upgrades and has become a relatively cheap viable platform during these harsh economic times. In what would normally be the types twilight years, a breath of fresh air has been breathed over the majestic old ‘Lady’ which will see the type in service for more years to come.
Actually, it has been a bad week for other new or recent aircraft types too.
Another rather embarrasing news (this time for Airbus) is that further cracks have been found in the wings of its much lauded A380 “Superjumbo”, after the famous uncontained engine failure of Nov. 4, 2010. Airbus did tweet “For those following reports on A380 wing rib findings we confirm inspection & repair process underway and aircraft are safe to fly”: a damage limitation message by the company’s PR rather than a reassuring statement.
The apparent win of obsolete technology on newer, supposed to replace it, does pose the usual question: are modern aircraft too complex?
One thing is sure: you can’t compare new planes with older types. Even if there can be programs free from major problems during their whole lifetime and much troubled ones, facing myriad issues since their birth, generally speaking, those that have survived for 3, 4 or 5 decades and are still flying today, were probably properly designed, maintained, fixed and upgraded during their career. So they are today much more reliable than those integrating cutting edge experimental technologies.
Written with The Aviationist’s Editor David Cenciotti
Above image: U.S. Air Force
China’s J-18 Snowy Owl: Myth or Reality? January 26, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in China, Military Aviation.Tags: aircraft carrier, Aviation, China, F-35, J-15, J-18, J-20, Snowy Owl, Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag, stealth, STOVL
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Over the past year or so, rumours on the Internet have persisted that China has been building a stealthy STOVL (Short Take Off Vertical Landing) aircraft in a similar vein to the F-35 Lightning II. Pictures of said aircraft are non existant but the rumour mill still persists that it’s either real or will be at some point in the future.
It doesn’t take long looking on the chinese defense forums and websites to see the odd snippet of information, although there is a lot of miss information out there also, of which some could be started by the Chinese government to hide what they are really up to.
The common theme does seem to favour an engine set up similar to the F-35B which in itself wasn’t a new design. Take a look at the Russian Yak 141 and you will see the lift fan at the front and the swivelling jet nozzel at the rear. There is even talk that the engine will be a modified version of what is planned to go into the well documented J-20 when it reaches production. Is this definite? of course not, it doesn’t even appear to be off the drawing board yet and probably will remain so for quite a while (if not indefinately).
Above image of a Russian Yak-141: Chinese Internet
So what will the fabled J-18 Snowy Owl look like if it were to take to the skies?
Well, many analysts favour the canted twin vertical stabilisers high wing design in a similar vein to the F-35 with some sort of lift fan at the front just behind the cockpit. It’s interesting to note that the Yak141 had two lift fans one behind the other and it’s suspected that the J-18 would be the same. The big question is: would it sport one or two engines at the rear? The rendering below seems to favour two engines both with the swivelling nozzels and a smooth low RCS (Radar Cross Section) fuselage internal weapons bays and other stealthy features.
Above render source: Tiexue.net
Assuming for a moment the aircraft is real and it’s near to flight testing how would China use it?
It has been widely reported that China’s first Aircraft Carrier has been under going sea trials. Again it has been widely reported that China has a navalised version of the J-15, itself a copy of the Sukhoi SU-30, which is real and is flying so it is hard to see the need unless there is some sort of unknown plan to build smaller carriers in the vein of the USS Wasp to provide maritime support of amphibious forces.
The STOVL project is going to be a huge technological exercise and that is going to take time. The J-18 is likely to remain rumours and internet chatter for a long time to come, and in true Mythbusters style, this Myth is busted at least for now.
Richard Clements for TheAviationist.com
