Aerospace Minute, 12 Mar 2018

On 12-Mar, David talked about military weapons being made obsolete by newer models. Here's the gist of his talk:

Recent tensions with North Korea have lead to talk of increasing the US's nuclear defenses. Russia has responded by announcing a new set of weapons designed to defeat nuclear defenses.  Russian weapons includes a Samat ICBM launched hypersonic delivery vehicle. The Kinzhal hypersonic Kenzhal, designed to be launched from a MIG-31, was tested last week. They also announced a tomahawk-style hypersonic GLCM with a "nuclear booster", it is unclear how the booster works. A new underwater drone was announced with a 100 MT warhead and 1000 mile range, four of which can be carried on an Oscar-class sub.  The US has also announced plans for new weapons systems. An RFP for a next generation manned fighter to replace the F-22 and F-35 was announced, based on concerns over China's J-31. The B-21 program is underway to replace the B-2. It can be operated manned or unmanned. The A-10 will be replaced by a new Intelligence, Surveillance, and Light Attack (ISL) aircraft. Most likely, this will be the Cessna Scorpion, a new light jet that can be flown manned or unmanned.  Data for this came from multiple sources.

Aerospace Minute by David

On 6 Oct, David gave an update on the Cessna/Textron Scorpion jet. The Scorpion is designed as a light attack and reconnaissance aircraft.  The news is that Textron is actually flying prototypes at airshows. It was demonstrated at Farnborough Airshow last summer. Textron plans this as an export fighter, so focus is on demonstrating it in Europe.

Aerospace Minute by David

On 28 October, David talked about an electric airplane that EADS demonstrated at the Paris Airshow. EADs is the parent company of Airbus. The aircraft as dual ducted fans, 31ft wingspan, and weighs 1212 lbs. It can fly 1 hour at 110 mph, and carries two people in a tandem seating configuration. The interesting thing about the airplane is that it is fully aerobatic. It can fly for approximately 30 minutes when flying aerobatics. Although not yet a practical form of transportation, electric aircraft such as this are becoming more capable.

Bonus Aerospace Minute by Jeff

Also on 30-September, Jeff brought up the recent findings made by the Mars rover Curiosity and its mission regarding the discovery of significant quantities of water in the Martian soil.  These findings indicate that the soil consists of up to 2% water, which works out to roughly a quart of water in each cubic foot of soil.  This would make the extraction of enough water to meet the needs of future Martian explorers possible, providing a huge advantage over shipping enough water from Earth to meet those needs.

Interestingly, the water contained in the Martian soil is rich in deuterium, a so-called "heavy" hydrogen isotope with an extra neutron in its nucleus as compared to protium, the predominant isotope.  The percentage of deuterium in the soil is roughly the same as the percentage of deuterium in the Martian atmosphere, implying that the soil is absorbing the water directly from the air.

One source among many: a space.com article.

Aerospace Minute by David

On 30-September, David talked about a new radar system being developed by Russia. According to this week's Aviation Week and Space Technology, Russia is developing a radar capable of detecting modern stealth aircraft. The system consists of a 30m truck mounted VHF antenna, and multiple L and S band modules. The 1m-2m wavelength transmission from the VHF antenna is supposedly capable of detecting like-sized control surfaces on aircraft, and the shorter wavelength antennas can be used to pinpoint the target after it has been identified. There is no way to verify the effectiveness of the system.

Aerospace Minute by David

On 23-September, David talked about the new light attack jet proposed by Cessna Aircraft. The jet is designed for the Intelligence Reconnoissance Surveillance / Strike (IRS/S) mission. It carries a crew of two, top speed of 450 knots, with an empty weight of 11,800 lbs and a max take-off of 21,250 lbs. The aircraft is twin-engined, random seating, and has large twin vertical stabilizers in a V configuration. There are no government contracts; the program is a Cessna initiative similar to what Northrop did with the F-5: build it and and see who is interested. The interesting thing is Cessna sees a market for this as an alternative to unmanned drones. At $3,000/hr, operational costs are less than many UAV systems.  The source for this information was the September issue of Flying Magazine.

Aerospace Minute by David

On 16-September, David talked about the recent sea trials with the F-35B. According to Aviation Week, the aircraft recently went through night crosswind vertical landing trials. Also discussed were highlights of the aircraft's fly-by-wire flight controls, and the system was contrasted with the AV-8 Harrier's mechanical systems.

Aerospace Minute by David

On 26-August, David's Aerospace Minute was about the Inspiration Mars Foundation, a planned civilian fly-by of Mars by a group headed by multimillionnaire Dennis Tito.  This organization intends to launch a manned mission to perform a flyby of the planet Mars in January 2018.

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Aerospace Minute by David

On 5-August, as part of his new intended "Aerospace Minute" feature, David brought up an article in Aviation Week which discussed possible reasons why the pilots of the doomed Asiana flight might have made the mistakes they did that contributed to the crash.  Among the hypotheses advanced in the article was that the auto-pilot modes available might have proven very counter-intuitive and, in a moment of panic and/or indecision, a pilot may have made a very wrong decision based on how he thought the auto-pilot would behave.  (At least, that's my interpretation - David can probably shed more light on this.  I do not have the URL for the original article, if any.)