Post Tagged with: "Defense"

Friday Fun: Dancing on the deck – F-35 Ship Suitability Testing

October 5, 2012 at 6:29 pm

Saw this beauty on my way out the door to start the weekend..   It is a bit old – Oct 2011- but still awesome to watch the beast fly in and out of the deck of a floating pad.. Description (as shown in the video below): the F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing variant completed ship suitability testing aboard the USS WASP (LHD-1) off the coast of Virginia in October 2011. Combined, F-35B test aircraft BF-2 and BF-4 accomplished 72 short takeoffs and 72 vertical landings during the three-week testing period.

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki86x1WKPmE&hd=1′]

On a related note, if you are an aviation/space enthusiast, there is a good reason why you should be up early on Sunday .. This weekend is you get to see the launch of the SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services-1 (CRS-1) mission. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon Capsule is scheduled for 8:35 p.m. EDT on Sunday. Launch coverage will begin at 7 p.m. on NASA Television and http://www.nasa.gov/ntv. On Saturday, NASA TV will air an International Space Station Science Briefing at 3 p.m. and the SpaceX CRS-1 Prelaunch News Conference at 6 p.m. Have fun!

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Read more Comments Off

Upping the Ante? – Pictures of China’s prototype stealth fighter jet surface ahead of U.S. Defense Secretary’s visit

January 5, 2011 at 8:51 pm

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

The first clear pictures of what appears to be a Chinese stealth fighter prototype have been published online, highlighting China’s military buildup just days before U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates heads to Beijing to try to repair defense ties.

The photographs, published on several unofficial Chinese and foreign defense-related websites, appear to show a J-20 prototype making a high-speed taxi test—usually one of the last steps before an aircraft makes its first flight—according to experts on aviation and China’s military.

China was probably several years behind Russia, whose first stealth fighter, the Sukhoi T-50, made its first flight in January 2010, but that Beijing was catching up faster than expected.

The Chinese prototype looks like it has “the potential to be a competitor with the F-22 and to be decisively superior to the F-35,” said Mr. Fisher. The J-20 has two engines, like the F-22, and is about the same size, while the F-35 is smaller and has only one engine.

China’s stealth-fighter program has implications also for Japan, which is considering buying F-35s, and for India, which last month firmed up a deal with Russia to jointly develop and manufacture a stealth fighter.

Editor’s Note: This development is not only a challenge to the American dominance and technological superiority in the world of military aviation but also a test (and a considerable threat) to many of so-called China’s regional adversaries, especially the ones noted above – Russia, Japan and India.  Anyone aware of the regional geopolitics in South Asia can likely expect China to pass along the technology (at the least, sell these stealth fighters) to its regional-ally Pakistan in the decades ahead, to counter India’s edge with the joint-production of a stealth fighter using Russian technology.  This will not only up the “heat” at a regional level, but will further push the two nations, as well as the entire region, towards another wave of arms buildup. Though there is no mention of the high-altitude capability of this stealth fighter, it would be interesting to watch how China would deploy these fighters along its disputed border regions with India to guard against any threats from the Tibetan side.  Also, the capability of this new war machine to operate from a sea-borne platform (aircraft carrier, which China is building) would definitely test the power balance between the US and the Chinese in the South China Sea. Above all, I believe this development will encourage other nations to accelerate their own efforts to build a stealth fighter.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Read more Comments Off

Gas stations in the sky continue service for US Air Force amidst replacement fight

April 9, 2009 at 12:10 pm


Photo: VirtualSugar@ flickr

(Source: Washington Post)

 WASHINGTON — Lying on her chest in a small crawl space, Staff Sgt. Dana Fernkas watches the gray Air Force jet emerge from the clouds and ease up just behind the rear window in the belly of her plane.

While most cargo and passenger planes stay thousands of feet apart in the air, the big KC-10 roared up just below where Fernkas lay, close enough that the wings patch on the other pilot’s jumpsuit was clearly visible. All this while both aircraft raced 300 miles per hour over the Atlantic Ocean.

For gas stations in the sky, this is full-service.

Known as a boom operator, Fernkas controls a long pipe that extends off the back of the plane like a tail. Her aircraft, the size of medium passenger jet, is an aerial refueling tanker known as the KC-135, one of about 450 the Air Force operates. Fuel is stored in the plane’s wings and below the cabin floor. Gassing up a fighter could take just a few minutes. Bigger planes may take up to a half hour.

With a joy stick in one hand and a lever in the other, she “flies” the boom, guiding the tip slowly into a gas nozzle on top of the other plane, a KC-10 that also serves as a tanker, although bigger. Once it slides into place, the boom can deliver a portion of the 200,000 pounds of jet fuel the KC-135 can carry.

“The tanker is key to our entire mission,” said Gen. Arthur Lichte, head of the Air Force command that oversees the KC-135. It gasses up other aircraft in flight, allowing everything from fighter jets to lumbering cargo planes to fly farther than they could on one tank of gas.

The Pentagon has been trying for a decade to build new refueling planes to replace the KC-135, some of which date from mid-1950s, like the one Fernkas flew in. But the effort has been stymied by bitter competition among contractors, heavy pressure from Congress and missteps by the Air Force.

Click here to read the entire article (Free Reg. required). 

Read more Comments Off

Starbucks coffee – $1.75; Cost of not having a cup while on duty – a Nuclear catastrophe! Two U.S. Navy vessels collide in Strait of Hormuz

March 20, 2009 at 7:13 pm

Source: Los Angeles Times;  Photo Via : U.S. Navy handout / EPA)

USS New Orleans and USS Hartford collide in Strait of Hormuz

 Pics: Photos released by the U.S. Navy show the New Orleans, left, participating in a training exercise in the Pacific Ocean November 2008 and the Hartford moored off the U.S. Naval Academy in Chesapeake Bay March 1999.
The nuclear-powered submarine Hartford and the amphibious transport dock New Orleans were heading into the Persian Gulf at the time. Fifteen sailors are slightly injured.

A nuclear-powered Navy submarine collided with another U.S. warship in the narrow Strait of Hormuz early today in what officials are calling the first incident of its kind in the Persian Gulf.
At least 15 sailors aboard the Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered submarine Hartford were slightly injured when it collided with the amphibious transport dock New Orleans, the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet announced.  The Navy said the Hartford’s nuclear propulsion plant was undamaged. But the collision ruptured the New Orleans’ fuel tank and caused the spillage of 25,000 gallons of diesel fuel.
Defense officials in Washington said there appeared to be serious damage to the upper part of the sub, called the sail. Initial assessments indicated it could be repaired. The extent of damage to the other vessel was less clear.

Click here to read the entire article.

Read more 2