During the 2006 conflict in southern Lebanon, about 25% of the Hezbollah-fired missiles struck populated areas in northern Israel. In the current conflict, while Israeli security is keeping a lid on where the Hamas and Jihadist missiles have landed, the very few deaths reported in Israel—in the single digits—indicate that the first five batteries of the short-range, Iron Dome missile defense system are surprisingly efficient.
Just 15.5 sec. after it was released from the Boeing B-52 mother ship over the Pacific, one of four control fins on the Boeing X-51A WaveRider hypersonic demonstrator unlocked. The unpowered fin swung fully trailing-edge down and stayed there as the booster accelerated the X-51A cruiser to its planned release at Mach 4.9.
India has made no secret of its hypersonic ambitions whether aimed at high-speed weapons, sub-orbital passenger transport or as a stepping stone to space. Now, key tests are set to begin for a technology demonstrator that could unlock some of these possibilities.
Unlike previous lightweight and compact weapons that proved highly suitable for guerrilla warfare techniques, the Iranian-made Fajr rockets supplied to Hamas in Gaza are significantly more devastating than earlier Grads and Qassams. Both the Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 carry a 90-kg (200-lb.) high-explosive warhead with massive fragmentation sheets made of steel balls that create extensive collateral damage. Analyses of attacks from 2006 to this year indicate the rockets could be equipped with a delay fuse to increase building penetration.
Russian researchers, long in the forefront of plasma control experimentation, are combining forces with U.S. military and European industrial counterparts to further exploit plasma's potential effect in hypersonic flight. The concept involves generating plasma by using an electrical discharge to create a shape or force which can act as a virtual actuator, a flow modifier or as an aid to combustion.
Three decades ago, carbon-fiber reinforced plastic, commonly known as composite, was beginning to appear in commercial aircraft. It was not cheap and could not, at that time, be applied to anything like an entire airframe. With the Boeing 787, an almost completely composite aircraft is now in service. The problem of cost remains, but a second phase of the composite revolution is now underway, with manufacturers looking for ways of eliminating autoclaves—the costly, energy- hungry pressure cookers that are traditionally used to cure the material.
Having forged an international partnership unprecedented in the annals of high-speed research, the U.S. and Australian Hypersonic International Flight Research Experiment (HIFiRE) is past the halfway stage and planning an extension as it accelerates toward a fast firing finale.
The history of civil versions of military jet airlifters is not encouraging. The idea of building rear-loading freighters for commercial operators seems to occur to every company that develops such aircraft for an air force. What does not occur is great success.
Hypersonic technology is extremely difficult to master and high-speed travel generally involves long distances. These simple, but axiomatic principles of hypersonic studies not only dictate key areas of research but also, increasingly, influences who teams with whom.
The first implementation directive for “Better Buying Power” (November 2010) by Ashton Carter, the then-undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics (USD/AT&L), concluded with the challenge, “Reduce Non-Productive Process and Bureaucracy.” Yet the memo added 16 tasks and reports. Similarly, “Better Buying Power 2.0” directs the defense acquisition workforce to “eliminate unproductive processes and bureaucracies.” The dictum institutes new processes while not detailing procedures, reports or reviews to be eliminated. The processes are addictive.
Chinese proliferation of weapons of mass destruction continues to be a U.S. and global concern, a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report says. “China has taken some steps to mollify U.S. and other foreign concerns about its role in weapons proliferation,” CRS says in a report released earlier this month. “Nonetheless, supplies from China have aggravated trends that result in ambiguous technical aid, more indigenous capabilities, longer-range missiles, and secondary (retransferred) proliferation.
Tel Aviv – Unlike previous lightweight and compact weapons that proved highly suitable for guerilla warfare techniques, the Iranian-made Fajr rockets currently supplied to Hamas in Gaza are significantly more devastating than earlier Grad and Qassams.
AWARENESS SYSTEMS: Exelis Inc. of Alexandria, Va., has been awarded a $93.2 million contract to provide the U.S. Navy with material and services to design, procure, install and maintain the Adaptive Persistent Awareness Systems, the Pentagon announced Nov. 20. The APAS is an integrated system that provides command, control, communication, computers and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and persistent awareness. The work will be performed in various naval facilities worldwide and is expected to be completed by November 2017.
NEW DELHI – India has delayed plans to loft Nirbhay, its first subsonic cruise missile, until early 2013. Nirbhay’s launch was to take place in November from Wheeler Island off the Odisha coast in eastern India. “It will now be done in January 2013,” a senior scientist at the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) says. He blamed the holdup on launcher modifications.
Jeffery L. Turner, the CEO who transformed Wichita-based Spirit AeroSystems from a former Boeing subsidiary into the industry’s largest independent airframe maker, will step down early in 2013. Turner, who is 60, was a VP and general manager for Boeing when the company sold his division in 2005 to Onex Corp., cutting lose its biggest division for manufacturing structural assemblies, including the entire 737 fuselage and the nose of the 787, that aircraft’s most complex composite section.
The performance of Iron Dome in Israel can only add to congressional support for co-production of the rocket-defense system in the U.S. In its version of the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill, the House requires the U.S. Missile Defense Agency to establish an Iron Dome program office, calls on the MDA director to negotiate for data rights to the technology and to explore co-production of the system. The Senate has not yet passed its version of the bill , which also must be reconciled with the House version.
London – The U.K. Royal Air Force ( RAF ) will soon deploy the first of its upgraded Chinook helicopters to Afghanistan. Two Boeing CH-47 Chinook HC4s were ready to go at the RAF’s main transport base at Brize Norton on Nov. 19, and are likely to begin operational flying in theater from the main British base at Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, in December. The two aircraft will join the Joint Helicopter Force ( Afghanistan ) supporting the International Security and Assistance Force troops.
