Some Neat Graphics Forwarded From Joe Chisholm

Mostly Great Military Stuff With Text by the E-mail Originators (Or Forwarders!)

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Stunning Photo of an F/A-18C Hornet Jet Breaking the Sound Barrier. At the precise moment a cloud in the shape of a farm-fresh egg forms around the Hornet. Photograph taken by Ensign John Gay from the high-tech belly of an F-14 Tomcat July 7, 1999 somewhere on the Pacific between Hawaii and Japan. See the Photo With Full Text Scroll down for more photos of planes breaking the sound barrier.

• The top part of Africa is the Sahara Desert.
• Note that the lights are already on in Holland, Paris, and Barcelona, and that's it's still daylight in Dublin, London, Lisbon, and Madrid.
• The sun is still shining on the Strait of Gibraltar.
• The Mediterranean Sea is already in darkness.
• In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean you can see the Azores Islands.
• Below them to the right are the Madeira Islands.
• A bit below are the Canary Islands.
• And further South, close to the farthest western point of Africa, are the Cape Verde islands.
• Note that the Sahara is huge and can be seen clearly both during Daytime and night time.
• To the left, on top, is Greenland, totally frozen.

                 

   

The 3rd largest Air Force in the world is sitting on the ground here.

It's the only unit in the U.S. Air Force that actually makes a profit!

The Sombrero Galaxy, 28 million light years from Earth, voted best picture taken by the Hubble. 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across	The Ant Nebula resembles an ant from ground-based telescopes. It is in our galaxy 3,000 to 6,000 light years away	The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies in the distant Canis Major constellation

The Cat's Eye Nebula looks like the eye of disembodied sorcerer Sauron from Lord of the Rings	Hourglass Nebula, 8,000 light years away. Weaker winds at the pinched center	Cone Nebula. Part pictured here is 2.5 light years in length (equivalent to 23 million trips to the Moon)	Nebula NGC 2392, called Eskimo. The face is a dying star with a hood of comets flying away and is 5,000 light years from Earth

Starry Night, so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. A halo of light around a star in the Milky Way	A Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, 5,500 light years away, a bubbly ocean of hydrogen, small amounts of oxygen, sulphur & other elements;	The Trifid Nebula. A "stellar nursery", 9,000 light years from here, it is where new stars are being born

The Global Hawk was controlled via satellite; it flew missions during OT&E that went from Edwards AFB to upper Alaska and back non-stop. Basically, they come into the fight at a high mach # in mil thrust, fire their AMRAAMS, and no one ever sees them or paints with radar. There is practically no radio chatter because all the guys in the flight are tied together electronically, and can see who is targeting who, and they have AWACS direct input and 360 situational awareness from that and other sensors. The aggressors had a morale problem before it was all over. It is to air superiority what the jet engine was to aviation.

It can taxi, take off, fly a mission, return, land and taxi on it's own. No blackouts, no fatigue, no relief tubes, no ejection seats, and best of all, no dead pilots, no POWs.? Pretty cool!

The exercise included 28 Naval vessels with nearly 300 aircraft and approximately 22,000 service members from the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. For the first time in over 20 some odd years, three carrier strike groups got together in formation for a great photo op. We even had Air Force planes fly-over, see the B-2 Stealth Bomber below right. The only warships not seen in the photos are the 4 nuclear powered submarines standing guard. WOW

Official U.S. Navy photo by Chief Photographer's Mate Todd P.

Boeing is preparing a 1000 passenger jet that could reshape the Air travel industry for the next 100 years. The radical Blended Wing design has been developed by Boeing in cooperation with the NASA Langley Research Center. The mammoth plane will have a wing span of 265 feet compared to the 747's 211 feet, and is designed to fit within the newly created terminals used for the 555 seat Airbus A380, which is 262 feet wide.

The new 797 is in direct response to the Airbus A380 which has racked up 159 orders, but has not yet flown any passengers. Boeing decide to kill its 747X stretched super jumbo in 2003 after little interest was shown by airline companies, but has continued to develop the ultimate Airbus crusher 797 for years at its Phantom Works research facility in Long Beach, Calif.

The Airbus A380 has been in the works since 1999 and has accumulated $13 billion in development costs, which gives Boeing a huge advantage now that Airbus has committed to the older style tubular aircraft for decades to come.

There are several big advantages to the blended wing design, the most important being the lift to drag ratio which is expected to increase by an amazing 50%, with overall weight reduced by 25%, making it an estimated 33% more efficient than the A380, and making Airbus's $13 billion dollar investment look pretty shaky.

High body rigidity is another key factor in blended wing aircraft, It reduces turbulence and creates less stress on the air frame which adds to efficiency, giving the 797 a tremendous 8800 nautical mile range with its 1000 passengers flying comfortably at mach 0.88 or 654 mph (+-1046km/h) cruising speed another advantage over the Airbus tube-and-wing designed A380's 570 mph (912 km/h). The exact date for introduction is unclear, yet the battle lines are clearly drawn in the high-stakes war for civilian air supremacy

   

The Martin 'Mars' was stationed at NAS Alameda in 1955/56. I was assigned to the squadron. The were using them to ferry cargo and personal between Alameda and Honolulu. I wasn't there long as I was transferred to Pensacola in July 1957.

Coulson was under contract to fight the fires in S.CA and it looks like Lake Elsinore was a convenient water pickup site. The pilot of this magnificent relic apparently needed exactly every bit of the length of the lake to permit a successful water pickup and still get off the lake. There is zero wind, too. For we aviators, that's called 'pucker time.' Wow, what a ride! Pay close attention to the 'altitude' of aircraft.

These cars were built for Allegheny as promotional and marketing projects. The top salesmen each year were given the honor of being able to drive them for one year. The v-8 engine (max 85 hp) ran like a sewing machine and WAS surprisingly smooth and quite. I thought this was a much better looking automobile than the Ford Thunderbird that visited us last year. FYI, the car was insured (we were told) for the trip to Louisville via covered trailer for 1.5 million dollars.

People were told that the dies were ruined by stamping the stainless car parts, making these the last of these cars ever produced.

This airplane is the X-48B in test flights mid 2007. It is an advanced concept, fuel-efficient Blended Wing Body or BWB. It's called a blended wing body because it looks more like a modified triangular-shaped wing		than the traditional aircraft, which is a tube and wing with a tail. One advantage Boeing engineers say the concept has over conventional aircraft is that it's about 30 percent more fuel efficient than an airplane
of similar size that carries the same payload. The Air Force has designated the vehicles as the "X-48B" based on its interest in the design's potential as a multi-role, long-range, high-capacity military aircraft. From the Dryden Flight Research Center Photo Col at Edwards Air Force Base. The Photos are by Carla Thomas.

One Big (and Ugly) Plane

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinin_K-7: The K-7 first flew on 11 August 1933, and on 21 November 1933 the aircraft crashed due to structural failure of one of the tail booms, killing 14 people aboard and one on the ground. Although two more prototypes were ordered in 1933, the project was canceled in 1935 before they could be completed.

WHAT A COLLECTION! Every Chevrolet convertible since 1912

He is what you call a REAL Chevy guy, but his passion seems to be convertibles! Wow! What do you suppose this collection is worth?

Flight of the Extreme UAVs, From Smallest to Deadliest

As unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, become a staple of modern military operations, their uses and forms have grown more varied. Today they range from slingshot-launched spybots to global guardians. In fact, the acronym itself may be morphing into UAS (unmanned aerial systems) to indicate that these are not just aircraft, but systems that include ground stations and other elements.

It's not just the military that uses them -- police use the same technology for surveillance, while terrorists build flying suicide bombers. Check out the stealthiest, deadliest and highest flying drones in use today, and the UAVs that are most likely to be making tomorrow's headlines.

Marine's Friend	Highest	Widest Range
Originally used for tracking tuna, the Scan Eagle drone is used by the Marine Corps in Iraq. It is fired by a pneumatic launcher and retrieved by a crane snagging it out of mid-air. Photo: U.S. Air Force	HELIOS was NASA's record-breaking solar-powered flight demonstrator. It achieved an altitude of more than 96,000 feet -- the highest for any aircraft not powered by a rocket. A combination of solar cells and fuel cells meant it could, in principle; stay aloft for days, weeks or even months at a time. The vehicle broke up in 2003 during a flight near Hawaii when it hit turbulence, but the military is rumored to be continuing research into solar-powered UAVs with ultra-long endurance. Photo: NASA	RQ-4A Global Hawk is the Air Force's endurance drone, able to cruise at around 400 mph for 35 hours. It has an operational ceiling of 65,000 feet, and from this altitude it can scan an area the size of Illinois (40,000 nautical square miles) in just 24 hours. It is equipped with radar and infrared, as well as optical sensors. Photo: U.S. Air Force

Smallest	The Toughest	Most versatile
The WASP weighs less than 300 grams, and is nearly silent, and when flown at night, it's almost undetectable. The Air Force has just ordered several hundred for reconnaissance and bomb-damage assessment. Photo: U.S. Navy	The Battlehog 150 is intended to meet the Marine Corps requirement for a vertical takeoff drone capable of operating from aircraft carriers. It can fly at over 300 mph with a payload of 500 pounds, with armaments likely to include Hellfire missiles, rocket pods and 7.62-mm mini-guns. The Battlehog series is designed to be as robust as possible, being able to withstand small-arms fire from close range. The drone is steered entirely by moving the two wingtip fans, so there are no vulnerable flight controls. Image: American Dynamics Flight Systems Wingspan	The morphing micro air/land vehicle, or MMALV, is a hybrid that can fly, then land, fold up its wings and crawl around buildings or other tight spaces. The MMALV project is lead by BioRobots, in collaboration with the Biologically Inspired Robotics Laboratory at Case Western Reserve University , the University of Florida and the Naval Postgraduate School. Photo: Richard Bachmann, President of BioRobots

Most Welcome	Most Alarming	Deadliest
The CQ-10 Snow Goose is a parafoil-wing UAV for carrying medical equipment. The flexible wings are made of textile, like a parachute. It can be launched from the ground or from the loading ramp of a transport aircraft. It can carry 75-pounds 200 miles, or 500 pounds a shorter distance.	The MIRSAD-1 drone has been flown over Israel by the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah (mirsad means "ambush" in Arabic) It may be armed; Hezbollah has claimed that it can be loaded with a warhead of 90 to 110 pounds of explosives, turning it into a flying suicide bomber able to reach anywhere. The Israeli Defense Force shot down two similar drones in 2006. Image: Hezbollah	The MQ-9 Reaper is a scaled-up version of the Predator, larger, faster and more powerful. Reaper was designed from the outset as a hunter-killer. It can carry up to 14 Hellfire missiles or other weapons such as the 500-pound, laser-guided bombs shown. The 432nd Wing of the U.S. Air Force was activated to operate MQ-9 Reaper on May 1, 2007. Photo: U.S. Air Force

Future Force	Most Local	Stealthiest
The Honeywell micro air vehicle gives reconnaissance capability to front-line troops. The small version with vertical takeoff and hovering capability seen here will be back-packable. It has a planned weight of 20 pounds, and is capable of a 50-minute mission spying on locations a half mile away. Photo: U.S. Army	The German-made Microdrone is equipped with GPS, a camera and a loud-hailer to give instructions to those on the ground, and is currently being tested by police in the UK . This type of UAV is the one you're most likely to see hovering around your neighborhood. Its quad-rotor design is intended to make it resilient -- Microdrone can return to base with just two rotors. Law-enforcement officials hope the Microdrone can carry out some of the tasks of police helicopters, but at a fraction of the cost. Photo: Microdrones GmbH	The Joint Unmanned Combat Air System demonstration program, or J-UCAS-D, is to be the next generation of stealthy robot-strike aircraft. Its geometry and radar-absorbent materials make it invisible on radar. Operating from aircraft carriers, the UCAS-D could carry a payload (such as bombs) of up to 2,000 pounds, plus an extra 2,500 pounds when stealth is not required. A typical use would be to send unmanned drones as a first wave to take out enemy air defenses and clear the way for manned aircraft. Photo: U.S. Navy

Most Famous	Most Modular	Carrier Copter
The MQ-1 Predator was an evolution of the earlier Gnat-750. Originally intended purely for reconnaissance, it was later armed with a single Hellfire missile. This combination appears to be extremely effective at precision strikes according to the Department of Defense, which claims a success rate of nearly 100 percent. Predators are used by both the Air Force and the CIA. Photo: U.S. Air Force	The Killer Bee is part UAV, part missile. It's intended to be deployed in "constellations" of many vehicles working cooperatively. These swarms can be used for either reconnaissance or for attack with up to 30 pounds of weapons per drone. The Killer Bee is designed so several can be stacked together in the cargo bay of an aircraft or in a truck, maximizing the number that can be carried. Photo: Northrop Grumman	The MQ-8 Fire Scout made by Northrop Grumman is operated by the U.S. Navy and can make an automated landing on a moving aircraft carrier Typical missions include surveillance, locating targets and directing fire Though nine MQ-8 vehicles are in the flight-test stage, the model is not yet operational. The Navy plans to eventually have a fleet of 168. Photo: U.S. Navy

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Created: 05/20/04 Changed: 01/31/10

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