Free Republic

A large association of battlefield target spotters has written to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to oppose the planned retirement of A-10 Warthog strike jets — a debate that now encompasses the “friendly fire” deaths of five American soldiers in Afghanistan. The A-10 endorsement from the Tactical Air Control Party Association is significant because, outside of the Warthog’s pilots themselves, perhaps no other warriors know its ability to protect ground troops under fire better than the ground controllers who guide it to enemy targets. ... The five fatalities occurred on June 9, when a B-1B strategic bomber — a planned replacement...

Sat rusting away in a field 555 miles east of Moscow, these relics are all that's left of a bygone era of Soviet innovation in military and civilian aircraft. Among them are some of the former Communist regime's greatest achievements in air travel, that have since been superseded many times and rendered redundant. Nine thousand of the hulking Cold War wrecks can be seen at the vast plane and helicopter graveyard at Russia's largest aviation museum in Ulyanovsk, in the Middle Volga region. Each off the exhibits had to make their last flight here, touching down at the Ulyanovsk-Central airport,...

When Textron AirLand first announced the Scorpion—a lightweight surveillance and strike aircraft—last year, it raised a few eyebrows. Now the American company is talking about the first two potential customers for the diminutive jet. Namely, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. Neither country has bought the Scorpion … yet. But the company is pitching the aircraft as a solution for featherweight and middle-size countries looking for an advanced combat plane that doesn’t break the bank. This is especially the case for countries that need eyes in the sky—and the ability to go after insurgents.

The U.S. Air Force is taking a serious look at overhauling the nearly 60 year-old B-52 bomber—including a new engine for the ancient plane. The question is not whether it makes sense, but why it hasn’t been done before. The answers include poor planning, budgetary procedures that defied economic logic, and at least one bone-headed accounting error. The B-52 first entered service in the mid-1950s. Putting new engines on the “Buff,” or Big Ugly Fat (cough) Fella, became a possibility after 1978, when the commercial airplane business launched two modern engines, the Rolls-Royce RB.211-535 and the PW2000. Unlike the first...

The Middle Seat The Trouble With Keeping Commercial Flights Clean With the Ebola Crisis in the Background, Standards for Disinfecting Planes Vary Based on Time, Class Just how clean are airplanes? Do they really get scrubbed down after each flight? WSJ's Scott McCartney joins Tanya Rivero on Lunch Break with the answers. By Scott McCartney Updated Sept. 17, 2014 The Ebola crisis and heightened concerns about the risk of spreading disease during air travel have focused concern on what airlines do to keep planes clean. It's a murky area without clear regulatory standards. The Federal Aviation Administration says it doesn't...

I home school a young girl. In years past, we have gone to the local air show and done such things as measure the tops and bottom of wings and rotos and figure the ratio or difference between the area of the top of the wing versus the bottom and estimated which wings had more lift than others. We measure how much area the wheels occupied on the ground and consulted with the crew chief what the tire pressure was and calculated the weight of the plane. In years past we were able to see F18s form a vapor cone...

US Air Force pens A-10 maintenance deal with Korean Air By: Dan Parsons Washington DC Source: Flightglobal.com This story is sourced from Flightglobal.com With top officers still calling for the aircraft’s retirement as a cost-saving measure, the US Air Force has announced a major potential investment in depot maintenance for the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt.The air force on 9 September announced a $46 million contract award to Korean Air Lines Co. (KAL) for depot-level maintenance and repair of A-10s, commonly called Warthogs, stationed Osan Air Base, South Korea. The work will be performed at KAL’s facility in Seoul with an expected...

Last night I saw something I had never encountered before: the launch of what I'm told were probably six large drones. They really made my mouth open with astonishment. They went up very fast then changed heading and rose into the clouds. Two minutes later they were joined on the same course by some fast movers which I could hear overhead but could not see due to high cloud. Bearing in mind that "Loose lips sink ships" (which WWII-era warning not coincidentally we began to use again after 9/11/2001), I'm not sure how much to say here. But it's natural...

unresponsive aircraft over atlantic, USAF in pursuit

FAA says too risky to fly over Syria. Banned US carriers from flying.

The US has confirmed that one of its reconnaissance aircraft violated Swedish airspace on July 18th, according to a media report. US authorities told the CNN news channel that the plane was conducting reconnaissance missions in international airspace when it was observed by Russian radar. Russia is reported to have scrambled aircraft to chase the US plane away. The US crew elected to exit the area by the fastest route possible, which meant passing through Swedish airspace. The flight passed over Gotland, an island off the east coast of Sweden, on July 18th in the late afternoon. A classified document...

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Crocodile might be responsible for plane crash in the Congo: UK investigators • Only one person survived the crash — as did the toothy reptile, though it was killed with machetes by rescuers sifting through the plane's wreckage. A plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo that left 18 people dead may have been caused by a crocodile. The animal is thought to have climbed out of a hold midflight and spooked the crew and passengers. They all panicked and ran towards the cockpit, and the forward shift in weight may have caused the plane to plummet to the...

The idea of a flying car might seem like something out of a science fiction novel, but it may soon become a reality. All it'll take is about $30 million in funding and some patience. Terrafugia, a Woburn manufacturer of flying cars has been working on its vehicles for almost eight years. The MIT-born company has been working on two kinds of cars: the Transition, which is scheduled to be released in mid-2016 and can fly at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour at up to 10,000 feet in the air; and the TF-X, a semi-autonomous plug-in hybrid...

The Department of Defense awarded a contract on Wednesday to a Connecticut company that will build a fleet of helicopters to replace the Marine One fleet that ferries U.S. presidents short distances. The contract, given to Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, will cost an initial $1,244,677,064 'for the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the Presidential Helicopter Replacement program.' For that price the U.S. Navy will get six test aircraft and all the necessary research & development. The Pentagon made a similar attempt to replace the aging fleet of Sikorsky choppers, spending $3.2 billion on a landing pad to nowhere. Adding in...

Virtually every country on Earth will be able to build or acquire drones capable of firing missiles within the next ten years. Armed aerial drones will be used for targeted killings, terrorism and the government suppression of civil unrest. What’s worse, say experts, it’s too late for the United States to do anything about it. After the past decade’s explosive growth, it may seem that the U.S. is the only country with missile-carrying drones. In fact, the U.S. is losing interest in further developing armed drone technology. The military plans to spend $2.4 billion on unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs,...

On Wednesday at about 2 p.m., according to sources, a U-2 spy plane, the same type of aircraft that flew high-altitude spy missions over Russia 50 years ago, passed through the airspace monitored by the L.A. Air Route Traffic Control Center in Palmdale, Calif. The L.A. Center handles landings and departures at the region’s major airports, including Los Angeles International (LAX), San Diego and Las Vegas. The computers at the L.A. Center are programmed to keep commercial airliners and other aircraft from colliding with each other. The U-2 was flying at 60,000 feet, but the computers were attempting to keep...

Additive manufacturing startup MarkForged aims to make it happen and is already marketing systems. Additive manufacturing (AM) is one of the hottest areas in parts fabrication. Interest is high, research dollars are being spent and company stocks are attracting investor attention. Why? First, because AM has moved beyond its initial role as a prototyping tool to a process that can build finished parts. AM technologies — stereolithography, fused deposition modeling (FDM), laser sintering (LS), material extrusion, direct metal deposition and more (see "The rise of rapid manufacturing," under “Editor's Picks,” at top right) — were able from their beginnings to...

DJI Phantom Vision Video drone presentation at Reaganite Republican...