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U.S. Air Force scientists have performed their own rocket propellant test without contractor assistance and eye continued in-house experimentation. The Armed Forces News Service reported that officials at the Air Force Research Laboratory said the 3-second, 15-pound Ballistic Test and Evaluation System, in which a small-scale apparatus is used to test rocket propellant and designs in a standardized rocket motor casing, yielded extraordinary amount of data due to new high-speed digital video cameras used for recording it. "What's special about this test is that it was entirely in-house," said 1st. Lt. Rob Antypas, the AFRL program manager and a developmental...

Extending development by three years on two F-35 variants would not be enough to keep the restructured programme on track. But Lockheed Martin's flight-test programme gained significant new resources to reduce the risk of further delays in the overall restructuring announced on 1 February. Namely, the US Department of Defense will buy another flight-test aircraft in the fourth lot of low-rate initial production (LRIP). The US Marine Corps and US Navy also would "loan" three operational aircraft to Lockheed to participate in the flight-test programme. Doug Pearson, Lockheed vice-president for the F-35's integrated test force, explains how the new resources...

Boeing’s hydrogen-powered, high-altitude Phantom Eye unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) demonstrator will be shipped to NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, Calif., in preparation for a series of ground tests this summer. The company unveiled the aircraft to employees during a ceremony July 12 in St. Louis. First flight of the aircraft, expected to last up to 8 hr., is slated for early 2011. Prior to that milestone, officials will run the aircraft through ground and taxi tests. The ultimate goal is to fly the aircraft for 96 hr., possibly next spring. Objective altitude is around 65,000 ft. Powered...

The Euro Hawk unmanned aircraft system (UAS), built by Northrop Grumman Corporation and EADS Defence & Security, successfully completed its first flight June 29. The high-flying aircraft took off at approximately 10:32 a.m. PDT from Northrop Grumman's Palmdale, Calif., manufacturing facility and climbed to 32,000 feet over Palmdale's desert skies before landing nearly two hours later at 12:24 p.m. PDT at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. "The Euro Hawk marks the first international configuration of the RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) UAS, and strengthens Northrop Grumman's first trans-Atlantic cooperation with Germany and EADS Defence & Security," said Duke Dufresne,...

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- A prototype YF-22 Raptor fighter plane that was built in Palmdale, Calif., flight tested here, and put on temporary display at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, returned to Edwards AFB where it will stay for Air Force Flight Test Center Museum visitors to see. With approximately 100 military and civilians in attendance, Maj. Gen David Eichhorn, Air Force Flight Test Center commander, welcomed all to the AFFTC Museum for the dedication of the Raptor June 11. "This aircraft is a great addition to our museum out here and commemorates...

A prototype YF-22 Raptor fighter plane that was built in Palmdale, Calif., flight tested here, and put on temporary display at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, returned to Edwards AFB where it will stay for Air Force Flight Test Center Museum visitors to see. With approximately 100 military and civilians in attendance, Maj. Gen David Eichhorn, Air Force Flight Test Center commander, welcomed all to the AFFTC Museum for the dedication of the Raptor June 11. "This aircraft is a great addition to our museum out here and commemorates what Edwards is all about," General...

The Boeing Company today announced the start of flight tests for a B-1 Lancer bomber upgraded with new digital avionics for the aft cockpit, including a line-of-sight Link 16 data link. The B-1 Fully Integrated Data Link (FIDL) made its first flight test on June 4 at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The four-hour flight was conducted by the U.S. Air Force around the local Edwards test ranges. The crew successfully tested the Link 16 data link by sending and receiving text messages and receiving virtual mission assignment data such as target coordinates for a weapon. Link 16 adds line-of-sight...

The commander of the Joint Strike Fighter training wing is confident the Pentagon will receive its first F-35 jets this fall, leading to the graduation of the first cadre of pilots and maintainers next year. “We’re going to have jets in the fall,” 33rd Fighter Wing Commander Col. David Hlatky said during a May 27 briefing at the F-35 training school house. “Unless there is some major event that nobody can imagine, we’re going to have jets in the fall.” The unit is “banking on November” right now for receiving its first aircraft and will be ready to fly on...

Following the longest flight yet by an air-breathing scramjet engine, the X-51A Waverider team is waiting to see whether the largely successful first launch of the hypersonic demonstrator will unlock funding for further development of the ­technology. The X-51A was launched over the Pacific on May 26, achieving scramjet ignition and acceleration, but the engine ran for only 200 sec. rather than the 300 sec. planned, and the vehicle reached around Mach 5 instead of accelerating beyond Mach 6. When it began to slow down and telemetry was lost, the flight was terminated and the vehicle destroyed, says Charles Brink,...

The US Air Force on Wednesday test launched a hypersonic cruise missile, with the vehicle accelerating to Mach 6 before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, officials said. The Air Force said the test flight of the X-15A Waverider lasted more than 200 seconds, the longest ever hypersonic flight powered by scramjet propulsion. The previous record was 12 seconds in a NASA X-43 vehicle. "We are ecstatic to have accomplished most of our test points on the X-51A's very first hypersonic mission," Charlie Brink, program manager with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. "We...

The B-52 entered into service in 1955 and was referred as one of the most powerful bombers. While that was true when the war plane first hit the skies, nearly 55 years later, it’s still true. Partly due to the testing B-52 Radar Navigator Christopher Rudd does at Edwards Air Force Base. “We’re an independent organization that plans, executes, analyzes, the new systems that’s coming on board for in this case the B-52,” said Rudd. From testing new software to new weaponry, they do it all to make sure despite its age, the B-52 is still top notch. “We are...

The U.S. Air Force is set to successfully launch a Boeing X-51 for 300 seconds of hypersonic flight By the end of this month, the U.S. Air Force will begin a series of hypersonic tests that will send a scramjet into the atmosphere for about five minutes, at nearly five times the speed of sound. A scramjet is a supersonic combustion ramjet, while a ramjet is a jet engine using the engine's forward motion to compress air. If all goes as planned, this will be the first time that an aircraft will have flown at such speeds for more than...

The U.S. Air Force on April 22 launched a winged spacecraft designed to conduct military experiments on orbit for as long as nine months before re-entering the atmosphere and gliding to a runway landing in California. The service hopes the unmanned X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle will pave the way for a cost-effective, reusable spacecraft platform that can be reconfigured on the ground and relaunched in just a few weeks, Gary Payton, undersecretary of the Air Force for space programs, said April 20 during a media teleconference. But because the X-37B’s specific experiments are classified, as is its budget, much about...

After a decade of development, the Air Force this month plans to launch a robotic spacecraft resembling a small space shuttle to conduct technology tests in orbit and then glide home to a California runway. The ultimate purpose of the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle and details about the craft, which has been passed between several government agencies, however, remain a mystery as it is prepared for launch April 19 from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The quietly scheduled launch culminates the project's long and expensive journey from NASA to the Pentagon's research and development arm and then to a secretive Air Force...

In the cockpit of the sleek, black aircraft slung underneath the wing of the B-52 bomber, my interphone crackles. "Ah, Robert, it’s a lovely morning," says Jack Allavie, the commander of the B-52 launch aircraft. "Yes it is, Jack," I respond while running through the preflight checklist for our July 17, 1962 mission. The North American Aircraft X-15 was designed to investigate flight at hypersonic (Mach 5-plus) speeds and extremely high altitudes, and the effects of aerodynamic heating on aircraft surfaces. It was the first aircraft to fly Mach 4, Mach 5, and Mach 6—and I had the good fortune...

A few years ago a company by the name of AirLaunch had a novel idea for a rocket—put it in a C-17 cargo plane and then slide it out the back at high altitude. The rocket would rotate until it was vertical and then fire, heading into orbit. You can watch video of the drop tests. “We examined a wide variety of propellants ranging from storable hypergolics, RP/LOX, to fluorine/deuterium.” That may sound exotic, but Ehrlich joked that “this was a paper study!” Now imagine that instead of a relatively small rocket, there was a much larger rocket, with a...

When Robert White shot through the sky in a rocket-powered X-15 airplane nearly 50 years ago, he earned a place in the development of America's space program that those in the field still talk about. First to break Mach 4 — four times the speed of sound. First to break Mach 5. First to break Mach 6 —more than 4,000 miles per hour. All in a few short months in 1961. Then in 1962 the young test pilot with Hollywood good looks nosed his airplane 59 miles above the earth to be the first to take a winged craft into...

Many things remain murky about the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory’s sponsorship of an effort starting in 1980 to study the possibility of launching a spaceplane off the back of a 747. AFRPL was located at Edwards Air Force Base and in early December of that year, an AFRPL engineer named Don Hart produced a several page description of what such a vehicle might look like and might be capable of doing. (See: “Fire in the sky: the Air Launched Sortie Vehicle of the early 1980s (part 1)”, The Space Review, February 22, 2010) Very quickly at least one contractor...

The U.S. Air Force is gearing up for the first of four planned test flights of a hypersonic aircraft designed to operate for much longer durations and cover far greater distances than previous platforms of its type. The maiden flight of the X-51 Waverider aircraft — the first U.S. hypersonic vehicle to fly in six years — is scheduled to take place later in March. Boeing Defense, Space & Security Systems of St. Louis has been developing the aircraft since 2003 on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The missile-shaped X-51 will be...

A high-energy laser mounted on a US military aircraft has shot down a ballistic missile in the first successful test of the weapon, the US Missile Defense Agency said on Friday. The experiment -- evoking a scene out of a science fiction film -- was carried out off the central California coast at Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center at 8:44 pm Thursday Pacific time (0444 GMT), the agency said in a statement. "The Missile Defense Agency demonstrated the potential use of directed energy to defend against ballistic missiles when the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic...