Free Republic

A supersonic Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter rode more than 41,000 pounds of thrust to a vertical landing today for the first time, confirming its required ability to land in confined areas both ashore and afloat. “Today’s vertical landing onto a 95-foot square pad showed that we have the thrust and the control to maneuver accurately both in free air and in the descent through ground effect,” said F-35 Lead STOVL Pilot Graham Tomlinson. Tomlinson performed an 80-knot (93 miles per hour) short takeoff from Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., at 1:09 p.m. EDT. About 13 minutes...

Aboard a pontoon boat chugging past the marshland of Maryland's upper Patuxent River on a recent Saturday, Ralph Eshelman pointed to the spot where the muddy brown water hides a shipwreck nearly two centuries old, part of the American flotilla that defended the Chesapeake Bay when the British burned Washington during the War of 1812. Nearly 30 years ago, Eshelman helped direct a team of marine researchers who discovered the wreck, one of the war's most significant artifacts. After a limited, month-long excavation of the site east of Upper Marlboro in 1980, the wreck was reburied under four feet of...

EDWARDS AFB - A Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle known as N-1 took off from Edwards' main runway Monday evening on a one-way mission to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. The N-1, an RQ-4A Global Hawk - one of two acquired by the U.S. Navy through the Global Hawk Maritime Demonstration Program - is the first of its kind delivered to the Navy and is being prepared for participation in the Navy's Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2006. The delivery was enabled by the installation of a launch and recovery element at Patuxent River that allows the Navy to begin...

The President and the first lady spent the weekend in Washington today they attended church and the President also went mountain biking at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland. Yesterday Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Chile for talks and to attend Chile's new President Michelle Bachelet inauguration ceremony, today she left for Indonesia. Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island

  For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretarySeptember 24, 2005 President's Radio Address      Audio      THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This weekend I will visit U.S. Northern Command in Colorado where we're monitoring Hurricane Rita. As the hurricane continues along its destructive path, the American people can know courageous and dedicated men and women are responding to our citizens in need. We are marshaling resources of the federal government to save lives and property, and bring comfort to those who have evacuated because of this storm.  Radio Address 20052004200320022001  Radio Interviews 20052004 Over the past week, federal, state and local governments...

Navy Retires AIM-54 Phoenix Missile For media backgrounder and chronology of events visit http://pao.navair.navy.mil/Press_Releases/ Program Executive Office for Tactical Aircraft, NAVAIR, Patuxent River, MD After 30 years of highly accomplished service, the U.S. Navy is retiring its first long-range air-to-air missile, the AIM-54 Phoenix. The U.S. Navy’s F-14 Tomcat is the only operational aircraft that carried the Phoenix missile. "As we retire the AIM-54 Phoenix missile, we pay tribute to the men and women of Naval Aviation, Grumman and Hughes who designed, tested and operationally employed the Phoenix for over 30 years. Since the earliest days of carrier aviation, air...

PATUXENT RIVER, Md. (NNS) -- The U.S. Navy’s new Tomahawk cruise missile, the Block IV, or Tactical Tomahawk, soared through yet another first this week as it was launched from Los Angeles-class submarine USS Tucson (SSN 770) July 9 in the waters of the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) sea test range off the coast of southern California. The event marked the first launch of the Tactical Tomahawk from an operational submarine launch platform. The test demonstrated the newly-developed Block IV Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System (TTWCS) and the Tomahawk Command and Control System functionality, allowing the launch platform to...

The first flight of the F-35 joint strike fighter moved one step closer this week with the start of manufacturing for some of the aircrafts' major airframe components. And the center fuselages of the fighter will be assembled at Northrop Grumman Corp.'s facility at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, eventually bringing 200 jobs to the Valley. The first center fuselage is expected to arrive sometime next spring, Northrop Grumman spokesman Jim Hart said. Suppliers for prime contractor Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. and principal partner Northrop Grumman began machining parts Monday at their suppliers' facilities in Arlington, Texas, and Gardena,...