Archive for the ‘Air’ Category
“Don’t shoot! I give up!”
U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. James Foster, a 107th Aircraft Maintenance Unit weapons load crew chief, marshalls an A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft for an end-of-runway (EOR) inspection at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, Nov. 22, 2011. The EOR inspection is to ensure the aircraft is safe before taxing to its spot. (DoD photo by Senior Airman David Carbajal, U.S. Air Force/Released)
AT-6 Is Out of the Light Air Support Contest, Award Imminent
The AT-6B was competing with Embraer’s Super Tucano for a U.S. Air Force contract to supply up to 20 light air support — or counterinsurgency planes — to the fledgling Afghan air force. A couple of months ago we reported that the service was supposed to decide this month on which plane it would supply the Afghans with.
Murdoc’s railed on about this topic over the years. He’d sure like to see some fixed-wing Light Air Support in the USAF or US Army. Maybe single-engine prop planes like the AT-6 or Super Tucano (or A-1 Skyraider, for that matter…). Maybe a twin-engine prop plane. Maybe even a jet along the lines of the A-37.
Not likely, though. Not expensive enough for the US military.
The XP-59A, America’s first turbojet-powered airplane. On October 1, 1942, as Bell test pilot Bob Stanley completed the final series of high-speed taxi tests, the aircraft's wheels lifted off from the surface of Rogers Dry Lake and, for the first time, an American turbojet became airborne. The official first flight took place October 2. (U.S. AIr Force Photo courtesy AFFTC History Office)
Murdoc was unfamiliar with the XP-59A Airacomet. When the test planes were on the ground, they were sometimes fitted with a false prop to disguise their true nature. Below is a photo apparently showing an XP-59 fitted with one:
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- P-38 Lightning
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- P-38 Lightning
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- P-38 Lightning
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- P-38 production was completed on the flight line due to limited production facilities during WWII.
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- P-38 machine gun firing test. 50 caliber machine guns firing with every 5th shell a tracer in 3 second bursts.
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- The P-38 Lightning, was first produced in 1941. Here a female Lockheed employee works on one in Burbank, California, 1944.
U.S. Air Force pararescuemen with the 58th Rescue Squadron signal in a HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter assigned to the 66th Rescue Squadron for extraction during a search and rescue mission at exercise Angel Thunder in Tucson, Ariz., Oct.18, 2011. Angel Thunder is an Air Combat Command-sponsored personnel recovery/combat search and rescue exercise with approximately 1,400 participants from U.S. military, federal and state agencies and coalition forces. (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Andy M. Kin, U.S. Air Force/Released)
U.S. Army Capt. Scott Hall jumps from a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter after landing in Deh Yak district, Ghanzni province, Afghanistan, Oct. 19, 2011. Hall was the personal assistant to Brig. Gen. Gary Volesky, the 1st Cavalry Divison deputy commanding general – maneuver, who was conducting a battlefield circulation to several International Security Assistance Force positions south of Kabul to see how Operation Shamshir was progressing. (DoD photo by Spc. Ken Scar, U.S. Army/Released)
Murdoc’s mentioned the X2 (S-97 Raider) concept chopper before. Defense Tech has a couple of photos and a video of the thing from the AUSA conference.
Looks cool to Murdoc.
Falcon hypersonic vehicle test flight fails
The unmanned aircraft, dubbed Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, was meant to test new technologies that could give the Pentagon the capability to deliver non-nuclear military strikes anywhere on the globe in less than an hour.
But the Falcon’s test flight ended prematurely and it plunged into the Pacific Ocean. It was the second and last scheduled flight for the Falcon program, which began in 2003 and cost taxpayers about $320 million. Both flights failed to go the distance.
Bummer. The HTV-2s were launched aboard Minotaur IV boosters, converted MX Missiles.
A pair of Russian air force Su-27 Flanker fighter aircraft escort a simulated hijacked airliner during the second day of flight operations for exercise Vigilant Eagle Aug. 9, 2011, over the Pacific Ocean. The Russian fighters followed and monitored the aircraft while it was in Russian airspace, handing it over to U.S. F-15 Eagle fighters from Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, when it entered U.S. airspace. Vigilant Eagle is an annual joint anti-terrorism exercise between the Russian air force, the Federal Aviation Administration and the North American Aerospace Defense Command that trains personnel to respond to an air terrorism threat that crosses international boundaries. (DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. Thomas J. Doscher, U.S. Air Force/Released)
