US military news, discussions and history

[Carach Angren]

493rd Fighter Squadron “Grim Reapers”

Photo credit: Rich Cooper

 

[Carach Angren]

 

[Carach Angren]

 

[James David]

Flyboys!!! Someone has to do the easy job I suppose... Nice post keep 'em comin buddy!!!

 

[T-55]

Experimental Demonstration of arms and equipment for the "soldier of the future" of the US Army;August 1959

 

[T-55]

F-35

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Bell, Sikorsky Showcase Different Concepts for Army Helo | Defense News: Aviation International News

Helicopter manufacturers showcased their competing concepts for a future Army rotorcraft at the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) conference in Washington, D.C., this week—one a tiltrotor and the other a compound helicopter. Both aim to meet the Army’s demanding specifications for its future medium-class rotorcraft to replace the UH-60 Black Hawk, including 230-knot cruising speed and the ability to hover in “hot and high” conditions.

Bell Helicopter featured a mock-up of the V-280 Valor tiltrotor, which is contending for the Army’s joint multi-role technology demonstration (JMR-TD) phase 1 effort to develop and fly a medium-class demonstrator by 2017. Sikorsky Aircraft brought the second of two flight-test prototypes of its S-97 Raider, which it describes as a technology demonstrator for the larger SB-1 Defiant rotorcraft that Sikorsky and Boeing are developing for the JMR-TD phase 1 requirement. The industry-funded Raider is a compound helicopter with coaxial, counter-rotating main rotors and a pusher propeller; so too will be the Defiant.

The Army’s Aviation Technology Directorate chose the Bell and Sikorsky-Boeing teams to build JMR TD demonstrators in August 2014, eliminating two other industry contenders. Lockheed Martin serves as a major partner on the Bell team, and with its planned $9 billion acquisition of Sikorsky, announced in July, Lockheed Martin now spans both teams. Speaking at the AUSA conference, Bell CEO John Garrison said Lockheed Martin’s ownership of Sikorsky shouldn’t complicate his company’s JMR-TD development, although it has caused their contractual relationship to change.

When the acquisition was announced, “the team at Lockheed called me and they said, ‘Listen this is the world that we operate in. We can put in firewalls,’” Garrison said. “We actually had a contractual change where they committed to a lot of the things that they were in fact doing as part of the program. Lockheed has been a great teammate. They’ve done everything we have asked—plus. We believe they are going to continue to do that.”

Mark Miller, Sikorsky vice president of research and engineering, had a similar response when asked if Lockheed Martin’s involvement as mission-system provider on the V-280 Valor affects the SB-1 Defiant program. There is “zero complication from that arrangement,” he said.

Otherwise, Bell and Sikorsky see their JMR-TD prospects differently. Garrison said the V-280 Valor will benefit from more than 300,000 flight hours of experience the Marine Corps and Air Force have accumulated with the V-22 tiltrotor. The V-280 design differs, however, in that its proprotor engines will remain fixed in the horizontal plane instead of rotating. Last month, Spirit AeroSystems delivered the composite fuselage for the future Valor, which is now being assembled at Bell’s facility in Amarillo, Texas.

“This isn’t version one,” Garrison said. “The fact that the tiltrotor technology has got 300,000-plus hours, and the simple physics of being able to have a wing, provide significant advantages [for] speed, payload and range. We think the physics are in our favor for a tiltrotor design. We’ve got proven technology that we’re taking to the next level, and we think that’s going to be the winning combination.”

Sikorsky experimental test pilot Bill Fell was bullish about a compound helicopter design, which for Sikorsky traces to its record-setting X2 technology demonstrator. “The hallmark of X2 technology is that these aircraft go fast,” Fell said during a walkaround of the S-97 Raider. “This is 220-to-230-knot machine depending on what configuration you have in terms of drag, whether you have weapons on the side or you don’t. But beyond that, it does things that traditional helicopters do well also. Ten thousand feet [altitude], 95 degrees, hover out-of-ground-effect capability at mission gross weight is what we’ve designed for.”

Miller said the 11,500-pound Raider serves as a technology demonstrator for the Defiant, which will be a 30,000-pound-class aircraft. “It’s a tech demonstrator for our offering in the JMR medium [competition], a 30,000-pound-plus vehicle,” he explained. “A lot of what’s coming out of here from a technology perspective, the demonstration in flight, systems integration…are going into risk reducing that program.”

The Raider might also be advanced for the Army’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) light rotorcraft requirement, Miller suggested. “This is clearly targeted at an armed scout configuration, and it can [also] be an FVL light,” he said.

 

[T-55]

Record Osprey Flight - 6165 Miles Miramar To Rio

 

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Some posters
World War II

World War I

 

[T-55]

"Operation Sandy" - experimental launch of a ballistic missile German "V-2" from the deck of an aircraft carrier. The launch was carried out on 6 September 1947, from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Midway in the area south of Bermuda

 

[monitor]

Image Credit: Lockheed Martin
US B-52 Bombers to Get New Long-Range Cruise Missile
The B-52 “Stratofortress” will be armed with a new conventional long-range cruise missile.

By Franz-Stefan Gady
November 25, 2015



The B-52H long-range heavy bomber will be armed with Lockheed Martin’s AGM-158B Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile – Extended Range (JASSM-ER) in a deal announced this November estimated to be worth $9.1 million, Flight Global reports.

According to the article, the B-52H long-range heavy bomber will be outfitted with a new digitized rotary launcher to carry the turbofan engine-powered cruise missile internally as well as externally on its pylons.

The B-52H bomber is already configured to carry the shorter-range standard JASSM on its pylons. Adding the extended range variant will more than double the bomber’s JASSM strike distance to 500 nautical miles (926 kilometers), Flight Global explains.

“JASSM-ER has more than two-and-a-half times the range of the baseline AGM-158A JASSM, meaning it can be launched from outside of defended airspace and the coverage of long-range surface-to-air missiles, and is intended for use against high-value, well-fortified, fixed and re-locatable targets,” according toIHS Jane’s Defense Weekly.

The new 2,000-pound conventional, air-to-ground, precision standoff missile is powered by the Williams International F107-WR-105 turbofan engine and armed with a penetrating blast-fragmentation warhead. The U.S. Air Force has approved full-rate production of the new missile in December 2014. Under a October 2015 contract Lockheed Martin will build 140 baseline JASSMs and 140 JASSM-ER missiles.

“JASSM and JASSM-ER have an important role in the United States’ and its allied partners’ long-term strategic defense plans,” said Jason Denney, program director of long-range strike systems at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in a press release. “The missiles (…) will provide an effective and more affordable capability against Anti-Access/Area Denial threats, thus providing a strategic deterrent for U.S. and international warfighters.”

The integration of the JASSM-ER on the B-52H bomber should be completed by 2018. According to Flight Global, “Boeing-led Combat Network Communications Technology improvement will further allow B-52s to update their missions plans via satellite and retarget weapons in flight – as most other combat aircraft have been doing for decades.”

Dozens of B-52H bombers are currently stripped of their nuclear weapons as part of a new strategic arms limitation agreement with Russia and reassigned conventional warfighting roles. Only the H model of the 54-year-old aircraft is still in service.

Among other things, the B-52H can perform strategic attack, close-air support, air interdiction, offensive counter-air and maritime operations, according to the U.S. Air Force website. The aircraft, with an unrefueled combat range in excess of 8,800 miles (14,080 kilometers), is expected to remain in service at least until the 2040 when it will be replaced by the new Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B).

 

[neolithic]

White Americans Did the Same Thing (burning alive) to Black People by the Thousands

 

[CIABurnerAccount]

 

[CIABurnerAccount]

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