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What happens when a top-secret government project is canceled? The details are not quite clear, but it’s hard to keep a secret when prototype parts are sold for scrap and end up on eBay.
Anyone interested in top secret aircraft will know of the A-12 Avenger II, which was cancelled in 1991 and remains at the centre of ongoing litigation to this day. The stealth attack aircraft, developed by General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas, was terminated before the first airframe had been assembled. But the latest twist in this still-shadowy tale comes in the form of an A-12 canopy appearing on eBay – and it looks like the real thing.
See more pictures at Urban Ghosts Media. Link
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Fans of abandoned places and urban exploration are in for a treat, with a look at an aircraft graveyard at Vozdvizhenka air base in the Primorsky Krai region of eastern Russia, just 40 miles from the Chinese border. There is no security to stop urban explorers, just the aircraft sitting unused, with grass growing under them and nature doing its best to reclaim the base. See more pictures at UrbanGhosts. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Maks Maydachenco)
3d printing is such a new process that we are still discovering all the ways in which we can use it to enhance our lives. Well, the wait for the next big thing to print is over, because engineers from the UK have used the 3d printer to create an aircraft capable of flight. Made up of printed plates which are snapped together, this impressive little flying machine is capable of speeds up to 100 mph and cruises almost silently through the air. It might just be the coolest snap together model kit ever!
Link Image via University of Southampton
The Terrafugia Transition has received exemptions from the NHTSA that make it legal to drive on the road. With polycarbonate windows instead of automotive safety glass and tires not normally considered street legal, it has nevertheless passed muster for both the sky and the highway in terms of weight and safety. Alex last reported on Terrafugia’s innovation on June 29th, 2010 and the company has been doing lots of fine tuning since then to attain the proper licensing and exemptions needed to ensure these roadable aircraft are ready for delivery by the end of 2012.
During the Cold War, the US military developed top secret aircraft at the Air Force facilities at Groom Lake, also known as Area 51. Decades after the projects were finished, these designs remained classified. Although these planes were “technology demonstrators” and were never put into service, they were crucial for testing systems and technologies that are part of modern military and civilian aircraft alike. Read the stories and see photographs of three of these projects (one of which only exists in photographs, as the planes are still missing) at UrbanGhosts. Link
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Twenty years after the Cold War ended, more and more classified documents from that era are being released, which means we are gradually learning about what really went on at the infamous Area 51. It was a serious game of concealing experimental aircraft (code named OXCART) from Soviet spy satellites. The military knew when the satellites were scheduled to pass over, and would hurry and hide the planes in sheds before they could be photographed.
It turned out that even laborious hooting and scooting weren’t enough. Spies had learned that the Soviets had a drawing of an OXCART plane—obtained, it was assumed, via an infrared satellite.
As a plane sat in the hot desert, its shadow would create a relatively cool silhouette, visible in infrared even after the plane had been moved inside.
“It’s like a parking lot,” Barnes told National Geographic News. “After all the cars have left you can still see how many were parked there [in infrared] because of the difference in ground temperatures.”
To thwart the infrared satellites, Area 51 crews began constructing fanciful fake planes out of cardboard and other mundane materials, to cast misleading shadows for the Soviets to ponder.
Find out more about the cat-and-mouse game at Area 51 in this article from NatGeo News. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!
(Image credit: Roadrunners Internationale via Pangloss Films)
The US military is making ever more use of unmanned fighters and intelligence
gathering aircraft. The great thing about this type of aircraft is that they can loiter over some far away battlefield for a long time, and if they are shot down, no lives are at risk. The Being Phantom Ray Stealth UAV made its first flight this week and is on its way to becoming the first stealth UAV in the arsenal. The Phantom Ray is the size of a fighter aircraft, and its maiden voyage took it to 7,500 feet and a speed of 178 knots.
“The first flight moves us farther into the next phase of unmanned aircraft,” said Craig Brown, Phantom Ray program manager for Boeing. “Autonomous, fighter-sized unmanned aircraft are real, and the UAS bar has been raised. Now I’m eager to see how high that bar will go.”
Cockpit Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet CRJ700 in Cologne
Put yourself in an airplane cockpit! What kind of airplane? That’s your choice, as there are 14 cockpits to select from, from a helicopter to a bombardier (shown here), models from all over the world! Take a look all around in the 360-degree panoramas to get a feel of being in control, at 360 Cities. Link -Thanks, Jeffrey Martin!
The Ames-Dryden (AD)-1 was an experimental aircraft developed by NASA during the 1970s. Its wing could pivot up to 60° to present the most efficient angle for a given flight objective:
The oblique wing was the brainchild of NASA aeronautical engineer Robert T. Jones, whose analytical and wind tunnel studies at the NASA Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, California, indicated that an oblique wing, supersonic transport might achieve twice the fuel economy of an aircraft sporting more conventional wings.[...]
The oblique wing on the AD-1 pivoted about the fuselage, remaining perpendicular to it during slow flight and swinging to angles of up to 60 degrees as aircraft speed increased.
The swing wing concept was first evaluated by a small, propeller-driven, remotely-piloted research vehicle (RPRV) flown at Dryden in 1976. These early techniques for gathering data about the oblique wing aircraft were applied to the twin turbojet, piloted AD-1, which was flown from 1979 to 1982.
The biggest rooms in the world are those built to store aircraft. Not only are they huge, but some have interesting stories to go with them. For example, the Arium hangar in Germany was built for the production and operation of a new aircraft called the CL160. However, the aircraft project was abandoned, leaving one of the biggest buildings on earth unused. It was reopened in 2004 with a tropical resort inside! Link
On July 11, thirty people set a world record when they observed a total eclipse for over 9 minutes. What’s so special about that? Well, the longest anyone can observe an eclipse is just over 7 minutes, and this one would have only lasted about 5 minutes had they been on Earth. Actually they were racing through the sky in a plane, parallel to the lunar path.
The plane made a right-angle turn to intercept the moon’s shadow at about 9:15 a.m. At the moment of totality, the plane fell quiet.
“Normally on the ground there’s a lot of screaming, oohing and aahing, and a lot of noise going on, but for some reason it was very quiet in the plane,” Brown said. “People were astounded.”
The plane flew along with the shadow at 500 miles per hour, about a third of the shadow’s speed across the Earth’s surface. At that speed, the time in totality stretched from the 5 minutes, 20 seconds visible from the ground to 9 minutes, 23 seconds. It was the longest totality ever observed from a non-experimental and non-military aircraft. Brown said the team is submitting a DVD to the Guinness Book of World Records.
The image above is a composite of five pictures from the flight (Glenn Schneider and Rick Brown). As stated, the record set was for non-experimental, non-military aircraft- an early supersonic Concorde chased the shadow for 74 minutes in 1973.
Previously, an even more stunning Composite Picture of a Solar Eclipse.
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We’ve previously mentioned that the solar powered aircraft Solar Impulse was able to remain in the air for a full day. The similarly powered Zephyr, designed by the company QinetiQ, has now stayed in the air for more than a full week. Its engineers plan to continue its flight for at least another week in order to test its abilities. From QinetiQ’s press release:
Launched by hand, the aircraft flies by day on solar power delivered by amorphous silicon solar arrays no thicker than sheets of paper that cover the aircraft’s wings. These are also used to recharge the lithium-sulphur batteries, supplied by Sion Power Inc, which are used to power the aircraft by night. Together they provide an extremely high power to weight ratio on a continuous day/night cycle, thereby delivering persistent on-station capabilities.
Link via CrunchGear | Photo: QinetiQ
They must have seemed like a good idea at the time and many millions of dollars were spent researching them. However, these ten aircraft, although they made it off the drawing board, didn’t get much further. From our perspective some were obvious errors but for a few they look like amazing opportunities lost.
Reconnaissance is important in the field and the US Army wanted, in the 1950s, to have a simple personal helicopter that could be operated by pilots with limited flight experience and with a small amount of instruction. It was seen as a potential motorcycle of the air and, certainly, the early tests showed quite a lot of promise. However, once further studies had been conducted it was discovered that the HZ-1 was too difficult to control in untrained hands.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.
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In 1934, electrician and hobbyist Frank Skroback built the first airplane that could be driven on a road. Or the first car that could be flown. It has six wings and an overall width of seven feet, so it can fit inside a lane. The plane will be auctioned at Red Baron’s Antiques in Atlanta on March 13.
Link via DVICE | Photo: Red Baron
If you’re a brand new pilot, it’s probably handy to have labels like this, pointing out where the door is, where to sit — that sort of thing. Working with the advertising agency Atmosphere, the South African airline Kulula has debuted its new branding scheme called “Flying 101.” Major features are labeled on the exterior of the plane. More pictures at the link.
Link | Photo: Kulula
The Tesla Air 2000 was a biplane built in 1933 by William Besler and Nathan C. Price. It was powered by a steam boiler that was so quiet that spectators on the ground could hear the pilot calling to them. From the video notes:
The advantages of the “Besler System” that were claimed at the time included the elimination of audible noise and destructive vibration; greater efficiency at low engine speeds and also at high altitudes where lower air temperatures assisted condensation; reduced likelihood of engine failure; reduced maintenance costs; reduced fuel costs, since fuel oil was used in place of petrol; reduced fire hazard since the fuel was less volatile and operating temperatures were lower; and a lack of need for radio shielding.
For capacities in excess of 1000 horse power a turbine captures the energy released by the expansion of steam more efficiently than a piston. Thus, the steam reciprocating engine turned out to be unsuitable for scaling up to the needs of large aircraft
via Make
Photo: Tim Bullen Photography
Environmental Graffiti has a beautiful set of photographs depicting various shots of planes and rainbows. Starting things off is Tim Bullen‘s amazing picture of the aerial display group, The Red Arrows.
The Red Arrows are the crème de la crème when it comes to aerial displays, but as they tear through a rainbow, coloured smoke trails resplendent, is it a case of man outshining mother nature’s best efforts – or is the opposite true?
Also at the EG post, learn about glories – rainbows formed from a plane’s silhouette and viewed from the aircraft on the top layer of cloud cover.
The first successful flight of an aircraft powered by the sun was completed in Switzerland yesterday as the Solar Impulse HB-SIA took off and landed safely. Solar Impulse founder Bertrand Piccard had dreamed of the day his plane would take flight for a decade.
With a good weather window on Thursday, test pilot Markus Scherdel was given the go ahead to take the spindly aircraft to up to take-off speed shortly after one o’clock local time. With the airplane lined up on the runway, Scherdel powered up the four motors using the on-board batteries and HB-SIA gained speed until he was able to lift off the pavement.
In a flight very reminiscent of the Wright Brothers first flight in 1903, Scherdel flew 350 meters down the runway at an altitude of only one meter in a flight lasting 28 seconds.
The team hopes to achieve a 36-hour flight by next summer. Link to story. Link to website. -via the Presurfer
On Feb 2nd, 1970, a Convair F-106 Delta Dagger was found in a snow-covered Montana field, pilot-less, landing gear up, and with the engine still running – the melting snow causing the aircraft to slowly move forward…
The pilot – Captain Gary Faust – had earlier ejected from the aircraft at 15,000 feet when it entered a flat spin. Amazingly, the un-piloted aircraft then recovered, to make a gentle “belly-up” landing…
Link via Instapundit
Photo: Eric Long / Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
It goes without saying that the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has some of the neatest collection of planes in the world, but this one is particularly intriguing: fly-powered aircrafts built by famed aircraft modelered Frank Ehling in the 1970s.
The AirSpace Blog has more:
Designed and built by famed aircraft modeler Frank Ehling in the 1970s, they are the smallest flying models the Museum owns. But more unusual than their size is that they are powered by flies – yes, you heard right, houseflies, the insect. Constructed from balsa wood and red tissue paper, the one-fly design has a wingspan of two inches, and the two-fly version, which features a delta-wing design, is four inches wide. In both cases, contact cement was used to attach the live powerplant to the fuselage.
If you’re skeptical, there’s a video clip of another fly-powered airplane, this time by inventor Thomas Fetterman (oh, you can also buy the kit from his website)
I have always had a fascination with planes and fighter jets ever since my Dad used to take the family and I to the Dubai Airshow when I was really young where we got to watch some of the craziest and most talented pilots showing off their stuff. I remember once seeing the Blue Angels on display and they blew me away! Still to this day their stuff is top notch and gives me thrills to see them fly.
Lucky for us we get to see the view from one of their cockpits as they perform some hair raising maneuvers. I trust I won’t be the only one who gets goosebumps and a few butterflies in their stomachs as you get to see how amazingly close they get to each other and how in tune they are to each others positions. Mind you it’s almost 10 minutes of video!
* Also, if you are prone to motion sickness be careful watching this! Thank you SydneyClaire for reminding me to put a motion sickness warning!
** This is raw footage so the sound will be a little loud so please take care to drop the level just a bit after hitting play! Don’t want to hurt your ears!
