In the Second World War, a British aircraft called the Hurricane had made life hell for the Germans. Years later, an aircraft, albeit a UAV, will try to decode the mystery of natural hurricanes, Newscientist reported.
A small unmanned aircraft is set to fly through the fierce winds surrounding the eye of a hurricane to take the first continuous data on how such storms gain their strength, according to a plan by Nasa and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
The craft, called an aerosonde, will measure the temperature, pressure, humidity and wind velocity inside the storm in an effort to crack the tough problem of predicting changes in hurricane intensity.
It will make the measurements when the hurricane is over the sea, where it builds in intensity. A hurricane is a giant heat engine, powered by the evaporation of warm seawater that then condenses inside the storm to release energy.
Source and more information: indiatimes
Its bigger than the MQ-1 Predator unmanned aircraft and arguably a whole lot meaner. And now, at long last, the MQ-9 has a name: Call it Reaper.
The Air Force made the announcement Sept. 12 after an extensive nomination and review process, according to a news release.
The name Reaper is one of the suggestions that came from our airmen in the field, Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley said in a statement. Its fitting as it captures the lethal nature of this new weapon system.
Heretofore known as the Predator B, the Reaper is the Air Forces first hunter-killer UAV. Its little cousin, the Predator, can carry two Hellfire missiles, but its primary mission is reconnaissance.
Source and more information: airforcetimes
Blackanthem Military News, Khan Bani Sa’ad, Iraq – Two men were detained and a small cache discovered after Coalition Forces observed, with an unmanned aerial vehicle, six men fleeing the origin of an indirect fire attack on the civilians of Khan Bani Sa’ad, south of Baqubah today.
After two mortar rounds impacted near the village, the nearby UAV observed the men fleeing the suspected origin of the attack in a gray sedan at a high rate of speed. With the help of the UAV, Soldiers from the 1-68 Combined Arms Battalion pursued the suspected mortar team.
Source and more information: blackanthem
The Air Force Chief of Staff announced “Reaper” has been chosen as the name for the MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle.
The Air Force is the Department of Defense’s executive agent for designating and naming military aerospace vehicles.
In the case of the Reaper, Gen. T. Michael Moseley made the final decision after an extensive nomination and review process, coordinated with the other Services.
“The name Reaper is one of the suggestions that came from our Airmen in the field. It’s fitting as it captures the lethal nature of this new weapon system,” Moseley said.
The MQ-9 Reaper is the Air Force’s first hunter-killer UAV. It’s larger and more powerful than the MQ-1 Predator and is designed to go after time-sensitive targets with persistence and precision, and destroy or disable those targets with 500-lb. bombs and Hellfire Missiles.
“The Reaper represents a significant evolution in UAV technology and employment. We’ve moved from using UAVs primarily in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance roles before Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, to a true hunter-killer role with the Reaper,” he said.
Moseley stressed that the key advantage is not keeping manned aircraft and pilots out of harm’s way, but the persistence UAVs can inherently provide. The Reaper can stay airborne for up to 14 hours fully loaded.
A 900 hp turbo-prop engine, compared to the 119 hp Predator engine, powers the aircraft. It has a 64-foot wingspan and carries more than 15 times the ordnance of the Predator, flying almost three times the Predator’s cruise speed.
Source and more information: shephard
We’re big fans of Ultimate Frisbee or even frisbee golf, but we’d probably want to keep our loved ones away from this flying disc. The US Air Force has just awarded a grant to military contractor Triton Systems to develop a “Lethal Frisbee UAV,” which can be launched from a device like a skeet launcher and operated by remote control or autonomously. According to the grant abstract, the Lethal Frisbee UAV’s ultimate goal is to locate fortified foes and, to “provide precision fires to neutralize these hostiles.” You know, come to think of it, this Lethal Frisbee reminds us a lot of this dude we know who’s got a mean throw — gets us in the face every damned time.
Source and more information: mediapcs
In February 2006, DID published a report from the Teal Group that put the global UAV and missile market at $103.7 billion between 2005-2106. Discussions with the Teal Group pegged the UAV procurement market at 17,976 projected units valued at $12.5 billion, or 12.1%.
Market forecasts are always educated guesses, and they vary. In November 2005, we covered a Forecast International report that placed the UAV market at $13.6 billion from 2006-2014. Now a forthcoming Teal Group market study adds incorporating R&D, maintenance, related sensors, et. al. to their total, and estimates that UAV spending will more than triple over the next decade….
Pointer UAV launchFrom $2.7 billion annually, Teal forecasts that annual UAV spending across all areas will rise to $8.3 billion a decade from now, totaling $54-55 billion between 2007-2016 inclusive. The study suggests that the US will account for 77% of the worldwide UAV RDT&E spending (vs. its 67% global defense RDT&E share) and about 64% of the procurement (vs. its 37% overall global share).
Source and more information: defenseindustrydaily
Northrop Grumman is preparing to undertake the first taxi tests with the larger and upgraded RQ-4 Block 20 Global Hawk unmanned air vehicle, following the aircraft’s official unveiling on 25 August at the US Air Force’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
The taxi tests, which are due to begin later this month before a first flight in around mid-November, mark the start of a busy period for Northrop’s Global Hawk team. The company will also this month hand over the US Navy’s second Block 10 Global Hawk maritime demonstration vehicle at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, and will in October deliver an operational Block 10 aircraft to Beale AFB, California.
Operational assessment work is meanwhile under way at Edwards AFB, California on the Global Hawk’s full-up production-standard ground segment software. “This will be used to help stand up operations at Beale, and to support deployments,” says Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems USAF Global Hawk programme office director George Guerra.
Source and more information: flightglobal
Northrop Grumman Corporation (Palmdale, Calif.) rolled out the first production version of the new RQ-4 Block 20 Global Hawk unmanned aerial reconnaissance system in a ceremony August 25 at the company’s Antelope Valley Manufacturing Center in Palmdale. Company and U.S. Air Force officials introduced the advanced capability Block 20 air vehicle to an audience of senior government and military representatives, community and civic leaders, industry teammates and employees.
“The Global Hawk is a tremendous asset in the war on terror, equipping American military commanders with virtually real time surveillance that helps bring concealed terrorist plots and enemy positions to light,” said U.S. Rep. Wally Herger of California’s 2nd congressional district. “The men and women of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, located in the Northern California district I represent, are operating Global Hawk in combat today in ways never imagined. The new Block 20 Global Hawk will strengthen their ability to quickly and accurately find and destroy terrorist targets wherever they may be.”
The Block 20 Global Hawk represents a significant increase in capability over the Block 10 configuration. The larger Block 20 aircraft will carry up to 3,000 pounds of internal payload and will operate with two-and-a-half times the power of its predecessor. Its open system architecture, a so-called “plug-and-play” environment, will accommodate new sensors and communication systems as they are developed to help military customers quickly evaluate and adopt new technologies.
Source and more information: compositesworld
Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have successfully conducted test flights of a hydrogen-powered unmanned aircraft, believed to be the largest to fly on a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell using compressed hydrogen.
The cell that powers the 22ft wingspan aircraft generates only 500W, representing one per cent of the power of a hybrid car such as the Toyota Prius.
The project was headed by David Parekh, Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) deputy director and founder of Georgia Tech’s Centre for Innovative Fuel Cell and Battery Technologies, who wanted to develop a vehicle that would advance fuel-cell technology and galvanise industry interest.
Although the car industry has made strides with fuel cells, apart from spacecraft, less has been done to apply the technology to aerospace applications.
Fuel cells, which create an electrical current when they convert hydrogen and oxygen into water, are potential fuel sources because of their high energy density, which translates into longer endurance. Although they don’t produce sufficient power for commercial passenger aircraft, they could power smaller, slower vehicles such as UAVs, and provide a low-cost alternative to satellites. Such UAVs could also track hurricanes, patrol borders and carry out reconnaissance.
Source and more information: e4engineering
A Brigham Young University team of scientists and engineers, funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research here, has recently demonstrated increased consensus capabilities among unmanned air vehicles.
“This research on cooperative control involves developing methods to enable multiple UAVs to coordinate with one another,” said Professor Tim McLain, one of the research team co-leads. “We want to figure out how to coordinate the activities of a team of UAVs to accomplish the overall objectives of the team in a way that is optimal for the team as a whole.”
On the road to accomplishing their research goals the team has had many successes.
“We’ve developed and demonstrated cooperative timing methods that would enable simultaneous strike-type execution by UAVs,” said Professor McLain.
In one experiment the team conducted simultaneous arrival flight tests involving three UAVs. The team was able to coordinate the UAVs’ arrival over a target location to within fractions of a second. Another flight test demonstrated a successful UAV coordination, even in the presence of inconsistent information. The researchers conducted a successful perimeter tracking exercise where the changing perimeter emulated the growth of a forest fire. The exercise involved a team of UAVs coordinating their efforts to divide the changing perimeter equally among the UAVs. This technology has application to Air Force missions such as monitoring the perimeter of an enemy stronghold.
Source and more information: blackanthem
