Aero: NE Space Museum, Space & Aviation Day

I would like to inform you about this year’s Space and Aviation Day coming up on Saturday, August 14, from 9:00 to 4:00.

This is a free annual family event with proceeds from food sales, the road race, and donations going directly to the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Ashford, CT. It is a fun family day with unique opportunities to partake in activities at the CT Air National Guard, the New England Air Museum, and the CT Fire Academy. More information can be found at www.spaceandaviationday.org or the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp website www.holeinthewallgang.org under Support an event hosted by other organizations.

Come and enjoy!

Caroline d'Otreppe
Director of Educational Programs
New England Air Museum
(860) 623-3305 ext.13

Aero: Apache in Iraq

A new friend of CTWG PA (adopted through Soldiers Angels) and past CAP 1Lt pilot from AZ sends these photos of life in Iraq as a Crew Chief on an Apache Longbow Crew.

Aero: Secret space plane blasts off

The United States Air Force's secretive X-37B robotic space plane blasted off from Florida late Thursday on a mystery mission shrouded in secrecy for the U.S. military.

The unmanned military Orbital Test Vehicle 1 (OTV-1) – also known as the X-37B – lifted off at 7:52 p.m. EDT (2352 GMT) atop an Atlas 5 rocket on a mission that is expected to take months testing new spacecraft technologies.

The X-37B is a reusable robotic space plane built by Boeing Phantom Works. Its mission is being carried out under the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office with participation by NASA. More here....

Key objectives of the space plane's first flight include demonstration and validation of guidance, navigation and control systems – including a "do-it-itself" autonomous re-entry and landing at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base with neighboring Edwards Air Force Base as a backup.

The X-37B is the first vehicle since NASA's space shuttles with the ability to return experiments to Earth for further inspection and analysis, Air Force officials said. [X-37B spacecraft photos.]

Aero: Not the best of times if you want to go to the moon

The Financial Times (FT.com), which often has outstanding intellegence is following the back to the moon story closely.

Three elderly American heroes have been touring US military bases in Europe and Asia this month, telling inspiring tales of space adventures that took place before most people in the audience were born.

But the Apollo astronauts – Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan and Jim Lovell – were not just living on past glories. They looked at the future of manned space flight and lamented President Barack Obama’s decision last month to cancel the Constellation programme under which Nasa would have taken Americans back to the moon by 2020.

The astronauts’ intervention is part of a growing backlash against the plans of Mr Obama, who argues that the US cannot afford to build the Ares rockets and Orion crew vehicle that make up Constellation and needs a nimbler development programme led by private companies. His opponents, from both political parties, say the decision jeopardises national security, prestige and commercial interests at a time when other countries are boosting their own space programmes. More here...

Aero: Poland AF

A news source got to visit this Polish airfiled recently. Here is a shot of the aircraft they saw at Bydgoszcz. No cameras allowed inside the base.

From top to bottom
SU-22
SU-22
MIG-23
MIG-21
PZL TS-11 Iskra Trainer (PZL Mielec)
Unknown
MIG-23
AN-2 Biplane transport (PZL Mielec)
MIG-17 (PZL Mielec)
SU-22

Aero: Connie and more, much more...

http://www.dhc-2.com/Monthan_Memories.html

Aero: A little nose wheel photography

Hat tip Neptunus Lex. Spectacular footage captured on a Contour HD helmet cam, secured to the the nose gear.

Aero: ISS Interactive

Hat tip to the AFA Blog. Here is a link to an interactive on the construction of the International Space Station.

http://i.usatoday.net/tech/graphics/iss_timeline/flash.htm

Aero: Drones

More here...

Aero: Ekranoplane - Caspian, "Sea Monsters"

Ground effect, that 10 feet or so of altitude that say "I really want to fly now!".

Aero: Aero - sort of if you follow the physics!

America's Cup congrats USA! Glad you kept your head!

Aero: Air Tractor

A former Marine Hornet driver knows of what he speaks.

It’s a shame the Air Force seemingly deferred a decision on COIN planes and a COIN wing or squadron or whatever Mike Vickers said they were going to outline in the QDR.

I would like to get the “real” cost of doing business with a Predator, when you factor in additional Sat’s, people, ground stations, etc…

Compares pretty badly to the the Air Tractor — $5-$6 mil fully decked out, 10 hours time on station — from the austere strip at the FOB (or Camp Belleau Wood if it were there today) with no transit time. Imagine the difference if LtCol Christmas was able to brief face to face with the pilot and forward observer who would fly cover over his battlespace — for 10 hours at a time — one crew, feeding targets and imagery to each Cobra, Harrier and Hornet coming in for close air support.

We had that kind of long duration, manned capability in Vietnam in the O-1 Bird Dog, the O-2 Mohawk and the OV-10 Bronco. About time we had it again.

Bottom line, is that no sensor today can give a pilot the same situational awareness when he is in a trailer north of Vegas looking at a few flat screen TV’s. For Airborne Forward Air Controller and Forward Observer duties a good man, with a lot of time on station, sensors and weapons can save dozens of lives.

Those grunts waiting for the balloon to go up in Marjah would like nothing more than a couple Spads and Spectres to give the bad guys holed up there a what for.

Aero: U2 Carrier Landing Trials

Go here for more...

Aero: Hudson River Recovery Ops

Time lapse video of the Hudson River Airbus A320 recovery - interesting.
Here....

Aero: Robots in Space

Slide show here...

NASA's humans-in-space program may be on hiatus following dramatic recent budget cuts, but the agency's robots-in-space program is alive and well.
In conjunction with manufacturing partner General Motors, the space agency has unveiled the latest generation robotic astronaut, dubbed Robonaut 2. NASA says that the robot is designed to work side by side with people; its leading edge control, sensor and vision technologies could assist astronauts during hazardous space missions. More here...

Aero: Review of the iPAD as an Electronic Flight Bag

From NeptunusLex.com

Electronic Flight Bag
The grotesquely named Apple iPad has great potential as an electronic flight bag, and may well end up a category killer for legacy equipment.

There are pdf applications for Amazon.com’s Kindle that allow assiduous aviators to download airport diagrams, departure procedures, arrivals and approach plates, but from everything I’ve heard the navigation is klunky, and the Kindle has a tendency to go dim on you, just when you’re over the middle marker.

Apple’s iPhone already has a couple of cool features just waiting to be ported over. On my phone I have Aero Weather, Flight Plan (with DUATS), AOPA’s Airports and Foreflight, as well as the well-intentioned but ultimately unusable WingX, which – theoretically – combines all of the other features with GPS terrain avoidance.

Which would almost be enough to get me flying at night again, if it weren’t for the fact that GPS service is sketchy and the CA mountains so very unyielding.

All of them are pretty good for different applications on the ground, but not quite the thing for dependable use in flight: The iPhone’s screen is too small for the presbyopic among us, it’s rather slippery when you’ve got one hand on the yoke (or stick) and the other on the throttle and the battery saver puts you in a do-loop when you least expect it.

Garmin’s top-of-the-line handheld/bolt-on is the GPSMAP 696 model, with weather, moving maps, approach procedures and terrain avoidance – but it retails for nearly $3000, while the iPad starts at $500. Which is, oh – wait: A whole lot less.

There’s no technical reason why the iPad – I really hate that name – can’t do all the tasks of an EFB while providing GPS tracking, live weather updates and terrain avoidance. Once you’ve landed on your cross country, you can email home, browse the web, read a book or work on your presentation. Which, just try that with your MX20.

Build it, developers. We will come.

Aero: "We just lost the moon."

The Orlando Sentenel reports bad times ahead for NASA.

NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama's long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away. More here....

Aero: E4 Commemorates 34 years of service

1/26/2010 - OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. (AFNS) -- To say there have been a lot of changes in the past 35 years would be a bit of an understatement.

To give a frame of reference, gas was roughly 50 cents a gallon, the Pittsburgh Steelers, who currently own six Super Bowl trophies, had yet to win their first, and the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States was in full swing.

However, there is one thing that has not changed and that's the E-4 sitting on continuous alert, ready to respond to any crisis at a moment's notice.

The E-4 is a militarized version of the Boeing 747-200 and serves as the National Airborne Operations Center for the president, secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was delivered to the Air Force for operational use in December 1974 and assumed alert status from the EC-135J 35 years ago this month. Since then, the aircraft and her Nightwatch team have been continuously ready, serving "hot" alert 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"The E-4B is the most technologically advanced airborne system in the world," said Lt. Col. David Gaskill, 1st Airborne Command Control Squadron commander, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the aircraft. "From the front to (the) back of the jet, we've got some of the brightest and most professional Airmen in the Air Force."

Originally known as the National Emergency Airborne Command Post, the E-4's mission during the late 1970s and 1980s was to provide the president a safe location to conduct wartime operations in the event of a nuclear attack, earning the jet the dubious moniker, "the doomsday plane."

Aero: Going Home

Ah that warm fuzzy feeling when you are finally getting home...

USAF: EB-52 Discontinued, Navy EA-18G Growler version more affordable

October 28, 2009: The U.S. Air Force has backed away from developing a new electronic warfare aircraft. Now it will rely on UAVs equipped with jammers, and electronic jamming pods on non-specialized (as jamming aircraft) warplanes. This was not the preferred approach. Last year, the air force revived a program to convert some of its B-52 heavy bombers into radar jamming aircraft. This would be done by equipping the bombers with jamming pods (that are similar in appearance to large bombs). More here...