Reborn Technology

BBC Micros used in retro programming class

2010-08-25T13:13:00.000+01:00

From the BBC (article includes video)

"Computer history is cruel. It is a story of the old constantly being pushed aside for the newer, the faster, the smaller, the shinier.

Those old machines are rarely allowed a graceful retirement. Cast aside, they end their days in the dark ,fit only to be homes for spiders in lofts and cupboards.

But one lucky flock of BBC Micros is getting another lease of life by helping to educate students in the art of rigorous programming."

Tanks dumped in Gulf of Thailand

2010-08-10T08:19:00.000+01:00

From the Telegraph

"The unusual move is designed to boost the ecosystem in the Gulf of Thailand.

The rusting collection of trucks and 25 disused Army tanks are intended to form an artificial underwater structure to provide shelter for marine life and boost local fish stocks..."

Aston Manor Road Transport Museum

2010-08-09T08:19:00.002+01:00

The museum, which is opposite the Villa ground, has been under threat of closure for some time though its still there at the moment! I haven't been for awhile so i went along this morning to take some photos and sign their petition. Intriguingly there was a canal boat outside... on dry land of course (though the Tame Valley Canal isn't that far away actually). More interesting even than that was the presence of a Metrobus in Tracline 65 livery, that being the failed experiment in guided bus ways they tried in Erdington in the 1980s. I hope the museum can survive.

Camera software lets you see into the past

2010-07-27T15:06:00.000+01:00

From Wired

"Computational rephotography is a fancy name for photos taken from the exact same viewpoint as an old photograph. Actually, that’s just rephotography. The “computational” part is when software helps out.

I’m a sucker for photos of old street scenes. Seeing familiar parts of your city as they were many decades ago is fascinating, and if people are good enough to snap a new version, you can enjoy the differences of places you have never seen. At Flickr and a site called Historypin, you can see the old shots lined up over the new, like a window into the past..."

The chipophone

2010-07-24T17:29:00.000+01:00

"The Chipophone is a homemade 8-bit synthesizer, especially suited for live chiptune playing. It has been built inside an old electronic organ..."

Last Kodachrome roll processed in Parsons

2010-07-23T19:34:00.000+01:00

From the Wichita Eagle

"PARSONS — Freelance photojournalist Steve McCurry, whose work has graced the pages of National Geographic, laid 36 slides representing the last frames of Kodachrome film on the light board sitting on a counter in Dwayne's Photo Service in Parsons.

He placed a lupe - a magnifier that makes it easier to view film - over one frame and took a closer look at the film.

McCurry told Dwayne's vice president Grant Steinle how he had chosen to shoot the last roll of Kodachrome produced by Eastman Kodak by capturing images around New York..."

110 film is also fading away, i do have a few rolls of (now expired) film in stock. I might dust off my Instamatic soon and see what i can capture.

USB Typewriter

2010-07-20T21:07:00.000+01:00

"The USBTypewriter™ is a new and groundbreaking innovation in the field of obsolescence. Lovers of the look, feel, and quality of old fashioned manual typewriters can now use them as keyboards for any USB-capable computer, such as a PC, Mac, or even iPad! The modification is easy to install, it involves no messy wiring, and does not change the outward appearance of the typewriter (except for the usb adapter itself, which is mounted in the rear of the machine). So the end result is a retro-style USB keyboard that not only looks great, but feels great to use..."

Here is how it works, cute and ultra-retro though i think i would rather have one of these.

Promethean backs Bloodhound supersonic car for landspeed record

2010-07-14T11:44:00.002+01:00

From The Guardian

"Education equipment company Promethean, which floated in March and entered the FTSE 250 last month, is backing a British attempt to smash the world landspeed record.

The Bloodhound supersonic car (SSC) team, led by former land speed record holder Richard Noble, hopes to break through the 1,000mph barrier. That would see it smash the current land speed record of 763mph, which was set in 1997 by former RAF pilot Andy Green, who will also pilot Bloodhound. The attempt on the record will be made in South Africa next year..."

Solar Impulse completes 24-hour flight

2010-07-08T14:41:00.000+01:00

From the Guardian

"An experimental solar-powered plane landed safely today after completing its first 24-hour test flight, proving that the aircraft can collect enough energy from the sun during the day to stay aloft all night.

Pilot André Borschberg eased the Solar Impulse aircraft on to the runway at Payerne airfield, about 31 miles south-west of the Swiss capital, Berne, at 9am local time today..."

MeeGo: Zero to VT320 in Seventeen Seconds

2010-07-07T08:18:00.000+01:00

From OSNews

"MeeGo is a Linux-based operating system designed by Intel and Nokia for netbooks and smart phones. Installing MeeGo on an Eee PC 1000 netbook is quick slick and easy. I found the user interface to be colourful and stylish with many quirky animations. MeeGo's features are easy to discover and it is fast and responsive.

Underneath it all though there is still just a netbook. That means I'm left facing a display screen that has no significant weight behind it. I am left typing on a undersized keyboard that has no life. All of these undesirable features can however be fixed by adding 9kg (~20lbs) of VT320 video terminal. So that is what I did..."

I wonder if i can connect a Volker-Craig VC404 to my Wife's netbook.

Retailers stop sales of analogue TV sets as digital switchover approaches

2010-07-06T17:05:00.001+01:00

From The Guardian

"The death of the analogue television set was officially confirmed today, nearly 85 years after John Logie Baird held his first public display of the capabilities of the box in the corner of the living room that has tranformed our lives.

All the major high street electronics retailers have now stopped selling analogue sets after quietly running down their stocks in recent months, in preparation for the switch to digital terrestrial television (DTT) by 2012..."

8-bit Music

2010-06-27T13:43:00.002+01:00

8 bit music uses old computer consoles and computers to produce an excitingly fresh but warmly retro electronic music. A great site is the 8 Bit Peoples site which has a lot of music you can try for free. There is also Trash80 (a name i have often used myself online, but he has definitely made a lot more of it).

World's First Solar-Powered Blimp Set to Cross the English Channel

2010-06-25T08:55:00.000+01:00

"Can a blimp propelled entirely by solar power cross the English Channel? We’re about to find out! Nephelios, the world’s first solar blimp, was built by Projet Sol’r — a collaboration between students at engineering and technical schools in France. Now, almost a year after its debut (and a year after it was supposed to launch), the helium-filled airship is ready for action — its inaugural flight is set to take place as soon as next week..."

Windows for Workgroups 3.11 finally withdrawn

2008-11-17T10:00:00.003Z

Who knew Windows 3.11 was still available and used? Well obviously the people who used it did, including Virgin and Qantas who use it for some of their inflight entertainment systems and it is also used on some other embedded systems like cash tills. But now Microsoft have finally withdrawn it from service and stopped issuing licences though support was withdrawn as way back as 2001. Oddly enough Windows 3.11 has outlived it's direct successor Windows 95 by some margin.

Virtual affair leads to real divorce

2008-11-14T15:09:00.002Z

A British couple are divorcing after the wife discovered her husband with another woman. Nothing that unusual there of course but the discovery of this illicit liaison was in Second Life. The wife found her husband's online virtual alter-ego "a goatee-bearded, medallion-wearing hombre called Dave Barmy" with a similarly virtual woman. The wife said her husband's affair might be in a virtual world but it was a real affair.

The blurring of the line between the virtual and real-life world is always something that has interested me and i can appreciate her point of view. It might be a situation generated by zeroes and ones but are the thoughts and intentions still the same.

As more of us spend more of our lives in virtual worlds then we need to start considering what laws apply and how. For example (and this is just something that interests me not a query about a possible career change) if i was to become a prostitute in a virtual world like Second Life and sell sex to other users would that be illegal? Especially in virtual worlds where the virtual currency can be exchanged for real loot. Would it stand up in court? (Sorry couldn't resist!)

And on a lighter note...

2008-11-12T15:29:00.002Z

With all this news of doom, gloom and economic boom we need a bit of satire.

Twitbin

2008-11-12T15:14:00.002Z

I have been scathing about Twitter in the past on other blogs, wondering exactly what it was for. It's continued popularity however has led me to give it another try, however this time i am coming armed with... a Firefox plug-in. I wondered if there was a plug-in to allow me to write to my Twitter account directly from FF without having to go to the site, login and all that jazz. Of course there are several. The one i am giving a go to is Twitbin.

It works quite nicely, adding a collapsible sidebar to Firefox and easily allowing you to post to your Twitter feed and see what else is happening on your feed. It actually makes updating your Twitter account quite painless and fast so maybe i will finally use it...

I have also added a Twitter badge to my static homepage (which is basically a portal into my blogs) but the ridiculous caching on the ISP server means i can't actually see if it works (it did work offline so i assume it is OK).

Real-time ship tracker

2008-11-04T13:23:00.003Z

Now this is rather cool, a real time tracker of civilian ships using Automatic Identification System (AIS). Unfortunately not all areas of the globe are covered but those that are are very interesting, especially choke points like the Strait of Gilbraltar where you can see a real traffic jam of ships.

D9 50th Anniversary running day at the Aston Manor Transport Museum

2008-10-19T18:43:00.003+01:00

One of my favourite places to visit is the Aston Manor Transport Museum as old buses are one of my interests, well old buses from the late 1960s to late 1980s anyway. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the BMMO D9 bus as used by Midland Red they held a special running day with some D9s and also Routemasters plus some other buses. I took a trip on a Routemaster and a D9. Bus travel is always a joy in times like this, maybe its because there arn't any awful kids on board who wish you to enjoy their music collection.

The full set of pictures are here, i'm impressed all 62 photos turned out reasonably well even though the camera's battery was in the red.

Neo-Amish

2008-10-17T14:35:00.003+01:00

An interesting article on how some of computing's high priests like Richard Stallman and Donald Knuth actively avoid being online as much as they can, which Kevin Kelly has called "Neo-Amish". I can understand their point of view, being always online seems to breed an anxiety and paranoia especially if you get no messages. And many newer methods of communication like Twitter seem to just exist for the sake of it not for any real perceived benefit.

Thats why i stopped using Twitter anyway, i could no longer see the point. Recently i have also changed how i blog a bit, in the past i used to try and post to all of my blogs at least once a day but no longer. However i do get anxious if a blog hasn't been added to for a few days, but now i am trying to ignore it.

I bought a new watch

2008-10-13T14:23:00.005+01:00

After about 6 years and 4 straps i decided it was finally time to replace my venerable Casio F-91W watch... with the very different F105W (not quite the same as the illustration but close enough). Really to me this is the best watch of all, it does everything you want, keeps the time, lasts for years and is very cheap. Why would anyone get any other kind of watch?

Apparently analogue watches are the vogue now, i can never understand that to be honest. I need to know it is 14:22 and 24 seconds. Maybe i am quite strange? Some say cheap Casio watches like this are not very stylish or elegant but i firmly believe form should follow function and thus the F-91W is a design classic.

US Navy hires kite-assisted ship

2008-10-10T08:12:00.003+01:00

Earlier in the year i wrote an article on alternative propulsion methods for ships including kite-assisted propulsion where wind is used to pull a ship along using a computer optimised kite. Now MV Beluga SkySails has been hired by a rather notable customer, the US Navy's Military Sealift Command. The ship will carry military equipment from Europe to the USA. Considering the USN use a lot of ships and shift a lot of freight if the SkySails concept can reduce fuel costs by 20 to 30% as they claim then it could be a considerable fuel saving.

The Google Navy

2008-09-16T12:54:00.003+01:00

Google are thinking of moving some of their data centres off-shore, literally. Barges up to 11km off the coast could house these data centres taking advantage of the ocean to cool the computers, use wave power to power them and take advantage of tax loopholes which is probably the real slam dunk. There are a few concerns with this, such as the safety of the barges in storms like hurricanes. I suspect they haven't thought about Baidu or Yahoo hiring submarines and sending torpedoes into their data centres though.

They arn't the only company looking into "greener" solutions, Microsoft are looking into building a data centre in Siberia. Thats where you'll get transferred too for introducing too many bugs into Word 2010.

Russia to centralise production of amphibious aircraft / flying boats

2008-09-11T15:35:00.001+01:00

I have a weakness for flying boats i admit, the fact Russia is setting up a single centre for the development and production of flying boats and amphibious aircraft made me smile. The centre will include Beriev of course and the Tavia production plant with a testing base at Gelenzhik on the Black Sea. Production initially will be of the A-42 Albatros, Be103 and Be-200 and newer designs. As well as new aircraft the facility will maintain, repair and modernise existing aircraft. This is all part of the re-organisation of Russian aircraft production as the United Aircraft Corporation.

A-40 "Mermaid"

Be-200 Altair

Be-103

Google aim to digitize newspaper archives

2008-09-09T13:11:00.003+01:00

Google are aiming to digitize every amount of information out there and make it searchable it seems (maybe one day even the notebooks my Mum has kept from the 1970s detailing how much food cost then). The latest step is to digitize the archives of newspapers which is truly going to be a massive task. There are already some of these archives available such as the Times Digital Archive which i find very fascinating. Though i'd really love to see some local newspapers such as the (Birmingham) Evening Mail and Sutton Coldfield News archives, i suspect these might not be in the Google search for a few years...

Google Chrome

2008-09-08T10:55:00.002+01:00

Google Chrome is the new web browser from Yahoo... no just kidding, Google of course. I installed it at work and had a little play. The new interface with it's take on tab browsing takes a little getting used to and of course everything renders correctly as its using the same rendering engine as Safari. I found a flaw with Google Chrome rather early, it supports scrolling down a page with the mouse scroll wheel but not back up! It also did not open right-click-searches in a new tab though that has been fixed now.

Does the world need another web browser, well with Google behind it its no doubt going to be a success. Their aim is to take market share from Internet Explorer but that remains to be seen as i suspect a lot of IE users are locked in for various reasons or don't care. The danger is Chrome will attract users from non-IE browsers and further Balkanise the "alternative".

Tracking the container

2008-09-08T10:44:00.003+01:00

The BBC have an interesting new project, they are going to track a container for a year with a GPS tracker and update a live website. This will show, hopefully, how globalised world trade is as the container goes around the world. Its first journey (according to a TV news report this morning) will be to take whisky to China. I hope it doesn't end up like the container that was marooned on the sports field near my office for 2 years! Track the container here, its currently still in Southampton.

Picasa to offer image recognition

2008-08-31T13:25:00.004+01:00

Personally i am a Flickr user but Picasa is also a highly useful image upload and storage site, and as it is a Google site you can be reasonably assured it will still be around in a few years and being part of the Google network ties you into their searches, maps and other toys. Picasa is about to be improved however and one of the new toys looks very impressive : image recognition. The Guardian writer uploaded some images and Picasa apparently used image recognition to group photos of the same person together. Personally most of my photos are of plants but i'm sure it will be able to do plant recognition too.

Something to keep an eye on (literally) for sure. Best watch for news on the Picasa blog.

Going where no virus has gone before

2008-08-31T13:17:00.002+01:00

A computer virus has infected computers on the International Space Station. The virus, Gammima.AG, however hasn't infected the main life support systems or ejected the crew into space but rather 2 laptops belonging to the crew. NASA are investigating how it got aboard but the thinking it may have been on a USB drive taken up by one of the astronauts. Computers on the ISS are not directly connected to the internet so the virus, a password swiper, won't be able to send any captured passwords back to it's master's den. Yet anyway.

Dead Media isn't dead!

2008-08-19T10:56:00.002+01:00

The Dead Media Project was a site i always enjoyed but for years it was not updated and i feared it was dead itself, but now it finally shows signs of life! Though they are looking for a new maintainer, i admit i am tempted. What is the site? Well its a collection of notes from a mailing list dedicated to "the deceased, the slowly-rotting, the undead, and the never-lived media".

GTF flight testing completes phase 1

2008-08-19T10:41:00.002+01:00

Phase 1 of Pratt & Whitney's Geared Turbofan (GTF)'s flight testing has been completed. Over the course of 12 flights the engine, on a 747 testbed, amassed 43.5 hours in a number of altitudes "exploring the full flight regime". Phase 2 will take place next month on an Airbus A340-600 to continue tests and also to explore acoustic performance. GTF engines are intended for the future Mitusbishi Regional Jet and Bombardier CSeries regional airliners. Airbus and Boeing have not, as yet, announced if they will use the GTF though if it indeed does offer 10%+ improved fuel burn compared to existing engines then it is only a matter of time.

Not Classic Jetliners (8) : Fairchild-Dornier 728

2008-08-18T09:13:00.000+01:00

The Fairchild-Dornier 728 was a good design scuppered by a failing company and only 1 was ever built and never flew. Fairchild bought Dornier in 1996 and publicly announced the 728 soon afterwards to supplement the 328JET. It was intended as a family of regional jets with a design similar to the A320 and 737 able to carry between 55 and 100 passengers.

The first prototype was completed at the end of 2001 and rolled out early the next year. By then 8 customers had placed orders for 125 aircraft with options for over 150 more. The plan was to begin delivered in 2003. However in April 2002 Fairchild-Dornier collapsed and filed for insolvency, even before the neat little 728 could take to the air. Major orders were cancelled soon afterwards.

A Chinese company has shown interest in buying the project but its unlikely now the project will ever come to anything. Especially as the only completed 728 has had it's wings cut off so it could be transported to the German aerospace centre DLR. Two other fuselages were also built.

Return of the barrage balloons?

2008-08-18T09:00:00.001+01:00

One of the blogs i read regularly is Eagle Speak, especially the weekly "Sunday Ship History" which is a historical retrospective. Earlier in the world it was on the use of barrage balloons for anti-aircraft defence.

A good read as always but at the end i noticed with interest in the late 1980s it was suggested by the USAF to use barrage balloons to stop enemy aircraft from flying too low to evade anti-aircraft defences.

That was something i didn't realise about barrage balloons, they were not really intended to trap aircraft with their wires (though it was a bonus if they did) but it was to force the enemy aircraft to fly higher to make them more vulnerable to AA fire and compromise their ability to carry out their attacks.

Orbital Spaceplane test flight

2008-07-31T09:20:00.000+01:00

Boeing and the USAF are preparing for the first test flight of an unmanned military space plane. The X-37B should lift off atop an Atlas V in November from Cape Canaveral and hopefully land in one piece a little later in a runway landing at Edwards AFB in California. The flight will test the operational concept of this type of reusable multi-mission space vehicle which has been in development for a long time though the X-37B is just a test plane and an operational type could be quite different.

Not Classic Jetliners (7) : Boeing 747SP

2008-07-18T09:13:00.000+01:00

The Boeing 747 is of course the iconic Jumbo Jet and the mainstay of the world's long-haul passenger fleets (though to be honest i fly on Airbus A340s to Asia most often these days) and over 1400 have been built to date. However only 45 of these have been the 747SP Special Performance, a heavily modified version for longer range flights.

The 747SP was developed as a shorter-bodied version of the 747-100, this was partly to try and compete in the market with the smaller wide-bodies of the time, the Tristar and DC-10 (and indeed Boeing did explore a 3 engined version of the 747 that looked like someone had cut the tail off a Tristar and stuck it onto the end of a 747) and also for the new market need growing in the late 1970s for ultra-long range routes.

The 747SP looks quite different to a "normal" 747 in having a fuselage around 14m shorter to give it a stubby look but also a taller tail fin (the shorter fuselage caused increased yaw movement) and simpler flaps. The 747SP can carry around 300 passengers in a mixed class layout and has a typical range of 6650nm compared to 5300nm for a fully loaded standard 747-100 (it was the longest range airliner available until the arrival of the 747-400 in the late 1980s). The SP is also faster being able to cruise at Mach 0.88 compared to Mach 0.82 for a -100.

However despite the "special performance" only 45 SPs were built due to the increased oil price in the 1970s and reduced capacity of the type compared to normal 747s. Less than 20 are still in service, many serving as VIP aircraft with Middle Eastern governments.

BA & RR on alternative air fuels

2008-07-16T09:18:00.000+01:00

British Airways and Rolls Royce are working together on alternative fuels for air use (like everyone seems to be these days) and interestingly RR are rather down on non-sustainable biofuels. They want a fuel made from biomass that doesn't compete with food production and say that current biofuels don't cut it yetas they only work down to -5C. Testing of up to 4 alternative fuels will be carried out on a ground rigged RB211.

Leap-X latest next generation airliner powerplant

2008-07-15T09:17:00.001+01:00

We have already mentioned the geared turbofan or GTF from Pratt & Whitney which is one of the contenders to power airliners in the next decade with lower fuel and environmental costs compared to current technology. CFM have now entered the fray too with their Leap-X technology which they say can power the next generation of single-aisle airliners.

CFM, which is a GE & Snecma joint venture, say the Leap-X has no commonality with the mega-selling CFM 56 family and will feature 16% lower fuel consumption than it also with significantly less noise and emissions. Leap-X's new technology includes 3-D woven composite fan blades and a new combuster and will be much lighter than current engines. A demonstrator is planned for later this year with a full rig test in 2010. As far as today's suffering airlines are concerned it can't come quick enough!

Watchkeeper 450 progress

2008-07-14T09:17:00.000+01:00

Derived from the Elbit Hermes 450 and developed by Thales, the British Army's future UAV the Watchkeeper WK450 made it's first flight a few weeks ago and has made a good impression already. The WK450 was said to be a robust and stable aircraft. It differs from the Hermes 450 in having an automated take-off and landing system (as yet not tested), a de-icing system for it's new wing, and a better engine from a UK supplier.

Payload (caution acronym overload!)

For it's ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance) role WK450 will be fitted with a Thales I-Master SAR (synthetic aperture radar) / GMTI (ground moving target indication) sensor and a Elop Compass IV EO (electro-optical) / IR (infrared sensor) with laser target designator. I-Master is said to already give very good resolution with the SAR said to be world-leading but there is still some fine tuning that can be done. Development is being carried out by these systems on other manned and unmanned test aircraft.

Thales are looking into providing WK450 with the ability to process imagary and only sending back revelent imagery via the datalink to reduce the work load on ground controller and image analysts. There are also attempts to fuse the SAR/GMTI and EO/IR data.

Production WK450 airframes will be built in the UK by Lola with production expected to begin in 2009. Elbit will produce their own version called the Hermes 450B. Future growth could see a twin-engined version in the future.

Airship coming soon in shape of neutrally buoyant rotorcraft

2008-07-11T09:16:00.000+01:00

Boeing are to build for Skyhook the JHL-40 (Jess Heavy Lifter) termed a neutrally buoyant rotorcraft which must be the politically correct term for an airship with big engines. The JHL-40 does not carry a lot of gas though, just enough for countering the craft's weight. The JHL-40 is a helium filled airship anyway and will be able to lift 40 tons and transport it 200 miles.

Enabling armchair strategic analysis via Google Earth

2008-07-05T09:45:00.000+01:00

Google Earth is a wonderful tool, i have used it in the past to roam the vast expanses of Siberia, finding the odd strange "thing" here and there. The IMINT and Analysis blog has taken Google Earth analysis to a whole new level and is a blog dedicated to "Open source military analysis, strategic thinking, and Google Earth imagery interpretation" it says.

Something i found last year deep in Siberia, perhaps a forest ranger observation tower or radio antenna.

A few months ago the blog owner went into Syrian air defences in depth, no doubt something professional military planners also do, maybe even with similar imagery (though one assumes the military have better quality). To take a look at the SSBN base article however and you wonder how much better the "professionals" could be!

Open source intelligence tools are being used by people around the world tired of the biased and trivia obsessed media and want to find out whats really happening, of course these things can also let the powerless "play" at being General and target the enemy for destruction. Only without any ICBMs to launch!

Northrop QM-74 Chukar series

2008-06-24T09:19:00.000+01:00

Like the Ryan Firebee the Northrop Chukar is a long-serving UAV which entered service in the 1960s and continues in service and development to the current day. The Chukar is a target drone but saw combat service as a decoy drone later in it's career.

BQM-74F launch (c) Northrop Grumman

The Chukar is a small (just over 3.5m long and with a wingspan of 1.69m) zero-length launched UAV sent into the air using JATO rockets from a ground or ship based launcher and can also, with the Chukar III, be launched from an aircraft such as a Hercules if fitted with an air launch kit. At the end of it's mission or if there is a loss of contact the Chukar deploys a parachute for recovery. A floatation kit can also be fitted. The Chukar is intended to provide for a realistic target for gunnery or missile training.

There have several major versions of the Chukar :

MQM-74A Chukar I
Development began of the Chukar in the early 1960s for the US Navy and it went into production in 1968. Powered by a Williams WR24-6 turbojet and launchable with the assistance of JATO rockets from ship or ground the Chukar I entered service with the US Navy, Royal Navy and Italian Navy.

2300 Chukar Is were built by 1973 when production switched to the Chukar II. The Chukar I platform was also developed into the NV-128 surveillance drone but did not enter service and XBQM-108A experimental UAV (using the engine and guidance system from a Harpoon missile) to research "tailsitter" VTOL.

The Chukar I had a maximum level speed of 489mph / 787km/h and a service ceiling of 40,000ft / 12, 200m. Range (at 20,000ft was 273 miles / 439 km).

The Chukar was guided by radio control with automatic stabilisation using gyros and altitude sensors when the target was out of range. The Chukar was fitted with equipment to augment it's radar reflection and also had infrared flares and visual aids such as flashes to aid visual identification.

MQM-74A being prepared for launch

MQM-74C Chukar II
Fitted with a more powerful Williams WR24-7 turbojet the Chukar II had a higher performance. Speed was increased to 593mph / 954 km/h. Range was also increased. The Chukar II was fitted with an autopilot system for guidance. It replaced the Chukar I in production in the early 1970s.

MQM-74C Chukar II launch

BQM-74C Chukar III
The Chukar III was a further developed target drone from 1978 with a computerised A/A37G-13 flight control system to allow more complicated pre-programmed flight operations, including the ability to be air launched, and powered by a Williams WR24-7A. Over 1,600 Chukar IIIs have been built to date.

BQM-74E
In the mid 1980s the engine was changed to a more powerful J400-WR-404 and has improved guidance and flight control systems to allow it to simulate an anti-ship cruise missile. Using a radar altimeter it can fly as low as 3m. The target augmentation equipment has also been upgraded.

BQM-74F
This is the latest version now in development by Northrop Grumman. Guidance will be GPS/IMU with speed further increased to Mach 0.92 at sea level. The target will also be capable of 8G turns. The BQM-74F can have 6 missions with up to 70 waypoints pre-programmed and the mission can be selected either before or after launch. Northrop say this makes the BQM-74F "the foremost cruise missile replicator available".

The Chukar goes to war

In the 1991 Gulf War Chukar IIIs were used as decoy drones in the second wave of attacks. 37 were launched and began to orbit Baghdad. As the Iraqi radar stations illuminated the Chukars this allowed anti-radiar missiles to strike the radar stations. The decoys were operated by a special team of specialists set up purely for this operation, the team was disbanded after the war. The Chukars were fitted with radar reflectors to mimic the signature of strike fighters. The decoys helped reduce allied aircraft losses from the high number feared to the low number that was suffered in the end.

History & development of Chinese UAVs

2008-06-12T09:19:00.000+01:00

At the November 2006 air show in Zhuhai the Shenyang Aircraft Design and Research Institute unveiled an interesting UCAV concept called Anjian or Dark Sword. The impressive looking model raised eyebrows when it was declared to be for the air-to-air role. A2A is considered to be decades away for UCAVs so it is likely the model is just to show off current thinking in Chinese design and aerodynamics. Given the secrecy that usually surrounds new aviation projects it is unlikely that the real next generation UCAVs are too much like Anjian but it certainly shows that they have come some way like the rest of their aerospace industry.

Dark Sword

China is putting a lot of effort into indigenous UAV development with UAVs being seen as key to the development of tactical C4I and airborne ISR. One problem the army is having is integrating data from UAVs into their operations, it is only recently that Chinese UAVs have been able to relay information back in real-time.

Air force reconnaissance

The first operational reconnaissance UAV with the Chinese air force was the WZ-5 which was based on the Ryan Firebee and entered service in 1981. It is thought the WZ-5 was reverse engineered from captured Firebees downed during missions over Vietnam and China in the 1960s but using Chinese designed surveillance and support equipment. The WZ-5 has been used operationally but has a number of drawbacks such as the lack of real-time datalinking and control. It can only fly a pre-programmed flight profile and has to be retrieved in order to get the imagery taken. Recent WZ-5s are said to be able to carry TV and infrared cameras but still lack real-time datalinks.

A much more advanced UAV is the GAIC WZ-2000 (or WZ-9) which was unveiled for the first time in 2000. The WZ-2000 has a similar configuration to the US RQ-4 Global Hawk. The WZ-2000 has a thermal imaging camera and synthetic aperture radar to give it a full all-weather capability (the WZ-5 was only usable in daylight) and sends data back to base in real time via satellite. The WZ-2000 first flew in the early 2000s.

WZ-2000

Army UAVs

A number of UAVs have been developed by Xi'an ASN Technology Group and are in PLA service. The ASN-104/5 was the first indigenously designed UAV for army service and entered service with the PLA in the late 1980s. Piston engined, it can carry a variety of sensors and could be controlled from the base station or fly along a pre-planned route. The ASN-105B can relay information back in real-time.

The ASN-15 is a battlefield surveillance and intelligence UAV that is in service with the reconnaissance battalions of Chinese army divisions. The 1.8m long UAV is hand-launched by a soldier and can fly for up top an hour returning imagery back to the base station in real time.

ASN-15

The ASN-206 is one of China's most advanced UAVs and as well as surveillance and reconnaissance can also be used for electronic warfare and radiation sampling. The ASN-206 employs a twin-boom pusher propeller design and has a real-time datalink back to it's operators. It was one of the first Chinese UAVs to offer real-time datalinks as earlier UAVs in PLA service like the ASN-104 needed to be recovered to get the data back. The ASN-206 was developed in the mid-1990s, reportedly with the assistance of the Israeli company Tadiran Spectralink.

Target drones

A major type of drone used by the PLAAF is the ChangKong-1, a reverse-engineered copy of the Soviet era Lavochkin La-17C. The CK-1 is a subsonic radio controlled target powered by a turbojet. The CK-1 entered service in the 1970s and has also been used for atmosphere sampling after nuclear tests. Later versions of the CK-1 were optimised for low-level and high-agility to enable a variety of training scenarios.

CK-1

Xi'an ASN Technology Group have also produced a number of propeller driven target drones such as the ASN-7, a simple propeller and straight winged radio controlled aeroplane. Some of these are China's earliest UAVs being developed from the late 1960s onwards.

A more recent development has been the TianJian-1 which is intended to simulate cruise missiles. The TJ-1 entered service in 2005 and can be guided by remote control or by GPS.

The next generation?

Chinese UAV development started off reverse-engineering or copying US and Soviet types and along the way there has been some help from Israel but now China has a thriving UAV industry. Many new types of UAVs now in development in China from a number of companies. Beijing Black Buzzard Aviation Technology unveiled a couple of new types to be powered by micro-turbines. The 3.2m long rail-launched HFT-60A is said to be capable of 600km/h with an endurance of 3 hours on a pre-programmed flight, the similar HFT-40A is slower. It is intriguing that the company have gone for high-speed yet low-endurance UAV which is the opposite of most other manufacturers!

The company also demonstrated another UAV that is able to take off from unprepared strips (and presumably land again) and has a joined wing and pusher propeller configuration.

Joined wing UAV

Autosub6000, Britain's new robot submarine

2008-06-11T09:29:00.000+01:00

Undersea volcanoes 6km below the Caribbean will be searched for and explored by Britain's new robot submarine the Autosub6000. The Cayman Trough between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands is the world's deepest volcanic ridge and unexplored. Autosub6000 can dive to more than 6000 metres and operate without control from the surface. First of all it will try and find the volcanic vents, once found the sediments, gas and life living there will be catalogued.

Autosub6000 is an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) that can be equipped with a variety of sensors such as cameras, sonars and samplers. It is guided using "an Ixsea PHINS Fiber Optic Gyro (FOG) based Inertial Navigation System".

Not Classic Jetliners (6) : Shanghai Y-10

2008-06-08T09:12:00.000+01:00

The Y-10 was the first attempt by China to produce it's own jet airliner and until the ARJ21 takes off later this year the only attempt. The Y-10 was developed by the Shanghai Aviation Industrial Company in the 1970s as a four engined passenger transport to free China from dependence on foreign suppliers. The Y-10 looks very much like a Boeing 707, which China did have a small number of at the time, though it has been denied that it was an example of reverse engineering.

The programme was also started to give the Chinese aviation industry experience with large jet powered transports and for national pride. Politics in fact were heavily tied up in the project which was spearheaded by Wang Hongwen. As he, and the Mao era, fell out of favour so did enthusiasm for the Y-10 which was increasingly seen as a throwback to the days of isolationism.

In 1980 the Y-10 made it's first flight but the only flyable Y-10 (another airframe was used for static testing) made 130 flights before being retired in 1983. The project was cancelled for cost and technical reasons though politics is likely to have been the main reason. No high-up party officials attended the Y-10's maiden flight because it was tainted with Wang Hongwen. Instead China began to licence produce the McDonnell Douglas MD-80.

As the 707 is my favourite jet airliner of all its a shame the Y-10 never took off (so to speak). There was some development work on a possible AWACS version however in the end China used the Il-76.

Not Classic Jetliners (5) : Dassault Mercure 100

2008-05-28T09:11:00.000+01:00

This series is about jet airliners which failed, either technically or in most cases commercially. With only 12 examples built and 11 sold the French Dassault Mercure 100 was probably the least successful jet airliner of all time. Work began on the Mercure in the late 1960s to produce a competitor to the Boeing 737. The design was similar to the 737 though at 140 passengers capacity was a larger aircraft (the 737-200 being able to carry less than 120).

The Mercure was the first French jet airliner since the successful Caravelle and was designed using Dassault's experience with jet fighters like the Mirage so that it had good high-speed characteristics, indeed was faster than the 737, and had good low-speed lift with it's advanced (for the time) wing. The first Mercure took to the air in 1971.

Unfortunately Dassault could not sell it to anyone, the only order coming from French airline Air Inter. The main reason is thought to have been the poor range of the Mercure compared to it's competitors like the 737 and DC-9. The Mercure was designed for European air routes with a maximum loaded range of 400 miles whereas it's competitors typically had longer range which added to the operational flexibility.

Just 10 production aircraft and 2 prototypes were made, far less than the hundreds originally envisaged. One of the prototypes was later sold to Air Inter. All 11 examples served their airline well, though Air Inter did receive a government subsidy. The Mercure was finally retired in 1995 after 20 years of trouble free service.

Dassault tried to revive the design with versions that had more range, capacity and improved engines but these designs came to naught.

Geared turbofans

2008-05-18T09:09:00.000+01:00

The next big thing in aircraft propulsion is the geared turbofan which should begin to enter service early in the next decade on the new Mitsubishi Regional Jet and Bombardier C Series, but what is it? Flight International explain it well :

A conventional turbofan is divided into high and low pressure spools, each consisting of a compressor and turbine. The low-pressure spool drives the fan and provides most of the propulsive power. The fan works best at slower speeds, while the rest of the spool - the compressors and turbines - are more efficient running at high speeds.

A geared turbofan introduces a reduction gearbox (as you might have guessed) between the fan and the turbine so they both operate at optimum speed.

GTF ground test

Pratt & Whitney's GTF is currently in development and it is hoped to deliver fuel savings of between 10 and 10% as well as cutting noise. The GTF is still ground testing but already has impressed some potential customers and has gained the attention of many airlines around the world.

Californian smog to be studied by UAVs

2008-05-17T09:10:00.000+01:00

Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography are going to use unmanned aircraft to study Southern Californian air pollution and the region's potential for climate change. The California AUAV Air Pollution Profiling Study (CAPPS) began last month and will gather meteorological data from clouds and the atmosphere over the region until next January. It is thought the region's climate such as it's tendency to trap smog could make the region prone to climate change consequences such as dimming at low levels. Monthly UAV flights will provide data to help evaluate the long-term effects of pollution.

Flights are taking place from Edwards Air Force Base and have to use military airspace because of rules governing the operation of UAVs in civilian airspace.

A growing market for efficiency in air travel

2008-05-13T09:08:00.001+01:00

The news that Boeing have over 130 orders for an upgrade pack to older versions of their 777 airliner that offers fuel savings of 1% is no surprise given the increases in the price of oil over the last few years and greater competition between carriers. 1% may not seem much but it could save $300,000 per year per aircraft.

Its part of a growing effort to push for greater fuel efficiency of new airliners and improving existing airliners, especially the older aircraft in airline's fleets. American Airlines for example are fitting new tail cones to their McDonnell Douglas MD-80 to reduce fuel use via less drag (and happily thus CO2 emissions). Many efforts to save weight are ongoing, even down to lighter cutlery for the inflight meals.

Its not just the hardware. How airliners fly, and especially land, is also being looked at. ECO-Descend for example allows a pilot to slow down if they are ahead of schedule. Aircraft may also be able to choose their own flight path, a system to allow this is to introduced in Sweden this year.

As oil continues it's rise airlines and airliner manufacturers no doubt will continue their efforts to save fuel. In the next decade we should see the arrival of geared turbofans for example (which i will look at in more detail later).

Look what turned up on the beach

2008-05-07T09:07:00.000+01:00

Last December the USAF 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron finally phased out the evergreen BQM-34P Firebee target drone, on December the 12th in fact. The Firebee was replaced by the much more advanced BQM-167A Skeeter however things haven't all gone to plan. Last month (yeah i know, come to this blog for the latest news) two Skeeters washed up on the shore near Fort Morgan, Alabama by "spring break revelers". The target drones had been launched in late March and shot down but were not able to be recovered due to the rough sea conditions at the time. They sank and drifted until ending up on the beach, maybe they just wanted to join the party.

Lavochkin La-17 / CAF Chang Kong 1

2008-04-28T09:21:00.000+01:00

The Lavochkin La-17 began flight tests in the 1950s and was one of the first Soviet UAVs to enter service. It was a small radio-controlled target drone used for training surface-to-air missile battery crews and interceptor aircraft pilots. The La-17 had a pretty simple configuration with a slim fuselage straight wings and tail surfaces and a ramjet under the fuselage. The drone was air launched and landed belly first. The ramjet was considered expendable.

The La-17 was rather crude however and also expensive to operate because of the need for a carrier aircraft and was soon supplemented by the ground launched La-17M which was turbojet powered and launched from a trolley using rocket assistance. Later improvements added an autopilot, the ability to operate at low-level and a landing skid to avoid damage to the engine when it landed.

The Soviet Union explored using the La-17 as a reconnaissance drone, the La-17R appeared in the early 1960s with a longer nose able to carry a variety of reconnaissance sensors including cameras, TV cameras and radiation monitoring equipment. The last version of the drone was the La-17K which had a different engine based on the engine used in the MiG-21. Some may still be in Russian Air Force use today.

The Chang Kong 1

China received a number of La-17s in the late 1950s but when relations between the USSR and China cooled and stocks of the drone ran low the Chinese reverse-engineered the drone and started to produce their own. The Shenyang B-5 or Chang Kong 1 is their version of the La-17 and continues in production to this day at the Changzhou Aircraft Factory (CK-1G).

The Chinese have continued to improve the CK-1 as it is known with the high manoeuvrability CK-1C appearing in the mid-1980s able to make bank turns of up to 77 degrees and the CK-1E for extra low level missions. A radiation sampling version, CK-1A, was also built for sampling air in the aftermath of Chinese nuclear tests.

Technical details

The CK-1 autopilot stabilises the drone in response to radio commands from the control station though the first 85 seconds of flight are pre-programmed. Up to 24 different command signals can be sent to the autopilot and in return there is a 52 channel telemetry downlink allowing the controller to keep tabs on altitude, speed, engine rpm et cetera. An onboard radar transponder allows the drone to be identified and tracked.

For aerial target use the CK-1 has a miss-distance indicator, infra-red augmentation pods, radar reflectors and smoke generators to aid visual tracking. The CK-1E has flares instead of smoke. The CK-1s these days are powered by WP6 turbojets taken from retired J-6 fighters. The CK-1 has a speed of around 900km/h with a flight endurance between 45 and 60 minutes.

McDonnell GAM-72 / ADM-20 Quail

2008-04-22T09:22:00.000+01:00

As the Cold War began to develop in the 1950s the US Air Force began to look for new ways to protect their bombers as they overflew the Soviet Union. Height was no longer a defence against the new generation of interceptors and missiles (both ground and air launched). The USAF began to develop decoy missiles that would confuse the enemy air defences. McDonnell pitched a design for a decoy missile that could be carried in a bomber's bomb bay with it's wings folded and then launched when needed. The idea being bombers would carry these decoys along with their weapon load and launch the decoys to confuse enemy air defences. Given more targets it was then hoped that more bombers would be able to penetrate the air defences. In 1956 they were awarded a contract to develop Weapon System 122A of which the GAM-72 Green Quail decoy was a part.

ADM-20 Quail as preserved at the USAF Museum

The GAM-72 Green Quail (later ADM-20 Quail) was a small (for a Cold War aircraft anyway being 3.88m long and having a wingspan of 1.65m) fibre-glass UAV powered by a J85 turbojet. It had a range of 716km and could fly at Mach 0.9.

Pretending to be a B-52

How then could a small drone pretend to be a huge manned bomber? To be effective the Quail had to appear exactly the same as a B-52 would on the enemy's radar. A combination of radar reflectors, chaff, infra-red emitters and electronic repeaters was used to give the Quail as close a signature as possible to the B-52. The design of the Quail with it's slab sides and multiple vertical flying surfaces also contributed to it's radar cross section. (Its kind of ironic that in the days of stealth aircraft here is one that was designed to be exactly the opposite!)

But the Quail not only had to look like a B-52, it had to act like one too. It's performance had to be close or identical to the bomber. The GAM-72 was programmed on the ground before a mission and could fly for up to nearly an hour, changing direction twice in that time and speed also. Later on the GAM-72 was modified to operate at lower altitudes, a barometric altimeter being used to avoid it slamming into the ground. The GAM-72 is an early example of a cruise missile though it never carried a weapon payload.

Service life

In the early 60s the ADM-20 (as it was re designated in 1963) was built in the hundreds. It went fully operational in 1962 and stayed in service until 1978 (it did remain on the USAF books until 1989) though by the early 1970s it was considered obsolete. Improvements in radar technology meant the Quail was no longer considered effective as a decoy. In an exercise in the early 1970s radar operators were able to tell the difference between the Quail and a real target 21 times out of 23. The Commander of Strategic Air Command is said to have written that the Quail was at least better than nothing!

A major reason for the Quail's obsolescence though was the fact that nuclear bombers no longer needed to overfly their targets but could fire "stand off" missiles from some way off. The Quail was, however, the most successful decoy missile fielded by the USAF in the Cold War.

Quail with a B-52 (from Boeing Multimedia Library)

Not Classic Jetliners (4) : Hawker Siddeley Trident

2008-04-18T09:10:00.000+01:00

A competitor to the much more successful Boeing 727, the Hawker Siddeley Trident was designed during the 1950s as a short & medium range jet airliner able to carry about 110 passengers. The design, at the time a de Havilland project (the DH 121), was the first airliner with 3 jet engines and the first tri-jet design with the engines all at the rear of the plane, this configuration was was also taken up by the 727 and Russian Tu-154.

The Trident 1, designed to a BEA (British European Airlines) requirement, first flew in early 1962. BEA had insisted on a smaller aircraft than originally envisaged (it could carry 98 passengers) unfortunately other potential customers like American Airlines wanted a bigger aircraft. American Airlines bought the 727 instead which ironically was much closer to the original DH 121 design than the Trident 1. The Trident entered service with BEA in 1964 and was the first civil aircraft fitted with a flight recorder and be equipped for automatic blind landings for use in adverse weather conditions such as fog. In 1966 the Trident was the first airliner to land in fog.

Throughout the 1960s there were continuous improvements to the design including the Trident 1E which was close to the original DH 121 size carrying 140 passengers and the 2E which had further capacity and extra range. The latter achieved a notable sale when 33 were ordered the Chinese national airline CAAC and Chinese air force. One Chinese Trident was lost in mysterious circumstances over Mongolia when Lin Biao was using it to try and defect to the USSR. The official story is that the Trident ran out of fuel. A Trident has also been left marooned at Nicosia International Airport which has been abandoned since 1974 due to the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus.

The final version, the Trident 3 had a 5m fuselage plug and was able to carry up to 180 passengers. The Trident 3 was actually a 4 engined aircraft as it had a small RB162 turbojet which could be used for take-offs, the Tridents had a reputation for needing plenty of runway to get airborne so the extra boost was especially welcome in the larger Trident 3! The reason for the problems with take-off was that the wing was optimised for high speed (the Trident was one of the fastest subsonic jet airliners) and not lift at low speeds.

Trident development ceased in the early 1970s and small sales continued but total production of the Trident was just 117 when the last example was delivered in 1978. Although technically advanced the Trident was an expensive airliner to operate and had a rival with Boeing's marketing muscle and name behind it. The rival 727 had sales of 1832.

No Tridents are thought to be active today, British Airways who inherited the BEA fleet withdrew them in the 1980s though they remained in service in China until the 1990s. A number of Tridents have been preserved or are in use in various locations for fire training.

Supersonic synfuel and fuel cells

2008-04-14T09:04:00.000+01:00

The US Air Force are moving into alternative jet fuel in a big way, indeed they want all of their aircraft to be certified to be able to use a 50:50 blend of synthetic and normal jet fuel by 2011. The B-52 and C-17 has already flown using this blend and the next step is the B-1 bomber which will soon make the first supersonic flight using the blend. The F-15 is also being tested.

The synthetic fuel is a gas to liquid fuel made by Shell, though in the longer term (i.e. 2016) the USAF want to use a coal derived synthetic fuel.

Boeing have also demonstrated a small motor-glider which was modified to fly under a combination of fuel cells and an lithium-ion battery. The battery was used to boost power at take off and landing though the motor-glider flew on fuel cell alone on level flight. Using fuel cells reduced emissions across the board (CO2, infrared and noise) though is expected to be used more for unmanned aircraft.

Not Classic Jetliners (3) : Boeing 737-100

2008-03-28T09:08:00.000Z

Wait, isn't this series about jetliners that were a commercial flop? Haven't there been 1000s of 737s built? Indeed the Boeing 737 is the most successful jet airliner to date with well over 5000 built to date but of that only 30 were of the original -100 variant. Design of the 737 began in 1964 with market research showing the need for an airliner that could carry up to 60 people later increased to 100 in consultation with the launch customer Lufthansa. However United Airlines wanted a stretched version which became the 737-200.

Boeing 737-100 prototype - Boeing image

The first 737-100 first took off on April 1967 with delivery to Lufthansa at the end of that year. However Lufthansa remained the only major customer of the type. Everyone else was buying the stretched -200 variant like crazy. Only 30 737-100s were built but over 1000 -200s. Most were to Lufthansa though the prototype was later sold to NASA.

Boeing 737 prototype in NASA service - NASA image

None of the 30 737-100s remain in service, the NASA plane being retired after 30 years of service and is now preserved in Seattle. So why did the 737-100 fail? The difference between the 2 types was not that great, the -200 was just less than 2 metres longer, but the passenger load was higher enough to appeal much more to customers. It was probably the snowball effect in sales and there being no point in Boeing promoting 2 variants that killed off the -100.

New built 737-100s were also ordered by Malaysian Airlines and Avianca though Lufthansa had 22 of the 30. The final -100 in civil service was with Aero Continente in Peru and was retired in 2005. The -100 was involved in 1 accident though there were luckily no fatalities.

Fairey Queen & Robot Seaplanes

2008-03-20T09:15:00.000Z

RPVs (Remotely Piloted Vehicles) date back to just a few years after the Wright brothers first took to the air. The brilliant but easily distracted inventor Professor A.M. Low was set the task early in the first world war of producing remotely controlled pilotless aircraft. These were the first guided missiles. Early RPVs were also used as aerial targets.

As the war progressed both the British and Americans developed more RPVs again mostly flying bombs and targets. These did tend to be specially built small aircraft. Control was either using radio or the RPV could have it's flight preset especially in the case of early "aerial torpedos". The launch crew had to estimate the distance to the target and then set the RPV off in the correct direction. Gyroscopes aboard kept the aircraft in the right direction and barometer the altitude. Once the RPV had traveled the correct distance (and so was over the target) the engine stopped and explosive bolts detached the wings so dropping the fuselage and explosives on the target.

However early flying bombs were not very reliable, many veered off course and were never seen again. More luck was had with aerial targets. One of which gave the Royal Navy a wakeup call as to the vulnerability of their ships to aerial attack. In the early 1920s tests led by the American General "Billy" Mitchell had showed that warships could be sunk by bombers. However his tests had been against withdrawn old warships without crews. In response to the tests the Royal Navy said that the bombers had not destroyed crewed warships that could move and shoot back!

An ex-German battleship is hit during Mitchell's anti-ship bombing demonstration in 1921

Therefore to settle the argument the Fairey Queen target drone was created, the first in a long line of full-scale pilotless drone aircraft. The Queen was a modified Fairey IIIF floatplane, a catapult launched aircraft which was used for reconnaissance by the Royal Navy, 3 being converted to Queens. Apart from installing radio gear the Queen also had some aerodynamic modifications to improve stability, however the first couple of pilotless flights came to quick inglorious endings as the drones crashed as soon as they left the catapult launcher on a RN warship (the HMS Valient).

Fairey IIIF floatplane

However once the last remaining Queen could get properly airborne it proved it's use in a test in January 1933. For two hours it flew over RN warships and survived their concentrated firepower! On a later test RN gunners did finally shoot down the Fairey Queen but by then the lesson had (hopefully) been learned! No more Fairey Queens existed but later on in the decade a remote controlled version of the Tiger Moth, the Queen Bee, was built in large numbers and could be seen on many a gunnery range both at sea or over land.

Whether the term "drone" for RPVs came about because of the name "Queen Bee" and it's connection to drone bees is unknown but it is a distinct possibility.

Nowadays there are a few projects to create a drone that can take off and land in water. Warrior Aero-Marine have begun flying their GULL 24 and 36 seaplane UAVs. The GULL 36, which is now the focus of trials, is an 4m wingspan craft has begun trials in the English Channel. The UAV has a new patented stepless seaplane hull which Warrior say improves performance and it helps the plane to handle waves twice as high as conventional seaplanes. The hull is also better at piercing waves allowing for higher taxi speeds and better surface performance.

The GULL series is designed to help users avoid awkwardness of VTOL and ramp launched systems and can be fitted with landing gear for full amphibious operation.

UK aerial targets

2008-03-05T09:14:00.000Z

Aerial Target Systems is the term used in the UK for UAVs and other projectiles used to emulate aerial threats for the testing and training of the various anti-air warfare systems deployed by the the 3 arms of the UK armed forces. Here we will look at the various systems currently used. These systems will be operated by QinetiQ in the Combined Aerial Target Service (CATS) who are to be responsible for all UK aerial target requirements.

BTT-3 Banshee

The Banshee, built by Meggitt Defense Systems, is a piston-engine powered delta winged target that has been in UK service for 20 years and is used by over 40 other countries. The catapult launched Banshee can be remote-controlled in visual range or beyond that by using it's own autopilot with GPS tracking. When they are set to fly autonomously one ground station can operate up to 4 Banshees.

The Banshee can be quickly modified to suit the mission using a variety of plug-in modules including flares, IR sources and a radar altimeter for low-level flight down to as low as 5m.

Falconet

Falconet, by Flight Refuelling Ltd., and is a fast jet powered target used as the primary trainer for the British Army's Rapier SAMs. The Falconet can be programmed for a variety of attack profiles including low-level and sea-skimming.

Falconet can take off with JATO assistance or more economically from a circular runway. It can carry it's own towed target. It can also be fitted with a variety of equipment including signature enhancers and miss distance indicators.

Mirach 100/5

The Mirach, made by Italian company Finmeccania, is a jet powered subsonic aerial target used by the Royal Navy. It has replaced the Chukar II. The Mirach can be controlled using remote control or fly a pre-programmed flight guided by it's Global Positioning System/Inertial navigation system.

Mirach can be fitted with a variety of equipment including distance indicators, flares and chaff, other smaller drones and interestingly a rearward facing video camera which must have provided a few interesting views of incoming missiles which has included exercises with RN Sea Dart and RAF Sidewinder missiles.

Satellite imagery reveals damages to Iraqi ancient sites

2008-02-28T08:59:00.001Z

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003 the archaeological and historical sites (indeed one of the cradles of civilisation) have suffered from neglect and looting. There have been many reports of sites and museums looted for artifacts, some later recovered but many gone for good and destroyed. Analysis of new satellite imagery covering over 10,000 square kilometres covering 1900 sites and comparing to older images reveals the extent of the looting and damage.

Archaeologist Elizabeth Stone at Stony Brook University in the USA was able to identify holes made by looters at the various sites and see if they were new or existed before the Gulf War. Stone identified 213 sites which had been extensively looted.

Reference :

"Satellite images reveal extent of harm to Iraq's archaeological sites" - Thaindian News (03/03/08)

Not Classic Jetliners (2) : VFW Fokker 614

2008-02-19T09:06:00.000Z

The VFW 614 is unusual for a couple of reasons. It was a German designed and built jetliner (though not the first) and also had it's engines on top of the wings instead of underneath like everyone else. The VFW 614 was designed to be a small regional jet and the engines were mounted above the wings to allow usage from rough airstrips. The first VFW 614 took off in 1971.

Picture from Flug Revue

Sales were slow however, glacially slow for a number of reasons. The VFW 614 was born into the early 1970s oil shock and also was affected by Rolls-Royce's troubles at the start of that decade. By the time of the first delivery to a customer in 1975 only 10 had been ordered. In the end only 13 were bought by 3 airlines and 3 were also bought by the Luftwaffe, 21 being built in total though only 19 flew. The VFW 614 programme was cancelled in 1977. Those in airline service apparently did not last very long though the Luftwaffe examples remained in service until 1999. One remains in service with the German Aerospace Centre as an "in-flight-simulator" and has been fitted with Fly-by-Wire control systems though is it due for replacement by an Airbus A320.

Picture from Friends of the VFW 614 website

It is a shame the cute little VFW 614 was not a success, in many ways it was ahead of it's time. The market it was intended for did not really take off (pardon the pun) until the 1990s. The programme was a costly failure for VFW Fokker but it did in the end prepare VFW for working on the Airbus project and we all know how well that has gone. A number of these good looking airliners are on display and one has been restored and cleaned up by the Friends of the VFW 614!

Public domain image

Drug smuggling using a submarine

2008-02-18T08:57:00.000Z

For some reason the Penguin's submarine in the original Batman movie sprang to mind when i read this. For some time now there have been rumours of drug smugglers off the coast of the U.S.A. using mini-submarines or semi-submersibles to evade detection and capture by the U.S. Coast Guard and other naval units. Now one has been captured.

The submarine nicknamed "Big Foot" by the USCG was able to carry 4 tons of cargo travelling mostly underwater. Its said that other submarines in the cartel's fleet can carry 15 tons of the white stuff.

Defending airliners against terrorist attack

2008-01-28T08:54:00.000Z

A sign of the times, fitting airliners with equipment to defend against a missile attack. Three 767s owned by American Airlines will be fitted with the system developed by BAE Systems. The system detects the heat from an incoming missile and uses a laser to jam or confuse the missile's guidance. How tech! But there are said to be thousands of unaccounted for MANPADs (man portable anti-aircraft missile systems) and several incidents were commercial aircraft have been targeted by these weapons so the need is there.

The test on the 3 airliners will not entail testing the laser beams however but is to test the effect the attached system has on the aircraft's aerodynamics and everyday operations. Israeli airline El Al has already installed an anti-missile system on some airliners, said to be in a response to the possession of SA-7 missiles by Hamas. Of course in 2002 an El Al airliner was targeted by missiles in Kenya. British Airways have also considered it.

So what exactly are these defence systems? The articles do not specify what system is to be tested though BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman have developed a military system called AAQ-24 Nemesis which includes laser turrets so i assume the American Airlines airliners are being fitted either with this system or a derived one.

Of course countermeasures to held defend again incoming missiles have been around for as long as there have been anti-aircraft missiles. In the past aircraft dispensed flares (for infrared seeking threats) and chaff (for radar guided threats) but modern IR guided missiles are not so easily fooled by flares anymore. Nemesis is a Directional Infrared Countermeasures (DIRCM) which basically means the countermeasure is directed against the threat not sprayed everywhere. Ultraviolent sensors detect and track the incoming missile and then the laser jammer is targeted at the missile to hopefully confuse it enough to send it off course.

References :

BAE Systems gets funding for anti-missile testing - Flight International (07/01/08)
El Al Airlines installs anti-missile systems on passenger aircraft - Haaretz (15/02/06)
AN/AAQ-24(V) NEMESIS - Northrop Grumman brochure

Return of the sailing cargo ship?

2008-01-28T08:53:00.000Z

As fuel costs grow and worries about finite hydrocarbon fuels increase mankind is finally looking seriously at alternative forms of power it seems. One is to harness the power of the wind to power a ship. Now this may seem familiar! Sail powered commercial ships had largely disappeared from the high seas by the mid-part of the 20th century but now they could be going to make a comeback... kind of.

A German company, Beluga Shipping GmbH, has fitted a freighter with a giant kite (which can be described as a kite ship though the company seem to prefer to call it a skysail naturally). The MS Beluga SkySails has been fitted with a paraglider type device with 320m² sail area that can help pull the ship along in favourable conditions.

Computer optimisation and control is used to make the most of the wind and it is hoped this can help reduce fuel consumption by up to 35%. Some are doubting the viability of the scheme according to the news report (some unnamed "experts") and also have voiced concerns over safety though the idea has been used on land vehicles so why not give it a try. Bigger sails are planned. It may look a bit strange but if it can reduce running costs by $6000 a day as is claimed by the company then no one would worry about that!

This isn't the first time someone has tried to resurrect the sail for commercial shipping. In the 1970s and 1980s the U.S. and Japan were among those looking at such hybrid sail-diesel powered ships. One example was the Shin-Aitoku Maru by the Japanese company Aitoku. This was an oil tanker that could unfurl computer controlled sails during wind to augment it's diesel powerplant. Computers aboard made adjustments between the sail and diesel power to achieve the most fuel efficient propulsion. Fuel savings of 10-15% were claimed over a 3 year trial period compared to a sister ship which just had diesel power.

Other people are working on using sails for commercial shipping too, such as this article from 2005 shows on a car ferry design.

References :

"Giant kite can help ships cut fuel use" - Times of India website
"Riding the wind" - TIME magazine October 1980
Shin Aitoku Maru photo from Jane's Merchant Ships 1982 (taken from here)

Solar powered carbon dioxide derived fuel

2008-01-23T08:56:00.000Z

The search goes on for alternative sources of fuel once the "oil runs out" (mind you there have been some recent big finds off the coast of Brazil showing that oil might be around for awhile yet). Now this latest alternative sounds like a wet dream : using solar power to turn carbon dioxide into fuel!

US government Sandia scientists have developed what they call the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5). This uses sunlight to turn CO2 into carbon monoxide. This is then mixed with water to produce hydrogen and CO2, and that CO2 is in turn converted back into carbon monoxide. This is then mixed with the hydrogen to create syngas. This can then be converted into a heavy paraffin wax which can then be refined into fuel using conventional refinery methods. There you go, easy.

This process is said to be "a good 15 to 20 years away from being on the market".

References :

"Jet fuel from solar-powered carbon disassociation process possible, say scientists" - Flight International
"'Huge' gas field found off Brazil" - BBC News

Law enforcement blimps over Caracas

2008-01-18T08:52:00.000Z

An article i read earlier this year on a new initiative in law enforcement in Venezuela could have interesting ramifications elsewhere especially in places like Iraq. According to this Reuters article the police in Caracas have bought a number of remotely controlled blimps to assist in law enforcement (not actually Zeppelins as the article states as this name implies rigid airship not a blimp but anyway). The unmanned airships will perform a monitoring role similar to as is performed by helicopters elsewhere but with a number of advantages. Helicopters are expensive to run and noisy, airships are much cheaper and an unmanned airship can remain on station for a much longer period because of the inherent advantage of lighter-than-air aircraft : they do not use up fuel to stay airborne. The airships will carry cameras to relay messages to the Police HQ.

HanGIS HAN1430 blimp

The idea of using blimps for law enforcement isn't new, an article in the 1981 Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbook of Science and the Future ("The Airship Returns" by Norman J. Mayer) mentioned the possibility of replacing helicopters with airships for some police operations. Much lower cost of operation and noise plus the ability for much longer endurance were cited as major advantages for these kinds of machines. A problem airships have suffered of course is that they are considered old fashioned.

Of course the major user of the airship was the Germans between 1900 and 1940, they used the airship for reconnaissance and bombing in the first world war and in the interwar period for passenger and cargo transport. The combat effectiveness of the airship was soon surpassed by the aeroplane however and indeed it can be seen that during WW1 airship design hardly evolved but aeroplane technology increased at an incredible rate (Stephenson 2004). The fact an airship was a huge slow moving bag of highly inflammable gas didn't help matters of course. Weather has also been an enemy of the airship with many lost due to storms .

The usage of helium instead of hydrogen and the non-rigid smaller blimp design saw airships see combat experience in the US up until 1961 (Gunston 1985), blimps providing an invaluable role in anti-submarine warfare and later for AEW. Again their endurance proving invaluable. However the US Navy considered the airship to be "archaic" and disbanded their fleet.

US Navy N Class Blimp

In the late 1970s and 1980s, with the blimp being largely reduced to the commercial Goodyear blimps, attention once again turned to the airship however, this time as an unmanned surveillance platform with incredible endurance. One project was Lockheed's Hi-Spot. This was a design for a high-altitude unmanned airship for surveillance and over the horizon targeting. It would have taken advantage of materials not available to Count Zeppelin such as kevlar and tedlar to give it a very strong yet light envelope. Computer control would be used to optimise the fuel use though solar power would also be possible to augment the finite fuel supply. Indeed a high altitude airship would be an excellent contender for solar power. Stated endurance for such a type was 100 days but maybe even longer.

Solar power would also be an option in warmer climes such as Iraq for example even if the blimp would operate at lower altitude. An unmanned surveillance blimp could have very long endurance if it could use solar power as much as possible, just using it's fuel supply for "action moments". The stated payload of a Caracas style blimp is 20KG so it would not be possible to arm such a blimp to counter any insurgency it discovered. However on station UCAVs like the MQ-9 Reaper could be vectored in and use targeting information from the blimp's sensors. A larger blimp might have the payload to carry armament but it would also become a very easy target (though this may be reduced by use of transparent material for the envelope perhaps). The Caracas blimp has a length of nearly 15m and a height of 5.5m so to carry a larger payload would require a fairly large blimp!

References :

"Venezuela launches Zeppelin to tackle rampant crime" by Christian Oliver (Reuters 2007)
"Zeppelins : German Airships 1900-1940" by Charles Stephenson (Osprey 2004)
"Warplanes of the future" by Bill Gunston (Salamander 1985)
"The Airship Returns" by Norman J. Mayer - 1981 Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbook of Science and the Future (Encyclopedia Britannica 1980)

Using Google Earth to discover archaeological sites

2008-01-14T08:56:00.000Z

An excellent tool for archaeologists is aerial survey photography which can be used to reveal the outlines of buried ancient sites much easier than a ground-based observer would be able to. Until the advent of Google Earth access to this kind of imagery was difficult and expensive but now of course anyone can view it for free (well anyone with a decent computer and internet connection anyway). Archaeologists are now using Google Earth to look for previously unknown archaeological sites.

Archaeologist Scott Madry used Google Earth to search for the Celtic Aedui in Burgundy, France. He found 101 possible sites, though he did know where to look and what to look for. The first person to discover ancient ruins however was probably Luca Mori who was looking at his own home in GE when he discovered some unusual shading nearby. He contacted local archaeologists who investigated and found it was the remains of a Roman villa!

References :

"Web lets UNC prof do armchair archaeology" - News & Observer
"Internet maps reveal Roman villa" - BBC News

Not Classic Jetliners (1) : Convair 880

2008-01-13T09:05:00.000Z

In a new series i will be looking back to some of the jet airliners that never made it. These are jetliners i (usually) love but were commercial failures. This series thus harks back to a day when there was more than just Boeing and Airbus to fly on.

It is pretty much forgotten these days but back in the classic days of Boeing 707s, Douglas DC-8s and Vickers VC-10s you also had Convair's attempts at a jet airliner. The Convair 880 was not a success though and only sold 65 examples. The 880 was faster than the 707 but more expensive to run and even back in the cheap oil days of the 1960s that was key. General Dynamics made a huge loss on the 880 and it's sister airliner the 990 though one was sold to Elvis as his personal plane. By 1975 none were still in service with major airlines though a few continues in service as cargo airliners and in one case a test plane for the US Navy until the late 1990s.

I've always thought it was one of the best looking jet airliners. None are flying nowadays but a few still exist around the world, one in Portugal now serves as a strip club apparently. Despite only 65 being sold it was involved in 17 accidents and 5 hi-jackings so it was not a lucky jet.

Photo from ConvairJet.com

A robotic "flying fish"

2008-01-09T08:55:00.000Z

The University of Michigan in the USA has developed a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) with a difference... its a floatplane! The Flying Fish is thought to be the first UAV to be able to make it's own take-offs and landings from the sea (certainly i can't think of another one. The closest is probably the Fairey Queen radio-controlled drone conversion of the Royal Navy Fairey IIIF floatplane in the early 1930s though that was launched by a catapult.) It has been developed as part of a U.S. defence project for "persistent ocean surveillance".

The university team took it's inspiration from nature, especially sea birds and flying fish. The size of the UAV, with it's 2m wingspan is similar to many sea birds indeed it is said to be the same size as a large pelican.

The UAV is fully autonomous, using GPS to detect where it is as direct it during it's operation. The UAV is intended as a surveillance buoy, able to remain on station for long periods of time patrolling in a designated area. Because it has no human control a way had to be developed to take off and land from the water totally autonomously and "blind". Later on the team may develop sensors to detect waves and try and avoid them.

The team later will add solar power panels to the electric UAV to augment the battery supply and see if the endurance can be increased.

References :

‘Flying Fish’ unmanned aircraft takes off and lands on water - University of Michigan press release (05/12/07)
Seaplane UAV eyed as persistent ocean buoy - Flight International (24/12/07)
Jane's RPVs : Robot Aircraft Today by John W.R. Taylor (Jane's 1977)

Welcome to Reborn Technology

2008-01-01T08:42:00.000Z

Welcome to my blog, dedicated to old and retro technology as well as the ways old ideas can be applied to today's problems.