Tag Archives: Aircraft

Air Force 747 Shoots Down Missile

The Air Force announced that the YAL-1, or Airborne Laser, had successfully intercepted a representative ballistic missile in the boost phase, proving the concept of an aircraft based, directed energy anti-ballistic missile weapon system.  Pictures and video are available at the official site of the Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency.

Notwithstanding the historic strategic bombers, the YAL-1, which is a highly modified Boeing 747-400, is the largest aircraft to ever demonstrate an offensive “air to air” capability and is the only one to use directed energy to achieve a kinetic purpose.

Fighter pilot perspective:  If it can bring down a missile at range like that, imagine what it could do to bombers, fighters, UAVs, or even a variety of select ground targets…

Congress Faults CIA over Missionary Plane Shootdown

While most understand the dangers of remote missionary aviation, recent government reports have brought grim reminders of the factors that cannot be controlled.

In April of 2001, American missionaries Jim and Veronica Bowers, along with their young adopted children Cory and Charity, were flown from Brazil to Peru by pilot Kevin Donaldson in a small float plane.  They were sponsored by the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, and had to leave and re-enter the country in order to obtain a permanent visa for Charity, who was just a few months old.  The family had been missionaries to the Amazon since 1993, following a stint in the US Army in Europe.

In a unique program, the CIA was working with the Peruvian government to intercept, and potentially shoot down, aircraft suspected of participating in drug smuggling operations.  The Bowers’ plane was mistakenly suspected of being Read more

Fighter Pilot Reaches 4000 hours

An Air Force article reports that LtCol Gary Middlebrooks has achieved 4,000 flight hours in the F-16 while deployed to Iraq.  Lockheed Martin, the contractor for the F-16, tracks such milestones and says that only 32 other pilots in the world have flown that many hours in the F-16.  (F-16.net also tracks Viper pilot hours.)

“Flight hours” are a fairly routine measure of a fighter pilot’s time in his aircraft.  While they do not directly correlate with maturity or experience, they do let everyone know how long a pilot has been associated with his airframe.  Part of the rarity of such a number Read more

US Air Force Supports Super Bowl XLIV

As the excitement builds in the minutes before the Super Bowl kickoff, four Air National Guard F-15 Eagle fighter jets will scream over Miami’s Sun Life Stadium in a dramatic show of military support for the big game.

The US Air Force supported Super Bowl XLIV in several ways:  Not only the flyby by ANG F-15s as the National Anthem completed, but also airborne fighters in protective patrols in the skies overhead.  Other military support included the Armed Forces Color Guard that presented the Colors prior to the game.

Besides the obvious need for security, the military support–particularly the flyby–is both an inspirational patriotic event and a recruiting tool.  The military participation certainly isn’t an endorsement of either the Super Bowl, its sponsors, or either Read more

Russia Tests 5th Generation Fighter

Several news reports announced that Russia has tested a fighter intended to be in the class of the F-22. A picture in the Associated Press article published by Fox News shows the Russian T-50 with what is a fairly common Sukhoi profile (elongated fuselage and “goose neck” raised cockpit).  The aircraft appears to be twin-engine and twin-tail.

Oddly, fielding an aircraft that is supposed to rival the F-22 is a poor goal, since the Raptor is more than 20 years old. Skeptics said the T-50 was a pretty airframe with no notable avionics or even significantly updated engines.  Even more ironically, the Russian government is facing the same criticism as the US Defense Department did over the F-22:

“There is no mission and no adversary for such plane,” [Alexander] Konovalov [of the Institute of Strategic Assessment] said.

It would seem the challenges of defense technology and acquisition know no political boundaries.

The Rules are Written in Blood

Fighter aircraft are amazing combinations of machinery, technology, software, and the human mind.  Old and young alike are awed at airshows that display fighters from the Pursuit (P) aircraft of the World Wars to the Fighter (F) and Attack (A) aircraft of the modern era.

Miracles in motion that they are, they are still bound by rules and regulations.

They have simple rules like speed limits, g-limits, and angle of attack limits.  They also have more complex rules that say if you’re rolling left with a missile on the right wing and you’ve got half a tank of gas, make sure not to exceed 14 units of AoA.  Some rules seem arbitrary (“Don’t fly with your feet resting on the brake pedals…”), and others ridiculous (“Lower landing gear prior to touching down…”).

There’s a saying, though, that the rules of aviation Read more

World War 2 Ace, Fighter Pilot Dies

Lt. Col. Lee A. Archer, one of the original Tuskegee Airman and a fighter pilot, died on Wednesday, 27 January 2010.  The 90 year old was reportedly the “first and only black ace pilot.”  A fellow Tuskegee Airman estimated that 50 to 60 of the nearly 1,000 original pilots remain alive.  (The 332nd Fighter Group, which was composed of the Tuskegee squadrons, was reactivated in 2004 as an Expeditionary Air Wing in Iraq.  The wing held a memorial service in Iraq for LtCol Archer.)

Like the Doolittle Raiders, of whom only 8 survive of the 80 crew members, the original Tuskegee Airmen and their fellow World War Army Air Corps pilots served as inspirations to generations of men and women who would fly and fight for their country.  Though they are increasingly few in number, those who fought to preserve the free world in the early 20th century–many of whom did not return–are an irreplaceable part of the American heritage.  Their legacy, and their legend, should not be forgotten.

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