May 2010 Archives

The US Air Force has published some video of the X-51A drop and light on 26 May. I wrote a story for Flight International just after the event, which saw the scramjet flying to speeds of Mach 5 and 70,000ft.

I spoke with program managers (twice) who confirmed that total burn time was 140 seconds, not the 200 seconds that is erroneously appearing in virtually all news stories. Turns out that 200 seconds represents total burn time including the solid booster motor needed to get the scramjet to appropriate initial conditions for start-up.

he 

Reserearchers at the University of Pennsylvania are doing some amazing maneuvers with their micro quadrotor UAV. Based on comments to the video, the system uses a motion capture system to determine the orientation of objects through which it will fly, and an outside computer system to perform the calculations needed to steer the vehicle in real-time. As for sticking to the wall? Velcro.

While I don't usually cover the military beat, I find myself at Eglin Air Force base in Florida today, covering a variety of topics including CV-22 and F-35 simulators -- and missiles -- as part of a Lockheed Martin sponsored media blitz on the panhandle.

We learned that the big brother of the standard JASSM (Joint air-to-surface standoff missile) , of which there are more than 1,000 in the field (for several fighters and the B-52, B-1 and B-2 bombers) and which have not yet been called upon for bunker-bursting duty, could be finished with testing and deployed to the field in mid-2013.

The JASSM ER (extended range) has a 500nm range, up from 200nm with the standard unit. It's a bit longer and weighs more, but is 70% common with the existing unit with respect to hardware and 95% common in software.

The Air Force just today gave us a video of the ER going about its business on six test flights on the B-1 to date. A series of five more shots are slated for this summer, with another 16 on tap as part of the test program that could see a military decision to buy by year's end, with deployment to the troops 2.5 years later, after a great deal of testing and evaluation.

When this baby hits, there's no need for an ER (emergency room)....Enjoy!

Sikorsky reported earlier today that the X2 has reached 181kt, a key milestone in the company's plan to test the vehicle out to 250kt, as well as the final flight in the third of four phases of testing. Time to update my table from a previous blog. Do I have to add an entry for the Lynx doing 216.5kt in August 1986, as written in the AINalerts today? 

Guy Stevenson, a New Zealander who operates a fleet of Pacific Aerospace P-750 XSTOL aircraft under the name Kiwi Air Ltd, decided to perform an intersection takeoff at the Tipton airport (KFME) in Maryland this morning.

I was riding right seat in the 750shp Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-34-powered single-engine low wing 10-seater for a jump or two around the pattern, the best we could do with 1,200ft ceilings blanketing the region.

No sooner had we turned on the taxiway for the intersection takeoff that the guy running the Unicom radio at the field called us to say, "We don't allow back-taxiing here at Tipton." He had assumed, that because we were flying in a 7,500lb MTOW single, that we would NEED all that 3,000ft runway. A pretty good assumption...

Stevenson, though a bit annoyed, complied, throwing the three-bladed Hartzell propeller into reverse pitch and backing us up in order to taxi to the end of the runway via the parallel taxiway.

That this was no ordinary aircraft began to dawn on the Unicom operator. "You've got an aircraft that can back up??"

That wasn't the half of it.

The P-750, in town with L-3 as part of a strategy to get the aircraft known in the US as well as to market it to the US military for special niche missions, is well deserving of its "XSTOL" title, which stands for Super Short Takeoff and Landing.

On today's flight, with 70 degree F outside temp, three on board and normal fuel load, Stevenson estimated we'd need 150ft of runway for takeoff. If we were to be at MTOW of 7,500lb, we'd have needed only twice that. Landing was not much different, given the reverse thrust capability of this machine.

See for yourself. In the first video, I filmed several pattern circuits from the right seat. In the second video, I recorded the same circuits from the ground. Wow!

I shoulda been a bit more careful with my headline on this web story that came out today on our www.flightglobal.com website:

Sikorsky X2 breaks helicopter speed barrier  (click here to read it)

What I meant to say in the headline was that Sikorsky had broken, with a 168kt test flight last week, what is typically the speed limit for factory-built helicopters. Tests over the next month or two will see that number climb to 250kt or more.

That's not to say that X2 is factory-built, because it is certainly not.

BUT, Sikorsky will most likely take the concept, after sufficient tweaking, and begin cranking out hundreds if not thousands of the 250kt compounds in the not-too-distant future. They've got a lot invested, and from what they tell me, there are no show-stoppers to date that would convince them otherwise.

Anyway, back to the headline of this blog.

No sooner had the story gone up than several sharp commenters let me know that Sikorsky's not the fastest - yet.

 Uwe, from Germany, commented on my web story that Wikipedia reveals that Bolkow in 1964 put some Turbomeca turbojets on the sides of a Bo-46 and sped up to faster than 216kt 400km/h. 

And Terry tells me "the helicopter speed record is still held by our very own"  Westland Lynx at a "shade under" 200mph, or 174kt. And that's right out of the box...

I know there are others. Piasecki went pretty fast with its 16H Pathfinder ringtail demonstrator decades ago, as did Sikorsky with its XH-59A demostrator.

Now's the time - tell me your fast helo story.

UPDATE: Here's a table I've begun assembling based on all this excellent input. Work in progress...

What's really interesting about the picture to the left, provided to the AP by a passenger (Pamela Adlon) after the United Airlines Boeing 757 diverted to the Dulles International Airport (IAD) Sunday night en route from JFK to LAX, is that firefighters had entered the plane at all.

Conversations between the aircraft's pilots and air traffic controllers made it very clear that United didn't want to draw any attention to the flight, perhaps a nod to the celebrities said to have been on board???.

A fire in the cockpit at 36,000ft, likely tied to issues with the windshield heater, had been extinguished with halon. The crew had declared an emergency and asked to land.

Click on this file UAL27_5-17-10_0100Z_emergency.mp3 to take a listen

The compilation is frrom LiveATC.net.

In early May, Gulfstream found itself in a good kind of quandary - it's new G650 ultra long range business jet began probing to its maximum speed of boundaries, but in doing so, it blew away its Gulfstream V photo chase plane, a fast machine, yet slow by comparison.

"We were chasing 6001 [the first G650 prototype] with 501 [the GV chase plane]," Pres Henne, Gulfstream senior vice president of programs, engineering and test told Flight International in late May. "We started at Mach 0.85. The GV does that great since its MMO [maximum operating speed] is M0.885."

"We got to M.875, and the GV was able to keep up. When 6001 pushed up to M0.9, the GV pilots tried everything to make it go faster, even switching to "alternative mode" on FADEC to redline the engines."

The solution for Gulfstream? Chase speed with speed - a second G650.

Last week Sikorsky faced a similar issue with its new X2 compound helicopter demonstrator, a coaxial twin counter-rotating rotor fly-by-wire vehicle that will use a variable pitch propulsor on the aft end to speed it to 250kt or greater. Click the picture at left to see a larger image of the X2 on a recent test fligth in West Palm Beach, Florida. 

The company was using an S-76 helicopter for the chase job, a twin-engine helicopter that maxes out at 155kt, the top speed of just about all present day civil helicopters. On last week's envelop expansion flight, X2 test pilot Kevin Bredenbeck "bumped" the X2's propulsor pitch mechanism to push the compound helicopter to 168kt. 

Sikorsky business development manager Jim Kagdis says the S-76 (pictured at left during an earlier flight in NY) tried its best to keep up, going to a "heavy" nose-down attitude (pitching the lift vector as far forward as possible), and "going as fast as it could". The X2 just slid on by however.

Next week, Sikorsky plans to take the X2 to 180kt, finishing the third of four test phases in the program, and introducing a fixed wing chase plane - A Cessna Conquest, which can fly at speeds in the 250kt regime. Kagdis says Sikorsky had considered an OV-10, but its top speed of 210kt killed the deal. 

Assuming all goes well, phase 4, which will see the X2 flying at 250kt or more, should commence by mid-June.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo (SS2) took to the skies for a surprise (at least to the public) second captive carry test suspended beneath WhiteKnightTwo Sunday morning, almost two months after its 23 March first flight. pictured at left.

Photographer Alan Radecki, up early to capture the moment, took some photos that reveal some new fins on inboard faces of SS2's vertical fins.

Pictured below is a picture from the first captive carry test, followed by a similar picture from the second flight. Both photos were taken by Alan Radecki  / MojaveWest Media Works

The new fins, the right one just above the "irg" in Virgin, are so new that there didn't appear to be the time or need to fix the paint job before the flight, so possibly this was a test fix.

What might the extra horizontal stabilizers be meant for?

A close look at Virgin Galactic's video from the first captive carry flight does show some flexibility in the twin tailbooms, which perhaps required some balancing of the previously one-sided fins on the SS2's twin vertical booms.

Check out the time period between 1:36 and 1:44 on the video below and judge for yourself.

Korea Aerospace Industries has selected a slick new propeller and governor system from Hartzell for its KC-100 four-seat, single-engine, general aviation low-wing, composite rival to the likes of the Cessna 400 Corvalis TT, Cirrus SR22-G3 turbo, Mooney Acclaim and Diamond DA50 (hope I didn't leave out too many others).

I've not found details on the design and development progress, other than some snippets in the press release from Hartzell, so I'd be interested to find out the missing details (and other program updates) in the table I've put together below.that shows comparisons with other popular aircraft in the niche. 

It might not just be Boeing that gets to have all the fun with directed energy weapons if engine maker CFM has its day as king.

In a company submission (see below) to the US National Transportation Safety Board regarding accident investigation of US Airways Flight 1549 (Miracle on the Hudson), experts postulated that on-board warning systems, similar to collision preventative, TCAS, could be used for birds. 

OR, better yet, "new technologies which are being developed that can warn birds of an approaching aircraft (e.g. laser) so that the birds can take evasive action..."

EVEN better.... "or physically deter them fromi the flight path (e.g. directed energy beams)"

How cool (but incredibly inconceivable) is that idea?

Cessna has an interesting idea for how to better generate power or other services onboard a turbofan-powered business aircraft that is becoming more-electric.

In a patent application the Wichita-based company filed for a couple of months ago, it proposes to add -- either during production or for retrofit -- a turbine wheel specifically installed to spin up a generator to supply electrical, hydraulic, or other power to an aircraft.

According to the filing, the services turbine would be separate from both the low- and high-pressure turbine sections, and could be place at a various locations throughout the engine. The application shows the new turbine as the last stage in the engine, just forward of the exit nozzle.

Interesting thought. Cessna says its beneficial for many reasons, including:

• A free-turbine generator allows the engines to be designed for optimal efficiency and operating characteristics, since electrical load isn't tied to high- or low-pressure spools
• The optimization results in a free-turbine generator that costs and weighs less than the conventional spool-connected generator arrangement which requires the combination of a generator and an accessory gearbox
• The aircraft electrical system cost and weight can be reduced without the need for a power conditioning unit, the need for which is eliminated by the ability to maintain the speed of the free-turbine generator such that power output is substantially constant
• The free-turbine generator can provide significantly much more electrical power than can be provided from generators attached to either the high or low pressure spools.

Those are the positives? Any thoughts on the negatives? For one, an extra turbine could add to maintenance costs, though most costs are borne by the hot sections of the engine that are forward of the location Cessna suggests...

Read the entire patent application below.  

The US FAA is reporting that Boeing's fourth Boeing 787 Dreamliner prototype, dubbed ZA003, lost its fibreglass static pressure measuring device, aka "trailing cone" as it landed at Boeing Field (BFI) Friday afternoon (7 May) after a 2.5h test flight.

The device is made up of high-strength pressure tube that extends out as much as 1.5 wingspan lengths from the top trailing edge of the vertical stabilizer and is connected to a fibreglass cone at its end. The cone is there to the of the tubing to help stabilize the line, which has static ports drilled at its radius just ahead of the cone.

The unobstructed measurements of static air pressure are being used in part for reduced-vertical separation minima (RVSM) testing. ZA003, Boeing's systems test aircraft for the 787 flight test program. The aircraft is being used for noise performance, flight-deck operations, avionics, electromagnetic effects, high-intensity radio frequency response and extended twin-engine operations tests and other certification work.

"High strength" is a relative term when a device is being dragged along at airline-type takeoff and landing speeds.

BFI had cleared the pilots for a "long landing" on Runway 31L Friday afternoon at approximately 3:47pm Seattle time. Here's the audio from LiveATC.net KBFI-May-07-2010-2230Z.mp3 (scroll about halfway through to hear the action).

After landing, the pilots called the tower and reported that their "trailing cone fell off just inside the [airport] boundary". BFI then closed the runway for about 5 minutes to perform an inspection, finding the emancipated hardware located between turnoffs B5 and B7 "on the centreline".

This isn't the first time the 787 program has lost a cone. During the certification of the 747-400 Dreamlifter large cargo freighter, the aircraft that delivers 787 components to final assembly locations, the prototype aircraft (N747BC) lost is trailing cone in-flight. That time, the cone hit a car in the parking lot of a shopping centre. Damage to the car was minor; the hit to Boeing's ego, possibly, just a bit larger.

While relatively low-key, there were some surprises to be mined from airframers attending this year's European business aviation convention and exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva this week. Flight International also published our first EBACE interactive daily news at the show (click the iFDN tab on the link above).

First and foremost with me were some supersonic details that Gulfstream engineering guru Pres Henne casually doled out to me as we were walking through the hall at the Palexo.

In short, Gulfstream has tested a supersonic nacelle design on a Rolls-Royce powered Gulfstream IV on the ground. More intriguing however is that Henne says the test proved that the Tay engine would be suitable for a demonstrator aircraft..

Checkout my piece in the Flight Evening News, which also talks about engineering progress at would be supersonic business jet (SSBJ) competitor, Aerion, whose engineering guru Richard Tracy also revealed more details about his design.

What didn't happen at EBACE was a grand unveiling of a radically new helicopter by Eurocopter, a possibility I had hinted at (and hoped for) in a previous blog.

On the other hand, a "Mercedes_Benz style" interior for a helo 'aint such a bad thing. See the story here by my colleague, Niall O'Keeffe. 

Gulfstream said they were going to do it -- and they did.

On Sunday afternoon, May 2, Gulfstream experimental test pilots John O'Meara and Tom Horne took off in the first flying prototype (s/n 6001) of the Gulfstream G650, climbed to 42,500ft...and broke Cessna CEO Jack Pelton's heart.

You see Pelton (left) used to have the honour of saying he had the world's fastest business jet in his stable -- the Citation X, pictured below left with the sharp new winglets now certified by the European aviation authorities after a similar approval by the FAA months ago. But as of Sunday afternoon, Pres Henne, VP of programs, engineering and test at Gulfstream, and the father of the G650 (right) from an engineering standpoint, took the upper hand.

Pelton, when asked about the coming of this day at previous shows, had taken a 'we'll cross that bridge when we come to it' approach, hinting that the Citation X wasn't yet through with its sprinting capability. The "bridge" , in the form of the G650's M0.925 versus the Citation X's MMO of M0.92, has come and gone.

However the story is far from over.

"We're confident the Citation will remain the fastest," a defiant Pelton told me after the Cessna press conference at the EBACE show today. He says there is some margin left in the Citation X's top speed, and further announcements will be forthcoming, probably at NBAA, or as Pelton may call it, Na-nana-Na-Na-BAA. '