Have you tried Google's Ngram? It allows you to compare the usage of two words in books stretching back to 1800. That's about 100 years too long for powered flight, but I found some interesting comparisons from the past century. Check out my comparisons below, and give it a try yourself -- and tell me what you found!


1. Drone vs unmanned
Drone: peaked in the mid-1940s, dropped by the early 1990s to nearly meet the word unmanned (Desert Storm?), but then usage of unmanned fell slightly through the rest of the 1990s. The acronyms UAVs and RPAs don't even register through 2000.
Winner: Drone

2. Stealth vs Radar
Stealth is eclipsed by radar around 1941, which is about the same time the Royal Air Force's radio detection and ranging (RADAR) equipment picked up the Luftwaffe's formerly surprise bombing raids in the Battle of Britian. Radar would continue to maintain a comfortable lead over stealth in the usage contest, although stealth started catching up slightly after about 1983. Stealth, however, still has a long way to go.
Winner: Radar

3. Jet vs Propeller
Propeller begain rapidly gaining currency during World War I, briefly out-performing jet between roughly 1917 and 1921 before falling into decline for most of the next decade or so. The lead-up to World War II created a resurgence for both types, with propeller beating jet starting in 1940. But the lead wouldn't last. Jet reclaims the lead in the late-1940s, while usage of propeller dives sharply for the next 30 years before stabilizing by the 1980s.
Winner: Jet

4. Avionics vs flight instruments
Avionics -- a term sometimes credited to the late Aviation Week editor Philip Klass -- started picking up traction in the late-1950s, long after flying instruments reached its peak of usage in the mid-1940s. Avionics would surpass flying instruments in the mid-1950s and never looked back.
Winner: Avionics

5. Laser vs missile
The acronym for laser -- light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation -- was not invented until 1959, or shortly before the word missile peaked in usage around 1962. Within a decade however, laser soared past missile and maintains a 400% lead today.
Winner: Laser

It's a big day for Kawasaki Heavy Industries. One year and a day after first flight of the first XC-2 airlifter, the Japanese airframer has completed the maiden flight of the second test aircraft, according to video posted today on YouTube. Compared to the red-striped XC-2 unveiled last year, the second XC-2 sports a new military-gray paint scheme. Japan has ordered the C-2 to replace Lockheed Martin C-130s and Kawasaki P-1s. The XC-2 is similar in size to the Airbus A400M. Instead of the A400M's four turboprops, however, the C-2 fleet will be powered by two General Electric turbofans.

I salute Jon Grevatt at Jane's for reporting this mega-scoop two days ago:

China set to bid on major US aerospace programmes

Chinese President Hu Jintao's high-profile visit to the US looks set to be followed by ambitious bids from China to supply platforms to meet two major US military aircraft procurement programmes.

State-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) is preparing proposals, in partnership with existing partner US aviation services group US Aerospace (USAE), to bid for the US Navy's VXX helicopter programme and the US Air Force T-X project to procure advanced jet trainers (AJT).

Don't get me wrong. I don't consider this a mega-scoop because AVIC, a state-owned Chinese firm, has even a slight chance of winning a contract to build the next helicopter for the president of the United States -- least of all with the AC-313, a Chinese rip-off of the French Navy's 50-year-old Super Frelon.

It's a mega-scoop because it shows the increasingly bizarre audacity of US Aerospace Inc knows no bounds. US Aerospace -- the haplessly hopeless Antonov partner for KC-X, the eight-month-old supplier with no track record, the Chinese-Russian-Ukrainian reseller founded by ex-Hollywood nightclub owners with a publicized fondness for hot-tubbing -- actually thinks it can propose a Chinese-built replacement for the US presidential helicopter. Wow.

The first of about 220 Boeing F-15Es that will be modified with active electronically scanned array (AESA) achieved first flight on 18 January. The test flight at Eglin AFB, Florida, marked a first for a US Air Force Strike Eagle with a Raytheon APG-82(V)1 radar, replacing the mechanically-scanned APG-70.  The F-15E now flies with a radar adapted from the back-end processor of the APG-79 on the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G, as well as the front end of the APG-63(V)3. Note the test aircraft is shown also carrying a Sniper targeting pod and infrared search and track (IRST) pod.

The Secret Projects forum has leaked a new series of images of the US Air Force's Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel. One of the images for the first time offers the clearest view yet of the RQ-170's nose, which reveals inlet shape as an isosceles trapezoid. The basic shape is not uncommon for such flying-wing, stealthy aircraft. The inlet aperture of the MiG Skat, for example, is very similar. But it differs greatly from the inverted-W shaping of the Boeing Phantom Ray and Northrop Grumman X-47B.

There are some crazy fly-by videos on the web, but I'm not sure I've seen any aircraft fly lower than this Il-58 Pucura, Argentina's counter-insurgency fighter.

It's been quite a busy few months since the Zhuhai airshow in November for Chinese military aviation watchers. China's largest airshow three months ago revealed the first glimpses of the Pterodactyl unmanned air vehicle (UAV), the TL-8 decoy and ... whatever this thing is. And who can forget our first glimpse of China's version of the Global Hawk nearly four years ago? But those were just the opening acts. One month later, we saw for the first time the Chengdu J-20, arguably the most significant accomplishment by China's aviation industry to date.

Don't expect the J-20 to be the last surprise by the Chinese this year. The inter-webs are abuzz with speculation on a host of secret Chinese aviation projects. Following the lead of the J-20, China has previewed several active programs by allowing brief glimpses to leak through the Internet censors. We've seen glimpses of plans for a new manned bomber to replace the 1950s-era H-6, a Shenyang challenger to the J-20 for China's stealth fighter requirement, a close facsimile of the Boeing C-17 strategic transport and -- most improbably -- a long-range, penetrating, unmanned stealth bomber.

What do you think we'll next see rolling down the runway J-20-style, with grainy photos and shaky video leaked out by the Chinese spotters?
 

In reality the future doesn't look pretty for army aviation. Boeing's production line in Philadelphia for the CH-47 Chinook closes in 2017. The Sikorsky line in Connecticut for the UH-60 Black Hawk shuts down after 2022. And Boeing's line in Arizona for the AH-64 Apache kills the lights after 2025.

The army has two choices: continue buying new versions of the same aircraft in perpetuity, or start funding a massive development program for a replacement. Either way, the army needs to make a decision very soon. No decision means the army will be stuck with buying new versions of the same helicopters. This was the issue that army aviation officials publicly confronted last week in a rather glum symposium you can read about here.

But let's not dwell on all of that. Take a look at what could be the future below.



The army's aviation applied technology directorate (AATD) has published this vision for a future rotorcraft fleet, should the army decide to invest billions in a wholesale replacement. The so-called joint multi-role fleet would be based on common avionics and propulsion architectures, but supported by airframes tailored for each of the scout, utility, attack and cargo missions. The Sikorsky X2 appears to be the stand-in for the Apache/Black Hawk replacement. The tiltrotor at right appears based on the Karem/Lockheed TR75 or the Boeing JCALS concepts. I'm not sure I've seen the rigid-rotor UAV design on the left before, but it seems to have more than a little A160 Hummingbird in it.

China has been unusually open about the Chengdu J-20 in the last three weeks. The fighter has dazzled the world's media in taxi tests and in flight. Where the story goes from here is unclear. China has still not revealed the goals of the J-20 program. We don't know if it is intended as a one-off demonstrator, or the prototype for a funded production program. Greg Waldron, Flightglobal's deputy Asia bureau chief in Singapore, summarizes what we know so far.

Hopes of a KC-X contract award in February -- raised only yesterday by EADS North America chief executive Sean O'Keefe -- were quickly dampened. Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley invoked an inscrutable phrase to describe the current timing of the KC-135 replacement. After remarks at an Air Force Association breakfast, Donley told reporters the KC-X source selection process is "moving toward completion", but offered no date or timeframe at all. A few hours later, Boeing Commercial Airplanes president Jim Albaugh told reporters: "I'm not holding my breath." When told that O'Keefe had predicted a contract signing in February, Albaugh replied: "Whatever decision is made is one that is going to undergo a lot of scrutiny, and if I were to hazard a guess on a date I would say later rather than sooner."

Less than two months after the US Air Force mailed evaluation documents to the wrong bidders in the KC-X competition, a similar scandal has erupted for the Indian Air Force's hotly-contested medium, multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) contract.

The Indian press reports:

The file dealing with the offsets plans of the six foreign vendors vying for the deal went missing in the last week of December 2010 and was later found by the roadside on Khelgaon Marg in south Delhi.

The USAF fired two KC-X program officials for the botched mailing. Similarly, India is investigating two acquisition officials over the mysterious wanderings of a key evaluation document in the MMRCA competition.

The Times of India reports:

Ordering an inquiry into the episode, defence minister A K Antony on Monday said he was "very clear that every officer has to be very careful at every stage" while dealing with the huge  MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project. "We have viewed the incident seriously...the inquiry is in progress," he said.

On the same day that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates placed the F-35B on a two-year -- and apparently rhetorical -- probation, a flight test aircraft did something that hadn't been done since Augus: It landed vertically. The BF-2 model completed the first vertical landing on 6 January after reliability problems with hinge doors shut down vertical testing about five months ago.

See more great J-20 coverage by Greg Waldron at Flightglobal's Asian Skies blog. J-20 take-off roll starts at the 3-minute, 30-second mark of the video below. Expect slow playback performance by the video player. This clip's quite a hit around the world, apparently.
 

Photos of the first ATK-built ZGQM-173A multi-stage supersonic target (MSST) have now appeared on the web. The US Navy is developing MSST to simulate the flight profile of Russia's Novator 3M-54 Klub, which is also named the SS-N-27 Sizzler by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

If it's pointed at you, the Klub is a hard missile to beat. It's designed to skim over wave-tops subsonically, boost to near-hypersonic speeds in a brief climb, dive back to the surface and then weave its way toward the intended target -- usually, the hull of a ship or submarine. All that zig-zagging with speed, altitude and direction makes the missile hard to track and even harder to stop.

When the MSST finally enters service in Fiscal 2014, the US Navy will finally be able to test defenses designed to overcome the threat.   

ATK also has revealed that the MSST consists of a subsonic bus derived from the CEi BQM-167 target and a M3.5 rocket adapted from the ATK Mk-114 vertical launch anti-submarine rocket (VLA). A briefing in October by an ATK executive claims the first flight of the ZGQM-173A prototype was scheduled on 17 November, but it's not clear whether that event took place.


(Photos courtesy of ATK.)

Johan Boeder, a Dutch defense analyst and editor of jsfnieuws.nl, has compiled a chart showing how the Department of Defense's planned F-35 orders have declined since contract award in October 2001.

The numbers illuminate one of the central challenges faced by Lockheed Martin and the F-35 industry team: preventing unit costs from skyrocketing as volumes plummet.

Learning curve theory posits that manufacturing costs decline by 12% each time output doubles. With each new delay that results in a further production cutback, the F-35's affordability challenge becomes more difficult. If unit costs increase each time orders decrease, budget cuts become a self-perpetuating cycle -- aka: the acquisition death spiral. How does the F-35 escape?

H/t to Greg Waldron.



And more videos!

The English-language Global Times newspaper, which is published by the Chinese Communist Party, has broken China's media silence on the J-20 program today. The story is headlined "Rumored stealth jet undergoes tests: report", and is careful to not confirm or deny the J-20's existence. China also seems to be trying hard to avoid looking provocative. The Global Times article quotes a Chinese military expert, Li Daguang, who pours cold water on comparisons of the J-20 to the Lockheed Martin F-22.

Li Daguang, a military expert at the PLA National Defense University, told the Global Times that Gates' prediction was overly optimistic.

"The recent rumor about the J-20 is pure speculation," he said. "The F-22 is an offensive weapon that fits Washington's global strategy. China's defense development is self-defensive in nature and does not require a fighter jet of that caliber.

"Furthermore, if China does want a fourth-generation fighter jet, it needs to build a large number of them in order to affect the regional military balance. The US has capped its number of F-22s at 187. How many should China build?"

Li also noted that China's aviation technology is still far away from competing with Western countries, especially the US.

"Some Western media are more optimistic than Gates, and than the Chinese people," he said. "They've hyped the issue because they want to."

The Washington Post yesterday morning reported that the US Air Force has come within two months of fielding Gorgon Stare, which is sort of like the "Jon & Kate Plus 8" of recce pods.

Gorgon Stare multiplies the video cameras flown on a single MQ-9 from one to at least 10. Ground processing can split up the 10 camera feeds into 50 different video tracks initially, and 65 tracks when increment 2 arrives in about 18 months.

I thought the Post did a good job on the story, although I'd point out that a recce pod is only any good as long as the weather stays clear and the insurgents do their dirty work in the open.

The story also reminded me how far the US Air Force has come in less than three years. In April 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates publicly criticized two USAF officials -- Michael Wynne and Gen T. Michael Moseley, whom he would later fire -- for moving too slowly to support airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) needs in Afghanistan.

After 2004, the USAF leadership had stood by as the US Army fielded Constant Hawk and the Marine Corps deployed Angel Fire. It wasn't until May 2008 that the USAF hastily constructed a strategy. Gorgon Stare and the MC-12 Liberty programs quickly emerged, as well as a plan to hire 2,500 intelligence analysts to handle the influx of new data.

It was massive philosophical shift form the USAF's intelligence community. Gorgon Stare, in particular, challenges an analytical system already overloaded by UAVs offering only a single video feed. Former Lt Gen Dave Deputula, who recently retired, addressed this question memorably on 27 April last year at an IDGA UAV summit. After describing Gorgon Stare to the audience, Deptula was asked by a conference attendee if the USAF also planned to multiply the number of intelligence analysts by 10 to support the system.

This is what Deptula said in reply:

"You don't have to analyze everything that comes off of the system. Just giving information to folks who in the past didn't have access to it is enough. You know? I know you hard core intel people in here are going, 'No, no. We've got to record it, and analyze it and keep it for forensic analysis later on. OK, fine. But we shouldn't be afraid to not analyze the bejeezus out of everything. It's the situational awareness improvement that I think is the benefit of technologies like Gorgon Stare."

The J-20 first flight could be really close, as this newly-released photo from the Chengdu runway indicates.

Let's start the year with some optimism, gosh darn it. Here's a list of things I'm looking forward to seeing in 2011, assuming everything -- remember: optimism! -- goes according to plan.

1. The never-ending F-35 program reviews end. Actually, it only seems never-ending, but it has only been about two years. In that time, there's been the JET, the JAT, the JET II, the CAPE and lastly the TBR. Maybe the TBR -- technical baseline review -- will finally illuminate all of the dark, hidden recesses of analytical doubt within the Pentagon about the program's current status and future, allowing the F-35 to move on purposefully with total clarity and support of military leadership. (I said "optimism", and I mean it!)

2. First flight of the J-20. The beast of Chengdu -- which Russia's very useful Paralay site has christened the Wei Long ("Mighty Dragon") -- completed high-speed taxi tests on 22 December. The maiden flight could follow very shortly. Even if the J-20 proves a one-off experiment, it illustrates China's advanced aerospace ambitions like nothing before.

3. The rise of the airships. Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are scheduled to fly, respectively, the high altitude airship (HAA) and the long-endurance multi-intelligence vehicle (LEMV) in the third quarter. Airships have been out of fashion in combat service for half a century, but are enjoying a new "moment" as US military leaders hunt for answers to the problem of persistent airborne surveillance. 

4. The centennial of US naval aviation. On 8 May, 1911, Capt Washington Irving Chambers, bearing a self-appointed title as "officer in charge of aviation", ordered two aircraft from Glenn Curtiss and one aircraft from Orville and Wilbur Wright, formally launching naval aviation. The order actually came about six months after navy pilot Eugene Ely took off on a Curtiss-owned aircraft from an improvised flight deck atop the USS Birmingham cruiser on 14 November, 1910.

5. The next "strategic surprise". The year 2010 marked the unveiling of the prototypes for Russia's PAK FA and China's J-20. I do not anticipate that 2011 will see yet another fifth-generation fighter emerge from the shadows. But the backlog of black funding in the US suggests there is still room for new surprises to come out eventually. I also remain perplexed that Israel is the only major aerospace power that has yet to declare plans to deploy an indigenous, stealthy, armed, unmanned aircraft. Watch this space.