militaryaircraft

X-59 Roll out

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works rolled out the X-59 on Jan. 12, 2024, a unique experimental aircraft designed to quiet the sonic boom, at a ceremony in Palmdale, California. The ceremony marked a significant milestone in Lockheed Martin’s and NASA’s decades-long journey to solve one of the most persistent challenges of supersonic flight – the sonic boom.

“We’re thrilled to take on this challenge alongside NASA, whose quiet supersonic technology mission will have lasting, transformational impacts for people around the world,” said John Clark, vice president and general manager, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, said in a company news release. “This project is just one example of the broader ingenuity of our industry as we continually strive to push the envelope of what’s possible.”

Rollout ceremonies are a long-standing aviation tradition, and in the case of the X-59, it celebrated technical advancements, collaboration and innovation that stemmed from years of research, development and production of a one-of-a-kind technology demonstrator aircraft that will reduce the loudness of sonic booms to a gentle thump.

First flight later this year

“The entire X-59 team leaned into the expertise of both legendary organizations, NASA and Lockheed Martin, to ensure success for this program. I am extremely proud of everyone who made this historic moment possible,” said Greg Ulmer, executive vice president, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.

Lockheed Martin, NASA and government leaders attended the ceremony to include:

• Greg Ulmer, executive vice president, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics
• John Clark, vice president and general manager, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works
• Pam Melroy, NASA Deputy Administrator
• Jim Free, NASA Associate Administrator
• Bob Pearce, NASA Associate Administrator
• Dee Dee Myers, California’s Senior Economic Advisor to the Governor

Next, the aircraft will complete ground tests including engine-run and taxi tests before its next major milestone, first flight, later this year. After the aircraft is validated in initial flight tests, it will move into the acoustic testing phase. This phase will include flights over populated areas to provide US and international regulators with statistically valid data required to help approve new rules that could allow quiet commercial supersonic flight over land. This would cut commercial flight times to half of what they are today, transforming travel for people around the world.

The X-59 QueSST

For more than a decade, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and NASA have collaborated to solve one of the most persistent challenges of supersonic flight – the sonic boom. Lockheed Martin Skunk Works is leading the design, build and flight test of the X-59 quiet supersonic technology (QueSST) X-plane. The technology demonstrator will be flown over populated areas to provide U.S. and international regulators with statistically valid data required to help approve new rules that could allow quiet commercial supersonic flight over land, which could bring us one step closer to quiet supersonic travel for passengers around the globe.

The X-59 is an experimental supersonic aircraft shaped to reduce the loudness of a sonic boom reaching the ground to that of a gentle thump. The X-plane accomplishes this by a tailored design that separates the shock waves that produce sonic booms, making them quieter. The resulting supersonic “heartbeat” is dramatically quieter than the disruptive N-wave boom generated by today’s supersonic aircraft. We look forward to supporting NASA in the effort to obtain the data regulators will need to make informed decisions on appropriate sonic boom levels in the quest to remove the prohibition on supersonic over land flight.

Photo by Barry Tice / Lockheed Martin

Boeing Vs Airbus

In the vast expanse of commercial aviation, two giants dominate the sky—Boeing and Airbus. These aerospace juggernauts are synonymous with modern air travel, producing a significant portion of the world’s commercial aircraft. According to Bristol Groundschool, yet, for the casual traveller or aviation enthusiast, the differences between a Boeing and an Airbus aircraft may not be immediately apparent.

One of the fundamental differences between Boeing and Airbus lies in their design philosophies. Boeing tends to favour a more traditional approach, often allowing pilots greater manual control. On the other hand, Airbus is renowned for its emphasis on fly-by-wire technology, incorporating more automation into the flying process.

According to Flight Deck Friend, the best way to describe the fundamental differences of Boeing and Airbus is to compare it’s two short haul airliners, the A320 and Boeing 737 because they are the most widely used short haul aircraft by airlines around the world by some margin.

How do they compare to each other?

Boeing 737 Vs Airbus A320

‘It’s a heated debate usually between two people who have not flown both,’ says Randy Duncan, Boeing 737 pilot, on Quora.

‘The Airbus people say their system lowers pilot workload and improves their situational awareness because it allows them to focus on the conduct of the flight at a higher level rather than worrying about flight dynamics.

‘The Boeing people say they don’t want some “damn computer” flying the airplane and that they have full control of the airplane and can roll it upside down if they needed to.

‘A320 overhead panel. I don’t know how it works but it looks well designed.

‘A 737 overhead panel. I do know how this one works but the layout is complex and can get confusing.’

Duncan continues;

‘I fly a 737 which has no stability augmentation except in the yaw axis. I hear a lot of Boeing pilots complaining about Fly By Wire. The ones with the strongest opinions have never flown an Airbus.

‘Boeing does have Fly by Wire in their widebody aircraft. The design philosophy is slightly different but there’s still a microprocessor that makes dynamic decisions about control deflection.

Different philosophies

‘Personally, I like my little 737 and I enjoy flying it. I would love to fly an Airbus but not enough to go through a training cycle to do it. When I’ve ridden in the jumpseat of an Airbus, I’m pretty much lost. I wouldn’t know how to start the engines and the procedures are foreign to me.

‘The Airbus cockpit looks spacious and well designed compared to the cramped quarters in a 737. I particularly like the Airbus jumpseat. The 737 jumpseat is an ironing board type of thing that folds out of the wall and the legroom makes a coach seat seem like luxury. It would be an engineering challenge to make it less comfortable. The 737 layout is very old and although it has had a lot of avionics, engine and wing updates, it still feels dated. That said, the 737 is very, very reliable. It’s very rare that we can’t dispatch the airplane. That wasn’t true of the older models.’

Duncan concludes;

‘I don’t really know which airplane is superior. Both companies are great at designing and building airplanes. The philosophy may be different in terms of controls and layout but both deliver a safe and reliable product.’

Photo by  Bill Larkins via Wikipedia

Control stick moved along the right side of the cockpit

The F-16 Fighting Falcon is a compact, multi-role fighter aircraft. It is highly maneuverable and has proven itself in air-to-air combat and air-to-surface attack. The Viper (as the F-16 is dubbed by its pilots) provides a relatively low-cost, high-performance weapon system for the United States and allied nations.

The pilot has excellent flight control of the F-16 through its “fly-by-wire” system. Electrical wires relay commands, replacing the usual cables and linkage controls. For easy and accurate control of the aircraft during high G-force combat maneuvers, a side stick controller is used instead of the conventional center-mounted stick. Hand pressure on the side stick controller sends electrical signals to actuators of flight control surfaces such as ailerons and rudder.

The F-16 was the first fighter aircraft that saw the control stick moved from its traditional position between the pilot’s legs to along the right side of the cockpit—a rather unusual location at the time.

However, after the Viper, the unconventional stick position was chosen for most of the new US fighter planes.

Center stick

Why is that?

‘The center stick was originally mechanical and it moved mechanical things so it made sense to put it in the center,’ Chuck Hunter, F-14 Pilot and developer of F-35, F-22, explains on Quora. ‘From the brains perspective having it in the center made sense also as you were moving thing around from the center. There were often times in high g fighting were two hands on the stick were better to pull because it took physical strength, or even switching hands if stretched way to the right looking over my shoulder. The downside was you tended to pull the stick with you to the right when you twisted to the right.

‘I remember having runaway nose down trim and it took two hands to hold the aircraft’s nose up for any period of time. The latest aircraft have automatic trim as part of the flight control system, so this is no longer an issue.

‘When exclusively fly by wire you didn’t need to move anything mechanical. In fact, the original F-16 stick didn’t move at all, it was all done with pressure. Pilots didn’t actually like that so now it moves just a little to give some feedback.

Why does side control stick make more sense?

‘Once the center mechanical linkage was not an issue the side stick made more sense for lots of the reasons given including:

• More comfortable in all phases of flight with both arms naturally to the side and resting on an arm rest.
• Video game era pilots comfortable with controlling things with controllers.
• Better view of all the displays.
• An even body position in highly dynamic flight.

‘The fact that the side stick takes space where buttons used to be is completely replaced by MultiFunction Displays (MFDs) for controlling most things in the aircraft now, so this is not an issue.

‘I can’t remember that [the G suit] ever being an issue, not something I ever even thought about. When fighting in the center stick days we used our legs all the time for controlling the rudders, so the G suit on the legs was not a factor in interfering with the arms.’

Hunter concludes;

‘Even commercial aircraft are moving to side sticks now that it is strictly fly by wire. More natural for the body, more comfortable, and better view of all the information available in the displays.’

Photo by  Edvard Majakari via Wikipedia, Lockheed Martin and Airbus

UFO sighting

Sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) have been reported throughout history. Given the potential security and safety risks they pose, as well as scientific curiosity, there is increasing interest in understanding what these sighting reports represent.

Pilots have claimed to see UFOs for decades – sightings usually involve objects flying in a formation or bright lights, as John Chesire, former US Navy fighter pilot and Former Captain, First Officer, and Flight Engineer for several US airlines, says on Quora.

‘I saw one (UFO) many years ago. However, before I explain that one sighting, let me preface by saying that over my four decades of flying for both the military and the airlines, I have indeed seen quite a number of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). Nevertheless, every one of these UFO sighting was soon quickly identified by me or by others later as something easily explainable and mundane, and thus no longer “unidentified”… except this singular one I now describe.

“A real UFO sighting”

‘I was a captain flying a B-737 late at night on a very short leg from Las Vegas (LAS) to Los Angeles (LAX). This was sometime in the 1990s. It was late at night and the more normal heavy air traffic around LAX was greatly reduced at this late hour.’

‘At the time we were early into our descent into LAX via the old Civet Arrival. It was a clear night and a smooth and comfortable flight. Passing through 18,000 feet/5486m we noticed what we thought was another aircraft well off to our left and high above us. We had no other traffic to observe than this one. While we were on perhaps a 30-degree intercept to the final arrival course, this aircraft high and to our left appeared to be on the normal, straight-in course to LAX.

‘We decided this approaching aircraft would not even be close to being a conflict for us since it was well off in the distance. We would intercept the final inbound course well ahead of him. Since he was not a conflict Approach Control never mentioned him to us either.

‘Although this traffic off to our left was on the normally expected radial and altitude for the LAX arrival, one thing caught both my First Officer as odd. We were passing below 18,000 feet in our descent. This is the time and altitude that airliners will normally turn on their landing lights for a “see-and-be-seen” standard collision avoidance procedure.

A strange aircraft

‘However, although this other aircraft was still well above us, he already had all his bright landing lights on. Quietly I wondered to myself why his lights were on so very early. It seemed very odd and I wondered to myself if there was a reason for this.’

He continues;

‘Switching our radios from Center to LAX Approach Control we turned our attention away from that strange aircraft and concentrated on our approach at hand. Nevertheless, I naturally and briefly glanced a few times at our unusual inbound traffic.

Defying physics

‘Right before we made the right turn to intercept the final approach course, I once again glanced up at our traffic. What I saw I would never forget! Those bright lights we thought were from an aircraft on approach suddenly and almost instantaneously moved horizontally across the night sky by maybe 35 to 40 degrees and at a considerable distance! Nothing could move that fast! It defied physics. I turned to my First Officer and asked, “Did you see that?” His eyes were as big as saucers as he said, “I sure did!”

‘There was no craft that I knew of or anything I could ever imagine moving that far and that fast across the sky, and then stopping instantly without any apparent slowing, dead in space. Moreover, there is no man or beast that could ever survive the amount of G-forces both from that extreme acceleration or the almost instantaneous stop. There was no logical explanation for what we had witnessed. There was even no illogical explanation either. To this day decades later I cannot explain what exactly we saw.

Multiple and distinguishable lights, like an airliner’s

‘A few seconds after it had made this astonishing move, it made another much shorter and very quick jump a couple of degrees downward. By this time, we were almost passing through the localizer and we had to turn away from this ‘thing’. As I looked back over my shoulder, I saw it move again horizontally toward its earlier position rapidly, but nowhere near the almost instantaneous movement across the great span we saw earlier. I later wondered if maybe it was the reflection from some kind of searchlight, but it was a clear night with no clouds to reflect upon. Also, it had multiple and distinguishable lights, just like an airliner’s.

‘We never reported this incident although I have thought about it over the years many times. Really what could we say? Besides people look at you funny when you say you “saw something” but don’t know what. It also involves a lot of paperwork too, we assumed. So, we kept quiet. Curiously I do not even remember my First Officer and I ever talking about it later. It was just one of those unexplained things that we could not explain and did not even want to try.’

More crews “had seen something.”

Chesire concludes;

‘Ironically the following week I flew the same flight at the same time but we thankfully saw no UFOs this time. What was very curious though was when we switched frequencies, there was a lot of chatter – something unusual for that usually slow time of night. All we could tell from the chatter was that one or more crews “had seen something.” There were transmissions from several aircraft that said, “Yeah we saw it too.” Then Center or Approach came up and asked each aircraft if they wanted to make a report. In rapid sequence, they all said “negative.” I never did either.’

Photo by Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland via Wikipedia and Unknown