Big Aircraft
Aviation
Tennessee Passes Geoengineering “Chemtrail” Ban
Tennessee House lawmakers last week passed a ban on geoengeering – or the process of impacting the climate by injecting chemicals or other substances into the atmosphere – after the Senate passed the bill the previous week. Geoengeering has been suggested by some as a solution to global warming; for instance, by injecting small reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect some sunlight and heat back into space before it can reach the Earth’s surface. The Tennessee bill specifically focused on the “intentional injection, release, or dispersion, by any means, of chemicals, chemical compounds, (or) substances,” into the atmosphere.
Critics of the move, though, say there are no large scale plans to do so by local or federal governments, and that the legislature is wasting time better spent on other issues; like economic development, job growth and creation, and reducing the cost of living. Some opposition politicians mocked it by linking it to protections for “Yetis, or Sasquatch, or Bigfoot.” But the bill’s sponsor, Monty Fritts, said the bill was a “common-sense” approach, stating, “Everything that goes up, must come down, and those chemicals that we knowingly and willingly inject into the atmosphere simply to control the weather, or the climate, are affecting our health.”
It was this language, and language from other supporters of the bill, which linked it directly to ideas about chemtrails. While some used the term to make fun of the legislation, tying it to conspiracy theories, others were sincere in their belief that chemicals are being purposely injected into the atmosphere for any of various reasons, and that doing so should be regulated.
Senator Frank Niceley, during a hearing for the bill last month, told colleagues, “This will be my wife’s favorite bill of the year. She has worried about this, I bet, ten years. It’s been going on a long, long time.” Niceley referenced the criss-cross of contrails that could be seen in the skies on some days, adding, “For years they denied they were doing anything.
Very strange looking aircraft
Men and their flying machines. Giant ones, tiny ones, some with forward-swept wings, all kinds of strange aircraft have been invented. Here are some of the strangest looking ones I have found.
The Spruce Goose above flew only once in 1947 and was designed to carry over 700 people. It was actually a wooden heavy transport aircraft designed and built by the Hughes Aircraft company. It was built by the U.S. War Department because of wartime raw material restrictions on the use of aluminum. Its official name is Hughes H-4 Hercules but Spruce Goose somehow stuck. This heavy transport flying boat is the largest flying boat ever built, and has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in history with span exceeding the length of a football field. It is currently housed in Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, USA.
This over-eating plane, officially, the Boeing 747 Large Cargo Freighter, is a wide-body cargo aircraft and the world’s longest cargo loader constructed by drastic modifications to an existing Boeing 747-400. Boeing uses this plane to bring in aircraft parts from suppliers around the world. Only 4 of the type have been built.
Pregnant Guppy
As weird as its name, this plane was a large, wide-bodied cargo aircraft built in the United States by Aero Spacelines and used for ferrying outsized cargo items, most notably NASA’s components of the Apollo moon program. Infact, the Dreamlifter was inspired from this beauty. Only 1 unit if this aircraft was ever built and it served a good 15 years, starting in 1962.
Northrop Tacit Blue
Before you start laughing, do understand that this aircraft was a pioneer in stealth technology. There was only one produced, by the U.S. Air Force, in 1982, which was meant to demonstrate that a stealth low observable surveillance aircraft with a low probability of intercept radar and other sensors could operate close to the forward line of battle with a high degree of survivability. The pioneer plane is currently housed at the National Museum of the US Air Force.
Horten HO 229
Designed by Horten brothers of Germany this plane was a late-World War II prototypefighter/bomber. Its odd shape can be attributed to the fact that it was designed to be more difficult to detect with radar. Horten Ho 229 never made it to actual war and was only flown as a prototype.
Officially, the Vought V-173 was designed by Charles H. Zimmerman. It was an American experimental test aircraft built as part of the Vought XF5U “Flying Flapjack” World War II United States Navy fighter aircraft program and without doubt it is one of the most strangest planes ever built.
The Convair XFY Pogo tailsitter was an experiment in vertical takeoff and landing. The Pogo had delta wings and three-bladed contra-rotating propellers powered by a 5,500 hp (4,100 kW) Allison YT40-A-16 turboprop engine. It was intended to be a high-performance fighter aircraft capable of operating from small warships. Landing the XFY-1 was difficult as the pilot had to look over his shoulder while carefully working the throttle to land.
The Grumman X-29 was an experimental aircraft that tested a forward-swept wing, canard control surfaces, and other novel aircraft technologies. The aerodynamic instability of this arrangement increased agility but required the use of computerized fly-by-wire control. Composite materials were used to control the aeroelastic divergent twisting experienced by forward-swept wings, also reducing the weight. Developed by Grumman, the X-29 first flew in 1984 and two X-29s were flight tested over the next decade.
The Russians had their version as they always do.
The Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut (Russian: Су-47 Беркут – Golden Eagle) (NATO reporting name Firkin), also designated S-32 and S-37 (not to be confused with the single-engined delta canard design offered by Sukhoi in the early 1990s under the designation Su-37) during initial development, was an experimental supersonic jet fighter developed by Sukhoi Aviation Corporation. A distinguishing feature of the aircraft was its forward-swept wing, similar to that of the Tsybin’s LL-3., that gave the aircraft excellent agility and maneuverability. While serial production of the type never materialized, the sole aircraft produced served as a technology demonstrator prototype for a number of advanced techhnologies later used in the 4.5 generation fighter SU-35BM and current Indo-Russian 5th generation fighter prototype Sukhoi PAK FA.
The Hawker Siddeley Nimrod was a military aircraft developed and built in the United Kingdom. It is an extensive modification of the de Havilland Comet, the world’s first jet airliner. It was originally designed by de Havilland’s successor, Hawker Siddeley, now part of BAE Systems.
It was designed with an extended nose for radar, a new tail with electronic warfare (ESM) sensors mounted in a bulky fairing, and a MAD (Magnetic anomaly detector) boom. After the first flight in May 1967, the RAF ordered 46 Nimrod MR1s. The first example (XV230) entered service in October 1969. Five squadrons were eventually equipped with the MR1.
Aircraft with huge rotating radar domes.
The Grumman E-2 Hawkeye is an American all-weather, aircraft carrier-capable tactical airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft. This twin-turboprop aircraft was designed and developed during the late 1950s and early 1960s by the Grumman Aircraft Company for the United States Navy as a replacement for the earlier E-1 Tracer, which was rapidly becoming obsolete. E-2 performance has been upgraded with the E-2B, and E-2C versions, where most of the changes were made to the radar and radio communications due to advances in electronic integrated circuits and other electronics. The fourth version of the Hawkeye is the E-2D, which first flew in 2007.
XF-107A Experimental Fighter Bomber
The air intake was in the unusual dorsal location as the USAF had required the carriage of an underbelly semi-conformal nuclear weapon. The original chin intake caused a shock wave that interfered in launching this weapon. The implications this had for the survivability of the pilot during ejection were troubling. The intake also severely limited rear visibility. Nonetheless this was not considered terribly important for a tactical fighter-bomber aircraft, and furthermore it was assumed at the time that air combat would be via guided missile exchanges outside visual range.
Modern Fighter Pilot Flight Helmets
A flight helmet, sometimes nicknamed a “bone dome”, is a special type of helmet primarily worn by military aircrew.
A flight helmet can provide:
- Impact protection to reduce the risk of head injury (e.g. in the event of a parachute landing) and protection from wind blast (e.g. in the event of ejection).
- A visor to shield the eyes from sunlight, flash and laser beams.
- Noise attenuation, headphones and a microphone (except when included in a mask).
- A helmet mounted display, mounting for night vision goggles and/or a helmet tracking system (so the aircraft knows where the pilot is looking).
SR-71 Blackbird pilot helmet. The plane flew so fast and high that the helmet resembles a space helmet.
The Soviet (Russian) MIG-25 Foxbat also flew very high and fast.
Chinese helmet variations
U.S. Navy helmet
F/A-18 Super Hornet carrier pilots
F-22 Raptor pilot helmet
U.S. Marine Corp Harrier pilots always wear camo helmets
U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds demo team
Royal Canadian Air Force
F-35 Lightning II
Each helmet costs $400,000!
Vision Systems International (VSI; the Elbit Systems/Rockwell Collins joint venture) along with Helmet Integrated Systems, Ltd. developed the Helmet-Mounted Display System (HMDS) for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. In addition to standard Helmet Mounted Display (HMD) capabilities offered by other systems, HMDS fully utilizes the advanced avionics architecture of the F-35 and provides the pilot video with imagery in day or night conditions. Consequently, the F-35 is the first tactical fighter jet in 50 years to fly without a HUD. A BAE Systems helmet was considered when HMDS development was experiencing significant problems, but these issues were eventually worked out. The Helmet-Mounted Display System was fully operational and ready for delivery in July 2014.
The F-35 does not need to be physically pointing at its target for weapons to be successful. Sensors can track and target a nearby aircraft from any orientation, provide the information to the pilot through their helmet (and therefore visible no matter which way the pilot is looking), and provide the seeker-head of a missile with sufficient information. Recent missile types provide a much greater ability to pursue a target regardless of the launch orientation, called “High Off-Boresight” capability. Sensors use combined radio frequency and infra red (SAIRST) to continually track nearby aircraft while the pilot’s helmet-mounted display system (HMDS) displays and selects targets; the helmet system replaces the display-suite-mounted head-up display used in earlier fighters. Each helmet costs $400,000.
The F-35’s systems provide the edge in the “observe, orient, decide, and act” OODA loop; stealth and advanced sensors aid in observation (while being difficult to observe), automated target tracking helps in orientation, sensor fusion simplifies decision making, and the aircraft’s controls allow the pilot to keep their focus on the targets, rather than the controls of their aircraft.
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‘UFO’ Clouds Mystify Florida Fishermen
A group of fishermen in Florida were left scratching their heads at the sight of several strange-looking clouds that appeared to be alien in nature. The peculiar incident reportedly occurred last week off the coast of Key West. Capturing the curious scene on film, one of the witnesses can be heard exclaiming “look at these clouds, what is going on” as he spans across the sky showing around seven of the circular formations that somewhat resemble classic flying saucers.
The group subsequently posted the footage online in the hopes that someone could identify the puzzling phenomenon that they witnessed that day. While many viewers jokingly suggested that the anomalies were cloaked extraterrestrial craft, the fishermen were not actually in danger of being abducted by aliens as there is a meteorological explanation for what manifested in the sky. What the group witnessed was, in fact, a weather phenomenon known as a ‘punch hole cloud’ which occurs when planes passing overhead distribute ice crystals that interact with the atmosphere and create the alien-looking formations.
A fallstreak hole (also known as a cavum, hole punch cloud, punch hole cloud, skypunch, cloud canal or cloud hole) is a large gap, usually circular or elliptical, that can appear in cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds. The holes are caused by supercooled water in the clouds suddenly evaporating or freezing, and may be triggered by passing aircraft.
Because of their rarity and unusual appearance, fallstreak holes have been mistaken for or attributed to unidentified flying objects.
Some Big Military Transport Aircraft
C-130 Hercules Big
C-17 Globemaster III Bigger
C-5 Galaxy Biggest
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