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jamin_za wrote:Let your failure at trolling forever serve as a caution to would-be's.

Iran shows off long-range, armed, Predator-lookalike drone
The home-grown armed drone extends Iran's unmanned reach as far as Israel.

Iranian military officials have revealed a new domestically built armed unmanned aircraft that they say is capable of reaching much of the rest of the Middle East, including Israel. The drone, called the Shahed-129, was shown on Iranian television yesterday. It bears a striking resemblance to the US military's MQ-1 Predator (except that its V-shaped tailfin faces up, and not down).



General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' aviation wing, said the drone has a range of over 1,200 miles and can stay airborne for up to 24 hours. The Shahed (or "Witness") drone can carry missiles or bombs, as well as provide aerial remote surveillance.

It's not clear whether any technology from the CIA-operated Lockheed Martin RQ-170 (a "stealth" surveillance drone that was captured by the Iranians in December) was incorporated into the Shahed-129. But the aircraft nearly doubles the range of Iran's previous drones, including the Karrar jet-powered bomber drone unveiled in 2010.



Iran has claimed to be copying the RQ-170 as well, which Iranian engineers claim was captured by using GPS jamming and spoofing to fool the drone into flying off course.

Anakha56 wrote:General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' aviation wing, said the drone has a range of over 1,200 miles and can stay airborne for up to 24 hours. The Shahed (or "Witness") drone can carry missiles or bombs, as well as provide aerial remote surveillance.

Chinese Smuggler Tried to Sneak Carbon Fiber for Fighter Jets, Feds Claim
By Robert BeckhusenEmail AuthorSeptember 28, 2012 | 6:30 am | Categories: Spies, Secrecy and Surveillance

The U.S. has busted up a plot to smuggle tons of carbon fiber to China, where the material would ostensibly be used in the construction of new fighter planes. That might seem worrying, but if the allegations are true, it’s probably a comforting sign. That’s because if Beijing needs to illegally import the ultra-tough polymers from America, that means we don’t have to worry too much about China’s upgraded air force.

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Lockheed’s Dubious Claim: Stealth Fighter Will Get Stealthier With Age
By David AxeEmail AuthorNovember 6, 2012 | 10:30 am | Categories: Air Force

There have been a lot of sketchy claims made about the long-delayed, over-budget F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, history’s most expensive weapon program. But this one takes the cake. According to Stephen O’Bryan, a vice president at F-35-maker Lockheed Martin, the radar-evading jet fighter will actually get stealthier over time — without any upgrades.

To be clear, every other stealth warplane has steadily lost its ability to dodge enemy radars owing to wear and tear on the plane’s special skin coating. Not so the F-35, O’Bryan said.

In the latest issue of Air Force magazine, O’Bryan insisted the single-engine JSF, which is projected to cost $1 trillion to develop, buy and maintain, is fundamentally different than its predecessors. “The surface material smooths out over time, slightly reducing the F-35’s original radar signature, according to the Lockheed Martin official,” John Tirpak wrote.

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While the USAF has been tacking missiles onto Predator drones for quite some time, so far a true unmanned attack plane has yet to grace any carrier decks -- until now. The US Navy has started flogging an X-47B Unmanned Combat Aircraft System (UCAS) aboard the USS Truman, with a video (below the break) showing it taxiing around the flight deck. The current round of tests has focused on "handling and control characteristics," but officials have said the robotic stealth fighters could be launched from the ship's catapult "if all conditions are nominal." The X-47B has already completed some flight tests, and was even launched from a sling on November 29th, but all that happened at naval air bases, not on the open water. With all the unmanned aircraft coming into the military's system, we can imagine a lot of pilots on the Truman were giving it the stink-eye.

hamin_aus wrote:So Boeing take the design of the F/A-18 and build a midget dwarf

Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II Now 25 Percent More Vulnerable to Lightning, Attacks
Tiffany Kaiser - January 15, 2013 10:59 PM

Reducing the aircraft's weight by 11 pounds has made it more vulnerable

An attempt at cutting the weight of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has made it more vulnerable to lightning and enemy attacks, says a new report.

The report, conducted by the Pentagon's Operational Test and Evaluation office (OT&E), found that shedding a few pounds from Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (also known as Lightning II) has made the aircraft 25 percent more vulnerable in certain dangerous situations.

The Lightning II lost two safety features in 2008, including the PAO shutoff valve and the fueldraulic system. The PAO shutoff valve weighed 2 pounds and the fueldraulic system weighed 9 pounds, bringing the grand total to an 11 pound weight loss.

However, the new report from OT&E suggests that getting rid of the PAO shutoff valve could lead to a rupture below the cockpit and ridding the fueldraulic system increases the chance of a sustained fire if exposed.

Test flights found that the Lightning II cannot be within 25 miles of known lightning conditions due to a poor design of the On-Board Intert Gas Generating System. This feature makes sure there are correct oxygen levels in the fuel tank.

“The program’s most recent vulnerability assessment showed that the removal of fueldraulic fuses, the PAO shutoff valve and the dry bay fire suppression, also removed in 2008, results in the F-35 not meeting the Operational Requirements Document (ORD) requirement to have a vulnerability posture better than analogous legacy aircraft,” officials wrote in the report.

The report also found cracks in the F-35A's right wing and right engine as well as the F-35B's bulkhead flange.

“Lockheed Martin believes the program is demonstrating exceptional stability, certainly significantly greater than any legacy aircraft development program, which is a primary measure for DT&E,” said Laura Siebert, a Lockheed spokeswoman. “Each year, as issues are discovered in test, our flight test team identifies additional test objectives that can be accomplished while we resolve the issues discovered.

“From an Operational Test and Evaluation perspective, we fully expect to deliver a qualified product to OT&E as scheduled. We appreciate the feedback from the OT&E community on what remains to be demonstrated over the next three years leading up to the OT&E phase of the program."

Last March, it was announced that the lifetime cost of the Lightning II is $1.45 trillion.

The Trillion Dollar F-35 Is Grounded Yet Again
Casey Chan

In what is becoming almost as consistent as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, the F-35—America's trillion dollar joke of a fighter jet—has been grounded again. I don't even know how many times the fighter jet has been grounded now, I've lost count. This time, it's because of a crack in a turbine blade of the engine.

According to the Department of Defense, all F-35s in the Air Force, Navy and Marines have been grounded after an engine inspection revealed the crack on the engine blade.

Inspectors found the crack in an F135 engine installed in an F-35A Lightning II aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. This is the conventional take-off and landing version of the joint strike fighter.

The Air Force has shipped the cracked engine to Pratt & Whitney's engine facility (it makes the engines) in Connecticut for further evaluation. It's supposed to be only a precautionary measure but it's yet another embarrassing failure for the F-35. Whether it's parachutes being loaded the wrong way or power systems affecting the temperature or software bugging out in simulations, there's always something going wrong with these planes. Maybe some things just aren't meant to be.

Test Pilots: Stealth Jet’s Blind Spot Will Get It ‘Gunned Every Time’
By David Axe03.07.136:00 PM

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the military’s expensive main warplane of the future, has a huge blind spot directly behind it. Pilots say that could get them shot down in close-quarters combat, where the flier with the better visibility has the killing advantage.

“Aft visibility could turn out to be a significant problem for all F-35 pilots in the future,” the Pentagon acknowledged in a report (.pdf) obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C. watchdog group.

That admission should not come as a surprise to observers of the Joint Strike Fighter program. Critics of the delayed, over-budget F-35 — which is built in three versions for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — have been trying for years to draw attention to the plane’s blind spot, only to be dismissed by the government and Lockheed Martin, the Joint Strike Fighter’s primary builder.

The damning report, dated Feb. 15, summarized the experiences of four test pilots who flew the F-35A — the relatively lightweight Air Force version — during a September-to-November trial run of the Joint Strike Fighter’s planned training program at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The report mentions a number of shortfalls of the highly complex F-35, including sensors, communications and aerial refueling gear that aren’t yet fully designed or just don’t work right.

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China’s Newest Stealth Fighter May Head to Sea, State Media Says
By David Axe03.13.133:09 PM

China’s latest stealth fighter prototype could be deployed aboard the Chinese navy’s first aircraft carrier, eventually allowing Beijing to deploy radar-evading warplanes all over the world — although it’ll have to overcome some serious constraints.

The twin-engine J-31, which made its public debut in blurry photographs snapped at the Shenyang Aircraft Company airfield in northeastern China in late October, “may become China’s next generation carrier-borne fighter jet,” according to the government-owned Global Times newspaper. “News” from China’s state media, including Global Times, essentially can be read as official announcements.

But Sun Cong, the J-31′s chief designer, implied that the new stealth jet will need to be enhanced to become carrier-compatible, according to Global Times. In other words, the J-31 won’t be headed to sea any time soon, however much Chinese state media signals the rising power’s interest in taking its stealth jet out to the open water.

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GreyWolf wrote:Place your bets: 10 x F35s or 60 x F15 Silent Eagles for South Korea

IF Star Craft has taught me anything, its that superior numbers always outweigh "stealth"

hamin_aus wrote:
You've obviously never had a Dark Templar arrive at your base 12 minutes in with no detection...

www.theverge.com wrote:Navy destroys drone with laser weapon ahead of 2014 deployment

The US Navy has been pursuing solid-state laser weapons capable of setting other vessels on fire for years, but now one is almost ready to actually be put out to sea. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) today announced that it is aiming to "field and test a solid-state laser prototype" in early 2014 aboard the USS Ponce. The Ponce is a transport vessel from the 1970s that was recently upgraded into a hi-tech floating base and is stationed in the Persian Gulf, in range of Iranian attack boats.

As evidence of how far it's come with laser technology, the Navy released videos and imagery today of its prototype cannon tracking and burning a small drone out of the sky. The test firing took place off the coast of California in July last year, an ONR spokesperson told The Verge. It followed on the heels of a previous test of the Navy's laser weapons in early 2011, when a laser cannon was used to ignite and destroy a small boat.

Putting such a weapon out into the field aboard the Ponce, however, is "a major show of confidence" in the technology, as Danger Room's Spencer Ackerman wrote last month. That's especially true given the fact that defense spending is likely to face cuts in the upcoming federal budget. Still, the Navy thinks the technology is worth further investment in and may actually be cheaper than other current defense weapons. "Compared to existing ship self-defense systems, such as missiles and guns," a Navy specialist wrote in a report to Congress last month, "lasers could provide Navy surface ships with a more cost effective means of countering certain surface, air, and ballistic missile targets." The latest test is further evidence that the Navy is setting its laser ambitions higher than you may have guessed.

This Intense Real-Life F-35 Picture Looks Like an Iron Man Frame

This is an awesome shot of a test F-35 zipping around California's Edwards Air Force Base sent to us by a tipster. Can you imagine this buzzing by your window?

The F-35 might have a hard time getting off the ground, but when it does, it's a majestic sight.