February 14, 2024 - No. 07 In This Issue : FAA Announces More Privacy For Aircraft Operators : Lost nut becomes lodged in elevator trim control wheel : General Atomics demos 3-D printed air-launched effects vehicle : How The U.S. Navy Carried Out The First FPV Drone Strikes In 1944 : The new B-52: How the Air Force is prepping to fly century-old bombers : F-35 engine review pushed back months as government takes closer look : Is the Future Here? Kitplanes : The Navy’s Short-Lived Plan to Dominate the Skies with Flying Aircraft Carriers : Successful failure: Sierra Space’s inflatable habitat blows up as planned : https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/gami-unleaded-g100ul-to-go-on-sale-in-california-by-summer/ FAA Announces More Privacy For Aircraft Operators By Mark Phelps Published: February 7, 2024 Updated: February 8, 2024 The FAA recently announced greater opportunity for aircraft operators to take advantage of what many consider an important privacy initiative. The agency said it has expanded the availability of the Privacy ICAO Address (PIA) program to include more offshore airspace and routes traversing the Gulf of Mexico. The program enables operators to use alternate temporary ICAO ADS-B addresses that help prevent third-party data sources from capturing data from ADS-B Out transmissions. Participating in the FAA’s PIA program is an involved process, but worth it for some operators who feel the need for the added security. Heidi Williams, Senior Director of Air Traffic Services and Infrastructure for the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), said, “Some operators have a legitimate security need to ensure privacy and this new policy is a welcome change for those operators.” The program makes third-party call signs available to U.S.-registered aircraft with 1090 MHz ADS-B equipment. NBAA first requested wider scope for the PIA program in 2020. According to the association, examples of the new availability would include flights from Miami to Houston, passing over the Gulf of Mexico; a flight from Los Angeles to Hawaii; and flights from Boston to Miami on routes that extend more than 12 nautical miles offshore. Lost nut becomes lodged in elevator trim control wheel By General Aviation News Staff · February 6, 2024 This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports. Technician replaced the defective carburetor heat control cable in the Cessna 152 with a new FAA approved cable. During removal of the old carburetor heat control cable, the nut attaching the cable housing to the instrument panel was lost and eventually became lodged in the elevator trim control wheel sprocket and chain. During the next training flight, the pilot/student attempted to apply nose up and nose down trim and it was discovered that the trim wheel was jammed. The flight crew further moved the trim wheel to the point where the trim “just gave” and “slipped” and the aircraft was forced into a stuck extreme nose down trim configuration. The flight crew performed a turn back and performed a successful landing. Upon further inspection the cable attach nut was found lodged between the sprocket and chain. The sprocket and chain were inspected for damage and system rigging checks were performed with no defects noted. We believe the cause of this incident was human error by the inaction of the technician to retrieve the missing nut. Despite previously loosening the nut and installing a new cable with a new nut, the technician either forgot to find the missing nut or did not hear it fall in the trim components. Primary Problem: Human Factors ACN: 2032553 General Atomics demos 3-D printed air-launched effects vehicle By Jen Judson Thursday, Feb 1 A General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger unmanned vehicle returns to El Mirage Airfield, Calif. June 24, 2021. The MQ-20 successfully participated in Edwards Air Force Base’s Orange Flag 21-2 to test the Skyborg Autonomy Core System. (General Atomics) General Atomics Aeronautical Systems said it successfully released a new air-launched effects platform made with additive manufacturing from the internal weapons bay of an MQ-20 Avenger unmanned system. The company partnered with Divergent Technologies, Inc. to design and build the Advanced Air-Launched Effects vehicle, or A2LE, using Divergent’s Adaptive Production System (DAPS) “to support rapid, low-cost manufacturing of the demonstration vehicle,” it said in a statement. The Nov. 28 demonstration at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, showed additive manufacturing, also known as 3-D printing, early in the design process can create efficiencies, the company said. It’s a key step in validating AM process and material properties for incorporation in future systems to be employed by both manned and unmanned platforms. The flight was “a crucial first step in demonstrating GA-ASI’s ability to rapidly develop, manufacture, and test a Small Unmanned Aircraft System (SUAS) in a controlled, low-risk approach,” Mike Atwood, company vice president of advanced programs, said in the statement. “A2LE demonstrates the coupling of GA-ASI’s pedigreed aircraft design capabilities with Divergent’s DAPS, paving the way for continued maturation of affordable, modular SUAS platforms that can be tailored to meet warfighter needs at a fraction of the cost and lead time of currently fielded systems.” The company is planning a network of A2LEs providing a “persistent, expansive grid” for surveillance, attack, enemy air defense suppression or communication pathways, according to the statement, while enhancing current and future manned and unmanned platforms with increased capability. The U.S. Army has been extensively evaluating launched effects for roughly five years and is considering several size classes of launched effects. It’s evaluating an initial small, launched-effects prototype – a collaboration between Anduril Industries, RTX’s Collins Aerospace and Aurora Flight Sciences – as it experiment swith requirements and capabilities for a future program. The service plans to launch these small, uncrewed aircraft not only from air platforms, but from launchers on the ground or off vehicles. It has demonstrated the capabilities several times, including at the service’s first Edge exercise in 2021, which experiments with technology to enhance operations in the aerial tier. General Atomics demonstrated another ALE — the Eaglet — that the company deployed from a Gray Eagle UAS a year ago. The Eaglet would fit in the large class, the company said, which translates to having the ability to carry a wide variety of more powerful sensors and payloads. The Gray Eagle would still be able to carry it for thousands of kilometers before launching it. A2LE is considered to fit in the small category. “General Atomics has been approaching the future of uninhabited aerial vehicles and systems from a ‘family of systems’ approach,” said C. Mark Brinkley, a spokesman. “Whether air launched or ground launched, recoverable or expendable, we see these aircraft as offering different options configured for different missions.” The company is working on several launched effects offerings in addition to Eaglet and A2LE like Sparrowhawk and LongShot, Brinkley added. “All of these are similar and all of them are different, but the main theme here is affordable mass at scale, attacking a variety of problems in a variety of ways,” he said. “It wouldn’t be fair to compare these aircraft head-to-head at this point, because they’re all being driven by different requirements and intended uses,” Brinkley noted, “but each of these programs are absolutely leveraging best practices and lessons learned from one program to the next to help us iterate and innovate very quickly.” How The U.S. Navy Carried Out The First FPV Drone Strikes In 1944 David Hambling Senior Contributor Feb 8, 2024,06:55am EST The Interstate TDR, an FPV kamikaze drone used in the Pacific in 1944 U.S. NAVY The FPV or First Person View kamikaze drone has become one of the defining weapons of the war in Ukraine. Both sides now field FPVs in vast numbers and they are overtaking traditional weapons in destroying tanks and other targets. But aircraft controlled by a remote operator with a pilot’s-eye-view who deliberately crashes into the target with a bomb is not new. The U.S. Navy’s secret STAG-1 unit attacked Japanese forces with just this type of drone in 1944. America's Secret Weapon: Television In the 1930’s, Lt. Commander Delmar Farhney built radio-controlled anti-aircraft targets at the US Naval Research Laboratory. But Farhney – credited for being the first to use the word “drone” for uncrewed aircraft – soon became convinced he could do far more. By 1941, he was demonstrating robot aircraft capable of accurately dropping torpedoes and depth charges. These were all “third person view” drones operated from a distance like a radio-controlled model. When war was declared, Farhney was tasked with producing an assault drone, with one of the technological wonders of the age: television. Dr. Vladimir Zworykin of RCA was one of the inventors of the television, and he was keen to put it to use for the war effort. A standard television camera or Iconoscope weighed over three hundred pounds, but Zworykin’s team developed a miniaturized system including a transmitter the size of a carry-on suitcase and weighing just ninety-seven pounds. PROMOTED The image quality was not great, and pictures could be hard to interpret on the monochrome green screen display, but it had a good resolution — 350 lines — and a refresh rate of 40 Hertz. The transmitter could beam back images several mile away, being basically limited to line of sight. The addition of television created the original first person view drones. Farhney previously worked with obsolete aircraft converted for uncrewed operation, but now every available plane was being used for training or combat. The drones would need to be built from scratch – but without any of the resources that might be needed for other, more important aircraft. The result was the TDR-1, made by Interstate Aircraft & Engineering, a masterpiece of plywood and improvisation. Some of the work was carried out by organ makers Wurlitzer, who had long experience at shaping plywood. The TDR-1 had a wingspan of forty-eight feet, a speed of almost a hundred and fifty miles per hour. Fitting a 2,000-pound bomb or torpedo beneath the fuselage was a challenge and the TDR-1 ended up with tail, ungainly tricycle landing gear. Video: TDR-1 Assault Dronw Tests July 30, 1944... Avengers Assemble The drone was controlled from a modified Avenger torpedo bomber flying up to eight miles away. The Avenger had a crew of four, with pilot, radio operator, and gunner joined by a drone operator. The latter had a joystick, a television screen, and a rotary telephone dial which controlled the drones altitude and could release weapons by dialing specific numbers. The drone operator had to work under a black cloth to see the green, five-inch screen clearly in daylight, but it gave a real sense of being inside the drone. “To sit under the hood of an airplane and control the one up ahead with radar and television, where you can actually see where you are going – it felt like you are actually flying that plane,” said one operator. The drones were tested against a derelict Japanese freighter off Guadalcanal, and the test was deemed a success - video here. The STAG-1 drones successfully attacked anti-aircraft sites, gun positions, ships, and even a lighthouse. “I distinctly remember the excitement, watching the grainy and sometimes static-filled green TV screen as the drone I was guiding approached the grounded ship,” said one operator. “When an unfamiliar pattern of small dots began to appear, I thought the receiver was malfunctioning. Suddenly I realized; they were flak bursts! But I kept the drone on target, concentrating on holding its bouncing nose squarely on target. I crabbed it a bit to correct for wind and to avoid the worst of the flak. At the last second, I had a close-up view of the ship’s deck. Then…just static. I had hit the ship squarely amidships.” The majority of TDR attacks were carried out by crashing into the target, though the unit also experimented with conventional bombing. The Japanese supposedly called the TDR-1s “American kamikazes,” but this is disputed, as the last TDR-1 mission took place before the first Japanese kamikaze attacks. STAG-1 used 46 TDR drones in combat in September and October 1944. 5 were not able to locate the target due to television failures, 9 lost on the way to the target, 3 shot down by antiaircraft fire. Of the 29 reached their targets there were 7 confirmed hits, and 4 definite misses. The results of the other 18 were not known – the problem of any weapon striking beyond visual range – but the Navy believed that 11 hit at least the general area of the target and 7 missed. Lt Commander Robert Jones commanding STAG-1 was proud of these results and believed they proved the value of assault drones. His unit was scoring precision strikes against targets, and could go in where air defenses were too heavy for manned aircraft. Casualties among dive bomber crews were extremely high, with some units losing 10% or more of their pilots per month. STAG-1 had achieved the same sort of success as conventional diver bombers without the loss of a single airman. Jones believed that assault drones could play a vital part in the coming attack on Japan. Navy top brass did not agree; they did not want precision, they wanted massed formations of heavy bombers. After the drones were all expended, STAG-1 was reassigned. Jones watched unhappily as the thirty Avenger control planes were dumped overboard in Reynard Sound. “The great broom of victory swept all new projects into the ashcan of forgotten dreams,” Farhney wrote in an unpublished history of the project. The entire STAG-1 operation was classified and no details were published until decades after the war. This secret was one reason why the Navy was to rediscover and discard attack drones several times in Korean, Vietnam and afterwards. The TDR had a removable cockpit so it could be flown manually for tests or transport. U.S. NAVY 80 Years On: Triumph Of The FPV The modern FPV as seen in Ukraine has more in common with its 1944 predecessor than you might think. It is not just that this is use of new technology disapproved by traditional military commanders. Like the TDR-1, modern FPVs are essentially improvised and assembled from whatever is available. Like the TDR-1, the bomb slung under modern FPVs is awkward – they often take off from four bricks or an improvised stand. And FPV pilots still have an immersive flight experience, though now it is done with VR-type goggles rather than a black cloth and a small screen. Control range is still basically limited to the line of sight, now aided by flying signal repeaters. And the modern FPVs are extremely effective at destroying tanks, artillery, trucks and other targets. This week President Zelensky announced the formation of a separate branch of the armed forces for drones, noting their importance: “Repelling ground assaults is primarily the task of drones. The large-scale destruction of the occupiers and their equipment is also the domain of drones.” Delmar Farhney would be proud. The new B-52: How the Air Force is prepping to fly century-old bombers By Stephen Losey BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. — As it idled on the flight line here, a B-52H Stratofortress known as the Red Gremlin II looked much the same as it did in the 1960s. Note: See photos in the original article. But the U.S. Air Force’s B-52 bomber fleet is showing its age, and the Red Gremlin II is no exception. On a crisp, clear morning in January, its five-person aircrew from the 11th Bomb Squadron ran through preflight checks for a training mission, tallying up what was broken and how serious the problems were. Instructor pilot Lt. Col. Michael DeVita’s digital display — a relatively recent system known as the Combat Network Communications Technology, or CONECT — wasn’t working. The radar altimeter was down. And the targeting pod display, needed for a key element of the planned simulated bombing, was on the fritz. At one point, DeVita, the squadron commander, leaned over and gave a stubborn dial three solid taps to unstick it. For the last six decades, the Red Gremlin II and the other 75 B-52s still in use have been the backbone of the Air Force’s bomber fleet. They have conducted around-the-clock nuclear alert missions at the edge of Soviet airspace as well as massive bombing campaigns during the Vietnam War. They helped carry out strikes on Iraq that paved the way for the rapid ground assault of Operation Desert Storm. And in recent years, these aircraft conducted precision-guided strikes against the Taliban and the Islamic State group. Now the Stratofortress needs to last another 36 years. A U.S. Air Force B-52 drops a string of 750-pound bombs over a coastal target in Vietnam during the Vietnam War in October 1965. (U.S. Air Force via Getty Images) The Air Force is preparing to bring on its newest stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, and retire the aging B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit. Sometime in the 2030s, the service plans to have a fleet of two bombers — at least 100 B-21s and the current fleet of 76 B-52s, modernized top to bottom with a slate of upgrades. It is the most sweeping revamp of the U.S. bomber fleet in more than a generation. This $48.6 billion overhaul is intended to keep the (eventually redubbed) B-52J operational until about 2060 — meaning the Air Force could be flying nearly century-old bombers. When the last B-52 was delivered in 1962, it was expected to last 20 years, the Defense Department’s inspector general said in a November 2023 report. ‘Weapons hot’: Lessons and mistakes on a B-52 bomber training flight B-52 instructors impress upon younger lieutenants the seriousness of life and death when controlling one of the most formidable weapons of war ever built. By Stephen Losey The service is preparing for the overhaul, rethinking day-to-day maintenance and reevaluating its strategy for how a fleet made up of two bomber types would operate against an advanced enemy. “The B-21 with the B-52J [will be] a very powerful, integrated force,” Maj. Gen. Jason Armagost, commander of 8th Air Force, said in a January interview here, sporting a B-21 patch on his uniform sleeve. The combined fleet would be capable of conducting a wide range of operations and striking an array of enemy targets, possibly armed with the latest hypersonic weapons. The centerpiece of the B-52J modernization will be the replacement of the bomber’s original ’60s-era Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines with new Rolls-Royce-made F130 engines; that $2.6 billion effort is known as the Commercial Engine Replacement Program. The Air Force expects the first test B-52J will start ground and flight tests in late 2028, and for more B-52s to receive new engines throughout the 2030s. Rolls-Royce tests F130 engines that will be installed on B-52 Stratofortress bombers, at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. (Rolls-Royce) But that’s not all: The B-52J will also receive a new modern radar, improved avionics, the Long Range Standoff weapon to carry out nuclear strikes from a distance, communication upgrades, new digital displays replacing dozens of old analog dials, new wheels and brakes, and other improvements. The Air Force is counting on all these advances to work. If they don’t, the service could find itself with perhaps as much as 40% of its planned bomber fleet unable to keep up with wartime requirements. The Air Force must make the B-52 modernization succeed, said Heather Penney, a retired F-16 pilot and senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “Long-range strike is absolutely nonnegotiable. Bombers are it.” Air Force historian Brian Laslie said the fact the B-52 is still in the air, and could continue flying until around its centenary, is remarkable. “If there was an airplane that was flying today that was 100 years old, we have to go back to 1924,” Laslie said. “We’re talking about the [Boeing P-26] Peashooters, the [Curtiss] JN-3 and JN-4 Jennys [a series of World War I-era biplanes]. We’re talking about canvas and wire and wooden airplanes. A hundred years ago, we don’t even have enclosed cockpits [or] retractable landing gear.” Experts like Penney argue the United States has underinvested in its bomber fleet since the 1990s, including truncating its B-2 purchase by more than 100 planes, letting the B-1 fleet decay, and waiting too long to start working on the B-21. As a result, she said, the Air Force is asking the B-52 to shoulder a burden no bomber has before. “We’re asking geriatric B-52s to be that backbone while we’re waiting for B-21 to be able to come on board,” Penney said. The B-52 Stratofortress bomber has been in service since the 1960s. Here's what it will take to keep it flying. Looking for ‘showstoppers’ Before a B-52 takes off, DeVita said, it’s common for its crew to find at least one thing is broken during the preflight check process. Usually maintainers can fix the problem on the flight line and the crew takes off with a fully operational jet. But sometimes, he added, a broken system can’t be fixed in time, and the crew must decide whether its loss would be bad enough to scrub the mission. ‘More with less’: Lacking parts, airmen scramble to keep B-52s flying As the B-52H Stratofortress tops more than six decades in service, it’s grown increasingly temperamental. By Stephen Losey Of the 744 Stratofortresses the Air Force built between 1954 and 1962, 10% remain — and the years have taken a toll. The aircraft’s mission-capable rate has steadily declined over the last decade, from a modern high of 78% in 2012 to 59% in 2022 — the most recent year for which statistics are available. The bomber’s 185-foot wingspan means it must often remain outdoors, exposed to the elements, including frigid winters at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, searing Middle Eastern heat and sand, and corrosive salt air from the Pacific Ocean. Key parts have become increasingly unavailable, as the companies that made them have moved onto other business or simply closed. A B-52H Stratofortress flies alongside another of the bombers conducting a training flight out of Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Jan. 4, 2024. (Stephen Losey/Staff) The B-52 may be old, but it’s a hardy plane, said Capt. Jonathan Newark, the instructor weapon systems officer for the training flight. And even though some of its systems may look “antiquated,” he said, they get the job done. He gestured to a panel with thick, black keys he uses to punch in targeting data. “You look at this keyboard, it looks like something out of the Cold War. Dr. Strangelove, right?” Newark said, referring to the 1964 film about nuclear war that prominently features the B-52. “But we could do every single mission set using this keyboard ... all the way up to our most advanced weapons.” Back on the runway, the Red Gremlin II idled more than a half hour longer than expected, with the engines emitting a low and steady whine, while maintainers tried to get the targeting pod screen to function. But a fix would have taken too long, so the crew decided to get the flight going. “We’re balancing what training we can get done,” Newark said. “I don’t have any showstoppers [on this flight]. The students that are here can still get all the training they need. [The targeting pod practice would be] nice to have, not necessarily something we needed today. There’s a lot of things like that — the radar altimeter doesn’t work.” “We’re able to make an aircrew decision to fly without it,” he added. “We do that a lot with airplanes that are a little bit older.” Issues with the engines, hydraulics or flight surfaces would be deal-breakers in any situation, Newark said. But in combat, a B-52 crew will be more willing to fly with minor problems on their plane because the mission must get done. So the crew of the bomber, call sign Scout 93, strapped on their parachutes, buckled into their seats and roared into the sky to meet up with a KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling tanker near Fayetteville, Arkansas. Top-to-bottom upgrades The scope of this modernization project is unprecedented in the B-52′s history, said Col. David Miller, director of logistics and engineering at Air Force Global Strike Command. And Armagost noted the service expects the B-52′s engine upgrades will provide improved efficiency and range. But the new Rolls-Royce engines are also expected to be quieter and more reliable than the current engines, plus they wouldn’t have to depend on an outdated supply chain for spare parts. “If we’re on a [bomber task force] mission in Indonesia, we’ll probably have parts available for those [new] engines that are pretty close, rather than having to schedule a C-17 [cargo aircraft] to fly an engine from” the United States, Armagost said. Gallery: Take a flight in the US Air Force’s B-52 bomber Defense News’ air warfare reporter, Stephen Losey, visited Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana to check out the aging B-52 bomber fleet. By Stephen Losey The B-52J will receive a modern active electronically scanned array radar to improve its navigation, self-defense and targeting capabilities. The B-52′s current, outdated mechanically scanned radar is at the end of its life and is increasingly difficult to support, Armagost said. But making the B-52 new again is only one step in the process. The Air Force is also trying to map out how best to use it in a war against advanced forces that could deny airspace to the U.S. and allies. Such a conflict would represent a dramatic shift away from the relatively open airspaces in which B-52s have operated for the last two decades. And the modernization on the way is vital to keeping the B-52 able to engage the enemy, Armagost said. That will mean figuring out the best way for the B-52J to work alongside the B-21 now in development. The B-21 Raider was unveiled to the public at a ceremony on Dec. 2, 2022. (U.S. Air Force) The B-21 Raider, with its next-generation stealth capabilities, was designed to conduct penetrating strike missions against an adversary with advanced air defenses, such as China, while the B-52J — about as stealth-less as can be — would carry out standoff strikes, launching missiles at enemy targets from outside contested airspace. But Armagost doesn’t expect a “siloed” approach to how the service will use its fleet of two bomber types, with one or the other individually designated to carry out certain types of missions. What’s more likely, he said, is the B-52J and B-21 working in concert, along with other U.S. forces or partners, in integrated multidomain operations that could include working with cyber and maritime assets. “Their capabilities are inherently different,” Armagost explained. “But a penetrating strike force, [including the B-21], might open up opportunities for a standoff strike force, [like the B-52], that then has follow-on opportunities for reacquiring denied or contested airspace.” He envisions the B-52J conducting the kind of integrated operations that paved the way for Desert Storm or the opening salvoes of Operation Iraqi Freedom. During the Gulf War, for example, B-52s flew 1,741 missions and dropped 27,000 tons of munitions, including Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missiles and conventional bombs. They targeted airfields, aircraft, command-and-control sites, power facilities, and Republican Guard positions, while allowing allied ground forces to sweep through and swiftly win the war. And in a single night mission in the opening phase of the Iraq War, B-52s launched 100 cruise missiles at targets before going on to fly at least 100 additional missions in the conflict’s first few weeks. A U.S. soldier stands guard over the first of the American B-52 bombers to arrive in preparation for missions to the Gulf on Feb. 5, 1991, at the British air base of Fairford. (Ian Showell/AFP via Getty Images) Such a campaign would allow “a 100-hour ground war because of what’s been conducted through an air operation,” Armagost said. “Then the resulting joint environment becomes completely different than what it was prior to that.” The Air Force is drawing up “robust” concepts of operations for how the B-21 will carry out missions, he added, including alongside the B-52, which is also helping Air Force Global Strike Command identify potential future capability gaps and how to address them. The weapons arming the B-52J will likely run the gamut, Armagost said — everything from gravity bombs that provide “affordable mass,” to cruise missiles for carrying out strikes beyond the range of enemy air defenses, to precision-guided munitions and highly specialized, “exquisite” weapons like hypersonics. “If it can fly or be dropped off an aircraft, the B-52 has probably done it,” he said. The Air Force has used B-52s to test prototype hypersonic weapons in recent years, and Armagost “absolutely” sees them as a regular part of the Stratofortress’ future arsenal. Although hypersonic weapons have the potential to provide tremendous capabilities — including flying faster than Mach 5 and maneuvering in such a way as to avoid countermeasures — they carry price tags so steep that the B-52J would need cheaper and more traditional bombs, too, he added. “Everything is a choice, particularly when it comes to aviation,” Armagost said. “If it flies fast or is maneuverable, everything’s a trade-off. That’s why gravity weapons probably will always be a thing.” Broken tech ‘makes combat a lot more difficult’ After a nearly six-hour flight that included flying alongside another B-52, aerial refueling with a KC-135 Stratotanker out of Illinois’ Scott Air Force Base, and simulated bombing practice, the crew of the Red Gremlin II turned back to Barksdale. Its student pilot, 1st Lt. Clay Hultgren, practiced touch-and-go landings over and over, and then brought the bomber to a safe stop. During the post-flight debrief, instructors took stock of how the flight went — and considered the toll the broken equipment took on their lessons. The radar altimeter started working after the bomber took off, but even if it stayed broken it wouldn’t have been a big deal. The crew was able to successfully complete most of the planned bombing simulations, except an assignment to find and target mobile equipment. “We weren’t able to do that because we didn’t have a targeting pod,” DeVita said. “So [we have an] alibi for that.” And losing the bomber’s CONECT screen — a system rolled out in the mid-2010s that provides detailed, moving color maps and helps with digital targeting — was a major “limiting factor,” DeVita added. The crew of the Red Gremlin II instead had to use the legacy navigation system DeVita learned to fly on years ago. During a Jan. 4, 2024, training flight on a B-52H Stratofortress, the bomber's new digital display wasn't working. The pilots had to rely on an older navigation system, seen here. (Stephen Losey/Staff) Losing the CONECT screen also meant the weapon systems officer and electronic warfare stations didn’t have the maps that would have made their jobs easier, DeVita said. “That’s an issue,” he explained. “It makes combat a lot more difficult to be precise and to do a lot of the things that we walked out the door to do today. So that was unfortunate.” While the B-52′s massive modernization is vital, Penney fears what the Air Force might find when it takes a closer look under its hood. Six decades of flying may have left it with metal fatigue, corrosion, stress fractures and other hidden structural issues, the retired F-16 pilot said. She compared the potential dangers facing the B-52 to the unwelcome surprises the service found when it re-engined massive C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft in the 2010s. “They ended up having to cut the planned number of [C-5] upgrades nearly in half because when they opened up the aircraft, they found a lot of stuff that they didn’t expect,” she said. “They ended up having to do a lot of unplanned [service life extension work], essentially, and that ended up eating into the available money they had for the program.” Air Force Global Strike Command said in a response to Defense News’ inquiry that the service assessed the B-52s before deciding to modernize them, and found their underlying structures were strong enough to last through the plane’s extended life span. Penney said she also worries about the risks that come from concurrency as the Air Force attempts multiple major upgrades on a plane in short succession, if not simultaneously. Any one of those upgrades — re-engining, installing a new radar, updating avionics and so on — would be a major effort on its own, she added. “These are programs that are long overdue and are utterly necessary if the B-52 is going to be able to execute what we need it to do in today’s — and last into the future’s — strategic environment,” she said. If the B-52 modernization ends up significantly more complicated than expected, and thus delayed, Penney explained, the Air Force may be forced to extend the life of some B-1s or B-2s beyond their planned early retirements in the 2030s just to keep enough operational bombers. And if the Air Force opens up the B-52 and finds structural problems severe enough to jeopardize the re-engining? “We can’t even go there,” Penney said. “It is such a must-do. We cannot fail.” F-35 engine review pushed back months as government takes closer look By Stephen Losey Friday, Feb 9 Maj. Kristin "Beo" Wolfe flies an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter during practice at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, on Dec. 13, 2023. (Senior Airman Jack Rodgers/U.S. Air Force) A key design review for the F-35 fighter jet’s engine upgrade will take place several months later than originally predicted, as the government adds another level of review to the process. An executive for Pratt & Whitney, the RTX-owned company that makes the jet’s F135 engines, told reporters Tuesday that the Engine Core Upgrade program’s preliminary design review is expected to take place in May 2024. That is later than the company originally predicted last fall, when it said the review was scheduled for January 2024, about a month after the company expected to finish its preliminary design. In a statement to Defense News on Friday, the F-35 Joint Program Office said the design review is “event driven” and has not been delayed, but that it is taking a closer look at the engine upgrade. “We have added a senior-level engineering and technical review to the schedule, which will take place in the February/March time frame,” the JPO said. “The JPO, in conjunction with our industry partner [Pratt & Whitney], continues to mitigate risk as we work toward the PDR [preliminary design review].” Pratt & Whitney spokesperson Heather Uberuaga said the Engine Core Upgrade program, or ECU, is on track, and referred follow-up questions to the JPO. The program is intended to give the F-35 more power, thrust and cooling ability. That will be necessary for a wide-ranging slate of modernizations planned for the fighter, known as Block 4, which will allow the jet to carry more weapons as well as improve its targeting, electronic warfare capability and sensors. The Pentagon considered creating an entirely new engine for the jet to provide the necessary thrust, power and cooling ability, but last year decided to instead keep and upgrade the F-35′s current Pratt & Whitney-made F135 engines. Jen Latka, vice president for Pratt’s F135 program, also told reporters the company is on track to finish designing the engine upgrade in mid-2025 and start testing it the following year. The ECU’s critical design review is expected to take place next year as well. This will allow the engine upgrade to be delivered in 2029, Latka said. Pratt & Whitney executives have downplayed the potential danger of an extended continuing resolution on the ECU program’s long-term timeline. The top officer in charge of the F-35 program, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt, warned lawmakers in December that funding could run out for the engine upgrades within months if a 2024 budget isn’t passed. Latka told reporters that passing a budget is critical for ECU and other programs, and an extended continuing resolution for a longer period of time would affect it. But, she added, it’s unlikely a longer continuing resolution would delay plans to have the engine upgrades fielded in 2029. “There’s a lot of different pieces of design that are progressing at different rates right now,” Latka said. “We don’t have an exact date when the money runs out and the timer goes off.” Latka said all versions of the F-35, including the “B” variant that has a tilting version of the engine so the fighter can hover, will use essentially the same core upgrade, although the configuration will differ for the F-35B. Pratt & Whitney expects the process of swapping out the engine cores for all F-35s in the field will take about 18 months. Once the new engine core is ready, Latka said, the military’s own maintainers would be able to install it at depots or potentially on the flight line in a few shifts. “It’s not a one-shift job, but it’s a fairly simple exercise,” Latka explained. Pratt & Whitney is heavily using digital design techniques on the F135 upgrades, Latka added, which she predicted will save time and money as well as and improve the quality of the components going into the engine. The company is designing all parts with a digital model, she said, and once those digital blueprints are done, the firm will send them to suppliers to build. The complete “digital thread” for each part will also help military services conduct preventive maintenance, Latka said. And Pratt & Whitney’s pitch for a next-generation adaptive propulsion engine will similarly use a fully digital process, she added. Jill Albertelli, Pratt & Whitney’s president of military engines, also noted the company plans to test prototypes of its next-generation adaptive propulsion engine, which would go in the Air Force’s planned Next Generation Air Dominance fighter, in the late 2020s. Is the Future Here? Rear cockpit. By Tom Wilson January 27, 2024 For ages one of the most common laments in aviation is we’re still flying around behind ancient engines. LyConsaurs they’re called, and when in the world are we going to move on to something designed after the demise of vacuum tube computing? Maybe, I’m beginning to think, we already have. No, I haven’t been smoking a strangely long pipe or just returned from a self-realization retreat, but I have been doing something eerily similar: writing the Engine Buyer’s Guide found elsewhere in this version of the KITPLANES® thicket. At times compiling such a story does approach a hallucinatory exercise, what with all the numbers glazing over. But in those moments of clarity it became obvious there are many more than just the familiar horizontally opposed powerplants in play. Even after discounting fringe players—the jets and rotaries—there are many more engines in the Buyer’s Guide than what we’re used to seeing at the typical Cessna-Piper-RV airport. Down at the flugplatz it’s nothing but the familiar air-cooled Flat Earth Society, with maybe the odd radial classic and a few Rotaxes. Meanwhile, in the Buyer’s Guide there are inlines and vees along with plenty of liquid-cooled options. What gives? Seems while we weren’t looking, a new breed of engines arrived. These engines are hardly in mass circulation, but they do exist, they are being fitted to airframes, they are flying and a core group of pilots are getting friendly with them. You could also say they’re modern and, depending on your Nosferatu quotient, you might postulate they are some large portion of the future. We could start by defining “modern,” albeit in massively truncated terms suitable to this short column. Skipping the chalk talk as to why, two important characteristics of a modern airplane engine are a combustion chamber (and ports, valves and other breathing parts) designed in, oh, the 1990s or later and, to a lesser extent, liquid (water) cooling. The combustion chamber—essentially the cylinder head and piston crown—is important because it is key to establishing the engine’s need for anti-knock capability from the fuel, along with setting fuel efficiency and power output fundamentals. Incredible knowledge about what goes on in combustion chambers has been gained by the auto industry since the 1970s. Driven by the demand for power, fuel economy and especially to reduce emissions, precisely what transpires to the air/fuel charge as it enters and responds to piston motion is today a universe ahead of what legacy aircraft engine designers gave us. Ironically, much of this fundamental combustion theory was pioneered during the big engine peak of WW-II when empires depended on it. But the turbojet ended serious piston engine development for 30 years until the auto industry took up the cause. Today, piston engine progress has come from carmakers—at least when they’ve not been distracted by electric motors and fuel cells. As for water cooling, we could debate to a bloody draw which is better for a flying engine. Both air and water cooling have great benefits, but as engines get more efficient, and thus inevitably smaller displacement, the advantage tips to water cooling. Water cooling’s denser medium and greater thermal stability is the practical winner as power climbs. Ask Porsche, a company steeped in air cooling, which made the transition to water cooling decades ago. Or look at Rotax, which goes to the trouble to water cool the cylinder heads while leaving the cylinders air cooled. There’s also an even more fundamental discussion regarding if smaller, higher-rpm modern engines are all that better than big, slow-turning direct drives, but we can share that beer another afternoon. For now we can expect more contemporary general aviation engines to have sophisticated combustion chambers and possibly water cooling. To these mechanical characteristics we can add digital control of the fuel and spark as they can maximize the benefits of a good combustion chamber. So far, such engines have come from two sources: all-new aviation engines or automobile conversions. The all-new engines are in their own money class, one we mere mortals need not worry about because of the incredibly high costs. Examples are the Jet A-burning Continentals derived from Mercedes diesel car engines, the R.E.D. V-12 and EPS Graflight V-8 (wherever it may be). Fabulous engines all, but too far over the financial horizon for enthusiast flying. Look for them in military drones and business aircraft long before they ever trickle down to chasing pancakes. What About Auto Conversions? A smattering of domestic V-8 efforts have made or are making the rounds. A generation ago Geschwender-prepped Chevys and Fords successfully powered ag applicators; more recently Robinson turned Chevy’s LS series into a fine seaplane engine, AutoPSRU’s is zeroing in on RV-10 Chevy applications and Corsair Engine Technologies has been getting noticed for their Chevy-into-a-Cessna-172 experimentation. Smaller auto engines are found all over the sectional but from our Buyer’s Guide, AeroMomentum and Viking are established firms putting forth some sort of auto engine. All of these engines utilize a propeller speed reduction unit (PSRU), or gearbox for short. Now, gearboxes are a whole ’nother ball of engineering and manufacturing wax, but they are not impossible. Closer design and manufacturing tolerances and smoother (less misfiring) engines as found in cars contribute to successful PSRUs. Such gearboxes seem a necessity when working with inherently smaller displacement, higher-rpm engines. Of course the new crop of engines have their share of questions. Cost alternates between a big advantage or an insurmountable problem. Minuscule production runs don’t build faith in reliability. Propeller, gearbox and long-term vibration effects are a few of the unknowns, and the hobby financial profile of some of the cottage companies involved may not engender confidence. But the fact is a measurable number of these engines are being sold and flown, especially in smaller aircraft. Fleet hours for these engines, still vanishingly small compared to the established aero engines, are slowly accumulating and so far we haven’t heard of many problems. In short, there’s not much to suggest the latest round of auto conversions are failures. Time is the only measure, but so far the incentives of lower purchasing, running and overhaul costs are enticing the sportier, more Experimental builders and it seems to be working for them. At the same time the dream of purpose-built, clean-sheet-design aircraft engines is proving fiscally challenging outside of the market stratosphere. The R.E.D. V-12 is likely the best example. It has successfully provided 500 hp to a good number of deep-pocket prototypes and proof-of-concept aircraft, along with repowering Yak and other certified airframes. But all of these have been initiatives priced well above mainstream Experimentals such as the typical RV builder might squeeze together. The Jet A Continentals have likewise flown just fine but are simply too expensive for regular people to buy. And unfortunately for Continental, this was also the case with their water-cooled Voyager series back in the ’80s. In short, the next generation of advanced aero engines for sport flying is not coming from Williamsport or Mobile. The main issue, as always, has been scale. There just aren’t enough aircraft piston engine sales to justify what it costs to design, produce and—the big one—certify them today. It’s been that way for many years and is only getting worse as the GA fleet stagnates and the U.S. industrial base trudges along somewhere between off- and on-shoring itself. Which points to auto conversions as the one possible source of modern engines for sport—and dare we say—general aviation aircraft. A huge problem is that we haven’t delivered much technical progress for decades, so now we must leap a chasm to make a meaningful move. Yes, the engines already exist from the auto industry. But the PSRU and other bits to adapt them to aircraft—the parts supply, maintenance and overhaul capabilities, not to mention the market and regulatory/legal acceptance required to bring any source of new engines to the general aviation mainstream—is asking a lot. Then there is integrating new engine shapes and water cooling into what has been a horizontally opposed, air-cooled world for ages. At least that is something we Experimental airplane builders can have some fun doing. But for now, there is movement to more contemporary engines by builders of the lighter Experimental aircraft. Fascinatingly, price seems the main driver as the repurposed auto engines often show a cost advantage. That’s something helped by the recent big increases in legacy airplane engine pricing as well as something to consider for your next build or repowering The Navy’s Short-Lived Plan to Dominate the Skies with Flying Aircraft Carriers The USS Akron flies off the Panama Canal Zone on March 15, 1933, with the airship's training plane suspending in her hangar opening. (U.S. Army Air Corps photo from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command) Military.com | By Stephen Ruiz Published February 06, 2024 On a late September day in 1931, more than 150,000 people flocked to Akron Municipal Airport to witness a spectacle. The air was abuzz with excitement as the USS Akron -- a 785-foot-long airship that was about 20 feet shorter than the Hindenburg -- flew for the first time. More than 100 passengers, including Navy Secretary Charles Francis Adams, were afforded a bird's-eye view of the surrounding landscape in northeast Ohio as the rigid airship reached an altitude of about 1,000 feet during the four-hour tour. See Video: Biplane Launch From Airship USS Akron (ZRS-4) "With the completion of the Akron, the United States resumes world leadership in lighter-than-air craft," said Rear Adm. William Moffett, the first chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics who was onboard. "I feel sure she will demonstrate the great value of airships, not only for the Navy but for commerce." Developed by the Navy's lighter-than-air program, the Akron and its sister ship, the USS Macon, were filled with helium and capable of becoming airborne without assistance from outside mechanical or technological systems, such as an engine. The program developed airships from 1915 until 1962, but what made these two dirigibles unique was that they represented the Navy's foray into the realm of flying aircraft carriers. Not long after the Navy developed its first aircraft carrier, the USS Langley, in 1922, the military was eager to advance that concept into the skies to further assist its warships at sea with scouting and reconnaissance. Instead of taking off from the deck of a ship, aircraft would literally drop from above. Attached to a skyhook mechanism under the hangar, the aircraft would be lowered and released, and then when the plane's mission was complete, the skyhook would retrieve it in mid-air. The first test flights occurred with a nonrigid dirigible, such as a blimp, in April 1917, the same month the U.S. entered World War I; one of those tests resulted in the airship being damaged beyond repair. That hardly swayed the program’s brain trust, though, as the Navy went on to commission four rigid airships of note. All made history. The USS Shenandoah became the first rigid dirigible to fly across the U.S. and back in October 1924, and the USS Los Angeles made a record 331 flights and even once performed a handstand. Then came the Akron and Macon, and Americans were kept abreast of their happenings through front-page stories and other news reports. When the Akron, which had a crew of 60 sailors and weighed 110 tons, went on a transcontinental adventure -- a journey that was tinged with tragedy when two sailors fell to their deaths while trying to dock the airship -- the country took note, as it did when the carrier went on patrols to Florida, Cuba and the Panama Canal. There were other mishaps, too, and the Akron's service was interrupted by periods of downtime because of them. Eighteen months after its maiden voyage, the airship went down off the New Jersey coast during a violent storm. Moffett, the admiral responsible for the program, was among 73 killed in a tragedy that President Franklin D. Roosevelt termed a national disaster. The USS Macon is viewed from a camera inside a hangar in 1934. (U.S. Navy photo) One of the three survivors, Akron executive officer Lt. Cmdr. Herbert Wiley, went on to lead the Macon's crew. Less than three weeks after the loss of the Akron, the Macon flew for the first time. Test flights in the South followed before the dirigible moved to California for fleet scouting tests and hooked up with the USS Houston as it transported Roosevelt from Panama to Hawaii. The Macon’s upper fin was ripped off by excessive winds on Feb. 12, 1935, causing it to descend slowly into the waters off California. Because the Macon was equipped with life jackets and rafts -- potentially lifesaving items not onboard the Akron -- only two sailors died in the incident. A view of the wreckage of the USS Macon, with a Curtiss Sparrowhawk F9C-2 cockpit with a telescopic gun site in the center of the fuselage right above the cockpit. (Wikimedia Commons) The sinking of the Macon ended the Navy's experiment with flying aircraft carriers, but not the service's work with dirigibles. During World War II, the Navy boasted five airship classes that operated in the Pacific, Mediterranean, and the north and south Atlantic. While those numbers dwindled after the war, the military still maintained two squadrons. The Navy announced it was closing its lighter-than-air program in 1961, which became official the following year. Even as researchers have scoured the final resting places of the Akron and Macon in the decades since they went down, the idea of launching aircraft from the skies is not dormant. In the late 1940s, the Air Force conducted tests to launch the smallest fighter jet ever, called the Goblin, from a bomber but scuttled those efforts after a year. In 2019, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, and defense technology company Dynetics announced the successful test of a drone that potentially could take off from and land in a plane such as the C-130 Hercules. While flying aircraft carriers may have seemed futuristic at the time, they likely will remain relegated to U.S. military history – and in the imaginations of Hollywood scriptwriters. Successful failure: Sierra Space’s inflatable habitat blows up as planned Aria Alamalhodaei @breadfrom / 2:32 pm PST • January 22, 2024 Image Credits: Sierra Space Sierra Space has completed a key test of its inflatable space habitat, as the company progresses toward launching and operating a private space station with Blue Origin before the end of the decade. The “ultimate burst pressure” test of the inflatable module was conducted at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. As the name suggests, the purpose of the test is to inflate the unit until it bursts. In this instance, engineers inflated the module to 77 psi before it burst, proving that it exceeded NASA’s recommended safety level of 60.8 psi by 27%. While Sierra has conducted a series of burst tests on sub-scale units of the habitat, called Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE), this is the first on a full-scale module. At full scale, the module stands at over 20 feet tall and is around one-third the volume of the International Space Station. As Leanne Thompson, a systems engineer at Sierra, pointed out in a recent video on the test, it took NASA 10 to 15 launches to send up that same volume of habitable space with the ISS. Each LIFE module is designed to fit inside a standard five-meter payload fairing, though the company said it is working on bigger iterations of 1,400 cubic meters (larger than the ISS) that could fit in a seven-meter fairing. The test focused on the LIFE habitat’s pressure shell or restraint layer, which is made of expandable “softgoods” that perform like a rigid structure once they’re inflated. Softgoods as a materials category have aerospace heritage: There have been inflatable airlocks attached to the ISS, and demonstration modules developed by Bigelow Aerospace were launched to space in the 2000s. The softgoods that make up the LIFE habitat include Vectran straps, which are made out of high-performance polymers and other materials. In a press release, Sierra said that Vectran is “stronger than steel when inflated on-orbit.” The company is working with ILC Dover to design and test the straps prior to this full-scale test. Although the burst test is certainly suggestive, it would be a mistake to compare the LIFE module to a balloon. In the video above, Sierra briefly displays nine layers that will ultimately make up each module, including the restraint layer, such as thermal insulation and an outer cover. Sierra’s plan is to deploy the LIFE modules in low Earth orbit as part of Orbital Reef, a private space station the company is developing with Blue Origin. Notably, Sierra specifically references the project in the press release, which could be at least partly a response to reporting from CNBC last year that the Orbital Reef project was on the verge of falling apart. Sierra said this year will be one of “aggressive” testing at both sub- and full-scale of the other layers of the habitat. GAMI Unleaded G100UL Eyed To Go On Sale In California By Summer By Russ Niles Published: February 10, 2024 Updated: February 12, 2024 Aircraft operators in California will likely be the first to be able to fill their tanks with unleaded 100 octane aviation fuel. General Aviation Modifications Inc. head of engineering George Braly told AVweb the company has signed a licensing agreement with petroleum company Vitol Aviation and that company is now in the process of producing the first large-scale batches of G100UL® avgas. At this time, the expectation is that G100UL avgas will be available to the West Coast in the first half of this year. “The initial deployment will be in California,” said Braly. Vitol is now reconfiguring refining, blending, and storage facilities in the Gulf Coast area to produce the fuel and has obtained the necessary authorizations from the FAA to make and sell it. Braly said it’s still not clear which airports will inaugurate the sale of G100UL, but several airports have banned the sale of leaded aviation fuel and those who need the higher octane have to fill up elsewhere. In September of 2022, GAMI obtained a blanket supplementary type certificate (STC with Approved Model List) that allows the use of G100UL in every gasoline engine used in certified aircraft in the U.S. To use the fuel, aircraft owners have to buy the STC for their aircraft, which Braly says is a simple one-time online form for each aircraft. The cost is based on the horsepower of the engine in the plane. The fuel will also cost more than 100LL. “The premium components required to make this fuel cost more,” he said. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” The costs of the components in a gallon of G100UL avgas is between 85 cents and $1.15 per gallon more than the cost of those components used in making a gallon of 100LL. That difference depends on fluctuating market prices for the ingredients. How much those costs will translate into the ultimate pump price will be up to the various wholesalers, distributors and FBO retailers in the supply chain. Braly said the ultimate goal is to make the fuel available everywhere as the industry transitions out of the use of leaded fuel in compliance with federal regulations that are expected to ban its use in the next decade. G100UL is not formally in or part of the FAA/aviation industry’s Eliminate Aviation Gasoline Lead Emissions (EAGLE), as GAMI had already obtained its initial AML STC before that program was created in early 2022. However, G100UL avgas remains the only visible high-octane replacement for 100LL that has so far been approved for use. Swift Fuels has an unleaded 100 octane fuel under development as does a partnership between Lyondell, a chemical company, and VP Racing, which makes fuels for racing engines. Phillips Petroleum and chemical company Afton have paused the evaluation of their fuel in the EAGLE program because it failed a key test in the evaluation process. EAGLE has set 2030 to have a universal replacement for 100LL “without adversely impacting the safe and efficient operation of the existing fleet.” GAMI has been working with AOPA to demonstrate the fuel by running one of the engines on AOPA’s Beech Baron on G100UL and the other on 100LL. The dual-fuel Baron started with freshly overhauled engines and has now flown over a hundred hours in that configuration and will take part in the AOPA Fly-in at the Buckeye Air Fair at Buckeye Airport in Arizona from Feb. 16-18. Braly said AOPA President Mark Baker has played a key role in getting the fuel into the public eye with the Baron demonstration and participation in the airshow. https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/gami-unleaded-g100ul-to-go-on-sale-in-california-by-summer/ Curt Lewis