America’s stealth aircraft you've never heard of
sandboxx.us
sandboxx.us
Unfortunately it seems to me, that the intersection of people who are qualified to talk about these topics and the ones who are willing and allowed to talk about it is very small.
I feel like to form a qualified opinion on these modern marvels of technology, one needs to have at least an undergraduate understanding of at least one (but preferably a multitude) of the most difficult engineering fields.
Most people don't have that, and this usually results in shallow articles full of factoids that get repeated again and again.
This persists even with people from 'neutral' countries who are explicitly committed to staying out of war (japan, sweden, etc). I don't really judge it, because this is the water we swim in as humanity, but an alien visiting us would conclude we're a very murderous and warlike species.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/DoNotDoThisC...
We can say we didn't do that, we individually have very little control over who our government kills and how. But as long as we take delight in the implements of that destruction they are right to hate us.
Our tolerance for misery just because something is impressive is a bad thing about us and we should strive to be better than that.
These machines are not really for dealing death, even though that is what they do. They are just as capable at preventing innocents being killed. They are mainly intended as a defensive tool.
"Does america need to have the most powerful military in the world?"
"Well it certainly does now!"
Maybe it didn't have to be this way. If it does maybe we should just stand up and bear the consequences of the world we've made. If everyone wants us destroyed so badly they might be on to something.
We can't do much about the fact that intraglobal resource competitions have made it necessary to play the game. There is no opting out.
As a consequence, the money and science that is poured into space and military is immense. The products of those energies are technologically interesting, and we'd all be poorer without them.
Morally impoverished to pretend you can separate them in this way. You're here for the technology despite the murder-porn, so have the spine to stand up and admit that about yourself.
> and we'd all be poorer without them.
You can literally spin up youtube and find videos of children being killed by these tools. Do that, watch a couple. Watch children die, you owe them that at least if you're going to find value and entertainment in these weapons. Would they be poorer? their families? Be honest about whose lives are enriched by these tools and whose aren't, please. You and I might be poorer without them, sure, but that's not a "we all" that I can understand.
But unfortunately, opting out is not an option, no matter how distasteful parts of it are. If we don't have competitive or superior tools, we become victimized by those that do. For any definition of "we", where there is not enough social cohesion and control to prevent bad actors (e.g. most obviously: global politics!).
These tools are sometimes used carelessly. Some of that is inevitable, some of it is lack of accountability, some of it is malice. Some of it we can improve on, but some we cannot.
But also, military research is responsible for huge good parts of our lives. Our survival as a (country, yes, but also) species might depend on it. But it's a mixed bag. This mirrors the complexity of life.
The ideal is to have the best tools of competition imaginable, and to never need to use them. We can agree on this at least, I think.
(We can also agree that they are sometimes used unnecessarily!)
But the privilege of never needing to use them comes with the burden of constantly improving them. Fortunately, there are often great benefits to the research even if it's never used for the purpose intended by the party who paid for it.
Have Blue is considerably smaller than the F-117A and has a different body design.
Most civilians don’t know this but it’s worth Googling and comparing the two aircraft side by side.
They are substantially different aircraft, although similar in appearance at a quick glance.
HAVE BLUE is a much-smaller, differently-shaped demonstrator that was a predecessor to SENIOR TREND, which is what the F-117A actually came from (Wikipedia is inaccurate here).
Really fantastic read.
I think most modern fighters are like than. The fly-by-wire isn't just an electronic control as with early developments, but basically tells the computer what you want to do and the computer then drives the control sequence to do what you ask.
https://www.eurofighter.com/advantages
> Eurofighter Typhoon has a foreplane delta design, which is inherently – and intentionally –aerodynamically unstable in subsonic flight. This was developed with experienced pilots to provide enhanced manoeuvrability while still being highly intuitive to fly.
> The instability in subsonic flight requires a complex flight control system to support the pilot as the computer systems can react more quickly at lower speeds. When Eurofighter Typhoon crosses into supersonic flight, the point of instability moves behind the centre of gravity, giving a stable aircraft for high performance flight.
> The advantages of an intentionally unstable design include greater agility at subsonic speeds as well as reduced drag and an overall increase in lift for enhanced short takeoff and landing (STOL) performance. Proposed engine enhancements such as vectored thrust will further boost the agility of the aircraft.
edit: god I hope they do, ~200 submissions in the last 30 days :-O
~7 submissions per day for the last year, seems incredibly high. I'm lucky if I manage to find something interesting enough to be submitted in a week (I'm averaging 0.3 submissions/day for the last year).
I'm hoping for a step further, that it's just connected to some RSS feed and automatically submitted. But that seems bad on a different level.
I read a lot of stuff - kind of knowing random stuff is part of my job as it allows me to use better analogies to explain things to my stakeholders - and I love to share with this community - the discussions that get sparked are extremely worthwhile. And yes, I use the bookmarklet.
Absolutely you should. If you find it interesting, there's a much >0 chance someone else will as well. People complaining about "why on HN" are just grouches that need to get out of their comfort zone more often. If other people on HN do not find it interesting, it will not get many up votes. Don't let them put baby in the corner.
HN is an incredibly diverse and smart audience. It's always a pleasure to engage in discussions here.
> Northrop’s Tacit Blue
This really looks like something that went out from Minecraft or a pixelated ‘90 game.
They are designed to be stealthy, so the fact that they’re not on our radar means they are doing their job!
Oh yeah, they managed to fit a B-36 INSIDE a building. :)
I looked it up, and it looks like the Boeing X-36 and Bird of Prey[2] mentioned in the article are in this museum. They have a lot of experimental aircraft there, including a flying saucer[3]. Also you can walk inside four different Air Force Ones[4], which I thought was especially neat and interesting.
[1]: https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact...
[2]: https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact...
[3]: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/avrocar
[4]: https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Pres...
tl;dr from the article: "Tacit Blue's notional concept of operations involved flying over or very near the forward edge of the battlefield at around 25,000-30,000 feet and orbiting overhead at 250 knots or so while its radar scanned the area below."
The MBB Lampyridae is also flying very much under the radar:
I wonder in such concept, how it's supposed to deal with lack of rudder in event of engine failure? Landing in strong cross winds without rudder is likely impossible.
I’m still much more enthralled and amused by the X-37 program and curious how many we might end up with and what they might “accidentally” pluck from orbit and bring back.
He's done a few talks: Google on his previous work "Blank Spots on the Map" [3], "Clarice Smith Distinguished Lecture" [4]
[1] https://www.wired.com/2010/08/photog-probes-secret-sites-wit...
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2103000.I_Could_Tell_You...