Military drones

At the outbreak of the First World War,  Italian General Giulio Douhet wrote that when a force gains command of the air it has the ability to render an enemy harmless.  It became one of the pillars of aerial strategy. Through many conflicts past and present, that concept has continued to evolve.

We've all read accounts of the military use of drone aircraft in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Currently, the United States has approximately 300 of these unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) in operation. They have been so successful that they represent the fastest growing fleet of aircraft in the arsenal.

The Air Force is now testing a bigger, more advanced aircraft with the aim of establishing another first:  building an unmanned attack vehicle capable of landing and taking off from the crowded, pitching decks of aircraft carriers.

The Northrop Grumman X-47B is the sleek plane in question, and it has already flown from desert bases. It is now being prepared for testing on carriers.  You can see photos of the aircraft in this Smithsonian Air and Space magazine article.  Some pilots are not happy about this development, but others see the advantages.

Meanwhile the Predator and Reaper drones used by the military continue to record hours of covert video images. The material collected so far is so voluminous that the armed services cannot keep up with all the information.  The New York Times explained the situation last year in an article entitled Military Is Awash In Data From Drones.  With so much information, no one in the intelligence field is likely to be questioning the benefits of these flying robots anytime soon.

The desire to control the skies continues to push us into new territory.

Related post:
Two new planes on the frontiers of civil aviation

On night flights, there's more to see than airline movies

The orange starfish stretched wide and large below me as I looked down from a great height...It was a reminder of how the view from an airplane window can sometimes be quite remarkable. In this case, it was a different perspective on the city of Winnipeg.

In the surrounding blackness, urban centres from the air look like crystalline decorations on the vast expanse of our planet. Despite the internal glare from a plane's lighting system, night views are not only possible, but frequently satisfying, if you happen to have a window seat.

During daylight hours we forget how widely developed our lighting systems have become. At night the grid structure of the streets and buildings look like lit-up circuit boards with capillary tentacles reaching to the outlying regions.

Many European cities, having evolved from walled enclosures, castles and market squares, spread out from a central hub evenly in all directions. I remember one night looking down on Dublin and being amazed at the symmetry of the radiating pattern. It looked like a perfectly-designed citadel or spider web.

Interesting night views are not limited to cities. Natural features like lakes and rivers are visible under clear skies and moonlight. Mercury snakes twist and turn under aircraft wings.

Clouds are equally fascinating. Flying south under a Caribbean moon one time, the clouds looked like dark gray cotton balls. They left darker shadows over the ocean below. At first I thought I was looking at islands in the water, but after a minute of looking down under the brightness of the moon, I realized the black shapes were patches of cloud shades on the water. Like herds of elephants slowly crossing a savanna, they marched in silent formations over the waterscape. It was a surprising and stunning sight.

If this is what we can see from our small oval windows along the fuselage, imagine what pilots see up front.

If you've had similar experiences, why not a add a comment below. I'd really like to hear about yours.

Notes:

To get a sense of how our cities look from outer space, see this illustrative YouTube video: "Cities at Night: An Orbital Tour Around the World."

Two new planes on the frontiers of civil aviation

Wealthy business travellers looking for alternatives to airport line-ups will soon have another option in the corporate jet market. You see it here. It’s the world’s first supersonic business jet, currently being developed by Aerion Corp., a Nevada firm. The plane uses technology pioneered in the Concorde. It can fly up to 12 passengers at speeds of 1.6 times the speed of sound (1,700 km/h), over the sea and special land corridors. The company says it will be possible to fly from Europe in the morning (GMT) and arrive in New York the same morning (ET). The jet has also been designed with noise-reducing technology to permit acceptable sound levels for fast flying over many countries. The Economist magazine reports that Aerion has already received deposits from 20 customers. Last year, sales of business jets outside the United States for the first time outstripped domestic sales.


On the other side of the spectrum, take a look at this unique design (click on the photo for a close-up look). British low-cost airline easyJet is planning to introduce this environment-friendly “Ecojet” turborprop for short-haul flights by 2015. The plane will emit 75% less nitrous oxide and 50% less carbon dioxide than jet airplanes in use today. It’s unique engine position and propeller design should also make it one of the quietest airplanes of its size in the world.

To learn more, click here

Thanks to Aeiron Corporation for its illustration and easyJet Airline Company Limited for its promotional photograph.

Eavesdropping on air traffic control

Around the world, airports attract a curious breed of aficionados: plane watchers who like to get close to an active runway and observe incoming and outgoing aircraft from underneath the flight path. Some bring their children to experience the thrill.

Like avid bird watchers, some keep logbooks of the planes they see and share the information with like-minded aviation buffs. For these people, watching planes is a serious hobby; like those who do the same with certain types of trains ("train spotters"), they call their activity "plane spotting."

Others, like me, enjoy another aviation-related hobby: listening to the chatter between air traffic controllers and the planes around major airports. As a youth, I used to listen on a portable multi band radio, twirling the dial ever so gently to find just the right frequency to eavesdrop on these professional communications. It was quite a thrill to hear these voices through the static and imagine the decisions being made in the cockpit or the radar room.

Now, thanks to the Internet, this activity is accessible to a lot more people, the reach is global and the quality is crystal-clear.

If you'd like to try it out, go to http://www.liveatc.net/ and choose an airport nearest you. The site offers a ranking of the more popular air traffic control towers, based on how many people are listening at any time. Listeners seem to like hearing controllers and pilots around JFK in New York; Las Vegas, Nevada; Sydney, Australia; Boston, Toronto and Hong Kong; but this varies according to the time of day.

Compared to some years ago, you can hear a noticeable increase in the number of women's voices in the cockpit, especially from U.S. airlines. The industry is changing.

You will need a media player to listen. Mine loads on iTunes.
Sometimes the signal from controllers at a certain airport is not available on the web and the site lets you know when communications are "up" or "down", location by location.

No time wasted.

If you'd like to know more about plane spotting, try http://www.planespotting.com/

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Photo: www.freefoto.com