Cessna employees celebrated the roll out of the first production Citation XLS+ last Friday at the Cessna Aircraft Company’s primary design and manufacturing facilities in Wichita, Kansas.

The XLS+ is the latest version of the world’s best-selling business jet model. The first production unit will now go to paint and interiors, while two flight test aircraft will continue to work toward type certification.

The upgrade to the mid-size Excel/XLS will feature the fully integrated Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 avionics suite and electronically controlled (FADEC) engines from Pratt & Whitney Canada. Exterior and interior restyling is also integrated into the new model, most notably the extended contour of the nose and expanded seat widths.

Among the well-known Citation airplanes are Cessna Citation, Cessna Citation I, Cessna Citation II, Cessna Citation III, Cessna Citation Mustang, Citation X Business Jet, and Cessna Citation X.

The US Army plans to build and launch into orbit a constellation of satellites for the first time in 50 years.  The Army will also build the cluster of eight miniature communications satellites within nine months.

The $5 million effort is the Army’s commitment to what is known as Operationally Responsive Space.  The joint program was created in May 2007, after years of encouragement by Congress to get the US military the way to build and fly satellites.  The satellites will provide communications for Army units below the brigade level operating in parts of the world where the military has no current secure satellite communications, such as Africa, said James Lee, chief of strategy and policy for Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Alabama.  He stated further:

“We feel it’s important to have experience at an engineering level to build space capabilities, even if it’s a simple as a cubesat”

“We believe we have the expertise but many of our scientists don’t have the hands on experience.”

The eight satellites will all be launched together, either on a Minotaur or Falcon rocket.  The Minotaur is a four-stage solid fuel rocket that uses decommissioned Minutemman missile rocket motors and was built by Orbital Sciences Corp, while the Falcon 1 was built by Paypal millionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX Company.  The Minotaur has launched twice but has not successfully lofted a payload into orbit.  The satellites will fly in swarm or in loose formation.

Lee added so as not to be offensive, “We don’t really want to replace the Navy or the Air Force.”

After the first ever crash of a B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber in Guam in February 23 this year, the stealth aircraft return to flight April 15 after a 53-day safety pause. Though accident investigation goes on, Air Force and Air Combat Command maintenance and safety experts gave the 509^th Bomb Wing officials the green light to fly.

The B-2s have been flying almost 20 years and are renowned in the Air Force for their unprecedented safety record, according to General Harencak.

The B-2 Spirit of Kansas that crashed had logged more than 5,000 flight hours and 1,036 before Feb. 23 and it was renowned in the maintenance community for being a great jet.

The B-2 is airpower at its purest, most elegant and deadliest form. It is an aircraft that cannot be denied access with its range, payload and stealth-ness. It has everything that is required to hold at risk any of America’s enemies anywhere, anytime and we can do it from here.

-Gen. Gary Harencak, 509^th Bomb Wing commander

We are all aware that the fastest way to go places that are miles away from each other is to travel by aircraft. Planes fly thousands of feet above the ground and move undoubtedly fast. But unknown to all mankind, there are these giant birds that can actually go for not just hundreds but thousands of miles in an hour. Here are some of the fastest aircrafts on Earth.

• Citation X, also considered as the fastest business jet, can go up to 607 mph.

• The fastest operating commercial plane, Boeing 747 has a speed of 605 mph.

• F-15 SMTD flies 1,650 mph

• F-111 Aardvark is known as the fastest US/Australian strategic bomber and with 1,850 mph

• F-15 Eagle can go 1,875 mph. It’s the fastest US jet fighter.

• MiG-31 Foxhound flies as fast as 1,868 mph.

• XB-70 Valkyrie tops the chart of fastest aircrafts as it goes 2,056 mph

• The fastest jet fighter in the world is MiG-25 Foxbat, having a capacity of 2,115 mph

• Another speedy aircraft is SR-71 Blackbird with 2,293 mph making it the fastest jet aircraft in the world.

• X-15 has 4,520 mph world record, and is considered the fastest manned aircraft. Aside from this, it also hold the record as the highest flying aircraft.