Welcome the newest member of the Navy’s nuclear-powered submarine family! May 3rd saw the commissioning of USS North Carolina (SSN 777) in its namesake state at the Port of Wilmington.

The ship’s sponsor, Mrs. Linda Anne Rich Bowman, wife of Admiral Frank L. “Skip” Bowman, retired US Navy Admiral and former Director, Naval Nuclear Reactors, gave the order, “Officers and crew of the USS North Carolina, man your ship, and bring her to life!”

Over 6,500 guests, including submarine veterans and battleship North Carolina alumni, attended the ceremony. During the event, speeches were made by local and congressional politicians, as well as flag officers of the submarine force. The Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter was the principal speaker at the ceremony.

The Virginia class is the Navy’s newest class of submarine and is the first designed and built post-Cold War in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century. North Carolina is the fourth submarine of the class and has improved stealth, sophisticated surveillance capabilities, and special warfare enhancements.

A paint developed by a German inventor could make a vehicle invisible from radar and significantly hides it from all military relevant frequencies.  The paint is called the AR 1.  How it actually works is still unclear but a test researcher proposes it’s either by reflecting radar waves in a pattern so they cancel one another out or by utilizing microscopic magnets to absorb radar radiation.

The inventor of the paint, Werner Nickel has a fascinating story.  He said it involved thousands of hours of lab trial and error, as well as international military interest in his product.  Apparently, the most promising use for the camouflage paint could be civilian, since airport towers and buildings interfere with flight control radars.  Hence, eliminating the interference would be quite useful.  

In defense to the increasing price of fuel, some American airlines are flying slowly to save on fuel.

Southwest Airlines started flying slower two months ago and prediction shows its will save $42 million in fuel this year by extending the flights to one to three minutes only. A slow flight of Northwest Airlines from Paris to Minneapolis already saved 162 gallons of fuel and saving the airline $535 which only added eight minutes to the flight making the whole flight to eight hours and 58 minutes.

And the savings add up, JetBlue adds on average of two minutes to each flight and saves about $13.6 million a year on jet fuel. Adding four minutes to its flights to and from Hawaii saves Northwest Airlines $600,000 a year on those flights alone.

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The slower flights are not necessarily inconvenient to passengers, especially to the airlines, though there are still some who opposes and demands to ticket price decrease. Since they are already saving a lot on fuel, it wouldn’t hurt to cut-off few dollars to not-so fast flights.

1 – nEUROn

Operator: European Union
Developer: Dassault (lead), EADS, Saab
Armament: Laser-guided air-to-ground munitions
Performance: The 5.5 to 7-ton nEUROn will have a 12.5-meter wingspan, and fly at up to 0.8 Mach. Potentially, an individual operator will be able to control an entire squad of networked UCAVs at once.
Progress: Dassault plans to fly the initial tech demonstrator by 2011.

2- SGR-A1

Operator: South Korea
Developer: Samsung Techwin
Armament: Variety of small arms, including light machine gun or launcher to dispense tear gas canisters or rubber rounds
Performance: A trio of cameras can detect targets at up to 4 km, and a laser rangefinder helps track them at up to 2 km (distances are halved at night). Its pattern recognition algorithms theoretically allow it to pick out humans, and presumably prevent it from opening fire on animals.
Progress: The developer did not respond to calls and e-mails, but the system has missed its announced deadline — it was originally slated for deployment by the end of last year.

3 – Heron TP (”Eitan”)

Operator: Israel
Developer: Malat
Armament: None specified
Performance: With more sophisticated avionics than Israel’s previous UAVs, more endurance (up to 36 hours), and a higher altitude ceiling (at least 45,000 feet), this 1200-hp aircraft will not only fly above civilian air traffic, but it should require less operator intervention. It can also take off and land autonomously, although that has become a standard feature for many current UAV models. The real question is payload – the TP can carry at least one ton, fueling suspicions that some sort of weapon system could be installed. Israel, however, is famously tight-lipped about its UAVs, refusing to confirm that it has ever engaged targets with its existing fleet. In other words, we may never know for certain whether the Heron TP can, or will, be used offensively.
Progress: This UAV was unveiled last June; production is expected to begin early next year.

4 – Protector

Operator: Singapore
Developer: BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, RAFAEL
Armament: 7.62mm machine gun
Performance: Capable of speeds of up to 30 knots, this 30-ft-long robot has a 10-mile range, and is equipped with microphones and speakers, for remote communication between operators and potential hostiles. Its stabilized weapon mount hasn’t been tested in combat, but since the vessel itself consists of a rigid-hulled inflatable boat, the Protector isn’t necessarily designed to survive a firefight. Once the guns or bombs go off, its job is essentially done.
Progress: Although the United States Navy and Coast Guard continue to investigate the Protector, this USV has been an active part of Singapore’s Navy since 2005.

5- BLADE (Battlefield Loitering Artillery Direct Effect)

Operator: United Kingdom
Developer: Ultra Electronics (lead), BAE Systems, EMIT, Qinetiq, RAFAEL, Raytheon
Armament: Onboard munitions
Performance: Like the Sparrow-N it’s based on, each BLADE UAV has a maximum endurance of 6 hours. It also has the ability to navigate to a destination autonomously, and guide its own final descent toward a target. In theory, drones could perform a range of supportive roles, some searching for targets, others ramming into them, and still others assessing battle damage (to determine whether more kamikaze runs are necessary).
Progress: The BLADE team is scheduled to produce a demonstration by the end of this year.

***Reference: military.com