U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor executes a supersonic flyby over the flight deck of the aircraft carrier

The breaking of the sound barrier is not just an audible phenomenon. As a new picture from the U.S. military shows, Mach 1 can be quite visual.

This widely circulated new photo shows a Air Force F-22 Raptor aircraft participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Alaska June 22, 2009 as it executes a supersonic flyby over the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis.

The visual phenomenon, which sometimes but not always accompanies the breaking of the sound barrier, has also been seen with nuclear blasts and just after space shuttles launches, too. A vapor cone was photographed as the Apollo 11 moon-landing mission rocketed skyward in 1969.

The phenomenon is not well studied. Scientists refer to it as a vapor cone, shock collar, or shock egg, and it’s thought to be created by what’s called a Prandtl-Glauert singularity.

Here’s what scientists think happens:

A layer of water droplets gets trapped between two high-pressure surfaces of air. In humid conditions, condensation can gather in the trough between two crests of the sound waves produced by the jet. This effect does not necessarily coincide with the breaking of the sound barrier, although it can.

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Biggin Hill Air Fair, Harris HospisCare and Virgin Atlantic are all 25 years old this year and celebrations to mark the anniversary. The Red arrows were joined in formation by a Virgin plane to celebrate the airlines 25th anniversary. The performance of a nine-ship team flypast in V-formation with a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400.

Other highlights include the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and an aircraft from the Royal Navy Historic flight marking its 100 years of naval aviation.

The replica of 1,700-year-old “balangay” sets out to tour Asia. Adventurers who conquered Mount Everest successfully launched a replica of an ancient Philippine boat Saturday that they will use to sail around Southeast Asia and possibly to Africa to promote Filipino pride and unity.

The replica of the balangay – a wooden-hulled boat used in the archipelago about 1,700 years ago was built in 44 days by native Badjao boat-builders from the southernmost Philippine province Tawi-Tawi using traditional skills handed down through the generations.

About 300 spectators counted down to the launch, cheering and applauding as the bow hit the water in Manila Bay.

The 20-member expedition includes five coast guard personnel who were the first Filipinos to reach Everest’s summit. The boat will leave Manila in mid-July after training at Sangrey Point, a former US naval base in Cavite province.

The expedition is expected to make 75 port calls from the northern to southern Philippines in seven and a half months, covering a distance of more than 2,000 nautical miles.

Palin accepted the invitation to visit Stennis, while the ship was transiting in the Gulf of Alaska, participating in exercise Northern Edge 2009.

The governor’s visit began as she landed aboard Stennis in a C-2A Greyhound from the “Providers” of Fleet Logistics Support Squadron (VRC) 30.

Later in her tour, Palin visited flight deck control and donned flight deck safety gear in order to observe flight operations from the flight deck.

Palin saw Sailors and Marines in action when she toured the bridge, primary flight control, the hangar bays and a weapons magazine.

Palin spoke with approximately 400 Stennis crew members in Hangar Bay 2 and thanked them for their service.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you,” said Palin. “I love the United States military, and I thank you so much for the choice that you have made to serve something greater than self, to be serving your country and to be bettering our world.”

Approximately 20 Sailors who call Alaska home were in the front row and got the opportunity to speak with the governor and shake her hand.

Stennis, along with Stennis Carrier Strike Group assets, Carrier Airwing (CVW) 9 and USS Antietam (CG 54), are participating in Northern Edge 2009, a joint training exercise, which focuses on detecting and tracking of units at sea, in the air and on land.

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WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended on halting production of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet and scrapping a new helicopter for the president as he outlined deep cuts to many of the US military’s biggest weapons programs.

Gates said his $534 billion budget proposal represents a “fundamental overhaul” in defense acquisition and reflects in priorities from fighting controversial wars to the newer threats US forces face from insurgents in places such as Afghanistan.

The department must ensure it has the right programs and money to “fight the wars we are in today and the scenarios we are most likely to face in the years to come, while at the same time providing a hedge against other risks,” Gates said as he revealed details of his budget for the next fiscal year.

The promised emphasis on budget pairing is a reversal from the Bush years, which included a doubling of the Pentagon’s spending since 2001. spending on the tanks, fighter planes, ships, missiles and other weapons accounted for about a third of all defense-spending last year. But Gates noted more money will be needed in areas such as personnel to the Army and Marines expand the size of their forces.

Production of the F-22 fighter jet, which cost $140 million apiece, would be halted at 187. Plans to build a new helicopter for the president and a helicopter to rescue downed pilots would be canceled. A new communications satellite would be scrapped and the program for a new Air Force transport plane would be ended.

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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a satellite whose instruments will help scientists compile high resolution, three-dimensional maps of the moon’s surface, entered lunar orbit at 6:27 a.m. ET.

About two hours later, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft (LCROSS) swung past the moon on its way into an elongated Earth orbit. The spacecraft sent streaming video back to Earth, shown on a NASA Web site, for an hour as it passed the moon.

The two spacecraft lifted off June 18 atop the same Atlas V rocket. The mission is the first in NASA’s plan to return to the moon, then travel to Mars and beyond, the space agency said.

During the mission, the agency will collect all sorts of data, including day-night temperature maps, NASA said. There is particular emphasis on the polar areas of the moon, where sunlight is more plentiful and where water might exist.

The LCROSS is scheduled to crash land on the moon Oct. 9 to search for the presence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the moon’s South Pole.

The data that the LRO collects and sends to Earth also will be used in planning an eventual lunar outpost, the agency said. During its mission, the orbiter also will spend at least a year looking for potential landing sites for astronauts.

A well-known sound, the high-pitched screech of the T-37B Tweet, was missing from the 80th Flying Training Wing’s aircraft parking ramp, one that has been prevalent in the Air Force’s pilot training mission for 50 years

The final student training mission, marking the last time an Air Force pilot will begin their career in the introductory jet.

Second Lt. Trevor Kernes, 89th Flying Training Squadron student pilot, said he was honored to be part of the historical event.

“Anyone of these guys deserves it,” the future Ohio National Guardsman said. “To be chosen out of some of the best in the world is an honor. I’m humbled.”

Lieutenant Kernes, a former forward air traffic controller who served in Afghanistan after 9/11 and was part of the initial push into Iraq in 2003, said the Tweet was fun to fly and a good training platform.

“I’m sorry for the T-6A (Texan II) student pilots because they didn’t get to fly the T-37“, he said.

Since 1959, more than 78,000 Air Force pilots have flown the venerable Tweet. The T-37 began its extraordinary flight into history in 1956 when it became an active aircraft in the U.S. Air Force inventory becoming operational in 1959.

“There is nothing new of that airplane,” Lt. Col. Doug Antcliff, 19th Air Force said of the aircraft’s technology. “But, I’m sad to see it go because it is a true workhorse.”

The Tweet officially retires from active service July 31. The 80th FTW began training student pilots Aug. 29, 2008, in the Tweet’s replacement the Texan II.

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Near the tail end of a marathon congressional hearing on the defense budget, Bishop pushed — and won by a single vote — an amendment that shifts $369 million to hold off on plans to shutter the F-22 production, and leaves open the potential of building 12 more fighter jets.

Bishop lost repeated attempts to restore a $1.2 billion cut to the missile defense system.

“We had a few losses on the missile defense side, but it was very good [night] for Hill,” Bishop said.

The defense-spending bill now heads to the full House for a vote and then to the Senate, a long process where language and funding may get changed.

“This is the first step,” Bishop said. “We have a long way to go.”

But Bishop said getting the House Armed Services Committee to agree to keep alive the F-22 program and deferring for a year a reduction in Air Force jets was a good initial success.

The Obama administration, led by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, has pushed a series of defense cuts, including ramping down the production of F-22s.

The Utah congressman, the state’s only member of the House Armed Services Committee, also added to the spending bill:

– $5.1 million

for modifying the taxiway apron of Hill’s main runway to make it safer and allow for more efficient flight operations;

– $3.4 million for research into converting fuel to fertilizer at Tooele Army Depot;

– $5.2 million for a program at Ogden Air Logistics Center to improve productivity of the 309th Maintenance Wing.

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The argument that more F-22s must be bought because it is is the only fighter that is truly effective against advanced surface to air missiles got shot down (sorry about the pun) here at the Paris Air Show by the top Joint Strike Fighter official Marine Brig. Gen David Heinz.

Advocates such as Rebecca Grant, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, argue that the F-22 is needed principally because it is the premier weapon against the sophisticated S-300 ground-to-air missiles that the Russians have developed and are trying to sell.

So I asked Heinz if the JSF could kill advanced SAMs. His answer: “While I will do the mission differently, I am still delivering first day of the war capability.”

We’ll see if that puts the nail in the coffin of the F-22 supporters or if there are good counter-arguments to this. Of course, Heinz is a fierce advocate for this program and must be expected to defend it, but he’s also known as a very straight shooter. If he did not believe the plane’s ability to handle the SAM threat I think we would have gotten a very different answer.

On the industrial base side of the program, Heinz told reporters here that the program could reasonably generate an astonishing 6,000 sales. He based his estimate on the 4,425 F-16s sold around the world in various development blocks, combined with 600 F-18 E/Fs and Typhoons. “As these airplanes aqe out, I believe my airplane will be competitive,” he said.

The United States and the eight foreign partners are expected to order about 3,100 planes. Add 1,000 sales to prospective buyers such as Israel, Singapore, Spain, Japan, Finland and South Korea. Then top up the rest of the world and you get to Heinz’ figure of 6,000.

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