NASA Devise Method for Making Fuel-Efficient Large Jet Planes

Jan 25

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NASA was successful in demonstrating a manufacturing technique to make large hybrid aircraft possible. Compared to the conventional jet planes, a hybrid aircraft is more fuel-efficient and produce less noise.

Before the NASA demonstration, there were four generally known airplane shapes – a tube with wings, a blended wing body, a hybrid wing, and a flying wing. The last three discard the use of the tube for a flatter chassis that has an almost rectangular cross-section. The body on these three designs also act like wings giving additional lift to the aircraft. It gives the advantages of reduced weight and drag resulting to higher top speeds and less fuel consumption. However, aerospace engineers have always faced the dilemma that flying wings cannot transport large number of people. The US military use a dozen of flying wings aircraft, but these are generally small aircraft that do not necessarily consider that comfort of the soldiers that use it. The B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber of Northrop Grumman is the probably the most popular example of a hybrid aircraft.

In the space agency’s demonstration, NASA showed a manufacturing method of making a hybrid flying wing aircraft that can be big and comfortable enough for commercial travel. The new technique can reduce up to 25 percent of the aircraft’s structural weight. NASA hopes that in a decade or two, this manufacturing technique can be use to build commercial jet planes.

The hybrid flying wing is part of NASA’s Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) project. The project started in 2009 and aims to reduce the impact of aviation on the environment.

Hybrid jet planes can be the aircraft of the future. Fuel your love for aviation with the jet model planes from Warplanes. Warplanes also offer detail-rich replica of your favorite NASA models.

News Source: www.extremetech.com

Production Begins on New Radar for B-2 Bomber

Oct 23

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The nation’s fleet of B-2 spirit stealth bombers will all get a new Northrop Grumman Corporation-developed radar system following the U.S. Air Force’s decision to authorize full-rate production of the units by the company’s Radar Modernization Program (RMP).

The decision, made last Oct. 16 by the assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition (acting), allows Northrop Grumman to begin fabrication of the balance of radar units needed to outfit the entire fleet. Those units will be produced as the final installment of the $468 million RMP contract awarded to the company by the Air Force in Dec. 2008.

Northrop Grumman is the Air Force’s prime contractor for the B-2, the flagship of the nation’s long range arsenal, and one of the most survivable aircraft in the world. Northrop Grumman is currently producing radar units authorized under the RMP low rate initial production program, added Mazur. The company is also installing radar units in operational B-2s as part of the RMP system development and demonstration phase.

The B-2 radar modernization program replaces the aircraft’s original radar system with one that incorporates technology improvements that have occurred since the B-2 was originally designed in the early 1980s.

The B-2 is the only U.S. aircraft that combines stealth, long range, large payload and precision weapons in a single platform. In concert with the Air Force’s air superiorityfleet, which provides airspace control, and the Air Force’s tanker fleet , which enables global mobility, the B-2 helps ensure an effective U.S. response to threats anywhere in the world. It can fly more than 6,000 nautical miles unrefueled and more than 10,000 nautical miles with just one aerial refueling, giving it the ability to reach any point on the globe within hours.

The 20-aircraft fleet of B-2s is operated by the 509th Bomb Wing from its headquarters at Whiteman AFB, Mo.