Guest Editorials

January 4, 2011

By Robbin Laird
01/04/2011 – It is my sad duty to our readers to announce that one of the founding members of Second Line of Defense has been tragically removed from our family.

March 22, 2010

Everyone knows that the F-35 is a stealth aircraft. This is one element of what makes it a fifth-generation aircraft. But what is not widely known is that the stealth or low observable (LO) character of the aircraft is significantly different from other stealth aircraft like the F-22. The F-35 LO capability is significantly more robust than legacy stealth, if one might call it that. Indeed, the F-35 stealth is designed to leave the factory and to be maintained in the field, rather than having to come back to depot or the Fort Worth factory.
Bill Grant, Lockheed Martin F-35 Supportable Low Observables Integrate Product Team Lead in the latter discusses the facility itself as well as the F-35 approach to LO maintenance.

March 16, 2010

When NASA’s X-43 flight test vehicle separated from its Pegasus rocket booster and accelerated to high-Mach speeds powered by an air-breathing scramjet, the premise and promise of hypersonic flight were forever validated. With a first Mach-7 flight in March 2004, followed by a Mach-10 flight in November 2004, the hydrogen-burning X-43 vehicles were the culmination of nearly five decades of research in hypersonic air-breathing flight.
Next month, if all goes well, the next chapter in hypersonics will be written, as the U.S. Air Force’s X-51 vehicles begin their own series of flight tests.

February 21, 2010

Distributed operations are mostly outlying bases and living with the people out in their village and their township. One of the advantages of the airplane is the fact that it allows us to land literally at dozens of these places in a single day, move mail, food, water, and in some cases, building equipment.