Slashdot Mirror
USAF Launch Supersonic Bomb Firing Technology
coondoggie writes "Boeing and the US Air Force today said they have tested new technology that for the first time will let military aircraft launch bombs from aircraft moving at supersonic speeds. Researchers from Boeing Phantom Works and the Air Force Research Laboratory used a rocket sled in combination with what researchers called "active flow control" to successfully release a smart bomb known as MK-82 Joint Direct Attack Munition Standard Test Vehicle (JDAM) at a speed of about Mach 2 from a weapons bay with a size approximating that of the U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber, Boeing said. Active flow control is a tandem array of microjets upstream of the weapons bay that, when fired reduces the unsteady pressures inside the bay and modifies the flow outside to ensure the JDAM munition travels out of the bay correctly."
Bombing from a supersonic platform was successfully conducted in the mid-60's, from modified A-12 (later YF-12) aircraft, at mach 3+ speeds
Brett
We miss often enough at sub-sonic speeds. Great.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Can powered munitions (stuff with a rocket motivating it instead of just gravity) be fired without this new technology? ie. Is the new research just applicable to iron bombs?
Huh? The USAF was launching bombs (and missles) out of bomb bays (and off of pylons) at supersonic speeds back in the 1950's.
This new system is probably needed because the rotary launcher used by the B-1 doesn't allow enough clearance for, or won't take the stresses associated with, the kicker systems used back then.
How much did we pay for this?
Rejoice for now we can drop food and medical supplies at supersonic speed! I can't wait to see the look on those African kids!
It's not a matter of how fast a target on the ground may move. It's a matter of how fast:
.7.
A) SAMs move
B) Enemy fighters aircraft move
If a bomber can fly by at Mach 2 at a high altitude and kick out its load of smart bombs, it becomes much harder to hit it with either a SAM or an air-launched missile. Let's say you make your bombing run at 40,000 feet going Mach 2 and a SAM battery a few miles away takes a shot at you. You kick out the bombs and firewall the throttle for any more speed you can get, and punch out chaff. The SAM is going maybe Mach 5 and you're maybe now at Mach 2.5. At a closure rate of only Mach 2.5, the SAM may run out of fuel before it reaches you, even if it doesn't get fooled by the chaff. If you'd had to slow down to sub-sonic speeds to make your bombing run, the SAM would have a much better chance of catching you.
If there is a CAP up, it's going to have a lot more trouble catching and firing on a bomber going Mach 2 than a bomber going Mach
While these have not been particularly great threats recently (I believe the Viet Nam War was the last time an American heavy bomber was brought down by enemy fire), it wouldn't be wise to assume that the situation will always remain this way, so it's good to have that technology in our back pockets.
Even at lower altitudes, that would take a lot of light anti-aircraft systems off the table, and at least make it harder even for large SAM systems. Imagine being a guy with a shoulder-fired AA missile trying to get a bead on something going at Mach 2. Even if you get a successful lock on it and fire, it's unlikely your missile will be able to catch it even if it's on a low-level bombing run (something I wouldn't expect a B-2 to do, anyway).
The YF-12was a high altitude and high speed interceptor. It fired Air Intercept Missiles (AIM-7's)which are already aircraft in their own right. It did not drop free fall munitions at high speed.
This current little trick is probably a proof of concept for a change to the F-22, which carries free fall bombs such as the JADM in a recessed bomb bay. The B-1b can only do about Mach 1.25 at altitude where the air is thinner. The B-1b was designed as low level penetrator to sneak under Soviet radars. With the end of the cold war, the B-1b started taking over as a high altitude bomber with GPS guided weapons, and not risk itself to ground fire to drop.
The F-22 can cruise at Mach 2 without using afterburners, and I believe it can only carry two Mk-82 JADM weapons. The ability to fly in at Mach 2 while being practically invisible to radar, AND not having to slow down to deploy weapons would be a huge advantage.
Today's show is brought to you by the number 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: 25
How many millions/billions spent on this that could've gone to the people of the US?
As I see it, any enemy we'd have to use this against would be throwing ICBMs with nukes at us. Why the fuck are we building bigger and better and more expensive bombs when all of our operations are counter-terrorist ops?
soon enough we'll be able to fire proton torpedos from warp.
... upon hearing the news, the Russians have taken the concept to the next, logical extreme. Code named "Mamushka" the first supersonic plane will fire a smaller plane traveling twice as fast, which will fire yet another smaller plane traveling 4 times faster than the first one, and so on until the very last, smallest plane (traveling an nearly the speed of light) will fire a potato that will hit the original big plane in the back, thus demonstrating that like many other US expenditures, they are at least good for HUMOR.
Next up, basketballs that bounce 10 times as high. Is gonna change the game!
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
[arm chair general] It'll be just like the Aurora Supersonic Bomber from Command and Conquer:Generals, except you can drop two and your desperate, last minute airstrikes on Iran's superweapon won't have to be suicide missions! How long until we have the Air Fuel bomb version from the Zero Hour's turtler General? That'll show those Al Quaeda tunnel/stinger-missile sites: lets see you rebuild your hole now! [/arm chair general]
Demented But Determined.
almost 50 years ago. The B-58C, if it had been built, would have been able to do it at Mach 3.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Maybe we were launching bombs off pylons as supersonic speeds, but probably not bomb bays. As the article indicates, supersonic airstream around the plane would have blown the bomb back into the bomb bay, with obviously disastrous results. What this technology does is use small jets to locally slow down the airstream around the bomb bay so that the bomb can fall out of the bay without getting pushed back inside.
As another poster indicated, this technology would be useful for the F-22, which has to carry its weapons in internal bays to maintain its stealth and aerodynamic characteristics.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Well the one thing you never hear talked about with the whole "Drones are the future" topic is what about jamming technology in the future? Your over sized RC plane with some bombs on it isn't gonna do much if it cant relay its data link back to base or a satellite.
If I remember correctly during the beginning of the war in Iraq, some cruise missiles were thrown off target when they were jammed by GPS jamming devices. What is to say that technology in the future wont advance to also include jamming the drones you plan to fly over a foes city? Yes I'm sure as technology advances ways of dealing with it will probably be thought of, however as is most often the case with technology (especially military technology) its a back and forth between counter measure and threat.
Being unable to fly your fancy Quake engine virtual reality RC plans over a target does you little good in warfare.
Maybe one day it will be the future, but right now as it stands I wouldn't be holding your breath for it to be the norm for quiet a while.
Those pushing the drones as the next thing tend to remind me of the militarys thinking back when the US entered the Vietnam war. The military believed dog fighting was a thing of the past and all future air engagements would be with missiles from far away. They stopped training pilots in dog fighting skills and instead believed in what they thought the future air engagements would be. It wasn't long before it was apparent this just wasn't the case, the military soon found itself scrambling to train its pilots in air to air combat; the birth of Top Gun.
The tagging beta includes the word sopwith, a reference to "Sopwith Camel", a game I used to place on an 8086 box as a kid :). Your goal was to drop bombs on ground targets in a simplistic side-scroller sort of map. You can install a modern-day Linux version (pretty close to the original) by doing "sudo apt-get install sopwith" on Debian-based distros.
:).
Maybe not as much fun as dropping real bombs out of a supersonic jet, but pretty darn close
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
No, he didn't. He conscripted thousands of your friends and neighbors to do it for him.
Please remember that military spending isn't without benefit. Often technologies are developed there that then later become useful for civilians that are just the kind of thing you aren't likely to see developed on the commercial market.
Best example is GPS. No way a company was going to build something like that. Even a government wouldn't do that for civilian reasons. However the military felt it was worth it. Out of that we now have an awesome navigation system used the world over, and finally because of its success there IS interest in building a civilian system in Europe (though it is not going well).
While military spending isn't what one would call the best use of money, let's not pretend like it is a black hole that nothing comes out of. There are an amazing amount of technologies that are directly owed to the military (trauma surgery would be another, the Internet yet another).
Also there's just the sad truth that there are assholes in the world and nations have a need for defense. Don't think for a second North Korea would be nearly so well behaved if South Korea just disarmed their allies all left.
I'm glad to see my tax money put to good use to keep our country safe. I'm sure supersonic bombs are the answer to stopping hijacked US airlines or car bomb wielding extremist. [/sarcasm]
You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
This is just wrong for a lot of reasons. First, jamming is spectacularly ineffective. Not only is the other responder correct in pointing out antennas can be designed to reject signals coming from the wrong direction, but also spread spectrum communications operate over such wide bands it's impractical to jam them - it takes too much power. Finally, any source of a jamming signal has a big bullseye on it, since the signal can be used for homing. No jammer will last more than a few minutes after the engagement is joined. Also, the JDAM isn't designed to hit moving targets. Once the target is programmed in to the drone, the operator doesn't need to do anything, so even if you could jam communications with the drone, it would finish its mission.
It's normal to keep these secret: max speed, max range, max altitude, etc.
It's possible that most pilots don't know. They may be prohibited from exceeding the unclassified limits. The plane might even normally be restricted by software.
We so need a 'WTF' mod...
-- Joren
Capt. John Stapp withstood a 46.2G decceleration when his rocket sled going 632 mph plowed into a water brake. His eyeballs were completely filled with blood, but cleared overnight.
They don't do it like they used to
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
any enemy we'd have to use this against would be throwing ICBMs with nukes at us
No, they'd just have to have good anti-aircraft capabilities defending what we're attacking - much more common than nuclear-tipped ICBMs. Think: the U.S. attacking Iran, N. Korea, Pakistan-gone-rogue (GULP - trust me, I try not to think about those possibilities. No ICBMs yet, just long-range intra-continental BMs and known early-generation fission weapons. Whew, we're safe!)
It seems to me that this would allow U.S. airstrikes to release precision-guided weapons from farther away, decreasing losses of aircrews and planes, and increasing effective air superiority. Hopefully cheaper than a cruise missile.
For most warfare other than urban counter-insurgency (which, granted, seems to be what the majority of our warfighting will be over foreseeable future), air superiority is a force multiplier, lessening the number of troops needed on the ground. Air superiority leads to saving lives of infantry on the ground. Longer-distance release of precision-guided weapons seems like it would lead to safer air-superiority.
Although, why not just remote-pilot a heavy UAV with current JDAMs over target? Lose a few aircraft to AA - so what? How many of those could we build for the price of these super-sonic iron bombs?
Note re: shooting down aircraft during the Iraq War 2003-2007: I can only find references to 2 Coalition-forces fixed-wing aircraft being shot down ( Wikipedia, of course). And that was against a supposedly a semi-world-class military (or was that only good ground forces?).
no we don't. I love the new speed jesus killing machine.
The first sentence is correct, the second is not.The problem with a fixed geometry inlet is that it is inefficient. At Mach 2.0 and above, a significant portion of the thrust from a properly designed inlet is coming from the inlet itself. The A-12/F-12/SR-71 cruising at Mach 3.0 gets between 55 and 60% of the total thrust from the inlet - this is accomplished by the positioning the shock wave just inside the inlet (the cons on the front of the engine can be moved in and out specifically for this purpose). One of the early issues with the Blackbirds was figuring out how to handle "unstarts" where the shock wave pops out of the inlet - and gives the crew a wild ride in the process - this was also a problem with the B-58.
The F-16 was also limited to Mach 2.0 because of the fixed geometry wing. OTOH, the F-104 was rated top speed was Mach 2.2, but it could easily achieve Mach 2.4, but at the cost of weakening the aluminum alloy in the airframe.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
That seems like a very low priority in comparison to developing better armor and medical supplies for the guys on the ground.
To add a bit to the above - as an example, the SR-71, cruising along at a typical mission speed of mach 2.8, was never successfully engaged by SAMs (or anything else, for that matter). I certainly wouldn't want to count on complete invunerability now*, but it gves some additional information about how hard it is to shoot down something going so fast.
Brett
* from speed alone. I think the recent Israeli attack on the Syrian weapons facility indicates another approach to consequence-free overflights.
The laws of physics.
You can't jam such a highly directional signal, unless you're located directly between the drone and the satellite... in which case, you can probably think of better options.
The only real option is to disable the satellite, which isn't an easy proposition.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
My favorite feature of the SR-71 was that it burned bright but flew fast. Stealth may have been limited, but being able to simply outrun ordinances in cruise/above-cruise speeds (without afterburner) is definitely cool.
had me worried just then , "active flow control" sounds like something Microsoft would produce, but maybe they would call it 'live flow control' now..
I love the SR-71. Really, I do. It's in my eyes the most beautiful aircraft ever. While the Swedish airforce never engaged the SR-71 for obvious reasons, they managed to intercept (and get missile lock on) it a number of times with the Viggen aircraft and, had the situation been different, could have engaged it. See for instance this post corroborated by the Swedish Air Force's own magazine here (pdf in swedish).
To the Blackbird's defense, it was slowing down to about Mach 2.5 over Sweden before punching it over the Baltic, and it flew right at the edge of the Viggen's flight envelope, but still it's an impressive feat.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Disabling satellites is very very easy (read: can be done with 1970's tech). No satellites means no talking over the horizon if you want to stay relatively un-jammed. That poses a bit of a logistical challenge.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
Didn't Einstein say "I do not know how the third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth--rocks!"?
Robert Heinlein, call your agent.
How much has the range of the dropped bombs increased? With this much extra speed and altitude one could drop from a protected airspace and still hit well inside a defended zone.
Passionately Indifferent
Apparently the A-5 had a little problem of its own... nuclear bombs were designed to be "pooped out" of the weapons bay (a tunnel above and between the engines), but sometimes they tended to get caught in the wake, so to speak, and follow the airplane for a little while. There were also a few incidents of them pooping out during a catapult launch, leaving the bombs sitting on the carrier deck.
An F-14 once shot itself down during a test-firing of the AIM-7; the missle came back up and hit the aircraft right after ignition. Crew bailed out safely, IIRC. The aircraft was later modified with stronger ejectors.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
I think the dolls you're referring to would be rendered in english phonetics as "matroishka". Mamushka sounds like "babushka", which would be a plane-load of supersonic grandmothers. Holy Christ, that is a disturbing thought. They'd descend on our troops with an unstoppable rain of warm soups and freshly-knitted sweaters would be everywhere!
(I took russian many years ago in college, so please pardon any errors.)
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Their kindness towards me is probably the highest compliment that I can give a military flyer -- the so called enemy noticing that the American's weren't out to kill all of them, and describing it to a youngster like me that wasn't even there, 30+ years after the fact.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Not to mention, if the guy with the shoulder-fired missile didn't get his shot off *before* you flew over him at 1000ft at mach 2, he'll be too busy holding his ears and screaming to worry about shooting at you. AND they can't hear you coming, so their main method of detection won't work.
It is in stealth and dropping the bombs at supersonic speed. This is the first time. Actually a few months of go was the first time, but close enough.
So at max altitude for this ordinance, by the tinme impact happens, they will be 15 or so miles away, and still hard to detect.
If someone analysis the radar and figure out where the plane was, the plane will be past the border of most countries.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yes, and that was the exception.
Pilots often tried to miss civilian targets, but in WWII they just weren't very good at it...in general.
NOW we can drop a bomb at a precise angle with a 3 nano second delay so the angle of the blast will protect the building across the street. We're talking buildings smaller then a city block, surround by other buildings.
We even drop bombs so the inside of the building is destroys, but the outer structure is still standing.
Sometime we miss. But overall we can do some pretty damn amazing things so we can get an objective and kill fewer people.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
yiour suppose to do that. In fact, I'm pretty sure it would at least mean the country you released from would be considered to be at war with the country you bombed if you did that.
That's why you use a get that goes mach 2+ and can drop a bomb, all while still stealthed.
However, I think the make range is about 3 miles.
Check the bombs stats on wiki.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
nt :-)
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
And what if the answer is: The airframe we just finished developing needs to be completely redesigned? Give us more money and its back to the drawing board.
Have gnu, will travel.
Anyone else think of metal gear upon reading the title?
so.... you're a girl, huh?
This looks like a job for...
TASERMAN!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Flying higher and faster is an excellent way to avoid certain surface to air missile threats, but an SA-10 isn't going to care if you're going mach 1 or 2; it's going to kill you regardless if you fly inside of its engagement envelope (which is well above the 40k you've mentioned). You aren't going to be dodging or outrunning a modern SAM at mach 2. Why would a SAM operator fire at you when you're flying away from the site, when they can just as easily fire at you as you're heading towards them, effectively using your speed against you? Unless you're doing some sort of low altitude ingress (which the F-22 is not), they're going to see you way before you start flying away from them (stealth nonwithstanding).
Shoulder fired missiles are the same way, and most operators will try to shoot you with a head on aspect. Speed may make the envelope you're in smaller, but they will still be able to acquire, track, and fire on you. However, even newer generation shoulder fired missiles have a hard time getting above 20k (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K38_Igla).
SAMs are a huge threat on the modern battlefield, and there were several shootdowns in the first Gulf War as well as in the Kosovo conflict. Scott O'Grady's F-16 was shot down by an SA-6 in 1995, and while I doubt his Viper was supersonic at the time, the SA-6 is far from a modern system. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_O%27Grady)
There are advantages to dropping bombs while going supersonic, but they don't have to do with SAM avoidance.
Somebody much less cynical than me, please explain how this is a useful development? Have pilots in bomber aircraft been complaining that they wished they were able to drop bombs at supersonic speeds?
The current day military and the government's use of it is why this country is going down the tubes. We either solve problems that don't exist, or our solutions create problems that didn't exist before.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
True, the B-58 used an external pod to carry the weapon and the new system uses a bomb bay, but in what sense is that contrary to the hype of the article? There is mention of "first time ever" but no mention of a weapons bay other than as the location of the new system. Use of a weapons bay at supersonic speeds is not entirely new, the A-5 could drop its payload at supersonic speeds from an internal bay...granted the weapon was ejected out the back of the aircraft from a bay between the engines.
Now, there have been a lot of phallic airplanes over the years, but I've never heard of one that was downright scatological.
The Sopwith Camel was the name of a popular airplane in the WW I era.
The technology to disable satellites dates back to the 1970s... in about the same way that modern fighter jets date back to the 1900s...
ICBMs were ridiculously, unbelievably expensive then, and are now just ridiculously expensive, beyond the means of all but a few of the top world powers.
Short of a war with Russia or China, the satellites are plenty safe. ICBMs aren't the kind of weapons that can be quietly smuggled out of a country and sold on the black market.
And even in that case, the sheer number the US Military has in orbit should make that an impractical strategy... Far easier to send up a few fighter jets to shoot down the slow, stupid, flying computers.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
You don't need an ICBM to whack out satellites. You need either:
a. a way to lift and detonate a huge-ass (in terms of radiation yeld) nuke beyond the ionosphere
b. a way to lift and disperse buckets of birdshot (literally) into likely satellite orbits
c. a way to VERY accurately chart a satellite's course and send a couple hundred grams of tungsten flechettes on an intercept course.
Option A is high-tech (what with it involving nukes and all) and it was tested by the US in the 1960's (google for starfish prime).
Option B is very low tech and probably the way Iran would do it if they ever really really have to (seeing as it would interdict space for everyone for a long, long time, it's not an option that any nation with space ambitions would pursue).
Option C is very high tech, it's the best option strategically speaking (no messy "omg you just nuked everybody" reactions, no shutting off humanity from space) and was tested by the US in the seventies (in the form of a modified (two-stage) AA rocket shot from a high-flying jet).
Options A and B can be pursued with MRBM-sized missiles, but are way easier on the precision requirements than actual ICBM shots, since you don't intend for the payload to come back down at any particular spot.
Also, fighter jets arguably date back to at most the 1940's (campini caproni CC. 1) if not the 1910's (coanda 1910).
So I'm not quite sure what your point is.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
You're just splitting hairs here. There's little effective difference between ICBMs and MRBMs. Nearly all off the (very few) countries that posses MRBMs also have ICBMs.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
No, I'm not. I said MRBM-sized rockets, not actual mrbm's. Heck, you could probably get 50 kilos of something into LEO with just a Scud D and an undergrad to do the math.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.