Highly Modified Air Force Test Pilot School F-16 Is Now An X-Plane
The heavily modified F-16 gets a new advanced mission after decades of supporting aerospace research and test pilot production.
JULY 31, 2021
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...-work-on-air-forces-skyborg-ai-computer-brain The U.S. Air Force has redesignated its NF-16D Variable-stability In-flight Simulator Test Aircraft, or VISTA, as the X-62A. This new X-plane nomenclature, something typically applied to purely experimental aircraft and other aerospace vehicles, is meant to better reflect this aircraft's current role as a multi-purpose test platform as the service prepares to make new modifications to it so that it can support the Skyborg program. Skyborg is focused on developing a suite of artificial intelligence-driven technologies and associated systems that will together form a "computer brain" able to fly "loyal wingman" type drones and potentially migrate to other designs, including fully autonomous unmanned combat air vehicles, or UCAVs.
A little sad to see them going up again, not to mention "another" major power's arsenal of missiles. You don't need many to use them as a bargaining chip. I read "Arsenals of Folly" by Rhodes a while back and he brought up the obvious silliness of a large stockpile - political impact. No government could withstand having a single major city destroyed without major political impact. And, you don't need a ton of aces in the hole in a poker game either.
Exclusive: Pentagon Poised To Unveil, Demonstrate Classified Space Weapon
The push to declassify an existing space weapon is being spearheaded by Gen. John Hyten, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
20 Aug 2021
The effort — which sources say is being championed by Gen. John Hyten, the vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff — is close enough to completion that there was a belief the anti-satellite technology might have been revealed at this year’s National Space Symposium, which kicks off next week.
However, the crisis in Afghanistan appears to have put that on hold for now. Pulling the trigger on declassifying such a sensitive technology requires concurrence of the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, and a thumbs up from President Joe Biden, sources explain; with all arms of the national security apparatus pointed towards Kabul, that is almost certainly not going to happen next week. And until POTUS says yes, nothing is for certain, of course.
The system in question long has been cloaked in the blackest of black secrecy veils — developed as a so-called Special Access Program known only to a very few, very senior US government leaders. While exactly what capability could be unveiled is unclear, insiders say the reveal is likely to include a real-world demonstration of an active defense capability to degrade or destroy a target satellite and/or spacecraft.
[huge snip]
“The response of an offensive ASAT to a Chinese ASAT is not going to make them stop doing it,” one former government official said. “If you want to demonstrate a response, demonstrate … an unexpected maneuver or a LEO satellite that they had never seen before. But the fact that the response was, ‘well, I can shoot down satellites too,’ that doesn’t do **** about stopping them from shooting mine down.”
And even today, one concerned insider said, “A lot of the DoD work on space control ‘strategic messaging’ isn’t backed up by any real strategy, or red-teaming.”
New Skunk Works Plant to Build Advanced Fighters, Other Projects
Aug. 11, 2021
https://www.airforcemag.com/new-skunk-works-plant-to-build-advanced-fighters-other-projects/ PALMDALE, Calif.—Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works advanced development division opened a new 215,000-square-foot production facility Aug. 10, allowing reporters and visitors a glimpse inside the state-of-the-art factory before it begins production of classified systems and is likely permanently closed to non-cleared personnel.
What will be built here first is a secret, but Skunk Works Vice President and General Manager Jeff Babione said he anticipates the facility—at the Air Force’s sprawling Plant 42 complex—will build fighters; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft; hypersonic missiles; and other advanced projects, with possibly more than one project in series production at a time. He declined to say specifically whether Lockheed Martin will build Next-Generation Air Dominance fighters at the plant.
“This is a one-of-a-kind facility,” Babione told reporters in a press conference. One of four new factories to be opened by Lockheed Martin nationwide this year, it is an “intelligent, flexible” facility where there are “no permanent structures…there’s nothing drilled into the floor,” he said, allowing the plant to be reconfigured at will for efficient, flexible manufacturing. This flips the concept of most factories—such that for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter in Fort Worth, Texas—designed specifically to produce a particular product.
“We have flexibility about where to put what you’re building within this massive floorplan,” he said. “Rather than the work coming to the robot, the robot will go to the work.” Robots will be able to perform one operation “on one end of the factory in the morning, and a completely different operation at the other end in the afternoon. So you’re going to see a significant increase in automation.”
The robots are commercial machines that Lockheed Martin will program. The software to make them do an operation “does not have to be resident” in the system, Babione said. This reduces cost because the same equipment is not dedicated solely to a particular function or program but has application to many projects.
One 27,000-pound robot on display in the new space can move on casters or on cushions of air for fine adjustment of positioning.
The robots “will talk to each other,” Babione added. “How are we doing with cutter speed? Cutter sharpness … do we need to change things? How is the quality of the holes [being drilled]?” Other innovations include advanced test capabilities for wire bundles and laser systems that can spot out-of-tolerance part thicknesses to the thousandths of an inch.
Skunk Works' Factory Of The Future Will Use Roaming Robots To Rapidly Assemble Top Secret Aircraft
Skunk Works' knack for innovation enters the "digital" age with a factory able to spit out advanced aircraft faster and cheaper than ever before.
Aug, 13, 2021
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...obots-to-rapidly-assemble-top-secret-aircraft Lockheed Martin's famous Skunk Works advanced projects division has opened a new cutting-edge manufacturing facility at its campus in Palmdale, California, which is part of the U.S. Air Force's Plant 42. The company says that the technologies it will employ in this new "factory of the future," blandly named Building 648, will help it drastically speed up and otherwise improve how it designs and produces advanced aerospace vehicles, including stealth fighters and drones, hypersonic missiles, and more. Beyond that, however, this factory is the centerpiece of a larger transformation going on within Skunk Works that could potentially revolutionize the development and production of even very advanced aerospace concepts, industrial capabilities that could be increasingly essential for the U.S. military to maintain its competitive edge.
Lockheed Martin's goal with Building 648 is to do away with a significant amount of the initial setup through increased automation, particularly with the employment of large, advanced robots from Electroimpact. Right now, the company has four such robots, known as Combined Operation: Bolting and Robotic AutoDrill systems, or COBRAs. These are, in their present configurations, capable of drilling and countersinking holes in various materials, including composites and titanium, as well as bolting and fastening structures together. These machines, one of which is seen in the background of the photo at the top of this story, could gain additional functionality as time goes on, as well. Building 648 itself also has very advanced climate controls, able to keep the interior temperature within plus or minus two degrees of a specific setting, regardless of the conditions outside, to support work using various, often environmentally sensitive materials. These materials often have to be fitted or even fused together, so controlling their expansion during manufacturing is key.
