Speed Kills: The Case For Hypersonic Weapons
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WASHINGTON: “I believe, today, we could build a Mach 5 cruise missile [with] off-the-shelf materials,” said Charles Brink of the Air Force Research Laboratory. “We could go 500 nautical miles in 10 minutes.” Brink should know: He ran AFRL’s record-breaking X-51 program. Now AFRL and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are co-funding a… Keep reading →
New Air Force Missile Turns Out Lights With Raytheon Microwave Tech
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The missile launched from the wing pylon of a B-52 heavy bomber and streaked over the desert of western Utah. At pre-set coordinates, a microwave emitter installed in the winged, jet-propelled cruise missile blasted a target building. But there was no big bang, no billowing clouds of dust and debris. Instead, the building was struck… Keep reading →
Too Many Screens: Why Drones Are So Hard To Fly, So Easy To Crash
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LAS VEGAS: The US military depends on drones. But amidst the justifiable excitement over the rise of the robots, it’s easy to overlook that today’s unmanned systems are not truly autonomous but rather require a lot of human guidance by remote control — and bad design often makes the human’s job needlessly awkward, to the… Keep reading →
Air Force Funds Spiderman-Style Wall Climbing Tech
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Spiderman, Batman, and the Air Force Research Laboratory came together in an unlikely alliance to inspire college kids to build gadgets to let commandos climb up walls. Many of the entries in April’s annual AFRL Design Challenge were Batmanesque grappling guns that fired a hook or anchor into the top of the wall, trailing a… Keep reading →