Over the past century, exploitation of the air domain’s speed, vantage, maneuverability, flexibility, and range changed the nature of warfare. Militarily, operating in the air domain provides hypersonic speeds, vantage: the ability to see not only over the next hill but…
The U.S. Aerospace & Defense (A&D) industry is the world leader in the design, development and manufacture of technologically advanced aircraft, space systems and defense capabilities. Since the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight in 1903, the aerospace industry has grown…
The U.S. military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia. This implication by the National Defense Strategy Commission stands in contrast to the past several decades during which the…
In 2018, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) named the Pratt & Whitney single crystal turbine blade an historic mechanical engineering landmark. These blades, which can be found in many modern, high-performance gas turbines (a.k.a. jet engines)—including the ones powering…
Current weapons generally fly a pre-designated mission. If the enemy does something unexpected, preprogrammed weapons are ineffective, and additional weapons may be required to complete the mission. Networked, collaborative and semi-autonomous weapons are advantageous since they observe and react to…
Commercial aviation plays a central role in our daily lives and is an essential part of the national economy. More than 100,000 flights take off and land every day across the world. More than billion passengers go by air every…
The armed drones like MQ-1 Predator and its larger cousin, MQ-9 Reaper, dual intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance-strike platforms have been highly successful against non-state actors as part of the counterterrorism fight. A MQ-1 Predator UAVs armed with Hellfire missiles have…
In traditional aircraft design, airframes and engines are designed separately and bolted together. This leads to inefficiencies due to additional drag. The approach also leads to propulsive inefficiencies via non-distributed propulsion. Hovering and VTOL requirements introduce even more complexity, size…
The security environment of Japan and the whole region is threatened by expanding military and assertiveness of China and the testing of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles by North Korea. Tensions between Japan and China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands…
Over the past few decades, advances in electronic sensors, communications technology, and guided weapons may have fundamentally transformed the nature of air combat. One of critical technologies was superior situational awareness (SA) when a pilot has a better understanding of…