Which Dassault is having trouble selling.
And if they can't amortize the cost out over foreign sales (just like Boeing/McDonnell Douglas/Northrop count on) the French won't be able to buy as many as they want/plan either.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'F5, Northrop, Freedom Fighter' to 'F5, Northrop, Freedom Fighter, crash landing, nose wheel' - edited by kulpims

Northrop Grumman X-47B UCAS has been added as a related post - related requested by kulpims on that post.

Russia and China got huge boosts to their stealth programs when Lt. Col. Dale Zelko's f117 was shot down over Yugoslavia. Even thought the tech at that time was 25 years old. It was still way ahead of anything they had even come close to producing. It's also rather funny especially since the idea of the design was based off a paper written by Pyotr Ufimtsev, a Soviet mathematician in 1964.

I do find it strange this design looks far more like the Northrop YF-23 then it does the F22. Makes you wonder if someone at Northrop got pissed the f22 was picked over theirs and this was their revenge.

>> ^skinnydaddy1:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^charliem:
Pretty sure John Carmack (of Doom fame) was one of the lead software engineers on this project.

Your thinking of Armadillo Aerospace, which lost out slightly to this company, Masten Space Systems, in the NASA and Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge X Prize in 2009 for the level 2 test. Armadillo Aerospace won the level one test, but the second level was a million bucks to the $350k of the first.

Was this the company that got several tries for the contest were Armadillo Aerospace only got one?


Armadillo Aerospace's vehicle could of made another attempt, but they decided against it because of a burned through engine nozzle, and rolled the vehicle at takeoff that caused other damage. Rockets ain't easy!

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^charliem:
Pretty sure John Carmack (of Doom fame) was one of the lead software engineers on this project.

Your thinking of Armadillo Aerospace, which lost out slightly to this company, Masten Space Systems, in the NASA and Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge X Prize in 2009 for the level 2 test. Armadillo Aerospace won the level one test, but the second level was a million bucks to the $350k of the first.


Was this the company that got several tries for the contest were Armadillo Aerospace only got one?

>> ^charliem:

Pretty sure John Carmack (of Doom fame) was one of the lead software engineers on this project.


Your thinking of Armadillo Aerospace, which lost out slightly to this company, Masten Space Systems, in the NASA and Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge X Prize in 2009 for the level 2 test. Armadillo Aerospace won the level one test, but the second level was a million bucks to the $350k of the first.

Northrop Grumman? Why do we need a military contractor landing on the moon? There can be only one answer; the first lunar war is coming. I can only assume that NASA has discovered life on the surface. I, for one, would gladly serve in the 1st hopping infantry in our glorious struggle against the moon beasts.

Northrop Grumman, not Grummen.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'robot, UAV, Northrop Grumman, X47, ucas, drone' to 'robot, UAV, Northrop Grumman, X47, ucas, drone, military porn' - edited by sometimes

Sigh

Armadillo's fourth and final shot at winning the $350,000 portion of the $2 million Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge ended today in flames.

Bugger.

Music: I Got Levitation - 13th Floor Elevators.

And the rest of the story:

In 1962, FRC Director Paul Bikle approved a program to build a lightweight, unpowered lifting body as a prototype to flight test the wingless concept. It would look like a "flying bathtub," and was designated the M2-F1. It featured a plywood shell, built by Gus Briegleb (a sailplane builder from El Mirage, California) placed over a tubular steel frame crafted at the FRC. Construction was completed in 1963.

The success of the Flight Research Center M2-F1 program led to NASA development and construction of two heavyweight lifting bodies based on studies at the NASA Ames and Langley research centers--the M2-F2 and the HL-10, both built by the Northrop Corporation, Hawthorne, California. The Air Force also became interested in lifting body research and had a third design concept built, the X-24A, built by the Martin Company, Denver, Colorado. It was later modified into the X-24B and both configurations were flown in the joint NASA-Air Force lifting body program located at Dryden.

The X-24B design evolved from a family of potential reentry shapes, each with higher lift-to-drag ratios, proposed by the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory.

To reduce the costs of constructing a research vehicle, the Air Force returned the X-24A to Martin for modifications that converted its bulbous shape into one resembling a "flying flatiron" -- rounded top, flat bottom, and a double-delta planform that ended in a pointed nose.

First to fly the X-24B was John A. Manke, a glide flight on August 1, 1973. He was also the pilot on the first powered mission November 15, 1973.

Among the final flights with the X-24B were two precise landings on the main concrete runway at Edwards, California, which showed that accurate unpowered reentry vehicle landings were operationally feasible. These missions were flown by Manke and Air Force Maj. Mike Love and represented the final milestone in a program that helped write the flight plan for the Space Shuttle program of today.

After launch from the B-52 "mothership" at an altitude of about 45,000 feet, the XLR-11 rocket engine was ignited and the vehicle accelerated to speeds of more than 1,100 miles per hour and to altitudes of 60,000 to 70,000 feet. After the rocket engine was shut down, the pilots began steep glides towards the Edwards runway. As the pilots entered the final leg of their approach, they increased their rate of descent to build up speed and used this energy to perform a "flare out" maneuver, which slowed their landing speed to about 200 miles per hour--the same basic approach pattern and landing speed of the Space Shuttles today.

The final powered flight with the X-24B aircraft was on September 23, 1975. The pilot was Bill Dana, and it was also the last rocket-powered flight flown at Dryden. It was also Dana who flew the last X-15 mission about seven years earlier.

Top speed reached with the X-24B was 1,164 miles per hour (Mach 1.76) by Love on October 25, 1974. The highest altitude reached was 74,100 feet, by Manke on May 22, 1975. The X-24B is on public display at the Air Force Museum, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.