The All Nippon Airways (ANA) flight, with 117 passengers and crew on board, dived 1,900 metres in 30 seconds in the incident off the southern Shizuoka district on September 6.

The manoeuvre happened when the co-pilot, in trying to unlock the cockpit door for the captain who was returning from the toilet, mistook a command button for the cockpit door lock switch nearby.

The plane, which took off from Naha on Okinawa island in the south, later managed to touch down at Tokyo’s Haneda airport safely.

www.nma.tv

Courtesy: 1st Combat Camera Squadron. Produced by Staff Sgt. Cory Boatwright.

Apologies for shaky camera movements at the end. The Airbus was going too fast to be able to follow it smoothly.

Cri Cri: Worlds smallest twin engine airplane. Aprox. 80 Kilo Gram. You can put it on the dinner table

Beautiful Light Show from the Air, of a Massive Thunderstorm over Paris and St Elmo’s fire which appears on the Windscreen of aircraft due to the huge amount of static electricity present in the atmosphere. Approximately 1,000 – 30,000 volts per centimeter is required to induce St. Elmo’s fire

This 107 second video clip shows NASA’s flying observatory as it resumes test flights including the first in-flight opening of the telescope cavity door.

The Next Generation Airborne Observatory

Astronomical objects emit many forms of energy, which neither the human eye nor ordinary telescopes can detect. Infrared is one form of this invisible energy. SOFIA is an airborne observatory that will study the universe in the infrared spectrum. Besides this contribution to science progress, SOFIA will be a major factor in the development of observational techniques, of new instrumentations and in the education of young scientists and teachers in the discipline of infrared astronomy.

NASA and the DLR, German Aerospace Center, are working together to create SOFIA — a Boeing 747SP aircraft modified by L-3 Communications Integrated Systems to accommodate a 2.5 meter reflecting telescope. SOFIA will be the largest airborne observatory in the world, and will make observations that are impossible for even the largest and highest of ground-based telescopes. SOFIA is an 80%/20% partnership with the German Space Agency (DLR). The Observatory is being developed for NASA and DLR by a team of international government and industry experts led by Dryden Flight Research Center; the Program is divided into two main “Projects”: the Platform Project (the aircraft and its subsystems), managed by DFRC, and the Science Project, managed by ARC. SOFIA will be based at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, adjacent to Edwards Air Force Base in southern California. SOFIA’s science and mission operations center will be at NASA’s Ames Research Center in northern California.

SOFIA is just one of the space-based observatory missions under NASA’s Origins Program, which along with the ground-based observatories paves the way for future achievements. As each Origins mission makes radical advances in technology, innovations will be fed forward, from one generation of missions to the next.

http://www.virgingalactic.com

Sir Richard Branson Takes first Flight in VMS Eve at Airventure 2009

Today, at the worlds largest private air show (EAA Airventure 2009, Oshkosh, Wisconsin), Sir Richard Branson took his first flight in the mothership which will launch Virgin Galactics space tourism and science customers into space.

The space launch vehicle known as VMS Eve is a unique twin hull all carbon composite aviation vehicle designed to launch SpaceShipTwo above heights of 50,000ft and today Sir Richard was on board to witness first hand the incredible flying qualities of the aircraft piloted by Pete Siebold and Clint Nichols.

VMS Eve has already undertaken 16 test flights and todays demonstration flight at Oshkosh represents flight 17. The vehicle has already logged 50 hours of flying time and achieved an altitude of 52,400ft. It has the capacity to carry six trainee astronauts in its starboard hull and give each of them a full range of G force experiences including a zero G flying capability. Its port hull is pressurised and has the capability of carrying science instruments and other experimental payload.

It is expected that VMS Eve will make its first captive carry flight with SpaceShipTwo attached by the end of 2009.

After the flight Sir Richard Branson commented: This has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Its a beautiful aircraft to fly and its incredibly light carbon construction and efficient design points the way to a much brighter future for commercial aviation as well as the industrial revolution in space which I believe our entire space launch system heralds.

STS-119 (ISS assembly flight 15A) was a space shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) which was flown by Space Shuttle Discovery during March 2009. It delivered and assembled the fourth starboard Integrated Truss Segment (S6), and the fourth set of solar arrays and batteries to the station. The launch took place on March 15, 2009, at 7:43 p.m. EDT. Discovery successfully landed on March 28, 2009, at 3:13 p.m. EDT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-119

Although the proposed full fleet of operational B-70 bombers was never built, two prototype XB-70s flew in flight tests in the 1960s, performing research on the design of large supersonic aircraft.

The Valkyrie was designed to be a large, high-altitude bomber with six engines to fly at Mach 3. It was configured as a canard delta wing, and built largely of stainless steel, sandwiched honeycomb panels, and titanium. It was designed to make use of a phenomenon called “compression lift”, achieved when the shock wave generated by the airplane flying at supersonic speeds is trapped underneath the wings, supporting part of the aircraft’s weight.

Under the center of the wing, the Valkyrie featured a prominent wedge at the center of the engine inlets, designed to produce a strong shock wave. By acting upwards upon the wings, this shock wave would allow the aircraft to recover energy from its own wake. At high speeds, compression lift increased the lift of the wings by thirty percent, with no increase in drag. Unique among aircraft of its size, the outer portions of the wings were hinged, and could be pivoted downward by up to 65 degrees. This increased the aircraft’s directional stability at supersonic speeds, shifted the center of lift to a more favorable position at high speeds, and strengthened the compression lift effect. With the wingtips drooped downwards, the compression lift shock wave would be further trapped under the wings, rather than simply flowing out past the wingtips.

In November 1959, during a meeting concerning the military programs of the coming year, President Eisenhower told the Air Force Chief of Staff that the “B-70 left him cold in terms of making military sense.” General White conceded there were important questions involved and that the aircraft was very different from anything previously developed. He said the B-70 must overcome the terrific heat generated by high speed and high altitude and that the shape of the aircraft’s wings and fuselage must be studied. However, to eliminate such unconventional aircraft would be going too fast and too far. Hardly impressed with the many pro-B-70 arguments put forth, the President stressed that the B-70, if allowed to reach production, would not be available for 8 or 10 years, when the major strategic retaliatory weapon would be the missile. The President finally agreed to take another look at the B-70 proposition, but in the same breath pointed out that speaking of bombers in the missile age was like talking about bows and arrows in the era of gunpowder.

The Air Force announced on 29 December that the B-70 program was reoriented to produce a prototype vehicle only and that the development of most sub-systems was canceled.

The first flight of the XB-70A Valkyrie occurred on 21 September 1964, nearly 4 years later than the date scheduled in 1958 (right after North American had won the contract). The 2-member crew-Alvin White, North American Chief Test Pilot, and Col. Joseph F Cotton, USAF B-70 Chief ‘lest Pilot-landed successfully at Edwards AFB. Nevertheless, the plane had to undergo additional ground tests before entering an extensive flight testing program at Edwards.

The striking features of the experimental B-70 centered on the configuration and composition of its airframe, with its semi-monocoque fuselage of steel and titanium. Also, the bomber’s external skin was composed of brazed stainless steel honeycomb sandwich, wide use having been made of titanium alloys. The XB-70′s flying controls comprised elevons on the trailing edges of the cantilever delta wings and twin vertical fins and rudders. The large canard foreplane was adjustable to achieve “trim” (balance in flight or landing, etc.). Its trailing edge flaps enabled it to droop the elevons to act as flaps, making it possible for the XB-70 to take off from and land on existing B-52 airstrips.

Continued technical difficulties delayed the XB-70′s testing program. For the same. reasons, completion of the second experimental B-70 took longer than expected, and the bomber did not fly before July 1965. Less than a year later, on 19 May 1966, the second XB-70A flew for 32 minutes at the sustained speed of mach 3. Unfortunately, tragedy closely followed this remarkable achievement. On 8 June, the plane was lost in a mid-air collision with a Lockheed F-104 fighter. The loss, occurring at approximately 25,000 feet, near Barstow, California, , reduced the XB-70A program to a single vehicle.