There are two Farnborough videos that they haven’t included in the playlist, at least as of my writing this post.

While I’m on the topic of the F-35, LockMart produced a new video for the F-35 UK delivery ceremony on July 19, 2012. Most people think the inspiration for the name Lightning II is the Lockheed’s own WWII fighter, the P-38 Lightning. But that’s only part of the story, LockMart’s Tier 1 partner in developing the F-35 is BAE. And BAE evolved out of the earlier BAC, which produced the English Electric Lightning Mach 2 interceptor early in the Cold War. When they were selecting the name Lightning II was chosen to honor both the P-38 and BAC Lightning, and to benefit from the pride and nostalgia on both sides of the Atlantic, of course. There are also references to the Harrier, which was of British origin and later adopted by the US Marine Corps.

Though I’m not sure I’d go with “Pandora’s Box of excitement” as a statement of praise; it seems like a bit of a mixed message. Pandora’s Box was not a good thing. I suppose you could argue the development difficulties and delays the F-35 has run into are the Pandora’s Box… but that’s strained.

LauncherOne is akin to a somewhat smaller Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Pegasus XL, or perhaps a much smaller version of the planned Stratolaunch Systems launcher, in that it is a winged, air-launched booster. LauncherOne is designed to be launched from the same White Knight Two carrier aircraft as SpaceShipTwo, and to carry up to 500 pounds to low earth orbit.

LauncherOne is also most likely Virgin Galactic’s entry into Darpa’s Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (Alasa) program, as reported in Aviation Week. Virgin Galactic is one of three companies awarded contracts to develop and air-launched system for placing sub-100-pound payloads into orbit for under $1 million, the other two companies being Boeing and Lockheed Martin. That alone is something of a coup, being a much smaller company. LauncherOne is a bit over-sized for Darpa’s sub-100-pound goal, with its stated capability of up to 500 pounds, but if they can hit the other project goals, including the price point, I hardly expect Darpa to complain about having too much capability. And it is possible that LauncherOne could be scaled by varying the fuel load, or having single- versus dual-stage variants, etc.

And while I’m posting about Virgin Galactic, they also recently published a couple of videos on their SpaceShipTwo program.

This first video compiles footage from the SS2 flight test program:

And this second one is basically a marketing pitch for Virgin Galactic – I’m sold, now I just need the money. Anyone want to give me a couple hundred grand for a ticket?

Boeing shared their highlights from Day 3:

Eurocopter shared this video of their EC175 helicopter flight display:

Airbus had a few things to share as well. Like their own Day 3 highlights:

Sharklets and the A320 NEO:

Alternative fuel efforts:

And this one is interesting, IMHO. Airbus and the low-cost airline EasyJet are working together on a new sensor, dubbed AVOID, designed to allow airliners to sense and, well, avoid volcanic ash clouds. You may recall that not long ago air travel in Europe was royally snarled by a volcanic ash cloud from an Icelandic eruption. Since there is no good way to detect the actual cloud and avoid it, and volcanic ash can do serious damage to an airliner (from stripping paint to sandblasting the windscreen opaque to filling the engines with glass and shutting them down), today authorities are forced to use conservative computer models of where the ash might be and shut down large swaths of airspace. If aircraft could sense and avoid the ash on their own the impact of eruptions on air travel could be greatly reduced, as not as much airspace would need to be closed to traffic. It is still early days of course, so this may not pan out. (I do like the way the test rig has been mounted – through the window openings.)

UPDATE: Coming a little late Lockheed Martin share this video from the show with three of the F-35 test pilots describing their perspective on the aircraft:

The most interesting part of this, to me, is the social media Q&A NASA conducted in conjunction with the arrival of the Orion. I think it is far more interesting and informative than the usual official presentations:

And speaking of those official presentations, there’s one of those too if you really want to watch it:

And a bonus – test pilot Pete Wilson discusses flying the STOVL F-35B:

You might think that modern aircraft design is all CAD and computational fluid dynamics, but wind tunnel testing still plays a vital role in developing new designs. Data from tunnel testing helps validate the computational models, and it can uncover unexpected results. Computer simulations are only as good as the expectations that go into programming them. They’re constantly refined based on real world testing. More and more work is done in the virtual world of simulations, but nothing beats real world verification.

First and foremost is this one, from the opening of the show. The sole flying AVRO Vulcan, XH588, flying in formation with the UK’s Red Arrow demonstration team. Just awesome, nothing else looks like the Vulcan. I think it is similar to the SR-71 Blackbird in that it just looks like something out of time, completely radical for its day.

And since EADS is good enough to sponsor XH588, I’ll give them the next spot. Besides, this is kind of interesting – Additive Layer Manufacturing. Which is basically a kind of 3D printing on industrial scale. ALM, and other such techniques, have the potential to radically alter manufacturing. Eventually ALM or some form of 3D printing will probably be in most homes, but first it will bring big changes to industrial processes.

I posted a couple of GE’s videos in my last post, on the CFMI CFM56 & LEAP-X, since they directly related to the LEAP-X, but they also touted the success of their new GEnx engine, powering the B787 & B747-8.

Bell Helicopter has this short video promoting the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey. I basically never get tired of watching it do its thing.

Airbus shared their highlights from the first two days of the show:

And if you thought the seeing the giant A380 yanked around the sky in that last clip was impressive, check out the full uncut version:

I found this one interesting. Heeding the call of nature on a flight last week, and noticing for the nth time how small aircraft lavatories are (I’m 6’6″ and generally a big guy), I found myself wondering just how the disabled passengers, or what it seems the industry refers to as Persons with Reduced Mobility (PRM), deal with it. Not very well I’d expect. But Airbus has an interesting new A320 lavatory design called Space-Flex PRM which will help. Basically there are two adjoining lavatories at the rear, as there generally are, but the walls are moving partitions. The flight crew can reconfigure them into one larger lavatory, which can accommodate a passenger in a wheelchair (presumably one of those narrow aircraft-aisle compatible ones). I think that’s an interesting concept, but we’ll see how many airlines adopt it. TAM Airlines is the first.

Boeing also has their highlights from the first day – they posted one for the second day, but for some reason it is private now they’ve reposted day 2:

They’re also touting their environmental designs:

Lockheed Martin jumped into the video fray as well:

They also released this look back at past LockMart Farnborough flight demos – not enough this year perhaps:

There will probably be more videos to come as the show continues. I’ll sort through them, so you don’t have to.

The CFM56 dates back to 1974 and evolved from technology developed for GE’s F101 power plant for the B-1 bomber. The world’s most successful engine was almost stillborn, as it struggled to find customers until the USAF selected it to re-engine a large portion of the KC-135 fleet. With that foundation the CFM56 was used extensively to re-engine commercial B707 and DC-8 commercial aircraft, as well as on other military C-135/B707 variants.

But the big breakthrough came when Boeing decided to re-engine the B737, replacing the old Pratt & Whitney JT8D of the B737-100/200. The CFM56-3 was selected as the exclusive engine for the B737-300/400/500 family, now called the B737 Classic, and after that the sky was the limit. It has powered every B737 since, with the current B737NG family, the -600/700/800/900, powered by the CFM56-7B. Over 6,000 CFM56-powered B737s have been delivered, with over 2,000 currently on order – and counting.

That alone would be an astonishing record, but the B737′s main competitor, the Airbus A320 family, is also powered by the CFM56-5B. Unlike the B737, it isn’t an exclusive arrangement. The A318 is available with the P&W PW6000 and the A319/A320/A321 are available with the International Aero Engines (IAE) V2500, but the CFM56 has a strong market share in the family. This means the CFM56 powers the two most successful airliner families of all time – the B737 & A320. And the A320 isn’t its only Airbus win; the CFM56-5C exclusively powers the four-engine A340-200/300 widebody as well.

What this all means is that if you’ve flown much at all in your life, you’ve probably flown on an aircraft powered by the CFM56. I did just this past week, as I flew on multiple B737s on a trip out to California.

I’ve been an aviation geek most of my life. Way back in seventh grade, which must’ve been 1983 or so, I did an independent study project on gas turbine engines. I got to visit the maintenance facility at the local Air National Guard base, the 109th Tactical Airlift Group in Schenectady, NY, and poke around in the innards of the Allison T56 turboprops from their C-130s. It was awesome, which just shows you I was a tech geek back then. I collected all kinds of diagrams, illustrations, etc., to use in the presentation, but the teenage me would’ve killed to have these videos. These are exactly the kind of thing I was picturing in my head and struggling to illustrate. And yeah, this whole post is just an excuse to post these.

First is the CFM56-7B, which exclusively powers the Boeing 737NG family:

Next, in a very similiar video, is the CFM56-5B, which powers the Airbus A320 family:

So how do you follow up the world’s most successful jet engine, which has been evolving for over three decades? You take a huge LEAP. Where LEAP stands for Leading Edge Aviation Propulsion, of course.

More specifically, the LEAP-X, CFMI’s new engine being developed to power the A320 NEO (LEAP-X1A), B737 MAX (LEAP-X1B), and China’s new COMAC C919 (LEAP-X1C). The LEAP-X is a major, er, leap forward from the CFM56. A design can only be evolved so far before it is time to start with a clean sheet and create a new design incorporating the latest and greatest technologies, which is exactly what CFMI have done. The LEAP-X will provide much greater fuel economy while at the same time being quieter, producing fewer emissions, and requiring less maintenance than older engines. It is poised to be as great of a success, if not greater, than its older sibling. And being the exclusive power plant for the next generation of the world’s most successful airliner, the B737 MAX, and one of the two options for the second most successful family, the A320, is a good start.

Now that we’re moving on to the Space Launch System (SLS) and commercial cargo and crew operations KSC is getting a major makeover. The VAB is practically being rebuilt from the inside out with the removal of massive structures from the high bays, originally installed to work on the Saturn V. And removing miles of copper cables that were state of the art at the time, and are now replaceable with a single fiber optic line strand. The VAB is being redesigned to handle multiple vehicles, to provide flexibility. In addition to handling the SLS it may be processing ATK’s Liberty launch vehicle, or possibly manned versions of the Atlas V or Delta IV depending on what is decided for processing those. (It probably won’t be processing SpaceX’s Falcon 9 as they have their own facilities already.)

Orbiter Processing Facility 3 (OPF 3), used to process Space Shuttles, is being refurbished for use by Boeing in producing their CST-100 capsule – presuming it does go into production of course. It remains to be seen if NASA will select it for the Commercial Crew Program, and, if not, if Boeing will produce it for the commercial market anyway.

This first video takes a look back at the 50 years of KSC’s history, I love the brief look at the shuttle concepts at the three minute mark:

And this video takes a look at the changes coming to KSC to support the next 50 years and some of the history happening right now:

In this video we learn that ‘X3′ is pronounced ‘X-Cube’. I think that’s the first time I’ve heard that, I was mentally reading it as ‘X-Three’, of course.

Eurocopter isn’t the only vendor working on a compound helicopter, of course. Sikorsky continues to develop the S-97 Raider coaxial compound helicopter, based on their earlier X2 demonstrator. Each month they release a program update video, and the June release focuses on Esterline, one of the primary suppliers to the program.

Esterline is providing the Human/Machine Interface technology, which includes the cockpit flight displays and the HOTAS (Hands On Throttle And Stick) fly-by-wire flight controls (the cyclic and collective), as well as the control surface actuators for the elevators and rudders.

First up is the SpaceX Dragon, which is arguably the front runner in the CCP given it’s successful unmanned cargo mission to the ISS. The Dragon, of course, is designed to launch atop SpaceX’s own Falcon 9.

Next up is SNC’s Dream Chaser lifting body design. SNC isn’t producing a booster, the Dream Chaser is intended to launch atop a ULA Atlas V, though it could possibly be lofted by other man-rated boosters as well.

Next is the Boeing CST-100. While Boeing does have their own booster, the Delta IV (currently produced via the ULA joint venture with Lockheed Martin), there are currently no plans to man-rate it. At this time the CST-100 is planned to launch atop the Atlas V, though it may also use the Falcon 9.

Next is ULA with the Atlas V. Now, the Atlas V is an established launch platform for satellites and unmanned probes, but the CCP work will involve man-rating the launcher so that it can carry vehicles such as the Dream Chaser and CST-100 safely.

And lastly we have the ATK Liberty. Liberty looks an awful lot like the Ares I from NASA’s now-defunct Constellation program, and with good reason. ATK was developing the first stage of the Ares I, which was basically going to be a five segment evolution of the four segment Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster. When the Constellation program was cancelled, ATK was well along in the design and testing of their first stage, so they decided to go forward with the work on their own. As NASA was going to develop the second stage of the Ares I they needed to replace it. Rather than design something from scratch they turned to an existing design, the European Ariane 5. The second stage of Liberty is the core first stage of the Ariane 5, with modifications of course.

ATK has also decided to develop their own crew capsule, rather than using Boeing’s CST-100 or the NASA/Lockheed Martin Orion. ATK’s capsule will be based on a composite demonstrator they produced for NASA as part of the Orion project during Constellation. While it was decided not to use a composite structure for Orion, ATK has decided to use their experience building the demonstrator to produce their own capsule. So they’re looking to produce a complete end-to-end system, like SpaceX with the Falcon 9 and Dragon.

There is another participant that doesn’t seem to have a video, yet anyway, and that’s Blue Origin. They’re working on yet another capsule design, this one with a unique biconic shape, which they’re simply calling Space Vehicle. It will initially launch atop the Atlas V, but Blue Origin plans to produce their own Reusable Booster System in the future.

A lot has to happen during Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL), and all of it has to run completely autonomously. Everything needs to work go flawlessly, including the radical, new and untested, ‘skycrane’ landing technique. It is quite an audacious mission, and given all that has to go right during EDL and the fact that we won’t know if it worked, or not, until it is all over, it is understandable why EDL has been dubbed the Seven Minutes of Terror.

Check out the video, it is really well done. And nice use of the Inception music.

The original Merlin 1A had 77,000 pounds of thrust. It was used on the first couple of Falcon 1 flights. The Merlin 1B was an improved 1A with 85,000 pounds of thrust, but it was never flown. Instead the 1C replaced the 1A on the Falcon 1 and is used on the Falcon 9. The 1C initially had 78,000 pounds of thrust, but this was increased to 125,000 pounds. And now the Merlin 1D has achieved 147,000 pounds of thrust. This means the 1D has a thrust to weight ratio of 150:1, the highest ever achieved for a rocket engine. Nice work, SpaceX. The Merlin 1D will be used on Falcon 9 flights going forward.

As part of the events that day a special guest was taken up to experience the X3 first hand – Dario Franchitti, four?time reigning IZOD IndyCar Series Champion and three?time Indianapolis 500 Winner.

“The flight was really incredible,” said Mr. Franchitti after stepping out of the X3 onto the American Eurocopter runway. “Marc Paganini [President of American Eurocopter] and I had this joke that my Indy cars are faster than all of his helicopters, but I guess that they’ve fixed that one now! The X3 is now faster than the Indy cars. That says it all.”

The X-37B rides an Atlas V to orbit but returns like the Space Shuttle, gliding to a horizontal landing. The key difference, of course, is that the X-37B is unmanned. It had been previously stated that the X-37B was designed to remain in orbit for “up to 270 days”, so this latest mission indicates that either the design has been revised, or that those statements were deliberately understating the capabilities of the system. Either is plausible, given the classified nature of the program under the USAF. Boeing floated the possibility of a larger, astronaut-carrying X-37C last year, but not much is known.

Additionally, the F-35C carrier variant made it’s first night flight on June 13 from PAX River. There’s some nice afterburner shock diamond shots in here.

Thing’s are shaping up to be a competition, with the SpaceX Dragon and Boeing CST-100 capsules, and the Sierra Nevada Corporation Dream Chaser lifting body space plane. And, of course, NASA’s own Orion capsule for trips beyond low-earth orbit – though Dragon is also intended to eventually venture beyond LEO.

NASA is testing the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne J-2X as part of their Space Launch System development effort. The SLS is intended to be NASA’s next heavy lift launcher, the de facto replacement for the Space Shuttle. SLS replaced the cancelled Constellation program as the latter was felt to be too ambitious given the budget constraints. However, a number of Constellation elements live on in SLS – including the J-2X, the Space Shuttle-derived Solid Rocket Boosters, and the Orion crew capsule.

If you’re for or against the program in general, I think we can still agree the F-35 is an impressive aircraft. Hopefully it will live up to its promise. Keep in mind that a number of aircraft considered legendary today struggled during their test programs as well.

Pegasus, which has been around since 1990, basically uses the L-1011 as its zeroth stage. The airliner carries it to around 40,000 feet before it is dropped and the first stage ignites. It initially climbs under a combination of rocket power and aerodynamic lift from the wings which are part of the first stage, until the second and third stages complete the flight as pure rockets. All three stages use solid propellant. The launch of a Pegasus looks more like an old X-plane launch, like an X-15 – and indeed the initial Pegasus flights used the same modified B-52 carriers, until the L-1011 took over.

This launch highlight video is slightly disappointing. It was a night launch and I’m sure the ignition of the Pegasus must’ve been spectacular, but there is no footage from any chase aircraft. So we never actually get to see the rockets fire. But the interesting part, for me, starts around the 1:40 mark, when the L-1011 begins to taxi and we get a good look at the Pegasus mounted on its belly.

This video gives us a look at the vehicle processing flow in preparation for the launch. We get a look at the Pegasus XL being built up and the payload being mounted, but I think the most interesting part comes at the 5:00 mark when we get to observe the process of mounting the Pegasus to the L-1011 Stargazer carrier.