Topic: Tunnel nine Completes Falcon Hyper velocity test vehicle testing

[Stormbringer]

2 hour manned global response capability? Motto:  When you absolutely positively gotta reach out and kick someone's butt in 2 hours or less...


Tunnel 9 Completes Vehicle Testing

Test engineers Joe Norris (left) and John Lafferty ready a Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-1 model prior to a Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9 operation. U.S. Air Force photo.
by Philip Lorenz III
Arnold Air Force Base TN (SPX) Nov 02, 2005
The Arnold Engineering Development Center's Tunnel 9 facility in White Oak, Md. is playing a crucial role in the ongoing Falcon program, with the completion of mission-critical testing of the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 1.
The Falcon initiative is a joint Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Air Force program. The objective is to develop and demonstrate hypersonic technologies that will enable the capability to execute prompt global reach missions.

The ultimate capability is envisioned to entail a reusable Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle capable of delivering 12,000 pounds of payload a distance of 9,000 nautical miles in less than two hours.

The technologies required by an HCV include high lift-to-drag technologies, high temperature materials, thermal protection systems, and guidance, navigation and control. A series of hypersonic technology vehicles are planned to incrementally demonstrate these required technologies in flight.

Tunnel 9 alone provided the match of test conditions and data accuracy needed to make the program successful, according to Dan Marren, Tunnel 9 site director.

The Air Force Research Laboratory Air Vehicles Directorate at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, provides technical guidance for the Falcon program to DARPA.

During program technical reviews, AFRL suggested that the program could be enhanced by the inclusion of data from AEDC Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9.

"The Tunnel 9 facility exactly duplicates the HTV-1 flight Reynolds number at Mach 10, and the large model size permits accurate flow field resolution...Tunnel 9 will provide the best quality data and the best return on the investment of test dollars and effort," said Dr. Peter Erbland, the AFRL Air Vehicles scientific advisor.

More than 30 runs were successfully completed during this HTV-1 entry in AEDC Tunnel 9 at Mach 10 and 14. This data will help validate the aerodynamic data base at two important flight points prior to the upcoming critical design review.

"DARPA program management placed wind tunnel verification of HTV-1's aerodynamic properties on the top of their priority list," said 1st Lt. Ben Berlin, Air Force Falcon program office.

"Not only did Tunnel 9 provide a unique and cost-effective means to perform this extremely valuable testing, Tunnel 9 finished testing ahead of schedule in order to provide this crucial data to Lockheed Martin prior to their critical design review.

"Working with AEDC Tunnel 9 personnel has been a true pleasure because they exemplify dedication and professionalism."

According to DARPA officials, the joint program's goal is to develop and validate in-flight technologies that enable both a near-term (2010) and far-term (2025) capability to execute time-critical, prompt global-reach missions, while at the same time demonstrating affordable and responsive space lift.

[Sirgod]

Now that is some cool news. When I was a kid, I made a wind Tunnel as my science fair Project.

Stephen

[FRA.E.Kehakoul_XC]

I just say next is the Sulaco,... must be a blast to ride that thing.

[Stormbringer]

I just say next is the Sulaco,... must be a blast to ride that thing.

I'm reading an article in popsci about all of this stuff right now.

[Lepton]

There is no enemy that this technology addresses or should address.  A waste of time if you ask me.

[Stormbringer]

There is no enemy that this technology addresses or should address.  A waste of time if you ask me.

So you are saying if we need say special forces to crash a party somewhere on the other side of the planet and no delivery means exist that can get them there this would not come in handy?

[jualdeaux]

There is no enemy that this technology addresses or should address.  A waste of time if you ask me.

So you are saying if we need say special forces to crash a party somewhere on the other side of the planet and no delivery means exist that can get them there this would not come in handy?

Not just that but things like this always end up trickling down intothe civilian market eventually. I've always wanted to go to Tasmania and back in the same day. haven't you?

[Stormbringer]

Yup. a few quarks short of an elementary particle.

[Lepton]

There is no enemy that this technology addresses or should address.  A waste of time if you ask me.

So you are saying if we need say special forces to crash a party somewhere on the other side of the planet and no delivery means exist that can get them there this would not come in handy?

Better to spend a million dollars or a hundred million dollars to not create enemies through economic ties and investments than to spend a billion dollars to find a way to impose mililtary solutions to problems that are not largely military in nature.

[Lepton]

There is no enemy that this technology addresses or should address.  A waste of time if you ask me.

So you are saying if we need say special forces to crash a party somewhere on the other side of the planet and no delivery means exist that can get them there this would not come in handy?

Not just that but things like this always end up trickling down intothe civilian market eventually. I've always wanted to go to Tasmania and back in the same day. haven't you?

No, I haven't.  I'd prefer people moved around less and slower.  More technology does not necessariliy mean a better quality of life nor that these "benign" technologies won't have any number of negative unintended consequences.

[Stormbringer]

There is no enemy that this technology addresses or should address.  A waste of time if you ask me.

So you are saying if we need say special forces to crash a party somewhere on the other side of the planet and no delivery means exist that can get them there this would not come in handy?

Better to spend a million dollars or a hundred million dollars to not create enemies through economic ties and investments than to spend a billion dollars to find a way to impose mililtary solutions to problems that are not largely military in nature.

So just pretend the world is a nice place, that other people are  not sometimes monsters, that whole ideologies are at war and at any given moment  this can express itself in increasingly dangerous (read lethal to lots of our people) ways. don't develop ways of dealing with it. just let it happen. and after the fact realize that there is no utopia and your foolish idealism got millions of your kin and kindred killed and the rest enslaved. Or be prepared when things go wrong and prevent it by any means necessary. any. including military technology like this. Chirac apparently thinks as you do and look: France; a place he is responsible for protecting is burning and europe itself is smouldering.