Holloman Air Force Base (NM) – In the future military bombers won’t have to slow down to subsonic speeds to drop their deadly payloads.  Technicians from Boeing Phantom Works and the Air Force Research Lab say they’ve simulated a bomb drop at Mach 2.


The research is being done at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico and involves a rocket sled and a B-1 bomber sized weapons bay.  Typically quickly moving air would push dropped bombs back into the weapons bay, so researchers have developed “active flow control” which uses microjets placed ahead of the bay to disrupt the airflow.

"Active flow control technology will enable safe separation of weapons from weapons bays of future high speed aircraft," said Jim Grove, AFRL program manager for High Frequency Excitation Active Flow Control for Supersonic Weapon Release.

Successful supersonic separation of a simulated JDAM bomb was done in a wind tunnel which according to the Air Force was actually a more difficult test than if it would have been done from a real bomber.  Bill Bower, Boeing’s Phantom Works program manager for the project said a real aircraft would have, “reduced dynamic pressure, less vibration than on the rocket sled, and more time to release a store while the aircraft sustains supersonic speed.”

Supersonic bomb drops would reduce pilot’s exposure time above enemy territory where they can be shot down with missiles or small arms fire.   Bombs could also be dropped from higher altitudes allowing them to “glide” several dozen miles.  Any missiles fired at the plane would probably – if the generals have their way – run out of fuel before hitting the plane. 

JDAM bombs use a combination of GPS and inertial navigation to guide themselves.  According to the military, these bombs are accurate to within 100 feet and there are several popular videos which show the bombs going through windows and air conditioning ducts.  In previous wars, unguided or so-called “dumb” bombs required a pilot to slow down and see the target.

Last year the Air Force demonstrated that it could drop a 1000-pound JDAM bomb from an F-22 Raptor at Mach 1.5. The bomb glided 24 nautical miles from 50,000 feet and scored a direct hit.

Full scale testing of the Mach 2 capable bomb bays should begin in 2008.

O_O

Nov 29, 2007 08:43     

O_O
Anthony report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Silent death

Nov 29, 2007 10:20     

you can't hear that one coming. Not very constructive though; will all their technological might, the US is not able to win wars. They win every battle, but not the war; that's been happening since the korean war.
Bob Kavanagh report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

huh?

Nov 29, 2007 15:38     

Being pretty selective there Bob, I believe we did quite well in the first Gulf War with an achievable goal of freeing Kuwait from Saddam. There are other instances that are not war, but strategic strikes that military technology has come in handy also. Don't get me wrong though, I'm a realist, there both pros and cons to the high tech military. The two biggest cons probably being the high price tag and the arrogance of supreme might.

Joe report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Useful when you're late for dinner

Nov 29, 2007 17:18     

Right?
charlie report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Bob

Nov 29, 2007 22:15     

The only way one would be able to see the might of the United States is if some dumb country launched an invasion at us. Not to sound arrogant but we wont have to ask "permission" or look "bad" when we launch an ICBM with 12 nukes. When a nation actually declares war against us the UN and other counries dont have a say anymore. The Iraq war or the Korean war was pretty much a support and where mistakes that we where suppose to mind our own business, WTF was Saddam gona do now we are stuck in a hole where we cant use total might for the risk that civilians and the enemy are one in the same or with no clear enemy...

Ricky report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Not first for this

Nov 29, 2007 23:23     

The Lockheed A-11 and YF12A, forerunners of the SR-71, featured a drop down revolver shaped bomb release with a capacity of 6 small nukes, which worked very well at speeds of Mach 2 .
woodchuk report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Engineers, not technicians

Dec 02, 2007 04:49     

Engineers designed this...not the technicians ["Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department," cries Wehrner Von Braun. -Rick]
rob serowskozi report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Don't buy into the puppet show Bob

Dec 11, 2007 11:06     

Do you honestly think wars aren't business? Aren't Haliburton, Lockhead Martin and others making billions of dollars? Aren't there permanent US military bases in Iraq now? Isn't Iraqi oil still priced in US dollars rather than Euros as Saddam had planned? A short decisive war that led to stability would allow for too little profit and too much accountability. For those who most wanted and understood it, the Iraq war is a raging success. Similarly, the more Heroin we see coming out of Afghanistan, the more successful that war is. Unless of course you think we're there to ensure that women can wear pants and girls can go to school. In light of the fact that we failed to stop genocide in Rawanda and Darfur, its amazing what people can believe about our motives in Afghanistan. Cash flows of Illicit drug money that the Talliban were cutting off by destroying most opium production in under two years had nothing to do with it, right? Every time a Cruise missile is launched you should hear a $100,000 'Cha-Ching!'.

Dan S report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0