JetLib News

King Louie writes “Raytheon and the US Navy have successfully tested a ship-borne laser capable of shooting down aircraft. Video at the link shows the 32-kilowatt solid-state laser shooting down an unmanned aerial vehicle. The technology is apparently mature enough to be deployed as part of ships’ short-range missile defenses, a role currently filled by the Basic Point Defense Missile System (based on the Sea Sparrow missile) and the Close-In Weapons System (based on a 20mm Gatling gun).”

Source: Warships May Get Lasers For Close-In Defense

GAMP writes “A Navy blimp to assist oil skimming operations will be arriving to the Gulf Coast Wednesday evening, according to the Unified Command Joint Information Center. ‘The airship will operate relatively close to shore, primarily supporting skimmers to maximize their effectiveness,’ said US Coast Guard Capt. Kevin Sareault.”

Source: Oil-Spotting Blimp Arrives In the Gulf

almehdaaol writes “New military recruits are coming in physically heavier and out of shape, so the US Navy has decided to take an interesting course of action by creating a new training regimen inspired by the fitness-centric Wii Fit and Dance Dance Revolution.”
This comes alongside a report confirming some of the BS we told our parents when we were growing up: “Bavelier said playing the kill-or-be-killed games can improve peripheral vision and the ability to see objects at dusk, and the games can even be used to treat amblyopia, or lazy eye, a disorder characterized by indistinct vision in one eye. She said she believes the games can improve math performance and other brain tasks.”

Source: US Navy Considering Wii Fit and DDR For Boot Camp

pinkstuff writes “The Navy unveiled it’s terror fighting marine mammals at a two-day homeland security and disaster preparedness exercise in California this week. From the article: ‘ A Navy seal – actually a sea lion – took less than a minute to find a fake mine under a pier near San Francisco’s AT&T Park. A dolphin quickly located a terrorist lurking in the black water before another sea lion, using a device carried in its mouth, cuffed the pretend saboteur’s ankle so authorities could reel him in.’ Queue the ‘frickin lasers’ jokes.”

Source: Marine Mammals Used to Fight Terrorism

The F/A-18 Super Hornet burns through more fuel than any other aircraft in the Unites States Navy, whose pilots have flown more than 400 of the jets. But with the week of Earth Day upon us, the Navy is trying to use the jet to show it can mend its fuel-guzzling ways. Tomorrow the “Green Hornet,” an F/A-18 running on a half-petroleum, half-biofuel blend, will make a test flight from Maryland.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus has set a target that half of naval energy consumption will come from alternative sources by 2020. A “Great Green Fleet,” to sail by 2016, will include nuclear ships, as well as surface combatants with hybrid electric power systems using biofuel and biofuel-powered aircraft [National Geographic]. Before we can talk about ambitious deployment targets, however, the Navy has to prove that its “green” fighter has got what it takes, and so the experimental F/A-18 will try to break the sound barrier.

The Green Hornet’s biofuel constituent is made from Camelina sativa, also called gold-of-pleasure or false flax. (It earned the latter moniker for surviving by looking increasingly like real flax, a talent that garnered it a spot in our gallery of plant and animal impostors.) As a biofuel, Camelina has the advantage of growing with little energy input. Humans have cultivated the plant for millennia; the Romans used its oil in lamps and in cooking (pdf). Another advantage is that the fuel made from it was remarkably similar to the military petroleum jet fuel called JP-5 [National Geographic]. However, just as ordinary car engines can’t run on strictly ethanol, the design of the engine seals on the F/A-18 still demand a substantial component of conventional fuel.

Even advanced biofuels have their detractors among environmentalists and energy gurus, but the military’s potential embrace of them and other technologies—like electric vehicles, solar, and wind power—could supply the marketplace boost they need. The size of the military’s investment will create economies of scale that help bring down the costs of renewable energy, and military innovations in energy technologies could spread to civilian uses, just as the Internet did [Miami Herald].

And perhaps when you go to an air show in a decade, the Blue Angels‘ F/A-18s will be flying on biofuel.

Image: Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon, U.S. Air Force

Source: Highway to the Green Zone? Navy to Test a Supersonic Biofuel Jet

ectotherm writes “By 2018, the US Navy hopes to enable their fighter jets with the ability to shoot data streams containing ‘specialized waveforms and algorithms,’ useful in an electronic attack or cyber-invasion. A few non-classified details here.”

Source: Navy Wants Cyber Weapons That Shoot Data Beams

The ghost fleet, mothball fleet, reserve fleet—whatever you want to call the long-obsolete U.S. Navy ships that have been rusting in California’s Suisun Bay for decades, they might finally be gone this decade. The federal government’s Maritime Administration says it will spend $38 million to remove about half of the crumbling convoy from the waters near San Francisco by 2012, and dispose of the rest by 2017.

After World War II, there were thousands of surplus ships, and, in 1946, the Maritime Administration began keeping the best of them in reserve. At one time, more than 350 ships were in the fleet, including cruisers, destroyers, supply ships, transports and tankers [San Fransisco Chronicle]. The Navy dusted off some of them for use in the Korean and Vietnam wars. But the rest became relics, slowing decaying over the next six decades. And while the ghost fleet provides some nostalgia for Navy vets, it provides something less romantic for Suisun Bay: pollution. Twenty tons of lead-based paint had leached into the water.

Because of those concerns, environmental groups including the National Resources Defense Council sued the Maritime Administration, leading to this disposal plan. The 25 most decrepit ships will be removed by 2012, and stripped of loose paint, barnacles and plants before they are towed to Texas to be cut apart and recycled [The New York Times]. A federal judge still must approve this settlement, but if one does, then the Maritime Administration will remove the other 27 old vessels by 2017.

Not all the ships are headed for disposal, though. One resident of the bay is the battleship Iowa, which carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Cairo and Tehran conferences in 1943. The ship was recommissioned in 1984 but was laid up again in 1990 after an explosion in a turret that killed 47 sailors. The Iowa will be retained at Suisun Bay pending disposition as a museum ship [San Fransisco Chronicle].

Image: flickr / Ingridtalylar; NASA

Source: “Ghost Fleet” of WWII-Era Ships Will Finally Fade Away–Along With Its Pollution

coondoggie writes “Has the highly successful but disparate unmanned aircraft strategy deployed by the military outstripped the Department of Defense’s ability to handle its growth? The Air Force, Army and Navy have requested approximately $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2010 for new systems and expanded capabilities. The pentagon’s fiscal year 2010 budget request wants to increase the Air Force’s Predator and Reaper unmanned aircraft programs to 50 combat air patrols by fiscal year 2011-an increase of nearly 300% since fiscal year 2007. In 2000, DOD had fewer than 50 unmanned aircraft in its inventory; as of October 2009, this number had grown to more than 6,800. The program’s success however is causing some big cracks in the system. According to a report issued this week by congressional watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office. The military is facing a number of challenges, including training, accessing national air space and improving aircraft communications systems it must overcome if unmanned aircraft are to take their place as a central piece of the military’s future, the GAO stated.”

Source: Demand For Unmanned Aircraft Outstripping Their Capabilities

Julie188 writes “After more than three decades of service to researchers and staff stationed at the bottom of the world, the dome at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station was deconstructed this austral summer. Designed and constructed by the Seabees — the construction battalions of the US Navy — in the early 1970s, the dome’s geodesic design provided a unique solution to the challenges posed to engineers trying to build structures at the South Pole. The dome is being returned to southern California where it will be held in storage. It could possibly be trotted out as an exhibit in a new US Navy Seabees museum.”

Source: Farewell To the South Pole Dome

gyrogeerloose writes “Although there was evidence to suggest that the Japanese navy was up to something in December 1941, that information was scanty and came too late. Today’s intelligence agencies have another problem altogether — more information than they can deal with, and computers aren’t helping as much as one might expect for reasons that will be familiar to Slashdot readers: computers can crunch numbers faster and more accurately than humans but they’re still easily baffled by language as it is commonly used in the real world. Metaphor, slang and simple figures of speech can confuse the best algorithm and, as quoted in the linked article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, ‘A system that takes a week to discover a bombing will occur in a day isn’t very useful.’”

Source: Data-Sifting For Timely Intelligence Still an Elusive Goal