Russian fifth-generation Sukhoi-T-50 fighter aircraft completes first long range flight

Russia's prototype fifth-generation Sukhoi T-50 fighter jet has carried out its first long-range flight during the transfer from a manufacturing plant in Russia’s Far East to an assigned airfield near Moscow, deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Thursday, January 17, 2013.

“It is a serious breakthrough! The plane flew 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles), making two landings, in Abakan and Chelyabinsk, on the way to the Russian capital,” Rogozin, who oversees the Russian defense industry, wrote in his Twitter blog.

The plane joined three other T-50 prototype models at the Zhukovsky airfield prior to state flight tests, which are scheduled to start in March 2013. The fifth prototype aircraft is being built at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur factory in Siberia.

The T-50, also known as project PAK-FA, first flew in January 2010 and was presented to the public at the Moscow Air Show in 2011.

The Russian Defense Ministry is planning to finish the state flight tests of eight prototypes by 2015, so that they could go into standard production in 2016.

The T-50, which will be the core of Russia's future fighter fleet, is a fifth-generation multirole fighter aircraft featuring elements of ‘stealth’ technology, super-maneuverability, super-cruise capability (supersonic flight without use of afterburner), and an advanced avionics suite including an X-band active phased-array radar

Russian air force puts secret X-38 air-to-surface missile into service

 click on image to enlarge

The Russian Air Force has put the advanced X-38 air-to-surface missile into service. Although the short-range missile was developed for the T-50 fifth generation fighter jet, the existing bombers and fighter jets, including Su-34 and MiG-29 CMT will be equipped with these missiles.

The missile was tested in great secrecy in 2012, and was commissioned in late December. The delivery of missiles will be started shortly. The new missile will be equipped with independently guided warheads. This solves various tasks and increases the striking power of T-50 multipurpose fighter jets. The missiles will be placed inside the jet that is being developed using stealth technology, says editor-in-chief of the “Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie” magazine Victor Litovkin.

“A fighter jet may have special characteristics, including non-visibility to radar and other detecting equipment, but it is just an aircraft. But when it is equipped with high-precision guided missiles, this is a high-precision aviation complex. That can be considered a fifth generation fighter jet. The fact, that the missile on board the jet increases its low visibility,” Victor Litovkin said.

The missile will not reflect on the radar screen. It has another advanced feature. It can orient itself during the flight using the GLONASS space navigation system. The recent armed conflicts, including in Afghanistan and the Middle East have shown that it is difficult to discover targets from air even with the guidance from the ground because advanced camouflaging systems have been developed. These missiles will be guided to the target by a GLONASS satellite, says Victor Litovkin.

“The missile’s accuracy increases owing to the GLONASS satellite that sees the target and missile and combines these two points. When taking into account the fact that this is a supersonic missile, a complicated task is solved, a missile that is flying at a high speed is guided to a target. In short, this is a great achievement of Russian missile designers,” Victor Litovkin added.

The X-38 missile is capable of hitting manoeuvering armoured vehicles and hideouts at a distance from 3 to 40 kilometers. These missiles will upgrade the combat capacity of the Russian Air Force.

Republic of Korea Navy commissions First of Class "Incheon" FFX I Frigate

Republic of Korea Navy commissioned on 17 January 2013 the first of its next next generation FFX I class Frigate. The ship was by Hyundai Heavy Industry and is expected to replace the aging fleet of Pohang class corvettes and Ulsan class frigates, and take over multi-role operations such as coast patrol or anti-submarine warfare.

The class will be built in several batches. Six vessels will be built as Batch I (similar to head of class Incheon), eight Frigates will be built as Batch II by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, and Batch III is also planned for the future.

Batch I vessels are reported to displace 2,500 tons with a length of 114 meters and a beam of 14 meters. The main gun is 127mm similar type to those used by the US Navy. For defense, the Incheon is fitted with a RIM-116 RAM launcher as well as a Phalanx CIWS. The class is also fitted with four SSM-700K Hae Sung I anti-ship missiles.

It is expected that Batch II vessels will receive VLS cells for long range SAMs and the locally built Hyunmoo-3 land attack cruise missile. No design specifics have been released yet however, regarding Batch II vessels.

Accelerated Arctic Warming

The more northern we look, the more Earth is warming, as shown by the NASA image below.

global temperature anomalies averaged from 2008 through 2012, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

The interactive image below shows temperature anomalies for the different latitudional zones over time.

The Arctic (red line above) clearly shows the strongest warming over time, while accelerating in recent years. The best fit for this warming in the Arctic is a fourth order polynomial trendline, as added to the data on the image below.

This accelerated warming in the Arctic is threatening to destabilize the methane in the seabed and trigger runaway global warming within a decade. Effective action needs to be taken before it's too late!

Remarks at the White House - by James Hansen

Remarks at the White House¹

15 January 2013

James Hansen, screenshot

Let us return for a moment to election night 2008. As I sat in our farm house in Pennsylvania, watching Barack Obama's victory speech, I turned my head aside so my wife would not see the tears in my eyes. I suspect that millions cried. It was a great day for America.

We had great hopes for our new President. It is appropriate, it is right, in a period honoring Martin Luther King, to recall the hopes and dreams of that evening, and the hopes and dreams that we…will… never  -  give up.

We have a dream – that our President will understand the intergenerational injustice of human-made climate change – that he will recognize our duty to be caretakers of creation, of the land, of the life on our planet – and that he will give these matters the priority that our young people deserve.

We have a dream – that our President will understand the commonality of solutions for energy security, national security and climate stability – and that he will exercise hands-on leadership, taking the matter to the public, avoiding backroom crippling deals with special interests.

We have a dream – that the President will stand as firm as Abraham Lincoln when he faced the great moral issue of slavery – and, like Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill, he will speak with the public, enlisting their support and reassuring them.

It is not easy to find an Abraham Lincoln or a Winston Churchill. But we are here today looking to find that in you, Mr. President. And until you summon it within yourself, let me assure you that we will return, and our numbers will grow.

Mr. President, we will be here until the promise of a safe world for our children and grandchildren, and your children and grand children – is not a dream. We will be here until we are assured that the history books will rightfully record – that you were the person we were looking for  - the person who turned these dreams…into reality.

______________________________
¹ Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, Pray-in at NY Ave. Presbyterian Church and the White House
(www.interfaithactiononclimatechange.org) on Martin Luther King's birthday.
"We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now…" Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

New Chinese light tank enroute to Tibet

Bridges such as these carrying railway carriages in the above picture are found on Tibetan Plateau

British stealth drone to undergo first test flight

It can fly faster than the speed of sound, cannot be detected by radar and has no pilot. This is the new robotic plane that will become the next generation of front line bombers for the British military.

The drone, which is named Taranis after the Celtic god of thunder, has been designed to fly intercontinental missions to attack targets and can automatically dodge incoming missiles.

The aircraft, which has cost £125 million to build, is intended to be the first of a new generation of aeroplanes that will reduce the need to risk human lives on long, dangerous missions.

It is to be flown for the first time in a series of tests over the Australian outback in the spring in an attempt to demonstrate the technology to military chiefs.

Currently the Royal Air Force uses Tornado GR4 bombers as its front line strike aircraft, although the Typhoon Eurofighter is expected to replace it in the coming years.