The Boeing X-51 (or X-51 WaveRider) is an unmanned research scramjet aircraft for hypersonic flight at Mach 5 (3,300 mph; 5,300 km/h), an altitude of 70,000 feet (21,000 m). The aircraft was designated X-51 in 2005. It completed its first powered hypersonic flight on 26 May 2010. After two unsuccessful test flights, the X-51 completed a flight of over six minutes and reached speeds of over Mach 5 for 210 seconds on 1 May 2013 for the longest duration powered hypersonic flight.
Waverider refers in general to aircraft that take advantage of compression lift produced by their own shock waves. The X-51 program was a cooperative effort by the United States Air Force, DARPA, NASA, Boeing, and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. The program was managed by the Aerospace Systems Directorate within the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). X-51 technology is proposed for use in the High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW), a Mach 5+ missile which could enter service in the mid-2020s.
DARPA once viewed X-51 as a stepping stone to Blackswift, a planned hypersonic demonstrator which was canceled in October 2008. In May 2013, the U.S. Air Force plans have X-51 technology applied to the High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW), a missile similar in size to the X-51. The HSSW could fly in 2020 and enter service in the mid-2020s. It is envisioned to have a range of 500-600 nmi, fly at Mach 5-6, and fit on an F-35 or in the internal bay of a B-2 bomber.
Saudi Arabia to modify 24 Apache Helicopters By Staff writer Al Arabiya News English Sunday, 07 May 2017 Source: AlArabiya.net The report said that Saudi Arabian National Guard is one of the biggest customers of the AH-64E Apache helicopters Boeing has been awarded a $143.4 million contract to provide unique Block II and III modifications to AH-64E Apache attack helicopters for the Saudi Arabia National Guard, according to Defenseworld.net.
It added that work will be performed in Mesa, Arizona, with an estimated completion date of April 1, 2022.
The contract covers 24 of the Apaches, with $3.9 million in foreign military sales funding obligated at the time of the award.
The work will be conducted at the Boeing facility in Mesa, Ariz., and is expected to be completed by April 2022.
The Boeing Apache - with different configurations- is the primary attack helicopter of the U.S. Army.
While this report said that Saudi Arabian National Guard is one of the biggest customers of the AH-64E Apache helicopters and is planning for a total chopper fleet of some 150 helicopters, the Gulf State nation Saudi Arabia has around 92 AHD64 Apache helicopters:
Introduction The debate over the recent U.S. offer to sell M1A2 Abrams battle tanks to Saudi Arabia has raised the question of Saudi dependency on U.S. equipment for its defense needs in general and for the prosecution of its war in Yemen in particular. Saudi Arabia has requested up to 153 tanks, 20 of which have been described by the Pentagon as being destined to replenish vehicles damaged in the war in Yemen. The deal also includes related equipment, including machine guns, grenade launchers, night vision devices, and ammunition.[1] The tank deal, worth an estimated $1.15 billion, is the third recent offer that has involved replenishing Saudi weaponry damaged or used up in Yemen. The others were a July 2015 offer of $500 million in ammunition to the Royal Saudi Land Forces (RSLF) and a November 2015 offer of $1.29 billion worth of bombs and air-to-ground missiles to the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF).[2]
The tank deal has sparked controversy in Congress because it signals continuing U.S. support for the Saudi military effort in Yemen despite its devastating humanitarian impact, which has included bombings of schools, hospitals, marketplaces, and other non-military targets. Houthi forces have also inflicted civilian casualties that appear to violate the laws of war, but UN officials estimate that that the majority of the 3,000 civilian casualties in the war are the result of air strikes by the Saudi coalition.
. . . According to U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, “It would seem the coalition is responsible for twice as many civilian casualties as all other forces put together, virtually all as a result of air strikes.”[4]
Analyses by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also found that the Saudi air campaign has included the use of U.S.-supplied cluster munitions, which are banned under a treaty signed by 119 nations – but not by the United States or Saudi Arabia.[5]
The Saudi-led intervention has included a naval blockade which has made it difficult to get basic supplies into the country, contributing to a humanitarian emergency that has left millions of Yemenis without adequate food, clean water, or medical care.[6]
. . . U.S. arms offers to Saudi Arabia since 2009 have covered the full range of military equipment, from small arms and ammunition, to howitzers, to tanks and other armored vehicles, to attack helicopters and combat aircraft, to bombs and air-to-ground missiles, to missile defense systems, to combat ships.[13] The United States also provides billions in services, including maintenance and training, to Saudi security forces.
The Corporate Connection The Saudi sales boom has provided billions in new business to key U.S. defense contractors, including
General Dynamics, the producer of the MA1/A2S tank
Boeing, the producer of the F-15S combat aircraft, the Apache helicopter, and the Joint Direct Attack Munition
Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the C-130J transport plane, the principal supplier of the Multi-Mission Surface Combatant (MMSC) and a lead supplier of the PAC-3 missile defense system
Raytheon, which is also a lead contractor on the PAC-3 as well as the prime contractor for the Phalanx Close-In Weapon System.
Sikorsky, now a unit of Lockheed Martin, is the producer of the Black Hawk helicopter, which has also been offered to Saudi Arabia.
These are just the main U.S. defense firms involved in some of the largest U.S. arms offers to Saudi Arabia. There are many others involved in the production of bombs, air-to-ground missiles, armored vehicles, and other defense equipment to the kingdom.[30]
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Is This the End of the Line for the Apache Helicopter?
The U.S. Army will concentrate on the Apache's successor.
The Army will no longer buy future versions of the Apache helicopter, according to FlightGlobal.
Instead, it will pour funding into developing the armed version of the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program, the mission to make a new helo that will fly in 2030.
The AH-64 Apache entered service in 1984 as the first purpose-built attack helicopter for the U.S. Army. The Apache pioneered advanced technologies including the TADS target acquisition system, thermal imaging night vision, helmet-steerable 30-millimeter chain gun, and the Hellfire laser-guided missile.
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The Apache was designed as a tank-killer for the battlefields of Western Europe, capable of carrying up to sixteen Hellfire missiles. Just two Apaches could smash a battalion of 30 Soviet tanks, which would go a long way toward addressing NATO's numerical inferiority.
In reality, its mission would prove to be elsewhere. The helicopter saw combat in the 1989 invasion of Panama and the 1991 Persian Gulf War. It fought with U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, with Israeli forces in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and with British forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Saudi Apaches are currently using the AH-64 to battle Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Apache is in service with 12 countries and on order with three more
The latest version of the Apache, the -E Model Guardian, features an uprated engine, tactical datalinks for sharing information with other friendly forces, an improved transmission, and the ability to control unmanned aerial vehicles from the cockpit. The Army is buying a handful of AH-64Es, but the majority of the helicopters will be older Apaches upgraded to the Guardian standard.
Still in service more than 30 years after introduction, the Apache has been flying a lot longer than anyone anticipated. The Army is finally bent on replacing it with the FVL program. The middleweight aircraft will replace both the UH-60 Blackhawk and the AH-64 Apache. At some point the Army has to redirect the funding hose away from existing programs and into newer ones, and that point is now. The Army may buy more -E models in the near future, but that would be to replace existing helicopters lost in crashes or combat operations.
Meanwhile, Apache maker Boeing is pressing ahead with plans for an -F model, with or without the Army. Many of the Apache's overseas sales didn't occur for a decade or more after the helicopter entered U.S. service. If the same happens with the armed FVL aircraft, it might not attract foreign buyers until 2040 or later. Meanwhile, an -F model Apache could act as bridge—a very lucrative bridge indeed as the Apache continues to gain fame as a proven combat platform.
Learn more about Saudi Apache ‘air tanks’ that take down Houthi militias
The Saudi Apache had a pivotal role in chasing down Houthi rebels on the southern borders throughout the Decisive Storm operation led by Saudi Arabia and the Arab coalition, aiming to restore legitimacy in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has around 92 AHD64 Apache helicopters.
The Apache can target more than 128 precise targets within one minute. Enemies won’t be able to spot the aircraft at night during the operation. It has the ability to hit targets with extreme precision. It reacts quickly and can attack from close range to destroy and undermine the enemy forces.
Apache helicopters are characterized as advanced armament as they are equipped with more than a hundred laser rockets that can penetrate a shield range of over 14 kilometers. They have also a 30mm caliber machine gun and in-cabin technologies to locate the target.
It is worth mentioning that Saudi Arabia Apache battalion, flown by Saudi pilots, ranks among the top in the world; they are skillful and precise, and can respond to any risk in a timely manner due to the intensive training inside and outside the Saudi Kingdom.
The cost of the Apache is 100 million US Dollars.
The Apache uses several types of weapons, namely:
Hellfire missiles
Hellfire trigger system
These missiles were designed to be guided by lasers beams; the pilot in charge of the artillery will initiate a laser beam toward the target on the ground, in the form of intermittent pulses that are actually encrypted signals.
Launching Hellfire missiles
Before the launch of the missile, the computer transmits these signals to the missiles and saves them in the computer’s memory; that way the missile would only respond to these transmitted signals. Through its optical sensor, the missile tracks the optical signals reflected from the pulses laser beam on the target. The missile’s computer calculates the distance between it and the target to determine its precise path to reach the target.
Missiles and machine guns
Instead of the hellfire missiles, two other types of missiles can be used sometimes. They are called the 2.75inch aerial missiles; they can be fired one after the other or simultaneously.
Stealth system
The Apache is equipped with a stealth system against thermal missiles; it reduces the heat emission resulting from the engine, using a cooling air flow technique. Moreover, it has a device that launches red rays at different frequencies to mislead thermal tracking devices used by thermal missiles.
WATCH: The power of the Saudi Apache
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Today, millions of Americans say that they believe that the United States is on the verge of a major economic collapse and will soon be entering another big stock market crash and Great Depression. But only a small percentage of those same people are prepared for that to happen. The sad truth is that the vast majority of Americans would last little more than a month on what they have stored up in their homes. Most of us are so used to running out to the supermarket or to Wall-Mart for whatever we need that we never even stop to consider what would happen if suddenly we were not able to do that when the economic collapse happen. Experts predict that the stock market crash will happen in this year and the economic collapse 2017 is inevitable. When the economic collapse and stock market crash occurs, it will happen quickly. No one will predict it. That's because the signs of the economic collapse are difficult to see. For example, the U.S. economic collapse and stock market crash happened on September 17, 2008. That's the day panicked investors withdrew a record $140 billion from money market accounts. That's where businesses keep the cash to fund day-to-day operations. If withdrawals had gone on for even a week, the entire economy would have halted. If the economy collapses, you will not have access to credit. Banks will close. That means high demand, and low supply, of food, gas and other necessities. If the economic collapse affects local governments and utilities, then water and electricity will no longer be available... The Economic Doomsday is here. The second financial bubble is going to soon burst, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. The Federal Reserve has set up the American economy for financial collapse for printing trillions of dollars back in 2008 and 2009. The Federal Reserve’s policies of printing trillions of dollars back in ’08-09 have locked into place a serious financial crisis at some point in our future. Going so far as to intimate the financial collapse and market crash will occur at least some time in the next two years, “It’s unavoidable, and even Donald Trump can’t stop it. Top economists predict that within the next 18-24 months, the imminent economic collapse will happen. The Federal Reserve has set up the American economy for financial collapse and market crash for printing trillions of dollars back in 2008 and 2009. The Federal Reserve’s policies of printing trillions of dollars back in ’08-09 have locked into place a serious financial crisis....
Splitting a country in two and setting up a DMZ [demilitarized zone with 28,000 U.S. troops], "installing democracy" in South Korea where the last president was forced out-of-office by 100,000+ demonstrating in the streets for months in popular opposition, THAAD missiles now getting deployed ....what's wrong with expansion of the American Empire?
Published on May 5, 2017
Views: 6,424
To demonstrate he means business, President Donald Trump orders a U.S. aircraft carrier, two guided-missile destroyers, a guided-missile cruiser and a nuclear-powered submarine to the waters off North Korea. Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, responds by threatening to sink U.S. carriers and putting on a large live-fire exercise, featuring hundreds of large caliber artillery guns. The United States and North Korea are today closer to reigniting a war than at any time since an armistice was signed in 1953. That war, which began in the summer of 1950, didn’t begin well for American Forces. .................
