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Posts Tagged “

Lockheed Martin

aircrafts

Build Your Own F-35 Lightning II Fighter Jet

If you want to have your own F-35 Lightning II fighter jet, look no further because Stephen Trimble—from the always-good The Dew Line—has sent us high resolution instructions showing Lockheed Martin's construction process. Piece by piece, the instructions look straight from the Pentagon's Lego set. Grab yours after the jump, along with the shopping list with all the materials you need and actual images of some of the steps. More »

missile

Lockheed's Multiple Kill Vehicle-L Missile Will Get All the MIRVs

Anti-missile systems have popped up often on Giz, but until now none of them have promised what Lockheed Martin's excellently-named Multiple Kill Vehicle-L will do: tackle all the threats inside an ICBM. Each ICBM contains a bunch of Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles, some containing genuine warheads, some dummies to confuse defense systems. More »

airplanes

The History Behind the F-35B Vertical Lift: from Napkin to First Supersonic Plane

Dr. Paul Bevilaqua is the aerodynamicist who designed the F-35B shaft-driven lift fan years ago at Skunk Works, Lockheed Martin's advanced technology program. His invention changed short-take off and vertical-landing (STVOL) planes forever, making the Lightning II the first supersonic aircraft with this capability. To honor him, Lockheed Martin has released this new video, in which Dr. Bevilaqua explains how the project went from "napkin to production." More »

no glue, no glory

F-22 Raptor Airframes Falling Apart Due to Bad Glue

According to a just-released Air Combat Command report, 30 of the F-22A Raptors delivered by Lockheed Martin use "inadequate adhesive" in their airframes. That means two things in plain language: bad glue; and big trouble.

More »

military

Lockheed Martin Developing 'Maple Seed' Flying Cameras

The Pentagon is giving the war profiteers over at Lockheed Martin a nice chunk of change to develop a spy camera modeled after a maple seed. Loaded up with two rockets, the wee, single-winged camera would be used in large clusters over war zones, capturing loads of imagery to give a complete picture of a situation. In addition to the camera and rockets on board, the devices will be stocked with telemetry, communications, navigation and a power source. They look pretty neat to me, but it'd be nice if we didn't have as much of a use for them by the time they're developed. [Scientific American via The Raw Feed]

robots

Lockheed's MULE Robotic Vehicle is More Athletic Than I Am

Lockheed Martin, everybody's favorite war profiteer, is hard at work on its new MULE robotic vehicle, a little guy that's able to traverse all sorts of terrain without help from human handlers. While still a ways off from hitting the sunny shores of Iraq, as it's not due 'til around 2013, its Engineering Evaluation Unit (EEU) is doing all sorts of impressive things on the training course. Just recently, it autonomously climbed a 30-inch step and bridged a 70-inch gap without any help from people, which is more than I could probably do. It should be interesting to see how this progresses over the next few years. [Lockheed Martin]


gadgets

Lockheed Martin Quiet Supersonic Transport: From New York to LA in 2 Hours, Quietly

You too can fly cross-country in 2 hours, that is, if you can ever get your hands on a Lockheed Martin Quiet Supersonic Transport (QSST)—a 12 person luxury plane that can hit over 1,100 MPH. But unlike its daddy, the Concord, this plane can muffle its sonic boom to 1/100 the strength. That means you won't be limited to flying over the ocean, so you can take this baby across the country without disturbing anyone. More »

gadgets

Dumb Jet: F-22 Raptor Listens But Can't Talk

The Lockheed Martin F-22a Raptor is fast, has a long range, and is more maneuverable than any other jet in the sky, but it's crazy dumb when it comes to sending out its data to other jets and ground control. Pilots of the speedy aircraft are required to talk fast, telling other pilots in the area what targets they've seen and relaying other information. More »

gadgets

F-22 Raptor Now Kills Faster, Higher

Now that jets, bombs and violence are back in the news, we turn our interest to Lockheed Martin, Boeing, the United States Air Force, which together have figured out how to make the F-22 Raptor supersonic warplane deliver bombs faster and higher than ever before. It does this by accurately computing an altitude and distance from the target where the weapon can be released with the highest probability of scoring a hit. This accuracy is possible because of an algorithm developed by Boeing, Phantom Works and the Air Force that computes the Launch Acceptability Region (LAR), taking into account navigation, weather, target and weapon information. More »

gadgets

Stealth Jet to Go from Deep Blue to Wild Blue


Lockheed Martin is now testing Cormorant, a stealthy autonomous spy jet that starts and ends its mission 150 feet under water. Launched from Ohio-class submarines, the four-ton aircraft is designed with folding wings that allow it to fit inside a Trident missile tube, which is about 48 feet long but just 7 feet wide. The stealthy drone quietly floats to the surface and goes about its business of putting the hurt on those who hate America, and then when all the killing is done, slips back under the waves to be retrieved by a sneaky robotic underwater vehicle. Testing should be done by September, when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will decide if it will commission a flying prototype. So it's not real yet, but even so, this has to be one of the coolest-looking airplane drawings ever, which was done, incidentally, by John MacNeill Illustration. More »