One of the drivers interviewed by The Indy Channel in Hamilton County said: "it's kind of crazy. I'm totally confused. I'm kind of expecting… dinosaurs to run down the road, or something." Yes Beavis, zombie raptors are going to eat us all. [The Indy Channel]

Some of them are truly great, specially pink Viper and the Raptor with all the Colonial Marines, ready to kick Cylon minifig ass.

This Lego Galactica fest was made with the people below, members ChiefLUG. [Brothers Brick]

Each F-22 costs $143 million, and at stake is a $9 billion proposal to build 60 more Raptors over the next three years. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is fine with axing the program (as was the Bush administration, who has of course deferred the decision), favoring instead the development of unmanned UAVs that are more adept at the reconnaissance and surgical strikes used in fighting terrorists, not the air-to-air dogfights that would have been expected when facing up to a Soviet superpower with its own modern air force. The L.A. Times cites one such unmanned project as "a small blimp equipped with an automated high-powered sniper rifle that could provide a form of inexpensive but effective air support for platoons in Afghanistan."

The decision is a dicey one, because while saving money in the Pentagon's budget, a decision to axe the F-22 would mean a loss of jobs and defense contracts for U.S. workers. Unsurprisingly, the F-22's most vocal supporters are in Congress; the jet uses parts from 1,000 suppliers spread across 44 states. That's a lot of pork, and if we know there's one way to make someone sad, it's take away their pork. The NYTimes quotes Democratic congressman Norman Dicks saying “I think we’re going to keep the F-22 going, that’s my gut instinct." Someone tell this dude that "following your gut" is so over! [NYTimes, LA Times]

Even while the new 20,000RPM Raptor could be engineered to be ultra-fast and more or less silent at the same time, the challenges for a mechanical design are too many to ignore. Mainly, there's is the issue of power consumption: this rotation speed will require a lot of extra energy compared to normal drives, which is a bad spot in a market that is claiming for greener technology, and is moving away from the desktop into the mobile space, where power consumption is a make or break issue. The reliability of such a complex mechanical design would be another potential problem.

Everything to try to match Solid State Drives, which also will keep evolving, getting faster and even more efficient down the line. [Bit-Tech]

These babies are about two times as fast as their Predator predecessor, thanks mostly to its new and improved 900-hp turbo-prop engine. They are scheduled to be deployed between this fall and early next spring.

As a bonus, here is a video of a similar beast, the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Block 20 Global Hawk.

[Slashdot]

Lockheed Martin sheepishly admits that fixes are on the way, scheduled for the 2008 to 2013 timeframe. Meanwhile, those pilots better learn to talk fast. Maybe they could go to a school for auctioneers. – Charlie White

Fixing the Raptor [Defense Tech]

To achieve the new milestone, the Air Force flew an F-22 at 50,000 feet and released a 1000-pound JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition—it's a bomb) at a speed of 1142 mph. That precision-guided smart bomb then destroyed a tiny target 27.5 miles away. This is significant because the higher and faster one of these jets can fly while delivering bombs, the less chance it has of being shot down by enemy fire. That must be a good thing, because after all, what we really want to do is protect our own brave Air Force pilots while killing as many precisely-targeted human beings as possible on the ground. – Charlie White

The F22 Raptor makes its fastest and highest JDAM delivery yet [Newlaunches]

The canopy "became stuck in the down and locked position and could not be opened manually after the pilot cycled the mechanism several times, following a pre-flight warning that the canopy was unlocked."

What did they do? Why, of course, they broke out a chain saw and sawed open the cockpit, causing $180,000 worth of damage. Oops.

F-22 Raptor swallows pilot [The Register]