Stealth

For the first time, a pair of F-35C Joint Strike Fighters have simultaneously refueled from a KC-130 tanker aircraft. The aircraft's afterburners burn an enormous amount of fuel, so an important part of most missions will be refueling before or after combat, or both. This is why the successful dual refueling is an important benchmark for the JSF family.  Read More

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or "drones") are fast becoming an ever-present eye in the sky, potentially granting governments greater strike and surveillance capabilities than even Orwell’s fictional Big Brother could hope to wield. In response, NYC artist Adam Harvey has created a series of garments which claim to reduce the effectiveness of UAVs.  Read More

It's been 30 months since Taranis, the UK's autonomous stealth drone, featured on the pages of Gizmag when a prototype of the aircraft was unveiled. According to a report in the UK's Telegraph last Sunday, the unmanned combat aircraft is set to undergo flight testing later this year.  Read More

The European designed nEUROn Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) demonstrator successfully completed its maiden flight on December 1, 2012. The flight took place at Dassault Aviation’s flight test base in Istres in southern France and marks a milestone for the nEUROn program that was launched in 2005 by the French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA) that involves the collaboration of six European countries.  Read More

Most people have experienced the sonic boom of a skillfully wielded whip, or the closely related crack of a nearby bolt of lightning. Such sounds have a character that attracts a good deal of attention, which is why the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is trying to silence them. The crack of a rifle shot is the sonic boom of a supersonic bullet, making stealthy ground missions difficult to accomplish. To address this need, SOCOM has issued a Small Business Innovation Research request for proposal (SBIR-RFP) for a feasibility study of suitable subsonic rounds.  Read More

Datsun's 280ZX was a pretty awesome car in its own right. Seth Kettleman, however, decided to take a classic 1983 model, and augment it in a rather unique way – he replaced its original six-cylinder power plant with an ex-US Air Force Garrett GTP turboshaft engine. The end result looks pretty sharp, but it really has to be heard to believed ... and, if you like what you hear, you can buy the car now for US$16,000.  Read More

It's the ultimate sleeper! Brabus' US$500,000 matte-black stealth coupe has no outward pizzazz whatsoever (at least to the untrained eye), but with a 788 bhp twin-turbo V12 under the hood, it can hit 100 km/h in 3.7 seconds, 200 km/h in 9.8 seconds, 300 km/h (186 mph) in 23.8 seconds on its way to a top speed of more than 370 km/h (230 mph).  Read More

If you combined a stealth jet fighter and an attack helicopter and stuck them in the water, what would you get? Well, according to the folks at New Hampshire’s Juliet Marine Systems (JMS), you’d get their GHOST marine platform. Privately developed for possible use by the U.S. Navy, the boat would reportedly be invisible to enemy ships’ radar, while also being faster and more economical than existing military vessels. The company’s big claim, however, is that GHOST is the world’s first super-cavitating watercraft.  Read More

Twenty-eight years ago, the United States Navy decided that it wanted a field replacement for its A-6 Intruder ground-attack aircraft. A team from McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics won the contract to design the plane, which would be an all-weather, aircraft carrier-based stealth bomber, known as the A-12 Avenger II. Its first flight was planned for December 1990, but technical difficulties and cost overruns kept the team from meeting that deadline. By January 1991, in fact, the Secretary of Defense cancelled the program due to breach of contract. A legal battle between the Navy and McDonnell Douglas ensued, and continues to this day. Now, however, it’s possible to own a literal “piece” of the story – a cockpit canopy reportedly made for the A-12 is for sale on eBay.  Read More