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Examining Explanations for the Strange Phenomena Encountered by U.S

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AIRCRAFT DESIGN 14 LUNAR SPACESUITS 18 SUPERSONICS 36 Perlan 2 glider — explained More fl exibility for astronauts Listening for X-59’s sonic thump Mystery sightings Examining explanations for the strange phenomena encountered by U.S. Navy pilots. PAGE 26 NOVEMBER 2019 | A publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org The Premier Global, Commercial, Civil, Military and Emergent Space Conference Where Ideas Launch • Connections Are Made • Business Gets Done! SpaceSymposium.org SAVE $600 – Register Today for Best Savings! Special Military Rates! +1.800.691.4000 Share: FEATURES | November 2019 MORE AT aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org The Premier Global, Commercial, Civil, Military and Emergent Space Conference 14 18 36 26 Aiming for Exploring the Planning for 90,000 feet moon in new the sound of Mystery phenomena spacesuits Designers of Perlan 2 supersonic fl ight We look at possible explanations for those overcame formidable Former astronaut How NASA’s Low Boom fast and agile objects zipping across F/A-18 engineering Tom Jones examines Flight Demonstrator screens. challenges to NASA’s plans to give will test the public’s create a glider that explorers suits that tolerance for sonic By Jan Tegler and Cat Hofacker has reached the will let them walk, thumps. stratosphere and will lope, crouch and even try to beat its own kneel. By Jan Tegler record next year. Where Ideas Launch • Connections Are Made • Business Gets Done! By Tom Jones By Keith Button SpaceSymposium.org SAVE $600 – Register Today for Best Savings! Special Military Rates! +1.800.691.4000 Share: aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | NOVEMBER 2019 | 1 ACCESS THE WORLD’S BEST RESOURCE FOR AEROSPACE TECHNICAL INFORMATION The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is Your Aerospace Publisher › JOURNALS – New research published in eight current titles every month plus decades of historical content, all online for subscription or individual article purchase › BOOKS AND EBOOKS – Hundreds of professional titles covering the state of the art, general-interest and reference works, and textbooks for students and continuing education › CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS – Online collections and individual papers available from AIAA forums and events going back to 1963 › LATEST INDUSTRY STANDARDS – More than 70 electronic domestic and international guiding documents Resources for authors, booksellers, companies, educators, librarians, researchers, standards contributors, and students who are involved with aerospace. AIAA member discounts are available. RESEARCH | PURCHASE | CONTRIBUTE | PUBLISH LEARN MORE AT ARC.AIAA.ORG IN THIS ISSUE AEROSPACE★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ AMERICA NOVEMBER 2019, VOL. 57, NO. 10 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Keith Button Ben Iannotta Keith has written for C4ISR Journal and Hedge Fund Alert, where he broke [email protected] news of the 2007 Bear Stearns scandal that kicked off the global credit crisis. ASSOCIATE EDITOR PAGE 14 Karen Small [email protected] STAFF REPORTER Cat Hofacker [email protected] Christine Fisher EDITOR, AIAA BULLETIN Christine writes about technology, space and science. Her work can also be Christine Williams found on Engadget.com. [email protected] PAGE 9 EDITOR EMERITUS Jerry Grey CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Keith Button, Christine Fisher, Tom Jones, Tom Jones Robert van der Linden, Jan Tegler, Tom Jones fl ew on four space shuttle missions and is an adviser to the Debra Werner, Frank H. Winter Coalition for Deep Space Exploration. He has a doctorate in planetary sciences. John Langford AIAA PRESIDENT PAGE 18 Daniel L. Dumbacher PUBLISHER Rodger S. Williams DEPUTY PUBLISHER ADVERTISING Jan Tegler [email protected] Jan covers a variety of subjects, including defense, for publications internationally. ART DIRECTION AND DESIGN He’s a frequent contributor to Defense Media Network/Faircount Media Group and THOR Design Studio | thor.design is the author of the book “B-47 Stratojet: Boeing’s Brilliant Bomber,” as well as a general aviation pilot. MANUFACTURING AND DISTRIBUTION PAGE 26, 36 Association Vision | associationvision.com LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE Ben Iannotta, [email protected] Debra Werner A frequent contributor to Aerospace America, Debra is also a West Coast correspondent for Space News. PAGE 64 Aerospace America (ISSN 0740-722X) is published monthly except in August by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., at 12700 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite DEPARTMENTS 200 Reston, VA 20191-5807 [703-264-7500]. Subscription rate is 50% of dues for AIAA members (and is not deductible therefrom). Nonmember subscription price: U.S., $200; 4 Editor’s Notebook foreign, $220. Single copies $20 each. Postmaster: Send 8 9 address changes and subscription orders to Aerospace America, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 7 Flight Path AeroPuzzler Aerospace in at 12700 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA, 20191-5807, Tell us about those canards Action Attn: A.I.A.A. Customer Service. Periodical postage on Dassault’s Rafale Measuring methane sources paid at Reston, Virginia, and at additional mailing 47 AIAA Bulletin offi ces. Copyright 2019 by the American Institute of from space Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., all rights reserved. The name Aerospace America is registered by the AIAA 60 Career Opportunities in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offi ce. 10 14 62 Looking Back Q&A Engineering Aerospace Technology Notebook 64 Trajectories Institute’s Simon Weeks A glider aims for 90,000 feet aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | NOVEMBER 2019 | 3 EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK MYSTERY PHENOMENA Don’t say “UFO” or this month’s cover story, we decided to walk readers through the possible explanations for the The U.S. Navy is unidentifi ed aerial phenomena, to use the U.S. Navy’s preferred term, spotted by F/A-18 pilots, investigating encounters with fast-moving, highly their radars and cameras and also off-board sensors. agile shapes like the one My inspiration for suggesting this storytelling approach came from entirely unrelated works between the targeting of journalism, such as “The Body in Room 348” in the April 2013 issue of Vanity Fair and “What lines in this screen Freally happened to Malaysia’s Missing Airplane” in the July issue of the Atlantic. grab from the “Gimbal” As our reporting got underway, it quickly became clear that there would be a key distinction from those cockpit video shot in 2015 by the infrared sorts of articles. By the end of “Room 348,” we learn that the explanation for this mysterious death was camera on an F/A-18F. hidden in the evidence all along. Likewise, the absence of a question mark on the headline of the Atlantic story is no accident. The author lays out the evidence related to the disappearance of fl ight MH370, and U.S. Navy the reader follows the clues to what seems like the only logical conclusion. We can’t steer you to an explanation for these Navy sightings or even point to a most likely answer. We let the facts tell the story, and the facts point to an ongoing mystery. We do think we managed to dig into the science and technology related to the accounts in a thought-pro- voking way. Tone was important, because as entertaining as this topic is, it’s also serious. Americans count on the U.S. Navy, among other agencies, to divine the capabilities of potential adversaries and be ready to win against them. The Navy seems as mystifi ed as anyone by these fast, highly agile phenomena that sparked words of amazement from its pilots. My hope is that one day someone will fi nd one of these craft, if indeed these strange blurs are aircraft. I can picture the object hauled ashore at a boat ramp, in front of spectators and their smartphones. Or, if someone in the U.S. or abroad is keeping a secret, perhaps the reasons for that secret will fade and the time will become right to reveal the explanation for these phenomena. When that happens, I plan to look back on this article in search of signs that we were at least getting warm. ★ Ben Iannotta, editor-in-chief, [email protected] 4 | NOVEMBER 2019 | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org LETTER TO THE EDITOR Misusing “Mach 1” enjoy Aerospace America each month for all the interesting MOON LANDING 36 HYPERSONICS 14 SPACE ECONOMY 30 articles, but this month’s cover [October 2019] shocked me What Apollo can teach Artemis Predicting overheating A new role for space-faring governments with your statement about “Mach 1” passenger jets. Whoever wrote that ought to get a brief education on supersonic fl ight. No aircraft company would build a jet designed to cruise right Iat Mach 1. In the transonic speed range (from roughly the high Mach 0.8s ICS + ON CL to around 1.1), there are many areas of mixed subsonic and supersonic RS IM E A air fl ow over the airframe, and following the localized supersonic fl ow P T U E there are shock waves. These shocks tend to be unsteady because of the S shock/boundary layer interactions, and they tend to dance around over the control surfaces. If you stay at this speed, it can be a bumpy ride, so Mach 1 passenger jets could exacerbate aviation’s in supersonic fl ight operations, the aircraft prefers to punch through carbon footprint. The search for solutions is the transonic regime, and the ride gets smoother and the drag decreases underway. PAGE 22 REPORTER’S PICKS PAGE 18 once you’re fully supersonic. I’m sure you’ve heard that the supersonic Your IAC preview aircraft in development right now are all designed to cruise at Mach 1.4 or above. If you’re going to go through the trouble of making an aircraft have supersonic capability, one would not stay at Mach 1. I would have OCTOBER 2019 | A publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org just called them supersonic passenger jets on your cover.
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