REMOTE SENSING 28 OPINION 46 PROPULSION 14 Predicting earthquakes Why personal aircraft won’t take off Rotating detonation explained THE CHOICE The designs and backstory uunderlying the U.S. Navy’s unmanned tanker competition PAGE 18 MAY 2018 | A publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org 9–11 JULY 2018 CINCINNATI, OH EXPANDED TECHNICAL CONTENT FOR 2018! In addition to our pre-forum short courses and workshops, we’ve enhanced the technical panels and added focused technical tutorials, high-level discussion groups, exciting keynotes, and more. 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For complete program details please visit: propulsionenergy.aiaa.org FEATURES | May 2018 MORE AT aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org U.S. Air Force U.S. 14 28 36 18 Rotating Forecasting Asteroid detonation earthquakes mining Drones for aerial engines Some scientists think Entrepreneurs and refueling Researchers at Aerojet satellite instruments technologists talk about Rocketdyne are among could one day make their plans for extracting Three U.S. companies are bidding those working on it possible to predict precious or useful earthquakes. metals from asteroids to build a fl eet of MQ-25 tankers, radically different combustor designs. and bringing them to which strategists have decided is the By Adam Hadhazy Earth. most affordable way to reach deep By Keith Button into enemy air defenses from aircraft By Henry Canaday carriers. By Jan Tegler aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | MAY 2018 | 1 IN THIS ISSUE AEROSPACE★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ AMERICA MAY 2018, VOL. 56, NO. 5 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 PAGES 9, 12, 14 Karen Small [email protected] STAFF REPORTER Tom Risen [email protected] Adam Hadhazy EDITOR, AIAA BULLETIN Christine Williams Adam reports on astrophysics and technology. His work has appeared in Discover and New Scientist magazines. [email protected] PAGE 28 EDITOR EMERITUS Jerry Grey CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Keith Button, Adam Hadhazy, Henry Canaday, Robert van der Linden, Henry Canaday Jan Tegler, Debra Werner, Frank H. Winter A former energy economist, Henry has written for Air Transport World, Aviation Week and other aviation publications for more than two decades. John Langford AIAA PRESIDENT PAGE 36 Daniel L. Dumbacher PUBLISHER Rodger S. Williams DEPUTY PUBLISHER ADVERTISING [email protected] Jan Tegler Jan covers a variety of subjects including defense for publications ART DIRECTION AND DESIGN internationally. He’s a frequent contributor to Defense Media Network/ THOR Design Studio | thor.design Faircount Media Group and is the author of the book “B-47 Stratojet: Boeing’s Brilliant Bomber.” MANUFACTURING AND DISTRIBUTION PAGE 18 Association Vision | associationvision.com LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE DEPARTMENTS Ben Iannotta, [email protected] TRENDING Residents of Galveston, Texas, to participate in Aerospace America (ISSN 0740-722X) is published monthly NASA’s sonic thump survey except in August by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., at 12700 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 9 200 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; foreign, $220. Single copies $20 each. Postmaster: Send address changes and subscription orders to Aerospace 4 Editor’s Notebook America, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 11 12 at 12700 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA, 20191-5807, Attn: A.I.A.A. Customer Service. Periodical postage 7 From the Corner Offi ce Trending Q & A paid at Reston, Virginia, and at additional mailing U.S. Navy to deploy Tritons A potential rotorcraft offi ces. Copyright 2018 by the American Institute of without sense-and-avoid revolution in the U.S. Army Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., all rights reserved. 51 AIAA Bulletin The name Aerospace America is registered by the AIAA in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offi ce. 62 Looking Back 46 64 Opinion Trajectories Here’s why personal aircraft Samantha McCue works on won’t match cars’ popularity UTAP-22 Mako drone aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | MAY 2018 | 3 EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK DEFENSE MQ-25’s most fundamental requirement ore is at stake in the U.S. Navy’s ini- Rather than be disappointed by this twist, the wis- Lockheed Martin tiative to build a fl eet of unmanned est course for congressional advocates of unmanned Skunk Works is one of the companies tanker aircraft than the program’s fl ight might be to focus oversight efforts on whether competing to build the tactical goals. the MQ-25’s $5 billion cost ceiling is realistic and, if U.S. Navy’s MQ-25. This Those managing and overseeing the it is, whether the Navy and the winning contractor is a Lockheed Martin MMQ-25 program have the burden of restoring faith have a sound plan to live within it. illustration. that the Pentagon and its contractors can develop Put simply, the Pete Townsend rule should apply amazing fl ying machines at something close to their here: “…don’t get fooled again.” Of course, it’s rare advertised costs. That’s the unspoken requirement. that a broken budget and schedule can be attribut- Building a tanker fl eet marks a step back from ed entirely to an overly rosy prediction. The Navy, the original vision of a fl eet of stealthy, carrier-based according to the Government Accountability Offi ce, unmanned combat planes that would take off from wants to “develop and evolve” the MQ-25 to possi- aircraft carriers and do much of what stealthy F-35Cs bly carry weapons. If managers and congressional will soon do. overseers are not careful, that strategy could set the The bolder vision was buttressed by years of test stage for “requirements creep.” That’s the term for fl ights with unmanned experimental planes. Everything the tendency of well-meaning people to layer on seemed to point toward a future in which crews would new demands over the course of a program. Adding supervise autonomous combat planes from the safety to the temptation could be the stealthy attributes of ground stations or ships, rather than pilots risking in some of the competing designs, features that are their lives fl ying into enemy airspace and back. The leftovers from the Navy’s bolder vision and that do not vision seemed like a logical step in the progression stem from the MQ-25 requirements. Designing the from the days when pilots in biplanes chose to jump MQ-25 with expanded roles in mind could amount to their deaths rather than burn up with their aircraft to incorporating expensive, hard-to-manufacture (see Looking Back, Page 62, May 19, 1918). elements without a guaranteed return on investment. What has deflected us from this next step is The best course here might be to accept that not a particular technological hurdle or even the the proposed mission for the MQ-25 is consequen- supposed cultural reluctance to take away jobs tial enough. Getting these planes out the door on performed valiantly today by human pilots. What schedule and on budget would deliver tactical has defl ected us is a seeming inability to accurately benefi ts and also build confi dence for the bolder predict the cost of developing, manufacturing and steps to come. ★ sustaining a fl eet of complex aircraft. As this month’s cover story shows, affordability and schedule were on the mind of then-Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work when he made the decision in 2015, in coordination with the Navy, to set the service on a course to acquire what would Ben Iannotta, editor-in-chief, [email protected] primarily be a fl eet of unmanned tanker aircraft. 4 | MAY 2018 | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Sustaining complex Marc-Antony Marc-Antony Payne aerospace This Boeing 777 crashed at London's Heathrow Airport in 2008 after fl ying systems through air temperatures of minus 74 Celsius. eith Button’s article in the March issue, “Wringing out the risks,” is a good read Flying through and I recommend it. However, I would like to add a bit of engineering phi- losophy rarely discussed: Long-lived extreme cold Kcomplex systems are kept viable by detecting new, emerging failure modes with suffi cient lead time ahead of the needed actions. ebra Werner described efforts to develop an operational work- The sustainment phase of any complex system around to prevent recurrence of an accident that occurred in 2008 has several unique characteristics. For instance, the at Heathrow [“Danger in the air,” March]. Extreme cold at fl ight baseline shifts from “design” to “war-fi ghter expecta- altitude caused ice crystals to form in the fuel, resulting in engine tions,” or sometimes called a “capabilities baseline.” power loss during approach. This ice formation process compro- Also, schedules shift from meeting initial operational Dmised the capability of a fuel-oil heat exchanger designed to limit low fuel capability or other critical milestones to determining temperatures. the correct schedule to mitigate emerging risks lead Ms. Werner reviewed research into methods of measuring temperature time from impact. There are more, but the most and moisture profi les in the atmosphere. Further research will be directed at important to this article is the shift from a FRACAS providing broad area temperature and moisture profi les that will ultimately [failure reporting, analysis, and corrective action be used by air traffi c controllers to warn pilots of dangerous cold cells aloft.