The X-35B and Its Propulsion System

Leave a Reply

The F-35 is in widespread service in considerable numbers with many more to come in due course. However, before the F-35, there was the X-35 – the Lockheed Martin contender in the JSF competitive fly off. Up against the Boeing X-32, two X-35s were built. One of them was initially used to demonstrate the proposed Air Force configuration before it was modified with the vertical lift system proposed for what became the F-35B in USMC service.

With the competition complete, the demonstrators were superfluous and the X-35B airframe made its way to the National Air and Space Museum. Here it sits on display. What is the most interesting part – at least to me – is that they have taken the propulsion system out of the jet and put it on display separately. You can see the main engine as well as the lift fan module, the shaft coupling the two, the nizzle that both have to direct the flow and the roll posts that are used to provide both additional lift and roll control in the hover.

It is a cool demonstration of the basic configuration that is now operational in the F-35B. it has certainly been developed since this design, but the basic principles remain the same. Unlike the Harrier that had the engine in the centre of gravity of the aircraft (not a very convenient location) and redirected all thrust through four nozzles, this configuration has a mighty engine at the rear which can be vectored down when required through a three bearing nozzle that is both simple and ingenious but then a shaft drive from the same engine to a fan module that sits behind the cockpit drawing air from above and directing it down with some ability to vector it too. This forward fan balances against the rear main nozzle. It provides a significantly higher amount of vertical thrust than the Harrier ever managed and allows a larger and more capable aircraft to land vertically at the end of missions. Quite a smart piece of design.

Tractors Heading Through Town

Leave a Reply

Winchester is a busy city with plenty going on. It is also commutable to London, so it has an urban feel to it. However, Hampshire is a county that has a lot of countryside which is farmed. Consequently, there are a lot of agricultural vehicles on the roads of the area. It is not unusual for me to be heading north in the morning on the dual carriageway and come upon a tractor. At the end of summer, as harvest was well underway, we would get lots of tractors pulling loads through the town. As I walked down to the station, I had a pair of tractors pulling full trailers come past me and, a minute later, a second pair came. This time I grabbed a shot of them. Modern tractors are so much more powerful and fast. When I was a kid, a tractor would crawl along the roads. These things are real beasts!

Holding Down the Swordfish

Leave a Reply

During the Cosford air show, the Royal Navy Swordfish was part of the display. While it might not be the fastest aircraft from that era, it still has a pretty meaty engine up front. Once started, time is needed to get the oil up to temperature and to run up the engine to check its performance before it goes flying. The ground crew needed to keep the plane anchored while this was done and the way they did this was to hang on to the tailplane. Watching them getting battered by the prop wash while the engine was cycled was rather amusing.

Harcourt Arboretum

Leave a Reply

Oxford University has a botanical garden in the centre of the city, but it also has an arboretum out in the country. Is it called the Harcourt Arboretum. We decided to check it out one weekend in the summer. The summer in the UK was pretty toasty so we were wondering about the wisdom of this but it proved to be fine. When we first arrived, one of the team advised that the meadow areas get very warm in the afternoon so we might be best to start there. We followed this advice.

The meadows were very peaceful but were already getting rather warm. I suspect, if we had got there much later, we would have cut short our time there. Because there hadn’t been any rain for ages, the meadows were quite parched. Not much in the way of meadow flowers with the grasses rather brown. It would be interesting to see what it looks like in the spring when the moisture content is higher.

After the meadows, we headed into the wooded areas. Lots of paths crisis-cross the woods and the map that they provide was not totally representative of the layout, but we did get ourselves on track after a couple of diversions! This was by far the nicer part of the arboretum for us. The cooler conditions in amongst the trees definitely helped but the variety of trees was very interesting. There was a time in the UK when wealthy individuals sponsored expeditions around the world to collect samples of plants and trees. Consequently, UK arboretums are filled with examples of flora from all manner of places. This is no exception. The last section we came through was probably the nicest part from our point of view. That was a good way to end the visit.

Virgin Atlantic Fin Looks Shabby

Leave a Reply

Virgin Atlantic’s jets usually look pristine. Getting the red of the nacelles and the fin to show up in images properly is a bit tricky, but they do tend to look pretty smart. Consequently, I was surprised when looking at some images I took of one of their A350s while taxiing in at Heathrow to see that the paint on the fin seems to be peeling off in chunks. No idea whether that is from the original paint when built or following a repaint, but it looks rough and I imagine that a repair will be demanded at some point soon.

Finally, a Full-Size Traction Engine

Leave a Reply

I had shown some images of miniature steam engines that we had seen when at Exbury. They are impressive little machines but there is nothing like the original. Twyford had a full-scale traction engine on display. According to the guy that was looking after it, they had come from the county fair at Alresford where it had won an award and I am not surprised. What a beast of a piece of engineering and so beautifully preserved.

Discovery from Every Angle

Leave a Reply

The last time I visited the Udvar-Hazy facility, it was the home of the Enterprise – the first of the Space Shuttles and the one that was used only for atmospheric testing but, despite original plans, never went to space. When the shuttle programme ended, the orbiters were distributed to museum locations and Discovery was allocated to NASM replacing Enterprise. Therefore, this time I went, it was a first time to see Discovery.

Of course, everyone visiting is interested in a shuttle so there were always people around the orbiter. I just had to embrace that and get whatever shots I could make work. There are some detail shots that I took which I will deal with separately. They have more of an abstract feel to them. Here I shall just focus on the wider view of the orbiter.

As something that was designed to travel at such high Mach numbers, it is actually quite a blunt airframe. The nose has a chunky look to it and the leading edges are very thick. The lines of the wings are interesting and the underside is simple. However, the way it is displayed has the undercarriage extended and the ports that fed fuel from the external tank into the three main engines are opened up.

There is a balcony that overlooks the space hall where Discovery sits. This allows you to get a more level view and one from a distance that takes everything in while not being blocked by people or exhibits in front. I did also take some panoramas from down on the ground level. Being that close to the airframe that big makes for a quite distorted view. I find that rather interesting.

I have now seen three of the flying shuttles. Discovery on this visit, Endeavour as it was being completed in the museum in Los Angeles and Atlantis when it flew to space. Columbia and Challenger are gone, of course. Enterprise completes the set.

The Dulles People Movers Are Still Around!

Leave a Reply

When I first went to DC in 1993, I flew into Dulles International Airport and was quite taken aback by the way in which we left the aircraft to head to immigration. Instead of having jet bridges, you boarded these bus-like vehicles that rose up to the level of the plane, then descended before driving us across the ramp and docked to a building where we disembarked. I had never seen anything like this before and thought it very odd.

Jump forward to 2026 and they are still there. Dulles has gone through all sorts of extensions and development. However, these people movers are still part of operations although they aren’t anything like as ubiquitous as they used to be. There seem to be two types. One has the ability to raise and lower as indicated by the fairing on the roof covering part of the mechanism. They also seem to be labelled to reflect different states. Then there is a simpler version that just has a letter and seems to run between places that I couldn’t identify. I don’t know how long they have left but it was curious to seem them still at work after all these years.

Lufthansa Anniversary A380

Leave a Reply

The conditions for these shots were not ideal, but sometimes you just have to take advantage of the opportunity when it presents itself. I don’t now live somewhere where I get to see the Lufthansa long haul fleets so the special liveries that they have been applying for their 100th anniversary are not something I have seen until we were getting ready to depart Dulles. As we were on the gate in our seats, the Lufthansa A380 taxied in. I was only able to get an oblique shot through the window of our 777. We then taxied past it on our way out when it was on the gate at which point things were very dark. At least I have got one of them now.

Some Formula One Motors

Leave a Reply

The Festival of Speed is going to include F1 cars by default. How could you not have them when it is all about fast cars. The teams had substantial presence at the event with stands for several of them with exhibits about the car engineering for people to see as well as examples of cars themselves. I am sure there were a few potential engineering recruits that were looking at how they might get themselves into this career.

There were also cars on the road heading up the climb. Early on I saw an old McLaren that James Hunt had driven in the 70s. Ferrari had a bunch of their cars heading out at another time. Lando Norris was driving one of the more recent McLaren models and others of varying vintages were scattered around. For fans of Formula One, there would have been plenty to keep you happy. Of course, in an event of this scale, they are just a small part of what was available overall.