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Fieseler F1 103 V1 Buzz Bomb
Courtesy Flying Heritage Collection, Seattle, Washington USA and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Edited by David Barth, 2 March 2013. Photos taken by Dave Barth in July 2010.
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| Fieseler F1 103 V1 Buzz Bomb. The text is transcribed, below. |
The V-1 guidance system used a simple autopilot to regulate height and speed. To control pitch, a weighted pendulum provided fore-and-aft attitude measurement, damped by a gyrocompass that also stabilized the missile. Traveling in excess of 350 mph, the V-1's range was approximately 150 miles.
The V-1 was manufactured at various sites across German-occupied territory, but later the main production facility was the notorious underground complex known as Mittelwerk at Nordhausen in the Hartz Mountains. Here slave laborers assembled V-1s in appalling conditions.
Almost 30,000 V-1s were fabricated, with approximately 10,000 fired against England. Of that number, only 2,419 actually reached London and other targets - about a 24 percent success rate.
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| Fieseler F1 103 V1 Buzz Bomb. |
| FIESELER F1 103 V1 BUZZ BOMB STATISTICS | |
|---|---|
| ITEM | STATISTIC |
| Number of Crew | Zero |
| Length | 25 feet 11 inches |
| Wingspan | 7 feet 7 inches |
| Height | 4 feet 8 inches |
| Empty Weight | 5,023 lbs. |
| Engine | 1 Argus Schmidt As 014 pulse jet |
| FIESELER F1 103 V1 BUZZ BOMB PERFORMANCE | |
|---|---|
| ITEM | PERFORMANCE |
| Maximum Speed | 375 mph |
| Range | 150 miles (sufficient to reach targets in England) |
| Ceiling | 4,000 feet |
| FIESELER F1 103 V1 BUZZ BOMB ARMAMENT | |
|---|---|
| ITEM | ARMAMENT |
| Warhead | 1 x 2,100 lb. high-explosive warhead |
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| Fieseler F1 103 V1 Buzz Bomb. |
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| Fieseler F1 103 V1 Buzz Bomb. |
Since the late 1980s, following the grounding of the Mach 3.2 SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance plane that flew close to 100,000 feet, there have been reports that the U.S. Military has been working on a high-speed follow-on to the Blackbird, called the "Aurora", which may be the original name of a program covering several projects.
How Aurora may relate to the WWII V-1 is that it, too, appears to use a pulse jet engine, although much more highly developed than the "simple" V-1 pulse jet engine that used metal reeds at the intake to momentarily block it so that the engine fuel ignition would create rearward thrust by exiting through the tail pipe instead of blowing forward through the intake and rearward through the tail resulting in a net zero forward thrust.
For whatever reason, culture or education, German scientists were ahead of the rest of the world's scientists in developing weaponry. For example, the Germans were working on an atomic bomb, but the leadership didn't apply sufficient resources to that project because it didn't consider it promising enough. Einstein's famous letter to Roosevelt urged the U.S. President to go ahead with American's atomic bomb, and a huge expenditure of scientists and money resulted in a workable bomb.
Germany was successful in developing the first useful jet engine and jet airplane, the ME-262, but again, the work wasn't given enough support soon enough to lengthen the war. In retrospect, there is no doubt that Germany would have lost. It was just a matter of how long it would take the Allies to accomplish its defeat. Another development that was ahead of the rest of the world was the swept-back wing that provided higher airspeeds for combat aircraft. Following WWII, the first U.S. jets had straight wings until engineers studied captured German information regarding the advantages of swept wings.
Germany developed the first "cruise missile", the V-1, and the first ballistic missile, the V-2. The V-2 flew 62 miles(100km) to 68 miles (110km) high before rotating down toward England. Space is considered to begin at 60 miles, so technically, the V-2 reached space. Modern ballistic missiles rise to an apogee of 90 miles (150km) to 185 miles (300km), well above the atmosphere, before nosing over toward the target, reentering the atmosphere, and possibly, deploying multiple warheads as well as decoys. The V-2 didn't need to go as high as modern ballistic missiles because its target, England, was only about 150 miles distant from the launch sites, which eventually, in 1944 were changed from fixed to mobile sites to reduce damage from Allied bombers.
Back to the V-1 pulse jet: During the late 1980s, observers on the ground saw a high-speed, triangular plane that produced an intermittent, pulsating sound, similar to the "buzz" of a V-1, but with a longer interval between pulses. The condensation trail (contrail) was seen to resemble "donuts on a rope" where the donuts represented the ignition of the fuel mixture in the engine. It is assumed that a more robust and technical advanced intake closure device was employed instead of the V-1's metal reeds that were slammed shut to cover the intake by the pressure of the exploding gas in the engine.
It is believed that the pulses would injure or kill a pilot and that the plane was unmanned, like the Global Hawk.
The V-1s cruised at a maximum of 4,000 feet and at that relatively low altitude never created a contrail. Contrails only form at high altitude, usually above 26,000 feet, [5 miles (8 km)], where the air is extremely cold (less than -40 degrees C).
Had there been a contrail behind a V-1, it likely would have looked like "donuts on a rope". A contrail is caused by atmospheric conditions where there is sufficient moisture in the air that results in a "cloud" forming behind an engine.
From Wikipedia: Contrails are clouds formed when water vapor condenses and freezes around small particles (aerosols) that exist in aircraft exhaust. Some of that water vapor comes from the air around the plane, and some is added by the exhaust of the aircraft. The exhaust of an aircraft contains both gas (vapor) and solid particles.
From an SR-71 pilot's book "Flying the SR-71 Blackbird: In the Cockpit on a Secret Operational Mission", as reported in quora.com: "Jet aircraft generally will not produce a contrail above 50,000 feet. On one particular Barents Sea mission, my plane was putting out a highly visible contrail at 72,000 feet. When I looked in my rear view periscope, I couldn't believe it was possible, but there it was! Fortunately, the contrail stopped before I entered the sensitive area; otherwise, I would have had to abort the mission." [The mission would have been aborted because the plane's location would have been given away by the contrail, making it easier for the Blackbird to be targeted.]
From Wikipedia (Aurora):
In late August 1989, while working as an engineer on the jack-up barge GSF Galveston Key in the North Sea, Chris Gibson and another witness saw an unfamiliar isosceles triangle-shaped delta aircraft, apparently refueling from a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and accompanied by a pair of F-111 fighter-bombers. Gibson and his friend watched the aircraft for several minutes, until they went out of sight. He subsequently drew a sketch of the formation.
A series of unusual sonic booms was detected in Southern California, beginning in mid- to late-1991 and recorded by United States Geological Survey sensors across Southern California used to pinpoint earthquake epicenters. The sonic booms were characteristic of a smaller vehicle, rather than the 120 foot (37-meter) long Space Shuttle orbiter. Furthermore, neither the Shuttle nor NASA's single SR-71B was operating on the days the booms had been registered. In the article, "In Plane Sight?" which appeared in the Washington City Paper on 3 July 1992 (pp. 12-13), one of the seismologists, Jim Mori, noted: "We can't tell anything about the vehicle. They seem stronger than other sonic booms that we record once in a while. They've all come on Thursday mornings about the same time, between 4 and 7."
Former NASA sonic boom expert Dom Maglieri studied the 15-year-old sonic boom data from the California Institute of Technology and deemed that the data showed "something at 90,000 ft. (27.4 km), Mach 4 to Mach 5.2". He also said the booms did not look like those from aircraft that had traveled through the atmosphere many miles away at Los Angeles International Airport, rather, they appeared to be booms from a high-altitude aircraft directly above the ground moving at high speeds. The boom signatures of the two different aircraft patterns are wildly different. There was nothing particular to tie these events to any aircraft, but they served to grow the Aurora legend.
On 23 March 1992, near Amarillo, Texas, Steven Douglass photographed the "donuts on a rope" contrail and linked this sighting to distinctive sounds. He described the engine noise as: "strange, loud pulsating roar... unique... a deep pulsating rumble that vibrated the house and made the windows shake... similar to rocket engine noise, but deeper, with evenly timed pulses." In addition to providing the first photographs of the distinctive contrail previously reported by many, the significance of this sighting was enhanced by Douglass' reports of intercepts of radio transmissions: "Air-to-air communications... were between an AWACS aircraft with the call sign "Dragnet 51" from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, and two unknown aircraft using the call signs "Darkstar November" and "Darkstar Mike". Messages consisted of phonetically transmitted alphanumerics. It is not known whether this radio traffic had any association with the "pulser" that had just flown over Amarillo." ("Darkstar" is also a call sign of AWACS aircraft from a different squadron at Tinker AFB).
A month later, radio enthusiasts in California monitoring Edwards AFB Radar (callsign "Joshua Control") heard early morning radio transmissions between Joshua and a high flying aircraft using the callsign "Gaspipe". "You're at 67,000 feet, 81 miles out" was heard, followed by "70 miles out now, 36,000 ft., above glideslope." As in the past, nothing linked these observations to any particular aircraft or program, but the attribution to the Aurora helped expand the legend.
A crash at RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, England on 26 September 1994 appeared closely linked to "black" missions, according to a report in AirForces Monthly. Further investigation was hampered by aircraft from the USAF flooding into the base. The crash site was protected from view by firetrucks and tarpaulins and the base was closed to all flights soon after.
On 1 December 2014, loud repetitive bangs were heard in Bedfordshire, Glasgow, North Devon, Leicestershire, and West Sussex in the UK. The repetitive banging sound lasted for 20 to 30 minutes and was recorded by one resident on a cell phone. At around the same time, a loud boom was reported by a number of people in the upstate New York areas of Buffalo, Cheektowaga, and Clarence.
Dr. Bhupendra Khandelwa (University of Sheffield, UK) stated that he believed the loud, repetitive bangs sounded like an experimental jet engine called a pulse detonation engine (PDE). Sonic booms caused by meteors and military planes were ruled out, as were the sounds of fireworks and thunderstorms. Media speculation concluded that the noise recorded by locals in the UK could have been caused by the PDE engine of an Aurora aircraft.
From extremetech.com: As of late 2015, Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works confirmed that it was developing the SR-72 spy plane. The successor to the SR-71 Blackbird, which was capable of Mach 3.5, the SR-72 will be a hypersonic unmanned aircraft capable of Mach 6, or just over 4,500 mph. At hypersonic speeds, the SR-72 will be able to traverse any continent in around an hour, meaning, if they're strategically positioned around the world on aircraft carriers, the US military can strike or surveil any location on Earth in about an hour. It is also suspected that the SR-72's hypersonic engine tech - some kind of hybrid scramjet - will find its way into the US military's High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW), a missile that can theoretically strike anywhere on Earth in just a few minutes.
The SR-71 Blackbird was the pinnacle of the US military's Cold War reconnaissance efforts. Introduced in 1966, the Blackbird, with its hybrid turbojet/ramjet engines, was the fastest manned aircraft in the sky until it was retired in 1998. Despite being utterly massive - 107 feet (32 meters) long with a 55-foot (17-meter) wingspan - the SR-71 only had two crew and no weapons (it was loaded up with cameras, radio antenna, and other surveillance-oriented loadout). Due to high running costs, and reallocation of funds towards other efforts such as UAVs, the SR-71 was retired after 32 years of active service. One of the highest cost items was the required deployment of a flight of dedicated JP-7 tankers whenever a Blackbird was launched. Flight planning was crucial because the Blackbird carried a low fuel load for takeoff to reduce stress and tire wear, and had to tank after takeoff, possibly, tank again before the reconnaissance run, and sometimes, tank at least one more time after completing the high-speed surveillance pass before landing. Of 32 aircraft that were built, 12 were lost in accidents - but none were ever shot down or captured by the enemy.
Russia built the Mach 2.8 Foxbat, designed to shoot down the Mach 3 North American B-70 Valkyrie, but it was no match for the SR-71 Blackbird. It was made of stainless steel which is heavier than the Blackbird's titanium, and the Foxbat's engines were less robust than the Blackbird's Pratt & Whitney J58 engines which used a lot of titanium due to high heat. It is ironic that most of the titanium used to build the 32 Blackbird aircraft came from mines in the USSR through third-party suppliers so that the Russians wouldn't become suspicious of the top secret SR-71 program.
The SR-72, despite the similar name, is a completely new plane. As of 2015, Lockheed confirmed that the SR-72 was in active development. An optionally piloted scale version of the plane with a single engine was to be built in 2018, with test flights scheduled for 2023. The plan was to build a full-size SR-72 (about 100 feet long, the same size as the SR-71) was to be built and tested by 2030. The plan was for the SR-72 to be a large, unarmed and unmanned drone, outfitted entirely for intelligence gathering.
While the SR-72 will undoubtedly be a paragon of stealth and fashioned from monolithic crystals of titanium wrapped in carbon fiber. Its defining feature would be its operational speed of Mach 6 (4,567 mph (7,350 kph)). At this speed, the SR-72 could cross the Atlantic or any large continent in about an hour or circumnavigate the planet in six hours. At an operational altitude of around 80,000 feet (24,300 meters) and Mach 6, the SR-72 will be almost impossible to shoot down.
Note that the government typically low-balls the altitude capability of top secret aircraft. For example, it initially reported the SR-71 ceiling as being 80,000 feet, ignoring the fact that the U2 flies at 75,000 feet and the Mig-25 Foxbat flew at over 90,000. One military air traffic controller reported to his superior that a recently installed high-altitude reporting radar showed that there was traffic at over 100,000 feet. He was told to keep quiet about it. Later, the government raised the stated operational ceiling of the Blackbird to more than 90,000 feet.
To reach Mach 6, some aeronautic magic needs to occur, otherwise we would've built a Mach 6 aircraft years ago. Basically, turbofan engines - like you would find in every big airliner - are only really efficient up to around Mach 2.5. Ramjets can then take you to around Mach 4, but then they too lose their efficiency. To get to Mach 6, Lockheed's Skunk Works, which has developed such luminaries as the U-2, SR-71, F-117, F-22, and F-35, is working with Aerojet Rocketdyne to create a turbojet/scramjet hybrid engine that uses a turbine at low speeds, and a scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) at higher speeds. Like the SR-71, these engines will have the same inlet and nozzle, with some kind of mechanical system that shifts the airflow between the two portions of the engine as airspeed changes. Whereas a ramjet decelerates incoming air to subsonic speeds, a scramjet is supersonic throughout, allowing for much higher air speeds. No one knows quite how fast, but we're talking about at least Mach 10.