Lockheed Martin RQ-3A DarkStar

flateric

flateric

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Original Skunk Works DarkStar leaflet
 

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Tight Fit
Two of the three Lockheed Martin RQ-3A DarkStar unmanned aerial vehicles built are shown packed in a C-5B Galaxy on their final flight from Palmdale, California, to the US Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, in December 1999. DarkStar first flew on 29 March 1996, but it crashed during its second flight a month later. The second DarkStar (shown at left) was modified to increase its stability and first flew on 29 June 1998. It is now on display at the museum at Wright-Patterson. Two additional DarkStar vehicles (including the one on the right) were completed, but they never flew. One of those aircraft is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, and the other is on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington. In January 1999, the Department of Defense terminated the DarkStar UAV program because of budget cuts. The C-5 that carried the DarkStars was based at Travis AFB, California.

Photo Posted: 9 September 2010
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http://www.codeonemagazine.com/gallery_slideshow.html?item_id=822
 

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Bill Sweetman with his sharp eye noticed THIRD one here...
 

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Does this mean they built more than three? Its says in the text that out of the three built one crashed. But since this photos was taken in 1999 AFTER the crash of one of the DarkStars what is the third one doing there? ;D
 
They built four. Two were never flown.
 
heh-heh...
 

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The RQ-3A on display at the NMUSAF has the number 696 on its fuselage. Does anyone know if this number is a Lockheed factory production number, P-number or what? -SP
 

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Saw This at

National Museum of the US Air Force last weekend along with their expanded X planes on display.​


This RQ-3 blew my mind, not sure how that thing could be controlled? any info would be great.
 

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I was at the B-2 CTF that day it crashed. From what I understand, Boeing had the flight control software and there was no way to reject the takeoff, there were issues right from the git-go during the takeoff roll. We could smell the burning composite from South Base, got a nickname, Falling Star (one of the nicknames anyway). It was some time ago and anyone please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Trying to understand the whole story ... DarkStar was a scaled-down AARS / QUARTZ super-drone - itself the "real" SR-71 replacement in the 1980's ? trading speed for persistance, to try and pin down Soviet mobile ICBMs ?
 
With the original Lockheed-only effort being "a swept high aspect ratio flying wing with a pointy nose", similar to the X-56's shape.

Which gives me reason to believe that this picture taken in the house of former Lockheed's employees, where Ronnie Olsthoorn's rendition of the RQ-180 was put in a frame, was there more as a stand-in for a QUARTZ representation rather than to show the Northrop Grumman product.
 
I remember this one cranked kite concept that has appeared two times in AWST (2001 and 2003) long before SensorCraft development timeline was published, both times referred as 'one of Air Force concepts studied'. Note that both LM and NG have cranked kites HALE concepts studied and I guess LM flying wing SC have roots in AARS/Quartz
 

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Hydroman said:
I was at the B-2 CTF that day it crashed. From what I understand, Boeing had the flight control software and there was no way to reject the takeoff, there were issues right from the git-go during the takeoff roll. We could smell the burning composite from South Base, got a nickname, Falling Star (one of the nicknames anyway). It was some time ago and anyone please correct me if I'm wrong.
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It was basically a PIO issue. The flight control computers got out of phase with the airplane dynamics....with predictable results.
 
Software built to specifications will suffer if those specifications do not sufficiently match real-world conditions. Computers themselves are not immune to environmental factors (shock resistance, temperature resistance, g-limits, etc.), and processor speed is finite - overload! Sensor-processor interface may be compromised. Sensors themselves may mangle sensing relevant dimensions of the environment they are collecting data from. Design may overlook relevant dimensions, or weigh them incorrectly.

That's just the input part...
 
Scott Kenny said:
How does that happen with computers?!?
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It’s still a pilot induced oscillation, although many would say that is harsh as it imples blame.

Traditional PIO events were/are due to couplings between controls/aircraft response modes and the pilot input with classically the handling being too unresponsive such that the pilot makes bigger and bigger inputs to get a desired response, then in panic makes bigger and bigger counter inputs as the response starts to deliver the original inputs. The result being divergent and usually bad.

Computers can take that out certainly (although some aeroelastic effects are always a concern), but if software and/or hardware have too big a time lag between inputs and response the pilot (or computer if say fully computer opntrolled) will again start to drive the system in a PIO manner. That is quite possible given the sw/hw links in the chain and needs careful requirements and design to avoid.

It gets really technical after this and involves bode plots etc. where you can assess the system response’s stability and risk of this behaviour.
 
flateric said:
I remember this one cranked kite concept that has appeared two times in AWST (2001 and 2003) long before SensorCraft development timeline was published, both times referred as 'one of Air Force concepts studied'. Note that both LM and NG have cranked kites HALE concepts studied and I guess LM flying wing SC have roots in AARS/Quartz
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Can someone point out the genesis of this carpenters square design? I'd like to get an idea of where/how it started being used.

1715880066142.png
 
Purpletrouble said:
It’s still a pilot induced oscillation, although many would say that is harsh as it imples blame.
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I always liked Pilot-in-the-Loop Induced Oscillation, which came up around the time of the YF-22 and Gripen incidents, but never really caught on. It better captures the pilot as only one element of the issue.
 

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