Demonstrations across Turkey were ignited by a violent police crackdown on a peaceful sit-in to prevent the uprooting of trees at Istanbul's Taksim Square.
In these AP images, Turkish protesters clash with riot police as smoke rises in the darkness near the former Ottoman palace, Dolmabahce. In Taksim Square, a street vendor sells umbrellas in front of overturned police cars. Thousands march in the square, waving flags and banners in a sea of people.
December 17 1903, the Wright brothers make the first powered, sustained flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Cables and pulleys were the flight control system of the day.
A system of pulleys and cables enabled the Wright Brothers were the first to take to the air in controllable flight on 17 December 1903. Aircraft of World War 1 methods to control aircraft remained basically the same cable and pulley system. Pilot control inputs through stick and rudder pedals were transmitted to the control surfaces via pulleys and cables.
Fokker DR1. Representative for a typical World War 1 aircraft.
By the time World War 2 started aircraft were more complex, faster and far more capable. Most flight control systems at the time remained cables and pulleys but the problem of stability remained. There needed to be a method for reducing the constant need for pilot control input especially during long flights.
Boeing?s B-29 Superfortress. Typical configuration for a World War 2 aircraft.
By the late 1940s a very primitive ?assisted flight control system? had flown from Newfoundland to England aboard a C-54 entirely under the control of a flight program punched out on cards.
Douglas C-54 Skymaster
Wartime technological leaps enabled postwar aircraft designs not only increase in speed but also increase in size. At 1000 knots there simply isn?t enough time for a human being to react. The larger size of aircraft also meant there was a great deal more inertia for a human to struggle to control. Due to the increase in aircraft size, inertia and dynamic pressure, without some from of mechanical assistance flying would become too difficult for pilots to handle because of the force amount of force required to move to control surface. The solution was to connect the pilot?s stick and rudder pedals to hydraulics which were, in turn, connected to surfaces with which to control the aircraft.
Development of hydraulic flight control systems meant there was no direct connection between the stick/rudder pedals and the control surface. Pilots develop a sense of what an aircraft is doing, not only from visual cues, but also from seat of the pants flying to understand orientation of the airplane.? Hydraulic systems brought about the need for ?artificial feel systems? that replicated force feedback to the pilot through the stick and from the control surface.
Hydraulic flight controls are heavier than pulleys and cables, adding weight to the aircraft. That translates into less weight overall an aircraft can use for a given task. Less weight devoted to fuel for range in a fighter, less weight devoted to cargo or passengers in the airlines. In spaceflight weight is also a critical issue. The more a spacecraft weighs, the more thrust is required to bring that space to orbit. Controlling a spacecraft with hydraulics to going to be too heavy.
NASA used a simple binary logic flight control program in the Mercury program. The logical design consisted of a control signal that transmitted ?on/off? commands for firing of the maneuvering rockets. The attitude of the spacecraft could be changed by the pilot?s moving a hand controller with the direction of the controller?s movement indicating pitch, roll or yaw to the control system. The control system then sent appropriate signals to fire the correct sets of rockets to achieve the desired effect. The Mercury flight control system was only capable of attitude control.
The Mercury capsule as displayed at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum.
By 1968 all the NASA was focused on putting a human on the moon. Grumman, designer of the Lunar Module, was tasked with NASA and MIT to develop a flight control system capable of landing on the moon. The flight control system for the Lunar Module was called PGNCS ?(Primary Guidance, Navigation and Control System?pronounced ?pings?). Considerable experience in developing PGNCS was gained by engineers that worked on the Polaris SLBM and Atlas ICBM programs.
The Grumman Lunar Module on display at the National Air and Space Museum.
PGNCS had all the elements that were going to be needed to develop a flight control system. The most important element was the inertial measurement unit. The Lunar Module used 3 IMUs (inertial measurement units), 1 each for each axis of flight (pitch, roll and yaw). The IMU generated analog signals that had to be read by one of the first digital computers.
Schematic cutaway of the IMU in the Lunar Module.
This video details the development of the IMU and integration with the Lunar Module?s flight control system (it?s a fascinating 3-part series).
The LLRV
The LLRV?(Lunar Landing Research Vehicle)?was developed to test flight control laws (programming code) for the Lunar Module here on Earth. The LLRV used reaction control jets because the Moon has 1\6th of the Earth?s gravity. The LLRV was not an aerodynamic vehicle as it used solely engine thrust to get airborne.? Once flight control laws were developed, testing of the LLRV wound down but a group led by NASA thought that software developed and tested on the LLRV and the Apollo Lunar Lander might be beneficial to aircraft control. After LLRV, computers, sensors and actuators became advanced enough to start flight-testing.
Computers in flight control systems come into 2 distinct types. Analog and digital. Mechanical analog computers operate by creating a mechanical analogy between the position of numbers on various scales and the products, quotients, squares, cube roots, etc that it?s used to calculate. In terms of flight control computers, control laws are hard-wired via the circuitry in the computer. While analog computer is resistant to power surges and viruses it?s very difficult to re-program. That requires a physical reconfiguration of the embedded circuits. Analog computers also run at higher temperatures because data is in the form of amplitudes and temperature effects modulate the amplitude.
The first vehicular use of an analog computer was with the German A-4 [V-2] rocket of World War 2 fame. The A-4 used an electronic analog computer that modeled the differential equations of the control laws and accepted voltage values and input and generated voltage as output to an amplifier. The amplifier then sent those commands to the control surface actuators. This technology formed the basis for digital computers almost 40 years later.
Digital computers on the other hand read data in binary, ?1?s and ?0?s. Data needs to be converted to binary string of bits before it can be used by the computer. The problem is these bit streams, coming from multiple sources, can be too dense and rapid for proper computer processing into readable data sets. After 1963 improvements in transistors and work on ?sampling theory? made the use of digital computers more widespread not only in aviation but a whole range of applications.
NT-33 In-Flight Simulator
In 1954, the NT-33 In-flight Simulator was developed to test other equipment that would be needed in a digital flight control system. The NT-33 tested improvements in gyroscopes, actuators, effectors, stability augmentation and pitot-static systems. Also in 1957 the USAF flew a modified B-47 (53-2280) with fly-by-wire channel in the pitch axis.
JB-74E 53-2280 Fly By Wire test-bed aircraft.
By early 1971 the NASA Office of Advanced Research and Technology wanted to see more technology transferred from the Apollo program. Luckily for them the flight control computer was, up that time, one of the most reliable computers ever built. Soon the office approved for a feasibility study to install Apollo flight control system hardware into an F-8 Crusader.
A stock Vought F-8C Crusader BuNo 146993 from VF-191 ?Red Lightnings.?
The F-8 Crusader is a single seat, single engine, carrier borne fighter from the 1950s. The ?sader, as it?s properly known, gained a fearsome reputation as a MiG killer in the skies over North Vietnam however by the 1970s the ?sader was being phased out in-favor of the newer F-4 Phantom II. NASA chose the ?sader because it was readily available and cost effective. The intention was to modify the ?sader by removing the horizontal stabilizers and placing them in front of the wings (as canards). The F-8s centerline air inlet? would have been unaffected by this modification. However this was considered too costly to be included in the program.
By 1970 NASA acquired 4 F-8Cs on their way to the boneyard and sent them to the Dryden Flight Research Center. Money for NASA?s Digital Fly By Wire was appropriated $1 million dollars for the first year. Over time the entire cost of the program, which ran just over 10 years, would run $12 million dollars. The program itself would be conducted in 3 phases starting in early 1971. Phase I, scheduled to start in 1971, would have 2 goals: ensuring the technology worked and developing the tools to move forward. Phase IB would introduce a second computer in the flight control system and begin to test and develop system redundancy. Phase II, scheduled to run Q2 of 1974, was to concentrate on gaining knowledge and developing techniques for increasing computer reliability. Over time the schedule wasn?t met but the objective for each phase never changed. Over the next year Flight Research Center hardware and software engineers began modification work on the F-8 aircraft.
Vought F-8C NASA 802 Digital Fly By Wire Test-bed aircraft.
The next segments will cover modification of the F-8 aircraft, phases of the flight test program and benefits to future aircraft programs.
537 Park Ave SE, Atlanta, GA | Get?Directions?? FREE
The Atlanta Aliens will hold minor league basketball tryouts in Atlanta GA on June 29, 2013. This event will challenge semi-pro ABA & NBA D-League hopefuls, via full-court scrimmages and player evaluations, to showcase their skills for ABA, NBA Development League and International player personnel executives, coaches and scouts.
Saturday, June 29 - Atlanta, GATryouts from 8:00am - 5:00pmGrant Park Rec Center - 537 Park Ave SE, Atlanta GA. Register at www.AtlantaAliens.net
Damon Smith gets his teeth into director Neil Jordan?s first vampire movie in 20 years
Byzantium
Evening Chronicle
***
Long before Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart sank their pearly whites into The Twilight Saga, British director Neil Jordan was putting A-list bloodsuckers on the big screen.
Interview With The Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles paired Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt as fanged fiends.
Almost 20 years later, Jordan is back in the genre with Byzantium, an intelligent and moody thriller adapted by Moira Buffini from her own play.
Single mother Clara Webb (Arterton) arrives in a rundown seaside resort with her daughter Eleanor (Ronan) in tow.
In order to make ends meet, Clara sells her body to residents and tourists.
Every now and then, she sinks her teeth into an unsuspecting punter and we discover, in flashback, that Clara is in fact a vampire who was abused in the 19th Century by a libidinous captain (Miller) and has wrought revenge on mankind ever since. Eleanor is her equally bloodthirsty ward.
The vampires hit the jackpot when they meet a misfit (Mays) who lives in the decrepit Byzantium guest house, which would make a perfect base of operations for Clara's illicit operations.
Byzantium is a slow burn, with occasional explosions of graphic violence when Clara or Eleanor sate their bloodlust.
The fractured chronology hampers dramatic momentum but Jordan navigates a clear path between past and present, drawing us into his heroines' unusual predicament.
The ongoing saga of the Republican effort to woo minority voters continues this week with an announcement that one party group plans to spend $6 million this election cycle to recruit and support female and minority candidates at the state level.
The effort is a continuation of the Republican State Leadership Committee's Future Majority Project, a campaign founded by GOP strategist Ed Gillespie in 2011. In the past election cycle, Gillespie's team spent $5 million to recruit 125 Hispanic candidates and 185 women. For 2014, the group announced on Thursday a goal of investing "at least" $6 million to find more than 200 minority and female candidates.
"We as a party need to do a better job of having a sustained conversation with men and women of all backgrounds in our communities where we think we can make a difference. Not only telling them to run, but offering them help. I think that's an important point that we're trying to make here: that it's not only talking, it's about action," said Jose Felix Diaz, a Republican state representative from Florida taking part in the effort. "It's a good start, but we can and must do better."
Members of Future Majority Caucus, a group chaired by New Mexico Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, held a conference this week in Austin, Texas, to outline its goals and plan for the next election season. The effort is part of a wider Republican Party effort to hit a reset button with minorities and women after the party struggled with nonwhite male demographics in the 2012 election.
Earlier this year, the National Republican Committee published a wide-ranging audit of the GOP's 2012 campaign efforts urging the party to invest significant resources into making inroads with minority communities. The party is currently seeking minorities to run for office on the state and local level and adopting a permanent presence in neighborhoods and districts that traditionally vote Democratic.
Jason Villalba, a Republican state lawmaker from Texas, said he anticipates the party will even veer away from hot-button issues like implementing voter identification laws in the future in fear that it could alienate minorities.
"We recognize as a party that those kinds of issues can become divisive," Villalba said. "I'll tell you philosophically that I'm not opposed to voter ID just because I believe it's about voter integrity, not about alienating our brothers and sisters. That being said, I also recognize the political implications of those kinds of issues and we want to avoid those issues that are perceived as divisive. So I think what you're going to see over the course of the next few election cycles is moving away from that kind of an issue."
According to a memo provided to Yahoo News, the Future Minority Project's goals for the 2013-2014 cycle include:
-Identify 200 new diverse candidates of all backgrounds. This reflects a doubling of our goals from last cycle when we initiated the project.
-FMP looks to not only recruit and encourage these candidates to run?we will help them win.
-Our goal is to elect 75 new candidates of diverse ethnicities across the country.
-Invest at least $6 million for the 2013-2014 election cycle.
NASA satellites watch the demise of Hurricane BarbaraPublic release date: 31-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Rob Gutro robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
NOAA's GOES-14 satellite captured Hurricane Barbara's landfall in southwestern Mexico and movement across land, northward toward the Gulf of Mexico. This 43 second animation of NOAA's GOES-14 satellite observations from May 29 to 31, 2013, shows Barbara making landfall at the beginning of the animation, and moving toward the Gulf of Mexico by May 31. Credit: NASA GOES Project
Hurricane Barbara recently made landfall along the southern Pacific coast of Mexico and NASA's TRMM and Suomi NPP satellites captured rainfall rates within the storm, and a night-time image of landfall. NOAA's GOES satellites provided images that were made into an animation showing the landfall and movement across Mexico into the Bay of Campeche on May 31.
According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the center of Hurricane Barbara came ashore around 19:50 UTC (12:50 p.m. PDT) on Wednesday, May 29 about 35 km (~20 miles) west of Tonala, Mexico. At landfall, Barbara was a minimal Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph.
NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP Satellite Captures Hurricane Barbara at Night
The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite captured a nighttime image of Hurricane Barbara before it made landfall in southwestern Mexico. The image was taken on May 29 at 08:22 UTC (4:22 a.m. EDT). In the image city lights from Mexico City and Coatzacoalcos were seen to the north and east of Barbara's center.
VIIRS, a scanning radiometer, collects visible and infrared imagery and radiometric measurements of the land, atmosphere, cryosphere, and oceans.
NASA's TRMM Satellite Analyzes Barbara's Rainfall
NASA and the Japanese Space Agency's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite captured several images of the storm during the landfall. TRMM captured the first image of Barbara several hours after it made landfall. The image was taken at 6:46 p.m. PDT on May 29 (01:46 UTC, May 30) and showed the horizontal distribution of rain intensity within the storm. The rainfall images were created at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. To make the image, several data products from various TRMM instruments are combined. Rain rates in the center of the swath are from the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR), and those in the outer swath are from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI). The rain rates are then overlaid on infrared (IR) data from the TRMM Visible Infrared Scanner (VIRS).
As is typical, after making landfall Barbara began to weaken and was a tropical storm with winds reported at 60 mph at the time of the first TRMM image. The image showed no evidence of an eye and areas of mostly light to moderate rain within the storm. Localized areas of heavier rain are evident inland northwest of the center and along the coast where the storm's circulation is drawing moist air ashore.
After making landfall, Barbara continued in a mostly northward direction across southern Mexico and began to emerge over the southern Gulf of Mexico.
The second rainfall image from TRMM was taken at 09:58 UTC (2:58 am PDT) on May 30. By that time, the National Hurricane Center had downgraded Barbara to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 30 knots (~35 mph). Most of the rain associated with Barbara at that time appeared to be light with a smaller proportion of moderate rain than before and only an isolated area of heavy rain along the Gulf coast side.
TRMM data was used to create a 3-D image to look at precipitation and cloud heights. Most of the cloud tops were of low to moderate height with the exception of the one taller towering thunderstorm that reached up to around 12 km. This convective tower was associated with an area of heavy rain. In order for the storm to regenerate or maintain itself, new areas of convection like this would have to occur near the center.
GOES-14 Satellite Sees Barbara at the Gulf of Mexico
NOAA's GOES-14 satellite captured Hurricane Barbara's landfall in southwestern Mexico and movement across land, northward toward the Gulf of Mexico. In a 43 second animation of NOAA's GOES-14 satellite observations from May 29 to 31, 2013, Barbara made landfall at the beginning of the animation, and moved toward the Gulf of Mexico by May 31. The images from May 31, showed scattered showers were occurring over the Bay of Campeche and in the coastal city of Coatzacolalcos reported light rain. The animation was created by the NASA/NOAA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
What Happened to Barbara?
On May 30 at 22:00 UTC (6:00 p.m. EDT), Barbara was a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds near 20 knots. It was centered about 127 nautical miles north-northeast of Tehuantepec, Mexico and was moving north at 4 knots.
By Friday, May 31 at 8:05 a.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that a weak upper level trough (elongated area) of low pressure extended over the western Gulf of Mexico is steering the remnants of Barbara. Barbara's remnants had weakened further into a trough of low pressure at the surface and stretched from 19 north latitude and 94 west longitude to 22 north and 93 west.
NHC reported that the weak mid-level circulation associated with Barbara continues to gradually dissipate and become embedded within southeasterly flow over the western Gulf of Mexico.
The East Pacific hurricane season officially begins on May 15 and runs through November 30.
###
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NASA satellites watch the demise of Hurricane BarbaraPublic release date: 31-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Rob Gutro robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
NOAA's GOES-14 satellite captured Hurricane Barbara's landfall in southwestern Mexico and movement across land, northward toward the Gulf of Mexico. This 43 second animation of NOAA's GOES-14 satellite observations from May 29 to 31, 2013, shows Barbara making landfall at the beginning of the animation, and moving toward the Gulf of Mexico by May 31. Credit: NASA GOES Project
Hurricane Barbara recently made landfall along the southern Pacific coast of Mexico and NASA's TRMM and Suomi NPP satellites captured rainfall rates within the storm, and a night-time image of landfall. NOAA's GOES satellites provided images that were made into an animation showing the landfall and movement across Mexico into the Bay of Campeche on May 31.
According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the center of Hurricane Barbara came ashore around 19:50 UTC (12:50 p.m. PDT) on Wednesday, May 29 about 35 km (~20 miles) west of Tonala, Mexico. At landfall, Barbara was a minimal Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph.
NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP Satellite Captures Hurricane Barbara at Night
The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite captured a nighttime image of Hurricane Barbara before it made landfall in southwestern Mexico. The image was taken on May 29 at 08:22 UTC (4:22 a.m. EDT). In the image city lights from Mexico City and Coatzacoalcos were seen to the north and east of Barbara's center.
VIIRS, a scanning radiometer, collects visible and infrared imagery and radiometric measurements of the land, atmosphere, cryosphere, and oceans.
NASA's TRMM Satellite Analyzes Barbara's Rainfall
NASA and the Japanese Space Agency's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite captured several images of the storm during the landfall. TRMM captured the first image of Barbara several hours after it made landfall. The image was taken at 6:46 p.m. PDT on May 29 (01:46 UTC, May 30) and showed the horizontal distribution of rain intensity within the storm. The rainfall images were created at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. To make the image, several data products from various TRMM instruments are combined. Rain rates in the center of the swath are from the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR), and those in the outer swath are from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI). The rain rates are then overlaid on infrared (IR) data from the TRMM Visible Infrared Scanner (VIRS).
As is typical, after making landfall Barbara began to weaken and was a tropical storm with winds reported at 60 mph at the time of the first TRMM image. The image showed no evidence of an eye and areas of mostly light to moderate rain within the storm. Localized areas of heavier rain are evident inland northwest of the center and along the coast where the storm's circulation is drawing moist air ashore.
After making landfall, Barbara continued in a mostly northward direction across southern Mexico and began to emerge over the southern Gulf of Mexico.
The second rainfall image from TRMM was taken at 09:58 UTC (2:58 am PDT) on May 30. By that time, the National Hurricane Center had downgraded Barbara to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 30 knots (~35 mph). Most of the rain associated with Barbara at that time appeared to be light with a smaller proportion of moderate rain than before and only an isolated area of heavy rain along the Gulf coast side.
TRMM data was used to create a 3-D image to look at precipitation and cloud heights. Most of the cloud tops were of low to moderate height with the exception of the one taller towering thunderstorm that reached up to around 12 km. This convective tower was associated with an area of heavy rain. In order for the storm to regenerate or maintain itself, new areas of convection like this would have to occur near the center.
GOES-14 Satellite Sees Barbara at the Gulf of Mexico
NOAA's GOES-14 satellite captured Hurricane Barbara's landfall in southwestern Mexico and movement across land, northward toward the Gulf of Mexico. In a 43 second animation of NOAA's GOES-14 satellite observations from May 29 to 31, 2013, Barbara made landfall at the beginning of the animation, and moved toward the Gulf of Mexico by May 31. The images from May 31, showed scattered showers were occurring over the Bay of Campeche and in the coastal city of Coatzacolalcos reported light rain. The animation was created by the NASA/NOAA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
What Happened to Barbara?
On May 30 at 22:00 UTC (6:00 p.m. EDT), Barbara was a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds near 20 knots. It was centered about 127 nautical miles north-northeast of Tehuantepec, Mexico and was moving north at 4 knots.
By Friday, May 31 at 8:05 a.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that a weak upper level trough (elongated area) of low pressure extended over the western Gulf of Mexico is steering the remnants of Barbara. Barbara's remnants had weakened further into a trough of low pressure at the surface and stretched from 19 north latitude and 94 west longitude to 22 north and 93 west.
NHC reported that the weak mid-level circulation associated with Barbara continues to gradually dissipate and become embedded within southeasterly flow over the western Gulf of Mexico.
The East Pacific hurricane season officially begins on May 15 and runs through November 30.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 31-May-2013
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