More of This

A group of "Techno Anarchists" in New York City have set up a mesh network to allow for broadly available low cost broadband:

It's a promise that seems almost too good to be true: super-fast internet that's cheap, and free of the contracts and hassles that come with major service providers.

That's not a pipe dream for Brian Hall, it's his goal.

The lead volunteer behind the community group NYC Mesh aims to bring affordable internet with lightning-quick downloads to everyone in New York, one building at a time.

"Our typical speeds are 80 to 110 megabits a second," Hall says, pointing out that streaming something like Netflix only requires about 5 Mbps.

CBC News joined him one afternoon on a roof in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Greenpoint. Hall was installing the latest addition to the mesh network that will deliver his vision.

The worksite is one of the group's latest customers, a converted warehouse that houses a video production company. The regular commercial internet providers were going to charge tens of thousands of dollars to get them online.

NYC Mesh took on the job for a small installation fee of a few hundred dollars and a monthly donation.

Mesh networks explained

So what is a mesh network?

Picture a spiderweb of wireless connections. The main signal originates from what's called the Supernode. It's a direct plugin to the internet, via an internet exchange point — the same place Internet Service Providers get their connection.

The signal from the supernode, sent out wirelessly via an antenna, covers an area of several kilometres.

From there, a mesh of smaller antennas spread out on rooftops or balconies receive that signal. They're connected to Wi-Fi access points that allow people to use the internet.

Each supernode can connect thousands of users.

And the access points talk to the others around them, so if one goes down for some reason the rest still work.

"Mesh networks are an alternative to standard ISP hookups. You're not provided with an internet connection through their cable, but through — in our case —Wi-Fi networks," says Jason Howard, a programmer and actor who's helping with the latest installation.

NYC Mesh bought an industrial-strength connection to the internet right at an Internet Exchange Point (IXP), in this case a futuristic-looking tower in downtown Manhattan. It's the same place that internet service providers (ISPs) like Verizon and Spectrum connect to the internet, accessing massive amounts of wired bandwidth.

NYC Mesh then installed an antenna on the roof of the IXP. That became the supernode, the heart of its mesh network.

From there it beams out and receives Wi-Fi signals, connecting to receivers on rooftops spread through the East Village and Chinatown, and across the river into parts of Brooklyn.

I am generally dubious of techno-libertarian solutions to problems, I tend to favor regulation and public ownership, but this seems to be doing pretty well, though one does have to wonder about how well it might scale as its popularity increases.  (New York City is a perfect laboratory for investigating these issues)

I would think that the use of directional antennas would allow broader usage, if just by providing geographical separation between the data streams when frequency separation is no longer available.

In any case, anything that discommodes the incumbent telco and cable providers is to my mine an independent good.

A Star Mangled Spanner

It appears that Scientists have managed to adapt 3D metal printing to zero gravity, and have produced a small wrench.

This is actually tougher than it sounds, since the powdered metals used can be explosive in the right (wrong?) proportions, and there is no gravity to hold them down.

This did not actually go into space, they produced the parts on a "vomit comet" flying a parabolic course.

Credit where credit is due, the pun comes from Arthur C. Clarke.

Cable Companies Suck

And it appears that the worst of them is Centurylink.

In their latest escapade, the cable company is defending itself against highly credible accusations that it is charging customers for accounts and services that they never ordered, the cable company is claiming that it cannot be sued by its customers because it has no customers:

CenturyLink is trying to force customers into arbitration in order to avoid a class-action lawsuit from subscribers who say they've been charged for services they didn't order. To do so, CenturyLink has come up with a surprising argument—the company says it doesn't have any customers.

While the customers sued CenturyLink itself, the company says the customers weren't actually customers of CenturyLink. Instead, CenturyLink says they were customers of 10 subsidiaries spread through the country.

CenturyLink basically doesn't exist as a service provider—according to a brief CenturyLink filed Monday.

"That sole defendant, CenturyLink, Inc., is a parent holding company that has no customers, provides no services, and engaged in none of the acts or transactions about which Plaintiffs complain," CenturyLink wrote. "There is no valid basis for Defendant to be a party in this Proceeding: Plaintiffs contracted with the Operating Companies to purchase, use, and pay for the services at issue, not with CenturyLink, Inc."

CenturyLink says those operating companies should be able to intervene in the case and "enforce class-action waivers," which would force the customers to pursue their claims via arbitration instead of in a class-action lawsuit. By suing CenturyLink instead of the subsidiaries, "it may be that Plaintiffs are hoping to avoid the arbitration and class-action waiver provisions," CenturyLink wrote.

………

Customers from 14 US states are involved in the putative class action against CenturyLink in US District Court in Minnesota. Nine lawsuits filed last year were consolidated into one, and the consolidated complaint says:

[C]ustomers have routinely reported: (1) being promised one rate during the sales process but being charged a higher rate when actually billed; and (2) being charged unauthorized fees, including billing for services not ordered, for fake or duplicate accounts, for services ordered but never delivered, for services that were canceled, for equipment that was properly returned, and for early termination fees.

When customers complained—and many thousands have—CenturyLink not only encouraged but rewarded its agents to deny remedying the wrongful charges and keep as much of the overcharges in the Company as possible.

Why I support municipal broadband, part MCXXVII.

The Link Between Tech and Porn

Evolution of cellphone. Middle is where people discovered mobile phone can be used to watch porn pic.twitter.com/QhtcsPq6tw

— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) March 30, 2018

This is actually how a lot of technology gets developed.

VCR's started off with pr0n, as did camcorders, DVDs, they all hit critical mass because of pr0n.

And then, there is the internet.

F-35 Sustainment Challenges Mount As Global Fleet Grows | Defense content from Aviation Week

What a surprise.

Lockheed-Martin promised that the F-35 would have support costs near that of the far smaller F-16, because of it's advanced logistics software.

Right now, it looks like it will cost more to operate than the twin engine F-15:

………

This specific problem was resolved quickly, but that is not often the case. Across the F-35 enterprise, operators are struggling with severe maintenance challenges of which the most critical are a spare parts shortage, insufficient repair capacity and excessive glitches in the ALIS logistics system that tracks the health of the fleet. Meanwhile at the production level, suppliers and skilled workers are making mistakes that slow down the manufacturing process before a complete aircraft even comes off the line.

The sustainment challenges are emerging at a pivotal time for the program, with F-35 pilot training ramping up, international deliveries accelerating, and the Navy on track to achieve initial operational capability of its F-35Cs in 2019. As the global F-35 fleet is poised to triple by 2021, government and industry officials are facing mounting pressure to solve these challenges—and fast.

Reports emerged recently that the U.S. Air Force—the F-35’s single largest customer—would be forced to cut as many as 590 F-35s from the overall buy, or one-third of the force, if sustainment costs do not come down. The government-industry team must find a way to reduce operations and sustainment (O&S) costs or F-35 customers will have to make “tough decisions,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said ominously during a recent event in Washington.

The Air Force is working with the JPO to reduce overall O&S costs by 38% over the next 10 years, or about $3.8 billion a year, Wilson says. And in the field, the Air Force aims to get the cost to sustain the F-35 down to that of sustaining a legacy F-16, according to Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein.

………

The main F-35A training hubs, Luke and Eglin AFB, Florida, arguably are facing the most immediate challenge as the Air Force grapples with a critical pilot shortfall.

………

But it is not just the training bases that are impacted by the spare parts problem. Overall from January through Aug. 7, 2017, F-35s were unable to fly because they were awaiting parts on average about 22% of the time—more than double the Pentagon’s goal of 10%, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

………

ALIS, the maintenance hub of the F-35 enterprise, was designed to ease the burden on maintainers by increasing automation. But today the system, which is based on a 1995 architecture, actually is adding to their workload.

ALIS has an excessive rate of “false positives,” where the system mistakenly tells the maintainers a certain part is broken. Even more troubling, each service continues to rely heavily on contractor-provided information technology experts, rather than service personnel, to manipulate ALIS’s intricate software and complex databases, according to the subcommittee chairman, U.S. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio).

In the field, maintainers must rely on inefficient workarounds and manual tracking processes when ALIS is not performing as it should, officials say. In some of the Air Force’s maintenance units, for example, airmen are assigned to tackle ALIS glitches as their primary job, says Harris, which was certainly not in the original plan.

(emphasis mine)


Lockheed-Martin developed a tightly integrated system as a way of maximizing their ability to lock in customers to their support services,



So you have a gargantuan mass of interdependent code, and fixing problems is like untying the Gordian knot.

The F-35 is never going to be as cheap to operate as an F-16, the JSF's MTOW is 65% more than the that of the F-16, but right now, it's simply too expensive to operate in significant numbers.

When You Put Back Doors in, Crooks Use Them Too

Law enforcement has insisted on setting up our phone systems so they can use cell tower spoofing devices undetectably to track suspicious actions.

We now have learned that crooks and spies are using the same technologies, and the same back doors, to spy on people:

The federal government has formally acknowledged for the first time that it has located suspected and unauthorized cell-site simulators in various parts of Washington, DC.

The revelation, which was reported for the first time on Tuesday by the Associated Press, was described in a letter recently released from the Department of Homeland Security to the offices of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon).

"Overall, [DHS' National Protection and Programs Directorate] believes the malicious use of IMSI catchers is a real and growing risk," wrote Christopher Krebs, DHS' acting undersecretary, in a March 26, 2018 letter to Wyden.

The letter and attached questionnaire say that DHS had not determined who is operating the simulators, how many it found, or where they were located. DHS also said that its NPPD is "not aware of any current DHS technical capability to detect IMSI catchers." The agency did not explain precisely how it was able to observe "anomalous activity" that "appears to be consistent" with cell-site simulators.

The devices, which are also known as stingrays or IMSI catchers, are commonly used by domestic law enforcement nationwide to locate a particular phone. Sometimes, they can also be used to intercept text messages and phone calls. Stingrays act as a fake cell tower and effectively trick a cell phone into transmitting to it, which gives up the phone’s location.

There is no, "Technical capability to detect IMSI catchers," because DHS, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the rest of the TLAs want to be able to spy and track with impunity, so the difficulty of detection and countermeasures has been designed into these systems.

This is what happens when you put back doors in systems, the bad guys figure out how to use them too.

To quote Leonard McCoy on this one, ""It's NOT enough! You didn't care what happened as long as you could hang your trophy on the wall. Well, it's not on it, Captain, it's in it!"

This is why we cannot trust, nor should we consider the absolutist demands of our state security apparatus.

Like Forrest Gump ……… Only a Bond Villain

Someone needs to get Peter Thiel a white Persian cat, because he seems to have a hand in every evil thing that can be done with the internet:

As a start-up called Cambridge Analytica sought to harvest the Facebook data of tens of millions of Americans in summer 2014, the company received help from at least one employee at Palantir Technologies, a top Silicon Valley contractor to American spy agencies and the Pentagon.

It was a Palantir employee in London, working closely with the data scientists building Cambridge’s psychological profiling technology, who suggested the scientists create their own app — a mobile-phone-based personality quiz — to gain access to Facebook users’ friend networks, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

………

The revelations pulled Palantir — co-founded by the wealthy libertarian Peter Thiel — into the furor surrounding Cambridge, which improperly obtained Facebook data to build analytical tools it deployed on behalf of Donald J. Trump and other Republican candidates in 2016. Mr. Thiel, a supporter of President Trump, serves on the board at Facebook.
Continue reading the main story

“There were senior Palantir employees that were also working on the Facebook data,” said Christopher Wylie, a data expert and Cambridge Analytica co-founder, in testimony before British lawmakers on Tuesday.

Cambridge Analytica has found itself confronting a deepening crisis since reports about the firm’s data harvesting were published this month in The New York Times, The Observer of London and The Guardian.

The connections between Palantir and Cambridge Analytica were thrust into the spotlight by Mr. Wylie’s testimony on Tuesday. Both companies are linked to tech-driven billionaires who backed Mr. Trump’s campaign: Cambridge is chiefly owned by Robert Mercer, the computer scientist and hedge fund magnate, while Palantir was co-founded in 2003 by Mr. Thiel, who was an initial investor in Facebook.

Great googly moogly.

My first though was that Peter Thiel is the devil, and then I realized that he's actually the vexatious home owners' association president that manages hell.

I am kind of surprised that some sort of evil singularity not formed in his spleen because of that much evil in that small a space seems to violate the laws of physics.

Saw a Bit of History Today

This was the space suit issued to Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin for his role as a backup for the Apollo 8 flight.

He used it for training for Apollo 11, as did William Pogue for the Skylab mission training.

It's in the lobby of ILC-Dover, and seeing it made my day.

You can click on this for a full size image.

Some Skunkworks History Revealed

Lockheed's Skunk Works has finally revealed some of its earliest efforts on stealthy drones:

In 2001, Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works secretly flew a flying wing unmanned air vehicle (UAV) with a roughly 9m (30ft) wingspan with modular wings and a bulbous fuselage as a technology demonstrator for a family of aircraft.

As the company prepares to celebrate the Skunk Works’ 75th anniversary in June, Lockheed decided to reveal the existence of the formerly secret project at the Los Angeles County air show on 24 March in Lancaster, California, which lies few miles north on Highway 14 from the unit’s headquarters in Palmdale.

Lockheed’s “X-44A” greeted visitors at the entrance of the five-year-old local event near Edwards AFB, a storied flight test centre for the US Air Force and NASA.

Although the project’s existence is no longer a secret, Lockheed is not yet prepared to offer many details beyond the year of its first flight and its role as a demonstrator for a family of UAVs.

If anyone is going to the air show, see if you can get a Q&A session with a Lockheed rep.

Silly Rabbit, Jail Is Not for White Folks

This is one Very white person

And corporate criminals don't come any whiter than Elizabeth Holmes:

Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of blood testing startup Theranos, has been charged with engaging in a "massive fraud" by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC says she and the company's president raised more than $700 million using an "elaborate, years-long fraud in which they exaggerated or made false statements about the company’s technology, business, and financial performance."

No, she won't be going to jail over this. In fact, even though she faces some serious penalties over the charge — she's losing control of the company and won't profit if it is sold — she also doesn't have to admit wrongdoing as part of a settlement with regulators.

To recap, Theranos was once a Silicon Valley favorite because of its promise that its technology could allow for a wide variety of blood tests with just a droplet of blood. That all began to fall apart when the Wall Street Journal raised serious questions about the accuracy of the tests, prompting a government agency to shut down one of its labs.

………

Here's are some of the things Holmes has agreed to do to settle with the SEC.

She'll give up financial and voting control of the company.

• Holmes has to pay a $500,000 fine.
• She cannot be a director or officer of a publicly traded company for 10 years. Theranos is a privately-held company, which means she can continue to be CEO.
• She has to return 18.9 million shares of Theranos stock.
• She will give up her majority voting control of the company by converting her shares to Class A Common shares from Class B Common share

She should be in jail, and she should be banned from managing publicly traded companies for life, but she does not even have to admit liability.

Well, I suppose she's commiserating with David Petraeus about how unfair this all is.

Quote of the Day

One of the reasons why Russia can credibly meet or beat the US in terms military-related technological superiority is that top mathematical and physics grads have been going into finance since the mid 1980s.

—Yves Smith

It's interesting how, when people complain about crowding out from government deficits, it never seems to extend to how a parasitic financial industry is diverting intellectual capital to unproductive uses.

In fact, if you read trade magazines like Aviation Week, it becomes clear that a major hurdle for high tech operations is the fact that there is no one is stepping up to replace the current (near retirement)  cadre of technical employees.

These folks know how to count, and so are going to finance where it is more remunerative.

This Has Got Me Seriously Geeking Out

First unit, with conventional controls


Fluidic controls illustrated

The University of Manchester is demonstrating fluidic controls on its Magma UAV.

Basically, it uses small puffs of air to interfere with the Coanda effect prove out-sized control effects:

A flight-test program this spring will attempt to prove supersonic air bled from an engine can provide directional control equivalent to conventional flying surfaces. The program also is aimed at investigating the potential of using exhaust vectoring to replace vertical tails. Possible applications run the gamut from enabling maneuvering with minimal impact on a radar cross-section, to increasing lift on heavy transport aircraft.

Magma, a project run by the University of Manchester, England, and supported by BAE Systems, attracted attention late in 2017 when its first flight was revealed. The September flights were with conventional control surfaces on the subscale unmanned aircraft, and mainly were concerned with establishing that a new airframe built to test fluidic-control technologies behaved as expected. Further flights, planned for late spring, are intended to demonstrate not just that these technologies work, but could in theory be inserted or removed from platforms quickly and easily.

………

The idea of using pressurized air from the engine to aid aircraft control has been around for some time. The Blackburn Buccaneer strike aircraft’s boundary-layer control system used air blown over the wings to assist carrier landings and increase control at low speeds, but Magma benefits from techniques and technologies that were unavailable during past programs.

………

“The air sticks to that rounded surface,” says Bill Crowther, a reader at the university and the Magma project’s academic lead, “but it also drags in the other air around it. So it acts like a virtual flap, without moving anything.”

Cool.

File Under, "Dystopian"

It appears that the car of the future have all the respect for your privacy that Mark Zuckerberg does, so expect hemorrhoid ads on your multi-function display:

Picture this: You’re driving home from work, contemplating what to make for dinner, and as you idle at a red light near your neighborhood pizzeria, an ad offering $5 off a pepperoni pie pops up on your dashboard screen.

Are you annoyed that your car’s trying to sell you something, or pleasantly persuaded? Telenav Inc., a company developing in-car advertising software, is betting you won’t mind much. Car companies—looking to earn some extra money—hope so, too.

Automakers have been installing wireless connections in vehicles and collecting data for decades. But the sheer volume of software and sensors in new vehicles, combined with artificial intelligence that can sift through data at ever-quickening speeds, means new services and revenue streams are quickly emerging. The big question for automakers now is whether they can profit off all the driver data they’re capable of collecting without alienating consumers or risking backlash from Washington.

“Carmakers recognize they’re fighting a war over customer data,” said Roger Lanctot, who works with automakers on data monetization as a consultant for Strategy Analytics. “Your driving behavior, location, has monetary value, not unlike your search activity.”

I just want an off switch for the car's connectivity features, because, in addition to eschewing the aforementioned advertisements, I don't want some script kiddie turning off my anti-lock brakes.

While the Extoll the Virtues of Tech in Education

The Nomenklatura of Silicon have decided that when their children are education, they want a human touch with an absolute minimum of computers:

The Waldorf School of the Peninsula is small, exclusive and packed with the children of Silicon Valley executives who love the role that technology plays in the pupils’ education there. That is, it plays no role whatsoever.

Instead children at the $25,000-a-year elementary school in Los Altos, California, are learning to explore the world through physical experiences and tasks that are designed to nurture their imagination, problem-solving ability and collaborative skills.

Pencils, paper, blackboards and craft materials abound while tablets, smartphones and other personal electronic devices are banned from the classrooms until they are teenagers studying at the middle and high school campus nearby. Even then technology is only introduced slowly and used sparingly.

Alumni and present pupils include the children of Alan Eagle, a director of communications at Google, who helped to write the New York Times bestseller How Google Works, as well as those of a chief technology officer at eBay and senior executives at Apple and Yahoo. Their outlook is in line with some of the most powerful figures in the industry. Last month Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, said he did not want his nephew, who is about 12, to use social media. Last year Sean Parker, the billionaire and an early Facebook investor, admitted that he and the other creators of the publishing site had deliberately made it as addictive as possible. “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains,” he said.

………

Ms [Beverly] Amico [Head of outreach at Waldorf Schools] sees no contradiction. “It’s a very attractive option for people in the tech world for their children,” she said. “All employers, tech world or not, are looking for graduates these days that can think independently, take initiative, are capable of collaborating, have curiosity and creativity.”

The approach contrasts starkly with the new classroom orthodoxy in most American schools where children are spending more and more time staring at screens in lessons. There too, however, a grassroots movement is beginning to build against the relentless march of technology, supported by research illuminating the harmful effects of smartphone use on young brains and new shareholder pressure on the IT giants that make them.

These folks know that at best, they are peddling digital crap, and at worst, they are peddling digital crack, and they want their children to have none of it.

Think about that the next time that you hear about your local school district, or charter school, going all "high tech".

Longer Range, More Payload, Superior Performance, Lower Cost, What's Not to Love?

The Israeli Air Force is inclined to order an advanced variant of the F-15 instead more F-35s.

Even if there are things that the F-35 can do that the F-15 can't, you want to minimize spending on silver bullets:

The Israel Air Force is to decide in a few months between purchasing a third squadron of F-35 fighter jets or the F-15I, which, while less advanced, has other advantages.

The acquisition requires the approval of the General Staff and a ministerial committee, but the recommendation of the air force generally carries the day.

IAF Commander Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin, who reportedly is leaning toward the F-15, is to submit a recommendation in May.

Israel and the United States agreed last year on the purchase of 50 F-35 fighters, two squadrons, from Lockheed Martin, with delivery completed by 2024.

………

Senior IAF officers, including the force’s previous commander, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, have lavished praise on its capabilities. One of its most important operational capabilities is stealth, the ability to not show up on enemy radar.

But in order employ its stealth capabilities, the F-35 must fly with its bombs inside the plane’s belly, which limits its carrying capacity. If the bombs are carried on the outside of the plane, its stealth capabilities are impaired.

The F-15, though older, has two advantages over the F-35: a longer flight range and the ability to carry larger bombs. Another factor in its favor is that it’s built on a different platform, which means the air force would have a mix of planes rather than relying on a single model.

The F-15I is also cheaper to operate than the F-35. But the plane is currently being upgraded by the manufacturer, Boeing, and its purchase price is expected to rise in any future deal. Thus it could end up costing the same as the F-35 does next time around.

I gotta figure that there are elements in the IAF who are seriously worried that some crucial features of the F-35 will go completely titsup when the sh%$ hits the fan.

My money would among the items worrying IAF planners is its the JSF's ill-starred Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS).

Forcefully Unmap Complete Kernel With Interrupt Trampolines

Yes, Apple crippled older phones, and Intel said, "Here, hold my beer."

Basically the error can allow low level programs to take over the kernel, with a result kind of like that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when they open up the ark.

There is a fix, but it involves changes to the operating system that causes a significant performance hit, and Linux developers were unamused:

2) Namespace

   Several people including Linus requested to change the KAISER name.

   We came up with a list of technically correct acronyms:

     User Address Space Separation, prefix uass_

     Forcefully Unmap Complete Kernel With Interrupt Trampolines, prefix f%$#wit_

   but we are politically correct people so we settled for

    Kernel Page Table Isolation, prefix kpti_

   Linus, your call :))

As near as I can figure out, Intel's claim that this is, "Not a bug," and this appears to be true.

This appears to be a direct consequence of their attempt to boost processor performance in their competition with AMD, which appears not to be vulnerable to the "KPTI" bug, also called "Meldtown".

However, it does appear that speculative execution in general creates a whole host of potential (though thankfully more difficult) exploits across a much wider range of processors. (This one is called Spectre).

I'm beginning to think that it is time for a major change in CPU architectures.

Retro Technology Geeking

For the reader(s) who read my blog, you know that I like getting my geek on historical tech.

Well, we are now seeing a return of archaic technology, with shipping firms looking to using LORAN to deal with potential GPS hacks:

Digitalization, wireless networks, and the Internet of Things (IOT) have allowed the 21st century supply chain to achieve levels of efficiency and visibility that were unimaginable a generation ago. But sometimes that progress comes at a price. For instance, in June, logistics professionals around the globe discovered that for all its benefits, that hyperconnectivity also opened up new vulnerabilities when the "Petya" ransomware attack crippled operations at shipping giant Maersk Line.

Now, some ocean carriers are turning to an old-school remedy to reduce their exposure to certain cyber attacks. Out of concern that hackers could jam the global positioning system (GPS) signals used by cargo ships to navigate, several nations are considering replacing modern satellite-based systems with legacy World War II-era radio technology, according to Reuters.

LORAN first saw service in the 2^nd World War.

This is seriously old school, and I am seriously amused.

A Load of Bananas Whirling Around

It does look like whirling bananas


And the 1980s predecessor

The aviation engine manufacturer Safran is looking at an open rotor engine, which was looked at, and largely abandoned in the 1980s because of issues with noise and airframe integration issues:

Safran Aircraft Engines now has clearly plotted the technological trajectory a counter-rotating open-rotor (CROR) engine can be part of, somewhere between an ultra-high-bypass-ratio (UHBR) turbofan and a boundary-layer-ingestion (BLI) configuration. Despite wavering interest from the rest of the industry, the France-based company believes its ground demonstrator here in Istres is proving the architecture is certifiable in terms of both safety and noise. It says it would be an efficient powerplant for the 2030-35 generation of narrowbody aircraft.

The CROR concept has to be evaluated long before a commercial program is launched. It would be a greater breakthrough than the UHBR, a geared turbofan with a bypass ratio of 15. The latter could be ready in the 2025-30 time frame and is Airbus’ priority. In Safran’s view, the CROR, with its bypass ratio of 30, would be next. That would proceed an engine designed for BLI, in 2040-45.

Compared to the CFM Leap’s fuel burn, the UHBR and the CROR would be 5-10% and 15% better, respectively. Being unducted, a CROR can have a greater bypass ratio, and therefore a lower fuel burn. At Mach 0.75, the CROR would require a minor concession in speed.

………

A major challenge for an unducted engine can be found in acoustics. A witness to GE36 testing in the 1980s remembers its “dreadful” noise. And, since May, no journalist has been allowed to see and listen to an actual CROR run in Istres.

Nevertheless, Safran says the problem has been solved. The pair of propellers has been aerodynamically optimized, with thin blade profiles and complex shapes. They meet the current Chapter 14 standard, according to wind tunnel-trial results. The noise level is well below that of a turboprop, Bonini adds.

The engine is in generally form remarkably similar to the GE/Snecma engine from 30 years ago.

Both are using a fighter engine in the 20,000 lb thrust class as gas generators, and in both cases the props are being driven by counter rotating free turbines without a transmission.

It's a bit of 80s technology that never seemed to find its way into production.

Maybe this time.

Snark of the Day

Ireland To Receive €13bn From Apple After Getting Unlocked By Chinese Guy In Market

The Irish government will finally be able to collect the €13bn in taxes owed by the Apple corporation, after having the entire country unlocked by a Chinese guy working out of a shop in Moore Street called Extra Good Phone Unlock & Afro Caribbean Hair Product Store.

………

[Irish Minister for Finance Paschal] Donohoe proudly announced that the newly unlocked Ireland was now free of the tax loopholes that allowed the massive multinational corporation to pay next to no tax for a number of years, and that the 50 euro bill for the unlocking would be subtracted from the Department of Social Protection’s budget next year.

“We’ve now got a country that is not stuck in contract, so we can do whatever we want,” beamed Donohoe, picking up a few punnets of cherries while waiting on Moore Street for the country.

 This if f%$#ing brilliant.

There, It Wasn't So Hard

After much complaining, Apple agrees to pay over $15,400,000,000,00 in taxes to Ireland, and Ireland agreed to take it after complaining mightily.

Neither of them wanted that to happen.  Apple cut a tax deal with Ireland, that the EU deemed an illegal subsidy, and so Apple had to pay back taxes, which Ireland objected to even more than Apple.

Basically, Ireland's economic model is to be an economic vassal of multinational corporations, and so they don't want to collect taxes due.

Think of it as Amazon's 2^nd city competition writ even larger.

I'd call it corporate welfare, but it's more like extortion.