• U.S. Air Force Marathon to showcase C-5 Galaxy

    The official aircraft of the eleventh annual United States Air Force Marathon is the C-5 Galaxy. The C-5 is one of the largest aircraft in the world and the largest air lifter in the Air Force inventory. The C-5 -- C stands for Cargo -- has tremendous payload capability and provides Air Mobility

  • AFRL Tests Show LADAR Can Potentially Remedy Helicopter Brownout Problem

    Air Force Special Operations Command incurs significant damage to aircraft and--even worse--loss of life as a result of helicopter brownout, a problem wherein dust recirculated by the rotorwash causes pilots to lose visual cues during takeoffs and landings in dry regions. AFRL engineers identified

  • AFRL-Sponsored Researchers Study Sleep Deprivation

    AFRL-sponsored researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University completed successful studies of sleep-deprived subjects observed to sustain alertness and effective cognitive functioning after taking modafinil. The drug causes wakefulness, using distinct pathways that scientists

  • Air Force Office of Special Investigations urges vigilance

    As a result of the 9-11 terrorist attack, the Air Force implemented an antiterrorism program called "Eagle Eyes," directed by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Much like a neighborhood watch, the Eagle Eyes program is an aggressive Air Force-wide neighborhood watch program that

  • AFRL Develops Alternatives for Maritime Control

    Researchers from AFRL and Mustang Technology Group, a radar technology company based in Allen, Texas, are providing the Air Force (AF) a simple and affordable approach for attacking seaborne threats. The AFRL/industry team developed a low-cost seeker known as the FALCON EYE, a small, all-weather,

  • AFRL Program Helps Reduce Cost of Focal Plane Arrays

    AFRL researchers completed their involvement in the F-35 Infrared Focal Plane Array (FPA) program, contributing expertise that led to a decrease in cluster defects and the insertion of larger-scale indium (In) antimonide (Sb) wafers into the arrays. The FPA is a significant component of infrared

  • AFRL Program Helps Reduce Cost of Focal Plane Arrays

    AFRL researchers completed their involvement in the F-35 Infrared Focal Plane Array (FPA) program, contributing expertise that led to a decrease in cluster defects and the insertion of larger-scale indium (In) antimonide (Sb) wafers into the arrays. The FPA is a significant component of infrared

  • Physicists Convert Light Pulses Into Matter for Quantum Communications

    AFRL-sponsored physicists at Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts) have--for the first time--halted a light pulse and regenerated it in a new location. This research is of consequence to the future of the Air Force because it could provide a powerful technique for fiber-optic communication