Strategy Page

choi

(1) Brown Out Beaten. Strategy Page, Feb 1, 2012.
http://strategypage.com/htmw/htecm/articles/20120201.aspx

Note: Helicopter Autonomous Landing System (HALS)
(a)
(i) Sierra Nevada Corp
http://www.sncorp.com/pdfs/cns_atm/HALS_Product_Sheet.pdf
(ii) A supplier to the preceding company: SprayCool
http://www.spraycool.com/applications/hals.asp
("prayCool is working with Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) to develop a solution to this known problem. The Helicopter Autonomous Landing System (HALS) incorporates a 94 GHz radar")

(A) The "94 GHz" places it in EHF (or Extremely high frequency, whose frequency range is 30-300 GHz and corresponding wavelength range is 1cm to 1mm). Please check the table (there is only one) in
electromanetic radiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation
(B) microwave
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave
(Microwaves are radio waves with wavelengths ranging from as long as one meter to as short as one millimeter, or equivalently, with frequencies between 300 MHz (0.3 GHz) and 300 GHz. This broad definition includes both UHF [ultrahigh] and EHF (millimeter waves), and various sources use different boundaries. In all cases, microwave includes the entire SHF [super-high] band (3 to 30 GHz, or 10 to 1 cm) at minimum)

(b)
(i) Brownout Landing Aid System Technology (BLAST). BAE System, undated.
http://events.us.baesystems.com/AUSA11/prodserv/BLAST.html

This page provides no useful information. But do view the following--the only vidio clip I can find..
(ii) BAE Systems to Showcase Blast Helicopter Landing System for Degraded Visual Environment. YouTube.com, uploaded by BusinessWire on Sep 8, 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hG_hqfkjgI
(c) HALS is the latest innovation. An older one is
terrain-following radar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrain-following_radar
(The technology was originally developed by Ferranti for use with the canceled TSR-2 aircraft)

Quote: "Since the radar cannot tell what is the beyond any immediate terrain, the flight path may suffer from "ballooning" over the top of high ground. Furthermore small obstacles such as radio antennas and electricity pylons may not show up on the radar at all. The objects present collision hazards when flying at very low level.


(2) Bullies Versus Elitist Killers. Strategy Page, Jan 31, 2012
http://strategypage.com/htmw/htsf/articles/20120131.aspx
("American efforts to discover what causes the infrequent (once every month or two) incidents of Afghan security personnel killing NATO troops were shocked to find that a lot of it is all about culture clash")

(3) Reality Is A Bitch. Strategy Page, Jan 31, 2012
http://strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20120131.aspx
("The U.S. Department of Defense has been told that, for the foreseeable future, there will be no more large-scale land campaigns. The air force, navy, and marines responded with a plan (Air-Sea Battle) that has been in the work for years. The new strategy is designed to cope with the rising power of China")