Ben Heubl, associate editor

Boeing completes test flights for unmanned fighter-like jets

This week, Boeing celebrated a successful test of five surrogate jets operating autonomously in a team in Australia. The exercise was executed at the Queensland Flight Test Range in Cloncurry, which can be found on Google Maps. It matches a Queensland government brochure advertising the unmanned aerial systems flight test range programme.

Boeing is pushing hard to move its autonomous flight programme forward. The Australian air force is excited.

Another aircraft in the making is the Loyal Wingman, spotted in the open for the first time at an airfield in Queensland in mid-August. A photographer took the shots, but the precise location wasn’t disclosed when two photos were tweeted by Australian Defence Magazine. Its article explains that until now, “Boeing has declined to reveal where the aircraft was being built, other than somewhere in Queensland”. 

For an avid open-source intelligence journalist like me, this is an invitation to dig deeper. On the basis of information publicly released by Boeing, what other clues can we use to pinpoint where the test run was conducted? There are a few places that we can take a closer look at, bearing in mind that this may not be the location where the plane was planned and built. Identifying that would take a bit more time and effort.

From other reports we know that the Loyal Wingman –  promised by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to be “pivotal to exploring the critical capabilities our Air Force” _  measures around 38ft in length and will be powered by a bizjet-class jet engine with a range of around 2,000 nautical miles.

A reverse image search (Yandex is your friend) of pictures of the plane released as part of Boeing’s social media campaign only found the firm’s own press images (the plane’s construction reached a major milestone when it moved "under its own power" for the first time) and commentators and speculators on social media debating where it may have been built.

A YouTube video released by Boeing to celebrate a milestone achievement for Boeing Defence Australia’s Airpower Teaming System provides more clues. The background, showing vast bushes and taller trees, indicates that it’s not filmed at Queensland Flight Test Range in Cloncurry. A list of Queensland’s commercial and military airports on Wikipedia lets us assume that there are, give or take, six alternative airports used by the military in the state. 

One of them might be the location at which the video was shot. Checking LinkedIn for details on the speakers presented in the Boeing video finds that the first, Paul Ryder, is a Boeing flight test manager. He happens to disclose his home base, which is stated as Anstead, Queensland, Australia. That’s about 30 minutes’ drive from the Amberley Royal Australian Air Force military airbase, a major Queensland airbase mentioned in the Wikipedia list. It’s also near the city of Brisbane. Boeing did state that the ATS was designed near Brisbane. Incidentally, that is the home to Boeing’s Defence Australia and Boeing Research & Technology Australia.

The second person interviewed is Adam Spinks, a group captain with the Royal Australian Air Force. In a Google search, Spinks pops up in an RAAF Facebook post from May about a push-up challenge at the base. 

Using Google Earth we can search the base and locate various features that we also find in the video (ground markings, background bushes etc). We find that an area with '04' written on the ground to be one suitable location where the camera could have filmed the two men interviewed in the promotional YouTube clip.

All this leads me to think that video of the Loyal Wingman test was shot at Amberley RAAF airbase. Let me know (benheubl@theiet.org) if you disagree or find additional information. Everything presented here is open source and can be verified by anyone who has access to a computer and an internet connection.

Tim Fryer, technology editor

Waterborne plastic tracked over thousands of kilometres

I find this terrifying. It sometimes feels like the damage we’ve already done to the planet is too big, beyond repair. It seems clear water without microplastic pollution is only to be found in mountain springs and far away from where most aquatic life lives.

Having spent a year being understandably consumed with the pandemic, the light at the end of the tunnel that is offered by the (promise of) vaccines will just reintroduce us to the massive global problem that was top of the agenda before Covid-19 was a thing. The environment. Plastic pollution is arguably less significant than climate change, but it feels more symbolic of our poor stewardship in the industrial age. The evidence of pollution is there for all to see. Hopefully there will be the upside – if there can be an upside to beaches strewn with plastic and seas no longer able to support healthy fish life – in that it will flag up environmental issues and act as a call to arms when dealing with greenhouse gases. Let’s hope – and act.

Dominic Lenton, managing editor

Royal Mail to trial hydrogen-powered van in Aberdeen

Switching time on the treadmill at a gym for a few miles every day plodding along various local streets has had its positives and negatives. On the plus side, it’s cheaper and less monotonous. Even sticking to out of town routes though, the level of traffic means I’ve probably been inhaling a lot more fumes that will inevitably counterbalance the lovely fresh air.

And purely at an observational level, it’s been interesting to see how much of that traffic consists of delivery vans cruising slowly around looking for an address or sitting idling while a hard-pressed driver dashes to drop off a parcel or consignment of groceries. Hardly surprising when the pandemic has shifted our shopping patterns so much, but it’s a different kind of influence on air quality to that caused by sheer weight of traffic moving slowly up and down the nation’s motorways.

Electric alternatives not unlike the good old milk float would be one solution. Here’s another, in the shape of a dual-fuel van being trialled by Royal Mail in Aberdeen, one of Scotland’s worst areas for air pollution. The converted Ford Transit will be dropping off letters, cards and parcels in the run up to Christmas and with a range of 120 miles should be able to cope with most routes.