#Aerial classes driver#

So, it’s back to the drawing boards-although that is a figure of speech left over from a previous generation of aircraft design. Unfortunately, there is no practical way to reduce the radar or infrared signatures of a Boeing 767, on which Pegasus is based, to the level the Air Force is seeking for the third increment of tankers. That’s in addition to the extensive self-protection and defensive features already incorporated on KC-46-a plane that can withstand everything from chem-bio attacks to the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear weapon. And it wants a tanker that is impervious to advanced cyberattacks. It wants a tanker that is seamlessly networked with the rest of the joint force. It wants a tanker that can refuel unmanned aircraft-drones-in flight. But enhanced survivability isn’t the only thing the service is seeking. Much of the commentary to date has focused on a “blended wing body” that would generate minimal radar returns to bolster survivability. Some company-probably Boeing or Lockheed or Northrop Grumman NOC-will have to provide a completely different kind of airframe for the third increment in the tanker recapitalization saga. This drastically alters the competitive landscape. But now the Air Force says it will cut the second increment in half to about 75 aircraft before moving on to NGAS, and it seems inclined to stick with KC-46 for that reduced buy. In fact, Lockheed Martin LMT (another think tank contributor) intended to offer a larger tanker based on the Airbus A330 that it argued was better suited to Pacific operations. It was never a foregone conclusion that the second increment of 140-160 tankers would be KC-46s. The expectation was that Boeing (a contributor to my think tank) would build 179 of these “Pegasus” tankers, and the service would then move on to a similarly-sized second increment consisting of improved commercial derivatives. Insight into the friendly microbe provides important understanding for various problems related to plant microbiota composition and environmental microbes,' said Xu Peng of XTBG.This isn’t how the Air Force envisioned tanker modernization in 2011, when it selected Boeing’s BA KC-46 to provide the first of three increments in a multi-decade recapitalization plan.

#Aerial classes driver#

'This 'friendly' fungus may be the key driver to maintain the nitrogen-fixing function in the mucilage microhabitat.

It helps mucilage and diazotrophic bacteria resist pathogenic and environmental microbes. In addition, the researchers discovered a friendly fungus, Chaetomella raphigera (F-XTBG8), which has broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity but only allows the growth of diazotrophic bacteria. While the aerial root mucilage is a nutrient hotspot, they did not observe a high abundance of other environmental and pathogenic microbes in it. Nitrogen isotope-labeling experiments, 15N natural abundance, and gene expression analysis indicated that the aerial root-mucilage microbiota could fix atmospheric nitrogen to support plant growth.

Metabolite and microbiota profiling showed that the aerial root mucilage is enriched in carbohydrates and diazotrophic bacteria. They confirmed that ARM and URE have distinct biochemical compositions from each other, both in terms of primary and specialized metabolites. The researchers compared the biochemical composition of the aerial root mucilage (ARM or mucilage) and underground root exudates (URE) by collecting comprehensive metabolomics data of these samples. They also wanted to see how the mucilage microhabitat maintained its function and homeostasis in the fluctuant open air. The researchers used pink lady (Heterotis rotundifolia), a fast-growing, perennial shrub, that is dicotyledonous and a highly invasive plant, to explore the biological function of the aerial root-mucilage system and the underlying mechanisms in dicotyledons. In a study published in Microbiome, researchers from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators investigated the phenomenon of microbiota-mediated nitrogen fixation and elucidated how this process is continuously maintained in the root mucilage microhabitat.