AIR FLIGHT SHOWDOWN

In the 1990s, the USAF integrated various intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems into one, inter-connected "system of systems" that provided the nation's military forces with the information needed to conduct successful operations. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle added a new element to the ISR system.

Planners envisioned using UAVs to perform a wide range of missions, such as the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, but they designed the first UAVs to conduct ISR missions. In response to a Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office requirement for UAVs with long-endurance, reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition capability, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency developed two High-Altitude Endurance UAVs: the RQ-3A DarkStar and the RQ-4A Global Hawk. Developed under a cost-saving, single Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration, both UAVs used the same ground station.

A design team from Lockheed Martin, Boeing and DARPA incorporated stealth technology into the DarkStar, enabling it to fly reconnaissance missions in highly defended areas. Carrying either a Synthetic Aperture Radar or an Electro-Optical sensor, DarkStar would have flown at an altitude over 45,000 feet at a speed greater than 250 knots (288 mph). Designed to operate within the current military force structure and with the existing Command, Control, Communications, Computer and Intelligence equipment, it would have operated at a range of 500 nautical miles (575 miles) and would have stayed on station more than eight hours. The Lockheed Martin Skunk Works at Palmdale, Calif., built the fuselage of the vehicle and integrated the EO sensor and other subsystems. Boeing built the wings, provided the avionics and integrated the SAR and vehicle management system.

Unlike early systems which used traditional photographic film or stored imagery in on-board recorders for analysis after landing, DarkStar used digital links to transmit images directly to the ground station or to satellites. This capability allowed DarkStar to provide military decision makers with nearly real time information.

Designed to be fully autonomous, the DarkStar could take off, fly to the target area, operate its sensors, transmit its sensor imagery, return to base and land without human intervention. Using a direct Line of Sight data link, operators in the ground station could alter the flight path and redirect the sensors in flight with computer inputs for 250 nautical miles (288 miles). Beyond that range, they would have remained in contact through satellite links. Therefore, DarkStar had the potential of operating thousands of miles from the ground station.

DarkStar first flew on March 29, 1996 at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., but it crashed during its second flight on April 22, 1996. The second DarkStar, which was modified to increase its stability, first flew on June 29, 1998. During this 44-minute flight, it successfully executed a fully automated flight from takeoff to landing using the Global Positioning System, and it reached an altitude of 5,000 feet. On Jan. 11, 1999, the second DarkStar completed its first high-altitude flight and reached an altitude of 25,000 feet on a 2-hour, 37-minute flight. Two additional DarkStar vehicles were completed, but they never flew. In late January 1999 the Department of Defense terminated the DarkStar UAV program because of budget cuts.

The museum received this DarkStar, the only surviving one actually to have flown, in December 1999.

The Gherkin:
the Swiss Re Building (colloquially referred to as the Gherkin, Bullet or the Cucumber Building), is a skyscraper in London's main financial district, the City of London, completed in December 2003 and opened at the end of May 2004. With 40 floors, the tower is 180 metres (591 ft) tall, and stands on the former site of the Baltic Exchange building, which was severely damaged on 10 April 1992 by the explosion of a bomb placed by the Provisional IRA.

History:
The building is on the former site of the Baltic Exchange building, the headquarters of a global marketplace for ship sales and shipping information. On 10 April 1992 the Provisional IRA detonated a bomb close to the Exchange, severely damaging the historic Exchange building and neighbouring structures.

The UK government's statutory adviser on the historic environment, English Heritage, and the City of London governing body, the City of London Corporation, were keen that any redevelopment must restore the building's old facade onto St Mary Axe. The Exchange Hall was a celebrated fixture of the ship trading company.

After English Heritage later discovered the damage was far more severe than previously thought, they stopped insisting on full restoration, albeit over the objections of the architectural conservationists who favoured reconstruction. Baltic Exchange sold the land to Trafalgar House in 1995. Most of the remaining structures on the site were then carefully dismantled, the interior of Exchange Hall and the facade were preserved, hoping for a reconstruction of the building in the future.

In 1996 Trafalgar House submitted plans for the Millennium Tower, a 386 metres (1,266 ft) building with more than 140,000 m2 (1,500,000 sq ft) office space, apartments, shops, restaurants and gardens. This plan was dropped after objections for being totally out-of-scale with the City of London and anticipated disruption to flight paths for both City and Heathrow airports; the revised plan for a lower tower was accepted.

The tower's topmost panoramic dome, known as the "lens", recalls the iconic glass dome which covered part of the ground floor of the Baltic Exchange.

The gherkin name dates back to at least 1999, referring to that plan's highly unorthodox layout and appearance. Due to the current building's somewhat phallic appearance, other inventive names have also been used for the building, including the Erotic gherkin, the Towering Innuendo, and the Crystal Phallus (also a pun on Crystal Palace).