Housewives the world over are going crazy for two new energy saving devices that look more like something teenagers might hide under their mattresses. The Smoke Pencil and the Chimney Balloon are two very useful tools to air-seal your home, but they look a little dubious at first…

Undeniably the name Smoke Pencil is pure genius. It’s a neat little device that allows you to detect draughts in buildings – all you have to do is whip it out, pull the trigger and watch for which way the non-toxic smoke drifts, allowing you to pinpoint any pesky draughts. But don’t keep it in your glove box with your driver’s licence, or you may find yourself having a serious misunderstanding with a state trooper on your next routine traffic stop.

The delightfully named Chimney Balloon may look like an elephant sized contraceptive, but in actual fact, it is a fireplace damper that does a great job of sealing draughts. Dubbed the ‘super-galactic prophylactic’, use it to plug up your old fireplaces, skylights, or even garbage chute. Using a Chimney Balloon will leave you feeling warm this winter, and go a long way towards cutting down your energy bills – something we definitely approve of here at Environmental Graffiti.

Head over to www.chimneyballoon.us and check out these cool little gadgets.

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Farthest Away Galaxy Cluster / 10.2 billion light years / 58 quintillion miles
Photo montage — X-ray: NASA / CXC / INAF / S.Andreon et al Optical: DSS; ESO / VLT

Astronomers have seen farther back in time and identified the earliest and youngest galactic object that can be observed in our universe. It is a galactic cluster, 10.2 billion years distant. We observe these galaxies as they were when the universe was only a quarter of its present age. Incredible!

First observed by the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in 2006, the galaxy cluster JKCS041 was not immediately understood but interest was intense. Two possible explanations presented themselves, one of which was exceptionally exciting. JKCS041 might be a cluster of relatively mature galaxies located at an enormous distance from earth and therefore situated in the early universe. Or – and less important to astronomers – JKCS041 might be a young galaxy in early stages of formation and not necessarily located very far away, or in the early universe when galaxies began to coalesce. As months went by and data accumulated from the Chandra X-ray observatory, this second possibility was ruled out. JKCS041 is a single entity, a genuine cluster of galaxies held together by gravity that is located at an enormous distance from earth. It was the subject of a major announcement from NASA and Harvard University on October 23, 2009.

The photograph above from Harvard University’s Chandra Observatory is a montage composed of data taken at several different wavelengths. The Chandra X-ray Observatory contributed X-ray data, optical wavelength information came from the Very Large Telescope and the Digitized Sky Survey contributed both optical and infrared data. The X-ray information from Chandra is seen as the diffuse blue region in this photograph. The individual galaxies in the cluster are the white objects embedded in the X-ray emission. The radius of the X-ray core region in JKCS041 is ~36.6 arc seconds, which is ~978,00 light years and a typical size for such a region in a galactic cluster. This photograph shows a small region of the universe when it was just one quarter of the age it has today.

Universe History and Expansion Timeline
Diagram / NASA/WMAP Science Team / Wikipedia
JKCS041 would be placed in the early stages of galaxy formation in this excellent diagram of the Big Bang and subsequent expansion of the universe.

Observing and understanding JKCS041 is a challenge that requires several partners, a multidisciplinary approach and several scientific instruments. Distance determinations require optical and infrared data from UKIRT, the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope on the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano on the Big Island in Hawaii, and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. JKCS041 now holds the record for the farthest away and youngest galactic structure to be observed in our universe. These galaxies are 10.2 billion light years away and have a red shift of 1.9, which calculates to a distance of 58 quintillion miles. (58 quintillion is 58 followed by 18 zeros.) The previous record red shift for far away, young galaxies was 1.5 or about 9 billion light years distant.

Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound objects in the universe, which means they are the largest objects that can form and maintain their structural integrity in our universe. At 10.2 billion light years away, JCS041 is approaching the observational limit of our instruments. Marvelous! Incredible!!

Sources -

1, 2

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Durrington Walls / Southern Circle ­ replica
Photo ­- University Sheffield – Archeology Dept.

The ritual timber circle at Durington Walls known as the Southern Circle may be the model used by the priest-astronomer-architects who designed Stonehenge. Let’s reconstruct this incredible archeological find. In so doing, we’ll get a feel for what life was like in the only Neolithic village discovered in England – and possibly the largest of its time in all of northwest Europe. This settlement may even have been the resting and feasting place for the work crews who built Stonehenge.

Durrington Walls

Durrington Walls is only 3.2 km (2.0m) distant from Stonehenge, and contains a sacred avenue that provided for processions that led up from the Avon River. Durrington Walls also contains the largest henge in Britain – 40m diameter. This timber circle was oriented towards the rising sun at mid-winter solstice, which is in opposition to the solar alignments at Stonehenge. The avenue was aligned with the setting sun at summer solstice, an arrangement similar to the avenue that connects the River Avon to Stonehenge. There is evidence for huge fires on the banks of the River Avon at this time. At some point in time that cannot yet be dated, the south entrance and route to Woodhenge from Durrington Walls was blocked.

Durrington Walls / Avenue
Photo ­- University Sheffield – Dept. Archeology Report 2006

The Avenue

Durrington Avenue was built before the three wood henges. It was 30 metres wide, aligned on the mid-summer solstice, had a flint and gravel surface and was at least 170m in length of which 100m survives today. The Durrington Avenue connected the Southern Circle to the River Avon, ending at a chalk cliff with a steep drop to the river.

Durrington Walls / Southern Circle orientation
Diagram ­- University Sheffield – Dept. Archeology Report 2005

The Southern Circle is a 40m diameter area within which are six concentric rings of timber posts. At least three flint nodules in the shape of male sexual organs placed within a naturally shaped vulva pit have been found in this area. They indicate a role for fertility symbolism in the rituals of the time, but at what level is unclear. Such artifacts might only be individual offerings for enhanced virility, or a baby on the way that the father wanted to be a boy.

Durrington Walls / Southern Circle -­ sight lines
Schematic ­- University Sheffield – Dept. Archeology Report 2005 / p.71.

Southern Circle ­

In spite of the apparent density of posts in the Southern Circle, there was a series of sight lines that provided a compelling view of the surrounding and distant landscape. These sight lines were likely a deliberate feature of a contemplative design. It is possible that an abstract template of astronomical or calendar significance determined where these long distance sight lines were placed. If an important myth and ritual demanded a specific view, then the design of the Southern Circle must acquiesce or lose significant ritual potency. The principal solstice alignment is of course without question.

Durrington Walls / antlers in hedge bank
Photo ­­- University Sheffield – Dept. Archeology Report 2005 / p.52.

High concentrations of antler picks map features at significant locations within the Southern Circle and the entrance passage to the interior. There is a massive concentration of pottery, flints and bone tools around the entrance and immediately adjacent to the long distance sight lines. When the Southern Circle had fallen into disuse and the posts had rotted away, their holes were recut. These recuts received another phase of massive deposition consisting of pottery, arrowheads and antler picks. Flints and animal bones were carefully placed in the recuts in a series of discrete events, after which pottery fragments were added higher in the fill. The bones and flints were derived from the massive middens scattered across the landscape, and the smash ups that accompanied feasting.

Durrington Walls / Southern Circle -­ posthole cuts
Schematic ­- University Sheffield – Dept. Archeology Report 2005

This activity occurred long after the Southern Circle was in active ritual use; it was now ancient and in a ruined state. These deposition ceremonies in the recuts would be commemorative, designed to honor an ancient and formerly powerful religious structure that now had lost its primary meaning and sacred song. Ceremony appears to have been small in scale and perhaps private. A hole was dug into which were placed gifts to honor the Southern Circle in its former time of greatness.

The complexity of individual recut deposits might be evidence for nothing more than randomness and lack of specific requirements as to what could be deposited. Alternatively, this complexity might reflect the mosaic in different parts of the Southern Circle. Individual posts might have had different identities and histories associated with different persons and geography. This individuality of posts might have required that different materials be deposited in each recut.

Durrington Walls / Avenue – Trench 1
Photo ­­- University Sheffield – Dept. Archeology Report 2006

Neolithic Village

Durrington Avenue and the Southern Circle were the dominant constructions in a ceremonial complex that was the center of a large Neolithic village. Eight house floors have been found amidst an excavated area that is only 0.3% of the entire Durrington Walls site. This is the only Neolithic village discovered in England and as such it is a very important excavation.

Extrapolation suggests that the valley was filled with hundreds of small, rectangular houses, where the thousands who toiled at Stonehenge lived and slept. Houses were 2.5m x 3m to 5m x 5m, not large by any standard. House plans from Durrington Walls are similar to those on the Orkney Islands at Skara Brae. A central hearth was set within a chalk plaster floor that was surrounded by slots that held wooden bed footings and furniture. In the wall construction in two buildings, cobb was used for the first time in Britain. Cobb is a traditional building material that was made from crushed, conglomerated chalk. Other houses used simple wattle and daub or wattle for wall construction.

Durrington Walls / Village House 547
Photo -­­ University Sheffield – Dept. Archeology Report 2006

Two of the houses are unlike the others that were excavated because they are inside ditched enclosures. The smaller enclosure is 12m in diameter, with an external bank and entrance on the west side. The larger is similar in structure but 40m in diameter with an east side entrance. Between this east side entrance and the house was a pair of very large potholes and a sturdy timber palisade whose entrance was later blocked by stakes. Both houses were positioned on a terrace with dramatic views of the sacred landscape.

It seems that these houses were designed and situated to reflect important attributes of their owners. Were they the homes of regional aristocracy who directed the Stonehenge, Durrington Walls, and/or Avebury projects? Or, were these buildings religious shrines or temples for ceremonies that were not freely available to the entire community? Did the Amesbury Archer and/or the Boscombe Bowmen live in this village when they were involved with Stonehenge?

The entire village had a circumference of about one mile, and perhaps 300 houses survive beneath the hedge banks. The Durrington Walls village may have been the largest of its time in all northwest Europe. Town planning was circular and the houses were set around an open area that contained the Southern Circle. This sacred space and construction was the center of an arc that included a timber circle (Northern Circle), and the two special houses set within palisades and ditched enclosures.

Durrington Walls / Trench 1 – posthole
Schematic ­- University Sheffield – Dept. Archeology Report 2005 / p.49.

Large quantities of pig and cattle bones, pottery, flint arrowheads and lithic debris testify to a high population density in the village and intense activity. Feasting and wasteful consumption was frequent. There are no grinding querns among the artifacts, nor carbonized grains. This was a village of strong men who ate a great deal of meat, and then worked very hard at the henges, sacred stone circles and avenues (cursus) at Stonehenge, Durrington Walls, and perhaps Avebury as well. Occupation may have been seasonal, but working throughout a winter in southern Britain is possible if ice and blizzards are only occasional. There is evidence for the culling of pigs in the village at mid-winter.

We can assume the work crews were ‘tough guys’, and the absence of plant derived dietary items indirectly suggests that women were present only on an occasional basis. Perhaps the regional population was dense enough to organize large work gangs in shifts that worked intensely for a short time. After several weeks, the men returned to their home villages as a new work gang arrived. Rotation of work assignments in this fashion would maximize efficiency and enthusiasm. No one would be forced away from their home village for a long period of time.

Durrington Walls / Durrington 68
Photo ­­- University Sheffield – Dept. Archeology / 2007 Excavations

Three Timber Structures

Durrington 68 was a square structure determined by the square setting of four postholes, each 1.6m deep, which held posts that were at least 9m high above ground. This four timber pole ‘square’ was surrounded by a sub-rectangular palisade that may have been set in place in later years, perhaps as a ‘closing deposit’. The southeast side entrance of the palisade was marked by two pits each set 1m deep that held posts that were at least 2m high above ground. These posts were too close together to make a roof feasible. The orientation of the building was toward the midwinter solstice sunrise.

Durrington 70 was a rectangular structure comprised of six postholes whose timber poles had been left to rot in their postholes. The building faced east and no calendrical significance can be discerned. Single potsherds of Beaker and Peterborough pottery have been found in the eastern postholes. South of Durrington 68 is the smallest of these three late Neolithic post buildings, a four post structure with each side aligned on the cardinal points.

Further south was a double ring ditch that contained a Beaker culture burial that was excavated in 1928. It was surrounded by an unevenly spaced circle of large pits that intersected with the outer ring ditch.

These three timber structures formed a line of ceremonial structures overlooking the River Avon, downstream from Durrington Avenue. Were there platforms on top of these timber structures, upon which people gathered for particular ceremonies?

Durrington Walls -­ Stonehenge comparison
Photo -­­ University Sheffield – Dept. Archeology Report 2005 . p.77.

Journey to the Ancestors

200 years after the first circle was constructed, two other concentric rings and a henge enclosure were built. The work force estimated to build the henge numbered between 4,000 and 6,000. A ditch 5.5m deep was dug, and the earth used to create a large outer bank 30m wide and several meters high. Stonehenge is most often compared to Woodhenge, but closer proximity and adherence to similar architectural concepts suggest that Durrington Walls and Stonehenge were a designed partnership for some ritual functions. Each has an avenue, or roadway, joining their ritual circle to the Avon River.

The second phase of the Southern Circle and the sarsen alignment were both constructed c. 2500 BC. Both structures are circular, set within an earthwork enclosure, and each faces an avenue that connects to the Avon River. The Southern Circle at Durrington Walls, and the Sarsen Circle and Trilithons at Stonehenge form two ends of a single pattern, with­ the tips of the arms in a ‘V’ shaped architectural plan. There is a similar arrangement between the henge at Avebury and either end of the West Kennet Avenue.

Stonehenge – Durrington Walls map / Journey from Life to Death
Map – tim / remote central archives

One proposal ties many known parameters together in this ritual landscape. The prodigious quantity of animal bones in the Neolithic village excavation at Durrington Walls appear to have been deposited during mid-winter feasting. Perhaps these feasts honored the dead whose remains – perhaps cremation ashes – were taken in solemn procession down the Durrington Walls Avenue to the River Avon. The ashes of the dead drifted, or were guided on small rafts to the sacred Avenue that led from the River Avon to the Stonehenge site. These ashes were then the focus of a ritual performed within the timber henge believed to be the sacred structure of the site at this earlier time. Perhaps in the Bronze Age, it was believed that the souls of the dead were free to leave this earthly realm for the ‘heavens’.

The Avenue at Durrington Walls is aligned to the Summer Solstice Sun Set. The Avenue at Stonehenge is aligned to Summer Solstice Sun Rise. The Southern (timber) Circle at Durrington Walls aligns with Winter Solstice Sun Rise, and a portion(?) of Stonehenge is aligned to Winter Solstice Sun Set. The presence of a timber henge at this earlier phase of Stonehenge is noted and easily accommodated.

Stonehenge 3 VI / Y and Z Holes
Plan ­- Dr. Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe / Sweet Briar College

Stonehenge had a much longer ritual lifetime than the Southern Circle at Durrington Walls. It continued in active use for approximately one thousand years after the great Sarsen Circle was built. Stonehenge also underwent architectural modifications for a few hundred years after initial construction of the great stone Circle. In contrast, the Southern Circle at Durrington Walls fell into disuse more rapidly and it had a much shorter lifetime of ritual potency.

It seems that the digging of the Y and Z holes outside of the sarsen circle ~1500 BC were the last construction at Stonehenge to survive in the archeological record. At this time, the Southern Circle at Durrington Walls had fallen down and rotted away. The final configuration of the central area at Stonehenge, which was six concentric rings of constructions, might refer to the Southern Circle in its degraded state.

Although now an antique relic, a strong folk memory of extreme ritual power may have persisted through the centuries. Were the posts intended for the Y and Z holes designed to commemorate the recuts at Durrington Walls that honored the two outer rings of the Southern Circle? Or is this all too convoluted? The similarities between the Southern Circle and Stonehenge may – after all – only be a coincidental meeting of generalities.

Sources -

1, 2, 3, 4

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Pleiades in Taurus / infrared
Photo composite – NASA/JPL-Caltech/ J. Stauffer (Spitzer Science Center, Caltech)

Why We Look Up –

Lascaux is a World Heritage Site and late Upper Paleolithic cave complex in southwestern France that belongs to the Magdalenian Culture. Lascaux’s cave paintings were made c.15–18,000 B.C. The sophistication of the Lascaux cave paintings is extraordinary when considered against their great antiquity. Their subtlety, complexity of technique and metaphor are qualities we can immediately relate to. The full articulation of this cave art reveals a mind akin to our own. If time and language barriers could be set aside, it is very possible that Magdalenian people of the late Upper Paleolithic would understand us, and that in return we could understand them.

Paleolithic Cave artist
Photo – vikrambalaji9

What do these great paintings tell us? Aurochs and other large animals portrayed in Paleolithic cave art were often hunted for food. The act of painting them in a sacred cave has often been interpreted as an important element in a ritual that invoked sympathetic hunting magic. The act of a painting the animal sends a message to its spirit, that great respect is intended and that only those individuals essential for tribal survival will be hunted and killed. The spirit world and the gods are asked to ‘understand’ and not penalize the human sphere. The act of painting, the actions and protocol by which these paintings are executed, is the ritual. The finished painting is a record of the ceremony. It is a static reminder of the bond between the spirit world and humankind and of the obligations each ‘world’ owes to the other. We do not know if these great animal paintings were prayed to. We do not know if Paleolithic religion venerated and prayed to icons.

Hindu Brahma / Supreme God of Creation
Photo – Calvinkrishy / Wikipedia

At the beginning and end of time, all the ‘worlds’ are integrated and melded into an indescribable whole and ‘oneness’. This final and beginning state of reality is the adamantine bliss of yoga and Buddhist cosmology as typified by the god Brahma. It is often created by the cosmic dance of the multi-armed Shiva. It is everything and nothing, timeless and beyond words.

Lascaux – Hall of Bulls / panorama
Norbert Aujolat – CNP/MCC

This is the deep layer of meaning in many Paleolithic cave paintings that goes beyond sympathetic hunting magic. This is a multidimensional, mythological layer whose journey in the millennia to follow will connect with Stonehenge as a future article shall discuss. This deeper layer is also metaphysical and mathematical, and relates to the adamantine oneness of Vedic, Hindu and Buddhist cosmology. The complexity of mind revealed in late Upper Paleolithic cave art is akin to that expressed much later in history by ancient Vedic philosophers whose art form was Sanskrit poetry.

Shiva – Lord of the Dance At Chidambaram, the center of the universe, Shiva taught all the gods that he is Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer.
Photo – rosemanios / flikr

Mathematical aspects in late Upper Paleolithic mythopoetics derived from observational astronomy. Some cave paintings recorded an understanding of the path the moon takes around the sun – the ecliptic. An understanding of the ecliptic leads to the discovery of the zodiac, the annual path of the sun through the celestial sphere. A construct for the zodiac then follows, in which it is divided into twelve sections later known as ‘houses’.

Stars, moons and planets in Upper Paleolithic culture are not the stars, moons and planets of modern astrophysics that we know. They are deities whose habitat is the Milky Way and the celestial sphere. Mathematics is art, as Plato knew well. If the annual journey of the sun, moon, visible planets and some very bright stars can be tracked and recorded with enough precision to enable accurate prediction, then the human ‘world’ has understood a great deal about the gods. We are no longer passive because we know where these celestial entities go during their year’s sojourn and what those journeys portend for life on earth. The gods do not travel alone, nor are they unconcerned about human welfare. We are their acolytes and worshipers, and the only beings that can nourish the gods. We are the only sentient beings beside the gods themselves.

Milky Way
Photo – Mila Zinkova / Wikipedia

This is not a child’s game where Paleolithic astronomer-shaman-priests looked into the night sky to find the silhouettes of familiar animals in the geometrical arrangement of stars in the night sky. We can be fairly confident that star gazing at night was not frivolous. It was a search for realities that were believed to exist.

What might be those truths? These early artifacts and cave paintings reveal a deep conviction that there was a spirit world inhabited by deities, and that some or all of that ‘universe’ was above us and was celestial. Another portion of the universe was below, an ‘underworld’ that was the antithesis of the celestial. The ‘world of the gods’ was not chaotic. Observational astronomy was the premier empirical science of the time. Astronomer-priests discovered that the ‘world’ of the gods was multidimensional and precisely organized by number and time. Pattern through time, provides consistency, a belief in structure and the possibility for prediction down the time track of the future.

Path vernal equinox along ecliptic / 6000 years
Star Map – Dbachmann / Wikipedia

Look up, think and perhaps the manifestations of several deities can be seen, if they wish that to be seen by humans. When the Late Paleolithic astronomer-priests found the gods in the heavens, they confirmed that the gods do wish to be seen by us, that their celestial form is recognizable and stable, and does not change from night to night.

Dr. Michael Rappenglück of the University of Munich has long believed that Magdalenian Culture of the late Upper Paleolithic in Europe looked at the night sky and ‘saw’ the Milky Way. They also discerned several bright, prominent arrangements of stars which could be described and integrated into a mythology. These arrangements of stars were the first constellations to intrude into human culture. Organized into a celestial landscape that winds its way through the Milky Way and upon which the Sun will travel, the earliest Zodiac had been found and mapped. As Plato said about mathematics, it is not an invention of human genius. It has always been there, waiting to be discovered.

Sun moves along the ecliptic / equatorial coordinates This diagram is in equatorial coordinates, i.e. Right Ascension and Declination. The (red line) is the celestial equator. Note sun’s position on the vernal equinox and summer solstice.
Animation – Durham University (UK)

These proposals imply that: a) the Sun’s orbit around the Sun was at least partially understood; b) the time track of history had been perceived and was under active discussion – i.e. there is a past, present and future; c) a multidimensional universe included beings called ‘gods’ and ‘goddesses’ with extraordinary powers; d) gods and goddesses often lived in the sky, in the heavens; and e) the gods’ interests and action targets included human society, and as such they could be approached and influenced with the appropriate rituals and ceremonies. Mythology is not passive, it is active and ritual is the mechanism by which to enter the Dreamtime and talk to the gods. Taurus or any other ‘new’ constellation discovery is not a static item to be cataloged and then quietly set aside for the occasional story. It is integrated into an existing, dynamic cosmos and mythology.

Auroch > Taurus, the Bull –

Taurus from Uranographia / Johannes Hevelius – 1690
Historical print – Chandra

Taurus is an ancient constellation, one of the first identified in the Upper Paleolithic of Europe and to which a mythology became attached. In the early Bronze Age, Taurus marked the vernal equinox. The Auroch in the cave paintings in the Salle des Taureux (Hall of the Bulls) at Lascaux is a complete animal, the oldest form of the constellation of Taurus the Bull. Long ago the bull was cut in half at the star 39 Tau. Many stars were then available for Aries, the Ram and Cetus, the Whale.

Bull #18 (Auroch) in Hall of the Bulls, Lascaux
Photo – Institute Interdisciplinary Studies

Ecliptic, Equinox, Solstice and the Sidereal Year –

An important cave painting at Lascaux, France depicts six large dots above a magnificent portrait of an Auroch that is known as Bull #18. (The northern hemisphere constellation known as the Seven Sisters is depicted on sky maps intended for ‘naked eye astronomy as six dots because the seventh sister is now only visible with binoculars. Astronomers speculate that the Seventh Sister was brighter and visible to the naked eye in the distant past, perhaps in the Neolithic.) Did those who designed the Pleiades representation and a great bull figure for the walls of Lascaux believe in a dynamic mythic relationship between these two ancient zodiac deities, or is this juxtaposition fortuitous and without meaning? In ancient cultures, the Pleiades are represented above the shoulder or back of Taurus.

Pleiades / Hyades / Taurus
Photo – Joe Orman / GSFC

The Hyades is a second, bright, open star cluster associated with Taurus. It contains five or six stars visible to the naked eye, if Tau – the Eye of Taurus – is included and it forms a speckled pattern on the face of the bull. Depictions of Taurus with six spots indicate that the celestial, astral and mythic Taurus had incorporated the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters.

Lascaux / Pleiades
Photo – mazzaroth.com

Using the older and often preferred dating for Lascaux, the six stars and the aurochs in the cave paintings may mark the Summer and Winter Equinoxes and Solstice of c.15,300 B.C. Why mark this equinox? Was this the time when these paintings were started or completed? Calculations show that the Summer Solstice and Vernal Equinox on the Ecliptic for the Pleiades are not candidates for the event commemorated because both fall outside two to three standard deviations of dates indicated by the C-14 determinations. The Autumnal Equinox remains a viable candidate.

Pleiades in Taurus / infrared
Photo composite – NASA/JPL-Caltech/ J. Stauffer (Spitzer Science Center, Caltech)

“At Lascaux in 15,300 B.C. the Pleiades were very near the point of the autumn equinox (: 12h, : 0°), when we consider the relation to the position of the brightest star 25 • Tau (Alcyone; 2m.9, : 12h 16.6m, : +2° 51´). That means that the distance separating the two was the equivalent of only 5.5 times the width of the moon, that is only 2.8° away from the equinoctial point. Even better is the star 27 • Tau (Atlas; 3m.6, : 12h 17.8m, : +2° 34´). This star reached its smallest distance of 2.6° at the time of 15300BC. Only [one] hundred years earlier or later the distance was already larger.” (Source #8)

“The six stars in the Salle des Taureaux therefore represent a striking and excellent heavenly marker for the beginning of autumn and of spring. The epoch calculated astronomically lies extraordinarily close to the uncalibrated oldest carbon fourteen dating: 17,190 ± 140 radiocarbon years (with the reference point being 1950) and 17300 astronomical years (in reference to the year 2000), corresponding to 15,300 BC. The difference is minimal even if the margin of error of the astronomical calculation is taken as being ± 500 years.” (Source #8)

Lascaux caverns / plan
Plan of Lascaux caves – 120 / Wikimedia

In the ‘Salle des Taureux’ at Lascaux, the autumn positioning of the constellation Taurus, within which is the Pleiades and the Hyades, has been portrayed by a great, anonymous artist. Simulation with astronomy software confirms the impressive sight that greeted those who looked upward into the night sky from the Lascaux Hill . “On the geographical latitude of the cave of Lascaux (:45°03′17″ N), the six stars at the time of 15,300 BP were invisible for 46 days between the 26th of August and the 11th of October (some days plus/minus).… the Pleiades were visible around the 11th, that is the 283rd day in the year, eighteen days after the autumn equinox in the dusk shortly before sunrise.”

“The first glow took place at 7° above the horizon. The sun was located at this moment in time 8° under the true horizon (with an arcus visionis about 15°). After another 161 days, exactly at the beginning of spring at midnight local time, the Pleiades reached their highest position of about 47.8° in the south above the true horizon.” (Source #8)

North Celestial Hemisphere – star map / Solutrean 16,730 BC
Arkéorb program – Amateur Astronomers of Ajaccio. The advanced stone tool designs of the Solutrean Culture followed the last Mousterian assemblages made by Neanderthals in western Europe.

The constellation of the Bull loomed up steeply in the sky with its head turned downwards and its rump upwards. 158 days later, on the 237th day of the year, the 26th of August, these [stars] could be seen for the last time in the dusk after sunset. The position of the Aurochs in the rotunda could result from the attempt to convey this [specific] image. The autumnal equinox came 28 days later (a sidereal month) and the cycle of the star year of the Pleiades was completed again. About 319 days passed from the first morning to the last evening, the beginning of spring dividing this period almost exactly in half (161 to 158 days). “(Source #8)

Pleiades Star Cluster in Taurus
Composite Photo – NASA / ESA / Caltech

The helical rise and fall of the Pleiades provides a yearly calendar that has been used worldwide throughout history, perhaps starting in the Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian Culture of Western Europe. The heliacal (near dawn) rising of the Pleiades is a timeless calendar marker for the start of spring. The setting of the Pleiades in autumn divides the year in two and defines fixed points for the counting of the Year of the Pleiades, that long period of time when location of the pole of the northern sky changed, along with the coordinates for the solstices and equinoxes.

Summer Triangle vertex in Cygnus / Deneb top center – Northern Cross
Composite Photo – Robert Gendler / NASA

These are the most basic, profound and important points of celestial reference because they track the seasons. This is the measurement of the space time of human experience as structured by the gods who live in the heavens as constellations of the Zodiac and travel on the celestial sphere.

The Zodiac is born at Lascaux –

Heck Cattle / The Auroch recreated
Photo – Walter Frisch / Wikimedia

The Blackfoot of North America synchronized seasonal change in buffalo coats and rutting time with phases of the Pleiades. As with aurochs, buffalo rut is between August and October. In about 280 days, 9 or 10 sidereal months, a calf is born with a yellow coat. A deep brown coat is established by the first autumn season and adults change their coat at the beginning of spring. Did the paintings of aurochs in the Salle des Taureux at Lascaux function as a partial calendar? If they did, the yearly events in the life cycle of earthbound aurochs cross referenced with those of the celestial auroch, the constellation of Taurus with two open star clusters – Pleiades and Hyades.

Lascaux / The Celestial Auroch and Shaman-Bird Man
Photo-Diagram – Archeociel

Dr. Rappenglück also sees the Summer Triangle on the walls of Lascaux. The eyes of the auroch in this painting (Taurus, the celestial bull), birdman-shaman and a bird together may represent three bright stars – Vega, Deneb and Altair. This is the Summer Triangle and would have been seen during the height of summer at northern latitudes. The Summer Triangle would also have been very prominent at the start of spring and would never set below the horizon.

Lascaux northern sky / summer triangle – 16,500BP
Diagram – INFIS

Polynesians spoke of the Pleiades as ‘both above and below’. The zodiac is born when the position of the Pleiades was used to define elliptical divisions – ‘houses’ or ‘stations’ – of the sun’s annual orbit through the heavens near the ecliptic.

The sun’s annual orbit near the ecliptic could also be related to seasonal hinges. Fifteen thousand years ago, the position of the Pleiades was opposite to the scenario discussed above. The Pleiades was then a spring constellation whose disappearance signified autumn. Taurus, the auroch sun god would not disappear but would weaken – begin to ‘die’ – as winter slowly approached and the grandest of all cosmic cycles was again engaged. Is it possible that the animals painted on the cave walls of Lascaux are deity creatures, constellations that comprise the earliest zodiac whose map could not yet be read in its entirety?

Zodiac / Giovanni Battista Fontana 1586
Photo – Xocolatl / Wikimedia

Astrologers consider the Bronze Age to be the ‘Age of Taurus’. The origins of astrology and the earliest zodiac are usually assumed to be accomplishments of Babylonian astronomy. Taurus was known as GU4.AN.NA in ancient Babylonia. In Akkadia, Taurus was “The Heavenly Bull” whose name was In Sh?r. Much later in ancient Greece, we find the most famous manifestation of Taurus, the white bull whose form Zeus assumed in order to abduct the Phoenician princess Europa. One of the 12 Labors of Hercules was to subdue the Cretan Bull. In India, there is a mythological bull image on an artifact from the Harappan civilization. Later, a great bull named Nandi is the protector of Siva, his sacred mount and perhaps the ‘first’ guru. Nandi is usually black, occasionally white in color.

Later star atlases through the 19th century sometimes show Taurus taking the Milky Way upon its horns, an allusion that has an archaic sensibility.

Lascaux Cave Entrance / Solstice Sun – June 1999
Photo – Jacques-Wolkiewiez / Archeociel

Lascaux / The Cave / Summer Solstice Sunlight –

In 1999 and 2000, independent researcher Chantal Jegues-Wolkiewiez conducted an intensive study at Lascaux. Other researchers had proposed that at least some of the animal figures in the cave paintings were constellations, and that an arrangement of several portrayed a partial Zodiac. Obtaining, precise observational data to confirm this idea had proven difficult. This is exactly what Jean-Michel Geneste proposed that he and Chantal Jegues-Wolkiewiez should do.

Lascaux Cave Entrance / Solstice Sun Set – June 21,1999
Photo – Archeociel

From first contact with the cave and the immense and poignant Hall of Bulls, the two scientists followed strict scientific protocol. Constant humidity and temperature was maintained in the interior of the cave, particularly in an interior cavern known as the ‘Well’. C-14 laboratory determinations confirmed the older dates for the Lascaux cave paintings at 17,000 years B.P.

Lascaux – Solar Solstice Equinoctial
Graphic – Archeociel

The sky in this Magdalenian period was recreated using computer astronomy software and models were made for the western map of each constellation. Measurements of the orientation of all the paintings were taken according to an astronomical compass, which was precise to one half of azimuth (an arc of the heavens extending from the zenith to the horizon, which it cuts at right angles). Outlines of the paintings in the Hall of Bulls were compared to those of constellations in the sky in Magdalenian times.

Lascaux -_maximizing equinoctial sunbed
Lascaux diagram – Archeociel

Hall of the Bulls –

The Hall of the Bulls at Lascaux is large and the artistic scale used to depict the largest aurochs is almost monumental. The ‘hall’ is 16 metres long x 7 metres wide and 6.5 metres high. The largest auroch is 6 metres long. Most important for what would follow, the westward facing Lascaux entrance has a 12° downward slope. Geneste and Chantal Jegues-Wolkiewiez intended to show that this 12° slope led to the paintings in the Hall of the Bulls cavern, and that at Summer Solstice Sun Set, the sun’s rays penetrated far into Lascaux, reached the Hall of the Bulls and illuminated several paintings. One metaphoric description of such an event would have the Solar God blessing and Nourishing – the sacred animals – animal paintings/constellations – of the Zodiac. This would be an annual renewal right of great importance.

Lascaux -_Sunlight Path into caves / Summer Solstice Rise
Lascaux diagram – Arlette Leroi-Gourhan et Jacques Allain / Archeociel

Computer simulation allowed the outlines of the animal paintings, and their orientation to one another in the Hall of the Bulls, to be compared to the summer sky of Magdalenian times, ~15,000 B.C. The Summer Solstice of June 19, 1999 was chosen for direct observation of Sun Set and last light into Lascaux. On June 19 at 21 hrs GMT, the last rays of this Summer Solstice Sun Set were observed for 15 minutes. As predicted, the sun’s rays did reach the Hall of the Bulls and illuminated the cave wall paintings. The auroch bulls that dominate much of the panorama of animals in the Hall of the Bulls were confirmed as a mythic priority of these Magdalenian people.

Lascaux – Two Aurochs / Taurus, Scorpio
Photo – Prof saxx / Wikipedia

The two aurochs that face each other were aligned with arrangements for the constellations of Taurus and Scorpio. They also correspond to the rising and setting opposition of two fixed stars: a) Aldebaran, which is the eye of the bull in the constellation Taurus; and b) Antares which is in Scorpio. Understand that there are several aurochs depicted on the cave walls in the Hall of the Bulls, but only one depiction of the constellation Taurus the Bull.

Why do the Bulls predominate, why is Taurus the dominant constellation? Taurus is not the Solar God unless we make him so. The eye of the auroch that is Taurus is the supergiant star Aldebaran in the center of the constellation. The open star cluster Hyades encircles, and the Pleiades is above, the shoulder of Taurus.

Scorpio and Libra constellations / Mercator celestial globe,1551
Historical Print – Wikimedia

Other auroch bulls align with the constellations of Taurus and Scorpio. Parts of these aurochs correspond to the rising and setting opposition of Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus and Antares in Scorpio. That Taurus and Scorpio are not visible in the same region of the sky at the time of opposition indicates a sophisticated knowledge of astronomy in this Magdalenian culture.

Lascaux – Falling Horse
Photo – contracosta.edu

Falling Horse and Second Horse –

At the end of the Axial Gallery is an animal found nowhere else in Upper Paleolithic Art, the Falling Horse. The legs and head of this horse are visible in the passageway and are raised towards the sky. The lower half of the body is hidden behind a fold of the wall. The direction that the Falling Horse indicates is the location of Sun Rise on the Winter Solstice. Above the Falling Horse is another horse identical to one in the Hall of the Bulls.

Lascaux – Second Horse
Photo – mazzaroth.com

Second Horse is positioned above the two Bulls that face each other. Second Horse corresponds to the constellations of Leo and Scorpio: see photograph above. The mane of this horse points to the bright star Arcturus, which is visible at the end of winter at the point above the horizon where the Sun Rises. Second Horse therefore corresponds to Sun Rise at Spring Equinox. Once again, the ability of Cro-Magnon astronomer priests to calculate the positions of stars that are not visible is indicated.

Orion Barnard 30 star birth
Composite photograph / infrared/multiband – NASA/JPL-Caltech/D. Barrado y Navascués (LAEFF-INTA)

Orion at Lascaux –

Spanish researcher Luz Antequera Congregado in her 1992 doctoral thesis “Arte y astronomia: evolución de los dibujos de las constelaciones” offers this interpretation of Great Bull #18 in the Hall of the Bulls at Lascaux. Two sets of dots are associated with this bull. One set is above the auroch’s shoulder, the other is on the face. There is a third set of 4 dots to the immediate left of this bull. Congregado believes the dots above the shoulder are the Pleiades, as does Dr. Rappenglück. The dots on the auroch’s face represent the Hyades open star cluster. In a later 1994 research paper, Congregado stated that the row of 4 stars depict the belt of Orion, the Hunter.

Lascaux / Horse – Lunar Calendar
Photo – Mathilda’s Anthropology Blog

Lascaux / One Half Lunar Cycle
Photo – Mathilda’s Anthropology Blog

On the wall of Lascaux are Lunar Calendars, as first understood by Dr Michael Rappenglück. This completed 29 day lunar calendar was painted underneath a horse.

Cueva di El Castillo / Northern Crown
Graphic derived from Photo – mazzaroth.com

Let’s conclude with a brief mention of the Cueva di El Castillo cave, located in the mountains of Pico del Castillo, Spain. The cave art at this site is dated to 14,000 BP and includes an image that is a strong candidate to join the earliest constellations list. Dr. Rappenglück has identified a star map of the Northern Crown in a curved pattern of dots that has long been known by the misleading name ‘Frieze of Hands”.

These Upper Paleolithic pictorial artifacts are also a record of humankind’s earliest writing, a language of images that embodied complex metaphors. Sophisticated paintings recorded the most important truths of the Upper Paleolithic, the annual cycles of the solar and lunar gods, and the supernatural animals of the Zodiac. The celestial realm and its deities controlled the rhythm of life on earth: seasons; the health of all living things – plant, animal or ‘man’ – and the reproductive cycles of life without which there is no family, no generations or future. Order and purpose, survival, reproduction and the cycles of life are structured by the gods of the zodiac. The constellations that ‘rule’ each partition were later named ‘houses’ by astrologers.

Sources –
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

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Early American (Jervis) Steam Locomotive
Photo ­- Blumenberg Associates LLC

Photographs of American steam locomotives taken before 1860 are rare. An early design for a passenger locomotive in the United States was the 4-2-0 wheel arrangement shown in this photograph and known as the ‘Jervis’. John B. Jervis was the first chief engineer for the Delaware & Hudson Coal Company’s railroad (United States) in 1827. He later designed the 4-2-0 locomotive that carries his name.

The numerical designation provides a concise description of the wheel arrangement. The first number ‘4′ indicates the number of leading wheels; there are two on each side of this engine. The second integer is the number of drivers, the wheels that power the locomotive and determine its ’strength’, that is how many cars and weight it can pull. There is one large driver on each side of this Jervis locomotive. The last number is the number of trailing wheels that are positioned under the cab.

This Jervis design indicates a manufacture date in the early 1840s. The stovepipe hat on the gentleman boarding the train and the design of the passenger car suggest a date for this photograph in the 1860s. The ship masts in the background reveal that the railroad station is at a waterfront, perhaps in a mid-Atlantic or New England state. Hard to read, the name “F.W. Smith” printed on this photograph might be the name of the engine, or the photographer or perhaps a collector who previously owned this print.

Beyond this guesswork, identification of any of the photo’s attributes has so far proven impossible. This fascinating glimpse into America’s railroad history will likely never be precisely identified. The Jervis was an efficient steam locomotive designed for passenger rail travel of its time. In this photo, we see an early ancestor to today’s high-speed bullet trains that are integral to the survival and future of passenger railroads.

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Sources -

1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Leslie G. Blumenberg contributed invaluable technical expertise with digital image editing and restoration.

British Man of War / c.1750
Historical Print ­- Blumenberg Associates LLC

In the 18th century, the British Navy had become the finest in the world. Without Her Majesty’s Navy, there could not be a flung English colonial empire. This exceptional and scarce print of a First Rate English Man of War c.1750 was engraved for “the Universal Magazine for JF Clinton at The King’s Arms ins. St. Paul’s Churchyard, London.” First Rate Ship of the Line were three deck battleships that had at least 90 guns, displaced more than 2,000 tons and carried approximately 800 crewmen. The term ’ship of the line’ derives from the standard battle formation where major warships organized themselves into a line of fire after which they opened up with an awesome cannon broadside upon the enemy. First Rate Ship of the Line were slow, expensive to operate and their lower decks was frequently swamped with water rendering many cannon useless.

Third Rate Ship of the Line / 19th century
Archival Historic Photograph ­- Blumenberg Associates LLC

Although this ship of the line plan may be idealized and not refer to a specific ship, Seven (7) First Rate English Battleships were built between 1701 and 1737 and each would have resembled this Man of War. Whatever we now think about the British colonial empire, if we are to learn the lessons of history then all of us need to look closely at the weapons and machinery of warfare, both on land and the high seas.

Sources -

1, 2

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Stonehenge southwest view / 1867. Ruined state of the final stage of megalithic stone building at Stonehenge as completed c.1800 BC.
Photo ­- Blumenberg Associates LLC
Original, Unretouched Photo ­- British Library

Photographs of Stonehenge were published in 1867 by England’s Ordnance Survey under the auspices of Colonel Sir Henry James. He was a strong believer that photography should be a major tool for mapping and survey work. The shots shown here provide a glimpse of the photographic capabilities of the 19th Century while offering an opportunity to reflect on the chronology of a truly iconic landmark.

Stonehenge is the world’s most famous large megalithic stone circle and is well known as a site used for religious worship in Neolithic Britain. The first use of this locality for documented ritual activity goes back to the Mesolithic and the erection of several large totem poles perhaps as early as 8,000 BC (Stonehenge O).

Lunar observations preceded the construction of a causeway c.3200 BC, followed by an earth circle and Heel Stones c.3100 BC (Stonehenge 1a) and the Aubrey Holes (Stonehenge 1b). The Stonehenge site was then abandoned for about 1,000 years when large bluestones quarried in Wales were brought to the site and made into the Double Bluestone Circle with Avenue c.2150 BC (Stonehenge II). Soon thereafter sarsen stones were brought in from Avebury to build the great Sarsen Circle and Trilithon Horseshoe, 2100 BC (Stonehenge IIIa). Bluestones were brought back and added as the Bluestone Circle and Bluestone Horseshoe, 1800 BC (Stonehenge IIId). The sacred avenue was extended to the River Avon, 1100 BC (Stonehenge IV), the last phase of megalithic construction at this site.

Stonehenge Trilithons B & C / 1867
Photo ­- Blumenberg Associates LLC
Original, Unretouched Photo ­- British Library

The great stone circle and all construction at the Stonehenge site was completed several hundred years before we can postulate that Celtic druids were in the vicinity. Stonehenge was embedded within a large ritual complex, where several of the ten megalithic constructions were also monumental in scale. Integration between these structures may not have been well planned in advance, but assuredly was articulated as each was built. Go to Source #3 for further material about history and meaning at Stonehenge.

In 1867, England’s Ordnance Survey published a limited edition, large format volume with photographs and plans of Stonehenge and Turusachan on the Isle of Lewis. The author of this article is very fortunate to own a copy of this rare book. Col. Sir Henry James, Director-General of the Ordnance Survey, was a strong believer that photography had to be utilized as a major tool for mapping and survey work and he employed the Royal Engineers for that purpose. Colonel James appears in several of the Stonehenge photographs published by the Ordnance Survey and he is seen in the two prints featured here.

Sources –

1, 2, 3

Leslie G. Blumenberg contributed invaluable technical expertise with digital image editing and restoration.

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Relief Sculpture / Michaelsberg Abbey, Bamberg Germany
Photo ­ Immanuel Giel / Wikimedia

Introducing RAT -

You are flying at 30,000’ or higher and all engines on your aircraft fail. When you are truly staring at Death, the RAT deploys in a last attempt to save the plane and everyone on board. Little known to the general public, the RAT can be the bottom line when it comes to surviving flying crises where at first glance, Death seems unavoidable. When Fly-By-Wire is long gone, the autopilot is dead or insane and the protocols of Mechanical Law are a mess, then and only then does the RAT weigh in. Praise be the RAT, your life now depends on it.

Ram Air Turbine / Saab AJSF 37 Viggen
Photo ­- Varga Attila / Wikimedia

The (R)am (A)ir (T)urbine is a miniature turbine which usually has a propeller blade in the front. A free air stream turns the propeller blade and power is developed. Do not confuse the RAT with a Ramjet which is a next generation, hypersonic aircraft engine. The RAT is a Ram Air Turbine hydraulic pump and is located in the body fairing, aft of the right main gear. On many aircraft, the RAT automatically deploys into the airstream when air speed is above 80 knots and both engines fail. On some aircraft, particularly commercial jet liners, the pilot can activate the RAT with manual controls in the cockpit. RAT cannot be retracted until the aircraft is on the ground.

Air Canada flight 143 / descent then slip
Computer Graphic – Agar11 / Wikipedia
Digital Art – Bennett Blumenberg / ahrtp.com

RAT Saves Lives / Air Canada Flight 143 ­

Perhaps the most famous incident where a RAT helped bring a crippled aircraft to a safe landing with no loss of life was Air Canada Flight 143, known informally as the “Gimli Glider”. On July 23, 1983, Air Canada Flight 143 flying a Boeing 767-200 jetliner ran out of fuel halfway to its destination, Edmonton, Alberta from Montreal, Quebec. A series of human errors botched maintenance procedures on damaged fuel gauges and then misinterpreted their significance on what was then a new and unfamiliar aircraft. Captain Person signed off for the flight on a maintenance log when the Minimum Equipment List stated that the aircraft should not be flown with serious deficits in the Fuel Quantity Indicator System (FQIS). Furthermore, Captain Pearson was given a wrong metric conversion factor with which to supervise and check fuel loading. Flight 143 took off with less than one half the fuel required to complete its flight plan.

Primary Flight Display in cockpit
Diagram – Advanced Avionics Hdbk / FAA

At 41,000’, a succession of alarms in the cockpit ended with the ‘all engines out’ sound, an event considered so unlikely that the pilots had never trained for it with aircraft simulators. The Boeing 767 had an early implementation of the Electronic Flight Instrument System (EFIS), which required electric power generated by the aircraft’s engines. Nonetheless, a few instruments that could run on backup batteries still functioned, including the Vertical Speed Indicator (VSI). The VSI display told the pilots the rate at which their 767 was descending, and therefore how far it could safely glide without any engine power.

Flight 143 approaching Gimli Airstrip
Computer Graphic ­- Alejandro Hurtado / flightsim.com

The second engine shut down at 28,000’, after which the pilots quickly determined that their manual did not have any procedures for flying the aircraft with both engines dead. Luckily, Captain Pearson was an experienced glider pilot and he chose the best possible glide speed for the aircraft at 220 knots. (Excellent gliding characteristics have always been incorporated into the aerodynamic design of commercial jet liners.) Air controllers at Winnipeg were feeding the pilots important data and with a glide ratio of 12:1, it was clear that reaching the airport at Winnipeg was not possible. Yes, the RAT had been automatically deployed.

Air Canada flight 143 / Landing Approach
Original Computer Graphic – Agar11 / Wikipedia
Digital Art – Bennett Blumenberg / ahrtp.com

The airport at Gimli (Manitoba) Industrial Park was then chosen as the landing site because it had two long parallel runways. Unknown to the crew was that a family day was in progress. The decommissioned runway, which had been converted to a dragstrip, had a guard rail running down the middle and this day was full of cars and campers. Meanwhile, the main landing gear of the Boeing 767-200 had been lowered, but strong airflow prevented it from locking into position. The decreasing forward speed of the aircraft had reduced the strength of the airstream used by the RAT and it was becoming less effective in generating essential backup power. Control over the aircraft’s glide path and performance had become difficult.

Air Canada flight 143 ­ after landing on runway
Photo ­- Firemansam08, Hellbus / Wikipedia

As Flight 143 approached the Gimli runway, it was flying too high and too fast for a safe landing. Flaps and slats could not be extended. Captain Pearson executed a ‘forward slip’ over a nearby golf course to increase drag and lose altitude. This is a maneuver designed for gliders and small, light aircraft but it worked! Pearson slammed down on the brakes when the aircraft hit the runway and blew out two tires. The unlocked nose wheel collapsed into its well causing the 767’s nose to scrape along the runway. The plane then slammed into a guard rail and came to a stop. There were no serious injuries to any of the 61 passengers. The RAT, operating in a very difficult situation, had provided enough emergency power to allow for this extraordinary landing. Captain Pearson and First Officer Quintal were true heroes. Although temporarily suspended from work, they were the recipients of highest awards for outstanding performance.

McDonnell Douglas DC9-80 / Hydraulic System
DVD Schematic ­- Angelique van Campen/ AVSIM

Before the RAT ­

RATs are most commonly found on crop duster planes where they power the centrifugal pumps to pressurize the spray systems. RATs are the safest approach for this job because FAA certified engines and power systems don’t have to be modified. The pump can be placed low or below the exterior of the fuselage, and then gravity fed from spray tanks.

Electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic aircraft systems are centered and rely upon the engine. Modern aircraft have significant emergency capacity in these systems before a worst case crisis requires that RAT be activated. Accessories are the devices that execute system functions and they are physically arranged close to the engine within the engine nacelle. Accessories employ gear reduction to obtain motive power. Electric generators and engine driven hydraulic pumps are two good examples. The basic requirement from the engine is that engine blades must be spinning to power accessories, but the engine itself does not need to be on. Auxiliary power units are gas powered, usually used for ground operations such as engine startup and are often not certified for use when the aircraft is in flight.

Boeing 737 / Fuel System diagram
Schematic ­ Derek Watts / Boeing 737 Technical Site

An (A)uxiliary (P)ower (U)nit does two basic operations: produce electricity and pressurize the pneumatic system for ground starts and air conditioning etc. Aircraft also have one electrical generator and hydraulic system per engine, an APU and an emergency battery with no more than 30 minutes lifetime. Hydraulic power is obtained using two or three of these modules: engine driven pumps, electric devices and air driven devices cf engine bleed air. The number of hydraulic systems attached to each engine is variable, and it is best to look at aircraft one by one. The 747 is all hydraulic and has four hydraulic systems, one per engine. The DC-10 is all hydraulic with a total of three hydraulic systems. The 727 has two hydraulic systems, one on standby and a manual backup, as does the 707. Tristar has four hydraulic systems and is all hydraulic.

Boeing 767 / Two Engine ‘Flame Out’ / Ram Air Turbine Deployment / Simulation

Call RAT ­

If all four engines fail on a large jet, there may still be enough hydraulic pressure from engine and air driven pumps to allow the plane to continue flying. On the Boeing 747-200, there are four engine-driven hydraulic pumps and four air pumps which together provide significant reserve hydraulic pressure to fly the aircraft if all engines fail. Nonetheless, with engine loss the RAT may soon have to be activated. RAT is explicitly designed to do several things that backup hydraulic pressure cannot do.

Ram Air Turbine ­ USAF F-105
Photo ­ Emt147 / Wikipedia

RATS are more common on military than civilian aircraft. Most large commercial airliners now have them and they are more likely to be found on planes with fewer engines and longer range. Some Boeing planes ­ 757, 767, 777 and the forthcoming 787 ­ have RATs as a source of backup hydraulic power. Airbus A300, A310, A320, A330, A340 and A380 have RATs. On an Airbus A320, the RAT powers the ‘blue’ hydraulic system which control a core set of control surfaces and a separate small hydraulic generator which can provide 5 KVA. The Airbus A380 has the largest RAT in the world with a propeller 1.63 m in diameter. By contrast, most RAT propellers are about 80 cm in diameter. RATs can be activated by pilot command, or designed to automatically engage when emergency parameters cross certain thresholds.

Advanced Low Drag Ram Air Turbines / USN EA-6B Prowler
Photo ­- Sylvain Mielot / Wikipedia

In flight at low speed, the RAT can supply power to the center (computer) system. Slipstream velocity is the key to RAT output and at speeds above 130 knots, the RAT provides enough power for ‘normal’ center system operation. There is a RAT Pressure Light in the cockpit to indicate that the RAT is also providing hydraulic power. Manual control for extending a RAT is often a guarded(?) RAT Switch. A large RAT on a commercial airliner might produce 5 to 70 KW. Smaller low airspeed models might only generate 400 watts. The center hydraulic system includes the center autopilot servos, spoilers, elevators, rudder, yaw dampers, stab trim and elevator feel. The RAT can supply controls for Roll, Pitch and Yaw, Lateral Central Control Actuators (LCCA), L&R Elevators, Rudder, Elevators Feel, Stab trim, and Yaw damper.

Death as the Only Begotten Son of God -
Edinorodniy Sine (“Glory Be to God and The Only Begotten Son”) -
Icon in Art Museum of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia – early 1800s
Photo ­- Andrej Fedotov / Wikimedia

One of the questions that has to be asked about Air France, Flight 447 is: where was their RAT? Did the high altitude, violent turbulence somehow disable the RAT on that flight’s Airbus A330-203, F-GZCP? Did this RAT require manual activation from the cockpit of airplane F-GZCP? And if so, was that switching system disabled at the beginning of the crisis? Or given the immediate, severe damage to F-GZCP was there nothing the RAT’s small power output could do to hold off a rapidly escalating and very severe crisis?

Never make fun of your aircraft’s RAT again. It may be the last hope between you and that tall guy holding a reaper.

Sources –

1, 2, 3, 4. 5, 6

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F-35A Joint Fighter / Elgin AFB, April, 2009
Photo – Senior Airman, Julianne Showalter USAF / Wikimedia

The F-35 Lightning II will be a test bed for the significant use of composite parts in next generation jet fighters, particularly with fuselage components. Understandably, security concerns will prevent detailed disclosure of F-35 design and assembly, but what we do know about composites and the Joint Strike Fighter program is still well worth considering.

The Joint Strike Fighter and Composites -

The Joint Strike Fighter now in advanced stages of development in the United States represents a huge investment of money, prestige and commitment to a new jet fighter design. Multiple role and all weather, three variants of the F-35 including a VTOL fighter for the Marine Corps are intended to replace several current and highly proven USAF jet fighters when they reach the end of their useful lifetimes. Deployment of the F-35 with multiple capabilities would in theory save a great deal of money. In practice, with program costs now at the trillion dollar level, the world watches and wonders.

Aside from costs, serious criticism has been leveled at the design of the F-35, which makes significant use of composite materials. As a military program that embodies next generation stealth, design and weapons technologies, much information about the F-35 is not accessible by the public or aviation industry journalists.

Lockheed Martin F-35B VTOL / Rollout Ceremony, Dec 18, 2007
Photo – Air Attack

In September 2006, Denmark-based Terma A/S joined the Joint Strike Fighter Program to supply several composite parts. Cutting edge CAD software from an American partner integrates with laser projection technology, whose data files generated from 3D part models are then projected upon a lay-up tool.

Lockheed Martin F-35B VTOL – Center Fuselage
Photo – Northrup Grumman / Air Attack

In early March, 2009, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) delivered its first composite parts for the F-35 from a new facility that opened in November, 2008 with two dozen key employees trained by Northrup Grumman. These composite parts are panels that form the outer surface of the fuselage and they will be integrated into the first two production F-35s. TAI is scheduled to produce 400 center fuselage sections for the first production Joint Strike Fighters. Even with restricted information, the importance of composites to the F-35 design is clear. These carbon-resin parts will be rigorously evaluated for long term strength and durability. In many ways, future military aircraft will build on the Joint Strike Fighter Program legacy and incorporate composite parts to the maximum extent possible.

Assembly of the First Production F-35 at Lockheed Martin, Forth Worth Texas

Sources –
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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Boeing 787-8, Prototype
Photo – Aviation Explorer / Wikipedia

Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner is 80% composite materials by volume and 50% by weight. Rising fuel costs mandate widespread use of composites, but questions about long term structural stability have yet to be resolved. In the second of a three-part series, we assess the Dreamliner in minute detail, while also bringing you news of a dramatic blog post on composite fuselage cracks written by an industry insider.

Boeing 787 / Dreamliner -

Composite materials in aircraft design are now subjected to increasing and skeptical scrutiny. That searchlight is on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner as well as Airbus aircraft. The Dreamliner program began in April, 2004 and there is a large, international, network of parts manufacturers. Boeing’s 777-200ER and 300 ER are sometimes viewed by the press as competition to the Airbus 350, but more often are compared to the Airbus jetliners A340-500HGW and A340-600HGW. Composite fuselage parts account for 9% of a Boeing’s 777 total weight and include the cabin floor and rudder.

Dreamliner Test Bed in action at Rolls Royce. Trent 1000 engines power the 787.

As of the Rollout Ceremony on July 8, 2007, the Boeing 787 had become the fastest selling, wide body airliner in history. 861 Dreamliners had been ordered by 56 customers as of April, 2009. Originally scheduled to enter service in May, 2008, there is now no scheduled maiden flight and service debut might occur sometime in 2010.

Boeing Wide Body, Aircraft Assembly Plant at Everett, Washington / 747, 777, 787
Photo – Maurice King / Flikr

Final assembly of the 787-8 Prototype began May 21, 2007 at Everett Washington USA after the successful manufacture and delivery of major components from partners in several countries. FHI and KHI in Japan contributed the forward fuselage, center wing and center wheel. Each fuselage barrel is made in one piece and the barrel sections are joined end to end to form the fuselage, thereby eliminating the need for the 50,000 fasteners required to build a conventional aluminum fuselage. This composite fuselage also allows for higher cabin pressure during flight.

Boeing 787 / Composite Fuselage Assembly
Photo – markjhandel / Flikr

The Boeing 787 is the first major commercial jet liner to use composite materials for more than 50% of its construction, thereby significantly reducing aircraft weight and fuel costs. Dreamliner materials by weight are: 50% composite, 20% Aluminum, 15% Titanium and 5% steel. The Boeing 787 is 80% composite by volume and contains ~35 tons of carbon composite, made with 23 tons of carbon fiber and reinforced with plastic. Composites are used in fuselage, wings, tail, doors and interior. Aluminum is used for the wing and tail leading edges. Titanium is found mostly in the engines.

Boeing 787 / Computer Modeling
Photo – shearforce / Flikr

An aircraft fuselage built mostly with composite parts may have a reduced capacity to shed the electricity from a lightening strike. John Leahy of Airbus has publicly criticized the use of composites in the 787 fuselage as ‘rushed and ridiculous”. Vince Weldon, a former Boeing senior engineer, has stated that the risks inherent in a composite fuselage have not been fully assessed and that such a fuselage should not be attempted at this time. Weldon specifically referred to the composite fuselage as more shatter prone than aluminum, and if burning after a crash would release highly toxic fumes.

Carbon fiber does not reveal cracks and fatigue as does metal. The Dreamliner fuselage composite may have 1,000 X the electrical resistance of Aluminum, which greatly increases the risk of damage during a lightening strike. Use of a virtual reality simulation of the 787’s manufacturing process to uncover design problems has been criticized.

Boeing has refuted such analysis and explained how the risks described have been taken seriously and attended to with success. Building and testing of composite sections of the 787 fuselage began nearly ten years ago and a great deal of experience has accumulated.

Boeing 787 / Carbon Fibre – Fuselage Section
Photo – Cjboffoli / Wikipedia

There are also other sources of delay in moving the Boeing 787 program forward on schedule. The complexity in delivering a breakthrough, next generation aircraft through production, and then fulfilling multiple orders from airlines around the world should never be underestimated. The story of fuselage fasteners is a good illustration of the challenge.

Construction of composite fuselage section, no sound.

Granted thousands of fasteners have been eliminated with the adoption of a composite fuselage, but thousands are still required. Many of these are aluminum and Alcoa is the supplier. Following 9-11, Alcoa reduced its work force by 40% and was not in a position to adequately fulfill the Boeing contract for Dreamliner fasteners.

As you can imagine, quality standards are stringent. While Alcoa plays catch-up, parts are being delivered to Boeing with temporary fasteners, some of which are everyday hardware store items. These will be removed and replaced, which in turn creates yet another potential problem that has to be inspected. Composite parts are sensitive to clamping pressure and installation force. Those parts that were temporarily held together with low grade fasteners will have to be re-inspected for structural defects after final fastener upgrade. This issue is mission critical to state the obvious.

Walk through Boeing Assembly Plant during last stages of building 787-8 prototype

The Rollout Ceremony for the first Dreamliner 787-8 prototype was held on July 8, 2007. Mitsubishi built the carbon-fiber wings and Alenia Aeronautica in Italy delivered the horizontal stabilizer. American manufacturers of composite parts included Boeing who built the vertical tail fin; and Spirit Aerosystems, manufacturers of the nose and cockpit section that was 42’ (12.8 m) long, 19’ (5.74 m) wide and 21’ (6.4 m) in height. Vought delivered two rear sections. Rolls Royce engines were shipped from the UK on June 7 and June 21, 2007.

Boeing 787–8 / Rollout, July 8, 2007
Photo – markjhandel / Wikipedia

There are three variants of the Boeing 787. The 787-8 is now planned to enter commercial service in 2010 with a typical seating configuration for 210-242 passengers and range of 7650 to 8200 nautical miles (14,200 to 15,200 km). The 787-9 should make its debut in 2013. It has a ‘stretched fuselage’ and will seat 250-290 passengers with a range of 8,000 to 8,500 nm (14,800 to 15,750 km). The 787-3 is a shorter range aircraft with a range of 2500 to 3050 nm (4,650 to 5,650 km) and a 290 passenger configuration. It is designed to compete with, then replace the Airbus A300/Airbus A310 and Boeing’s 757-300/Boeing 767-200 on short regional routes between large cities. Production problems have yet to be completely solved and there is no projected date for its entry into the travel market.

First estimates of entry date for any new commercial aircraft are always extended because the complexities attending assembly, testing and integration of multiple international partners are formidable.

Piaggio p.180 / Composite Fuselage Cracks -

Italy / Piaggio P.180
Photo – 0lorenzo0 / Wikipedia

A dramatic post by ‘Kenavo’ appeared on July 6, 2009 on Securite Aerienne, an aviation security, industry blog whose contributors include pilots, engineers and industry professionals. ‘Kenavo’ describes himself as a former structural engineer – country and corporation not identified – who worked with composites 20 years ago. He left that industry when he realized that composite tensile strength falls off continuously over time. The plastic resin outgasses plasticizer and becomes more brittle with time. Composite part failure – cracks, breakage – can occur without warning. Aircraft frames built from metals have fatigue limits below which strength does not fail.

Now a pilot, ‘Kenavo’ describes that in 2002, his personal aircraft, which was built without composite parts and had logged 10,000 flight hours, had no cracks in the airframe. On one poignant day, ‘Kenavo’’s plane was parked next to a composite Piaggio executive aircraft. The Piaggio with 700 hours of flight time had multiple cracks all over the fuselage that were very visible.

Piaggio Avanti / takeoff and landing

The Piaggio Avanti uses composite parts in the tail, engine nacelles, canards, outboard wing flaps, landing gear doors and tail cone. I cannot determine whether current Piaggio Avanti models are 10% or 40% composite by weight. Regardless, ‘Kenavo’’s report is extremely serious unless the aircraft he observed was a one off ‘lemon’. Is the FAA not releasing the complete story on composite frailty as ‘Kenavo’ claims? Are Boeing and Airbus glossing over composite part weaknesses or have they conquered these long known structural problems? It is impossible for anyone outside these two giant corporations to know with any certainty. This story has many chapters yet to be written.

Sources -

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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