Scantlings

This is really interesting to watch:


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvbGiuKbmGM[/youtube]

Wow. Next time I get stuck in the back of the bus I won't feel so bad.

Thanks for posting that Beau. I had not seen that one.

Steve

Bestpart of that is the data collected went into design requirements for safer new aircraft. The line between survivable and non survivable got pushed a bit to the left because of it. A lot of folks probably survived Asiana 214 due to those improved requirements.

Not to mention the pilot was a former Navy fighter pilot who trained at Pax and learned to remotely fly the drone F-4's at Pt Mugu as part of the test and evaluation squadron there.

LarryHoward wrote:Bestpart of that is the data collected went into design requirements for safer new aircraft. The line between survivable and non survivable got pushed a bit to the left because of it. A lot of folks probably survived Asiana 214 due to those improved requirements.

Not to mention the pilot was a former Navy fighter pilot who trained at Pax and learned to remotely fly the drone F-4's at Pt Mugu as part of the test and evaluation squadron there.

This place is AMAZING!! I LOVE IT!!!

Who knew we (as a group) would know this stuff!??!

Yet, the plane hit 1,000 feet short of the designated LZ.

Was it flown in remotely? I hear the engines change pitch shortly before impact. Is that just doppler effect? or did someone remotely pull throttle?

Tim Ford wrote:Yet, the plane hit 1,000 feet short of the designated LZ.

Was it flown in remotely? I hear the engines change pitch shortly before impact. Is that just doppler effect? or did someone remotely pull throttle?

They were short but in an acceptable location and the power pull was to plant the aircraft. It was being flown remotely by a pilot in the chase aircraft. Test had specific angle and rate of descent at impact requirements that trumped adding power to get back that 1000' (or 4 aircraft lengths...). Once the crew jumped, I'm sure the flight clearance did not allow for another circle under remote control so it was a one chance deal and the actual impact parameters trump exact landing location.

Fun part is that remotely piloted full scale aircraft normally require a flight termination system that "immediately and permanently terminated aerodynamic flight" as it was in the QF-4 and QF-16 requirement. Usually, that's an explosive charge that kills the engine, breaks the wing spat and severs flight controls. Don't know if this "One time test" required the system but for normal target drones, it prevents "runaways".

When I was with "another company" we did all of the F-4 to QF-4 conversions and lost the competition to do the F-16 to QF-16 conversion. Somewhere I have a disc with a compilation of unintended full scale crashes as folks developed those control systems.

WOW! Did I just figure out that folks can fly a F-16 from their garden chair out back.... ????

That would be SO COOL!!

I can't remember the story, but someplace in my old Analog magazines there is a story about why fighters will be un-manned and will swarm around the mother ships. Simply put, it's because the plane can do so much more than the pilot can live through (pulling Gs in turns) and the plane is much more expendible than the pilot. Also, if you take out all the stuff for the pilot, the fighter becomes a lot lighter/smaller/faster etc... I've been wondering when that story will become real for years. Drone bombers are cool, but drone fighters would be the bomb. (Maybe that last sentence has things mixed )

Anyone remember the Furry Freak Bros strip with the remote control car?

[quote="BeauV"]WOW! Did I just figure out that folks can fly a F-16 from their garden chair out back.... ????

That would be SO COOL!!

I can't remember the story, but someplace in my old Analog magazines there is a story about why fighters will be un-manned and will swarm around the mother ships. Simply put, it's because the plane can do so much more than the pilot can live through (pulling Gs in turns) and the plane is much more expendible than the pilot. Also, if you take out all the stuff for the pilot, the fighter becomes a lot lighter/smaller/faster etc... I've been wondering when that story will become real for years. Drone bombers are cool, but drone fighters would be the bomb. (Maybe that last sentence has things mixed )[/quote

It's more fun that some tiny quadcopter.....

It all comes down to bandwidth and sensor to shooter timeline. I could write a chapter but I have work I'm supposed to be doing but the issue comes down to data or information or intelligence and how it gets used. Drones such as Predator and Reaper are really "remotely piloted Aircraft" (RPA) and require an full aircrew on the ground (Creech) other than transit and station keeping stuff. ISR platforms such as Global Hawk autonomously fly their missions but can be redirected in flight. For a fighter drone, you have to think about the 4-6 MSLOC in the aircraft, the fusion of multiple sensors and display of data of Information (processed data), detection, tracking, identifying, and prosecution a target and most importantly, a decision to engage/kill. A trailed pilot takes all that info, fuses it into actionable intelligence and then uses a combination of skill, equipment and intuition to engage in a kill or be killed scenario. Using rule sets and AI, we can give the drone the ability to do all that. There are a lot of questions about giving it autonomous clearance to fire, both practical and ethical. Taking the human out of the loop is a slippery slope. trying to give the drone 99% capability but keeping a human in the loop means a fully engaged crew on the ground with a gigabyte "pipe" to provide them access to all the data that the aircraft is privy to. Throw in the every present "fog of war" and it gets really hard from a command, authority and responsibility standpoint.