F35's cleared for flight!!

[richtea78]

jimbobsimmonds said:

Drones cannot think... 30 years down the line maybe but even then I would imagine it will be in a support role to manned assets.

Aren't the drones at the moment controlled from a ground station anyway? I wasn't meaning some sort of autonomous drone but more an extension of what we have now?

Given the amount spent on the F35 how much could drones have been advanced the same

[onyx39]

richtea78 said:

jimbobsimmonds said:

Drones cannot think... 30 years down the line maybe but even then I would imagine it will be in a support role to manned assets.

Aren't the drones at the moment controlled from a ground station anyway? I wasn't meaning some sort of autonomous drone but more an extension of what we have now?

Given the amount spent on the F35 how much could drones have been advanced the same

I am sure I read recently that 6th generation (the F35 is fifth generation) aircraft would in some cases be "pilotless"

[aeropilot]

I don't think any modern mil airforce will want to 'rely' on a 100% drone fleet - again too many eggs in one basket, and if you're date link comms get taken out en-masse you fooked.......so, people shouldn't get too fixated by drones.

[maffski]

FourWheelDrift said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Eurof...

The X-35 first flew in 2000, F-35A in 2006 and the first F-35B in 2008 and the B model is expected to be in service in December 2015 with the US Marine Corps, 1 year before the USAF get their A models.

Now I'm not saying the Eurofighter was a slow development (but I do think it was) but the F-35B has been positively rushed by comparison to it and others.

The F-35 project uses 'concurrent production' - as soon as the prototype was shown to be safe to fly they started building production examples, the idea being that electronics/software etc. can be added in when ready.

The trouble is any structural issues that take a while to show up can then lead to 100+ aircraft being grounded and retrofitted with new parts - a traditional development phase would normally identify and correct these issues without it being public, but would mean extra years before flight crews get access to the first aircraft.

[richtea78]

Im not totally off though

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28294239

BAE and Dassault are working on them at least!

[Mave]

richtea78 said:

Couldn't they do it with a range of different drones? Wouldn't they be smaller as no pilot so not need to be as armoured therefore less expensive and less of an issue if shot down?

What am I missing?

The F35 isn't armoured, and if you did a trade of pilot and equipment vs instrumentation necessary to fly remotely, I don't think there'd be much difference in size and it may be more expensive...

[Hilts]

Why does this thing look so bad?

/opens can of worms.

[FourWheelDrift]

Hilts said:

Why does this thing look so bad?

/opens can of worms.

Did you see Boeing's X-32 that it beat in the tender process?

[Hilts]

FourWheelDrift said:

Did you see Boeing's X-32 that it beat in the tender process?

It must have been close.

[FourWheelDrift]

We had our own in development the P.125 but it was cancelled in favour of the American fiasco.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Aerospace_P.1...



Just imagine what the monumental overbudget fkup that would have been.

[Eric Mc]

Would this have ever worked -

[rhinochopig]

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

mcdjl said:

If it goes wrong the computer than also selects eject.

I wouldn't want some computer(s) deciding to eject me from my a/c!

Computers have been deciding what aeroplanes do for years. Pilots joined the ranks of self loading luggage some time ago.

[Mojocvh]

Mave said:

richtea78 said:

Couldn't they do it with a range of different drones? Wouldn't they be smaller as no pilot so not need to be as armoured therefore less expensive and less of an issue if shot down?

What am I missing?

The F35 isn't armoured, and if you did a trade of pilot and equipment vs instrumentation necessary to fly remotely, I don't think there'd be much difference in size and it may be more expensive...

Not only ^^that^^ it also has no fire suppression system fitted, no electrical system safety devices ie no CB's, and uses fuel to both cool and as a hydraulic medium to an unprecedented level. Fuel tank are inerted with n2 but the operators are very cagey of lightning...it's stealthy but now officially only from the front, it cannot match the current generations transonic acceleration ie "running away bravely" It has a single engine that does two jobs, it weights just as much as a current twin engined fighter and has a wing area half that of current aircraft...Oh yeah, how about a confirmed upfront price then.

Now about the reduction in the airframe kinematics to gen 3 level....the sudden shift in US maintenance planning that may exclude us from those so lucrative maintenance opportunities??




So, whats NOT to like?

[Hilts]

Eric Mc said:

Would this have ever worked -

Looks a bit like a Sea Harrier.

[Eric Mc]

If it had entered service, there would have been no need for the Sea Harrier.

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

rhinochopig said:

Computers have been deciding what aeroplanes do for years. Pilots joined the ranks of self loading luggage some time ago.

That's not strictly true. Anyway, there's a pretty fundemental difference between 'Fly by Wire' and 'BANG by wire'!

24G up the spine is bad enough when you have a good ejection posture, it's a nightmare when you don't.

Murphy's Law dictates that if you have a computer based decision to eject then at some stage the computer will decide to eject the pilot.

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

Eric Mc said:

Would this have ever worked -

Sadly not.

For supersonic (or even high transonic) flight, as well as the heavy weight VTO, P1154 required 'plenum chamber burning', ie effectively a reheat system in the forward (hot air) nozzles.

This could never be got to work satisfactorily. Indeed, according to John Farley (the Harrier Test Pilot) it probably never would work.

[Hilts]

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

Murphy's Law dictates that if you have a computer based decision to eject then at some stage the computer will decide to eject the pilot.

Saving their life when they fk up.

[rhinochopig]

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

rhinochopig said:

Computers have been deciding what aeroplanes do for years. Pilots joined the ranks of self loading luggage some time ago.

That's not strictly true. Anyway, there's a pretty fundemental difference between 'Fly by Wire' and 'BANG by wire'!

24G up the spine is bad enough when you have a good ejection posture, it's a nightmare when you don't.

Murphy's Law dictates that if you have a computer based decision to eject then at some stage the computer will decide to eject the pilot.

OK fair point but Gen 4.5 and true Gen 5 aircraft are utterly un-flyable without the computer-system. I doubt the pilot would have the time to make that decision, so bad posture vs no bang are probably the two realistic options.

And you have a point re the computer systems. It's a very thorny topic. I'm doing some research on this very topic at work - well a little broader - and the advent of glass-cockpits has seen, depending on which data sets you look at, no difference in fatal air-crash rates when compared to 'steam gauges', to demonstrably worse.

[FourWheelDrift]

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

Eric Mc said:

Would this have ever worked -

Sadly not.

For supersonic (or even high transonic) flight, as well as the heavy weight VTO, P1154 required 'plenum chamber burning', ie effectively a reheat system in the forward (hot air) nozzles.

This could never be got to work satisfactorily. Indeed, according to John Farley (the Harrier Test Pilot) it probably never would work.

What about if it only used the rear nozzles when in horizontal flight, the front nozzles being turned off when swivelled up after take off and forward flight is achieved. Then divert the thrust from the rear nozzles back into the fuselage and into a normal single jet exhaust with a fully functioning reheat.