The Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration Program: A New Dawn for Naval Aviation?

tomcervo wrote:

On Jul 13, 11:29?pm, "Milton Wirth" wrote:


Advantages
of getting the humans out of the aircraft far outweigh adantages of
having humans onboard.



Is there a known percentage of how much of an airframe is dedicated to
protecting the pilot or compensating for human physical limitations?



Well for a start? No cockpit needed, no O2 system, no ejection seat, no
G load blackout. While Not a great movie, The Film "Stealth", Jammie
Foxx & Jessica Biel dealt with operating such a system. It clearly has
some advantages...

On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 07:46:24 -0400, Tiger
wrote:

tomcervo wrote:

On Jul 13, 11:29?pm, "Milton Wirth" wrote:


Advantages
of getting the humans out of the aircraft far outweigh adantages of
having humans onboard.



Is there a known percentage of how much of an airframe is dedicated to
protecting the pilot or compensating for human physical limitations?



Well for a start? No cockpit needed, no O2 system, no ejection seat, no
G load blackout. While Not a great movie, The Film "Stealth", Jammie
Foxx & Jessica Biel dealt with operating such a system. It clearly has
some advantages...

I think the main advantage will turn out to be elimination of the
G restrictions.


Peter Skelton

"Peter Skelton" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 07:46:24 -0400, Tiger
wrote:

tomcervo wrote:

On Jul 13, 11:29?pm, "Milton Wirth" wrote:


Advantages
of getting the humans out of the aircraft far outweigh adantages of
having humans onboard.



Is there a known percentage of how much of an airframe is dedicated to
protecting the pilot or compensating for human physical limitations?



Well for a start? No cockpit needed, no O2 system, no ejection seat, no
G load blackout. While Not a great movie, The Film "Stealth", Jammie
Foxx & Jessica Biel dealt with operating such a system. It clearly has
some advantages...

I think the main advantage will turn out to be elimination of the
G restrictions.

Not really. The sensor suite and latency in control doesn't make these
things ideal for turning and burning. Higher fuel fraction leads to greater
persistency, elimination of crew makes stealth easier to achieve and the
asset better for high threat environments. A cheaper, smaller and more
readily disposable interdiction tool. The price is you've eliminated the
decision maker in the cockpit, something you can't always and wouldn't
always want to do.

R / John

On Jul 15, 12:15 pm, "John Carrier" wrote:

Not really. The sensor suite and latency in control doesn't make these
things ideal for turning and burning. Higher fuel fraction leads to greater
persistency, elimination of crew makes stealth easier to achieve and the
asset better for high threat environments. A cheaper, smaller and more
readily disposable interdiction tool. The price is you've eliminated the
decision maker in the cockpit, something you can't always and wouldn't
always want to do.

R / John

With respect to your years of experience John I've heard that
argument and agree there will always be situations that back it. But
I've also seen counter examples.
Harlan Reep used to fly as a contractor here for decades. He was a
combat vet and normally flew the drones in the live A/A tests.
Occasionaly he would fly other targets in non-shooting tests and flew
for us several times when I was working in flight test (89-91.)
I remember near the end of his career he flew a QF-86 against a
couple Hornets. It was the last Sabre drone in our inventory so there
was a lot of attention/nostalgia on the test. It was planned that the
Sabre would be shot down even if it survived the test so both Hornets
went up with the test missiles and rounds for the cannon.
In a nutshell the Sabre survived the test, and then they allowed
players to go into the shootdown with Harlan being allowed to 'do his
best' to evade. He did, and although there was some hits, the Hornets
landed with empty magazines and racks. IIRC Harlan crashed the drone
because they didn't want to take the chance that thee was damage to
the drone that would cause a crash on landing. They featured a story
on the encounter in the Base paper so it wasn't just O'club stories
that I remember this from. Of course, I _do_ remember some of the
O'club excuses being offered that week (ie. he didn't have to
worry about g-block, he could 'fly the wings off... etc.)

All in all it made a great day for all the nostalgiac people who had
been involved with the Sabre's during their years of use as targets
here at the Lake.

BB

I guess everybody has some mountain to climb.
It's just fate whether you live in Kansas or Tibet...

"BlackBeard" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Jul 15, 12:15 pm, "John Carrier" wrote:

Not really. The sensor suite and latency in control doesn't make these
things ideal for turning and burning. Higher fuel fraction leads to
greater
persistency, elimination of crew makes stealth easier to achieve and the
asset better for high threat environments. A cheaper, smaller and more
readily disposable interdiction tool. The price is you've eliminated the
decision maker in the cockpit, something you can't always and wouldn't
always want to do.

R / John

With respect to your years of experience John I've heard that
argument and agree there will always be situations that back it. But
I've also seen counter examples.
Harlan Reep used to fly as a contractor here for decades. He was a
combat vet and normally flew the drones in the live A/A tests.
Occasionaly he would fly other targets in non-shooting tests and flew
for us several times when I was working in flight test (89-91.)
I remember near the end of his career he flew a QF-86 against a
couple Hornets. It was the last Sabre drone in our inventory so there
was a lot of attention/nostalgia on the test. It was planned that the
Sabre would be shot down even if it survived the test so both Hornets
went up with the test missiles and rounds for the cannon.
In a nutshell the Sabre survived the test, and then they allowed
players to go into the shootdown with Harlan being allowed to 'do his
best' to evade. He did, and although there was some hits, the Hornets
landed with empty magazines and racks. IIRC Harlan crashed the drone
because they didn't want to take the chance that thee was damage to
the drone that would cause a crash on landing. They featured a story
on the encounter in the Base paper so it wasn't just O'club stories
that I remember this from. Of course, I _do_ remember some of the
O'club excuses being offered that week (ie. he didn't have to
worry about g-block, he could 'fly the wings off... etc.)

All in all it made a great day for all the nostalgiac people who had
been involved with the Sabre's during their years of use as targets
here at the Lake.

A somewhat simpler exercise with latency NOT a problem. I was thinking on
the order of a machine being maneuvered somewhere in Afghanistan by a driver
in Colo Springs. When you consider the distances, even at the speed of
light the satellite relay and delay offer enough time to make the job
difficult. Perhaps with sufficient nintendo skills, that might be overcome.

R / John

On Jul 15, 2:49 pm, "John Carrier" wrote:

A somewhat simpler exercise with latency NOT a problem. I was thinking on
the order of a machine being maneuvered somewhere in Afghanistan by a driver
in Colo Springs. When you consider the distances, even at the speed of
light the satellite relay and delay offer enough time to make the job
difficult. Perhaps with sufficient nintendo skills, that might be overcome.


Perhaps you are right. For the record I believe we are a very long
way away from the 'pilotless air battle' scenario. But I can't help
but wonder if the scales will tip when technology allows virtual
cockpits or other devices that can let the remote pilot obtain SA
comparable or better than piloted vehicles. One pilot in the virtual
cockpit and 3 WSO's monitoring sensors and aux systems? An independent
rear-facing gunner or two (bring back the TBF
If you can build a half-dozen small UCAV's (RPV's) for the price of
one JSF and pilot, any latency problems might be negated by the
ability to send up 3v1. Then if everyone moves to RPV's the the
latency problems balance each other out.
Just some thoughts...

BB

I guess everybody has some mountain to climb.
It's just fate whether you live in Kansas or Tibet...

John Carrier wrote:
SNIP

A somewhat simpler exercise with latency NOT a problem. I was thinking on
the order of a machine being maneuvered somewhere in Afghanistan by a driver
in Colo Springs. When you consider the distances, even at the speed of
light the satellite relay and delay offer enough time to make the job
difficult. Perhaps with sufficient nintendo skills, that might be overcome.

R / John



Apparently they've done/tried to use simulators in Australia vs
simulators in USA (F/A-18) for air combat..

The latency was a problem...

It doesn't matter how good your "nintendo skills" are.. You can't get
information there/back fast enough to do real time combat

On Jul 15, 7:48 pm, Kerryn Offord wrote:


Not air combat, but a kissin' cousin...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070715/D8QD61V80.html

The new 'Reapers' being deployed.

BB

I guess everybody has some mountain to climb.
It's just fate whether you live in Kansas or Tibet...