Off the shelf gear in military a/c

Hey all...

Has there been a move towards using consumer goods, particularly
electronics, on military a/c? I was watching something about the AWACS
recently and I thought to myself "I wonder how those systems are all
networked." - which set the ball rolling and I began to wonder if indeed
there were coax or RJ45 connectors someplace underneath all of that leading
into 10/100 or 10BaseT network cards.


--
http://www.delversdungeon.dragonsfoot.org
Remove the X's in my email address to respond.
"Damn you Silvey, and your endless fortunes." - Stephen Weir
I hate furries.

When we were producing CPUs for the military we built all to MilSpec and
tested to that spec. Those that passed were sold to the military for one
price. Those that did not went for personal computers sold to the public at
a lower price. Both parties were happy

WDA

end

"Bill Silvey" wrote in message
...
Hey all...

Has there been a move towards using consumer goods, particularly
electronics, on military a/c? I was watching something about the AWACS
recently and I thought to myself "I wonder how those systems are all
networked." - which set the ball rolling and I began to wonder if indeed
there were coax or RJ45 connectors someplace underneath all of that
leading
into 10/100 or 10BaseT network cards.


--
http://www.delversdungeon.dragonsfoot.org
Remove the X's in my email address to respond.
"Damn you Silvey, and your endless fortunes." - Stephen Weir
I hate furries.

Bill Silvey wrote in message
...
Hey all...

Has there been a move towards using consumer goods, particularly
electronics, on military a/c? I was watching something about the
AWACS
recently and I thought to myself "I wonder how those systems are all
networked." - which set the ball rolling and I began to wonder if
indeed
there were coax or RJ45 connectors someplace underneath all of that
leading
into 10/100 or 10BaseT network cards.


Yes, there is a push to use more COTS (commercial, off-the-shelf)
equipment where possible.

--

Scott
--------
"Interestingly, we started to lose this war only after the embedded
reporters pulled out. Back when we got the news directly from Iraq,
there was victory and optimism. Now that the news is filtered through
the mainstream media here in America, all we hear is death and
destruction and quagmire..." Ann Coulter
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2003/091703.htm

On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 17:06:09 -0500, "tscottme"
wrote:

Bill Silvey wrote in message
m...
Hey all...

Has there been a move towards using consumer goods, particularly
electronics, on military a/c? I was watching something about the
AWACS
recently and I thought to myself "I wonder how those systems are all
networked." - which set the ball rolling and I began to wonder if
indeed
there were coax or RJ45 connectors someplace underneath all of that
leading
into 10/100 or 10BaseT network cards.


Yes, there is a push to use more COTS (commercial, off-the-shelf)
equipment where possible.

Such that the ANR (Active Noise Reduction) equipment (and I believe
much else) on the modern US combat vehicle crewman's helmet/headset is
basically Bose's commercial gear, only ruggedized, AFAIK.

Apparently, the sound quality (and the improvement in hearing
protection) is measurably better than the previous version used with
the VIC/3. I BELIEVE variants of the same helmet design are due to
find themselves in the helmets of helo pilots, but am unsure. The
basic pattern is the same, anyhow: Where they can pull it off without
a quality difference, usually the military will just buy ruggedized
versions of commercial gear. So, not ENTIRELY the stuff one can buy at
CompUSA (namely, the government gets their cabling manufactured by
white-collar criminals at your friendly neighborhood medium-security
prison for a lot less than minimum wage (whereas CompUSA's cabling is
made in China for a lot less than minimum wage)), but close.

John

When I was still on active duty, we were doing some navigation experiments
with moving map technology in the MC-130E. Basically we took a handheld
Garmin GPS and cabled it to two Dell laptops running a flight planning
program. Additionally we did some radio tie-ins to get real time e-mail
over HF for inflight updates. besides text, we pushed photos from plane to
ground, plane to plane and ground to plane. All was commercial software,
and except for the secure HF radio it was commercial hardware.
--
Les
F-4C(WW),D,E,G(WW)/AC-130A/MC-130E EWO (ret)



"John Penta" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 17:06:09 -0500, "tscottme"
wrote:

Bill Silvey wrote in message
m...
Hey all...

Has there been a move towards using consumer goods, particularly
electronics, on military a/c? I was watching something about the
AWACS
recently and I thought to myself "I wonder how those systems are all
networked." - which set the ball rolling and I began to wonder if
indeed
there were coax or RJ45 connectors someplace underneath all of that
leading
into 10/100 or 10BaseT network cards.

In article rI7fb.45205$a16.36568@lakeread01, "Les Matheson"
wrote:

When I was still on active duty, we were doing some navigation experiments
with moving map technology in the MC-130E. Basically we took a handheld
Garmin GPS and cabled it to two Dell laptops running a flight planning
program. Additionally we did some radio tie-ins to get real time e-mail
over HF for inflight updates. besides text, we pushed photos from plane to
ground, plane to plane and ground to plane. All was commercial software,
and except for the secure HF radio it was commercial hardware.

Commercial GPS works OK in a transport, even a transport with weapons :-)
But you didn't tie the commercial GPS in to the weapons system.
The reason is that it does not have the data rate nor the accuracy to
target weapons.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

Didn't say we did tie it in to weapons, besides the MC-130E doesn't have any
weapons aside from the BLU-82 (and we can already put that where we need
to). We already had a GPS on the plane. We used the hand held only as a
demonstrator, because we had no way (without megabucks mod) to get GPS into
the laptop software. Our purpose was to demonstrate the application, so we
could push for the megabucks mod.

--
Les
F-4C(WW),D,E,G(WW)/AC-130A/MC-130E EWO (ret)

"Harry Andreas" wrote in message
...
In article rI7fb.45205$a16.36568@lakeread01, "Les Matheson"
wrote:

When I was still on active duty, we were doing some navigation
experiments
with moving map technology in the MC-130E. Basically we took a handheld
Garmin GPS and cabled it to two Dell laptops running a flight planning
program. Additionally we did some radio tie-ins to get real time e-mail
over HF for inflight updates. besides text, we pushed photos from plane
to
ground, plane to plane and ground to plane. All was commercial
software,
and except for the secure HF radio it was commercial hardware.

Commercial GPS works OK in a transport, even a transport with weapons :-)
But you didn't tie the commercial GPS in to the weapons system.
The reason is that it does not have the data rate nor the accuracy to
target weapons.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

Not aircraft, to be sure, but the Marines in Iraq much preferred
civilian GPS models to military issue.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

"Cub Driver" wrote in message Not aircraft, to be sure, but the Marines
in Iraq much preferred
civilian GPS models to military issue.

all the best -- Dan Ford
Haven't hearde from Tex recently?
"Tex Houston" wrote in message
...
Does it contain anything about military aviation?

Tex

Haven't hearde from Tex recently?

Perhaps he's in my kill file?

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com