F-35 Chief Test Pilot Comments

The following are comments regarding the F-35 by Joint Strike Fighter chief test pilot Jon Beesley. Jon Beesley a former U.S. Air Force test pilot was the senior project pilot for the F-22, and is credited with being the first to pilot the F-22 through the sound barrier in 1998.

Beesley has stated that the F-35 will have the electro-optical targeting system and a new distributed aperture system working independently providing long-range detection and precision targeting and a full 360-degree infrared view around the aircraft. The DAS consists of many electronic sensors placed strategically at multiple locations on the aircraft.

Beesley also said that the F-35 is the first aircraft developed in a long time that will not have a heads-up-display. Instead F-35 pilots will wear helmet mounted displays.

"DAS is basically missile launch detectors," Beesely said. "We've got all this information in IR and these [sensors] will paint a picture. So basically we've got DAS sensors all around and they can look everyplace. You can take that imagery, with a helmet, you could put it up in front of your face and you can see in infrared everything that those sensors see."

Theoretically, with enough sensors on the aircraft, a pilot can look down where he would normally see his knees, and essentially see through the structure of the aircraft to a target directly below.

The F-35A1 should fly in the fall of 2006, the first STOVL aircraft (F-35B) should fly in late 2007, and the F-35B2 is expected to fly early in 2008.The first Navy JSF (F-35C) is scheduled to fly in 2009.

Source: DC Military.Com

sounds like an interesting mod of the gunnery system in the AH-64 Apache. I just hope they can make the helmet light enough. (then again, considering the displays on modern cameras and camcorders, that shouldn't be difficult.)

Cool DAS, giving new meaning to "HEADs"-up-display.

Nice.

Shattered OUT...

It will also include FLIR (forward looking infra red) and IRST (infra red search and track). This DAS package is currently testing as center line pod on F-16's for recon.

JSF will also have EOTS (electro optical targeting system) to provide long-range detection and precision targeting.

High-resolution images from the multiple DAS sensors will provide a 360-degree spherical view around and through the aircraft, dramatically increasing the pilot's situational awareness for combat and for STOVL operations.
Flights test Electro-Optical sensors for the F-35 JSF

Oh, and an AN/APG-81 Multi-Mission Active Electronically Scanned (AESA) Radar also.
AESA = active electronically scanned array.
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Mission Systems Sensors

Edited to add: AN/APG-81, and switch to [ex] usage... duh me...

[edit on 16-1-2006 by ZPE StarPilot]

[edit on 16-1-2006 by ZPE StarPilot]

It is being designed by BaE Systems

www.baesystems.com...

A bit deceptive to say the least.

Given that stroke symbology based jet-HMDS have been around since the early 1980's with McDonnell/Kaiser's Agile Eye system (and the unabashed Israeli copies known as DASH) having served through multiple generations (DASH is now up to 4 or 5).

And various (AAR-47 goes back to the late 70s and the AAR-34 on the F-111 as a 'tail warner' even further) optical MAWS installations are now available for not only the F-22 (AAR-56) but ALL jets.

OTOH, making the system display raster data _usefully_ (FOV bigger than a monacle ala IHADSS) is usually about sacrificing infinity projection to give a faceplate display with all the spatial warping and imagery tearing that that implies from a micro-CRT.

And no one has bothered to fill the 'bio channel bandwidth' with multiple /layered/ (subliminal biofeedback loop training required) display levels, effectively mimicking the MMD/SAD/DDD level displays as well as those of outside vision using direct retinal projection with the much lighter laser diodes that are now available. Diodes which, conveniently, can also track EYE movements rather than head based ones (doubling your tracker rate hz requirement but halving your directional axis measurement problems using magnetic element or LED helmet tracking).

All of which could theoretically offer /incredible/ improvements in both G-saturated maneuvering combat (face forward global displays that track an enemy without helmet-fatigue such as JHMCS imposes) and in task/data saturated equivalents (the best way to duck _multiple_ missiles as are likely under HOBS conditions is to see them as a PPD vector on a one display with triggered auto-evasion and expendables bloom. Another consideration being truly effective single-seat, 'multirole' missioning where pilot interpretation of several stacks of EOTS imagery did not interfere with his general flying/scanning discipline).

Speaking of the latter 'boat rower' mode, it is also generally a DUMB thing to do to put not merely sensors but _viewing perspectives_ around the jet circumference without a constant reference for (airframe masking) features as you are continually inducing vertigonous as well as spatial cognition errors by having the nose sensor cluster transition to the equivalent tail group over a 50ft displacement of airframe.

Something we discovered with Falcon Eye in front of the canopy vs. Pathfinder under the inlet (a mere 6ft difference) way the heck back in 1987-88 I think it was.

I also have a VERY hard time believing that these IIR imagers are going to provide framing sufficiently fast to give non-latented image artifacts while meeting decision loop minimums on things like STOVL or CVTOL landings.

Since basically you are looking at doped detectors designed to pick up missile plumes at distances where 4-10 frames per second, in binocular overlap (effective 8-20fps 'dual channel'), is more than sufficient to rangefind.

I know that a similar design on the AAS-42, while it would show images easily sufficient to judge a 'good approach' had such a slow framerate that you could literally see the scanline progress. And thus to trust it to make corrections on a bad one was suicide (i.e. the real difference between visionic aid and surveillance system is detail-at-rate in the near field rather than range-resolution at distance).

In general, the only pertinent data is therefore this-

>>
The F-35A1 should fly in the fall of 2006, the first STOVL aircraft (F-35B) should fly in late 2007, and the F-35B2 is expected to fly early in 2008.The first Navy JSF (F-35C) is scheduled to fly in 2009.
>>

Which, while nothing really new, at least confirms to the stock owners and 'other interested parties' that the future of JSF will be decided, as a function of production ramp commit, SOLELY by the CTOL version in 2006 which means that export orders (and early production lot commitments) will be secure LONG before any of the 'other services must have LO too!' (original justification for the whole damn program) variants can muddy the waters with continued weight and cost vs. complexity problems related to their peculiar operating or landing requirements.

As usual, complete and utter waste has a pretty face and nobody bothers to check for cloven hoofs beneath the lipstick.


KPl.


Keep in mind folks-

1. Nobody needs visionics if they are landing via JPALS with a 19" scatter error.

2. Nobody needs MAWS sensors if they are not being shot at by threat weapons apt to still be burning on terminal approach (RF LO in action).

3. 1+2 defeat the notion that you would 'have to have it on any modern airframe so the cost makes the pilot a might as well' condition. BUT.
If you put the same DAS-as-MAWS+SAIRST+BDA flash on a UCAV, purely for 'just in case' reasoning, along with EOTS and XTRA, the above rules would still apply but the tacair communities training, both UPT and Currency which now runs about EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS PER ANNUM would still be removed from the equation. Which means a 1,500 airframe robot force could pay for itself in about 6 years.

4. An airframe which cannot loiter cannot see _squat_. Presence is everything. Because targeting the terrorist on donkeyback is like targeting the submarine in a blue void of ocean. Hours and hours of sanitizing great-wide-nothin'. Followed by a fleeting instant of acquistion and recognition and tasking with perversely NO TIME LEFT before Poncho Bin Laden rides right on out the otherside of your surv picture. Supersonics and hogs nose radars and a bubble canopy all add WEIGHT AND DRAG. Which is why a jet with almost 20,000lbs of fuel has a combat radius of 700nm and 20 minutes in the target area. While a robot has a combat radius of 1,100nm and TWO HOURS on station.

5. Performance costs. A decent UCAV should run about 10-15 million each. A systems-bloated and 'scaled up' UCAV should run about 25 million each. The current JSF planning within the Five Walled Asylum is for a jet which runs 95 million each. This effectively means there will be fewer pilots anyway. Which means if you are flying over not just one but ten sense-CAPs and each pilot can only stay for mere minutes, you will have about 16 percent of the total force structure (inventory) /by time/ you need to meet your commitments. And less than 1/10 of a percent of that needed by cost (95 million divided by fifty billion dollars) compared to a predominantly UCAV centric 'reconnaissance strike' capability.

THINK before you admire your favorite fighter pilot for the 256 BILLION dollars that are destined to be wasted on that damn piece of junk is your future. Your Social Security. Your medicare. Your kids college. All being mortgaged on a weapons system that can only make a profit (it's sole design superiority over all other options). If we export VLO worldwide and thus proliferate the threat of stealth, globally.

What's the point of making such a big post when the last 2 paragraphs makes the most sense? Like seriously, I've just stopped all together reading your opening paragraphs because usually your conclusion is all you need to put in the post.

Anyways, I don't believe that the JSF is a waste of money, and I don't think anyone here is praising a single test pilot. But then again that's my opinion.

Shattered OUT...

ch1466,
Apart from the heavy tech speech I was able to discern very little from the long and arduous post that you have put up. It could be due to my lack of understanding of the pre-requisites to comprehend what you are really saying.
But from what I was able to discern, I would like to ask why do you think that the Head mounted display would require the visual aids to orient the pilot? Wont the picture be presented to the pilot such that their is no disparity in the visual projections on all sides ?? I know that this is possible when it is run through a computer and modified.
Also the raster that you speak of, do you really believe that it would cause sufficient fatigue to make it debilitating?
I would say the need for the canopy would disappear if this technology were to be refined further and thus save costs. However marginal they may be!



[edit on 17-1-2006 by IAF101]

Interesting idea IAF101. the elmintation of the canopy would further the stealth of a aircraft which to the US and other nations is a huge deal. there would be a need for a fall back system though because if a pilot loses his display he is left in a lil box with nothign to tell him what the plane is doing and where it is. I could see this type of tech being used for any future high speed spy plane if the tech its self gets off the ground.

New image of the F-35 I just found with the flooring etc removed from around the plane. lol I havent even looked at it really cause I wanted you guys to see it as soon as possible.
www.jsf.mil...
Enjoy and I hope its ok with intelgurl that I posted it on her thread. figured that I'd just add it to the most resent thread.

edit: ok I've looked at it now and I must say I do like the curves and look of the plane. providing it doesn't get canned I cann't wait till Canada says they want some of that.

[edit on 17-1-2006 by Canada_EH]

So i desided to post the lil blurb they have before the picture too so you guys have some context for the picture and the mentioned engine test.

"The F-35A-1 was first weighed and then lifted by crane to its resting spot where its test engine will soon be inserted for the first time."
www.jsf.mil...

Nice... I have always liked the HELMET mounted model more... What is his military "rank" BTW...??

"Beesley also said that the F-35 is the first aircraft developed in a long time that will not have a heads-up-display. Instead F-35 pilots will wear helmet mounted displays."

Hrmm. That doesn't sound like the right thing to do. I understand the adoption of helmet mounted displays, but somehow the idea of eliminating a HUD sounds like a bad idea.

They arent elminating a HUD they are moving it even closer to the pilot and giving him that Hud information when he moves his head any of the 360 degrees. The HUD is usally only the small square of glass that critcal information is displayed. As most pilots know we dont need a HUD on the dash to fly a plane, it is mostly a convenince thing. What the JSF team is doing is puttign that same information on the glass of the pilots helmet. The pilot this way will never lose that critcal information when he moves his head to check his 6 or say a wingman.
My thought is that this featured as is it sounds it will be used on the 35 is a good thing when used with a pilot in a clear canopy cockpit(not closed as i earlier said), a second set of insturments on the panel and the ablity for the pilots eyes to double check pretty much anything (say a aircraft before its fired on) that appears on his helment mounted display.

IAF101,

I despise the F-35 and all that it represents as a monumental /waste/ of talent and money in our defense procurement establishment. For which no fiduciary responsibility is being assigned or expected of those engaged in what amounts to a massive (256 billion dollar) fraud.

Sometimes the only way I can express that hate is in details. If you were bored, I'm sorry.

>>
But from what I was able to discern, I would like to ask why do you think that the Head mounted display would require the visual aids to orient the pilot?
>>

First off, let's make a differentiation.

1. Canopy bows. instrument panel glareshields the sill-lines around the cockpit/canopy seal, wingtips/pylons/inlets are all good 'orientation points' for a pilot. As is a conventional HUD.

A cockpit floor is not because it means you are not looking outside the airplane and you ARE subject to 'elevatorism' (put your head down and hit the down button) of vertical axis G load and resulting disorientation.

Having recognizeable features located around the airframe helps prevent serious spatial and inertial decoupling of 'here I look, there I gooooo!' in which just a few degrees difference from where your head is pointing vs. where you guts and your inner ears are 'saying your body is headed' can seriously mess up your ability to fly and employ an aircraft as a weapons system.

It is so bad that F-16 pilots transitioning from the Eagle or Phantom cockpits were often told 'just keep your HUD/UFC in the middle third of your vision for the first few missions'. Because the lack of forward vision cues and the extremely low sill lines were that disorienting.

media.popularmechanics.com...

To which I would add that if you are bombing or shooting, it is better to do so through a focal point which remains firmly attached to the small movements of the airframe than on which tries to make your head responsible for stabilizing the sight picture. Not that dive toss or air to air manual gunnery are 'good things' to be doing with a 100 million dollar airframe...

2. The latter problem also references what I was talking about in regard to disjointed spatial positioning relative to a percieved vs. actual image presentation position.

In that you are 'jumping' (like a teleport or hyperspace) from sensor to sensor without any sense of the airframe inbetween while maintaining what could reasonably be called the same sense of head positioning. In this case, your guts (visceral motion of liquids and muscles in the intestines) are telling you the RIGHT thing but it's as if your eyes are magicially 'stretching' to a whole 'nother perspective.

Such can be equally dangerous because it encourages the 'virtual' part of your visual processing system to make leaps of imagination that are not correlative with what your eyes are really seeing. Something that is particularly dangerous if the images are in fact holographic with some 'see thru' effect to the real world and thus you are supplying your visual processing centers with an overlay of divergent rangepoint viewing perspectives.

It's so dangerous in carrier landings (both CVTOL and STOVL) that pilots are forbidden to use goggles in most cases.

>>
Wont the picture be presented to the pilot such that their is no disparity in the visual projections on all sides ?? I know that this is possible when it is run through a computer and modified.
>>

IMO, no.

The problem here is that the DAS is likely only about a 512X512 pixel array density (CMC electronics calls the IDA or Infrared Detector Assemblies a 'megapixel' array). Something that just about covers the palm of your hand.

There are six total apertures with one just in front of the canopy (tilted at a 45` angle) and on either side of the nose, 2-3feet below, tilted at 20-30`. And presumably 'somewhere' around the tail booms where exhaust gasses and stabilizer masking is not a problem.

Comparitively, your eyes are rather smaller in aperture size but they are _articulated_ so that a principal focal area or instantaneous field of regard perhaps 40-60` wide can be further 'scanned' both by the eyes themselves and by subsequent head movement which gracefully overcompensates as both eyes and body 'cage' back to center so that you have an effectively 100-120` wide total FOV.

To mimic this total FOV flexibility in experiments with the Falcon Eye-

www.codeonemagazine.com...

And now the operational (UAE) AAQ-32 IFTS-

www.hrvatski-vojnik.hr...

We needed to have a roughly double-fist sized optical ball mounted on a gimbal.

Comparitively, it seems unlikely to me that you can fuse the six IDAs imagery to form a synthetic global vision capability.

At best, IMO, you will get a 'tank commanders view port' system in which each sensor provides an image somewhat larger but FIXED as if you had nailed a digital camera to the a given perspective point and were 'tilting the floor' to change the image.

>>
Also the raster that you speak of, do you really believe that it would cause sufficient fatigue to make it debilitating?
>>

The problem with raster (line by line reproduction of an image, like a TV) is that, even with doubling, you can really never get more out than you put in. Thus if you want a high density image, you have to pay for it with either a collimated mirror path from a pretty hefty projector at the back of the helmet (which at least tends to keep the weight over the cervical vertebra but adds more volume and mass in the mirrors and is a royal /pain/ to keep callibrated).

Or you have to put a pretty big honkin' projector RIGHT IN OR NEXT TO the pilot's eyeline. Typically through side arrays close to the upper cheeks but also sometimes in a 'nose piece' over the top of the pilots glareshield.

You also need a large, heavy, optically perfect replacement for hte visor.

This puts weight AHEAD of the pilot's neck (pulling his head down under acceleration) and thus makes any activity under G load that much more burdensome. So that a 2.3lb HGU-55P (3lb with mask and commline) becomes a 4.5lb JHMCS. And the difference at 7G (which is about the most you can 'work with' as a function of /any/ head movement) is that of 21 vs. 32lbs.

If I told you you had to carry an equal weight atop your skull while playing paintball, at 1G which would you rather it be? Now imagine your skull whipping back and forth as you yank and bank in a desparate struggle to keep everybody in sight and your nose on the most threatening target.

Then there's the problem with eye relief. Right now you are looking at a little over 50mm for separation. But only if you remove the monocular )(stroke only) assembly and display the image RIGHT on the helmet. And that means trouble for spatial warp and accurate frame of reference between the pilot and the head positioning sensors. Which together means that, at a time when you are /fighting/ just to make gross motor movement on straining neck muscles, now they want you to be 'extra careful' and precise in fine tuning a (symbologic) target designator. Not with your eyes like a normal person. But with your head, like an owl or a cat.

Try it.

Stick your index finger in front of your eyes and move it side to side, keeping the finger centered and the head motion (start-stop) smoothly at the same rate of tracking across the visual field.

Now keep in mind that if your specially fitted helmet slips or sags on your sweaty scalp, it can all go straight to hell anyway.

Altogether, using HMD technology as I know it is a very much more iffy system to employ than is commonly thought. Certainly it is not as 'clean' as shoot from X, retreat to Y while wingman guides from Z as is typical for a BVR engagement.

Furthermore, existing JHMCS _does not_ integrate with existing NVD or indeed any raster-projection and thus at night, users like the 3rd FW up in Alaska prefer to dump it because that way they can pick up the added weight of the ANVIS-9 or similar goggles without further penalty while they check dimmed formation light positioning on their sections and maneuver semi-dynamically against bogeys whose cockpit and/or turbine glow are quite visible from useful ranges (i.e. it doesn't have to be 'Imaging IR' to see heat glow) on a properly converted target.

This means that even if DAS /does/ work, it will only be with a new generation of helmet. And that if DAS is as superior to NVDs as Falcon Eye was, you have just 'handed the night' to every export client.

>>
I would say the need for the canopy would disappear if this technology were to be refined further and thus save costs. However marginal they may be!
>>

The problem is that that day is already here. For what systems like DAS _really_ represent is the ability to remove the pilots ability to integrate external situational awareness data as 'datapoints' of mixed environment and target signature tracks which a conventional radar/IRST system cannot manage when fixed within a 60X60 and 30X120` (forward biased) field of view.

The difference between a UCAV and human then being that he also uses his 'photocells' to measure range and rate in judging maneuver state and enemy/terrain/obstacle clearance against the background. And so if he fixates on one visual target he may well lose all the other useful data that his eyes can help collect and fuze by scanning.

OTOH, a UCAV can employ terrain reference navigation via GPS, a digital map and a high altitude radar altimeter to stay out of the dirt. While it's INS gyros judges rate and position flight values to tenth-of-a-knot and 100th of a degree and 1,000th of a G onset /vastly/ better than the man does in simply keeping the pointy end forward.

Indeed, as Beesley himself admitted, DAS is actually nothing more than a MAWS and a SAIRST (tracking threats and aircraft for purposes of engagement and collision avoidance) such that, installed on an A2A optimized UCAV, you could fly rings around ANY manned jet and 90% of most positive-G proportional lead biased missiles.

Without having to 'see the background image' (ontologic awareness of meaning) at all.

Play 'my hand is a fighter plane' for a moment. Bank right thirty degrees. Now turn DOWN and to your left. That is what a properly designed UCAV, with no single-axis (+9/-3) bias could do. And it would revolutionize the predictor algorithms by which current air combat is fought, even in a VLO/BVR age.

Now do it again. Except put a manned jet opposite. And try to do a 'Hook' (extreme pitchup) of missile lofting across the resulting circle. At 250 knots both jets can do it. At 400 knots, only the UCAV can. At 400 vs. 250, the UCAV can pitch up and out of the manned jets wingplane leaving the manned jet to look up, gawping-awestruck.

All because the onset rate of a 400 knot 'thru the limiters' pull will GLC the pilot. And the lack of energy to recover (thrust to weight ratio) will mean an accelerative stall will likely depart his/her airframe, even if he stays awake through the pain of a 15G instantaneous excursion.

Once the world get's tired of it's sky knight aristos, this will mean the end of air combat as we know it.

Because radar weapons will not be competitive for terminal pursuit maneuver energy. And the best way to kill agile heat shots will actually be '1G, wings level to the horizon' so that a DIRCM (lasers in the 1.5-5KW range, illuminating the seeker) turret can zap the seekr from a _stable_ platform.

And you sure as heck don't want a human underneath a 10ft long transparency then. Because the DAS installations are not only mutually redundant in combat. They are replaceable without fault to basic 'Aviate, Navigate, Communicate' flight skills even if they are all damaged, in mission.

A pilot's eyes are not.


KPl.

I think we are getting a little ahead of ourselves here.

They are only moving the information what would have been displayed on the HUD to the pilots helmet - they are not making a kind of "virtual reality helmet visor". It just means normal HUD info (like altitude, airspeed, pitch and roll orientation etc) can be available to the pilot no matter where he is looking. The pilots may choose to turn it off or limit the info in combat if it can be done.



As for ch1466's UCAV vs manned fighters - the g loadings of a fighter depend on the performance of the g-suit - improve that, improve the performance of the fighter back up towards the airframe limit.


There is still a limit on the UCAVs ability to pull g's, its the airframe design, to have a -9/+9 g envelope would require a much stronger airframe, especially the wings and tailplane. A UCAV will obviously be more manoeverable than a manned aircraft (an AA missile is essentially a UCAV after all) the trick I assume, is in making it effective manouvering, but by the time UCAV development has reached that stage, it will be too late. As you've said, the advent of long ranged direct energy weapons will render all types of current combat aircraft useless.

[edit on 18-1-2006 by kilcoo316]

Kilcoo,

>>
They are only moving the information what would have been displayed on the HUD to the pilots helmet
>>

In which case, the F-35 is no more, or less, 'advanced' than any of the existing Alpha, DASH, JHMCS based designs. It is only when you introduce things like retinal tracking (literally 'flash back' as from a deers eyes the new/half/full moon eclipsing of which indicates iris pointing) and full binocular vision on a faceplate projected image WITH raster capabilities, that you mark the new kid on the block as being better than what came before.

Even in this there is a great deal of questionable logic IMO, because ALL such improvements could be added to any existing or new build aircraft of the current 3/4 generations (the Chileans have DASH on their F-5E!).

>>
They are not making a kind of "virtual reality helmet visor".
>>

They _have to_ if they are going to seamlessly integrate separate DAS fly-eye viewing perspectives without making the overall effect like stairing out six different peepholes.

OTOH, where DAS is not _shown_ to be nominally 'better' (equal visual depth and acuity for less cost or better LO) than the Falcon Eye of almost 2 decades ago. There has to be some suspicion of glitz before substance, it's a given for the nature of the sales game and the utterly outrageous amount of money going into this program that they will sell-up every feature they can.

At which point, the only _true_ reason left for justifying the JSF as new-and-different is cheap-LO with internal IAM. Which is ironic, first because if you aren't seen and you have standoff weapons, you should be able to fly an airliner profile (straight and level, 40,000ft) without ANY of these 'visionics' elements in play.

>>
As for ch1466's UCAV vs manned fighters - the g loadings of a fighter depend on the performance of the g-suit - improve that, improve the performance of the fighter back up towards the airframe limit.
>>

No they do not. They depend on what you had for breakfast that morning. How well you slept last night. Whether you did your high-intensity weight training to /deliberately/ spike your blood pressure that week.

In any case, if you snap on 6G at 20G/sec, the tiny blood vessels in your brain with compress SNAP! like that. And you will have all of about 3 secs before the oxygen saturation in the tissues goes down and you conk out like poleaxed cow.

'45 to 130 seconds later' you will be groggily coming back around. 30 seconds after that, you MAY be competent to make tactical decisions again. But you will STILL be done for the day. As your G tolerance is /completely/ shot and untrustworthy.

Now scale this up to excursions in the 9-11G realm with onset rates upwards of 50G/sec. And you are likely gonna blow a major vessel and be _DEAD_, not unconscious.

No G-Suit (including Firefly) designed to put pressure on the torso and legs to maintain center body saturation can prevent those micro-vessels from collapsing under sudden, extreme, inertial forces applied _above the neck_.

Human biology is just too weak.

>>
There is still a limit on the UCAVs ability to pull g's, its the airframe design, to have a -9/+9 g envelope would require a much stronger airframe, especially the wings and tailplane.
>>

All aircraft are presently certified to 1.5 times their limiter load. That means 15/9 for even a manned airframe. Remove the 5 TONS of crap off the front end dedicated to supporting juniors view of the world. And I guarantee you you will LOSE the tail. Which is effectively acting like a bobweight balance arm as much as control effector.

Indeed, almost all 'flying surface' features on manned combat aircraft, along with all the dual and triple hydraulics and triplex or quadruplex FBW channels, exist _solely_ to provide damage tolerant redundancy sufficient to give an excuse to let the pilot a chance to 'recover the aircraft'.

Which is itself utterly ludicrous since he is no longer even spooling the math in the FLCS computer. Rather _it_ is flying the jet for him.

Remove the pilot and you can /seriously/ invest in TVC plus things like SSD and all moving tiperons and differential flap movements. All of which, together, would yield equal or better agility. VASTLY better signature reductions. And half or less the price.

Proving the maximum that 'Quantity has a Quality all it's own.' As well as 'It's better not to be hit than to shrug one off.'

>>
A UCAV will obviously be more manoeverable than a manned aircraft (an AA missile is essentially a UCAV after all) the trick I assume, is in making it effective manouvering, but by the time UCAV development has reached that stage, it will be too late.
>>

No. Because a missile's flight control is cartesian not polarimetric. Effectively it rolls-as-it-skids to change the axis as much as vector while bleeding HUGE amounts of energy as the entire weapon body sluffs Mach coming around a square corner on tiny fins.

The only thing which makes missiles 'superior' are improved structural designs (including flexbody AOA seeking) and better motor chemistry.

Which is not to say that this does not largely invalidate the evasive energy reserves inherent to an airframe which actually has more lift (thousands of pounds 'thrust' coming off those giant wings) and total energy (gas tank) than the weapon does. But which is limited in the axes and loading rates by the little gutsack up front.

Which is partly why we have stealth.

OTOH, if you want to make a jet a VISUAL hunter (with DAS), you need to do so as a function of having a reason to do so. And that means making it competitive with weapons which, increasingly, will be able to _formate_ with their intended kill. On the strength of a microturbine instead of a limited burn rocket motor.

>>
As you've said, the advent of long ranged direct energy weapons will render all types of current combat aircraft useless.
>>

I think it's pathetic to give up the advantages that flying beyond your opponents front line defenses give. Who in their right minds would CHOOSE to let their enemy dictate the density of force along a 2 dimensional FLOT.

WWI taught us that.

OTOH, the fact remains that if DEW's and Turbo-SAM/AAM weapons become common in the next 20 years, we will NEED to have jets which we can pitch into the fray on a 'walk until you step on the mine' equivalency of finding defensive installations which can then be obliterated with massed-fires (10-20-100 shots to overwhelm the lasers cyclic period or flat out deplete it of fuel or battery charge).

We _WON'T_ get there if we waste 256 billion dollars on a jet which is design to fight yesterdays wars with tomorrows technology 'grafted on', haphazardly.

And the reason we won't is because nobody will be willing to sacrifice 'heroes' (bloodbags) to what is effectively a random dice toss on encountering a blink-of-an-eye 'flash kill'.

Start preparing for tomorrows battle now. Or face the consequences of not being ready, 'when'.


KPl.

ch1466 - Do you write books or have a (typing) computer job...i mean damn...Do you ever have a short, quick read, post.

Originally posted by ch1466

In which case, the F-35 is no more, or less, 'advanced' than any of the existing Alpha, DASH, JHMCS based designs. They _have to_ if they are going to seamlessly integrate separate DAS fly-eye viewing perspectives without making the overall effect like stairing out six different peepholes.




No they do not. They depend on what you had for breakfast that morning. How well you slept last night. Whether you did your high-intensity weight training to /deliberately/ spike your blood pressure that week. In any case, if you snap on 6G at 20G/sec, the tiny blood vessels in your brain with compress SNAP! like that. And you will have all of about 3 secs before the oxygen saturation in the tissues goes down and you conk out like poleaxed cow. No G-Suit (including Firefly) designed to put pressure on the torso and legs to maintain center body saturation can prevent those micro-vessels from collapsing under sudden, extreme, inertial forces applied _above the neck_.




All aircraft are presently certified to 1.5 times their limiter load. That means 15/9 for even a manned airframe. Remove the 5 TONS of crap off the front end dedicated to supporting juniors view of the world. And I guarantee you you will LOSE the tail. Which is effectively acting like a bobweight balance arm as much as control effector.



No. Because a missile's flight control is cartesian not polarimetric. Effectively it rolls-as-it-skids to change the axis as much as vector while bleeding HUGE amounts of energy as the entire weapon body sluffs Mach coming around a square corner on tiny fins. The only thing which makes missiles 'superior' are improved structural designs (including flexbody AOA seeking) and better motor chemistry.



I think it's pathetic to give up the advantages that flying beyond your opponents front line defenses give. Who in their right minds would CHOOSE to let their enemy dictate the density of force along a 2 dimensional FLOT. WWI taught us that.


KPl.

I tried to break that post up as much as I can to make it clearer for answering.


- It will not be a full visual display on the pilots visor - it will be cues and symbology. Yes, retinal positions maybe used, for cueing, but that will be about it. The only thing they will get is an infa red view (bit like night vision binocs for helicopter pilots really), but its for navigation



- Anyone can talk specifics (I could say in the UCAV required DLL file was not found for instance ), in general g-suit improvements will yeild g-tolerance improvements. Yes, G-onset is an issue, and one that won't be overcome easily.



- Is the safety margin that big? I didn't think it would have been quite that much, but anyway. The limit is in the wings and wing root, not the fuselage, although removing fuselage weight will obviously help (but then again, that results in a smaller airframe, which should always be more tolerant of g's - see my missile example). You won't lose the tailplanes due to removing the pilot - you will lose it due to aerodynamic configuration, not all aircraft have horizontal stabilisers as you know. All moving wingtips have already been developed and flight tested, but due to doubts over the longer term durability of the smart materials used, they are still to go onto a service aircraft (excluding flight test machines that I'm aware of).




- Yeah, and? Point is a UCAV will allow you to consider things that a manned craft simply won't, in size, structure and propulsion. Theoretically, a UCAV with the power to weight ratio of a missile could invoke those manoeuvres if it had to (after some time for KE build up obviously).



- I said current combat aircraft. Don't forget the obvious - there is always a defensive counter being developed at nearly the same time as the offensive weapon. Laser shielding has already been developed for medical purposes, there is no reason to suggest the same has not occurred for military purposes.

[edit on 19-1-2006 by kilcoo316]

ch1466,
This post is much easier to understand than the previous one was for me. I agree with most of the points but I present alternatives to some of them as well.

Originally posted by ch1466
Having recognizeable features located around the airframe helps prevent serious spatial and inertial decoupling....

Cant these recognizable features be incorporated into the visionics to provide a frame of reference for the pilot like ARD's? This would prevent disoreientation and still give the pilot the ability to do 'off the shoulder' targeting without the manuvering generaly required to do this. Plus the boresight could also be incorporated into it to give the pilot the familiarity of "toss" bombing and manual gunery.

I read some time ago in CodeOne that the Luftwaffe Migs had the off-boresight scopes that enabled them to increase their dogfight kill ratio drastically because they could get targets at nearly 40 deg off boresight . Now with the JHMCS with the AIM-9X I would seem that the USAF would aquire a 80 deg off the boresight ability which would reduce the risk of prolonged exposure in the threat area.

The problem here is that the DAS is likely only about a 512X512 pixel array density (CMC electronics calls the IDA or Infrared Detector Assemblies a 'megapixel' array). Something that just about covers the palm of your hand.

We needed to have a roughly double-fist sized optical ball mounted on a gimbal.
Comparitively, it seems unlikely to me that you can fuse the six IDAs imagery to form a synthetic global vision capability.

So it CAN be done ! They could add more than six to make the imagery more fluid and process the image to compensate for the distortions of view and other cancell other restriction like smoke, night etc in each of the IDA's and then by calculating the spatial orientations wrt the pilot fuse them together. The radar employed can also be fedback into the image processing computer to gather a more precise perspective and match the visual clues to the radar map generated.

Maybe the point would be to supplement the optical gimball with a spherical laser scanner that could create a 3d point cloud representation which could easily be recaliberated to appear to be focused form the pilots perspective! Obviously this would mean massive computational ability and also precise caliberation by the engineers not to mention the number of scanners that would be required and employed but with the improvements in IR laser scanners this should not be a problem in say 15-20 years.

[Raster]..This puts weight AHEAD of the pilot's neck (pulling his head down under acceleration) and thus makes any activity under G load that much more burdensome.

Couldnt the entire HMD be incorporated into a sort of Helmet attachment that is mounted to the aircraft in the cockpit and is " attached" onto the pilots helmet (magnetically if possible!) and held up by springs and actuators that would be calliberated for the pilot thus making the additional weight "massless" on the pilot even during steep dives and dips ?

Which together means that, at a time when you are /fighting/ just to make gross motor movement on straining neck muscles, now they want you to be 'extra careful' and precise in fine tuning a (symbologic) target designator. Not with your eyes like a normal person. But with your head, like an owl or a cat.

Well the display could be on retinally projected or even externally projected on a retro-reflexive canopy either way you get a better spatial representation than the current JHMCS type of projection. Also pupil tracking could be utilized to enhance the FOV of the pilot without fine neck control. The head movement might then be used to shift area of interest while any actuall targeting is done by the eyes alone.

Furthermore, existing JHMCS _does not_ integrate with existing NVD or indeed any raster-projection and thus at night, users like the 3rd FW up in Alaska prefer to dump it because that way they can pick up the added weight of the ANVIS-9 or similar goggles

Well the USAF has already decided to incorporate the JHMCS with PNVG's system to complete the JHMCS. I doubt the AF will use the ANVIS any longer with its mere 40 deg vision and that too for pilots. Presently, they do use it but it will change in the near future if the costs allow the AF to do so.
images.military.com...

OTOH, a UCAV can employ terrain reference navigation via GPS, a digital map and a high altitude radar altimeter to stay out of the dirt. While it's INS gyros judges rate and position flight values to tenth-of-a-knot and 100th of a degree and 1,000th of a G onset /vastly/ better than the man does in simply keeping the pointy end forward.

This maybe true but all that a UCAV can track the " meatbag " can get too. You might as well tell elevation in mm if the numbers please you but what you do with the information is what is important and any UCAV operator will tell you that their is no substitute for being there ! A manned aircraft thought bogged down by physical limitations in manuvering is better at situational awareness and effeciency of response than a UCAV can be. The simple reason is the "meatbag". Plus the limitations of the UCAV system in general of being constrained in communicative devices and a less than desirable picture presented to the "operator" at the other end. Well, that is the case presently, in the future it may change but their will still be no sustitute for being there to asses the situation.
Granted that the pilot is suseptible to GLC but manuverability is compramised but manuverability may not come into the picture any longer if the current trends in High energy Laser weapons are any indication. However fast or manuverable a craft is, it can out run light/Laser. A UCAV may be agile but will that agility really be needed in tomorrows battlefield ?
I think that is one dimension that the AF will have to look at coupled with the fact that can you depend on a machine thousands of miles away with a payload like a nuclear weapon ? ARD's
JHMCS
Four-Eyes

[edit on 21-1-2006 by IAF101]