Boeing shows off "Bird of Prey"

[efty]

Well I don't think remote control will work for air compat planes.

[SpiralDragon]

what is fly-by-wire ?

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by Wombat
They don't have to be completely unmanned. Remotely piloted would work fine, as it does now. You'd still get most of the benefits. And if your pilot loses the bird, he can just pull another one of the fleet hovering above.

Yeah he's more likely to take chances if his ass won't get fried.. like video games, where each extra ship costs us all $67 million.

[rugger]

Originally posted by KvHagedorn


Yeah he's more likely to take chances if his ass won't get fried.. like video games, where each extra ship costs us all $67 million.

$67 is really really cheap for a military aircraft. You could crash a dozen of those for every more conventional fighter plane.

Not only that, but skilled pilots don't grow on trees. Training them costs LOTS of money. Every conventional fighter plane you lose means one of those pilots bites the dust. (or is unavailable for some time, due to stress and stuff) With these planes, pilots simply connect to a new plane, and can work again right away. You also don't have to rescue fighter pilots in the middle of enemy territory. (which is risky AND expensive)

[J1NG]

Fly-By-Wire, is basically a name for a plane that is constantly monitored by a computer to which the pilot "interfaces" with. It is through this interfacing from pilot to computer that actually controls the plane.

Classic example is with the F-117. If you try to fly that plane without Fly-By-Wire, you'd be doing on average 30 things inside a second as you watch pressure guages on all areas of the plane. And changing the flight of the plane to those changes that the guages show. With Fly-By-Wire, the computer watches and does all that and you just worry about what you do; Where to fly to and what to hit with your payload (on a F-117 anyway)

Still haven't downloaded the movies yet, but from the basic look of the "B.O.P" plane, I'd say that it is not a fighter plane. Don't ask, just got a feeling about this. Something doesn't quite look right to me, for it to be fighter plane.

Give me a F-22 any day!

J1NG

[Dr Mordrid]

If you're flying the thing from inside the plane the F-22 is the way to go from the survivability standpoint, but if you're running UCAV's you don't have to worry about losing pilots to start with.

This gives a major tactical advantage: the UCAV can pull G's that would put a pilot into a coma or kill him. A manned opponent is therefore at a distinct dis-advantage in that the UCAV can get in behind him and do a killshot before the manned craft can even come close to reacting.

It's also an advantage when it comes to standoff engagements. Again the opponent can be engaged while the UCAV "pilot" is in total safety from their standoff capabilities.

In the term "UCAV" the "unmanned" actually does denote a remotely controlled vehicle much like the Predator and Global Hawk spy planes.

Remote control in these devices isn't your run of the mill line-of-sight atmospheric communications, it's done using narrow band signals coming down from military satellites, which makes them controllable not only from long distances but in a very secure and reliable manner. Using standard fuel loads these things can be up for 24 hours or more, something else you don't have in single man aircraft.

UCAV's in combat? Already being done;

An example of how this can work is the use of the weaponized Predators in Afghanistan. The Predators were being controlled from outside the country while realtime images from its cameras were being piped to Central Command HQ in Florida and CIA HQ in Langley, VA through the military networks.

When they were satisfied something was a legitimate target the targeting system was activated and the Predator launched Hellfire missiles to great effect. Each weapons capable Predator carries two Hellfires.

Dr. Mordrid

[Wombat]

KvH, that was $67 million for the entire <I>program</I>. R&D, prototypes, test flight. UCAVs tend to be an order of magnitude cheaper than their manned counterparts. You don't need to build in a cockpit, life support, or quadruple-redundant-so-the-pilot-doesn't-die systems. Also, planes are only as big as they are because they need to carry the pilot, and hence need the fuel tanks to match.

[Dr Mordrid]

And they said all that time spent playing air combat video games would't pay off. We now have the worlds largest supply of UCAV rated pilots and those who are don't even know it

Dr. Mordrid

[J1NG]

Right, time to dig up those fighter sims again!

J1NG

[Wombat]

A couple more weeks and there will be export restrictions on <I>Descent 3</I> and <I>X-Wing vs. Tie-Fighter</I>.

[SpiralDragon]

[Technoid]

What if the Satelite decides to quit?

"You have been disconected from the server"

[Dr Mordrid]

Multiple redundency on the satellites Technoid. You'd have to hit every communications satellite in the sky to kill it off because they frequently put a Pentagon package on commercial birds.

Just like there are a ton of Hubble-style telesopes out there doing spy work under the name of "Keyhole" (a later model of the KH class). They just outfitted a Keyhole with a deep sky curvature on its mirror and new sensors for astronomy.

The infamous error in the curvature of Hubbles mirror was just that someone programmed the cutting of the mirror for Keyholes close focus curvature instead of the Hubble deep sky curvature.

Dr. Mordrid

[Technoid]

Jammers?

[Dr Mordrid]

Nope. Not with spread spectrum transmissions. These are based on a 1940 patent for remotely controlling torpedos.

Guess who's name is on the patent? Actress Hedy Lamarr under her married name of H. K. Markey (along with George Antheils). Guess she was doing more than flash her bod in the film "Ecstacy"

Their baby didn't receive much attention until the mid 1950's when the military discovered its utility for secure communications.

These days the US MilStar 2 satellites are equipped not only with digital spread spectrum gear but they also use MDR adaptive nulling antennas. An MDR/ANA can instantly detect enemy jamming and counters it within a fraction of a second by placing a "null" in the jammer's direction. This minimizes the signal strength of the jammers signal while maximizing the strength to "legit" signals. This is done with a bitrate roughly equivalent to a T1 line.

Also don't forget that some US military satellites can use blue-green laser downlinks as well.

Dr. Mordrid