Tanker Pilots Next?
Now all they need is droid tankers and we'll never see em again...
Droid pilots beat humans at air-to-air refuelling
The Pentagon killer-boffin agency DARPA (the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) has made another move forward in its plan to replace all US military humans with robots. The latest trick the droids have learned is that of flying a plane during air-to-air refuelling. Air-to-air refuelling, in which a military aircraft …
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Wednesday 15th August 2007 12:13 GMT Shaun
Seems familiar
In three years Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned, Afterward, they fly with a perfect operational record.................
Anyone else getting a feeling of de ja vu?
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Wednesday 15th August 2007 13:23 GMT Grant Mitchell
Doesn't sound that hard!
>Human pilots, rather than tracking the drogue, are taught to try and slot in with a
>forward move at the right moment. Pilots have traditionally described the
>manoeuvre as "like taking a running f-ck at a rolling doughnut".
I used to bullseye womprats with my T16 back home, they aren't much bigger than a doughnut ;-)
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Wednesday 15th August 2007 14:57 GMT Dillon Pyron
Ever been there?
It's bitch hard and scary. And I was in the back seat watching. The Navy puts the the drogue on the tanker and the probe on the fighter. The Air Force puts the probe on the tanker and socket on the fighter. Quite hairy to watch a 25 foot sword coming at you. The fighter pilot has to hold position while the probe driver puts it in position. Kind of like taking a running f*ck at at 6 foot doughnut from 25 feet away.
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Wednesday 15th August 2007 17:09 GMT James O'Shea
why did the USAF do the boom thing? Simple
Two reasons:
1 the other way is how everyone else does it. Aim High. (This is also known as the Not Invented Here Syndrome)
2 Boeing had a nifty little system and needed someone to buy it. That system was, at first, intended for long-range _bombers_... which were built by... Boeing. (B-47s, B-52s...) And was fitted to heavy cargo aircraft... which were built by... Boeing. (KC-97 Stratotanker, a.k.a a C-97 with a boom and a lot of kerosine, a.k.a a B-29 with a new fuselage. See <http://www.globalaircraft.org/planes/kc-97_stratotanker.pl>. Follow-up, a obscure, little-known, aircraft called the KC-135, which first flew as a military machine and which Boeing then attempted to make civilian versions of. The jury's still out on the legacy of that machine... See <http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=110>)
It should be noted that many USAF _fighter_ aircraft, including the F-100 Super Sabre, had probe-drogue in flight refueling setups instead of the boom-port setup. (You can see a Hun with a probe here: <http://www.f-100.info/images/f-100d_53668-4.jpg>) This is because Boeing did not conquer all overnight.
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Thursday 16th August 2007 01:30 GMT Alan Dougherty
For those interested... Vulcan 607
Anybody interested in the history of in-flight refuelling, from our side (British), has got to read 'Vulcan 607', by Rowland White. Ascension to Falklands and back with boom and probe, in storms, with the usual, British, cock up of mis-caculation makes it one of my top ten books of all time.
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Thursday 16th August 2007 09:42 GMT Daniel
Buy both....
EVE-online is a MMO, while x3:reunion is just single player only. Both are good in my mind, but eve has much better interaction. Although eve is a little more arcade in the flight control systems, and x3 is like a fully fledged space flight sim.
But i would still tell everyone to buy both....
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Thursday 16th August 2007 12:10 GMT Jeckle
Do British people get cold shivers when they crack whopper?
@Nigee:
>There was a photo a few weeks back of the RAF doing this same thing, taken from a/c flying alongside showing Tornado crew with hands in air
There is of course the possibility that the Tornado pilot was surrendering to the Air Conditioner flying along side him... I know I would.
Oh, haha... theres the cold shivers... haha, who would have guessed? ... now where's me coat... .
So now if they can just get the air conditioner to refuel in the air maybe someone will develop something to drive my car so I can read El Reg on my way to work.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
