Re: Who cares
When you design something to carry aircraft, it's generally a good idea to know whether it's said aircraft are going to work on it, as well as actually have some. Otherwise surely you risk building a massive floating football field for all it's use.
Strikes me it's a bit like designing a plug socket, but not being told what the plug will look like.
Err no, that's what requirement's specifications are all about.
Given how much is known about military aircraft take-off and landing, it is possible to define an 'interface' specification and give this to both the carrier designers and the aircraft designers. Hence why the catapult/no catapult decision was so critical as not only did it impact the carriers power system but also the aircraft.
Thus I don't need to actually see a plug to know what it might look like. Although having an actual plug can help with unforeseen test cases such as inserting a UK plug the wrong way up (a problem or 'feature' of very narrow extension sockets) so that the earth pin inserts leaving the live sockets exposed thereby defeating the socket's built-in safety features...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
