Posts by SkippyBing 2364 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2008
I mean who spends $20K on a new car when you could get a much better second hand one for the same money? And who aside from 16 year old lottery winners would spend $20K on a cheap second hand car and new alloy wheels?
They've created two caricatures of male behaviour and got exactly the results they thought they'd get.
Clouds. At 55-70,000' there's a lot of weather beneath you so the chances of being able to see what you're interested in are pretty low in London, and not great in LA with the coastal fog and/or smog. For long-term surveillance it's not a major issue, for real time following car chases and the like it makes it a non-starter.
I'm curious as to why the Airbus example couldn't do a whole year, I'd have thought if you can survive 45 diurnal cycles then you've got the solar and battery tech sorted to effectively stay up indefinitely.
I mean stand fast doing it somewhere extreme like North of the Arctic circle.
On the one hand they say they'd like decent customer service, not to be kept waiting, and to feel valued. On the other they then go and choose the cheapest service provider in order to save £3 a month.
See also Ryanair.
I'd care less but I've had friends ask me which ISP I'd recommend, presumably because I 'know about the computers', and despite everything I say I still get told 'I went with TalkTalk in the end because they were £3 a month cheaper'. In that case don't ask for my f******g advice, especially if three months later you're going to start complaining about how bad TalkTalk are!!
And breath.
It wouldn't have been viable if BA and Air France had had to pay the actual cost of the aircraft, i.e. 50% of the programme cost each. They were essentially gifted them. Although as they were both government owned airlines at the time it was essentially moving a state asset from one department to another.
'Concorde was never allowed to fly supersonic over land during its commercial operating career.'
Apparently due to how efficient she was at supersonic speeds, and how inefficient at sub-sonic speeds, unless Concorde had broken M1.0 by the end of the Bristol channel they had to abort back to Heathrow as there wouldn't be enough fuel to cross the Atlantic. I'm fairly sure that's detailed in Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford, which is well worth a read if you're interested in Black Arrow, Concorde, or any other cutting edge technology the UK abandoned its lead in...
At Farnborough in 2016 there was an interesting talk by the company that did the model tests for ditching*, basically a large scale model is shot from a catapult into a test tank. In the case of Concorde it then bounced out and flew across a nearby road.
*Due to the way the regulations are worded they still have to use physical models rather than computer ones.
'Concorde was unique here, with about 8% of the thrust coming from the engine itself, 63% from the intake, & the rest from the convergent-divergent nozzle system at the back.'
I think the SR-71 Blackbird had similar figures in terms of where the thrust was coming from, I've read one account where the engine was described as 'getting in the way', but unlike Concorde it had to use afterburner to maintain supersonic flight.
Originally it was going to be BOAC that would have flown Concorde and lead to other airlines ordering it in a desperate race to keep up, however that merged with BEA to form BA before Concorde's first flight. Which is probably handy as the traditional BOAC blue nose and undersides would not have faired well at M2.0.
If you want to see a prototype Concorde with all the test gubbins inside the Fleet Air Arm Museum about an hour or so south of Filton, at RNAS Yeovilton, has aircraft 002 the first British example, along with some of the experimental aircraft that proved the aerodynamics. I'm not really sure why it has them as it doesn't fit with the rest of the exhibits on naval aviation...
Exactly! It's relying on self-reporting, which as anyone who has a regular medical knows involves taking what you think the safe limit is supposed to be and removing a few so you look like you take a responsible approach to your health.
So like you I'd ask what sales are doing, and what the incidence rates are for alcohol related diseases. Without that information the survey is pretty much irrelevant as people lie.
'2 huge aircraft carriers instead of multiple small ones which would have been more flexible and harder to sink '
Multiple small carriers would be less effective, you'd need more manpower per aircraft sortie because you don't get the benefits of scale. This means you either can't do everything you require or you sail them around in a convoy at which point it's no harder to sink two than it is one.
'less capability to fly fast jets than HMS Hermes '
Hermes was very marginal at operating fast jets, I have a graph that tells you how much height you'll lose off the end of the deck in a Buccaneer before you're going fast enough to climb away. It would not be allowed today.
'The idiot that signed up to have a foreign and frankly incapable jet'
It's ~15-20% British, which isn't far off Tornado. If you can find a jet that doesn't run out of fuel you're really on to something, vectoring in flight is over-rated and certainly wasn't used in the Falklands, it can now fly near Thunderstorms since the fuel tank inerting system was signed off as fit for purpose, there's no directly comparable Russian aircraft they'd let us buy so no idea where you're getting the comparative cost from, obviously an aircraft that hasn't been in combat yet won't be as proven as one that has, but then by that logic we'd still be flying Sopwith Camels, and it carries twice as much, twice as far, twice as fast as the Harrier.
'The idiot that made them non-nuclear should be hung'
So you'd want the UK to develop a suitable reactor, submarine ones not being that good an idea as the French have found out. Not to mention the additional training burden for the extra nuclear qualified personnel, extra infrastructure to bring a nuclear powered ship into Portsmouth, etc. etc. Not to mention the additional up front costs which could have made the project untenable.
'The idiot that signed to have the jets serviced by Italy and Turkey rather than the UK'
The UK could service the jets, and indeed will service the avionics, but decided that spending $1 Billion on an engine overhaul centre when they'd be three others in Europe wasn't the best use of money.
But you know, keep it up, I'm sure you'll get something right.
'Seem to recollect that HMS Victory is the best armed ship in the Royal Navy (having guns at least which the others don't,'
Victory has fibreglass replicas to avoid the weight damaging the hull which is sagging after a few decades in dry dock. You'll also find the others do have guns, that can cause a significant amount more damage than a 19th Century cannon. The thing on the front of a T26 or T45 is a Mk8 4.5" gun with a variety of ammunition types.
You'll also find that although the wood of a Mosquito won't show up on radar* all the bits of metal inside it, like the engines, will show up perfectly well.
*Depending on the frequency of the radar
'Once done we can do the 10 minutes work to stop the undercarriage wobbling and we suddenly have a fighter better than the eurofighter and I suspect from its shape about as stealthy as the F35.'
I doubt that as the TSR2 was a Strike and Reconnaisance aircraft, that being what the S and R in the name stand for. A fighter it was not with the smallish wing leading to a high wing loading which while ideal for a smooth ride at low level don't make for great turning performance. Nor were its sensors optimised for air-to-air. Or working at the point it was cancelled. Yes on paper the TSR2 was amazing, but there was lots of work to do to get all the cutting edge systems working, and a potentially intractable vibration problem caused by the cockpit being at the end of a long narrow nose.
If they'd made an aircraft as stealthy as the F-35 in the 1960s, it would be the first thing they'd mention in any book on it as ATC would never have known where it was.
'We could then go back to making Harriers as that is combat proven and works well'
By that logic get Supermarine on the phone and start churning out Spitfires.
Oh they didn't, we achieved that all on our own by letting the government dictate what the aircraft industry would build, e.g. you must build an airliner to BOAC's exact requirements for operating out of Nairobi, build the VC-10 and then get complaints from BOAC that it's not as flexible as the 707 so they only order a token number of an aircraft no one else wants.
Of course it's worth noting BAE build the rear fuselage of all the F-35s, Rolls-Royce make all the lift fans, Martin-Baker provide the ejector seats, a UK company I can't remember the name of make the oxygen system etc. etc. up to about 15% of the aircraft's value. Which is a greater proportion of the programme than the UK's buy (~7% depending on how many are sold).
'Then compares it to the latest Russian plane, concludes it has a smaller radar footprint from the front making it harder to shoot down'
I'd be highly dubious of any documentary claiming it knows the Radar Cross Section (RCS) of an aircraft, that's normally very hard to find out and it's not something you can work out just by looking at it as the materials involved in the construction play a part. Certainly the claim that the F-35 has an enormous RCS when viewed from the rear sounds dubious as it was designed with 360° stealth in mind, down to the fillets on the exhaust trailing edge. If the Russian aircraft was a Flanker variant its RCS from the front is fairly large due to the fan blades of the engines being visible, if its the PAK-FA then so far they've built 10 and the programme is about 20 years behind schedule, so they can't play the numbers game.
Or in other words be sceptical of comparisons that accept Russian manufacturer's data as fact but that everything possible is wrong with Western aircraft. The documentary wasn't by Carlo Kopp was it?
'because there seems to be a little problem with flying within a few hundred miles of a thundersorm.'
There was a limitation on flying near thunderstorms as the fuel tank inerting system wasn't cleared for use and quite sensibly they didn't want it to get hit before that had been tested. This has been cleared now so that's no more of a problem than it is for most other aircraft, although it was struck by lightening prior to the clearance and absolutely nothing happened. It's almost as if an aircraft part way through its trials process wasn't fully cleared...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=3100&v=8G6knYbFoAk
The Shuttle had an appalling safety record in terms of fatalities per flight, it's something like 0.1 death per flight* or if you assume each mission lasted a week 1 death every 1620 hours.
I can't think of any aircraft with as bad a flight safety record, stand fast some exotic experimental types that flew a handful of times, killed someone, and never flew again, or those suicide rocket things the Japanese used in 1945.
*14 deaths in 135 missions.
I believe there are some* still boxed up in their environmental protection units that might be available. Although how easy it would be to get them working and integrated with the aircraft now I don't know. Sheer madness to cancel it when the DoD could point to the savings made by having two engine suppliers for the F-16.
*Less than 10?
I've seen worse:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F-8_Crusader_of_VMF-334_on_the_ground.jpeg
Note that jack between the wing and the fuselage is only on the port side...
As I understand it, when the flap is open there's a f*** off big fan under it sucking all the air down so there's actually very little force on it due to the relative air flow.
'Really? With let's say 50+ air based and god knows how many ground based sources of ECM active within a few hundred square miles.'
You only have to target the ones closest to you, which really isn't that hard. It is after all a technology that's been around since the invention of the radar. You're effectively describing a tactic which is the equivalent of trying to play hide and seek while wearing a luminous orange suit and shouting 'you'll never find me you ****' thorough a megaphone.
'Confirmed by the RAF'
Fair enough, but I've also talked to RAF pilots who've described DACT against the Indians and wiping the floor with them due to underestimating the Typhoon's performance, so unless you know the rules of engagement it's hard to know what the take away is from any training evolution. For instance most exercises force combatants together whereas in the real thing you may well be trying to avoid that happening.
'There have been multiple issues that have caused grounding of the aircraft. Most of which could kill a pilot.'
But to date it notably hasn't, because the issues were recognised as such before an accident happened, which makes it safer than any previous fighter to have flown as much as it has. By this stage the F-22 has suffered at least one pilot induced oscillation event that left it spread over the runway.
'Funny about it being popular, most of the publicity I've heard is of the plainchant winge variety - usually off the record or anonymous. '
It really depends what sources you read, this is from one 5 sec Google search:
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2016/03/01/norwegian-f-35-pilot-counters-controversial-dogfighting-report/
Certainly the pilot who gave a brief I saw was enthusiastic about it, even if anecdote doesn't make data. But then neither do anonymous briefs.
'For the record "as reliable" as any other modern military aircraft isn't exactly the glowing epithet you think it is.'
You have no idea how glowing I think that is, but as the alternative would be another modern fast jet I don't see how it's a stick you can beat the F-35 with as anything else would be no better.
'And I thought we were supposed to have retired the Panavia Tornado? '
That will be news to the people that were using them to fire missiles at Syria last week, not that I mentioned the Tornado.
'Just mount a modern ECM pod on one of the hardpoints and switch it to max.'
Home on Jam, you won't even have to bother targeting the ECM pods before launch.
'In a similar event vs the UK for engagement in vis range the ratio was the exact opposite - 9:1 for the Indians.'
According to the Indians.
'Send up large numbers of cheap, plentiful, manoeuvrable 3rd and 4th gen ships, the kind with quite decent range and loiter time.'
I'm not sure what you think they were using in Vietnam but they didn't have decent range and loiter time, much like the Spitfire in the BoB they had the advantage of being over home territory.
'Using various highly effective methods for detecting the approximate whereabouts of "stealth" aircraft (LF radar, multispectrum IR, directional acoustics etc) ...'
You can have a cheap fighter or you can have LF radar, multi-spectrum IR and directional acoustics, you can't have both. And if you claim they're not on the fighter they're ground based you've just added a weak link as Tomahawks take out all your comms centres so no one can tell your cheap fighters where to go.
For the rest of your points maybe read up on the Red Flag exercise where the F-35 got a 15-1 Kill ratio against aircraft acting as cheap, manoeuvrable fighters.
'the safety record of a Corvair '
Really, could you point to any fatal accidents suffered by the F-35? It's probably the safest modern military aircraft in terms of fatalities per flying hour, both the F-22 and Typhoon having had fatal accidents before reaching the number of flying hours the F-35 has.
In fact apart from the engine fire on the ground that caused a pause in flying operations I'm not aware of any serious incidents on the F-35 fleet either.
'It's got all the reliability of an NSU RO80'
Again, any evidence for this? It doesn't appear to be any less reliable than any other modern military aircraft.
'as popular with pilots as a clapped out Austin Ambassador'
Again, evidence, I can find plenty of pilots saying they love it, or that it's a different way to operate, but weirdly none where they complain about the window popping out when you jack it up and the steering wheel being square.
Other overhaul centres are either available or planned. So in the worst case engines could get sent across the Atlantic to be worked on, which is borderline absurd, both the Netherlands and Norway are I believe planning on stumping up the money to have an engine overhaul centre (~$1 Billion last time I read up on it).
https://www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/AIM-Norway-to-maintain-F-35-engines/id2345652/
Plus there's also Israel which is pretty much going to be able to overhaul the whole aircraft itself.
'That's not correct, most landings are done manually.'
The landings that are done manually have all the complicated systems, the ones you seem not to trust, turned on to help the pilot fly the aircraft smoothly, having them do it fully manually would be far more dangerous. Notwithstanding the pilots having to make 4 manual landings in 90 days to keep their licence current, the auto-land is consistently better at capturing the localiser and glide-slope and maintaining it all the way to touchdown. On long haul that does mean most of the landings are 'manual' as they barely make enough flights to stay current, on short haul I believe some airlines actually forbid manual landings unless required for currency as humans are less efficient at it.
'Also, take into account that pilots are blamed, even when it's blatantly obvious that it's the precious autopilot who crashed the plane.'
No, you're going to have to provide some actual proof for that, maybe a link to a few accident reports where you can prove the pilots were unfairly blamed. Otherwise you're going down the conspiracy theory route of saying you can't trust the evidence because that's what 'they' want you to think.
It's worth noting, when I say the historic accident record I mean the fact accident numbers are at an all time low, even before you normalise for the increased rate of flying it has never been safer to sit in a commercial airliner irrespective of how it's flown. For example there were no passenger jet crashes in 2017, beating the previous year which was already a historic low.
So even if all the recent accidents have been due to the autopilot it's still safer than it was a few decades ago when there was more human interaction and less people were flying.
Graphs to prove my point:
https://aviation-safety.net/statistics/
'Because every non-techie knows that complex automated systems are for more trustworthy than trained professionals.'
The historic accident record would indicate that, as far as aviation is concerned, that is in fact correct. The problem is you don't see the accidents that would be happening if all landings were made manually.
'As the Asiana LAX cash showed some of the training is not covering basic flying skills so when the ILS was off the crew were no good at hand flying the plane, bonkers.'
Minor point, the Asiana crash was at SFO not LAX. Interestingly, when the NTSB investigators asked a range of pilots, including some from other airlines and the FAA test pilot who certified the Boeing 777, the only person who could correctly explain the autopilot modes, and that the auto throttle would cut out in the situation the Asiana pilots found themselves in, was the Boeing Chief Pilot.
It's also a good reminder to always fasten your seat belt for take-off and landing as of the three people who died, two hadn't. One of whom was probably killed by being run over by a fire truck. Twice.
'Cars can though and they're mechanically linked.'
The brakes tend not to feedback to the pedal at any time though, with a light aircraft you can feel the control surfaces being moved by the airflow through the controls. So something like a cruise control cut-off isn't possible in a typical general aviation aircraft.
'If you are on the ground, how do you know it is functional...
Also in this case it appears that the autopilot was functional, but operated incorrectly'
Many systems allow dummy loads etc. to be applied that then make the system respond as if it was in flight, although obviously that doesn't give you 100% confidence in the system. E.g. for height hold engage the autopilot and then adjust the altimeter reference pressure and look for a response.
In this case the autopilot was functional, operated correctly, but the operation wasn't understood by the pilot.
'You just can't expect the same levels of training from private pilots as military and commercial ones get. It's not practical.'
I'm not expecting the same levels of training, but if they haven't been trained how to use an autopilot they shouldn't be using it.
'What's annoying is that any informed layman could have written down some common sense requirements to ensure that such systems were better designed.'
With hindsight yes, the problem is predicting the unlikely things people will do in an emergency situation before that happens for the first time.
It's also notable that in the China Airlines example you give, Airbus had a fix but the airline had yet to install it.
'WHY???
What possible use could that serve?'
With fully mechanical controls you don't know if the control disturbance is due to the pilot or feedback from the control surfaces themselves. Normally it's feedback from the control surfaces due to turbulence etc. which the autopilot then corrects for, occasionally it's the pilot inadvertently touching them which the autopilot also corrects for.
On fly-by-wire or hydraulically assisted controls they normally fix pick-ups to the control inputs to identify where the input is coming from, but you won't get that on a light aircraft.
As the article mentions, the flight school didn't seem to have appropriate training in place for the autopilot, so whether the manufacturer mentioned it or not (they would have) is irrelevant.
It's also a feature of autopilots on ships post the Torrey Canyon incident. However in the case of most military aircraft and supertankers there's no direct connection between the controls, so you can move them from stop to stop with no effect other than the autopilot disconnecting.
In the case of a light aircraft doing that would force the controls from full deflection one way to full deflection the other, which may not be great for the continued integrity of the aircraft. There should be a cut-off switch though and it sounds like the main causal factor was a lack of training in the intricacies of the system. I'm honestly surprised this doesn't come up more often in General Aviation as it's not unusual to find yourself flying two outwardly identical aircraft that have completely different avionics, radios, and autopilots.
Sure you could deploy the Watchkeepers on actual operations, it's even just about in the spirit and letter of the MAA's regulations. It doesn't mean you wouldn't have a capability gap though as if they haven't been able to conduct peace time training they won't have much capability when they get to the benign war zone* of your choice.
*Anywhere without any sort of vaguely competent anti-air threat.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
