All Things Aviation Related

[BReif61]

Originally Posted by Rtrorkt

Can’t make out what this one is… can anyone ID?

[pavulon]

Saab Draken

[Skytrooper]

Looks like a SAAB 35 Draken

[Rtrorkt]

a couple more

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by svandamme

the Dutch have been throwing up some fancy ideas bout air travel for a couple of years. But tho they all look cool, I doubt they are very feasible or likely to get adopted.

one was the circle airport that always had a perfect headwind..
The endless runway
https://www.nlr.org/news/the-endless-runway/

Very good in theory, but in practice you can't get that adopted because well airports are where they are, and they are typically already space and noise abation constrained. Especially not in a densely populated country like Holland.
+ much change in training/procedures required.

Flying V , again, very cool in theory.. but it requires a huge change in infrastructure and well, airpots are space constrained.
And engines on top of the plane mean they are difficult to service, so that won't work either unless every airport builds infrastructure to yank off engines from the top instead of just taking em off a plane where it stands. eg drive the tools to the plane.
So yeah cool, but most likely it'll get no further then jerking off ideas , but they'll never achieve actual market penetration with it.

How would you setup the ILS on a circle?

[svandamme]

I dunno sounds daft either way.

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by svandamme

I dunno sounds daft either way.

Yes, Lets land in a bank so we have a headwind. Never made sense to me. Bush planes would have no issues though.

[svandamme]

You only have a limited spot on the circle where the head wind is on your nose at the time of touch down
and you that's the point where you can touchdown on the actual centerline, on target.

Now what happens with some kind of gusts slowing down or speeding your descentrate At that point you either overshoot that one spot where you are square, or you end up short..
quite the compromise.

Either way , when that happens you have to some how either land off center on the embankement OR you have to change direction and depart from the ideal head wind heading??

Either way.. Life just got more difficult for the pilot.

a Straight runway, you kan extend your glide, and touch down a bit further.. no biggie.. crab it if you must
either way there is much more room to extend and try to put the plane down without having to adjust the plan or direction to aim for..
Wind is and will always be a variable.. but at least the runway is a constant.. Not so with that circular contraption..

It's a joke really, How a university can come up with such nonsense and try to sell that idea in public is beyond me.
introducing an variable to counter another variable out of your control, to an already huge mix of variables.. that's just the opposite of what is needed.

[edgemar]

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by svandamme

It's a joke really, How a university can come up with such nonsense and try to sell that idea in public is beyond me.
introducing an variable to counter another variable out of your control, to an already huge mix of variables.. that's just the opposite of what is needed.

There is nothing new in aviation. NAS North Island, circular r/w:

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

There is nothing new in aviation. NAS North Island, circular r/w:

yeah nah, it's not the same is it. that's just a wider field.
In the old days, that's what airports were.. big fields.. they had no runways
They also didn't need a long distance to get up in the air like jets do.

They landed in a straight line, took off in a straight line..
look at the wind sock, find the longest cross section on the field.. and use it.

The just had a wide enough field to pick the direction on that field regardless of wind.



The neverending runway is different as it's really a circle.. the field inside the circle, that's taxiways, infrastructure and whatnot.. it's off limits to land, unless perhaps your name is Harrison Ford.

So to land on it, you have to aim your glidescope at the exact spot on the circle, and after landing, turn along with the circle..

if you are above or below the glide scope, you won't hit the circle at the right spot.

The approach is straight line
The Glide scope determines on what part of that line you end up for touchdown
But the runway isn't straight.. so there is only a limited space where the runway overlaps the approach and glide scope



No pilot can expect to start turning to follow a run way when he's landing.

I mean, it would be like landing on a carrier, They would have to aim for a very specific point, but with a much much heavier plane..
Sure the carrier turns in to the wind
Sure the circular runway is always in the wind
But the carrier actually moves away, in a straight line which helps
The circular runway.. doesn't move, but rotates away, that doesn't help.

But carrier landings is a pretty dangerous business, so they aren't a reference for commercial passenger planes..

oh yeah. and the circular runway is angled.. bit like a pitching deck, but fixed. Nope. Silly idea.

[svandamme]

obviously some think they can turn in as they land.
but that's just silly if you ask me..



Sure, in no wind or perfectly steady wind, you might make it work
but it looks sketchy already

It would never be a consistent approach and for the most part passengers would be puking on the way down..
Now add bad weather, IFR approach and gusting wind

Good luck.. there would be a lot of crashes

[daepp]

Anyone recognize this guy:

[Sarc]

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by daepp

Anyone recognize this guy:

That's the famous cargo plane that flew rubber dog chit out of hong kong.
When Goose died, Carole Bradshaw got a truck license from Truck Masters , and after retirement bought that plane, and attached that inert Sidewinder Aim9A rocket in memory of her husband

[Robert Coats]

I have questions about remotely piloted (military) aircraft, like the MQ-9 Reaper and the RQ-4 Global Hawk for examples.

From what I understand, the remote pilot (and crew?) are in a steel box somewhere on an AFB in the USA. Is the actual RPA (remotely piloted aircraft) at that some location? Or, is it physically launched and recovered at some overseas base close to the mission area? It would seem impractical to launch an RPA from a base in the USA and then take many, many hours to arrive on-station for the mission.

Does the remote pilot execute the takeoff and/or landing? Or is this automated by the main flight computer/autopilot?

I would suspect maybe these parts of the mission are run off a computer/autopilot, and the remote human pilot is there during the on-station time...?

Or, is there a second pilot at the overseas field who can actually see/control the aircraft during takeoff and landing?

Finally, I understand the US Navy is deploying RPA/unmanned tankers to provide in-flight refueling for the manned, carrier-based aircraft....I wonder if any RPA/unmanned aircraft are able to refuel in flight? If so, do they connect to another RPA/unmanned, or a crewed tanker?

[svandamme]

from my understanding Reapers are controlled in theater, not from the US

Global Hawks , well they global. They have close to 30 hours endurance or something controlled from the US, they fly out from the US to theater and back or from Guam I would think they would be piloted from Guam as well because else the Squadron would have people in 2 different places.. seems contra productive to me. like that

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by svandamme

from my understanding Reapers are controlled in theater, not from the US

Global Hawks , well they global. They have close to 30 hours endurance or something controlled from the US, they fly out from the US to theater and back or from Guam I would think they would be piloted from Guam as well because else the Squadron would have people in 2 different places.. seems contra productive to me. like that

I was involved with these platforms for many years. I managed all Navy and Marine Corps UAS for almost 5 years and worked extremely closely with the Air Force and Army.

Control can be local or in theater or global for either platform. MQ-9 have been and continue to be controlled from Creech AFB outside of Las Vegas. I have been there many times. Amazing place, really.

The desire is to bring as much automation in terms of flight as possible, including "learning" as the flights progress.

PM me Robert with any questions. I could bore the stuffing out of you guys.

[svandamme]

I would think the learning is key, because well those things would be come useless in a real war against a serious adversary if they couldn't be taught to fly on their own and do their mission?

knock out or jam satelites/comms and suddenly the UAV would be a sitting duck, right?

The ability for computers to gather data these days, Big data and then learn of that is just downright scary.. most people haven't got a clue what is possible these days if only you gather enough data first.

DCS world for instance, it's a military flight sim.. for civvies to play with.
And it's from Russian Developer.
I've often wondered how much of it is used to learn AI piloting , tactics and missile flight tactics tech

They already have competitions and what not, and I think there was a US team flying AI within DCS world against humans to test it.. and it was pretty good

[Seahawk]

Concur.

We are heavily involved with three large defense contractors on our Swarm UAS and their cognitive behaviors, which started with us putting UAS in the nose cone of a GMLRS missile.

Neat stuff.

We also make the delivery vehicle to get the Swarm where is needs to be for other programs.

The Army is hitting Air Launched Effects hard. AI, machine learning, etc. will be key...how to maintain Swarm integrity being central to that.

The next wave is extendible UAS, along the lines of sonobuoys in ASW.