Sitting in a box in front of me is a credit card sized circuit board. I am trying not to get involved with it at the moment, but I really doubt my ability to resist.
The label says “Raspberry Pi Model B Revision 2.0 (512 MB)”.
OK, so I downloaded the software, but I haven’t put it on the SD card yet. I have some will power.
On-line Opinion Magazine featuring annoyed rumblings from the leading edge of the Baby Boom firmly tied to a reality-based world.
Established: 21 November 2004
The opinions expressed in Comments are those of the individuals making them. Truly absurd comments and opinions are subject to being cruelly mocked, but "flame wars" will take place on someone else's dime.
Your first comment, all comments with extensive links, and random comments that the software decides it doesn't like for no discernible reason will be held for moderation.
[Be aware that for unknown reasons the software rejects comments shorter than 15 characters, so if you want to leave a short comment fill the gap with periods ........]
24 comments
raspberry pi, do want!
i’ve managed to resist buying any so far.
This was a gift, so I couldn’t refuse it 😉
I’ve made several attempts to buy one, but they have always been out. Apparently they are more plentiful now, but there is a mark-up.
Ohhhhh!! You lucky, LUCKY SOD! 😛 :'(
Ehhhh! I guess I can’t complain! I’ve had my share of (extremely unusual) good luck recently! I did score a 256 GiB Samsung 840 Pro that is awesome! But… to be honest, I’d rather have the Pi! *sigh*
OT: Been catching up on news, especially Tech news (as I am fed up with the *same old* ‘normal’ news). I see that the US Navy’s X-47B Drone is doing very well!Navy X-47B Drone Makes 1st ‘Touch & Go’ On Carrier
And China may not be far behind apparently. 🙂
Navy Drone’s Next Test: X-47B Will Land, Sort Of; China Unveils Similar Drone
So… question. How come the USA can make an advanced highly stealthy UAV, but can’t make aircraft that requires human pilot’s, which was the US forte once?
Maybe it’s a conspiracy by the MIC & Congress to get rid of people from the Military! It’s obvious really… People cost MONEY and want *things* and when they get killed, well they have to put on a show and pay the family etc! Robots don’t ask for anything and when they get killed you build a new one! And of course, a robot will do what it’s damned well told even if it’s illegal or unethical! (At least, they are supposed to do what they are programmed to do! As someone who used to design industrial robots… Yeah! Good luck with that!)
Anyway… these aren’t autonomous machines (robot’s), they are remote controlled machines. Given US ability to create GOOD s/w code… yeah. Good luck with that! 😉
I’m letting the Pi cool off while I wait for some secondary stuff that will make it easier to use, like a box to start with.
As for flying, even the Shrubbery learned to fly. Almost anyone can fly an aircraft if the weather is good and they don’t do anything sudden. Taking off isn’t much harder, as long as the engine works and you have a long enough runway. The tough part is when you want to stop flying, to land the aircraft.
Most drones get pranged when remotely piloted, the landing software is actually better and more consistent than a human pilot who is not actually in the aircraft. Most modern military aircraft are already computer-controlled with fly-by-wire systems. If all you want to do is take off, fly a predetermined pattern, and then land, programming that isn’t a problem, because you can test that out in a simulator.
What the computer program can’t do, and the remote pilots don’t seem to be able to do consistently, is tell the difference between a group of guerrillas and a wedding celebration.
The biggest problem with remotely flown aircraft is the loss of peripheral and 3D vision by the pilots. This also makes drones dangerous in civilian airspace, and I don’t want them approved to fly without restrictions.
As for building manned aircraft – we have designed aircraft that exceed the design limits of the human body and are experimenting with ways to work around that obstacle. Accommodating a human in the aircraft adds a lot of weight and restricts the performance of the aircraft. Given the low regard for human life regularly on display in corporate boardrooms and executive suites, building planes for human pilots isn’t really cost effective because the customers complain and want changes when the aircraft kills people.
Why can’t we make good aircraft anymore, because the people in charge are more interested in money than aircraft.
Oh, kind of like how F-22 pilots are so scared of their jet (nicknamed the “Lawn Dart” for its typical attitude after it suffocates its pilot) that some have refused to fly, preferring a courts martial to the high possibility of dying? Uhm, yeah.
Landing is indeed the issue. Modern U.S. aircraft carriers displace around 100,000 tons and don’t move fast in response to waves, but move they do, and getting drone software that can handle that is non-trivial. While commercial airliners can be landed under software control if necessary, their landing strips are fixed in place and in a specific location, civilian airports don’t move. That said, at least nobody dies if a drone prangs and ends up spinning off the deck…
Oh, regarding the Raspberry Pi, yes, I’m jealous too :). Though I haven’t yet figured out what I’m going to use it for. Maybe design something for my Jeep, except I need some solid state relays that can handle 20 amps at 12 volts to make it work (mechanical relays won’t work for what I’m intending to do)…
You mean… like this: 😉 😆
Sometimes, it’s not the landing that Pilots have a problem with…
Heh heh…
(I’m setting up some galleries to share and testing out the code etc. 😉 So far… 😀
The big problem with landing on a carrier is that you need to dampen or ignore changes, smooth the line. The drone can ‘ride a beam’ [laser or radio] set at a precise point to the deck, but it will shake itself apart trying to accommodate changes as the deck rocks and the ship moves. The first versions of terrain following radar had that problem, too much accuracy and too many adjustments. They are going to need a large number of test drones to solve the problem of carrier landings. Simulations will reduce the number, but it is still going to be expensive.
Solid state components for vehicle electrical systems is a long time problem. That’s why light racks for emergency vehicles went to xenon flash tubes, and then LEDs – the amperage for incandescent bulbs was too high for common switching transistors to handle.
One more… (to test the crop function to see if it fit’s on your static width blog!) 😉 😀
Gotta admit… That’s a great photo! That aircraft isn’t going slow! 😀
The two with the missile launch on deck are pretty good too! Wonder who had the presence of mind to take a couple pic’s with a missile launching on deck! Crazy! LOL
Woohoo! OK. The auto-crop works (on your blog at least! That pic was originally twice the size). Good fit. 😉 😀
I assume there was a detailed discussion with the armorers who loaded ordnance on that FA-18 after that ‘accident’. They aren’t supposed to pop off like that, but what’s a few hundred thousand tax dollars among friends. I assume the system nags if you try to land with weapons armed.
That’s a great picture of the topside of a Tomcat. You usually don’t get to see that side of the bird when you’re a deckhand on an aircraft carrier :).
Bryan, I’ve flown — and pranged — a couple of RC aircraft. I have a healthy respect for what’s required to land on flat earth, nevermind a moving aircraft carrier.
Regarding a few hundred thousand tax dollars among friends, a full fuel load for a F18 costs around $12,000 nowdays, so if you have a wing of twenty of’em and several days of training, well. You’ve already spent way more than that just on fuel :). That said, I’m quite certain someone got their ass busted because the military generally doesn’t tolerate mistakes of that sort. Well, unless you’re a general or a military contractor (i.e. future employer of said general).
My Dad worked on the Q-2A Ryan Firebee, the first jet powered drone, and a lot of the tweaking on the guidance system took place on weekends as the system components were rigged to control our boat on the bayou. You have to have really good spatial abilities to tune elevator controls by the effect on a boat’s horizontal course changes.
You can see an example of his work in the movie Twelve O’clock High as most of the B-17s filmed for the picture are actually QB-17s, and remotely piloted from a mothership.
They didn’t attempt to land the Firebee – they cut the engine and deployed a parachute. I was in the world of remotely guided aircraft before I was in first grade.
The cost I was referring to was for the missile that ended up in the water. At least it wasn’t an AARAM, which is more than $1 million each.
Those could be Navy photos. For whatever reason they often have photographers on the flight deck during launches and recoveries.
I preferred my landing strips to be fixed and 10,000 feet long, but I flew in very heavy aircraft, often in a very cold environment.
The photo’s of the missile launch were taken on the CVN-73 (USS George Washington) in ’99. The missile is an AIM9L Sidewinder, which was a good thing! It was the first of the AIM9’s with Infrared target seeking/detonation warheads. The previous models had the ‘magnet influence’ detonators. That would have been way bad on a carrier, since these automatically arm when launched! And year… hell was well and truly paid! It was a complete malfunction of an updated launch system that was being tested. (I get these from a friend at GD Electric Boat just after the incident). He sent me a lot of *funny* pic’s! (Well, they are funny now… not so much at the time!) 😉 😀
The current AIM9X Block II’s cost $US665K! Not bad for a missile that’s 3m (10ft) long & 127mm (5in) in diameter, and weighs 85kg (188lb)!
If that sucker had detonated, it would have done some damage! It’s only a small warhead (about 9.5 kg I think), but it’s a high energy frag blast designed to shred an aircraft at high speed!
A little trivia for you all! 😉 If you watch a movie involving a US fighter or gunship launching a missile, and they call out “Fox Two”, most of the time it’s incorrect! 😉 You would probably know Bryan, that ‘Fox Two’ is the brevity code for the launch of an ‘Infrared heat-seeking missile’, and many times in movies, they aren’t! (I’ve seen it a couple times when launching a Aim7 Sparrow (radar homing), for example, which should be “Fox One”. ‘Fox’ is short for “Foxtrot” the phonetic designation for the letter ‘F’, which is short for ‘fire’! Phew! 😉 😀 It’s intended to alert other pilots that a missile has been fires and what type it is (there are four designations), so they will stay away and not maneuver into the path of the missile, hopefully. 😉
It’s annoying watching movies when you know stuff! *sigh* 😉
The price for the AIM-120 AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile) has skyrocketed faster than the missile! The The AIM-120C model was around $350k, the AIM-120D model went to about $1.5mill! Almost the price of 5 of the previous variant! They used to be manufactured by Hughes, now it’s Raytheon. Wonder which Congesscrooks have shares in Raytheon, or want a job there? 😐
The brevity code for the AIM-120 is “Fox Three” just BTW! 😉 😀
We have reached the point where we are getting a negative ROI shooting down the aircraft of other nations, as our AAMs cost more than the aircraft they destroy. We need to start considering going back to P-51s with .50 cal machine guns if we are going to be involved in these stupid little wars, especially if the guerrillas start subscribing to RC modeling magazines.
Actually we should probably get something designed from composites powered by a six-cylinder air cooled engine.
We actually couldn’t build a P-51 today. Not for any reasonable price, anyhow. The P-51 was powered by a 1,500 horsepower Merlin engine. We don’t have any similarly powerful piston engines today, you’d have to go to a turboprop, which is preferable anyhow because diesel doesn’t explode like avgas does. That said, we do have something that’s quite similar to a P-51 in the guise of the AT-6B, which is a development of the T-6B trainer (the new one with the turboprop, not the old WW2 one) with a 1,500 horsepower turboprop and basic weaponry including bombs and machine guns. A civilian turboprop with that engine goes for around $2.6M. I figure adding weapons would bring it up to around $5M. Due to the rules of military procurement, Hawker-Beechcraft is trying to sell the AT-6B for $10M apiece. Of course.
The fastest aircraft powered by a 6 cylinder Lycoming or Continental air cooled engine tops out at around 320mph. If you’re talking about something capable of hauling a couple of 250 pound bombs under the wings and a machine gun under the belly, you’re more in the 200mph range due to the big wings needed to handle that kind of weight in a light airframe. The civilian version of these high-load aircraft go for around $700K. Add weapons and the airframe mods to handle their weight, certification, testing, etc., we’re up to around $1.4M. Add the rules of military procurement, and we’re up to around $2.8M. But for things that don’t need the performance of a P-51, it certainly would suffice. And it uses significantly less fuel than a F-18. As in, it costs around $12,000 to fully fuel an F-18, while a converted Cessna with extra fuel tanks and all would not be $200 to fuel. Their maximum range is similar, so that’s all operational cost on the part of the F-18 — operational costs that simply aren’t useful given that the missions they’re performing over Afghanistan and Iraq could be done by a converted Cessna without a problem. And that’s not including the fact that the entire engine of a Cessna is under $2K for a brand new one.
BTW, .50 caliber machine guns suck as fighter armament. It always annoyed our fighter (and bomber defensive weapons) crews during WW2 that they could get numerous hits on opposing planes and not get a kill. The Soviets armed the MiG-17 with two 23mm cannon and one 37mm cannon. Now that was righteous armament for a cheap fighter.
The reality though is that most of the tactical support jobs being done by the Air Force or, presumably, the USN, could more readily be done by drones for the simple reason that there’s no need for a human to drop a bomb onto a place designated by troops on the ground, a computer can do that just as easily. All that the human in the plane does is add 400+ pounds of human plus support gear (all the instruments, man-machine interface, HUD’s, etc.) to the equation. I, for one, welcome my new robotic overlords. At least they’re cheaper than even the cheapest manned aircraft we could buy in their place, except maybe the armed Cessna variant, but do you really expect the perfumed princes of the Pentagon to send their highly trained fighter pilots into combat in a friggin’ Cessna?! Not happenin; ;).
i see you’ve added raspberry pi to your sidebar…
Hiya hipparchia! 😀 Yeah… I REALLY want one! 😉 😀
You’re right there Badtux. 🙂
Reminds me of an amazing man my grandfather told me about that he met in England during WW2. I had to do a search because I couldn’t remember his full name, but I remembered enough to find he has his own Wiki page! An amazing man!
Brown is responsible for at least two important firsts in carrier aviation – the first carrier landing using an aircraft equipped with a tricycle undercarriage (Bell Airacobra Mk 1 AH574) on the trials carrier HMS Pretoria Castle on 4 April 1945 and the world’s first landing of a jet aircraft, landing the de Havilland Sea Vampire LZ551/G on the Royal Navy carrier HMS Ocean on 3 December 1945. He also holds the world’s record for the most carrier landings, 2,407.
Incredibly, given everything he did, he’s still alive (94). Here’s a summary:
1. He served on the first escort carrier HMS Audacity flying the Grumman Martlet. During his service on board the Audacity he shot down two Focke-Wulf Fw 200 “Condor” maritime patrol aircraft. The Audacity was torpedoed and sunk on 21 December 1941 by U-751, commanded by Gerhard Bigalk. Eric Brown was one of only two survivors of the squadron.
2. Brown was posted to the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at Farnborough, where his experience in deck landings was sought. While there he initially performed testing of the newly-navalised Sea Hurricane and Seafire. His aptitude for deck landings, led to his posting for the testing of carriers landing arrangements before they were brought into service. The testing involved multiple combinations of landing point and type of aircraft with the result that by the close of 1943 he had performed around 1,500 deck landings on 22 different carriers.
3. After his time operational, again in 1943, he then went back to the RAE, this time to perform experimental flying, almost immediately being transferred to southern Italy to evaluate captured Regia Aeronautica and Luftwaffe aircraft. This Brown did with almost no tuition, information having to be gleaned from whatever documents were available. On completion of these duties, his commander, being impressed with his performance, sent him back to the RAE with the recommendation that he be employed in the Aerodynamics Flight department at Farnborough. During the first month in the Flight, Brown flew thirteen aircraft types, including a captured Focke-Wulf Fw 190.
4.While at Farnborough as Chief Naval Test Pilot, Brown was involved in the deck landing trials of the Sea Mosquito, the heaviest aircraft yet chosen to be flown from a British carrier. Brown landed one for the first time on HMS Implacable on 25 March 1944.
5. At this time, the RAE was the leading authority on high-speed flight and Brown became involved in this sort of testing, flights being flown where the aircraft, usually a Spitfire, would be dived at speeds of the high subsonic and near transonic region. Figures achieved by Brown and his colleagues during these tests reaching Mach 0.86 for a standard Spitfire IX, to Mach 0.92 for a modified Spitfire PR Mk XI.
6. During this same period the RAE was approached by United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) General Jimmy Doolittle with a request for help, as the 8th Air Force had been having trouble when their Lightning, Thunderbolt and Mustang aircraft, providing top cover for the bombers, dived down onto attacking German fighters, some of the diving US fighters encountering speed regions where they became difficult to control. As a result of Doolittle’s request, early in 1944 the P-38H Lightning, P-51B Mustang and P-47C Thunderbolt, were dived for compressibility testing at the RAE by Brown and several other pilots. The results of the tests were that the tactical Mach numbers, i.e., the manoeuvring limits, were Mach 0.68 for the Lightning, Mach 0.71 for the Thunderbolt and Mach 0.78 for the Mustang. The corresponding figure for both the Fw 190 and Me 109 was Mach 0.75. The tests flown by Brown and his colleagues resulted in Doolittle being able to argue with his superiors for the Mustang to be chosen in preference to the P-38 and P-47 for all escort duties from then on, which it subsequently was.
7. Brown had been made aware of the British progress in jet propulsion in May 1941 when he had heard of the Gloster E.28/39 after diverting in bad weather to RAF Cranwell during a flight and had subsequently met Frank Whittle when asked to suggest improvements to the jet engine to make it more suitable for naval use. This resulted in the Gloster Meteor being selected as the Royal Navy’s first jet fighter, although, as it turned out, few would be used by them. Brown was also selected as the pilot for the Miles M.52 supersonic research aircraft programme and he flew modified aircraft incorporating components intended for the M.52; however, the post-war government later cancelled the project in 1945 with the M.52 almost complete.
8. In February 1945 Brown learned that the Aerodynamics Flight had been allocated three Sikorsky R-4B Hoverfly/Gadfly helicopters. He had never seen one of these tail-rotor machines so a trip to Farnborough was arranged and Brown had a short flight as a passenger in one. A few days later Brown and Martindale were sent to RAF Speke to collect two new R-4Bs. On arrival, they found the American mechanics assembling the machines and when Brown asked the Master Sergeant in charge about himself and Martindale being taught to fly them, he was handed a “large orange-coloured booklet” with the retort; “Whaddya mean, bud? – Here’s your instructor”. Brown and Martindale examined the booklet and after several practice attempts at hovering and controlling the craft, followed by a stiff drink, they set off for Farnborough. Brown and Martindale managed the trip safely, if raggedly, in formation, although sometimes as much as a couple of miles apart.
9. With the end of the European war in sight, the RAE prepared itself to acquire German aeronautical technology and aircraft before it was either accidentally destroyed or taken by the Soviets and due to his skills in the language Brown was made CO of “Enemy Flight”. He flew to northern Germany; among the targets for the RAE was the Arado Ar 234, a new jet bomber that the Allies, particularly the Americans, were much interested in. A number of the jets were based at an airfield in Denmark, the German forces having retreated there. He expected to arrive at a liberated aerodrome, just after it had been taken by the British Army; however, German resistance to the Allied advance meant that the ground forces had been delayed and the airfield was still an operational Luftwaffe base. Luckily for Brown, the commanding officer of the Luftwaffe airfield at Grove offered his surrender, Brown taking charge of the airfield and its staff of 2,000 men until Allied forces arrived the next day. Subsequently, Brown and Martindale, along with several other members of the Aerodynamics Flight and assisted by a co-operative German pilot, later ferried twelve Ar 234s across the North Sea and on to Farnborough. The venture was not without risk, as before their capture the Germans had destroyed all the engine log books for the aircraft, leaving Brown and his colleagues no idea of the expected engine hours remaining to the machines. Because of the scarcity of the special high-temperature alloys for use in their construction, the Junkers Jumo 004 engines had a life of only twenty five hours – it was thus not known whether the engines were brand new or just about to expire.
10. During this period Brown was asked by Brigadier Glyn Hughes, the Medical Officer of the British 2nd Army occupying the newly-liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, to help interrogate the former camp commandant and his assistant. Agreeing to do so, he subsequently interviewed Josef Kramer and Irma Grese, Brown remarking; “Two more loathsome creatures it is hard to imagine” and describing the latter as “…the worst human being I have ever met.” Kramer and Grese were later tried and hanged for war crimes.
11. After World War II‚ Brown commanded the Enemy Aircraft Flight, an elite group of pilots who test-flew captured German aircraft. That experience makes Brown one of the few men qualified to compare both Allied and Axis aeroplanes as they flew during the war. He flight-tested 53 German aircraft, including the Me 163. He tested this rocket plane in powered flight as apparently the only Allied pilot (having done that rather unofficially, as it was deemed more or less suicidal undertaking due to the notoriously dangerous propellants, C-Stoff and T-Stoff), and the Messerschmitt Me 262, Arado Ar 234 and Heinkel He 162 turbojet planes.
11. As an RAE test pilot he was involved in the wartime Miles M.52 supersonic project, test flying a Spitfire fitted with the M.52’s all moving tail, diving from high altitude to achieve high subsonic speeds. He was due to fly the M.52 in 1946, but this fell through when the project was cancelled. The all moving tail information, however, gleaned from British at Miles’ Woodley facility, allowed Bell to modify its XS-1 for the true transsonic pitch controllability, allowing in turn Chuck Yeager to become the first man to exceed Mach 1 in 1947.
12. Fluent in German, he helped interview many Germans after World War II, including Wernher von Braun and Hermann Göring, Willy Messerschmitt, Dr. Ernst Heinkel, Kurt Tank and top Luftwaffe fighter ace with 352 victories, Erich Hartmann. In addition, Brown spoke to Heinrich Himmler. Coincidently, Brown had himself been using Himmler’s very own personal aircraft, a specially-converted Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor that had been captured and was being used by the RAE Flight based at the former Luftwaffe airfield at Schleswig.
13. In the 1950s during the Korean War, Brown was seconded as an Exchange Officer for two years to the United States Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent, Maryland, where he flew a number of American aircraft, including 36 types of helicopter. In January 1952, it was while here that Brown demonstrated the steam catapult to the Americans, flying a Grumman Panther off the carrier HMS Perseus while the ship was still tied up to the dock at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. It had been planned for Brown to make the first catapult launch with the ship under way and steaming into any wind; however, the wind on the day was so slight that British officials decided that, as the new steam catapult was capable of launching an aircraft without any wind, they would risk their pilot (Brown) if the Americans would risk their aircraft. The launch was a success and US carriers would later feature the steam catapult. It was around the same time that another British invention was being offered to the US, the Angled Flight deck, and Brown once again was called upon to promote the concept. Whether due to Brown or not, the first US aircraft carrier modified with the new flight deck, the USS Antietam, was ready less than nine months later.
(This shows, BTW, that whilst the USA likes to claim many things as their own, they are in fact NOT!! But the USA isn’t big on giving credit where it’s due these days.)
And much more! Ahhhhh… That was when “Men were REAL men!” Such as your father Bryan, and my Grandfather.
Captain Eric Melrose “Winkle” Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC, Hon FRAeS
Sadly, those days are far gone. What the USA achieved in the early days of the space program such as the Apollo missions couldn’t even seriously be contemplated today. Hell, Gen. Doolittle was able to use Carriers to take bombers within striking distance of Japan thanks to Brown. Another first! 🙂 (And that was kept a big secret for many years).
Mind you, I am still quite impressed with the US Navy, all things considered. 🙂 They did a lot of excellent work in the Space Program and may other areas.
It looks like the new Super Carriers are going ahead, with the first, CVN-78 (Gerald R. Ford) to replace the CVN-65 (Enterprise) in 2016. Then CVN-79 (John F. Kennedy) to replace the Nimitz in 2020, and the new Enterprise (CVN-80) to replace the Dwight D. Eisenhower in 2025. But who knows if the last two will actually happen. *shrug* The Ford is scheduled to be launched in Nov this year.
This represents a major upgrade to the Carrier fleet. They have a new Reactor that will generate twice the power of the current one, which is required for the new systems, such as the electromagnetic *railgun* launch system (goodby steam finally), the new propulsion system, and the new defensive weapons such as the free electron laser directed-energy weapon, and reactive armor. Also, the new long range “Over the Horizon” Radar system (which we developed BTW) and multiple target tracking system. 🙂 They will be build a rapid-response fast carrier fleet that will include the new Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyers. The only problem the Navy has so far is, apparently, finding a new advanced aircraft to complement this new advanced carrier! Oh well… 😉
Yah, the navalised F-35 hasn’t exactly shown much promise thus far. The F18-E/F SuperHornet is a mediocre fighter in a dogfight, but quite decent bomber due to it size, range, and rugged construction and dogfights are quite rare in the era of AMRAAM and AWACS anyhow, so will likely be laboring on for quite some time.
The major problem with steam is that distilled water to produce steam has to be generated by distillation units, you cannot send salt-laden steam into pistons and valves and such, it would corrode them into uselessness within hours. These distillation units have been a sore point with the USN for many years, especially on their smaller vessels which may have only two water purification units and if one goes down, the crew isn’t showering for the rest of the trip (and if both go down, they better hope a port with lots of bottled water is somewhere nearby). Reverse osmosis units are not capable of producing water pure enough to use for steam thus is only a backup water purification method to produce water for human consumption in the USN, except on newer smaller vessels that don’t need steam due to having gas turbines and electrically operated weapons systems.
Aside from water requirements, steam is also a continual safety hazard in combat. A steam pipe rupturing in a habitated area can broil everybody in there before they can get out or shut it off. So the Navy has a love-hate relationship with steam. One thing the Navy has done on the new designs is look at everywhere they were using steam, and try to replace it with something electrical instead. This has reduced their steam requirements significantly and also allows battery backups for the smaller systems. The new carrier designs hope to keep use of steam restricted to the reactor areas, where it’s necessary in order to drive the turbines (since reactors are basically just a means to produce heat for producing steam for steam turbines, which then drive generators or drive components). They hope to gain significant improvements in water usage and survivability this way. Getting rid of the massive water loss caused by catapults is going to help significantly with this project.
I had to look up Grumman Martlet on Google as I had never heard of such an aircraft. It turned out to be the F4F Wildcat, a rugged little plane that didn’t perform as well on the spec sheet as many of the fighters that it went up against but ended up acquitting itself well anyhow due to its rugged construction, reliability, and general pleasant handling. As usual the Brits renamed the aircraft they received from Americans. Heh. Even after the F4F was replaced by the much faster Grumman F6F Hellcat on full-sized U.S. carriers (the F6F being somewhat similar to the P47 in design, size and capabilities) the F4F continued to be deployed on escort carriers due to its small size. Hmm, now that I think about it, the F18-E/F are somewhat similar to the old F4F in that they don’t look impressive on the stats sheet, but the actual fighter itself is better than its stats sheet says it should be…
The question of how the United States is going to afford all these expensive new weapons is one that nobody seems to be asking. 45% of U.S. children are being raised in financially stressed homes (either below official poverty rate, or just above it), making the U.S. look more like a 3rd world nation demographically, than like a 1st world nation. How a nation maintains a 1st world military with 3rd world demographics is a question that nobody has answered for me, instead they deny the numbers and pretend that the question is nonsense because the US is the bestest, USA, USA, USA! Uhm, yah, but the numbers are the numbers… the U.S. is starting to look like the Soviet Union in its final days, when ideology denied the fact that their demographics and economy were collapsing, and eventually their whole country collapsed under the strain of attempting to maintain a 1st world military with a distinctly second-rate economy…
I’ve been reading various reports on Navy programs, and the Navy is hurting. Here’s just two:
Navy Fears Pentagon Neglects New Missile Sub; SSBN(X) Must Survive Almost 80 Years
It seems that the new Carrier is now going to cost about $13 billion! (However, as pointed out in comments, It’s not the Navy’s fault, and the ones crying about it fail to take several things into account which the Navy has been trying to explain, but fact’s make the Poli’s and backseat *experts* heads hurt.)
Sen. McCain Slams $2.5B Carrier Cost Increase; Navy Struggles To Fund SSBN-X, Destroyers
The comments in the above articles are quite interesting also. 🙂
It all reminds me of a joke I was told many years ago when I was a novice Engineer. 🙂
Q: What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?
A: Mechanical Engineers build weapons, Civil Engineers build targets.
😆
The problem with Jet A, Badtux, is that it doesn’t evaporate quickly enough to chill beer, which was an important use of Av Gas, according to my Father.
We have some Embraer Super Tucanos around here in AFSOC gray. The problem with using drones for close air support is that the communications lag can be critical, and the lack of peripheral vision can lead to problems. If there is an easily identifiable target, then let the drone have it, but if you are working from a description of terrain features, you may need 3D vision to see the target.
It doesn’t make much difference what the pilots think; the cost overruns and problems with the manned aircraft programs are going to force drones on the Air Force. The pattern has been set by the space program.
The drones are following the same pattern as manned aircraft – they start off in recon, move on to ground support, and then get into fighting each other.
The Pi is coming soon, Hipparchia. I want some other bits before I delve into it, and want some control of the fleas. It’s a matter of priorities.
There is a nice collection of Soviet aircraft in USAF markings up on Duke Field, which is part of Eglin AFB. It is a little jarring when they fly out to the Gulf, especially the Soviet choppers. They get evaluated at Duke and other bases, to determine real world performance, and weaknesses. The collection isn’t exactly secret, but it isn’t something anyone really talks about.
The days when flying ability and common sense mattered are gone. We entered the era of engineering, except for the people at the top, who are politicians, not pilots or engineers.
The F-35 program at Eglin announced a change in flight rules to ‘reduce noise’. For some reason I seem to think that the noise issue is a cover for something else. They had been making regular flights over my house, and those have stopped as they seem to all be headed directly over the Gulf.
The Marine variant is currently at Eglin, but I don’t know if it is flying yet.
Trying to modify an existing aircraft for use on a carrier is a bad idea. They should have started with the most complex model, the Marine variant with an integrated tailhook, so that they would be removing complexity to achieve the Navy and Air Force versions.
In the end they will get FA-18s and drones when the final production price of the aircraft is calculated.
There is apparently a problem with the HUD in the F-35, Bryan. My guess is that there was an “incident” that was close enough to bringing down an F-35 into a residential area that they collectively shat their breeches and changed the flight rules the way you mention.
Checking around on the Internets, it looks like the Air Force wants to buy a flight of Embraer Super Tucanos for CAS of Special Forces deployments. They’ll cost $10M apiece (hmm, where have we seen that number before?! 🙂 ). The ones you saw at Eglin apparently were the eval units. Hawker-Beechcraft of course objected that this was a foreign design blah de blah, but since their own design is a Swiss design they didn’t have much leg to stand on and the Air Force decided to go with the proven design for a change (wow!). Still quite a bit more expensive than the armed Cessna of course, but you could buy 25 of’em for the price of a single F-35. At some point quantity has its own quality. Brazil has apparently had good luck with these in attacking drug dealers and smugglers on their northern border. Hilarious that we can’t design things like this here in America anymore yet still claim to be a 1st world nation. (The Super Tacano has a Brazilian airframe, European avionics and weapons systems, and a Canadian engine… no U.S. components at all in it).
The thing about the F-35 program at Eglin is that it is training the trainers. The pilots are all experienced plane drivers with a lot of hours in the F-15, F-16, FA-18, and/or Harrier. The maintenance ‘students’ have been busting wrenches on jet engines and patching wings for at least a decade to get into the program. They are a tough audience and are not going to accept BS excuses from contractors. Lots of Afghan and Iraq service ribbons in this group, so they know the difference between annoying and dangerous.
One of the things I noticed when I’ve seen them is that the two-aircraft flights are really spaced, not the normal tight formation of the usual F-15 & F-16 flights. The pilots want a lot of room to maneuver, which says they don’t trust the aircraft. The also skipped the missing man formation flyover on Memorial Day, which has been a tradition for the 33rd Fighter Wing for decades.
I assume that the Special Ops guys have probably flown a few Tucanos in South America. They conduct joint operations down there from time to time.
There are plenty of Beechcraft T-6 Texan IIs in the area, as they are the primary military trainer these days. Beechcraft screwed up their proposal and made themselves technically unacceptable. After the tanker disaster, the Air Force is really careful about the details, so not even Congressional interference could save them. The Tucanos will be built in Jacksonville, while the Texans are built in Kansas. If you look at the size of the House delegations, the matter is resolved.