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Guardian Angels

By The Armorer on December 13, 2005 | | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (2)

Those of you who know Carborundum know he's a little twitchy. He should be, he spent a career as Bill's Guardian Angel.

Things like this are why rotary aviation GA's are so twitchy.

Whew!

I suspect GA's are behind this, too.

H/t, Jim C.

BTW - Don't forget to Vote For Us! We're not gonna catch those punk El-Tees at The Officer's Club unless you guys quit voting for Matty (who is untouchable at this point) but we've got a shot at that Lawyer at Intel Dump.

Oh, what the heck, let's make this a General Purpose Aviation Post.

Techno Logic

War is changing.

It used to be about bringing more soldiers to the battlefield than did your opponent. Now, war is competition of technology and information.

That's why UAVs, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, have been so prevalent in the Iraq war. UAVs are remote-controlled flying drones. Some are launched by hand; others are close in size to normal planes.

UAVs serve an important role. They act as scouts, seeking out the enemy from on high without risking any soldiers' lives. Some UAVs are even equipped with weapons, such as the often-used Predator drone.

UAVs have become an invaluable part of the military's arsenal. Military officials seem to favor UAVs over conventional warplanes for most day-to-day activity. GRESSOR members recently took a 43% gain on one company that produces UAVs for the military.

Well, Boeing recently unveiled the latest evolution in unmanned flying technology. The new X-45C takes “unmanned” a step further than its predecessors. In the past, UAVs were remotely flown by a pilot in another location.

The X-45C drone closely resembles a stealth bomber, but with a wind intake vent where the cockpit would be. It has an F-18 engine, allowing it to fly at 40,000 feet at Mach 0.85. It has a range of up to 1,300 nautical miles.

The main feature of the X-45C is that it flies itself. There is no human at the controls, only a pre-entered flight plan. The drone identifies and prioritizes targets automatically; for each one, the remote pilot (the human monitoring the drone) gives a simple yes/no consent to strike.

Even more impressive is the fact that if two or more of the drones are in an operation, they formulate coordinated attack plans. That's right, these drones can re-plan attacks, coordinate attack patterns for multiple aircraft, and re-prioritize targets on the fly.

The X-45C is undergoing extensive testing; considering its US$1.2 billion price tag per plane, that's understandable. The drones have successfully completed all tests to date, including several simulated bombing runs. It's no shock that there's talk of new drones replacing human fighter pilots in the coming years.

This is an emerging technology, but the applications for it are near endless. Once it becomes proven with the military, you might see unmanned commercial airliners or delivery planes.

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Lex isn't Gonna Like This... from Fuzzilicious Thinking on December 13, 2005 9:21 AM

In an article linked by John Donovan, I found this interesting tidbit: Northrop Grumman is developing its own unmanned fighter, the X-47B, that can take off from and land on an aircraft carrier. Read More

Join the Mile High Club for $34,000? from ROFASix on December 13, 2005 10:09 PM

Every aviator and crewmember knows about the “Mile High Club.” How do you join? Simple - have sex at 5,280 feet above ground level (AGL). The AGL requirement prevents folks taxiing around Denver International from obtaining membership. So... Read More

13 Comments

By cw4(ret)billt on December 13, 2005 9:09 AM
And *that* was only a problem with the tail rotor. Now add the rest of the drive train (engine with assorted accessory gearboxes, transmission with assorted add-ons, driveshafts and hangar bearings), control tubing and linkages, hydraulic system(s) and accumulators, electrical system, fuel system, etc. and the vagueries of the main rotor system and the innumeable quirks of aerodynamics. Shake well. Serve garnished with a high density altitude and you've got normal rotary wing flight. For combat operations, spoon in an over-max-gross-weight-on-each-mission, stir in a soupçon of sustained automatic weapons fire, drop in a pinch of RPGs, add of add a dash of large-caliber AA and a few IR-seeking missiles and stir. Serve garnished with Rules of Engagement. That's why, if you go into the O-Club bar late at night, you usually see helicopter pilots with a whole bunch of drinks in front of them. Heh. The extras are for the GAs.
 
By John from VA on December 13, 2005 9:25 AM
CW4(ret)Billt: Just curious, why do you say it was just the tail rotor? near the end I see the spiraling that indicates the loss of the t/r, but that first "nose dive" near the beginning may have played a role in the tail going out. If I were to venture a guess I'd say more than one thing went wrong, but I'll defer to the expert. Either way, a landing you can walk away from is a good landing, and kudos to the pilot.
 
By AFSister on December 13, 2005 10:31 AM
I dunno..... Having an aircraft that can think and fly itself is scary to me. Think "Terminator".... and run.
 
By Carborundum on December 13, 2005 10:35 AM
I wasn't always this twitchy. Made it through the Crusades, the siege of Vienna, and the invention of the accordion with my sang froid intact, but it was all downhill after the Wright Brothers. Then they had to invent helicopters -- apparently based on the premise that flying is throwing yourself at the ground and missing. If you look real close at the video clip, you can see first ANGSPC Credulous "Butterfingers" losing his grip on the stabilizer, then ANGSPC Atrium doing an outstanding (but ultimately futile) job of trying to keep the bird up all by himself, and finally Credulous redeeming himself by cushioning the landing with his own body. That's not smoke, it's finely shredded feathers. Courage and professionalism in the finest tradition of the Angelic Corps.
 
By Heartless Libertarian on December 13, 2005 10:51 AM
I can't vote...work computer doesn't have a new enough Flash software...and I don't have Admin privilidges to install it. I'll try when I get home though.
 
By cw4(ret)billt on December 13, 2005 11:43 AM
John from VA - The dive appears to be the pilot attempting to gain airspeed, for a couple of reasons. 1. In many helicopters, the pressure of the slipstream along the tailboom and stabilization surfaces in combination with a reduction in torque (reduce the throttle and/or collective--but you sacrifice lift) will stop the rotation. This will allow you to fly to an area suitable for a. a running landing, i.e., making a shallow approach with sufficient airspeed to keep the thing halfway straight, then controlling the transmission torque by using the throttle to get you completely straight the split-second before you touch down--otherwise, you roll over; or b. an autorotational landing, in which you reduce the throttle and turn the critter into a glider and control your heading using the internal friction of the transmission gearing and small increases in throttle. 2. Increasing your airspeed just might enable you to reach an area that is better suited for an autorotational landing--when the engine quits, you still have some options. Limited, but options. And if you're over water, or wooded or urban terrain, your options are even more severely limited. In this instance, he didn't have much choice; he was attempting to get to a clear spot (a parking lot) and saw he wasn't going to make it, so he went with his only other option--landing on a rooftop without hitting air shaft vents, TV antennas, telephone wires or satellite dishes and without dropping it through a skylight. And he almost did it, too--but he had the misfortune of landing too close to the edge of the roof. Forward momentum and friction set up a pivot point which threw his center of gravity outside the skid footprint, and at that point, they all became passengers. That said, I can tell you unequivocably that, if you lose your tail rotor in a Huey or a Cobra, maintaining your power settings and trying to streamline the critter (as in option 1) won't work worth a plugged nickel... Hey, AFSis--any time you get on a commercial starched-wing, it's flying itself. The pilot makes the takeoff and landing because the FAA says he's got to, but George is doing the enroute portion. The French discovered the biggest problem with computerized flying when that Airbus decided to land itself in the woods a few years back--by the time the pilots figured out the plane thought a gear-extended, full-flaps, low pass over the runway meant that it was in landing configuration, it was too late. Whole lotta "Mon Dieu's" in the videotape voiceover...
 
By Fred on December 13, 2005 12:43 PM
My guardian angel works on the motto "No joke is too cruel if it's funny." In '73 I was assigned to the Signal Corp unit attached to the 28th Air Defense Artillery at Arlington Heights, just outside Chicago. These guys were in charge of the Nike sites around Chicago. Mostly I worked the communications center but, occasionally I was a courier of crypto gub to the outlying sites. Usually two of us would just take whatever van was running that day and drive around. One day we got a helicopter for our rounds, an old Huey (Were they ever new?). Somebody needed flight hours. We started off headed North to make a clockwise circuit to the Nike sites in the forest preserves around Chicago. Had a great view of downtown Chigaco as we flew South along the lake shore. That's when the helicopter caught fire. Are we going down in Lake Michigan? Quick look down. That's Gary, Indiana down there. Oh. We are flying through steel mill belch. Guardian angel laughing, laughing, laughing.
 
By cw4(ret)billt on December 13, 2005 1:11 PM
Fred - I usually operated under the premise that we weren't on fire (at least, not *badly* on fire) unless 1. the crewchief and doorgunner were sitting up front with us and their flight suits were smoldering or 2. one of 'em asked if we remembered to bring the marshmallows...
 
By cw4(ret)billt on December 13, 2005 3:07 PM
But flying a helicopter isn't all *that* difficult. You might even call it child's play... I love NASA. Really.
 
By John of Argghhh! on December 13, 2005 3:27 PM
Ah, this looks like Flutterby's Bedtime Stories...
 
By ry on December 13, 2005 4:08 PM
Heh. Knowing Gary, Indiana you're safer off in Lake Michigan.
 
By Fred on December 13, 2005 5:22 PM
When my friend the "Church Lady" (she works for a company that makes desktop publishing software to do church bulletins) goes to Gary her husband drives and they are met at the locked gates of the church by an armed guard.
 
By ry on December 13, 2005 8:32 PM
Yeah, that sounds like Gary. It might be safer if they used the armored vehicle collections that some of the folk here have though. It's not South Central Los Angeles, but it's pretty bad.