More RAF firsts

[AndyDT]

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/8796584.stm

[bosk1]

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/8796584.stm

Aww, man!  I was hoping for one of these. 

[AndyDT]

Here you go Bosk:



:happybirthday:

[AndyDT]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/7885818/Long-range-Taranis-drone-unveiled.html

Experts say the cutting-edge design is at the forefront of world technology and as advanced as any US development.

Gerald Howarth, Minister for International Security Strategy, said: ''Taranis is a truly trailblazing project.

''The first of its kind in the UK, it reflects the best of our nation's advanced design and technology skills and is a leading programme on the global stage.''

The prototype will test the possibility of developing the first ever autonomous stealthy Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle.

Should such systems be brought into service, they would be under the control of highly trained military crews on the ground.

The model was created by the MoD along with engineering firms BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, QinetiQ and GE Aviation.

Nigel Whitehead, group managing director of BAE Systems' Programmes and Support business, said: ''Taranis has been three and a half years in the making and is the product of more than a million man-hours.

''It represents a significant step forward in this country's fast-jet capability. This technology is key to sustaining a strong industrial base and to maintain the UK's leading position as a centre for engineering excellence and innovation.''

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10602105.stm

"This is the next generation of combat aircraft and flight trials will begin next year," Sqn Ldr Bruno Wood told BBC News.

"It's a technology demonstrator that could be used as a testbed which may form further potential solutions to the RAF," he added.


The issue of "writing the pilot" out of the aircraft equation has long been a controversial topic, more so since the first unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) went into active service.

It is accepted that the most vulnerable part of a plane is the pilot. While the airframe is capable of pulling multiple Gs - the gravitational force exerted on a body when standing on the Earth at sea level - the maxim safe level for a pilot, even when wearing a protective G-suit, is 8 or 9, above which they will lose consciousness.

Also, many anti-aircraft missiles are designed to explode near the cockpit, showering the vulnerable pilot with high-speed shrapnel that can cause death or injury.

Peter Felstead, editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, told BBC News that the development of UAVs paralleled the development of the first manned aircraft during World War I.

[TimmyHiggy]

Cylons here we come...

[AndyDT]

https://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/07/19/344439/farnborough-uks-taranis-ucav-breaks-cover.html

[El Barto]

"It's a technology demonstrator that could be used as a testbed which may form further potential solutions to the RAF," he added.

The aircraft's actual usefulness doesn't really jump out at me.  This is the problem.  It's also exactly what you've been going on about, Andy.  They're doing something really cool to demonstrate that they can do it, but they're not putting it into something that people can really use.  20 years from now, somebody like yourself will be making the exact same comments you are about wasted potential. 

[AndyDT]

The TSR2's innovative parts were seen in the Tornado and Concorde, the Harrier Jump Jet (which saw fruition) lead to the Joint Strike Fighter (for once not totally an American "spin-off"). Drones are thought to be the future of air combat. The US doesn't have a long-range supersonic stealth bomber let alone an unmanned one yet as far as I know.

[El Barto]

The TSR2's innovative parts were seen in the Tornado and Concorde, the Harrier Jump Jet (which saw fruition) lead to the Joint Strike Fighter (for once not totally an American "spin-off"). Drones are thought to be the future of air combat. The US doesn't have a long-range supersonic stealth bomber let alone an unmanned one yet as far as I know.

The Harrier.  Now that's a fine example of the British really getting one right.  It was innovative.  It was effective.  It was damned useful.    Consequently, lots of people bought them off of you.  Hell, even we bought the technology from you. 

As for Taranis,  I still don't see the usefulness.  Drones for recon and attack don't really need to be that stealthy.  They're small and they're high up.  They're also dirt cheap, so it's not really too big a deal if one goes down and you can deploy plenty of them pretty close to the action so speed isn't a huge benefit.  Drones for honest-to-goodness bombing are a different matter, but really, it's still easier and cheaper to turn a key and let a missile to the hard work.  It seems that Taranis is a very complicated method of doing things that can be done quite effectively by other means. 

[AndyDT]

The TSR2's innovative parts were seen in the Tornado and Concorde, the Harrier Jump Jet (which saw fruition) lead to the Joint Strike Fighter (for once not totally an American "spin-off"). Drones are thought to be the future of air combat. The US doesn't have a long-range supersonic stealth bomber let alone an unmanned one yet as far as I know.

The Harrier.  Now that's a fine example of the British really getting one right.  It was innovative.  It was effective.  It was damned useful.    Consequently, lots of people bought them off of you.  Hell, even we bought the technology from you. 

As for Taranis,  I still don't see the usefulness.  Drones for recon and attack don't really need to be that stealthy.  They're small and they're high up.  They're also dirt cheap, so it's not really too big a deal if one goes down and you can deploy plenty of them pretty close to the action so speed isn't a huge benefit.  Drones for honest-to-goodness bombing are a different matter, but really, it's still easier and cheaper to turn a key and let a missile to the hard work.  It seems that Taranis is a very complicated method of doing things that can be done quite effectively by other means. 

There's still a huge need for aircraft in war as in the second gulf war:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War#2003:_Invasion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Telic

The conflict saw over 100 fixed-wing aircraft and over 100 rotary-wing aircraft of virtually every type in the British inventory deployed.

The US also used B2 bombers which are sub-sonic to bring down the Taliban government in Afghanistan post 9/11.

[TimmyHiggy]

I don't trust machines much anyway, and I think trusting them with weapons is a big mistake. If your coffee machine breaks you might get boiling water all over the floor. If a bomber breaks then god help whatever it is flying over.
Things break, and safety mechanisms are never 100% perfect.

[El Barto]

Sure there's a huge need for aircraft.  There's also a need for drones.  I just think that in this case, Taranis is more about showing off nifty tech than creating a practical platform.  If you want BAE to really kick ass, have them invent one that can carry 8 times the payload for twice as long.  They're putting their efforts into autonomy and stealth, neither of which are the biggest concerns.

TimmyHiggy does raise an interesting point. We're nowhere near the point where we should be trusting fully autonomous bombers.  This might actually be something that BAE gets worked out, and the practical implications would be huge, but they'd be better served and certainly better tested elsewhere. 

[yorost]

The TSR2's innovative parts were seen in the Tornado and Concorde, the Harrier Jump Jet (which saw fruition) lead to the Joint Strike Fighter (for once not totally an American "spin-off"). Drones are thought to be the future of air combat. The US doesn't have a long-range supersonic stealth bomber let alone an unmanned one yet as far as I know.

The Harrier.  Now that's a fine example of the British really getting one right.  It was innovative.  It was effective.  It was damned useful.    Consequently, lots of people bought them off of you.  Hell, even we bought the technology from you. 

As for Taranis,  I still don't see the usefulness.  Drones for recon and attack don't really need to be that stealthy.  They're small and they're high up.  They're also dirt cheap, so it's not really too big a deal if one goes down and you can deploy plenty of them pretty close to the action so speed isn't a huge benefit.  Drones for honest-to-goodness bombing are a different matter, but really, it's still easier and cheaper to turn a key and let a missile to the hard work.  It seems that Taranis is a very complicated method of doing things that can be done quite effectively by other means. 

There's still a huge need for aircraft in war as in the second gulf war:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War#2003:_Invasion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Telic

The conflict saw over 100 fixed-wing aircraft and over 100 rotary-wing aircraft of virtually every type in the British inventory deployed.

The US also used B2 bombers which are sub-sonic to bring down the Taliban government in Afghanistan post 9/11.

You're getting into things that happened 5-10 years ago, not where future technology is going to replace those assets.  It's quite irrelevant to what El Barto wrote.

[AndyDT]

You're saying that strategic bombing has been superseded completely by missiles? A missile can't be reused for a start.

[yorost]

No, did you even read what El Barto wrote?  This is an expensive, all eggs in one basket, alternative to doing things already being done.  Right now, it's just pricey glamor.

[AndyDT]

I'd say it's no more pointless than the US pushing ahead with the X-37 orbital test craft or having DARPA even. At the very least I'd say it was an advert saying we're still a leading technological country and can do anything independently if and when necessary. It's probably no coincidence that the US wanted little to do with Britain until the British independently built their own nuclear weapons in the 50s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dDwkuVKLhE&feature=related

This was said to help get Britain Polaris from President Kennedy's administration.  Similarly developing Blue Streak [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Streak_%28missile%29] contributed to this.

[yorost]

Now you're trying to argue that Britain does less pointless stuff?  What difference, any at all, does a project that might be pointless by the US have to do with this thread?

As for leading technology by the project, even the British in the article say it is mostly just bringing existing technologies together into one project.  Why do you keep throwing projects out into this thread just to try and overstate their importance?  Oh yeah, because we keep replying.

[El Barto]

DARPA is actually somewhat different.  They're not spending money on technology demonstrators.  They're offering money to people who can come up with methods of solving problems they want solved for practical applications. 

[AndyDT]

Now you're trying to argue that Britain does less pointless stuff? 

I'm saying it's no less important in my view.

[rumborak]

Incidentally, my salary is paid by DARPA.

rumborak

[El Barto]

Incidentally, my salary is paid by DARPA.

rumborak

So how was my assessment of them?

[AndyDT]

https://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23866868-helicopters-face-20-percent-cuts-to-make-pound-4bn-defence-savings.do

secret internal MoD memo has revealed that Defence Secretary Liam Fox is demanding savings of £3.96 billion across rotary wing aircraft in the Army, Royal Navy and RAF.

Among a string of options drafted by officials is the scrapping of the entire new £1.7 billion Lynx Wildcat fleet, the phasing out of Sea Kings and the “deletion” of the Puma fleet.

If this is true I think it's a genius idea. It keeps the RAF as a leeader in propulsion and aerospace and therefore the infrastructure to do that. The same infrastructure that generated British rocket and aircraft technology that the US was interested in and collaborated because of for superior designs or components.

[Progmetty]

It's weird I was just watching The World At War documentary this morning and it was the episode about how the U.S ended up entering the war, it implied that Roosevelt -God I hate that guy- really wanted to go for the aid of England but pubic opinion was strongly opposing to the idea of getting involved in what the U.S media called a "European War", they have so much awesome footage from the American presidential elections at the time and the one card that guys running against Roosevelt kept playing is that the U.S doesn't need to enter a war now, especially if we have nothing to do with it, one runner went as far as saying in a rally "In the past we had to deal with Europe led by England and France and in the future we might have to deal with Europe led by Germany, it's as simple as that".
They had footage of people on the street, collecting public opinion, you heard stuff like "Let them figure it out for themselves" and "I'm gonna watch it on the news, that's as far as we wanna go with that war"

[AndyDT]

The US had John F.Kennedy's father Robert Kennedy as Ambassador to the UK saying "democracy is dead" and "it might be dead here [the US] as well" eventually I think he was fired by Roosevelt, or as somebody said "dripping anti-British poision into Roosevelt's ear".


I'm passionate about the RAFs very existence as the first military airforce whether it remains the fourth biggest airforce in the world or not to help push humanity's passage into space. The same existence that defended the free world by implication of Kennedy's words and that brought many of the innovations we see today in aerospace and space flight.

[AndyDT]

Richard Branson in his new book "Reach for the Skies" says that he and a friend tried to break the vertical speed record in 2006 in an English Electric Lightning. They missed it by 2 seconds.