Wow! The B-1R Lancer concept would make even Dale Brown get all moist! - Page 2

General » General Discussion

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Wow! The B-1R Lancer concept would make even Dale Brown get all moist! (Page 2 of 3)

Posted: 4/16/2010 12:20:56 AM EDT

[#1]

Quoted:

Quoted:

The Sixth Battle by Barrett Tillman

That's it!!!

THANK YOU!!!

That has been bugging the hell outta me ever since that show with the B1R...sad thing is I should have a copy of that in my closet somewhere...gonna have to dig around for it.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Yeah, the B1s unloaded 180 AMRAAMs on the Backfire Regiment. The EWO starts screaming about F16 class radar, and the Backfire CO thinks 'That's impossible, we're in the middle of the Indian Ocean!'

Pretty sure the AN/APG-68 could not possibly track that many targets at once... You'd need an AN/APG-80, or maybe even an AN/APG-81. So unless you have an F-16 Block 60 or F-35 laying around to gut, that ain't happening.

Posted: 4/16/2010 12:45:19 AM EDT

[#2]

Quoted:

Quoted:
What no embedding?

Personally, I think embedding videos on a forum sucks. I don't know about everyone else, but I'd much rather click a link and let the video load in a new window, so I can continue browsing and posting in threads while I wait.

quit making sense you damn hilljack!!!

Posted: 4/16/2010 12:50:33 AM EDT

[#3]

Quoted:
Does anyone remember a novel from the mid 90s or so that utilized this concept? It was a few AMRAAM armed B1s ambushing a Russian raid on a carrier group. The lead pilot muses that he has the highest kill score and that it ain't bad for a bomber pilot. It wasn't Dale Brown either.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

in starwars novels this shared targeting telemetry is used often, a fighter gets a lock and other fighters use its lock to launch a mass of missiles

Posted: 4/16/2010 1:33:34 AM EDT

[#4]

Quoted:

Quoted:
You add our EW abilities into it, which make us gods in air warfare, and the Ruskies are fucked.

Dream on. Long range SAMs are capable to blow your planes out of the sky. Meter-band radars as additional radar acquisition for S-400 L-band radars(that are almost jamproof by the fact) making stealth tricks nearly useless.

B1R upgrade is still looking cool.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_EA-18G_Underside_lg.jpg

+

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/AGM-88E_HARM_p1230047.jpg

=

More than one way to skin a cat...quite literally in this instance.

Go ahead, try and burn through our ECM. We've got a little present for you.

F-18 has huge RCS with all of these payload. AARGMs are vulnerable too - short range air defense vehicles were designed to pick up these threats. AARGMs also could be fooled by using of decoy emmiters, aerosol and dipole clouds from Anti-Radiation Missile Defensive Suite "Gazetchik".

Posted: 4/16/2010 2:05:18 AM EDT

[#5]

very cool

Posted: 4/16/2010 2:24:42 AM EDT

[#6]

Quoted:

Quoted:
The B-1R is really a stellar idea. It's SO good, in fact, that I have to wonder what we have that makes it a waste of time.

That might not be why it hasn't been made... Far more likely there just isn't the money nor the need... How many air-forces on Earth could throw an entire wing of fighters at us at once if they wanted to anyway? Especially that we couldn't just deal with using fighters anyway. Besides, a strategic bomber is so valuable, fucking with one might be a bad idea. Nothing worse than losing one of those from the inventory... Well, except losing a carrier.

That said, it's damn cool. If only the B-1B line was still open.

Now... I tell you who could really, really use them... The Australians... As an F-111 replacement... Fuck, China would throw a temper tantrum.

Guess who could throw a whole wing of fighter against us and not care that we could make a scrapheap out of it, because they have another one just like it coming up behind them?

Posted: 4/16/2010 2:24:52 AM EDT

[#7]

Quoted:

Quoted:

You add our EW abilities into it, which make us gods in air warfare, and the Ruskies are fucked.

Dream on. Long range SAMs are capable to blow your planes out of the sky. Meter-band radars as additional radar acquisition for S-400 L-band radars(that are almost jamproof by the fact) making stealth tricks nearly useless.

B1R upgrade is still looking cool.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_EA-18G_Underside_lg.jpg

+

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/AGM-88E_HARM_p1230047.jpg

=

More than one way to skin a cat...quite literally in this instance.

Go ahead, try and burn through our ECM. We've got a little present for you.

F-18 has huge RCS with all of these payload. Irrelevant since your guys would be dead before they even knew there was a threat. AARGMs are vulnerable too - short range air defense vehicles were designed to pick up these threats. Good luck with that AARGMs also could be fooled by using of decoy emmiters, Not happening in the real world to any significant level. And even if it did, we'd just start tossing the dozens of other, non-anti-radiation weapons at our disposal at you aerosol and dipole clouds from Anti-Radiation Missile Defensive Suite "Gazetchik". You guys would have to trick every HARM and stand-off weapon... We only have to get one through... Who has more of said resources at its disposal? We win.

When will Russians learn that potential weaknesses do not equal certain victory?

Posted: 4/16/2010 2:30:40 AM EDT

[#8]

Quoted:

Quoted:

The B-1R is really a stellar idea. It's SO good, in fact, that I have to wonder what we have that makes it a waste of time.

That might not be why it hasn't been made... Far more likely there just isn't the money nor the need... How many air-forces on Earth could throw an entire wing of fighters at us at once if they wanted to anyway? Especially that we couldn't just deal with using fighters anyway. Besides, a strategic bomber is so valuable, fucking with one might be a bad idea. Nothing worse than losing one of those from the inventory... Well, except losing a carrier.

That said, it's damn cool. If only the B-1B line was still open.
Now... I tell you who could really, really use them... The Australians... As an F-111 replacement... Fuck, China would throw a temper tantrum.

Guess who could throw a whole wing of fighter against us and not care that we could make a scrapheap out of it, because they have another one just like it coming up behind them?

Russia? Nope... They'd be lucky to get one entire wing of actually combat-ready and armed fighters off the ground simultaneously in real life. And good luck to them at keeping them all refueled for a prolonged period of time...

The Chinese could generate multiple wing sorties... But the vast majority of the aircraft would be outdated pieces of shit... Nothing we'd need the B-1R for. As long as we have some F-22s to go around, we could handle them.

Europe? Our allies generally... Or at least too fucking scared (or smart) to get into a clash with us... Only the Nazi's enjoyed suicide.

India? Nope.

Who, exactly?
The Australians could use it, purely for its range and speed, as an interdiction (and long range strike) platform. The US really doesn't need it. Any role it would fill is filled easier and cheaper by the carriers or refueled fighter squadrons.

Posted: 4/16/2010 2:52:40 AM EDT

[#9]

I have a heat seeking missile for Caitlin Harrington (at 3:12 in the vid).

Posted: 4/16/2010 2:53:02 AM EDT

[#10]

Fantasy.

Posted: 4/16/2010 2:54:55 AM EDT

[#11]

Quoted:

I have a heat seeking missile for Caitlin Harrington (at 3:12 in the vid).

Vito would call that an ASRAAM...

Posted: 4/16/2010 5:18:36 AM EDT

[#12]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Does anyone remember a novel from the mid 90s or so that utilized this concept? It was a few AMRAAM armed B1s ambushing a Russian raid on a carrier group. The lead pilot muses that he has the highest kill score and that it ain't bad for a bomber pilot. It wasn't Dale Brown either.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

in starwars novels this shared targeting telemetry is used often, a fighter gets a lock and other fighters use its lock to launch a mass of missiles

That way only one guy has to emit, so the bandits only think they're up against one guy.

Posted: 4/16/2010 5:27:44 AM EDT

[#13]

Reminds me of a modern-day P61... Very cool!

Posted: 4/16/2010 5:32:52 AM EDT

[#14]

cool concept, kinda reminds me of a modern version of

Posted: 4/16/2010 5:33:35 AM EDT

[#15]

IMO, eventually what we'll have is a fleet of UCAV's.

Some will run forward radar and be disposable, since the enemy can see them, working like a tactical unmanned AWACS. They'll relay tactical data to a second set of UCAVS's that have all the missiles and are "running silent".

Posted: 4/16/2010 5:37:10 AM EDT

[#16]

A lot of good ideas that are very technically feasible never get built, for budgetary or political reasons.

Like the YF-23. Supposedly, it'd be one hell of a strike platform, better in that role than the F-22 is likely to ever be. (Fortunately, nobody is looking at

adding strike capability to the F-22 at this moment but mission creep is probably inevitable.)

I say, dump the F-35 and restart the YF-23 as our new strike platform.

Back in the 80s, an F-16 was equipped with 3D thrust vectoring. Note, the thrust vectoring of the F-22 is only 2D. Its nozzles only allow vectoring in

the vertical plane. The 3D F-15 thrust vectoring nozzle allowed lateral vectoring as well, giving it the ability to direct the thrust in any off-axis direction

up to about 20 degrees off axis. Maneuverability was INSANE. It could achieve transitory angles of attack of minus 180 degrees. That's pointed north

while flying south.

It would have been producible in both GE and P&W engine configurations for about an extra million per aircraft...a bargain, in fighter terms.

Also, a ground collision avoidance system has been tested in the F-16 which literally won't let you fly the aircraft into the terrain even if you're unconscious. At a few hundred thousand dollars a copy, it by rights should be installed in EVERYTHING that carries a pilot, even the older

aircraft that are still in service. But that hasn't been done, either.

We haven't gotten a lot of the really cool recent developments put into service. You might argue that we didn't really NEED them, but I don't see maintaining superiority as a goal that we can continue to accomplish by simply restricting our capabilities to what we need now. We have to think ahead and field the best toys our creative minds can think up.

The idea of the B-1R is really awesome and I can envision scenarios in which it would be extremely useful. But I don't see THIS congress as thinking it's worth spending a dollar on.

CJ

Posted: 4/16/2010 5:38:46 AM EDT

[#17]

Quoted:
Does anyone remember a novel from the mid 90s or so that utilized this concept? It was a few AMRAAM armed B1s ambushing a Russian raid on a carrier group. The lead pilot muses that he has the highest kill score and that it ain't bad for a bomber pilot. It wasn't Dale Brown either.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Sounds like Dale Brown's MegaFortress.

Posted: 4/16/2010 5:49:29 AM EDT

[#18]

Quoted:
A lot of good ideas that are very technically feasible never get built, for budgetary or political reasons.

Like the YF-23. Supposedly, it'd be one hell of a strike platform, better in that role than the F-22 is likely to ever be. (Fortunately, nobody is looking at
adding strike capability to the F-22 at this moment but mission creep is probably inevitable.)

I say, dump the F-35 and restart the YF-23 as our new strike platform.

Back in the 80s, an F-16 was equipped with 3D thrust vectoring. Note, the thrust vectoring of the F-22 is only 2D. Its nozzles only allow vectoring in
the vertical plane. The 3D F-15 thrust vectoring nozzle allowed lateral vectoring as well, giving it the ability to direct the thrust in any off-axis direction
up to about 20 degrees off axis. Maneuverability was INSANE. It could achieve transitory angles of attack of minus 180 degrees. That's pointed north
while flying south.

It would have been producible in both GE and P&W engine configurations for about an extra million per aircraft...a bargain, in fighter terms.

Also, a ground collision avoidance system has been tested in the F-16 which literally won't let you fly the aircraft into the terrain even if you're unconscious. At a few hundred thousand dollars a copy, it by rights should be installed in EVERYTHING that carries a pilot, even the older
aircraft that are still in service. But that hasn't been done, either.

We haven't gotten a lot of the really cool recent developments put into service. You might argue that we didn't really NEED them, but I don't see maintaining superiority as a goal that we can continue to accomplish by simply restricting our capabilities to what we need now. We have to think ahead and field the best toys our creative minds can think up.

The idea of the B-1R is really awesome and I can envision scenarios in which it would be extremely useful. But I don't see THIS congress as thinking it's worth spending a dollar on.

CJ

They are developing a strike version of the 23 as we speak. ITs a bit longer then the original which kills the beautiful lines of that fighter some, but such is life.

As far as this concept, the heavy fighter idea could be made to work especially with shit hot radars and communications. However I don't see us ever doing anything like this unless a surprise attack utterly guts the f-22 fleet while they are still all on the ground.

Posted: 4/16/2010 5:57:40 AM EDT

[#19]

Posted: 4/16/2010 6:01:50 AM EDT

[#20]

Quoted:

Quoted:
You add our EW abilities into it, which make us gods in air warfare, and the Ruskies are fucked.

Dream on. Long range SAMs are capable to blow your planes out of the sky. Meter-band radars as additional radar acquisition for S-400 L-band radars(that are almost jamproof by the fact) making stealth tricks nearly useless.

B1R upgrade is still looking cool.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_EA-18G_Underside_lg.jpg

+

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/AGM-88E_HARM_p1230047.jpg

=

More than one way to skin a cat...quite literally in this instance.

Go ahead, try and burn through our ECM. We've got a little present for you.

F-18 has huge RCS with all of these payload. AARGMs are vulnerable too - short range air defense vehicles were designed to pick up these threats. AARGMs also could be fooled by using of decoy emmiters, aerosol and dipole clouds from Anti-Radiation Missile Defensive Suite "Gazetchik".

At least our pilots don't have to give tourists rides to pay for flight time.

Posted: 4/16/2010 6:04:58 AM EDT

[#21]

Homeview tag!

Posted: 4/16/2010 6:05:21 AM EDT

[#22]

Quoted:

Quoted:
You add our EW abilities into it, which make us gods in air warfare, and the Ruskies are fucked.

Dream on. Long range SAMs are capable to blow your planes out of the sky. Meter-band radars as additional radar acquisition for S-400 L-band radars(that are almost jamproof by the fact) making stealth tricks nearly useless.

B1R upgrade is still looking cool.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_EA-18G_Underside_lg.jpg

+

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/AGM-88E_HARM_p1230047.jpg

=

More than one way to skin a cat...quite literally in this instance.

Go ahead, try and burn through our ECM. We've got a little present for you.

He's got a point prim... Though we will take losses, between our stealth bombers, fighters,drones...and we even have wild weasel drones. What I mean is SAM sites will follow the "you emit, you die" principle. Once they lock on with radar...bye bye. Now if those S400's can lock on via passive means...that could be problamatic for us.

Posted: 4/16/2010 6:08:10 AM EDT

[#23]

Um, those are video games.

Posted: 4/16/2010 6:09:48 AM EDT

[#24]

Quoted:
The B-1R is really a stellar idea. It's SO good, in fact, that I have to wonder what we have that makes it a waste of time.

Something unmanned loitering at 80,000 feet.

Posted: 4/16/2010 6:13:40 AM EDT

[#25]

Shoot one or two of the old Genie missiles into the formation and poof, gone.

Plumbbob Nuclear Test. Only live fire Genie test:

Poof:

Posted: 4/16/2010 6:30:33 AM EDT

[#26]

Quoted:

Um, those are video games.

Ummm, yeah they're computer generated graphics. The B-1R doesn't exist, but it is a real proposal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-1_Lancer

The B-1R is a proposed replacement for the B-1B fleet. Boeing's director of global strike integration, Rich Parke, was first quoted about the "B-1R" bomber in Air Force Magazine. Parke said the B-1R (R for "regional") would be a Lancer with advanced radars, air-to-air missiles, and Pratt & Whitney F119 engines (originally developed for the F-22 Raptor). Its new top speed of Mach 2.2 would be purchased at the price of a 20% reduction of the B-1B's range.

This proposal would involve modifying existing aircraft. The FB-22 and YF-23-based designs are alternative proposals.

Boeing's proposal appears to modify the B-1B into a design able to
serve these two purposes. For the bomb-truck role Boeing proposes the
modification of existing external hardpoints to allow them to carry
multiple conventional warheads, dramatically improving overall warload.
For the air-to-air role, both defensive and offensive, they propose to
add active electronically-scanned array radar and allow some of the
hardpoints to carry air-to-air missiles. Even with its somewhat reduced
range as compared to the original B-1B, its fuel capacity remains quite
large. This would allow it to escape from unfavorable air-to-air
encounters by simply running away; there are few enough aircraft
capable of Mach 2+ performance in general, and those that are deployed
can maintain these speeds for only very short periods of time.

In general terms the B-1R most closely resembles the original F-111
concept, as opposed to a pure bomber role. However, it would be able to
carry out these missions at ranges even greater than the F-111.

Posted: 4/16/2010 6:58:32 AM EDT

[#27]

Quoted:

Also, a ground collision avoidance system has been tested in the F-16
CJ

And the Lawn Dart certainly needs one…

Posted: 4/16/2010 7:03:19 AM EDT

[#28]

Quoted:

Quoted:

Also, a ground collision avoidance system has been tested in the F-16
CJ

And the Lawn Dart certainly needs one…

Ziiing!

Posted: 4/16/2010 7:05:06 AM EDT

[#29]

Quoted:
F-18F - 10 AIM-120 and 2 AIM-9

http://www.indiadaily.com/images/editorial/2056_320.jpg

Jeez! Loaded for AAW BEAR!

Posted: 4/16/2010 7:12:00 AM EDT

[#30]

Quoted:

Quoted:

Also, a ground collision avoidance system has been tested in the F-16
CJ

And the Lawn Dart certainly needs one…

I love the F16, but that was pretty damned funny!

Posted: 4/16/2010 7:26:23 AM EDT

[#31]

This sounds like a cool idea, but I'm not convinced of the usefulness where we would face an onslaught of huge numbers of aircraft other than perhaps an European theater WWIII scenario in which case, you'd have to base your strategic assets unreasonably far forward to maintain usefulness.

The Chinese could probably assemble a strike package of 100+ aircraft and cruise missiles against a carrier group where there would literally be more targets than air-to-air missiles, but are you going to have a B1 loitering with the carriers CAP at all times?

Posted: 4/16/2010 9:04:27 AM EDT

[#32]

As always there is the money and politics part to get right. I just don't see the current government going for weapons that would benefit the US military.

Posted: 4/16/2010 9:38:40 AM EDT

[#33]

Quoted:

Um, those are video games.

It was from the History Channel show "Dogfights".

Posted: 4/16/2010 10:21:49 AM EDT

[#34]

Quoted:
IMO, eventually what we'll have is a fleet of UCAV's.

Some will run forward radar and be disposable, since the enemy can see them, working like a tactical unmanned AWACS. They'll relay tactical data to a second set of UCAVS's that have all the missiles and are "running silent".

I agree that this is going to be the future. Bitch and moan all you want but it's going to happen. From what I understand the thing really hindering the fighter UCAV is the latency between the pilot and the aircraft, hence pilots in theater do the take off and landings while pilots stateside do the mission flying.

I predict that in order to make an effective and rapidly deployable fighter UCAV, they will build airborne command & control platforms each with a half dozen or so UCAV 'fighter' pilots. Effectiveness of these UCAV fighters would be stellar compared with traditional fighters for several reasons. Like current UCAV's piloting duty would be distributed for different tasks.

One set of guys doing the drudge work like take off's/landings/aerial refueling, the guys on the forward operating C&C aircraft doing the actual combat/patrols. The combat pilots would be working in a much more comfortable environment, not subjected to extreme G forces, easy to eat a snack, go to the bathroom, switch out with another pilot to avoid fatigue, huge easy to read LCD displays with all the critical data being fed from the AWACs type UCAV's. What's not to like, other than the nostalgia we feel for the traditional fighter pilot man/machine combos duking it out in the sky?

Posted: 4/16/2010 10:27:21 AM EDT

[#35]

Quoted:

Quoted:

Also, a ground collision avoidance system has been tested in the F-16

CJ

And the Lawn Dart certainly needs one…

Ziiing!

Simply because it's the only operational single seat fighter (aside from the F-22, now) which is set up to allow 9 G maneuvering. There's nobody in the other seat to wake up the pilot after he G-LOCs himself due to an overabundance of aggressiveness and a shortage of high G endurance.

You know perfectly well that G-LOC has always been the number one cause of F-16 crashes. You could fairly attribute that to pilot error...he thought

he could retain consciousness through a 9.4 G turn. (Absolute peak recorded to date is an 11.2 G spike, IIRC.)

Don't blame the plane when the pilot asked it to do more than he could handle.

GCAS should be standard on all military aircraft and all aircraft in passenger service.

CJ

Posted: 4/16/2010 10:37:10 AM EDT

[#36]

Quoted:
F-18F - 10 AIM-120 and 2 AIM-9

http://www.indiadaily.com/images/editorial/2056_320.jpg

Combat radius of about the end of the runway with that loadout.

Posted: 4/16/2010 10:43:42 AM EDT

[#37]

Quoted:

Quoted:
F-18F - 10 AIM-120 and 2 AIM-9

http://www.indiadaily.com/images/editorial/2056_320.jpg

Combat radius of about the end of the runway with that loadout.

And too heavy to land back on the boat, I'd wager.

Posted: 4/16/2010 10:45:09 AM EDT

[#38]

Quoted:

This sounds like a cool idea, but I'm not convinced of the usefulness where we would face an onslaught of huge numbers of aircraft other than perhaps an European theater WWIII scenario in which case, you'd have to base your strategic assets unreasonably far forward to maintain usefulness.

The Chinese could probably assemble a strike package of 100+ aircraft and cruise missiles against a carrier group where there would literally be more targets than air-to-air missiles, but are you going to have a B1 loitering with the carriers CAP at all times?

This sounds exactly like the proposed mission for the F-111B. Big swing-wing jet with a powerful radar and lots of missiles loitering to protect carrier groups from Soviet missiles.

Posted: 4/16/2010 10:47:20 AM EDT

[#39]

Quoted:

Quoted:

Also, a ground collision avoidance system has been tested in the F-16
CJ

And the Lawn Dart certainly needs one…

Ziiing!

Simply because it's the only operational single seat fighter (aside from the F-22, now) which is set up to allow 9 G maneuvering. There's nobody in the other seat to wake up the pilot after he G-LOCs himself due to an overabundance of aggressiveness and a shortage of high G endurance.

You know perfectly well that G-LOC has always been the number one cause of F-16 crashes. You could fairly attribute that to pilot error...he thought
he could retain consciousness through a 9.4 G turn. (Absolute peak recorded to date is an 11.2 G spike, IIRC.)

Don't blame the plane when the pilot asked it to do more than he could handle.

GCAS should be standard on all military aircraft and all aircraft in passenger service.

CJ

I know this. You know we know this. Its just a friendly dig. Hell, a very good friend of my fathers died of Gloc in a 2 seater F16 at Carswell AFB a long long time ago. Almost took out the row of B52s. Damn long time ago too, I was in 3rd grade.

RIP Pork.

Posted: 4/16/2010 10:48:57 AM EDT

[#40]

Quoted:

Quoted:

Also, a ground collision avoidance system has been tested in the F-16
CJ

And the Lawn Dart certainly needs one…

Ziiing!

Simply because it's the only operational single seat fighter (aside from the F-22, now) which is set up to allow 9 G maneuvering. There's nobody in the other seat to wake up the pilot after he G-LOCs himself due to an overabundance of aggressiveness and a shortage of high G endurance.

You know perfectly well that G-LOC has always been the number one cause of F-16 crashes. You could fairly attribute that to pilot error...he thought
he could retain consciousness through a 9.4 G turn. (Absolute peak recorded to date is an 11.2 G spike, IIRC.)

Don't blame the plane when the pilot asked it to do more than he could handle.

GCAS should be standard on all military aircraft and all aircraft in passenger service.

CJ

Pulls 9G sustained until such time as the pilot gets bored - Does not do Lawn Darting

Posted: 4/16/2010 10:56:13 AM EDT

[#41]

Quoted:

Quoted:

IMO, eventually what we'll have is a fleet of UCAV's.

Some will run forward radar and be disposable, since the enemy can see them, working like a tactical unmanned AWACS. They'll relay tactical data to a second set of UCAVS's that have all the missiles and are "running silent".

I agree that this is going to be the future. Bitch and moan all you want but it's going to happen. From what I understand the thing really hindering the fighter UCAV is the latency between the pilot and the aircraft, hence pilots in theater do the take off and landings while pilots stateside do the mission flying.

I predict that in order to make an effective and rapidly deployable fighter UCAV, they will build airborne command & control platforms each with a half dozen or so UCAV 'fighter' pilots. Effectiveness of these UCAV fighters would be stellar compared with traditional fighters for several reasons. Like current UCAV's piloting duty would be distributed for different tasks.

One set of guys doing the drudge work like take off's/landings/aerial refueling, the guys on the forward operating C&C aircraft doing the actual combat/patrols. The combat pilots would be working in a much more comfortable environment, not subjected to extreme G forces, easy to eat a snack, go to the bathroom, switch out with another pilot to avoid fatigue, huge easy to read LCD displays with all the critical data being fed from the AWACs type UCAV's. What's not to like, other than the nostalgia we feel for the traditional fighter pilot man/machine combos duking it out in the sky?

Lag, and what happens when the enemy figures out how to jam the comm-link back to the pilot?

UAVs are good for some things - but not ALL things...

Posted: 4/16/2010 11:05:42 AM EDT

[#42]

Quoted:
...Also, a ground collision avoidance system has been tested in the F-16 which literally won't let you fly the aircraft into the terrain even if you're unconscious. At a few hundred thousand dollars a copy, it by rights should be installed in EVERYTHING that carries a pilot, even the older
aircraft that are still in service. But that hasn't been done, either.
.

Fighter pilots refuse to allow a device that can take control of the aircraft and fly it.

B1 pilots don't seem to have that issue.

BTW the B1-R concept was being pushed in the early to mid 90s while I was working on Block D. While it sounds like a cool concept, it's really a large target and can't dogfight with a modern fighter. The B1 is at it's best terrain following, up in the sky with enemy aircraft, it's much too vulnerable.

Posted: 4/16/2010 11:09:26 AM EDT

[#43]

Quoted:

Quoted:
IMO, eventually what we'll have is a fleet of UCAV's.

Some will run forward radar and be disposable, since the enemy can see them, working like a tactical unmanned AWACS. They'll relay tactical data to a second set of UCAVS's that have all the missiles and are "running silent".

I agree that this is going to be the future. Bitch and moan all you want but it's going to happen. From what I understand the thing really hindering the fighter UCAV is the latency between the pilot and the aircraft, hence pilots in theater do the take off and landings while pilots stateside do the mission flying.

I predict that in order to make an effective and rapidly deployable fighter UCAV, they will build airborne command & control platforms each with a half dozen or so UCAV 'fighter' pilots. Effectiveness of these UCAV fighters would be stellar compared with traditional fighters for several reasons. Like current UCAV's piloting duty would be distributed for different tasks.

One set of guys doing the drudge work like take off's/landings/aerial refueling, the guys on the forward operating C&C aircraft doing the actual combat/patrols. The combat pilots would be working in a much more comfortable environment, not subjected to extreme G forces, easy to eat a snack, go to the bathroom, switch out with another pilot to avoid fatigue, huge easy to read LCD displays with all the critical data being fed from the AWACs type UCAV's. What's not to like, other than the nostalgia we feel for the traditional fighter pilot man/machine combos duking it out in the sky?

Lag, and what happens when the enemy figures out how to jam the comm-link back to the pilot?

UAVs are good for some things - but not ALL things...

Some (note I said SOME) aspects of areal combat are easier to model AI rules for than ground navigation.

And we're pretty good at not getting jammed as it is now. Spread spectrum frequency hopping digital encryption is pretty much the norm for these systems. And if someone does try to jam, it'll have to be so broad spectrum they'll go deaf too. And if the jamming actually is a problem, one or two UCAV's with an AGM-88 HARM, or it's next-gen replacement missile could have a logic rule: "IF Interference/jamming?=YES. AND Out of comms with control craft for > X seconds?=YES THEN LAUNCH HARM" etc.

Posted: 4/16/2010 11:17:37 AM EDT

[#44]

Quoted:
The BoneR huh?

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Posted: 4/16/2010 11:33:22 AM EDT

[#45]

Quoted:

Quoted:

Also, a ground collision avoidance system has been tested in the F-16
CJ

And the Lawn Dart certainly needs one…

Ziiing!

Simply because it's the only operational single seat fighter (aside from the F-22, now) which is set up to allow 9 G maneuvering. There's nobody in the other seat to wake up the pilot after he G-LOCs himself due to an overabundance of aggressiveness and a shortage of high G endurance.

You know perfectly well that G-LOC has always been the number one cause of F-16 crashes. You could fairly attribute that to pilot error...he thought
he could retain consciousness through a 9.4 G turn. (Absolute peak recorded to date is an 11.2 G spike, IIRC.)

Don't blame the plane when the pilot asked it to do more than he could handle.

GCAS should be standard on all military aircraft and all aircraft in passenger service.

CJ

http://www.airshows.org.uk/2007/airshows/eastbourne/photographs/raf_typhoon_2.jpg

Pulls 9G sustained until such time as the pilot gets bored - Does not do Lawn Darting

the cost of the euro fighter is what 4-5 block 52 F-16's? Were back to the Sherman/panzer dilemma

Posted: 4/16/2010 11:40:22 AM EDT

[#46]

Quoted:

Lag, and what happens when the enemy figures out how to jam the comm-link back to the pilot?

UAVs are good for some things - but not ALL things...

Lag would be greatly reduced by airborne c&c aircraft controlling the drones which loiter near the battle but not in the battle. Enemy jamming communications will always be a problem, but as it stands currently if an enemy can jam all our comms or radar then our combined arms tactics will pretty much go to shit anyway. It sucks but face it the age of the 'dogfight' is over. Large scale combat between superpowers will be lot of button pushing and watching the displays, at least as far as air and sea battles go.