You can't really compare the cost of a V-22 to a Hawkeye as one comes with a massive radar, data link facility and one doesn't. By the time you've added that to the V-22 I'd expect the price to be >$210 milllion assuming you can figure out where to put the radome without getting in the way of the folding wings and rotors. The radar less cargo carrying version of the E-2, the Greyhound costs around $40 million so it looks like the cost of the radar is in the order of $170 million, add that to the cost of a basic V-22 and you're talking $240 million and that's assuming the development costs are amortized over a decent production run. Which they won't be.
The AW609 maybe cheaper still but you probably couldn't get all the systems in that, unless sir wants a bespoke option which I'm sure BAe would happily quote for and then fail to deliver a decade and several billion after the in service date...
1. The democratically elected government decide what they'd like the armed forces to be able to do.
2. The armed forces explain how much this will cost.
3. The government give them less than this but still want their original requirement fulfilled.
4. To get round this changes are continually made to programs in a counter productive attempt to save money.
Ideally at point 3 the government should just sign the cheques as it would ultimately be cheaper than all the intervening dicking about. E.g. with the Albion class landing ships they managed to remove the hangar deck (along with medical centre) to save a few million in steel while costing several million in redesign costs, it's hard to think of any MoD program where this hasn't happened unless it's an Urgent Operational Requirement where things are so desperate people are allowed to just go and buy things.
Re: So Britain is building a couple VTOL carriers who's new planes are not yet ready?
I think you'll found we sold most of the fully upgraded in use ones to the US.
Breaking out any remaining ones in an emergency will be much less of a snag than getting any pilots up to speed on operating them. It's a skill that's subject to a lot of fade and I'm not talking about the take-off, land, fly about bit.
But, the Invincible class weren't designed as strike carriers, they were designed as ASW carriers to carry helicopters, the Sea Harrier was a late addition to the air group (I mean in planning terms not in the life of the ships themselves). It was more a happy coincidence that we made an aircraft that could operate from the Invincible class than an actual plan.
The QE Class are designed as strike carriers something they'll now only achieve if the F-35B works, in the case of Invincible the Harrier already existed.
Depends how many warheads you put on it and where it hits, the middle of the runway is usually a good place to start, you'd be surprised how many airbases only have the one.
Re your first point, that's what was used before steam catapults, people don't use steam because they haven't thought of something else, it's because it works. The amount of energy released is quite impressive, you're accelerating 20+ tonnes of aircraft to >120 knots in under two seconds.
Your second point yes, if the F-35B fails then we've just built two rather large under armed ships...
That would be the Nimrod that was over 10 years and some billions of pounds over budget when it was cancelled, I don't think you could conceivably have given more time to it, ditto the AEW version that was another clusterfuck through trying to do things on the cheap rather than using a suitable airframe for the job.
I'm also not sure why all the knockers are tied up on the age of the F-18, the Super Hornet is only about 10-15 ears old and to be honest aerodynamics hasn't advanced that much in the intervening years, hell the F-35 is in some ways inferior due to the stealth aspect.
As it is we're now tied to a specific aircraft for the future carriers, if they fail we've got two large helicopter carriers. No one's making Harriers any more and they're antiques now anyway in terms of systems and sensors
So if they display their usual level of competence it's safe to assume the majority of the defence budget will soon be spent paying GPS manufacturers to include the modulation scheme rather than the other way round...
"The ability to convert formats is the ONLY major influence on the choice of which ereader to buy"
For you maybe, but for the general public I'd guess ease of use is the main driver. My mother for example doesn't care about converting formats, she just wants to easily buy books and get them on her e-reader, as do I because I can't be doing with even more phone calls for tech support on something I've never even seen.
To that end the Kindle is great, go on-line, buy a book, have it delivered direct to the Kindle over the air, or buy it direct on the device itself if you're away from a computer. That's the factor that won my mother over, she doesn't give a **** about converting formats or reading a PDF she just wants to easily get books on it and for that Amazon got it spot on.
The wind should appear to be coming from high pressure areas and going towards low pressure areas, note it's slightly more complicated than that due to the Coriolis effect. High pressure areas are where air is sinking down from higher levels as it cools while low pressure areas are where it's rising, generally through heating of the surface, e.g. the Equator. Once it gets to the surface it tries to equalise by flowing horizontally.
Google Global Circulation for a less cack handed explanation...
The difference is the B-52 gets a lot less use than your average airliner, as do all military aircraft. It costs the military to use them whereas it costs an airline not to. If BA were operating the B-52 it would have run out of airframe life years ago!
International waters are interesting from a legal point of view, it's hard enough for naval forces to stop a suspect pirate vessel unless they're actually doing some piracy.
On the flip side if the blimp is presenting a danger to air navigation* then there's still probably some grounds for someone to take action against them, I don't see that it necessarily has to be the U.S. it's not as if the Pirate Bay's activities are considered above board in many countries.
*Interpret this as you want if you're the aviation authority being affected, and they'd presumably have to be within line of sight of the coast to be of any use so high enough to be considered a nuisance at least.
Actually most airline fleets use the newest aircraft they can because they're more fuel efficient. Certainly in Europe/North America the 737s being used will have been built in the last decade or so.
I have used a mobile phone in an aircraft but as its electronics were hardened against the EMP from a nuclear blast it wasn't really a problem.
I think he's a bit confused, shooting one of these down would only be an act of war if they were registered and marked as belonging to the government of a nation state. Otherwise it's just a police action.
It's a bugger to maintain, even a layer of rain drops on the wing can turn the laminar flow back to a turbulent one on a laminar wing. Boscombe Down did laminar flow tests during WW2 and they had to climb up above the layer you'd find insects in to avoid the results being ruined by them changing the surface when they hit it.
I think you'll find sailors of the time were more than aware of the risk of scurvy. Knowledge of it was so widespread it had a common name, scurvy.
Less sarcastically manning a sailing ship was actually a healthier profession than many shore based ones. Partially because there were less sources of infection as waste was dumped over the side rather than lying in the streets. Additionally the nautical method of sealing any amputations in molten pitch gave them a much lower risk of septicaemia as any nasties were killed off.
On the flip side, I get a headache if I use a monitor for ~8 hours a day but not if I read my Kindle for that length of time, generally on a long haul flight.
If I've got a headache after using a monitor for an extended period it goes away if I then use my Kindle. I mean I'm not saying it cures the headache, but it doesn't effect the recovery. My eyesight's fine incidentally, it gets checked annually.
Re: I'm possibly out of my depth here technically so apologies for the naive question.
Actually it's more like watching the rev counter. Depending on what you're training for it can be useful for setting your pace, e.g. to improve stamina you work at 70% of your max for an extended period.
Re: the only scary thing is why this wasnt done sooner....
I can only guess it's because previously if someone said it's going to cost £XXX Million to do, they said OK and asked for an increase in their budget which they got. Now they're being told they can't increase their budget they're presumably looking at options other than throwing money at the problem.
However, it's very unlikely that politicians are going to enact rules that punish stupidity as that will directly affect the kind of person who'd otherwise unthinkingly vote for them. And I'm not even sure I'm joking...
I believe he's including the anchor scope in his calculation, the weight of the cable on the seabed is as important as the hook at the end in holding a ship in position so you need more than enough cable to touch the seabed. 650' is still shallow in the grand scheme of things though, trans-oceanic cables are several miles down.
' £8k per year for a pension??' Actually after 12 years in the RN, my pension when it starts to pay out in about 25 years time will be ~£8500 per annum in 2012 Pounds, so it's not that far out for certain cases. However it's often more complicated than that as many people will stay in until their immediate pension point where they'll start to receive an amount per year as soon as they leave the service, that will then increase when they hit pensionable 60/65. Of course the rules have changed in the last few years so there's an extra layer of confusion when considering anyone on the new scheme.
One option would be to use something less ubiquitous than a USB stick. PCMCIA memory cards work quite nicely and have the advantage that the average Soldier/Sailor/Airman doesn't have their own chock full of viruses and porn that they might be tempted to use to save time/play videos on the workstation/change the desktop picure with.
Although for some reason the maintainers get all upset when you pry it out of the reader with a knife after inserting it the wrong way for the nth time...
Just because the marketeers at BA say 100,000 feet is the edge of space doesn't mean it is, they're an airline not an aviation authority. I also can't find any reference in AP3456* to space starting at 100,000 feet so the RAF don't seem to be saying that either.
It's only 30.48Km which is well short of the 100Km used by the FAI or the 50NM used by NASA for the award of Astronaut wings (there's about 4 miles difference between the two).
It's bad enough people in marketing have redefined the meaning of 'unlimited' don't let them get away with any more abuses.
NY Times obit writer who described his service as "a sailor in the Royal Marines".
I'm sure as soon as any current or former members of the RM find out about that they'll sort him out, it's like they can't even be bothered to use Wikipedia.
'Does an aircraft need to react the millisecond data is compiled from the sensors?'
Actually yes, that's why they use computers rather than allowing humans direct control.
Basically it's down to how stable the aircraft is, the more stable it is the greater the drag which is obviously bad for fuel economy. Something like a Cessna, or an old airliner like a 707, is very stable and will return to its original attitude without input from the pilot which means you can use direct mechanical controls and manually trim the aircraft to hold the right attitude.
Because modern airlines are run to ever tightening margins there's continual demand for greater fuel efficiency, i.e. less drag, which is achieved by making the aircraft less stable (not unstable, just less*). However this makes the aircraft more sensitive to the point where a human pilot wouldn't be able to react in time to correct things. I don't know if airliners are on the edge of controllability however they're definitely at the point where it would be very tiring for a human to keep up. And the one area were autopilots definitely win is in fuel economy, Ryan Air apparently get all kinds of shirty if the pilots turn it off.
Re the spikes, without knowing how big they are it's hard to say whether they should have been excluded automatically. It wasn't that long ago that an airliner lost its rudder because the forces on it were twice that expected so it'd be presumptuous to assume we've got all the forces on an aircraft figured out in all conditions.
Incidentally on the altitude calculation part, it's actually not that important most of the time, because when you're cruising >10000' above the top of Everest ground proximity isn't really an issue. Most GPWS do have a terrain database, but in the Air France case that wouldn't have helped because they were over the sea and there already would have been an alarm to indicate they were below the desired cruising level. There're only so many alarms you can put in something to tell the operator he's being an idiot before it becomes counter productive, which I think they discovered at Three Mile Island.
*Fighters on the other hand are in to the negatively stable area which is a whole other can of worms.
Typically I don't use a headline from an IT website as a thorough Air Incident Investigation, that's just me though, you use it for evidence.
Considering most of the 'user interface' as you call it is governed by CS25 and whatever the FAA equivalent is then it's not really down to Airbus or Boeing how things work or even what colour the displays are.
Incidentally, User Interface does not mean Human Factors, that's something completely different in aviation. Have you tried google?
GPS works by comparing the difference in transit time for signals from multiple satellites. This requires really accurate clocks in the satellites, really accurate knowledge of where the satellites are and fairly accurate clocks in the receivers.
Spoofing requires the transmitter to pretend it's a satellite and send out suitable rogue information, this isn't that hard and in fact some systems that improve GPS accuracy do exactly that just without the rogue information bit. The problem is even a lot of commercial GPS systems now have redundancy built in so that they use more satellites than required and switch between them in turn to check for a jump in position that would indicate an error in the signal.
For more on how GPS works try google, it really is very clever, especially the bit about using the special and general theories of relativity.
It may not get lost as quickly as you'd think. Assuming the autopilot works with an inertial reference unit, if that was used as a back up nav system it should be enough to have you within a few tens of miles after crossing the Atlantic. Even if it was just working of the Air Data Unit and the last known wind that's normally enough to make sure you land in the right country*.
I'd have assumed the fail safe procedure for a sensitive drone is to blow yourself up commit a terminal dive rather than risk being captured. After all they only got Gary Powers because he didn't take his cyanide pill.
*Having been made to do this for 'practice' on a few occasions it's generally good enough to get you near something large and obvious. So a drone should be able to get near enough to a radio beacon it can see.
The computer wouldn't know if it was a spike until after it happened, it could be windsheer which can cause a significant change in the velocity vector.
So let me get this right, you want any spikes in data input referred to the flight crew for sanitising, by the time the alert has popped up on the display it'd be too late.
Obviously the spikes should be ignored, which is why there are three Inertial Reference Units (IRU), if one of them disagrees with the other two it gets ignored. What seems to have happened here is that the frequency of spikes from the bad IRU was such that it confused the rejection routine allowing them to get through which then drove the autopilot to compensate for something that wasn't happening. Taking manual control should get around this problem as although the spikes may be reflected in the flight director display the pilots wouldn't follow them even if they could. Imagine the speedo in your car cutting out for a fraction of a second randomly every few minutes, cruise control would go mad but a driver may not even notice.
The extra pilot's onboard so the one landing it has a chance to get some rest, it actually takes quite a long time to fly from Brazil to France and the regulatory authorities don't like people who've been up for 15 hours trying to land at international airports.
You'll also find, surprisingly, that airline training already spends an inordinate amount of its time concentrating on emergencies because they're the things you need to get right the first time despite hardly ever actually having to do them. The question is whether Air France's training needs re-examining, bearing in mind the crew's initial reactions do appear to have been in accordance with the then current procedures.
Interestingly they thought of this problem a few decades ago and the code for each flight control computer (there are three) is written by a different team which minimises the likelihood of each computer having the same error. And then they test everything a lot.
I'm also interested to know what other methods you think there are of measuring airspeed? Hint GPS doesn't give you airspeed, nor do radio navaids or Doppler nav. To measure the airspeed you need to measure the dynamic and static air pressure and that takes a pitot tube and a static vent.
Not really relevant , the Blackbird flew at around Mach 3.0, the Beast of Kandahar is subsonic, you don't really want to be screaming around if you're trying to monitor one area of a country.
Altitude is irrelevant, at 50,000' the temperature is around -56C, the heating is all from skin friction due to speed, I think Concorde got up to around 100C at Mach 2.0.
It does look very badly put together for a Lockheed product, and the colour is odd, strangely at 50,000 you don't want to be painted the same colour as the desert as it's a long way away the finish will be to reduce the IR signature and possibly the radar signature as well. Generally some shade of gray is best.
It actually has more than two modes, depending on what systems are available. In 'normal' the computers shouldn't allow you to conduct manoeuvres that will depart from controlled flight, e.g. it won't let you stall, if you pull fully back on the stick the computer will only let the airframe achieve the AoA for maximum lift no more. Effectively the pilots are allowed freedom of operation inside the safe flight envelope, the computers prevent the aircraft going beyond that.
In 'alternate' mode, recognising that some systems have failed and that it's unable to provide full flight envelope protection the aircraft reacts in a more traditional way, obviously it's important that the pilots recognise this.
Dual control inputs, yes, otherwise it's a bit pointless having two pilots, I did have the whole thing explained to me a while back, I can't remember the exact details but I'm fairly sure there's an over ride so one of the controls can have primacy.
Register
356 posts • joined Wednesday 21st May 2008 15:34 GMT
Page:
Re: E2D Hawkeye costs $210million
You can't really compare the cost of a V-22 to a Hawkeye as one comes with a massive radar, data link facility and one doesn't. By the time you've added that to the V-22 I'd expect the price to be >$210 milllion assuming you can figure out where to put the radome without getting in the way of the folding wings and rotors. The radar less cargo carrying version of the E-2, the Greyhound costs around $40 million so it looks like the cost of the radar is in the order of $170 million, add that to the cost of a basic V-22 and you're talking $240 million and that's assuming the development costs are amortized over a decent production run. Which they won't be.
The AW609 maybe cheaper still but you probably couldn't get all the systems in that, unless sir wants a bespoke option which I'm sure BAe would happily quote for and then fail to deliver a decade and several billion after the in service date...
Re: Orwell - Never so apt.
Trust me, the Koreans are knocking out cargo ships so cheaply no one would employ a UK shipyard to do anything but build things for the RN.
Re: Hang on a moment....
Not as such. What happens is
1. The democratically elected government decide what they'd like the armed forces to be able to do.
2. The armed forces explain how much this will cost.
3. The government give them less than this but still want their original requirement fulfilled.
4. To get round this changes are continually made to programs in a counter productive attempt to save money.
Ideally at point 3 the government should just sign the cheques as it would ultimately be cheaper than all the intervening dicking about. E.g. with the Albion class landing ships they managed to remove the hangar deck (along with medical centre) to save a few million in steel while costing several million in redesign costs, it's hard to think of any MoD program where this hasn't happened unless it's an Urgent Operational Requirement where things are so desperate people are allowed to just go and buy things.
Re: So Britain is building a couple VTOL carriers who's new planes are not yet ready?
I think you'll found we sold most of the fully upgraded in use ones to the US.
Breaking out any remaining ones in an emergency will be much less of a snag than getting any pilots up to speed on operating them. It's a skill that's subject to a lot of fade and I'm not talking about the take-off, land, fly about bit.
Re: Invicible class was restricted as well
But, the Invincible class weren't designed as strike carriers, they were designed as ASW carriers to carry helicopters, the Sea Harrier was a late addition to the air group (I mean in planning terms not in the life of the ships themselves). It was more a happy coincidence that we made an aircraft that could operate from the Invincible class than an actual plan.
The QE Class are designed as strike carriers something they'll now only achieve if the F-35B works, in the case of Invincible the Harrier already existed.
Re: A lot to agree with in this article
Depends how many warheads you put on it and where it hits, the middle of the runway is usually a good place to start, you'd be surprised how many airbases only have the one.
Re your first point, that's what was used before steam catapults, people don't use steam because they haven't thought of something else, it's because it works. The amount of energy released is quite impressive, you're accelerating 20+ tonnes of aircraft to >120 knots in under two seconds.
Your second point yes, if the F-35B fails then we've just built two rather large under armed ships...
Re: A lot to agree with in this article
As opposed to airfields which are really good at hiding from ballistic missiles...
Re: F18 -seriously?
That would be the Nimrod that was over 10 years and some billions of pounds over budget when it was cancelled, I don't think you could conceivably have given more time to it, ditto the AEW version that was another clusterfuck through trying to do things on the cheap rather than using a suitable airframe for the job.
I'm also not sure why all the knockers are tied up on the age of the F-18, the Super Hornet is only about 10-15 ears old and to be honest aerodynamics hasn't advanced that much in the intervening years, hell the F-35 is in some ways inferior due to the stealth aspect.
As it is we're now tied to a specific aircraft for the future carriers, if they fail we've got two large helicopter carriers. No one's making Harriers any more and they're antiques now anyway in terms of systems and sensors
Re: Why would you care, one way or another, what an ignorant fool thinks about you?
Because these days some of them have vests made of semtex they like to use against the unbelievers...
This does involve the MoD
So if they display their usual level of competence it's safe to assume the majority of the defence budget will soon be spent paying GPS manufacturers to include the modulation scheme rather than the other way round...
and you just try sitting in the cockpit and making announcements over the tannoy. It's like there's one rule for them and one for the passengers...
Re: An iPhone wannabe which doesn't even touch the wannabe status
Seriously, how stubby are your thumbs?!
Re: Great deal, it's not a Kindle
"The ability to convert formats is the ONLY major influence on the choice of which ereader to buy"
For you maybe, but for the general public I'd guess ease of use is the main driver. My mother for example doesn't care about converting formats, she just wants to easily buy books and get them on her e-reader, as do I because I can't be doing with even more phone calls for tech support on something I've never even seen.
To that end the Kindle is great, go on-line, buy a book, have it delivered direct to the Kindle over the air, or buy it direct on the device itself if you're away from a computer. That's the factor that won my mother over, she doesn't give a **** about converting formats or reading a PDF she just wants to easily get books on it and for that Amazon got it spot on.
The wind should appear to be coming from high pressure areas and going towards low pressure areas, note it's slightly more complicated than that due to the Coriolis effect. High pressure areas are where air is sinking down from higher levels as it cools while low pressure areas are where it's rising, generally through heating of the surface, e.g. the Equator. Once it gets to the surface it tries to equalise by flowing horizontally.
Google Global Circulation for a less cack handed explanation...
Re: Wind up
Works for me in Opera, maybe it's just you?
Live ship tracking?
So like this then?
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/
Re: Old but cool
The difference is the B-52 gets a lot less use than your average airliner, as do all military aircraft. It costs the military to use them whereas it costs an airline not to. If BA were operating the B-52 it would have run out of airframe life years ago!
International waters are interesting from a legal point of view, it's hard enough for naval forces to stop a suspect pirate vessel unless they're actually doing some piracy.
On the flip side if the blimp is presenting a danger to air navigation* then there's still probably some grounds for someone to take action against them, I don't see that it necessarily has to be the U.S. it's not as if the Pirate Bay's activities are considered above board in many countries.
*Interpret this as you want if you're the aviation authority being affected, and they'd presumably have to be within line of sight of the coast to be of any use so high enough to be considered a nuisance at least.
Re: Can people start using e-reader instead of kindle?
I fear you're tilting at a similar windmill to those people who get upset when I call it a Hoover and not a vacuum.
Re: while flying a friend down to Gloucester
Actually most airline fleets use the newest aircraft they can because they're more fuel efficient. Certainly in Europe/North America the 737s being used will have been built in the last decade or so.
I have used a mobile phone in an aircraft but as its electronics were hardened against the EMP from a nuclear blast it wasn't really a problem.
Act of War
I think he's a bit confused, shooting one of these down would only be an act of war if they were registered and marked as belonging to the government of a nation state. Otherwise it's just a police action.
The problem with laminar flow is
It's a bugger to maintain, even a layer of rain drops on the wing can turn the laminar flow back to a turbulent one on a laminar wing. Boscombe Down did laminar flow tests during WW2 and they had to climb up above the layer you'd find insects in to avoid the results being ruined by them changing the surface when they hit it.
Am I the only one
wondering what happens to the pod thing?
Re: Scurvy
I think you'll find sailors of the time were more than aware of the risk of scurvy. Knowledge of it was so widespread it had a common name, scurvy.
Less sarcastically manning a sailing ship was actually a healthier profession than many shore based ones. Partially because there were less sources of infection as waste was dumped over the side rather than lying in the streets. Additionally the nautical method of sealing any amputations in molten pitch gave them a much lower risk of septicaemia as any nasties were killed off.
Re: eye strain
On the flip side, I get a headache if I use a monitor for ~8 hours a day but not if I read my Kindle for that length of time, generally on a long haul flight.
If I've got a headache after using a monitor for an extended period it goes away if I then use my Kindle. I mean I'm not saying it cures the headache, but it doesn't effect the recovery. My eyesight's fine incidentally, it gets checked annually.
Re: I'm possibly out of my depth here technically so apologies for the naive question.
Actually it's more like watching the rev counter. Depending on what you're training for it can be useful for setting your pace, e.g. to improve stamina you work at 70% of your max for an extended period.
Re: the only scary thing is why this wasnt done sooner....
I can only guess it's because previously if someone said it's going to cost £XXX Million to do, they said OK and asked for an increase in their budget which they got. Now they're being told they can't increase their budget they're presumably looking at options other than throwing money at the problem.
I'm fairly sure my parent's have prior art that pre-dates Apple's existence.
' the point where the supersonic solar blast slows down'
How can something be supersonic in the vacuum of space?
All excellent points
However, it's very unlikely that politicians are going to enact rules that punish stupidity as that will directly affect the kind of person who'd otherwise unthinkingly vote for them. And I'm not even sure I'm joking...
Re: Re: 650 feet is shallow waters?
I believe he's including the anchor scope in his calculation, the weight of the cable on the seabed is as important as the hook at the end in holding a ship in position so you need more than enough cable to touch the seabed. 650' is still shallow in the grand scheme of things though, trans-oceanic cables are several miles down.
Re: Dodgy Maths
' £8k per year for a pension??' Actually after 12 years in the RN, my pension when it starts to pay out in about 25 years time will be ~£8500 per annum in 2012 Pounds, so it's not that far out for certain cases. However it's often more complicated than that as many people will stay in until their immediate pension point where they'll start to receive an amount per year as soon as they leave the service, that will then increase when they hit pensionable 60/65. Of course the rules have changed in the last few years so there's an extra layer of confusion when considering anyone on the new scheme.
Pasties, the plural of Pasty
God's own foodstuff
http://www.properpasty.co.uk/
One option would be to use something less ubiquitous than a USB stick. PCMCIA memory cards work quite nicely and have the advantage that the average Soldier/Sailor/Airman doesn't have their own chock full of viruses and porn that they might be tempted to use to save time/play videos on the workstation/change the desktop picure with.
Although for some reason the maintainers get all upset when you pry it out of the reader with a knife after inserting it the wrong way for the nth time...
Just because the marketeers at BA say 100,000 feet is the edge of space doesn't mean it is, they're an airline not an aviation authority. I also can't find any reference in AP3456* to space starting at 100,000 feet so the RAF don't seem to be saying that either.
*RAF Manual of Flying
Re the X-15
That did actually go into space and the pilots controlling it when it did earned astronaut wings, apart from the civilian as the FAA don't issue any.
100,000 feet != Space
It's only 30.48Km which is well short of the 100Km used by the FAI or the 50NM used by NASA for the award of Astronaut wings (there's about 4 miles difference between the two).
It's bad enough people in marketing have redefined the meaning of 'unlimited' don't let them get away with any more abuses.
NY Times obit writer who described his service as "a sailor in the Royal Marines".
I'm sure as soon as any current or former members of the RM find out about that they'll sort him out, it's like they can't even be bothered to use Wikipedia.
I'm assuming he means Janner, not Jan dockie, in which case it makes perfect sense.
A Janner is from Plymouth and an Oggie is a pasty, the rest I leave as an exercise for the reader.
'Does an aircraft need to react the millisecond data is compiled from the sensors?'
Actually yes, that's why they use computers rather than allowing humans direct control.
Basically it's down to how stable the aircraft is, the more stable it is the greater the drag which is obviously bad for fuel economy. Something like a Cessna, or an old airliner like a 707, is very stable and will return to its original attitude without input from the pilot which means you can use direct mechanical controls and manually trim the aircraft to hold the right attitude.
Because modern airlines are run to ever tightening margins there's continual demand for greater fuel efficiency, i.e. less drag, which is achieved by making the aircraft less stable (not unstable, just less*). However this makes the aircraft more sensitive to the point where a human pilot wouldn't be able to react in time to correct things. I don't know if airliners are on the edge of controllability however they're definitely at the point where it would be very tiring for a human to keep up. And the one area were autopilots definitely win is in fuel economy, Ryan Air apparently get all kinds of shirty if the pilots turn it off.
Re the spikes, without knowing how big they are it's hard to say whether they should have been excluded automatically. It wasn't that long ago that an airliner lost its rudder because the forces on it were twice that expected so it'd be presumptuous to assume we've got all the forces on an aircraft figured out in all conditions.
Incidentally on the altitude calculation part, it's actually not that important most of the time, because when you're cruising >10000' above the top of Everest ground proximity isn't really an issue. Most GPWS do have a terrain database, but in the Air France case that wouldn't have helped because they were over the sea and there already would have been an alarm to indicate they were below the desired cruising level. There're only so many alarms you can put in something to tell the operator he's being an idiot before it becomes counter productive, which I think they discovered at Three Mile Island.
*Fighters on the other hand are in to the negatively stable area which is a whole other can of worms.
Typically I don't use a headline from an IT website as a thorough Air Incident Investigation, that's just me though, you use it for evidence.
Considering most of the 'user interface' as you call it is governed by CS25 and whatever the FAA equivalent is then it's not really down to Airbus or Boeing how things work or even what colour the displays are.
Incidentally, User Interface does not mean Human Factors, that's something completely different in aviation. Have you tried google?
GPS works by comparing the difference in transit time for signals from multiple satellites. This requires really accurate clocks in the satellites, really accurate knowledge of where the satellites are and fairly accurate clocks in the receivers.
Spoofing requires the transmitter to pretend it's a satellite and send out suitable rogue information, this isn't that hard and in fact some systems that improve GPS accuracy do exactly that just without the rogue information bit. The problem is even a lot of commercial GPS systems now have redundancy built in so that they use more satellites than required and switch between them in turn to check for a jump in position that would indicate an error in the signal.
For more on how GPS works try google, it really is very clever, especially the bit about using the special and general theories of relativity.
It may not get lost as quickly as you'd think. Assuming the autopilot works with an inertial reference unit, if that was used as a back up nav system it should be enough to have you within a few tens of miles after crossing the Atlantic. Even if it was just working of the Air Data Unit and the last known wind that's normally enough to make sure you land in the right country*.
I'd have assumed the fail safe procedure for a sensitive drone is to blow yourself up commit a terminal dive rather than risk being captured. After all they only got Gary Powers because he didn't take his cyanide pill.
*Having been made to do this for 'practice' on a few occasions it's generally good enough to get you near something large and obvious. So a drone should be able to get near enough to a radio beacon it can see.
Just to add
The computer wouldn't know if it was a spike until after it happened, it could be windsheer which can cause a significant change in the velocity vector.
So let me get this right, you want any spikes in data input referred to the flight crew for sanitising, by the time the alert has popped up on the display it'd be too late.
Obviously the spikes should be ignored, which is why there are three Inertial Reference Units (IRU), if one of them disagrees with the other two it gets ignored. What seems to have happened here is that the frequency of spikes from the bad IRU was such that it confused the rejection routine allowing them to get through which then drove the autopilot to compensate for something that wasn't happening. Taking manual control should get around this problem as although the spikes may be reflected in the flight director display the pilots wouldn't follow them even if they could. Imagine the speedo in your car cutting out for a fraction of a second randomly every few minutes, cruise control would go mad but a driver may not even notice.
The extra pilot's onboard so the one landing it has a chance to get some rest, it actually takes quite a long time to fly from Brazil to France and the regulatory authorities don't like people who've been up for 15 hours trying to land at international airports.
You'll also find, surprisingly, that airline training already spends an inordinate amount of its time concentrating on emergencies because they're the things you need to get right the first time despite hardly ever actually having to do them. The question is whether Air France's training needs re-examining, bearing in mind the crew's initial reactions do appear to have been in accordance with the then current procedures.
Interestingly they thought of this problem a few decades ago and the code for each flight control computer (there are three) is written by a different team which minimises the likelihood of each computer having the same error. And then they test everything a lot.
I'm also interested to know what other methods you think there are of measuring airspeed? Hint GPS doesn't give you airspeed, nor do radio navaids or Doppler nav. To measure the airspeed you need to measure the dynamic and static air pressure and that takes a pitot tube and a static vent.
RE:SR-71
Not really relevant , the Blackbird flew at around Mach 3.0, the Beast of Kandahar is subsonic, you don't really want to be screaming around if you're trying to monitor one area of a country.
Altitude is irrelevant, at 50,000' the temperature is around -56C, the heating is all from skin friction due to speed, I think Concorde got up to around 100C at Mach 2.0.
It does look very badly put together for a Lockheed product, and the colour is odd, strangely at 50,000 you don't want to be painted the same colour as the desert as it's a long way away the finish will be to reduce the IR signature and possibly the radar signature as well. Generally some shade of gray is best.
It actually has more than two modes, depending on what systems are available. In 'normal' the computers shouldn't allow you to conduct manoeuvres that will depart from controlled flight, e.g. it won't let you stall, if you pull fully back on the stick the computer will only let the airframe achieve the AoA for maximum lift no more. Effectively the pilots are allowed freedom of operation inside the safe flight envelope, the computers prevent the aircraft going beyond that.
In 'alternate' mode, recognising that some systems have failed and that it's unable to provide full flight envelope protection the aircraft reacts in a more traditional way, obviously it's important that the pilots recognise this.
Dual control inputs, yes, otherwise it's a bit pointless having two pilots, I did have the whole thing explained to me a while back, I can't remember the exact details but I'm fairly sure there's an over ride so one of the controls can have primacy.
Page: