Thread: live assistance requested & required for quick research question

Well,to answer my own question,with the aid of other sites...addon | stas'den &scrolllllllll down.
Drool.

http://i1.tinypic.com/msc4me.jpg and this is from lockheed.Whose tankers we buying now? Does this work & do the pols care?

I'm really not sure what you are asking. Are you looking for a unified design, one that does it all?

Aircraft are extraordinarily expensive, and I understand why. I was preflighting a brand new Boeing 737-800 yesterday. Standing inside the wheel well, I was inspecting the hydraulic plumbing, the landing gear forgings, the hydraulic reservoirs, the flap actuators, and even after decades of doing this, I was in awe at the beauty, precision, and quality of the components. It wasn't an old Chevy pickup.

This quality came via natural evolution in aviation. Society learned through brutal and bloody experience that under-engineered aircraft with low-quality components, and lack of redundancy, tended to fall out of the sky. The fly-by-wire Boeing 777 has (IIRC) no less than 11 electrical generators, any one of which would power the flight controls.

A single, unified design would be jack of all trades, but master of none. Specialization... it's like automobiles. You use a Humvee for rugged off-road use. You can scoot around town in an MG Midget. Each occupies its own niche, and resides comfortably there. It's the same with aircraft.

Originally Posted by rejectfirstclas

point one: large aircraft often appear overpriced

Yes, at first glance they appear to be. But then you have to factor in that a new, large aircraft can often have a 30 year career. In civil aviation world, if the cost is recovered, and then a profit is made, then it is not overpriced. In military world, if it can perform it's required duties for 30 years (F-15, F-16, UH-60) then they are worth the cost.

Originally Posted by rejectfirstclas

two: they are often single purpose

Not really. The western aviation industry likes to design growth room into planes. F-16 came to be as a light weight day time fighter. It's now an all weather fighter bomber. F-18 E/F has evolved from a fighter/bomber to electronic warfare plane to aerial tanker. Let's not even get into how many different roles the C-130 has evolved into.

Originally Posted by rejectfirstclas

three: many worthy designs have been crushed through political pressure

Yes, but that's nothing new.

Originally Posted by rejectfirstclas

five: If enough people answer government we cannot only get the planes but also get a future where there is less pressured&percieved need for their employment in killing.

If only everyone thinks alike we won't have a need for national borders. Not gonna happen.

Originally Posted by rejectfirstclas

seven:Ok guys and gals this is It:my personal curiosity risking the safety of the planet,can enough nations clobber the 'defence industries' into a unified design for a multi purpose far more fuel efficient design to perform along the lines of the uk company 'air tanker'agreement with RAF:where one third are staffed by military for military purposes, one third are shared with civilian airlines on weekdays,final third all-civilian unless emergency measures require military use.please expand at will particularly if you could post drawings of the losing finalist design for the b-2 which had a diamond wing design,no tail and engines that in theory be repaired in flight and comment on the possibility of a flying boat version.

No, there are no unified designs. You can group certain missions together and design a plane that can do most of those well. But certain missions are simply not compatible with each other. You can't have a passenger airliner that's also a fighter. We can have a single frame that can be adapted for passengers, cargo, and air refueling. We can have a figher hauling bombs and act as a bomber.

Originally Posted by rejectfirstclas

eight:has this already been done? Thanking You in advance,reject first class.

People have tried with various degrees of success. F-35 has a regular fighter/bomber configuration, a V/STOL configuration, and a naval configuration. We don't know how successful this design will be.

Perhaps as weapons become more advanced we will see successful aircraft with more of a multipurpose role?

We've been seeing that for more than 30 years.

Edit: I have almost 1600 posts? What the hell.

Pssh. Not even a post per day. Clearly you need to spend more time enlightening us.