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  • Phoenix10
    replied
    Originally posted by Gun Boat View Post
    The question is (as stupid as it may sound):

    When an aircraft connects with the refuelling probe of a tanker does the pilot of the aircraft being refuelled surrender control to the tanker?

    I think it doesn't but we just broke out the old atari game 'Topgun' and once you connect you surrender control. My mates reckon this is how it works in real life.
    I have sworn black and blue that it isn't even possible and informed them that I know a place where we can find out. Chogy, please say it ain't so!

    Thanks in advance.
    No control is surrendered. The pilot of the receiving aircraft remains in complete control of his aircraft. On tankers with a boom (as apposed to probe and drogue), there is actually a boom operator that "flies the boom" and directs the receiver pilot. The pilot of the receiving aircraft has to try to say in an imaginary box behind and below the tanker. For example, there are Pilot Director Lights on the bottom of the KC-135 that the boom operator uses to give visual commands (move left, move right, break away, etc) to the pilot. If the receiver pilot is in the right area, the boom operator can fly the boom and physically mate it with the receiving aircraft. Once they are connected, the boom operate can still give commands to the receiver pilot to make sure he/she stays in the right spot. The connection is not so strong that the receiving aircraft could go hands off the stick and be "towed" along by the tanker or anything like that. There is not currently a production system that would allow the receiving aircraft to be controlled by the tanker such that the pilot can go hands off. Although, there is a lot of research into autonomous aerial refueling for UAVs that could change that if the technology were to be advanced, fielded, then adapted to manned aircraft. I worked on one such project.
    Last edited by Phoenix10; 20 Apr 13,, 17:30.

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  • Gun Boat
    replied
    The question is (as stupid as it may sound):

    When an aircraft connects with the refuelling probe of a tanker does the pilot of the aircraft being refuelled surrender control to the tanker?

    I think it doesn't but we just broke out the old atari game 'Topgun' and once you connect you surrender control. My mates reckon this is how it works in real life.
    I have sworn black and blue that it isn't even possible and informed them that I know a place where we can find out. Chogy, please say it ain't so!

    Thanks in advance.

    Leave a comment:


  • mako88sb
    replied
    Originally posted by Chogy View Post
    Mako, I'm just guessing... It was a different era, different mentality, and they may very well have done that exercise as described. But Yeager's claims of visual acuity - no sir.

    You may be interested in the little-known fact that one Mr. George Welch very likely exceeded mach 1 in the XP-86 before Yeager's X-1 flight. The profile Welch flew in the test F-86 Sabre that day was proven later to exceed mach 1 with ease; a sonic boom was heard, and Welch's description of the flight indicated that he busted the sound barrier.

    The Germans could have EASILY broken mach 1 with a manned craft during WW2. Not the Me-262 or the comet rocket plane... the V2 missile. While they didn't actually do it - they were too busy lobbing bombs at England - the V2 payload of TNT could have easily been replaced with a small man-carrying capsule for a hypersonic, suborbital ride that would have shattered a number of manned aviation records. First suborbital space flight, first supersonic man, etc.

    Mach Match | History of Flight | Air & Space Magazine

    Some people claim "No fair, Welch did it in a dive!" That's not the point. Dive or not, the record/feat was "first supersonic man."

    IIRC the fastest MEN of all time was one of the Apollo missions, Apollo 10 I believe. Their re-entry was a bit off and their velocity was extreme, beating all other manned space flights before or since.
    Thanks for the link. Very interesting reading. So not only did he accomplish it 2 weeks prior on the XP-86's first flight but he did it again 20 mins before Yeager's historic flight. Pretty amazing guy! Checking him out on the internet I was surprised to see he was heir to the grape juice fortune. Also found out he was one of the 2 pilots that drove out to Haleiwa Field as portrayed in Tora! Tora! Tora! and shot down 4 Japanese aircraft. Should of won the Medal of Honor but it was denied because he took off without proper authorization?!?!??? That's crazy! What the hell where they thinking?

    I always had suspicions that Yeager wasn't above embellishing stories about himself and Neil Armstrong's auto-biography just confirmed it for me.
    Last edited by mako88sb; 13 Aug 12,, 15:43.

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  • Chogy
    replied
    Mako, I'm just guessing... It was a different era, different mentality, and they may very well have done that exercise as described. But Yeager's claims of visual acuity - no sir.

    You may be interested in the little-known fact that one Mr. George Welch very likely exceeded mach 1 in the XP-86 before Yeager's X-1 flight. The profile Welch flew in the test F-86 Sabre that day was proven later to exceed mach 1 with ease; a sonic boom was heard, and Welch's description of the flight indicated that he busted the sound barrier.

    The Germans could have EASILY broken mach 1 with a manned craft during WW2. Not the Me-262 or the comet rocket plane... the V2 missile. While they didn't actually do it - they were too busy lobbing bombs at England - the V2 payload of TNT could have easily been replaced with a small man-carrying capsule for a hypersonic, suborbital ride that would have shattered a number of manned aviation records. First suborbital space flight, first supersonic man, etc.

    http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/mach.html

    Some people claim "No fair, Welch did it in a dive!" That's not the point. Dive or not, the record/feat was "first supersonic man."

    IIRC the fastest MEN of all time was one of the Apollo missions, Apollo 10 I believe. Their re-entry was a bit off and their velocity was extreme, beating all other manned space flights before or since.
    Last edited by Chogy; 12 Aug 12,, 17:08.

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  • zraver
    replied
    Originally posted by Chogy View Post
    I suspect you're not going to get a verification of this one. I'm having trouble understanding the utility of such a feat. Obviously, cardinal direction, but if the sun is anywhere off 12:00 noon, the sun is a better indicator of rough cardinal direction within +/- 30 degrees.

    Standing on the ground and locating a star with naked eyes just might be done on a perfect day, but I have my doubts. Put that same set of eyes in a rumbling, vibrating cockpit and viewing through glass or perspex, and I have to say it is simply not possible.

    Besides, airplanes then all had whiskey compasses at a minimum. And the wet compass was an unpowered device that, barring taking a bullet, simply doesn't fail. It doesn't seem logical that they'd waste their time with such a feat unless the sole purpose was to find men with near superhuman eyesight.
    IJNAJ scout bombers, likely it was a skill practiced in early or late hours when the sun was well down on the horizon and done mostly by navigators with the canopy slid back. With the sun low and a few key stellar bench marks you can probably navigate.

    With long over water flights on a single engine every possible form of navigational backup makes sense from that perspective. US and British navigators were trained in celestial navigation

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  • mako88sb
    replied
    Originally posted by Chogy View Post
    A qualified "maybe." Obviously in the days of primitive or non-existent radar or GCI, visual acuity is extremely important. I remember reading somewhere that Chuck Yeager claimed to be able to see German fighters at 40 to 50 nautical miles. I say pure B.S. In my entire career, I never met a single individual who could see a fighter-sized airplane with the naked eye outside of 15 to 20 NM, with the sole exception of sun glints or contrails.

    There's an easy way to confirm it. Look outside when airliners are passing overhead in cruise. Those HUGE jets are at 6 to 7 NM altitude, no more. They are tiny, tiny specks, and visible normally only because they con. Replace the 767 with a tiny Focke-Wulf, and no con. Excellent eyes might see them at 10NM. Superb eyes at 15. Maybe.

    Again, there's a big difference between standing still on the ground, vs a rumbling, hot cockpit encased in primitive perspex.

    A better way to train for visual acuity would be to have two flights orbit known geographical features a fixed distance apart, and let the pilots of both flights practice their visual lookout. Then, have one flight proceed to the other point, practicing the lookout the whole way, while the other attacks.

    Exercising a proper and effective visual lookout is actually a lot of work. It's very easy to get lazy, and that's how you get killed in a visual environment.

    Thanks Chogy. I read Yeager's book and remember him mentioning that as well as spotting a burning tanker below 10 mins before the rest of his flight could. Then there was the bit where Neil Armstrong refused to listen to him about not doing a touch and go at Smith Ranch Dry Lake and they ended up stuck. I read "First Man" not too long ago and Armstrong says there wasn't a word from Yeager about not giving it a try and even encouraged him to make a second attempt that was the one that actually bogged them down.

    The way you mention for training certainly makes sense but I think the star looking method that Saburo talks about in his book was before they even got any actual flying experience. It's been awhile since I've read it though so maybe I'm wrong about that.

    I guess I could try to verify it myself by trying to spot some of the brighter magnitude stars with binos and an astronomy program like Stellarium to guide me.

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  • Chogy
    replied
    Originally posted by mako88sb View Post
    I always thought the intent was to train the prospective pilots on improving their ability to locate enemy aircraft from a further distance then what they normally would be capable of. Does this not seem like a reasonable outcome of such a skill?
    A qualified "maybe." Obviously in the days of primitive or non-existent radar or GCI, visual acuity is extremely important. I remember reading somewhere that Chuck Yeager claimed to be able to see German fighters at 40 to 50 nautical miles. I say pure B.S. In my entire career, I never met a single individual who could see a fighter-sized airplane with the naked eye outside of 15 to 20 NM, with the sole exception of sun glints or contrails.

    There's an easy way to confirm it. Look outside when airliners are passing overhead in cruise. Those HUGE jets are at 6 to 7 NM altitude, no more. They are tiny, tiny specks, and visible normally only because they con. Replace the 767 with a tiny Focke-Wulf, and no con. Excellent eyes might see them at 10NM. Superb eyes at 15. Maybe.

    Again, there's a big difference between standing still on the ground, vs a rumbling, hot cockpit encased in primitive perspex.

    A better way to train for visual acuity would be to have two flights orbit known geographical features a fixed distance apart, and let the pilots of both flights practice their visual lookout. Then, have one flight proceed to the other point, practicing the lookout the whole way, while the other attacks.

    Exercising a proper and effective visual lookout is actually a lot of work. It's very easy to get lazy, and that's how you get killed in a visual environment.

    Leave a comment:


  • mako88sb
    replied
    Originally posted by Chogy View Post
    I suspect you're not going to get a verification of this one. I'm having trouble understanding the utility of such a feat. Obviously, cardinal direction, but if the sun is anywhere off 12:00 noon, the sun is a better indicator of rough cardinal direction within +/- 30 degrees.

    Standing on the ground and locating a star with naked eyes just might be done on a perfect day, but I have my doubts. Put that same set of eyes in a rumbling, vibrating cockpit and viewing through glass or perspex, and I have to say it is simply not possible.

    Besides, airplanes then all had whiskey compasses at a minimum. And the wet compass was an unpowered device that, barring taking a bullet, simply doesn't fail. It doesn't seem logical that they'd waste their time with such a feat unless the sole purpose was to find men with near superhuman eyesight.

    I always thought the intent was to train the prospective pilots on improving their ability to locate enemy aircraft from a further distance then what they normally would be capable of. Does this not seem like a reasonable outcome of such a skill?

    Leave a comment:


  • Chogy
    replied
    I suspect you're not going to get a verification of this one. I'm having trouble understanding the utility of such a feat. Obviously, cardinal direction, but if the sun is anywhere off 12:00 noon, the sun is a better indicator of rough cardinal direction within +/- 30 degrees.

    Standing on the ground and locating a star with naked eyes just might be done on a perfect day, but I have my doubts. Put that same set of eyes in a rumbling, vibrating cockpit and viewing through glass or perspex, and I have to say it is simply not possible.

    Besides, airplanes then all had whiskey compasses at a minimum. And the wet compass was an unpowered device that, barring taking a bullet, simply doesn't fail. It doesn't seem logical that they'd waste their time with such a feat unless the sole purpose was to find men with near superhuman eyesight.

    Leave a comment:


  • mako88sb
    replied
    My question is in regards to one aspect of the very rigorous training that the Japanese pilots went through pre-WW2 as mentioned in this book I read over 30 yrs ago:

    Amazon.com: Samurai! (9780743412834): Saburo Sakai, Martin Caiden: Books

    Specifically, Saburo Sakai mentions that part of their training included learning how to find stars during the daytime. Not all of them could do it so I'm assuming with the tough selection criteria, they had more then their fair share of candidates with better then 20-20 vision. That's even assuming that such a thing is possible. Some seem to think it's not so I'm curious to hear if any pilots or anybody else can verify this claim. I can't remember all the details about this such as viewing conditions, altitude and angle of the sun.
    Last edited by mako88sb; 10 Aug 12,, 23:41.

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  • Chogy
    replied
    Originally posted by Gun Boat View Post
    Fantastic.

    What kind of sense of the speed do you get? Does the ship vibrate/buffet and let you know your moving above the speed of sound?

    And do you miss flying those things? I would imagine there is a massive hole in your life where the F-15 use to be?
    At altitude, very little sense of speed. No real noise, no added vibration, it's all very smooth. Breaking the sound barrier in a modern jet is a non-event. About the only clue is the old analogue (clock) airspeed indicators almost always hiccup, or blip, as the shockwave separates and the airflow is momentarily disturbed. It's nothing at all like the old stories from the Yeager days.

    It was a good time in my life, but it's definitely a young man's game. Experience cannot always make up for the physical demands and the reaction speed that youth can handle much more effectively. ;)

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  • FJV
    replied
    Originally posted by USSWisconsin View Post
    The principle method of EMP sheilding is called a Faraday cage - it provides effective sheilding from a pulse - but has to be robust enough not to be burned out from the large currents involved. On an aircraft in flight, where can you dump that current to get rid of it? - with no ground (I would guess it needs to be directed to a HV capacitor bank).
    Not all shielding is created equally.

    A lot depends on the frequency of the pulse you are trying to guard against.

    Source:
    EMI Shielding Theory - Holland Shielding Systems - EMI/RFI Shielding

    The higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength. This means that when the frequency increases, the tolerable gap dimensions decrease. In other words: doors, panels and other parts need to be connected electrically on all sides.
    Source:
    EMP GENERATION MECHANISM AND ITS DESTRUCTIVE EFFECT ON C3I NETWORK

    The frequency band of nuclear generated EMP was found effective from 1 KHz to 100 MHz.
    A 3 meter wave. That would allow for quite a large gaps in shielding.

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  • Gun Boat
    replied
    Originally posted by Chogy View Post
    It had to be during a copper flag exercise back when copper flag was a much different exercise compared to today. Back then it was more EW-oriented, and nothing particularly exciting for any of the participants.

    We launched in a two-ship out of Eglin to support either Navy or Marine (I forget which) fighters protecting the Florida coastline near Panama City. They wanted us to simply present as some sort of intruder to the domestic ADIZ. No maneuvering. We thought "F this, this is boring."

    On the way out to the area to the South, one F-15 air aborted, leaving me and a back-seat rider in a D model as the sole entity. For whatever reason, we had a clean Eagle, no external fuel. External tanks are limited to mach 1.6. With the clean airplane, we had no limitations. We decided to present them with an almost impossible problem, a high & fast flyer. So at the Southern end of a slice of sky maybe 120 miles in size, we parked the throttles forward and left them there, and began a climb to 50,000' - can't go higher without a pressure suit.

    The mach began to wind up... 1.6, 1.7, 1.9 - and from our own scope, we saw the defenders muff the intercept badly. The simply didn't have the time, ooomph and fuel to reach us. The machmeter cracked 2.0 by the time we approached the coast. My backseater says "Uh, dude, you're booming the coast big time." Sure enough, we were already over land. Taking the throttles out of AB caused a violent forward G of maybe 1.5, hanging us in our straps straight forward. The deceleration was impressive.

    The single mach run had burned 75% of our fuel in just a few minutes, maybe 8 for the actual run. The remainder of the flight time was simply droning to and from the base. I forget, but probably 35 to 45 minutes.

    An average training sortie with one centerline tank was 1.5 to 1.6 hours total.
    Fantastic.

    What kind of sense of the speed do you get? Does the ship vibrate/buffet and let you know your moving above the speed of sound?

    And do you miss flying those things? I would imagine there is a massive hole in your life where the F-15 use to be?

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  • USSWisconsin
    replied
    Originally posted by Stitch View Post
    Yes, it is possible to "harden" electronic devices from an EMP burst, but it's fairly expensive, and usually makes the device much heavier than normal. It involves shielding the electronic components from the electromagnetic pulse using metal plates that absorb or block the pulse. One of the reasons military hardware tends to be more expensive than COTS hardware is that it is usually hardened against the effects of an EMP burst; if a COTS HDD costs $1,000, a military version would probably cost about $2,500.00.
    The principle method of EMP sheilding is called a Faraday cage - it provides effective sheilding from a pulse - but has to be robust enough not to be burned out from the large currents involved. On an aircraft in flight, where can you dump that current to get rid of it? - with no ground (I would guess it needs to be directed to a HV capacitor bank).

    Leave a comment:


  • Stitch
    replied
    EXCELLENT story, Chogy; I love reading your first-hand accounts of being an ego, I mean, Eagle driver. Not too many people these days can say they went double-sonic . . . . . .
    Last edited by Stitch; 29 Mar 12,, 19:13. Reason: Grammar

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