Push a Button, Land on a Carrier

sane? writes "Putting an aircraft down on a carrier in bad weather is the stuff of melodramatic Hollywood films. Automated systems for conventional aircraft and big carriers has been done for a while, but getting a hovering Harrier, helicopter, or future JSF to land on a pitching deck of a smaller ship is a different matter. This week QinetiQ demonstrated a complete autoland - a significant step towards making the future JSF work."

It doesn't look precise enough

[nyekulturniy]

10 cm errors are still significant enough to cause an aircraft to be damaged landing, or to cause damage landing. It sounds like the news article is actually a press release/prospectus in disguise.

Re:It doesn't look precise enough

[metlin]

Yeah, but it's gotta start somewhere.

Only a matter of time before the margin is improved.

Re:Land on a Carrier?

[BenjyD]

Flight controls on F-16s, F/A-18s, Airbuses and no doubt others are already computerised. Along with ILS/autopilot on most airliners. Reliable computers can be built, it's just that the cost of that reliability is too great for non-critical applications.

Military training tends to start off with the simplest methods and work up to the more modern: navigation, AFAIK, starts with dead reckoning, maps and compasses and only later introduces GPS.

Prediction: JSF will not be purchased in bulk

[Anonymous Coward]

You can already see the military placing a side bet in unmanned drones. What would you rather have? 100 drones or one F22? The dogfight is no longer a central aspect of warfare, ground-to-air missile technology is adequately cheap and effective enough to remove any threat from the air...and by cheap I mean you can fire ten missiles at a target (rest assured one will hit it) for the cost of one manned sortie.

Re:looked rather pleasant

[YrWrstNtmr]

The weather looked quite ideal for a flawless landing. Since the whole idea is for a craft to land in adverse weather conditions, I don't see how this means much of anything.

It's the first test of an automated landing system. Get it to work in easy conditions first, then refine the process. Or would you rather they the first test with their one and only prototype aircraft be with an aircraft critically short on fuel, trying to land on the deck of a torpedo damaged ship, in the north atlantic during a hurricane?

And how about when the automated landing system gets destroyed by say a midair collision, ground fire, etc.

How about when it isn't shot out? This is a system to reduce pilot workload at the end of a stressful flight. If its damaged, maybe then the pilot reverts back to trying to land it manually. What's the big deal? You think they'll completely remove any possibility of a backup system? Just like with fly-by-wire controls. OMFG!! What happens when the wire breaks??!!?? STOOPID IDEA!! STOOPID IDEA!!
No, then the other 2 reduntant systems take over.

They are quite far away from a system that could be deployed in everyday carrier operation, let alone a combat situation.

Yeah. Just like every other prototype system in existence. Give it time to be developed. It just might work.
"QinetiQ has achieved the world's first automatic landing of a short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft on a ship."

Re:Land on a Carrier?

[Spodlink05]

The correct headline sould be: Push a button and land on a carrier as long as there is no software "glitch" or any single thing unforseen by the programmers, because unlike a real pilot, the computer will not quickly learn new skills to survive. Or are they going to make the system perfect, just like ABS, or ATMs, or PC software? Good luck.

Funny how the EuroFighter, JSF and numerous other unstable-by-design aircraft would fall out of the sky if it wasn't for the computers constantly making tiny adjustments and generally flying the plane in the first place.

My thoughts on Mil Tech

[CHESTER COPPERPOT]

The ability to land an aircraft automatically onto a ship will enable pilots of JSF to conduct missions by day or night and in weather conditions that would previously have not been possible.

I've worked with the triumvirate of engineers, officers, and soldiers/airmen/sailors during trials of new military technology and I can say it'd be pretty good odds that this automatic ship landing on the STOVL aircraft wasn't tested under extreme conditions such as enemy and weather. I wonder if it was tested on high seas, massive winds or snow?

I know /. likes to think about the "oooh wow gosh!" factor of shiny technology but a lot of the time new military technology gets tested under the easiest of conditions by risk fearing engineers. It then gets pumped up by career minded military officers (who resemble business marketers) and then left for the end users in combat to deal with the bullshit. Try repost the article when this new automatic button has been tested under extreme conditions, seen numerous deployments and used by actual end users not in a sterile environment.

Re:Prediction: JSF will not be purchased in bulk

[YrWrstNtmr]

True, but conditions can change from when the mission is planned to arrival at the target area. What I was speaking was far more AI in the drone aircraft, rather than a pilot flying it from a trailer on the ground. And from what I've heard, flying a Predator is harder than flying a regular aircraft. No seat of the pants feel, and a narrower view on the monitor as opposed to being able to swivel your head around.

We already have fully automated 'drones', that will follow a preset route to a preset point and hit it. Cruise missiles. Next, there needs to be a system to change that route or target after launch.

Re:It doesn't look precise enough

[YrWrstNtmr]

When driving your car, can you confidently say you know within a margin of error of 10 cm *exactly* where your car is, 1/3rd of a foot?

When you're parking, maybe. 10cm may mean the difference between simply parking and breaking off a mirror.

When do we get "Push button, install democracy"?

[bazmail]

When do we get "Push button, install democracy"?

Re:REAL Pilots....

[AHumbleOpinion]

It's not simply pride, pilots who repeatedly endanger aircraft merely due to pride are quickly removed from flight status. Pilots will be required to make manual landing in order to train for equipment failure. These are combat aircraft. The other Navy motivation for doing it manually is to train the pilot to function under stress and fear. Night carrier landing can be more frightening than combat. IIRC during the Vietnam war the Navy wired some pilots and determined they were more stressed during night landings than when braving Hanoii's air defenses.

Last I heard the Navy still has people who plot position every day with map compass and chronometer and who shoot the sun and stars with a sextant. Again, these are warships and they can't be dependant on satellites.

Re:What the hell...it's only karma...

[AHumbleOpinion]

The whole population was brainwashed. That's the sad part - even after two nuked cities, they still wanted to keep the war going, all to please the Emperor.

Well they did believe the emporer was a living god, a direct descendant of the sun god or something like that. It's a little easier when you bring religion into the mix, but not strictly required. The germans did have a few of their own ready to go but they were never really used IIRC. Political and philosophical indoctrination since childhood helped. And then there is the all purpose defending your homeland angle. Sad either way.

Re:Um...

[ozbird]

Carrier landings in heavy jets eg F14, F15 are hard

F-15's don't fly off carriers.

That's why it's hard to land them on carriers...

Re:My Jock

[AHumbleOpinion]

The pilots will always be required to do some manual traps. They cannot become dependent on an automated system. They must also learn to deal with stress and fear, night carrier traps are useful there. IIRC some pilots were wired for telemetry during Vietnam and the Navy found that night carrier traps were more frightening than braving Hanoii's air defense.

Manual night carrier traps are very useful to the Navy. When they have a pilot who will repeatedly do them they know they can point at pretty much any point on a map and he will fly there, he's already done scarier stuff.