Boeing Turning Old F-16s Into Unmanned Drones 239
dryriver sends this news from the BBC:
"Boeing has revealed that it has retrofitted retired fighter jets to turn them into drones. It said that one of the Lockheed Martin F-16s made a first flight with an empty cockpit last week. Two U.S. Air Force pilots controlled the plane from the ground as it flew from a Florida base to the Gulf of Mexico (video). Boeing suggested that the innovation could ultimately be used to help train pilots, providing an adversary they could practise firing on. The jet — which had previously sat mothballed at an Arizona site for 15 years — flew at an altitude of 40,000ft (12.2km) and a speed of Mach 1.47 (1,119mph/1,800km/h). It carried out a series of maneuvers including a barrel roll and a 'split S' — a move in which the aircraft turns upside down before making a half loop so that it flies the right-way-up in the opposite direction. This can be used in combat to evade missile lock-ons. Boeing said the unmanned F-16 was followed by two chase planes to ensure it stayed in sight, and also contained equipment that would have allowed it to self-destruct if necessary. The firm added that the flight attained 7Gs of acceleration but was capable of carrying out maneuvers at 9Gs — something that might cause physical problems for a pilot. 'It flew great, everything worked great, [it] made a beautiful landing — probably one of the best landings I've ever seen,' said Paul Cejas, the project's chief engineer."
Re:Sacrilege (Score:5, Interesting)
If memory serves me correctly, there's nothing all that new here. Back around 1960, the USAF was flying radio controlled WWII bombers out over the Gulf of Mexico to use in interception tests. Same thing, today? Better technology.
A good fit (Score:3, Interesting)
The F-16 is difficult to fly due to its natural instability. [wikipedia.org] It's a good candidate to be operated by a computer. (I mean, it can be told where to go by a human, but the second-to-second flying should be handled by a machine.)
Re:Still dangerous (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, but it's better than having the whole thing land on someone's place. Not to mention that it flew from Tyndall AFB to the Gulf of Mexico according to the article (which is odd thing to say, considering Tyndall is on the Gulf Coast, but I assume it means that it flew out over deeper waters), which means that self-destructing would mean it wouldn't make it back to land to cause damage in the first place.
Also worth noting: if you think that would ruin your day, consider the fact that the space shuttles had self-destruct capabilities as well, in case they went out of control. Imagine that landing on your house. Actually, to get a bit grim (and not at all in the direction I originally planned for this comment), for some of us we don't really need to imagine, since we helped clean up the wreckage spread out across Texas following Columbia, most of which wouldn't have killed anyone from impact. In fact, related to that, the source for that fact about the self-destruct is a family friend who's now a retired astronaut that flew on four flights. They offhandedly mentioned the self-destruct (which earned me a well-deserved remark from them that made me feel like the ass I was after I said something along the lines of "that's so cool!") shortly before flying on STS-109.
For those of you not keeping score, STS-109 was the last successful flight that Columbia flew. STS-107 was its next and last one. And as you might guess from the numbering, 107 was originally scheduled to fly first, but due to delays, NASA swapped the two missions in the schedule. It's the sort of thing that really does get you thinking about what a person means to you and what life would be like if they were suddenly not a part of it any longer.
Anyway, I'm way off-topic. Suffice to say, self-destruct = a good thing to have in case something goes very wrong.
Re:Still dangerous (Score:4, Interesting)
Ummm...while this is partially true (humans don't do negative G well) what is also true is airplanes don't do negative G well. It takes a lot of structure to make a 40-50,000lb airplane that can pull 9G's in one direction. Making one that can do it in two directions would also make it really heavy. Also, various liquids essential to operation (like fuel and oil) perform very poorly in the -G environment for more than about 30 seconds. Sure you could engineer your way out of that, but more weight and more cost.
Airplanes do best when all their G goes down, the way they spend 99% of their life. The G-limit on Predator/Reaper class UAVs is something like +2.5, no negative.