Interesting...

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Frosty

a full fledged GF
I was flipping through a back issue of Popular Science(December, 2000,) when I came across this little blurb...
Raised Consciousness
Future fighter planes will be able to turn on a dime and cruise at supersonic speeds, which means the human body may become the limiting factor in air combat. One solution: a liquid-filled anti-G suit that prevents a pilot's blood from rushing to his lower body. Unlike conventional anti-G suits, which rely on compressed air and valves, the Swiss-made Libellee suit is self-regulating. www.prospective-concepts.ch/ProjectsLibellee1.htm
I decided to check out Popular Science and www.prospective-concepts.ch/ProjectsLibellee1.htm for more information.

I didn't even know anything like this was being developed, and I had no idea just how old the technology in today's G-suits is. I was wondering if anyone had heard something similar or related?

This is really quite cool because it allows whole worlds of manned flight to be opened that were once closed. With this type of suit, a pilot really could withstand the type of force placed on him in an environment such as combat in space. :)
 
Bah. Future fighter planes won't even have a pilot. Popular Science (June 2001) says so. :)
 
in forever war they had a more unpleasant solution. it involved filling your body with fluids that will prevent it from being crushed by the g-forces. i think they had to have several artificial orifices surgically implanted. *ugh*
 
Only if you didn't turn...

Originally posted by Bandit LOAF
Wouldn't a liquid-based flight suit cause a problem in a near zero-gravity environment?
Yanking back on the stick provides all the gravity you'd need.




[Edited by Frosty on 05-25-2001 at 01:14]
 
LOAF, it depends on if the liquid is really a liquid or simply a gel. Either case, the suit works in space, since the pressurization will keep the liquid where it needs to be.
 
Yeah but...

Arrows aren't freakin' clown cars. I think it'd take several arrows to fit us. :)




[Edited by Frosty on 05-25-2001 at 11:18]
 
Perhaps the craft will be remote controlled, piloted from a remote location, the Navy is testing such a platform, although they lost one of those RC aircraft recently, they were used in the Gulf war flying recon. They could easily be modified to carry weapons, and upgraded to fly higher and faster, or even an entire wing flying into combat, while the pilots are safe and sound in some bunker 20 stories below the surface, and their control signals work thru military sattelites and GPS birds.

RFB
 
The RC recon airplanes used the the Gulf were basically toys. They couldn't carry weapons, they're too small. Their job was to scput out targets for battleships.
 
That opens a Pandora's Box of problems. Let's say a few wings of this life-size RC fighters are flying towards enemy territory. They happen to fly over a friendly...and the enemy takes that moment to set off a high-altitude nuclear warhead, generating an EM pulse that would fry the electronics of the aircraft.

Oh, but the planes would be shielded. What about other jamming equipment? What if the LS-RC plane is shot up, and it's reciever is damaged? Or if the transmitter is damaged...the pilot's screen would be filled with static! He'd be flying blind! That's just individual fighters...what happens when ground troops take out your transmitting dish?

It might work for a while. But someone would come up with a countermeasure...and then, someone else would come up with the bright idea of putting real pilots back into the cockpit. Then it all goes back again...back to what we have now. Square one again.

But hey, it might work.
 
I happen to know for a fact, that the Pentagon is seriously considering using RC controlled craft, not only for recon jobs, but combat also. It wouldnt make any difference about interference if it were an RC airplane, or a tactical missile with a nuclear war head. Rest assured, the engineers building such equipment take all considerations into account about interference, range, loadouts, etc. It isnt difficult to convert a YF-22 into a remote controlled aircraft, or any other aircraft in the inventory. And I can also assure everyone, the military wont use off the shelf RC remote transmitters and recievers! They use their own custom built designs and circutry. Did you know that Air Force One is capable of full remote control flight from the Pentagon if something happens to the pilots? That plane can also fly itself and land itself, and is heavily shielded from EM pulses. The shielding used on the Air Force One aircraft is the same shielding they use in the control circutry of tactical missiles or any other guided type weapon. This shielding is also used by NASA on the shuttles. Granted nothing is 100 percent secure, but you can bet that the military engineers build stuff with every contention thought out and tested over and over again until specs meet what they want. They also spend several years improving the design before releasing it for use.

RFB
 
I have read recently that a least three countries are studying prototypes of RC bombers : USA, France and Russia. If the first tests are good enough, the first RC fighters could fly around 2020-2025.
Most modern fighters can support 9-10g accelerations. That is more than any pilot...
 
That is true! The concept of RC controlled military vehicles has been around for a number of years, and now with better electronics, shielding and reliable digital transmission, remote controlled fighters or bombers are much easier to build and test. The limits then would only be what the craft itself can handle. But with everything else involving the militaries, money is the big cruncher of those types of projects ever becomming reality. Just one of those test RC aircrafts the US Navy has costs around 10 million each!

RFB
 
If you guys want high tech planes (other than WC of course), check out the Dale Brown novels. They're awesome, and they deal with almost exactly with what you're saying. Oh, and RFBurns, no disrespect intended, but military-wise, $10 mil is dirt cheap. The F-14 Tomcats cost $38 million apiece, Aircraft carriers another $5 billion, F-18s cost $24 million, and cruisers cost $1 billion. Add it all together, and a carrier battle group costs upwards of $10 billion. The US has 12 carriers. No wonder we have so much debt.
 
Originally posted by Frosty
The RC recon airplanes used the the Gulf were basically toys
When I first read that, I imagined someone using a remote and flying the 'toy' with the excitement and demenour of a child. :)

But really, how would they shield RC craft against EMP and radio jamming? Line-of-sight laser guidance? Kinda defeats the purpose of having a remote in the first place, doesn't it?
 
Originally posted by Lunatic
No wonder we have so much debt.
Not that it's at all relevant, and please don't let the topic stray because of this post, but the US's debt is mostly the result of the Civil War. After destroying the major southern cities, the Union paid to have them rebuilt, which required loans from various American banks. This has been collecting interest for 130 or so years now. That's a really oversimplified explanation, but it gets the general ida accross.
 
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