Slashdot Mirror
More On Silent Supersonic Planes
Reverberant writes "Popular Science describes the latest attempt at developing a supersonic plane designed to minimize sonic booms. The article describes some of the history behind the research, and recent attempts at validating the theory. Also note that researcher Ken Plotkin is a frequent contributer to alt.sci.physics.acoustics."
Where is that Hedgehog when you need him? Can't we tell him just to be quiet?
Friends help you move...
REAL Friends help you move dead bodies... ^_^
Conjugate much?
is it just me being paranoid, or is not having any windows and having cameras send external images to the cockpit a "bad thing." obviously, without computer systems, the planes are almost useless, but if anything happens to the camera, the pilot can't even *see* outside the plane.
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
If it's been published on the prestigious trade journal 'alt.sci.physics.acoustics', it must be true!
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Pilots rely on more than just being able to see outside. They have literally dozens of instruments that they have to monitor in addition to the view outside. During the night and over the ocean, you have nothing but your insturments to rely on, so it's not like this is a new thing for pilots. Still, if it were ME I would want a window :)
As I grew up I watched so many programs like "Beyond 2000" on discovery channel and felt excited about being in the years beyond 2000. This is 2004 and none of the promises came true. We are at about the same level as we were in 1999 technologically. Or even worse as concorde is gone. Somebody, move us into the future!
If you lost your job today, don't despair. You may die tomorrow anyway.
"Popular Science." No such thing, man. More like, "nerdular nerdance."
--
If you don't get it, don't moderate!
I think he enjoys flipping way too much.
if a plane breaks the sound barrier and no one is around to hear it, does it make a boom?
You ok big guy? You want a so-o-o-oda?
Ah, screw it I tried.
- Stewie from the Family Guy
For those of us without subscriptions to every major publication, online and dead tree, the whole fucking point of Slashdot is things we might want to see and missed, due to lack of said subscriptions.
...can be found here.
Slashdot looked deep within my soul and assigned
me a number based on the order in which I joined
I happen to think that instruments are FAR more important and relavant and visual flying. Windows are nice for those clear, blue days, but what about when it's dark and rainy? No help there from the view!
Other conditions can contribute to being totally disoriented (like the cause of JFK Jr.'s crash). In his case, he wasn't authorized to fly at night due to the fact that he wasn't instrument-only rated.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I've never heard a sonic boom... so I'm not really sure how loud they are, but a co-worker described it as "pretty much sounds like thunder".
Is that really a big problem? It seems kind of dumb to me to ban supersonic flight over cities.
What the fuck kind of idiocy is this? First of all, we already have stealth technology so we're already catching our opponents by surprise. Second, sonic booms are detected AFTER the aircraft flies overhead -- not before! The whole phenomenon of a sonic boom is that the aircraft is racing ahead of the "information" of its arrival (in the form of sound waves).
I'm not saying that a sonic-boom-free aircraft is of no military use. The shockwaves responsible for sonic booms cause drag to increase signficantly, thus requiring much more fuel. But the motivation certainly isn't one of trying to catch someone off guard.
GMD
watch this
That's very interesting, but would not it make more sense to make the normal, subsonic planes more silent? They are much more in use, and the noise causes a lot of grief near airports, especially at night. Here in Brussels, this problem is already for years on the political agenda, being a very difficult problem to solve (economics vs. health...), so silent planes are really a must!
I've never heard a sonic boom... so I'm not really sure how loud they are, but a co-worker described it as "pretty much sounds like thunder".
EVERYONE has heard a sonic boom at one point: the crack of a whip. That sound you hear is not the tip of the whip hitting anything. It's the sound of the tip accelerating beyond the speed of sound and creating a mini-sonic boom. That little flick at the end causes the tip to snap out at incredible speed.
Now as far as a big sonic boom, I haven't heard one either. I'm sure there are some pretty strict regulations about not creating sonic booms in civilian areas.
GMD
watch this
I am almost certain that people wont want it flying over their neighborhoods. I can remember watching a show about all of the hubub people made about the Concord landing at their local airport. You would have thought the world was going to end!
Then, once they heard the landing (which wasn't any louder than a regular plane landing), they went back to their caves and silently watched the news for another issue to get their panties in a bunch about. *sigh*
It seems that they are doing this using the traditional method of changing the shape of the aircraft. What about more novel methods such as striation, the same way tha dolphins achieve much higher efficiency than their shape would suggest. I'm surprised I never hear about this being applied to aircraft because it seems like such a simple thing to do.
Or an interesting method I heard about involving many tiny flaps on the surface which can dynamically shape the airflow to minimize turbulence?
One f4 or tornado (dont remember which) pilot went a BIT to fast at 35000 feet, he didnt actually fly over my city, so the actuall distace was 20-30 km (my room-plane).
It sounded like an bomb explosion a few 100m away. No high pitch noises, but a solid "whooop" that made me check if any window had cracks. In fact the window need my desk vibrated visibly. Even through the windows it could be felt in the belly like an effect in a thx theatre.
To make it short, its not a sound, its more like a shockwave. Being closer than 1 or 2 km to the plane will not only blast away all windows, but even crack some walls.
S
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
How much did the modified aircraft mitigate the boom? What is theoretically possible? What seems technically feasible based on current design limitations? Really...why couldn't they have straight-out addressed these simple items: the Bottom Line?
so they finaly resolved the secret of those nazi ufos? was about time!
I agree, that costs as much as 0.375 middle managers for 15 minutes.
The research airplane in this experiment failed to reduce the sound of the sonic boom as much as hoped.
In fact, this research is primarily intended for the next generation business jets , not the military. The future of such planes is up in the air in the moment, because not only do they have to reduce the wake of sonic booms (they shatter windows and suprise people), the regulations have to change. I for one know that the FAA is slow at that.
Regarding the need for windows in airliners: A Boeing 777 pilot today needs to be able to see a few hundred feet ahead of him on takeoff, but after rotating off the runway, he doesn't need to see anything at all. Modern airliners can land and auto-flare... that is, land themselves in ZERO visibility conditions. The pilots undergo extra training for this, of course.
FAA Certified Flight Instructor
Actually, on a serious note, I got pretty frustrated with the article. Actually, I only read the first page and then got bored. I'll never understand why science writers always clutter up their articles with crap like that turtle in the story. We want to read about advanced aerodynamics, not wildlife. Then they go on and on talking in detail about the test. Just tell us what happened at the test; we don't need a blow-by-blow account.
Extra clutter like that really makes the article seem amateurish. You have to be really damn interested in the topic to wade through all that extraneous crap at the beginning of the article no less! Maybe they think they are humanizing the dry science. But do you think people who buy a magazine that has Science in the title really find science boring? Or that they need this high-school-like prose at the beginning?
And don't even get me started on when an article tries to make an analogy with something real-life. I read an article in Scientific American some years ago that was using the swordfight between Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as an example of how the new technology can better the "old standbys". The whole point of that scene was that Yeoh could have killed Ziyi even with that fancy Green Destiny in her hands. What a terrible analogy! And this is the way you start off a science article?
Sorry, just had to rant,
GMD
watch this
Was so when the US bombs their next nation, they can catch them by surprise.
Have you ever heard of the "Stealth Bomber"? We've been able to catch our enemies by surprise for quite a while now. The B2 and the F117A "Stealth Fighter" proved how well they work the first time we went to war with Iraq.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
This won't solve anything. This won't make anything better for anyone.
I agree. Faster, cheaper travel never benefitted mankind in any way. Only fat, rich, white men could possibly want to travel the world in a timely, affordable manner.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Seriously confortable aircraft like airbus A380 (flash required) is a better choice on my humble opinion.
a sonic "boom" isn't a one time event. The shockwave is continuous, so long as the aircraft is flying at supersonic speeds. Therefore, people on the ground for the entire flight corridor will hear/feel the boom as the plane flies overhead.
In fact, no kidding the people at the airport the plane lands at dont hear a boom! Obviously, the plane slows down to subsonic speeds prior to landing. But for everyone in between the takeoff and landing airport that the plane flies over, will be subjected to it.
Hence the reason the concorde was banned from flying over the US, but landing on coastal airports isnt a big deal.
-
This is off-topic, but am I the only one who found the thread on alt.sci.physics bizarre and vaguely reminiscent of a Gary Larson cartoon?
this could make intercontinental travel anything up to twice as fast, through making civilian supersonic jets politically acceptable. the greatest gains would be had in overland transcontinental travel, where no airliner has yet been allowed to remain supersonic because of their booms.
well, if you believe there are no problems hinging on air travel speeds, then maybe it won't. myself, i'm not quite ready to swallow that line.
As the very first paragraph of the article mentioned, one use is for supersonic business jets. Just because the researchers are using a heavily modifed F-15 as a test vehicle doesn't mean it's all for killing things. NASA still uses Titans for launching spaceprobes, even though they were originally designed for launching nuclear warheads. The planes that fly through hurricanes to gather wind speed data probably save lives every time a big one approaches land, but they are still modifed military aircraft.
Yes, this has military applications as well. Lots of things do. The medical resarch you mention has been perverted to war before, for just one example. If you would like to see this knowledge focused on peaceful persuits and shared for the benefit of all, more power to you. It is not going to be possible to share it with businesses across the country and still keep it a military secret. All you have to do to help mankind here is pressure the people talking about applying it to silencing commercial aircraft to keep that promise, and it will make things better for lots of people.
Who is John Cabal?
No. It was the EPA, possibly in connection with the Liberal Media.
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Replying to all the posters to my post:
This was based on the fact that supersonic passenger flight (at least with current technology) is unprofitable.
With space flight noise isn't really an issue.
toresbe
this could make intercontinental travel anything up to twice as fast, through making civilian supersonic jets politically acceptable. the greatest gains would be had in overland transcontinental travel, where no airliner has yet been allowed to remain supersonic because of their booms.
They are politically acceptable, just not economically acceptable. Supersonic jets using afterburners use ungodly amounts of fuel. I've heard the Concorde made slightly less noise than a 747-400 or something like that.
toresbe
One common argument used by sceptics is that many UFO reports are not credible because they describe supersonic movement with no sonic boom.
My counter-argument was to imagine a craft designed as a rapidly spinning disk which could absorb air molecules on its leading half (perhaps using some form of nanotech) and then expell the molecules from its trailing half. As it isn't displacing the air, it generates no shockwave and no sonic boom. And if it expelled the molecules at a greater velocity than at which it absorbed them, it would not only suffer no drag, but would generate extra thrust.
By pure coincidence, many reports of UFOs are of rapidly spinning disks.
What I'm going to say is nothing new, totally unoriginal, but...
I find it paradoxal that the bleeding hearts will criticise the US military to no end, when there very right to express those opinions has been secured by the technological edge that allowed the US and its allies to win both WWII and the Cold War.
You needn't be an avid fan of the current government's decisions to realise that many *many* people have benefited enormously from the security and technological advances that were pioneered by this "war machine".
To add my own anecdote, this is very similar to the discussions that I have with fellow French Canadians. We've got a big collective chip on our shoulder against the English. However, the reality is that the English system of government, instituted here in Canada and the United States, has spared us from the sort of upheaval that our blood-thirsty European ancestors have inflicted on themselves. Bloodthirsty, yes, because before Europe decided to "remake" its virginity, it was one of the most war-torn shitholes on the planet. And I don't think that will ever change because people there remain as naïfs as before.
Writing from Norway, eh?
Probably a country that benefited enormously from the protection guaranteed by the US and its allies. So much so that you had no need to invest in a real military to defend yourselves. So shut the fuck up.
Flamebait, yes, but it needs to be said.
So we shouldn't research new technology for supersonic planes because current technology makes it unprofitable? Sounds like a rather silly reason to me. Of course, I'm not imparted by a fear of anything with a military designation like some people here...
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
One would have thought the implied joke was the obvious part.
correct, but the Concorde didn't ordinarily use afterburners; it had them only for the greater thrust demands at take-off and during acceleration, not for cruise. it was an expensive plane to run largely because of its low seating capacity and short range, which barred it from many of the lucrative trans-Pacific routes.
(some have also argued that the low-to-nil bypass ratio of the Concorde's Olympus engines made it more expensive to run. that may be true; i don't have any really convincing evidence either way.)
that would have had to depend on what the plane was doing. during landing, i can well believe the difference might have been small; during take-off (under afterburners, natch!) that would very much surprise me; and while supersonic, absolutely not.
Concordes were politically acceptable so long as they stayed subsonic over land, so nobody would complain about the boom. they were also hideously expensive to run, which in a more rational world might have shut them down all by itself, but apparently there were enough eccentric ultra-rich people to keep them flying for decades in spite of that fault. no amount of money, however, would let them reamin at their designed cruise speed above anyplace people lived, and that was as much a political shortcoming as a technical one.
Yah and the two damn supersonic planes did nothing to frighten the poor little tortoise?
Oh well, what the hell...
Well now, nothing prevents the poor from getting a good education and becoming rich beyond measure: http://www.universityofnigeria.com
Oh well, what the hell...
Sending 'stealth' planes into airspace that has no defending air force is not exactly a 'proof of the concept'. Coulda flown into iraq using a concorde, complete with it's huge sonic trail, would not have made any difference, there was no air force to defend anyways.
Stealth planes are not undetectable, they are just more difficult to detect than traditional aircraft. Countries with the will, and the technology, have long since built better detection systems, so flying into thier airspace with a 'stealth' machine will be no different than flying in with a traditional airplane. they are gonna see it coming well in advance, and the only surprise will be to the american taxpayer, those billion dollar airplanes are not nearly as sneaky as the military would have you believe.
Well, hopefully, since it will be invented by the yankees (unlike the Concorde), the technology will not be sunk down...
...is nothing new. The Tridents, BAC 1-11s and VC10s (all British!) of the early 1960s had it. Don't try and pretend Boeing invented everything - they are the Microsoft of the skies - not much invented here....
I may be incorrect about this, but I seem to recall that the mathematician Paul Garabedian independently developed the mathematical theory for shockless supersonic flight at the same time that people in AE developed a theory. The Popular Science article does not mention Garabedian.
The review by N. Geffen of "Analysis of Transonic Airfoils", Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 24 (1971), 841--851 by Garabedian, P. R.; Korn, D. G.
"Calculation of inviscid, subsonic-supercritical flow around prescribed airfoils is described. This supplements the authors' previous design of a shockless transonic wing using real and complex characteristics in the hodograph plane. The flow about the designed wing is calculated for a range of off-design conditions.
"Neumann's problem for the flow-potential equation is solved numerically in a plane where the exterior of the airfoil is conformally (also numerically) mapped onto the interior of the unit circle. Following E. M. Murman and J. D. Cole [AIAA J. 9 (1971), 114--121], a second-order finite-difference scheme is used in the subsonic region, while an implicit second-order scheme is used in the hyperbolic zone, introducing artificial viscosity of the right sign. The Kutta condition is satisfied by an iterative scheme. Results with relatively narrow shocks (i.e., steep gradients) are given and compared with wind-tunnel experiments."
I used to live directly under the Concorde's flight path a little west of Heathrow. Yes, it was loud. But, I'd trade loud for cheap seats any time.
BTW, the loudest aircraft I've heard is a water-injected C-141 taking off about 3 miles away. Most have been painful for the crew.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I've never heard a whip crack- but up here at the lake we used to hear sonic booms from SR71s about one day every 4 months or so. One boom was strong enough to shake the spoon out of my Lucky Charms on a Sunday morning in our mobile home. (all those happy memories)
... they call it the "Dutch oven" effect.
I've never heard a sonic boom... so I'm not really sure how loud they are, but a co-worker described it as "pretty much sounds like thunder".
Is that really a big problem? It seems kind of dumb to me to ban supersonic flight over cities.
There are certainly very important military implications to being able to go supersonic without a boom. If you have a plane capable of going supersonic, but is indistinguishable from noise on radar thanks to stealth technology, a sonic boom is one thing that could give you away in enemy territory. If you can't be heard on the ground, or easily seen on radar, that makes your mission that much easier.
A lot of rookies think they're better at IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) than they really are. They fixate too much on a single dial or meter, and end up augering in (with perhaps perfect speed) in a sim. Skilled IFR is mostly actually flying by the seat of one's pants; looking at all those instruments eventually gives a pilot an almost intuitive knowledge of how the aircraft behaves. He need only glance down a few times per several seconds to have a fair idea of what the plane's doing, using his experience to connect the pieces of data.
If, a few years from now, a new jet is produced that produces an insignificant sonic boom, and flights between non-US cities are successful, you can bet some billionaire somewhere will pay enough money to someone in the right position to amend the law so they can get where they need to be when they want to be there.
Get rid of everything Micro and Soft: Buy Viagra and/or Linux
Don't be alarmed... MY ASS!
If you watch cable TV shows much, no doubt you've seen your share of close-calls in airplanes.
Yes, there are plenty of occasions where all the instruments fail, the power goes out, the hydraulics go out, etc. People still survive because, despite the high-tech systems, there is still JUST ENOUGH under manual control that a very good pilot in decent weather can land such a crippled plane.
Good luck doing that when they can't even see! And don't bother telling me that they're going to have multiple cameras, with backup systems and all that, I've already heard of plenty of cases where all 3 computer systems on 747s have failed. That's not one case, but MANY independant cases.
As you can probably assume, I'm not afraid of technology in the slightest. However, I do know that even the most advanced and well-tested technology in the real world can fail. If you aren't willing to trust electronic voting machines, are you really ready to give technology 100% control over matters of life and death?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
A better analogy is armor. Whatever armor you have, the enemy can make ordnance to penetrate it. But is still better to defend against an armor brigade with $2 million Abrahms tanks, rather than a fleet of $20,000 jeeps.
Actually, jet engine manufacturers have done a very commendable job reducing engine noise, thanks to high-bypass turbofan engines that use mostly the front fan to generate thrust and the use of acoustically-treated and tuned jet engine nacelles.
A less-known problem is that of the noise rushing around the airframe at flight speeds, which can also generate a lot of noise that could be heard from the ground. Fortunately, modern computational fluid dynamic research has reduced this problem, even on the upcoming Airbus A380 super jumbo airliner.
And note that this boom-diffuser approach increases drag, which means more fuel consumption. As a rule of thumb, supersonic flight uses 3x as much fuel per unit distance as subsonic flight already. This is worse. And it still produces an 0.5psi overpressure, which is above what the FAA allows now.
It can probably be made to work, but as a commercial product, it seems marginal.
Remember, this comes out of your pension fund.
I have this feeling that with Northrop's validation of the research that shows reshaping a plane's profile CAN dramatically reduce the effects of the sonic boom, Boeing may be seriously looking at the possibility of a supersonic airliner again.
Imagine something derived from the shelved Sonic Cruiser design, but carefully shaped to eliminate the pressure wave buildup that causes the sonic boom in the first place. The result could be a Mach 1.7 airliner that could:
1. Fly at 55,000 feet with just about no sonic booms audiable to observers below on the flight path.
2. Fly at least 6,500 to 7,000 nautical miles nonstop.
3. Carry around 200 passengers in two-class seating.
4. Be able use make extensive use of composite materials because at Mach 1.7 the heating effects of supersonic flight will be less than that Mach 2.0 speed of Concorde. This means lower weight for the whole airframe itself.
5. Use variable-cycle engines that will allow the plane to meet today's stringent jet engine noise and exhaust emission standards on takeoff and landing but still allow for efficient supersonic cruise.
If you look at the Sonic Cruiser design, it appears that Boeing has some ideas already in place about reducing that pressure wave buildup to start with. Why not take those concepts and build a truly "green" SST that could carry twice the number of passengers as the Concorde and be able to fly most transpacific routes nonstop?
Concorde did use a/b to get through the transonic drag bump, but as you say, it did not need a/b to cruise at M2
I don't think fuel cost was the real killer, Concorde used about 1 tonne of fuel per passenger, so (say) $500 of fuel for a ticket that was probably around $4000, one way.
Point 1: Barriers to trade
You know, you're absolutely right. I am totally against the difficulties that we create for developing nations, that keep them from putting their goods (usually agricultural) on our markets.
The fact is, both the United States *and* Europe are guilty, one as much as the other.
That said, many African governments have adopted protectionist policies of Marxist inspiration. Mugabe is only the latest and most flagrant example; it's been happening for decades. So you can't expect Country A to allow Country B's goods into their domestic market if there is no reciprocity. Reciprocity is essential for free trade. However, this is done in a bilateral fashion on a category-by-category basis, so reciprocity would apply to, say, all raw agricultural products. The fact that they don't want to drop tarifs on your heavy equipment is not a mitigating factor related to the said agricultural products, as far as I understand.
Point 2: Natural resources
I'm growing very wear of the argument that we are raping all those poor countries' natural resources. The fundamental nature of economic exchange is the fact that someone places a higher value on your good or service than you do. This is how wealth is generated, *this* is the basis of true economic development.
This is silly, I shouldn't even have to illustrate it, but let's take the example of diamonds. African Country is rich in diamonds. The country really doesn't know what to do with them -- it doesn't have experienced jewellers to cut them or industries to use them in other products. However, African Country has people with families to feed, and these people need jobs. That means that a demand exists for a domestic product that will create a net inflow of cash if exploited.
Basically, I suppose that it comes down to an ideological preference. Do you prefer free commerce that generates new wealth, or are you stuck in the sclerotic mindset that prefers to give away millions of dollars in the form of "aid" that will never encourage these countries to take the steps necessary to improve their well being? If your dream is to create a global welfare state, we have nothing further to say to each other.
Regarding the noise at takeoff of the Concorde:
Although I was never lucky enough to be aboard one, I have had the interesting experience of being in a plane behind a Concorde at Roissy/CDG.
The pilot announces in a bemused tone that we will be slightly delayed "because there's a Concorde directly in front of us." Great, I said, finally I can see it.
For the first couple of minutes, nothing (taking position). Then, I hear a gradually approaching roar of magnificent proportion (at least to me).
Our plane, a 737, begins to shudder almost violently and one or two overhead compartments open themselves (admittedly, poorly closed). Then I see the Concorde race past, its afterburners creating a dark smoke cloud behind it.
So yes, louder at take-off than any other 747 that *I* have seen.
you have freedom of speech, so shut the fuck up?
that makes sense...
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I'm sure that when someone says that Third World countries are being raped of their resources, it has a lot to do with HOW those resources are extracted.
t icles/TheStandardColtan.asp
A frequent accusation is that certain other countries foster conflict between warring factions to get things below market value.
Diamonds aren't really a good example because they are available from a number of countries and aren't really a critical resource.
A better example, especially since you used Africa as an example, is Coltan( columbite-tantalite).
Without Coltan, you can pretty much kiss all your fancy electronics goodbye.
Read here for more info: http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Africa/Ar
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Now if they could find a way to mitigate the booms from the lowriders playing their loud music! THAT would be practical!
Visualize Whirled Peas
So if we know what the women's magazines are, what are the men's magazines? I suppose the feminists would snarl "Playboy", but which men above the age of say, 15, have any interest in that.
No, the men's magazines are PS/PM, and the men's magazine all time was the issue with the cover story "We Fly the B-2 Stealth Bomber." Every man wants to know! (By the way, it is side-stick controlled fly-by-wire with computer-generated control laws, and it handles pretty much like the Airbus A320 jet airliner, should that give you any basis for comparison.)
FYI: USAF F-15's when they are put back together after periodic depot maintenance, have to be tested before they are sent back to their home unit. Pre- 9/11 this was done off of the coast of Georgia. They run them as fast as they can go.
Post 9/11 due to fears of Norad having to figure out what the heck a jet is inbound off of the coast of Georgia( a newly rebuilt F-15 that might have a faulty radio could be a problem,) The F-15s now do their testing over middle Georgia ( near Macon ). Sonic booms can be loud. They shake the roof of some buildings pretty good. Never heard of any broken glass because of ( altitude of the test ? ) To me they sound more like a man made explosion ( like from an artillery piece or aerial bomb ) than the sound of thunder.
Right. Is that the same B2 stealth bomber that gets picked up on radar at airshows, etc? Oooh scary :)
Norway acted incredibly valiantly in WW2, taking a huge strike from the Nazis, being stabbed in the back by Quisling, yet still establishing some fantastic resistance lines. Not to mention the tenacity of the free Norwegian population, some who fled across the North Sea to the UK, to be trained, armed and dropped straight back in to Norway to blow up Germans (remember the Nazi atomic bomb? Exactly - the Norwegian resistance stopped all Nazi heavy water production). All while the US was sitting in the corner licking its nuts, deciding who was going to be the likely victor before committing either way.
That's the problem. You start your horrific bashing "probably", which shows you don't hesitate in taking the piss out of a whole nation based on something you just pulled out your ass. You're French Canadian. Just think what we could say to you if we operated on such base levels. Sheesh.
If you think the US military is the same as it was back in WWII, you're mistaken. That was a clear-cut case of Good vs. Evil. Now, the US military is a tool of oppression. Corrupt leaders use it for political gain, not to save American lives.
And I find it annoying when right-wing nutcases miss the whole point of an argument, wade on in and make complete fools out of themselves, before having to put up with logical answers. Of course, I expect you to say something nasty now. Be my guest.
Welcome to the right-wing mind. "Freedom of speech" only extends to those you agree with. If you stand up for someone's freedom of speech when you're not in agreement, you're instantly a "bleeding heart liberal". I was at an Anti-Bush rally in LA, and some Pro-Bush nutters were saying I hated the US and all it stood for, while simultaneously trying to cover (censor) my placard with the US flag. The irony was completely lost on those jokers.
Sending 'stealth' planes into airspace that has no defending air force is not exactly a 'proof of the concept'.
In January 1991 Iraq DID in fact have air defenses. You don't need an airforce to defend against airplanes. Iraqi AAA and SAM sites were crushed by the B2 and F117A.
Stealth planes are not undetectable, they are just more difficult to detect than traditional aircraft.
Unless they are very close to the radar site, they often look like birds to radar. To detect them, one needs to simply adjust the sensitivity of the radar, but at the same time you'll be tracking every goose that flies overhead too.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
You're missing something. Bagdad may have had no effective fighter cover, but you don't need fighters for effective air defense.
Badghdad had arguably the heaviest surface-to-air defenses in the history of the world before the air war began in 1991. I read this in CNN's history of the gulf war. I recall the book reporting Baghdad had more anti-aircraft batteries (SAMs and Triple-A) per square km than Hanoi during the Vietnam confict, or Berlin during WWII. And these defensive weapons were far more accurate and lethal than 1960s or 1940s technology. I wish I still had the book to give a direct quote.
The benefit of stealth technology is in defense from SAMs and Triple-A, not in defense from fighters. In fact, an F-117 would proabably be dead meat if it ever got mixed up in a dogfight with a conventional fighter less than 30 years old. F-117s are delicate, have poor maneuverability, and require quite a bit of computer correction on the controls just to remain in stable flight. That's why they fly mostly at night and are painted black.
Basically, stealth technology worked as designed and advertised in 1991, and again in 2003.
Haruchai -- read your article with interest.
I think that the critical distinction to make here is between (a) the rebels who knowingly engage in such amoral activities and (b) the companies, dependent on this material, whose means are limited in terms of assuring the origin of the coltan.
A problem for which we must undoubtedly find a solution, but hardly the fault of "borderless capitalism."
actually no it isn't. the ones they pull out at air shows are disabled in several ways. even the fighters that visit the air shows are handicaped.
This is done for several reasons, the first is probably so it wouldn't be verry easy for a savy spy to determine some of the military secretes. In the case of the stealth bombers, a key componant is missing. The paint on the normal bombers have the ability to absorb radar waves and if i remeber right there is also the ability to reproduce certain types of radar to cancel out echoing effects from multiple sites. the "show" version don't have this and woudn't use any of this when flying in populated airspace.
You will also find it interesting that with the exception of the planes the blue angels fly, most military "show" aircraft have damage deliberatly done to their frames in order to decrease the effectiveness of them if one got away(stolen). It would in no way perform close to the rated specs or achive the performance neccesary for combat. Most guidence and targeting systems are removed and replaced with functional but cripled dummies that are designed to fool any would be spy into obtaining the wrong information. Different aircraft have different "things" done and i'm not sure of exactly what is done were.
No-one needs to steal planes any more. No-one needs to find out specs of aircraft at airshows. The only specs people want are of aircraft not even known to the public, not your Eurofighters flapping around an airshow. It's not 1982 any more.
After their B2 was caught on radar, they said they hadn't turned on the radar-absorbing paint. hehehe
In fact, an F-117 would proabably be dead meat if it ever got mixed up in a dogfight with a conventional fighter less than 30 years old.
The F-117 has a couple of advantages over conventional fighters. Especially with it's passive defenses. There is a good chance that an F-117 pilot could achive a lock and launch a missile before the other fighter pilot was even aware of its presence.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I'm gratified that you took the time to read it. I've found that most people just skim through and jump to concluions. What I couldn't find was an online version of a newspaper article I read about 2 years ago that accused several governments of deliberately fostering conflicts in order to make it easier to get valuable natural resources.
In many cases, the conflicts were longstanding but the governments in question were giving support to either one or more sides in order to KEEP THE CONFLICT GOING.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
well wrong. when they show off performance abilities of new aircraft to encourage sales, they are either using different componants or mainstream aircraft. They definatly don't arange sales meting at oshcosh or some other airshow. These shows are private and operated in a secluded area that is away from dangers of somethign screwing up and killing thousands of people. the stuff that goes to air shows the public generaly goes to isn't the same situation. They aren't selling the aircraft to the public so why would they demonstrat it in that mannor.
And your mini van analogy is even all wrong. It is like having a car that can go 200mph and then only putting a speedo in it that registers 120 while governing it to that speed too. you still think it is fast and will get you were your going. Now to cap the deal, they put tires on it rated to only go around 100 and tell you thats the top speed.
I'm not making this up. it is general knowledge and publicaly availible from the different military braches. They do the same things with surplus boats they sell and about anything with a combat performance nature. Yes you (as a civilian) can even buy used tanks, halftracks vehicles, humvees, helocopters and about anythign else they have if you have enough money. Everythign will have somethign done to cap the performance capabilities and of course some electronics will simply not be there (targeting systems and such). The degree of the handicapping will be determined by the statedepartments list of freinds and foe. If you somehow end up as a friend (like isreal, england or austrailia) you will be able to order brand new stuff from the factory but it will still have some design limitations compared to the american military versions.
oh,BTW. Even though it isn't 1982 and you don't see the need, there was a reason for it at one time so there probably is still a reason for doing it. and for the turning on the radar absorbing pain? i didn't hear that one but i do know they have echo canceling electronics that do counter/cancel the radar signals once they reach a certain distance to the plane and they can reproduce the signals in other directions if nedded. Of cousre the computer controls this as the type of radar is determined. so yes they can flip a switch and become more invisible to radar if nedded. maybe thats what they were talking about.