Slashdot Mirror
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."
yeah, yeah but it's close enough
"God Bless the idiot proof air force" -- Side show Bob
So help me, when I saw the reference in the write-up about landing a JSF, I first thought "Jedi Starfighter." I must need help...
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.
"Today," you takee kamikaze airprane far up into sky, over Yankee aircraft carrier, then takee kamikaze prane...down fast! crashing on the deck, killing yourself and all aboard!
Before we have a ceremonial sake toast, are there any questions?"
"Honorable general-san!"
"Hai?"
"Are you out of your fucking mind?"
You're using her as bait, Master!
Is it though? 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? You can bet pilots don't know within 10cm where there plane is relative to anything outside the plane. If any operation of such a large vehicle operated by a person required better than 10cm of precision to avoid damage, there would be serious problems..
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I don't see a lot of geek content here, just American type propaganda.
Well, a British aeroplane (Harrier), a British company (Qinetic), a British ship (HMS Invincible), carried by a British news service (BBC). Damn this Americanisation. Oh... what language are these posts in, English?
Plus its pretty cool, IMHO, that a computer can do this given the huge difficulty and inability to simplify the process (wind, gravity, thrust) into simple mechanics.
Even a single seater fighter is a big beast, compared to say, a family car. If you've ever seen a Harrier thump down on the deck of a carrier, you'll see that the suspension gives considerably more than 10cm as the plane makes contact. I think 10cm is more than good enough - certainly better than any current pilot, and they seem to do OK.
One-click carrier landings are currently covered under a Jeff Bezos patent.
Since the 60s we've been winching down our SeaKings, that is, when they're weren't falling out of the sky on their own...
r ap/
http://www.readyayeready.com/timeline/1960s/beart
I'm sure I'm not the only one who got a wife who can't navigate the car into a driveway. Having an automatic parking for women would save the grass and garage from further damage.
-1, Flamebait, but I guess you're not married.
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."
The technology could also be used on helicopters, frigates and destroyers.
When are we going to see frigates and destroyes landing on carriers?-)
Landing vertically, helicopter or Harrier, you have to match the forward speed of the ship (maybe 10-20 knots), compensate for pitch and roll so the deck doesn't come up and slap your landing gear off, and adjust for your own ground effect as you near the surface of the deck. Also, depending on space and where you're supposed to set down, you may be coming down not in line with the ship, but maybe trying to fly sideways at 15 knots.
It's not necessarily easier or harder, just a different set of conditions that need to be met and compensated for.
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.
I can't speak for VTOL, as US aircraft carriers (CVs and CVNs) do not normally carry them. Having been helo aircrew for hundreds of shipboard landings (mostly CV, but quite a few small boy decks as well), I can say you don't just float over the deck and put her down.
On a carrier, you're directed to land on one of 5-6 circles called "spots" Spots 1-2 are generally at near the bow, 3-4 (where most HS [the type of squadron deployed on carriers] landings occur are port side aft of the angled deck, and 5-6 are near the stern.
If you miss your spot, the air boss will personally check in to whether your wings should be pulled. ; )
No question about it, it's easier to land a helo on a CV/CVN than a fixed winger. However, I took the comment about smaller ships to imply frigates, destroyers, crusiers, and the like. It is definitely not easy to land on one of those when the deck is pitching all over the place. The RAST systems in use by much of the HSL community helps, but send a non RAST-equipped helo to a small boy in high seas...and the pucker factor is high.
--Mike
The helos are always the first to take off and last to land.
A major aid to this advance was the recent development of industrial-strength flypaper...
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
When you're parking, maybe. 10cm may mean the difference between simply parking and breaking off a mirror.
Despite all the skepticism being bandied about military technology on this site, automated carrier landings are not new. The first fully automated landing on an aircraft carrier took place on Aug. 12, 1957, when an F3D Skyknight was landed on USS Antietam (CVA 36) at sea off Pensacola, Fla., by the Automatic Carrier Landing System (ACLS). That's right, over 40 years ago. That system is still in wide use today, and is only now slowly being replaced by the JPALS (Joint Precision Approach and Landing System) system which uses GPS instead of the radar used by ACLS.
The QinetiQ system described in the article (which is itself a component of JPALS) is remarkable in that it automates vertical landings. I'm kind of uncertain as to why that had never been done before, though I think it has more to do with the much lower level of interest, and therefore funding, than because of any technical challenge.
No question about it, it's easier to land a helo on a CV/CVN than a fixed winger. However, I took the comment about smaller ships to imply frigates, destroyers, crusiers, and the like. It is definitely not easy to land on one of those when the deck is pitching all over the place. The RAST systems in use by much of the HSL community helps, but send a non RAST-equipped helo to a small boy in high seas...and the pucker factor is high.
After spending five years aboard a US Navy FFG, I have a lot of respect for the helo crew. Landing on a deck that's pitching up and down over a range of five to ten feet, plus rolling a total of 30 degrees is tough enough - but right in front of the aircraft is a solid wall of metal that would cheerfully shred the rotors. Plus, the ship is moving.
When the SH-60B that we carried landed, the tail extended over the end of the flight deck. It's a big helicopter landing in a very small spot. And I've got to say that the five or six times that I flew, the landing was absolutely terrifying. And these guys were flying several missions a day whenever we were at sea.
Oh, and RAST was broken half of the time, too.
-h-
Did anyone else notice that the QinetiQ logo 'painted' on the body of the fighter appears to be just a poor photoshop job? Looks like their logo wasn't on the aircraft (or at least visible in this shot) so they decided to slap one on after the fact.
High-res photo and a zoomed close-up
Kevin Fox
When I was on a carrier (supply clerk, ha!) in the 1970s, there was a TV camera in the yellow line of the landing strip down the angle. It seemed like half the time, the two nose wheels of an F-4 would go down opposite sides of that TV camera as I watched in my spare time on the ship's TV system. This is landing at probably well over 150 knots in a cross wind on a platform which is rolling, pitching, and changing elevation. One night every single pilot, I think 98 traps, hit the right wire.
I'd say they can get within 10cm no sweat. Navy pilots are damned good.
Infuriate left and right