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Military Aircraft To Get All-Fiber Network Gear

Posted by timothy on from the network-coriolis-effect dept.

coondoggie writes "Looking to significantly reduce weight, improve on-board communications and make it easier to upgrade avionics, the US military is developing prototype phonic gear for use in all aircraft. Behind such a drastic shift is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency project with an ungainly moniker: Network Enabled by Wavelength division multiplexing Highly Integrated Photonics (NEW-HIP)."

8 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Horray by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now our military has more stuff, we might be able to stand a chance against another military for the first time in a long time!

    1. Re:Horray by DWMorse · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hah. And here -I- was excited that fighter jet pilots would finally be able to watch YouTube and download torrents are amazingly high speeds with low latency, while doing those boring maneuvers.

      --
      There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
    2. Re:Horray by MichaelSmith · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hah. And here -I- was excited that fighter jet pilots would finally be able to watch YouTube and download torrents are amazingly high speeds with low latency, while doing those boring maneuvers.

      Sounds likely since most of them will be flying UAVs.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    3. Re:Horray by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not fighter jets, transport jets.

      There was a transport flying with a fighter escort. After many hours, the fight pilot called over to the transport pilot and said, "Watch this!" and proceeded to do some acrobatics.

      The transport pilot watched and then retorted, "Oh yeah! Watch this!"

      So the fighter pilot sat and watched. And watched. And watched. Then after 20 minutes, the fighter pilot called over again and said, "I'm still waiting to see what you can do?"

      The transport pilot said, "I did it. I got up, stretched my legs, went back for cup of coffee and talked to the flight engineer, went to the john -sitting down, grabbed another cup of coffee and walked back here."

      A young boy tells his father, "Dad when I grow up, I want to be a fighter pilot!"

      The father asks, "So, which is it?"

  2. Prototype *phonic* gear?? by Snorbert+Xangox · · Score: 4, Funny

    From the summary: "prototype phonic gear" - are they going back to speaking tubes like the ones on old ships?

    --
    -Snorbert, somewhere in the antipodes
  3. Re:Oh they just called it that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    If they had had more fiber in the first place, they wouldn't need new hips.

  4. Re:Hm... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Informative

    Don't forget that the copper cables need to be shielded against interference, while fibre is much more robust.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  5. Why optical over single-copper? by Anonymous+Freak · · Score: 3, Informative

    The F-22 and F-35 already use IEEE-1394 (aka "FireWire") as their primary data carriers between parts of the aircraft, over shielded copper wires. Is optical cabling really that much lighter that this matters?

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    Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
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