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The Feathered Threat To US Air Superiority
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Mark Thompson writes in Time Magazine that Air Force pilots flying the T-38 Talon can rest easy, knowing that their cockpit canopy can survive hitting a 4-lb. bird at 190 mph. Unfortunately, the Northrop supersonic jet trainer has a top speed of 812 mph. 'To my knowledge, the training planes are the only ones in the Air Force fast enough to make a bird strike lethal, and with a windshield too flimsy to deflect one,' wrote one Air Force pilot. Midair collisions between birds and Air Force aircraft have destroyed 39 planes and killed 33 airmen since 1973. That's why the USAF is seeking comments to 'identify potential sources, materials, timeframe, and approximate costs to redesign, test, and produce 550 T-38 forward canopy transparencies to increase bird strike capability.' The move follows a T-38 crash on July 19 in Texas triggered by a canopy bird strike. 'The current 0.23 inch thick stretched acrylic transparency can resist a 4-pound bird impact at 165 knots which does not offer a capability to resist significant bird impacts, and has resulted in the loss of six (6) aircraft and two pilot fatalities,' the service acknowledged. 'Numerous attempts since 1970 were made to evaluate existing materials and redesign a transparency that could withstand a bird impact of 4 pounds at 400 knots.' Previous efforts have foundered because they'd require expensive cockpit modifications to the twin-engine, two-seat supersonic jet. 'Although it would increase the level of bird impact protection,' the Air Force said, 'the proposal was cancelled due to the high cost of the modification.'"
I guess a new transparency is still more expensive than 6 aircraft and 2 lives (let alone training costs already spent on them).
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Because replacement isn't likely to happen. The T-38 is a highly refined aircraft, and given the guarantee that a replacement will be grossly over-budget and the certainty the program will be mismanaged it makes sense to assume the Talon will be around a very long time.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Transparent Aluminium
http://phys.org/news167925273.html
As God as my witness - I thought turkeys could fly!
"Mark Thompson writes in Time Magazine that Air Force pilots flying the T-38 Talon can rest easy, knowing that their cockpit canopy can survive hitting a 1.8 kg bird at 300 km/h. Unfortunately, the Northrop supersonic jet trainer has a top speed of 1307 km/h. 'To my knowledge, the training planes are the only ones in the Air Force fast enough to make a bird strike lethal, and with a windshield too flimsy to deflect one,' wrote one Air Force pilot. Midair collisions between birds and Air Force aircraft have destroyed 39 planes and killed 33 airmen since 1973. That's why the USAF is seeking comments to 'identify potential sources, materials, timeframe, and approximate costs to redesign, test, and produce 550 T-38 forward canopy transparencies to increase bird strike capability.' The move follows a T-38 crash on July 19 in Texas triggered by a canopy bird strike. 'The current 5.8 mm thick stretched acrylic transparency can resist a 1.8 kg bird impact at 300 km/h which does not offer a capability to resist significant bird impacts, and has resulted in the loss of six (6) aircraft and two pilot fatalities,' the service acknowledged. 'Numerous attempts since 1970 were made to evaluate existing materials and redesign a transparency that could withstand a bird impact of 1.8 kg at 740 km/h.' Previous efforts have foundered because they'd require expensive cockpit modifications to the twin-engine, two-seat supersonic jet. 'Although it would increase the level of bird impact protection,' the Air Force said, 'the proposal was cancelled due to the high cost of the modification.'"
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike#Incidents
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) estimates the problem costs US aviation 400 million dollars annually and has resulted in over 200 worldwide deaths since 1988.[40] In the United Kingdom, the Central Science Laboratory estimates[6] that, worldwide, the cost of birdstrikes to airlines is around US$1.2 billion annually. This cost includes direct repair cost and lost revenue opportunities while the damaged aircraft is out of service. Estimating that 80% of bird strikes are unreported, there were 4,300 bird strikes listed by the United States Air Force and 5,900 by US civil aircraft in 2003.
Just another day in Paradise
Yes. The number of airman deaths from cancer caused by hitting birds in flight is 0.0/year.
Great. Now the bird will smash into it, pulp the people inside, and fly off in its straight line with no driver, right into space.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Somewhat ironically, the poster boy for bird extinction, the Dodo, would not have been affected by mid-air collisions with planes.
All the Talons are getting to the end of their service life, which means you either push them through a very costly life extension program, or you replace them.
All of the Talon replacements are off-the-shelf systems, with little to no custom development required, and all are proven platforms (with one already being in USN service) so the cost for replacement is likely to be very manageable.
So don't discount the fact that they are being replaced, its going to happen.
they made a formal pr announcement of their next move:
"We plan to shit on you
sincerely, the birds."
-on more serious note the whole point of the trainer is that it's cheap, cheap. you could be using two seater hornets or whatever.. but they cost more.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I should have let that page resolve before I linked to it. I was thinking of a different system.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
And if PETA complains, the military aims the cannon at them!
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Most migrating birds fly at altitudes between 10,000 and 20,000 feet.
Nope.. Most migrating birds are flying UNDER 2,000 ft AGL which is where most bird strike incidents happen. There have been NO REPORTED strikes above 6,000 feet.
See the WikiPedia article on Bird Migration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_migration and look at the second to last paragraph in the "General Patterns" section.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Why do modern military planes even have a canopy anymore? The vast majority of interesting visual information gets presented to the pilot via HUD anyway. The actual physical scenery amounts to nothing more than a distraction. Ditch the canopy, stick the pilot deeper inside the plane, and present everything as a video feed.
Because the real world is in Super-Duper-Ultra-HD-X-treme (TM).
Birds have survived far more environmental catastrophes in their tens, or hundreds, of millions of years on Earth. I bet they'll be around after we're long extinct!
We have lawyers, and copyright, and copyright lawyers
Your move, birds
I've heard that one of the paint manufacturers brought a suit against Robin birds because the Robins were using "robin-egg blue" for their eggs without paying the appropriate licensing fees. The birds tried to claim prior art, but without any written history, they were unable to prove it, and the paint company clearly filed first. I haven't heard if the Robins are going to pay the fees or evolve a different color of egg.
Seriously, building a glass strong enough to withstand bird strikes is not a n issue and hasn't been.
The issue is that the glass has to be weak enough to allow the pilot to break through when he's ejecting. So strong enough for a bird at 800 mph, but weak enough for a human ejecting at maybe 10 mph.
That shouldn't be an issue. The canopy is jettisoned before the seat is ejected. The ejection seat doesn't need to break through the canopy.
Speaking of iron domes, is there any particular reason why the cockpit needs to be transparent? A bunch of cameras and viewscreens should work just as well; for that matter, and a 3rd-person view would probably work even better. Let the computer worry about flying the plane, since it's already doing that, and free the pilot to focus entirely on tactical decisions. This would also allow such niceties as gyroscopic seats that always align the pilot for maximum g-force resistance, pre-inputting a plan to be followed in case of a pilot blackout, autoaim, sharing of research between manned and drone aircraft, etc.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
or not.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/ntsb-faa-investigate-high-altitude-bird-strikes-near-phoenix-334523/
According to a government-industry bird strike committee, there were 2,200 bird strikes involving civil aircraft at altitudes of more than 5,000ft above the ground between 1990 and 2008, with the highest altitude incident reported as a collision between an aircraft and a Griffon vulture at 37,000ft off the coast of Africa.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This is the T-38 trainer. It's not a combat aircraft. The T-38 is fast and modern looking, but the first flight was in 1961. Back then, one in five fighter pilots died in accidents, without any help from the enemy. In the 1950s and 1960s, fighter pilots were viewed as expendable. It's not a career choice for the timid.
The T-38 has killed many pilots. Good ones. Four astronauts, four of the USAF Thunderbirds. Yet fighter jocks like to fly it. It's not as bad as it used to be - the original engines were unreliable.
The ejection seat has saved many T-38 pilots. The T-38 ejection seat blasts through the canopy to get the pilot out. There's a big spike on top of the seat to punch through the canopy.Here's the 1990 redesign for a canopy that will resist bird strikes. "The seat mounted cutting blade is virtually ineffective in cutting through materials which comply with Bird collision resistance." So toughening up the canopy meant a new ejection system. Fighter planes, which have tougher canopies (they're expected to be shot at) have such systems, which usually involve explosives shattering or releasing the canopy. The T-38 is just a trainer - no armor.
The T-38 later got an ejection seat upgrade with zero-zero capability (you can eject while parked on the ground, which is useful if you have a fire during engine start or a bad landing), and that seems to have a new canopy disposal system. They had to give up the tiny bit of luggage storage the T-38 had. One of the original Mercury astronauts (they were issued T-38s as personal transportation) was able to find a case that would just fit the T-38's space under the seat. But for a few weeks, he wouldn't tell the other astronauts where he got it.