Forum: Technology

Better, Cheaper solution. Take the pilot out of the jet, you get rid of the seat, and all the Life support stuff, and Human interface equipment. the jet will now be much smaller, have a longer range, and be able to pull 20 or more G's with no problem. the Pilots are now limiting our aircraft!!!

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I think that pilots will be manning fighter aircraft for awhile yet.
The ability to have a human reacting with the technology in the cockpit 'at the scene of the action' is too hard to safely replicate via remote control. Especially the Close Air Support mission, which I think is one of the most difficult sortie profiles. It definitely benefits from a cool head assessing the vast amount of data in a rapidly changing environment full of surprises.

Just my opinion...

Cheaper? Pilots are cheap... relatively !

With modern missiles, and with some improvements on the drawing boards for missiles 20gs may not be enough. With stealth to prevent the missile from finding the aircraft it doesn't need to outmanouver the missile anyway (in the best of circumstances...)

Having better avionics that can better identify friend from foe, plus having a man in the loop who can make the snap shoot/no shoot decision is still my way to go. Having that man somewhat remote in another plane, but in the same theater of operation might be an interesting way of doing things, but a man on the ground hundreds of miles away doesn't face the same urgency and may make decisions in a different manner than one in the direct area. If a UCAV sensors can't ident a target effectively, the Mk1 Eyeball might come in handy, especially when we don't know what the next generation of sensor countermeasures will be.

Kevin
The Ejection Site

If you take pilots out of the equation, then you are left with a machine battle. Not much better than what you see in the Terminator movies. To truly be a combat situation, there has to be a human element. Otherwise, we might as well not have combat situations. There'd be no point if there were no human lives at stake.

But for what we have now, Combat Edge is a great thing for pilots to have. American pilots will be the best prepared for a dogfight, with our training, using our planes, and wearing Combat Edge. It won't eliminate the G-LOC problem completely, but it will greatly reduce the number of G-LOC incidents we have.

Actually, g-suit gives you 1 more g, no more. g-suit and combat edge, help pilot not to get tired so quickly by assisting on muscle squeezing. PBG (Pressure Breathing for G) also helps inhaling under high g environment when lungs are squeezed from g forces and breathing is getting hard.

The ultimate protection for the pilot is the AGSM maneuver (Anti G Strainning Maneuver). Performing AGSM, you have to squeeze your muscles, especially lower muscles and abdominals, and same time take a deep breath and hold it. THEN pull the g's and from this point perform the breathing cycle (holding your breath for 2,5-3 seconds, followed by a short exhale/inhale fase). The point is not only to hold your breath but to "press" with your lungs in order to squeeze your heart and make the blood go to your head. Your muscles must remain in tense all the time.

That what mentioned for pulling positive g's after pulling negative ones, is true. The phenomenon is called "push-pull effect". After pulling less than 1g for more than 10 seconds, the body reacts for the increase blood pressure in the head, making the pilot much more susceptible in positive g forces. There have been reports for Gloc, with just 4g!!! The key is to return to 1 g for a few seconds and THEN pull positive (Always performing AGSM).

It really depends on the user, as to how many G's a G-suit will give you, but I guarantee, it won't be of much help after giving you anywhere between 1 to 3 extra G's. A lot of factors to consider: height, weight, build, mental/physical preparation, etc. But you're right. It doesn't help much, but every little bit of help one can get is good. One of the problems you encounter is when people try to depend on the suit, and they reef back on the stick before they're really ready. More than one pilot has lost his plane/life over that mistake. Hopefully, Combat Edge will prevent this from happening again.

SwedgeII wrote:

Better, Cheaper solution. Take the pilot out of the jet, you get rid of the seat, and all the Life support stuff, and Human interface equipment. the jet will now be much smaller, have a longer range, and be able to pull 20 or more G's with no problem. the Pilots are now limiting our aircraft!!!

I agree, the human element is the limiting factor. The F-22 and F-35 will most likely be the last of the manned fighters in service... Sad

kinda sad when the overall career of a fighter pilot only goes form the 1910s to the 2050s or so... 150 years ain't that long. Only a few in this world will be lucky enought to say they were a fighter pilot!

The other current thread about G-LOC got me thinking about this thread, and an incident in particular from the old days of the Viper. Need the help of Gums on this one...

Gums, I remember seeing a Viper HUD tape from the late '70s or early '80s, which sounds quite like the incident in your first post from this thread (I know, it's been awhile for this thread!)

Anyway, the stud G-LOCs, and starts heading toward the deck (Black & White tape, but appears to be in the American Southwest). He starts slowly regaining conciousness while his IP is trying to figure out what happened to him. Finally, while the guy up front is moaning and groaning, the IP figures out that he's not going to come to before they hit, so he yells "DAMMIT!" takes the stick, pulls up, saves the jet, and more importantly, both men sitting in it.

Do you know the incident I'm talking about? It's a fairly well-known HUD tape, as I've seen it on Nova, The History Channel, and Discovery Wings.

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

kmceject wrote:

Gums, I recall reading a medical brief, might have been from the squids, that mentioned that there was also a cumulative effect of pulling Gs pos-neg-pos. It said that a certain series of events like a 3-4g positive for a few second, an unload to negative G for a few, then a positive pull to any G was an instant off-switch for the stick actuator. That sequence is what I recall from about 4-5 years ago so don't quote it as gospel. Did you ever hear of anything like that?

Kevin
The Ejection Site

Actually, Gums, he's right. I read that same article. I remember because in the test business the Pushover-pullup (PoPu) is a real common maneuver and I had wondered why my g tolerance was worse than ususal while doing them. Article explained why but I forgot...was a while ago.

Bottom line...that became a briefing item when PoPus were on the cards.

I think the reason you get less tolerance is because of your cardiovascular response. The human body is a complex control system, I forget all the exact numbers, but I think these are the basics. Under 1g you have less blood pressure in your brain than in your heart because your skull is higher. Under a positive g, you have even less (almost as if your skull was farther from your heart). Combined with your body straining your brain detects less pressure, and tells the heart to speed up. All this takes a few seconds to respond, and the heart to pump harder. Under a negative g load, it is as if your skull is lower than your heart and you have too much blood pressure, so your brain tells your heart not to work as hard. Going right back to positive g's just pulls all the blood from your skull and your heart doesn't have a chance to respond, and you end up with a lot less blood pressure in your skull.

Thanks Wigs Very Happy

! Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like when you stand up quickly after laying down for a while and get a "head rush" and feel light headed. Combine that light headedness with positive g load and it sounds like a recipe for gloc!

Call me a wimp but I actually greyed out on a particularly nasty roller coaster once. It had an extra tight 540 degree helix at the very end. Lost ALL the colors in the forward field of vision. Wicked funky! A couple o'more turns around the circle and I prolly would have been snoozin'! Wink

I can only imagine what takin' a gravity-induced siesta must be like!

I'm actually a roller coaster and thrill ride fanatic and I actually GLOC'd on a ride once Shocked

! It was at the Del Mar Fair and was called Force 10. Basically it takes you up to about 4 Gs and leaves you there Devil

. They tell you to cross your legs and tense them, but just for fun I decided to leave them straight and relax Wink

. The weirdest thing was coming back from GLOC - it was like someone had pushed the reset button on my brain. First, I had a clue that there was something called reality and then the consciousness came bacfk, followed by the grey tunnel vision, then the color and consciousness. Very weird, but not too bad. I'm just glad I wasn't driving anything at the time Very Happy

!!!