Just typical - people focus on non important stuff like who is going to do the first F-35B landing aboard
Queen Elizabeth and ignore the other stuff... Maybe I should have just posted snippets?
UK F-35B - on final approach to QEC
These pilots are also tasked with developing and de-risking the new Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing (SRVL) technique which will allow higher bring-back of stores in hot climates than the traditional hover. This uses a straight-in approach with the aircraft slowing from about 140kt to approximately 60kt over the carrier’s stern - with the aircraft still getting some aerodynamic lift from the wings. As well as allowing higher bring-back weights, SRVL also has side benefits, such as reduced wear and tear on the LiftFan and less damage on the same landing deck 'spot' from the powerful rear-nozzle exhaust.
Comment - yes, a UK team doing work to integrate the aircraft with the ship. Yet the critics still laugh about a carrier with no aircraft.
Supporting the UK developmental flight test team at Pax River is BAE Systems, where some 50+ years of Harrier experience is being brought together to make the F-35B the easiest and safest VTOL fighter ever to operate from a ship. Just opened earlier in March, BAE Systems F-35/QEC simulation facility at Warton, Lancashire is a key part in testing and de-risking fixed wing naval operations. Simulation and modelling is highly critical for QE and F-35B, not just because of the increased fidelity and processing power available but also with the UK having been out of the fixed-wing carrier game for seven years - nothing and no detail too small is being taken for granted. For example, CFD modelling of wind interaction around the distinctive twin islands is incorporated in the simulator.
The most challenging area to model, notes BAE's David Atkinson in charge of the new facility, is in the F-35Bs transition phase between conventional wing-borne and vertical flight.
BAE says that the £2m facility, which includes a moving platform F-35 cockpit, dome visual system and a simulated QEC FLYCO (Flying Control), is its most sophisticated flight simulator yet. It uses 64 processors and 1TB RAM and allows test pilots to practice, train and rehearse safely before they even get to the ship. The inclusion of a FLYCO in the room next door also allows Royal Navy LSO (Landing Signal Officers) to experience, train and develop CONOPS in controlling F-35B launch and recovery operations. Cameras give a gyro-stabilised view of pilots’ approach with gradient and centreline guides marked. BAE is also trialling video gaming virtual reality headsets to allow LSOs to immerse themselves in a virtual FLYCO and see exactly what they would see onboard the real ship.
So, what is the value of this facility to highly experienced test pilots, some of whom have already taken the F-35B to sea, albeit on US Navy assault ships? Says Sqn Ldr Edgell: “As testers you are inherently cynical. However good the modelling is, we have to do it for real. However, it builds confidence and tells where we need to focus our efforts. It also potentially allows us to take bigger steps towards the edge of the envelope.”
Comment: The Pilots doing the first of class trials will be better prepared than any previous aircraft/ship combination. British high fidelity simulation must have other applications, not necessarily just defence. The involvement of LSO points to the whole ship nature of things.
So, what is the F-35B like to fly? Thanks to the pioneering work of UK's DERA (now DSTL/QinetiQ) VAAC Harrier testbeds and test pilots like Justin Paines and John Farley in developing advanced FBW software for VTOL aircraft – it is extremely simple. Whereas the Jedi-like skills are needed to control the Harrier in the hover requires movement of throttle, nozzle control and stick and has been likened to 'balancing on the top of a pencil while needing three hands', the F-35B’s fly-by-wire controls are just a sidestick and throttle HOTAS - with the flight computers doing all the hard work. (It is noteworthy that the UK is the only country after the US to have its own lines of code in in the F-35 software).
To assist pilots coming into land, there are two velocity vectors - a traditional one, and a ship-shaped one - showing where the ship will be. The ship’s speed is also entered into the flight management computer via the touchscreen display.
Approaching the ship from behind at around 170kt and 500ft, once at 200ft the pilot hits the 'brake' deceleration button and the aircraft begins slowing and transitioning to a hover, with the LiftFan engaging and the rear nozzle swivelling down for vertical flight. Once slowed down, the pilot can swing to the left side of the ship. The aircraft's flight computers now cleverly match the ship's speed, with the pilot pushing forward on the control sidestick (or inceptor) to go down. At 100ft and about a wingspan across from the deck, the pilot is thus ready to transition sideways over the deck, with fine hovering control being provided by the moving rear nozzle, LiftFan and the STOVL roll jets at the tips of the wings. At this point, with the flight controls engaged and the aircraft happily matching speed with the ship, the pilot can even take his (or her) hands off the controls - a move that would most likely be suicidal in the Harrier for the average squadron pilot.
Hitting another thumb switch on the HOTAS throttle engages a translational controller mode, enabling the pilot to slide across in the hover and line up with the centreline. Once in position – it is a case of pushing forward on the sidestick to a software-controlled stop to descend and put the aircraft firmly on the deck. At this point, control of the engine thrust and vertical motion has passed to the right hand, rather than the left hand - which on the first occasion is slightly disconcerting to push full forward on what is normally a pitch control, some 50ft above a deck.
Comment - all UK developed.
The one thing that cannot be simulated is the physical reality of live jets on a noisy, moving deck for flight deck personnel to experience the noise, jet blast and so on. But that is another story.