British Future MPA
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A few strong sensors and high speed network connections, range, a few pilots and IT folks.
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Fraction of the costs of a full blown MPA. The specialist are on the ground, not in the air.
PICTURE: How L-3's re-nosed 'Spydr' King Air will look
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The aircraft (below) already has an MX-15 sensor installed beneath its rear fuselage, plus a large fairing above its cabin to accommodate satellite communication equipment. ... Other systems could include a line-of-sight tactical common data link, self-protection equipment, signals intelligence-gathering sensors and a maritime search radar, all integrated with L-3's onboard processing, exploitation and dissemination system.
PICTURE: How L-3's re-nosed 'Spydr' King Air will look
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Oh Tourist really.........
Yes Tourist, what are you thinking? This is all very good stuff and I, for one, fully expect to see most of the Take Hart efforts in the gallery sent here by our talented viewers to be in service very soon.
I hope that you are very ashamed of yourself.
I hope that you are very ashamed of yourself.
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Scuttled, I guess in reality the thousands of more conservative, more of the same, proven airframe folks, were blown out of the water, sadly. If the RAF would have gone innovative, smaller, leaner and more flexible 10-15 yrs ago, some of the members around here would still have been flying MPA misisons. Lessons learned the hard way in the UK and the Netherlands..
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Keesje,
Probably not a bad MPA - kit dependant, of course. I'm not sure how much ASW it could do based on the likely sonobuoy storage area and release system. There are, however, a couple of things that confuses me: how is it going to give away its fuel when in AAR role? how much can it carry in the AT role? Or, have you decided that that was not such a clever idea after all?
Duncs
Probably not a bad MPA - kit dependant, of course. I'm not sure how much ASW it could do based on the likely sonobuoy storage area and release system. There are, however, a couple of things that confuses me: how is it going to give away its fuel when in AAR role? how much can it carry in the AT role? Or, have you decided that that was not such a clever idea after all?
Duncs
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If the RAF would have gone innovative, smaller, leaner and more flexible 10-15 yrs ago, some of the members around here would still have been flying MPA misisons. Lessons learned the hard way in the UK and the Netherlands..
The RAF has visited this concept repeatedly over the years. Multi role platform versus smaller, less complex, role specific platforms. All sorts of very clever dudes (in different league to you or I) have expended vast amounts of energy and money looking into this sort of stuff..and (unlike you or I) have put their professional reputations on the line by making a decision.
There was a long documentary on the space shuttle last night in the UK. Fascinating for some one like me who was a space geek back in the Apollo days and has a library on the subject to hear some of the views of the people behind the project, thirty years on.
I can remember NASA trumpeting how reuseable vehicles would dramtically lower the cost of getting stuff into Earth orbit. Thirty years on, turns out the cost of turning round the shuttle was 3 times higher than using a disposable booster, like Apollo. The moral of the story...hindsight is easy, foresight is hard and prone to error.
Your toy aircraft above is littoral surface surveillance platform. That's about ten percent of the MPA role. Add in a UAV for overland comms (and we all know how cheap they are) that's about another 10-20 percent. Then a modified C130 squadron (or adaptable container fit) for SAR. Then we have still have to address open ocean ASW and long range surface surveillance....um how about 10 or so Nimrods..?
OK I've given you some insight, and not for the first time. Tourist has given you the short answer...for those that would decry him, he happens to be spot on.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
There is also an indefined something about a large MPA crew in a small tube.
Even in the Sim you had this symbiosis (?) where team members would have an off-mic discussion and then pop an idea or make a proposal. With the flight deck, nav team, wet and dry you had 4 separate groups considering a problem.
Would the beanies countenance a 12 man crew on the ground controlling an MPUAV?
It might be attractive to prune the acoustics and radar teams by a couple of bods but the 2nd nav, 3rd wet and 3rd dry were what made for a particularly strong MPA team. How else could the experienced masters bring on their replacements for future years?
Even in the Sim you had this symbiosis (?) where team members would have an off-mic discussion and then pop an idea or make a proposal. With the flight deck, nav team, wet and dry you had 4 separate groups considering a problem.
Would the beanies countenance a 12 man crew on the ground controlling an MPUAV?
It might be attractive to prune the acoustics and radar teams by a couple of bods but the 2nd nav, 3rd wet and 3rd dry were what made for a particularly strong MPA team. How else could the experienced masters bring on their replacements for future years?
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Fincastle, very true but the sprogs had to be on the crew to be privvie to the one on one debrief.
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The point is that if you've never done it, you don't know what you need to do it. Finding a surface contact and classifying it without getting yourself counter detected (or, in wartime, shot down) is not easy, and it won't be achieved with a small boll on radar, tracking submerged subs via acoustics - and nobody, despite decades of stirling effort, has found an effective alternative - requires large numbers of sonobuoys, whilst effective on task periods require an aircraft with a long loiter time.
King Airs and the like would be perfectly decent platforms for inshore patrolling, which is - as has been pointed out above - a small fraction of what we require an MPA to do. You don't design an MPA by deciding to go small, use this kit and that kit, you design it by identifying the tasks it must perform and then designing the platform around the requirement.
Still, why would those of us with thousands of flying hours on MPA know what's needed, compared to the average Joe walking in off the street who likes playing with photoshop?
King Airs and the like would be perfectly decent platforms for inshore patrolling, which is - as has been pointed out above - a small fraction of what we require an MPA to do. You don't design an MPA by deciding to go small, use this kit and that kit, you design it by identifying the tasks it must perform and then designing the platform around the requirement.
Still, why would those of us with thousands of flying hours on MPA know what's needed, compared to the average Joe walking in off the street who likes playing with photoshop?
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There are, however, a couple of things that confuses me: how is it going to give away its fuel when in AAR role? how much can it carry in the AT role? Or, have you decided that that was not such a clever idea after all?
All sorts of very clever dudes (in different league to you or I) have expended vast amounts of energy and money looking into this sort of stuff..and (unlike you or I) have put their professional reputations on the line by making a decision.
Then we have still have to address open ocean ASW and long range surface surveillance....um how about 10 or so Nimrods..?
Still, why would those of us with thousands of flying hours on MPA know what's needed, compared to the average Joe walking in off the street who likes playing with photoshop?
What has gone wrong sofar after the Nimrods were grounded?
The drogue installation would be permanent. The concept has a large fuel capacity...
What do you consider to be a 'large' fuel capacity? Your sketch shows a few fuselage tanks - what about the wing tanks?
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Theres the old proverb, keesje. When having dug himself into a hole, a wise man stops digging.
So your concept is going to carry about 1500kg of AAR equipment (pods, pylons, pipework, extra high flow rate pumps, valves, vent lines) on a permanent basis? Plus there's the drag penalty of the pods and pylons....
What do you consider to be a 'large' fuel capacity? Your sketch shows a few fuselage tanks - what about the wing tanks?
What do you consider to be a 'large' fuel capacity? Your sketch shows a few fuselage tanks - what about the wing tanks?
So if it has a centreline hose (just the one...??), how are you going to avoid compromising weapon bay and sonobuoy carriage space?
How much fuel is your design intended to carry?
How much fuel is your design intended to carry?
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Sorry I'm not from the militairy
IMO the must be 12 crew 150k lbs 4 hauler MPA supporters dug themselves a hole
from the Netherlands
