Eurofighter Crash Spain
Grandpa Aerotart
Excuse a mere civvy jet pilot interjection here however early this year I had the very great pleasure of flying a Typhoon sim under the kind tutelage of one of it's TPs.
Shed loads of fun
I asked him about the gun and he assured me it had an excellent one...is this no longer the case
Happy the chaps were able to (successfully) throw the jet away...and very envious of chaps who'll get to play with the real thing in future...oh to be 20 years younger...well some days
Chuck.
Shed loads of fun
I asked him about the gun and he assured me it had an excellent one...is this no longer the case
Happy the chaps were able to (successfully) throw the jet away...and very envious of chaps who'll get to play with the real thing in future...oh to be 20 years younger...well some days
Chuck.
1) It's Spanish, so removal of the gun on this aircraft was never considered.
2) Early RAF aircraft were always going to retain the gun, but this was at one time not going to be supported (becoming de facto ballast), and the gun was then only going to be actually removed from (or more accurately not installed in) later production aircraft.
3) The RAF have resurrected the gun anyway.
I'm told that my description of DA6's final flight task wasn't accurate but I didn't ask the gent who kindly corrected me if I could elaborate or repeat the correction. Sorry for the duff gen.
2) Early RAF aircraft were always going to retain the gun, but this was at one time not going to be supported (becoming de facto ballast), and the gun was then only going to be actually removed from (or more accurately not installed in) later production aircraft.
3) The RAF have resurrected the gun anyway.
I'm told that my description of DA6's final flight task wasn't accurate but I didn't ask the gent who kindly corrected me if I could elaborate or repeat the correction. Sorry for the duff gen.
Lupus Domesticus
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: NZ
Posts: 520
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
ORAC, I can't argue against the logic of making an ac smaller for the same range and payload, nor against increasing both for the same sized airframe.
Neither do I have any beef with FBW or FBL control systems. What does concern me is that in the event that either the mechanical or hydraulic systems actually moving the leading wing edge, or the electronic brain controlling it, either fail or lose power, the airframe becomes uncontrollable, possibly too quickly for the crew to eject.
Unstable airframes without continuous control don't glide, they tumble. That's what unstable means. If your tumble starts without warning at the speed of sound, the chances of being able to react in time to get out must, by definition, be somewhat reduced.
If there is a back-up brain, and / or a back-up leading edge motility system (as opposed to back-up control looms), both with an engine-independent power source I'll happily take it all back, though I suspect that space and weight considerations would make this unlikely.
Maybe it's a mute point, in that there are plenty of ways that electrical or electronic things can go wrong with modern hi tech aircraft anyway; but when control itself relies on a system which is vulnerable to things going wrong without actually being hit by anything, maybe that's one risk too many, given that non-ballistic weapons intended to target integrated curcuits are not too far away, and there are other ways to achieve better than human-survivable maneuverabilty.
That doesn't address the question of size/weight/payload as you rightly point out, and maybe such failure incidents will occur no more frequently than anything else that goes wrong.
But what if they do, and what if that's an avoidable situation?
Just a thought.
Neither do I have any beef with FBW or FBL control systems. What does concern me is that in the event that either the mechanical or hydraulic systems actually moving the leading wing edge, or the electronic brain controlling it, either fail or lose power, the airframe becomes uncontrollable, possibly too quickly for the crew to eject.
Unstable airframes without continuous control don't glide, they tumble. That's what unstable means. If your tumble starts without warning at the speed of sound, the chances of being able to react in time to get out must, by definition, be somewhat reduced.
If there is a back-up brain, and / or a back-up leading edge motility system (as opposed to back-up control looms), both with an engine-independent power source I'll happily take it all back, though I suspect that space and weight considerations would make this unlikely.
Maybe it's a mute point, in that there are plenty of ways that electrical or electronic things can go wrong with modern hi tech aircraft anyway; but when control itself relies on a system which is vulnerable to things going wrong without actually being hit by anything, maybe that's one risk too many, given that non-ballistic weapons intended to target integrated curcuits are not too far away, and there are other ways to achieve better than human-survivable maneuverabilty.
That doesn't address the question of size/weight/payload as you rightly point out, and maybe such failure incidents will occur no more frequently than anything else that goes wrong.
But what if they do, and what if that's an avoidable situation?
Just a thought.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Bluewolf,
Good points, how do they compensate.
1. As said, multi-channel systems.
2. Distributed systems so that multiple black boxes do the same work in reversion mode, so you can lose over 30% of all LRUs.
3. Connectivity through FO cables in multiple routings to take severe battle damage.
Good points, how do they compensate.
1. As said, multi-channel systems.
2. Distributed systems so that multiple black boxes do the same work in reversion mode, so you can lose over 30% of all LRUs.
3. Connectivity through FO cables in multiple routings to take severe battle damage.
We drop the RAT on test flights all the time, tend to fail about 30% of the time. My first instinct in the plane is to get the APU up and running at the first sight of problems, as I dont want the thing to auto deploy. RAT's are not the panacea some think. It usually provides only some of the elec/hyd services. Anyone know the profile for a double engine failure, along with the RAT min/max speeds for generation?
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...threadid=73336
Just adding my own penn'orth, RATs and APUs are notoriously unreliable things, particularly at low air temperatures (pretty much guaranteed at FL450). There are many FJ for which the immediate action after a double or triple Hyd caption is "eject", including Hawk and Jag. But, note that Eurofighter's published statement doesn't say anything about specific failures, so I'd regard with suspicion the statement that the primary cause was a double fanstop anyway.
G
Just adding my own penn'orth, RATs and APUs are notoriously unreliable things, particularly at low air temperatures (pretty much guaranteed at FL450). There are many FJ for which the immediate action after a double or triple Hyd caption is "eject", including Hawk and Jag. But, note that Eurofighter's published statement doesn't say anything about specific failures, so I'd regard with suspicion the statement that the primary cause was a double fanstop anyway.
G
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: A PC!
Posts: 594
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Now, not making accusations but...........
If the second engine failed as they were running through the drills on the first, are we ABSOLUTELY sure that they were doing the drills on the correct one?
I recall a number of times that squadron aircrew did that in Tornado sim when I was instructing there (not to mention many well documented cases of it happening for real).
If the second engine failed as they were running through the drills on the first, are we ABSOLUTELY sure that they were doing the drills on the correct one?
I recall a number of times that squadron aircrew did that in Tornado sim when I was instructing there (not to mention many well documented cases of it happening for real).
