| Submit your comments on this article |
| Science & Technology |
| Rockwell Collins Controls And Lands Wing-Damaged UAV |
| 2008-06-18 |
| Rockwell Collins, through newly-acquired Athena Technologies, has completed a successful flight test of a significantly damaged unmanned F/A-18 subscale model air vehicle. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsored the flight demonstrations held this spring at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. During the first flight test, nearly half of the airplane's right wing was ejected to simulate battle damage and in-flight failure. During the second flight, almost 60 percent of the airplane's right wing was ejected. Upon ejecting the wing section during both flights, Rockwell Collins' Automatic Supervisory Adaptive Control (ASAC) technology reacted to the airplane's new vehicle configuration, automatically regained baseline performance, continued to fly the plane, and then autonomously landed it using internal Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System (INS/GPS) reference only. The flight test campaign followed a similar successful DARPA sponsored demonstration in April 2007, during which an aileron was ejected in-flight from the unmanned subscale F/A-18. |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #8 wikipedia has this to say about Orion Slave Girls. so .. but Light Sabers were not in the Star Trek Universe Joe.... Enlighten me. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2008-06-18 20:48 |
| #7 STAR TREK:ENTERPRISE Orion SLave Girls wid LIGHT SABERS??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-06-18 20:12 |
| #6 See REDDIT > SARAH CONNER HAS FINALLY FAILED - THE BRITISH HAVE DEVELOPED/INVENTED [and Deployed] SKYNET [Satellites]. CORSICANT RISING > all we need next are EM TOWERS, FLOATING/LOW-ORBIT BATTLE STATIONS, and PAN-GLOBAL EM GRIDS.............. + BABE FROM "FIFTH ELEMENT" LEARNING TO USE A LIGHT-SABER [or Two]??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-06-18 20:11 |
| #5 Mojo - I'll tell you one set of pilots that could stay in the air with 60% gone: A-10 Drivers. Hawg Pilots and their rides are tougher than hell, and are the last "stick and rudder" combat pilots left in the USAF. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-06-18 13:55 |
| #4 IIRC, there was a video a few months ago of an Israeli pilot who landed an F-15 with most of one wing gone. He knew he had been damaged in a midair collision, but didn't realize how badly the plane was hurt. He said that if he had known how bad the damage was, he would have ejected immediately. So it can be done. Just not easily. |
| Posted by: Rambler in California 2008-06-18 13:28 |
| #3 Show me a pilot that could stay in the air with 60% of his wing gone, let alone land the bastard... |
| Posted by: mojo 2008-06-18 13:22 |
| #2 The UAV equivalent of a B-17. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2008-06-18 11:12 |
| #1 In addition for helping UAVs, such a system might be very helpful in bringing home a wounded pilot in a damaged aircraft. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-06-18 10:01 |