Reply to: Joint Strike Fighter Plan B

[wendigo100]

Thanks Hyper.

[DaveB]

you will be flying lower than you should and could get into a situation of controlled flight into terrain.

Otherwise known as crashing....

[hyperD]

Apologies, for the mis-quote must read pprune more carefully. To be clear IIRC it was a flypast at 80 feet, climbing from 60.

In the same vein does anyone know of the field attacked by Buccaneers on exercise which required the Buccanneers to make their final approach inverted to avoid negative-G over a hill on the way into the field.

And as for the JSF thread and some mockery of USAF coding try http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=255422

No problems! Good thread btw.

[hyperD]

As a non-pilot, why is the pressure relevant? Altimeter mechanism? In which case, is that why flight levels are not reported less than 3000 - atmospheric variation makes the unreliability more dangerous?

Don't think I could explain better than Wiki:

Altitude has most easily been measured using a pressure altimeter, which is essentially a calibrated barometer — it measures air pressure, which decreases with increasing altitude.

To display altitude above sea level, a pilot must recalibrate the altimeter according to the local air pressure from time to time, to take into account natural variation of pressure over time and in different regions. If this isn't done, different aircraft may be flying at different heights even though their altimeters show the same altitude. More critically, different aircraft may be flying at the same height even though their altimeters show different heights.

Clearly this is a safety issue.

Flight levels solve this problem by defining altitudes based on a standard pressure of 1013.2 mbar. All aircraft operating on flight levels calibrate to this same standard setting regardless of the actual sea level pressure.

Flight levels are then assigned a number, which is this nominal altitude ("pressure altitude") in feet, divided by 100. Therefore an apparent altitude of 32,000 feet is referred to as flight level 320. Note that an aircraft flying at flight level 320 will usually be at some other actual height above mean sea level than 32,000 feet, but since all other aircraft set their altimeters to a standard pressure, no collision risk arises.

To avoid collisions between two planes, their real altitudes are not important, but only the difference between them. This difference solely depends on the air pressure at both planes, and does not require knowledge of the local air pressure on the ground.


There you go...

When setting QNH (local altimeter pressure) for lower altitudes, there an old pilots expression that says: "From High to Low, beware below" i.e. if you are flying from a high pressure to a low pressure area (normally straight into a wx front or lowered ceiling situation) and you don't reset the altimeter, you will be flying lower than you should and could get into a situation of controlled flight into terrain.

[DanTheMan]

If you wanna talk weapons then an ex-RAF bombhead is the way to go. Now where can we find one of those.....


One of the best stories I ever heard was about spy planes just after the cold war. There is a famous photo of this hanging up at most squadrons in the UK:

Just after Red Flag the yanks sent over one of their sneaky beaky spy planes and took a photo directly over Parliament. They sent the picture over to basically say that our defences were inept and that we were at risk. Followed by them laughing. This was their super spy plane that had been torn a new one by a Raptor crew the previous Red Flag so they were trying to make a point. But we sent them a photo back of their plane taking the photo of Parliament. Seems we had a Canberra a few miles above their plane and had been circling above it for hours.

True or not it makes no difference when you're trying to wind the yanks up in the dessert.

[HarryPearce]

Flight level 80 is 8000 feet on a standard pressure of 1013.2 mbar. Flight levels are not normally reported for altitudes less than 3000 to 6000 depending on airspace.

hyperD in "PPL(A) IR Multi" mode.

Apologies, for the mis-quote must read pprune more carefully. To be clear IIRC it was a flypast at 80 feet, climbing from 60.

In the same vein does anyone know of the field attacked by Buccaneers on exercise which required the Buccanneers to make their final approach inverted to avoid negative-G over a hill on the way into the field.

And as for the JSF thread and some mockery of USAF coding try http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=255422

[threaded]

To get back to the topic - what is the problem?

Shirley the UK gov could give the devices over to some consultancy like one of us and a few months later have a full set of source code.

If they gave it to me, I'd probably also point out some of the bugs I'd found, just for the giggle factor.

[wendigo100]

Flight level 80 is 8000 feet on a standard pressure of 1013.2 mbar. Flight levels are not normally reported for altitudes less than 3000 to 6000 depending on airspace.

hyperD in "PPL(A) IR Multi" mode.

As a non-pilot, why is the pressure relevant? Altimeter mechanism? In which case, is that why flight levels are not reported less than 3000 - atmospheric variation makes the unreliability more dangerous?

[hyperD]

... at FL80 (80') to ...

Flight level 80 is 8000 feet on a standard pressure of 1013.2 mbar. Flight levels are not normally reported for altitudes less than 3000 to 6000 depending on airspace.

hyperD in "PPL(A) IR Multi" mode.

[Troll]

Reported over on www.pprune.org. The same site tells some fairly amusing tales of the Tornado being compared against the Buccaneer.

A cracking site - & actually a thread on the very same subject- with obviously military types posting

[HarryPearce]

I remember (many years ago) seeing some video of a Buccaneer attacking a US bunker during a Red Flag exercise - the guy was flying so low that he had to weave round the cactus, and every time he turned, he had to climb, so his wingtips didn't touch the ground - absolutely brilliant flying.

Mind you, with all that sand, they probably had to scrap the aircraft afterwards!

And there is the reported flyby request by a Buccanneer, requesting a flyby and receiving the reply clear at FL80 (80') to which the Buccaneer replied 'Roger that Climbing'.

[HarryPearce]

Don't knowk the Typhoon

Invest the money in updating the Tornado. Still the best all-rounder jet in the skies. Although we should never have built it in the first place. We were that close to buying F15's for bombing and F16's for fighting before the governement decided it would be better to have a multi-role jet. Better yes, but a lot more expensive.

The mirage is rubbish so that's out. I suppose we could wait for the Yanks to sell off their new F29's. But they cost about $1billion each and so far not for sale outside the US....

The Mighty Tonka is till the best fighter bomber out for the RAF but don't knock the Typhoon.

ROE allow RAF jets on exercise to engage USAF planes if they should meet, and a recent such engagement over the Lake District saw two USAF F15s (IIRC) bounce a Typhoon. The Typhoon took out both F15s. USAF none too happy by all accounts.

Reported over on www.pprune.org. The same site tells some fairly amusing tales of the Tornado being compared against the Buccaneer.

[Ardesco]

Tornado F3 is a decent jet and will stand a decent chance in a dogfight, at least you had better bloody hope so, it is what is protecting our skies against enemy aircraft that want to come and get us...

We lost quite a fre of the GR varient tornados in Iraq, but bear in mind that some of them were shot down by US missile platforms when they were returning and out of the "danger zone" and also our idea of low level flying is 60 feet above the ground, whereas the yanks idea of low level flying is 1000 feet off the ground.

Tornado may not be the best plane in the world but we have the best pilots in the world, about 15 years back the navy used to send all of thier newly qualified fighter pilots over to the US to do the top gun training, and if they didn't beat all the yanks they were kicked out i am reliably told (In other words probably bulltulip, but then again, our standard pilots should be better than the yanks best!!!)

[hattra]

No mate, that's Maple Flag. Red Flag is/was in Nevada

I should say that I got told about the F29 by a Squadron Leader who'd completed an exchange with the USAF so he could be lying....

I remember (many years ago) seeing some video of a Buccaneer attacking a US bunker during a Red Flag exercise - the guy was flying so low that he had to weave round the cactus, and every time he turned, he had to climb, so his wingtips didn't touch the ground - absolutely brilliant flying.

Mind you, with all that sand, they probably had to scrap the aircraft afterwards!

[James Tiberius Kirk]

Shhhhhhsh if you tell him everything he will escape again