NAVAIR Clips: X-47B UCAS U.S.Navy drone.

[ssculptor]

NAVAIR Clips: X-47B UCAS Inaugural Land-Based Catapult Launch & loading onto USS H.S. Truman for further tests.

 

 

 

This is gonna take all the romance out of warfare. Where is the brave pilot risking his life? He'll be getting blisters on his finger tips and rump sitting below deck while flying these things on some ship.

 

I don't know about you guys but when I see this plane I feel that I have seen it before, like Germany 1945.

 

Well, models of it should be a lot simpler to make. No cockpit interiors to assemble. Thank goodness for WNW and WW!.

 

Stephen

 

New song: "Off it goes, into the wild blue yonder"

[ssculptor]

Interesting and COOL video Stephen, thank you.

Of course I would not know which aircraft it may remind you of from Germany 1945.

 

Would you please care to enlighten ME as I am not that conversant with WWII.THANK YOU

Again it's looks fantastic!!

 

Thank you.

Look up the Horton 229 Flying Wing on your search engine.

1/32 vacuform models are available from Combat Models.

http://combatmodels.us/

Enjoy,

Stephen

[Lee White]

I call BS on the video- It suggests that the B-2 is somehow a direct descendant of the HO-229.... Jack Northrop developed a flying wing concept independent of the Horton Brothers, so even if the Nazi wing had never existed, the B-2 still would have been made.

[ssculptor]

From all that I have read the problem with the early flying wings were they were inherently unstable.and needed constant manipulation by the pilot. Jack Northrup's flying wing in the USA at that time had the same problems.

It wasn't until the advent of the micro computer that the flying wings could be stable because the computer could make all the constant corrections needed to achieve stable flight.

Flying wings are just breathtakingly beautiful in flight.

Stephen

[Adam]

Kind of agree with your comments - not sure on the "Romance" of warfare. Perhaps those doing the fighting will not find it as terrifying or exciting? From books I've read, there was a often quoted line from Winston Churchill which went something like "there is nothing more exciting as being shot at". This was modified in Vietnam to " there is nothing more exciting than being shot at and hit!".

 

Future UCAV/UCAS (whatever they are called) can relax in air conditioned comfort with their greatest danger being a perhaps a paper cut or spilling Coke on the keyboard!

 

This is the future and it's a potential game changer for USA. The US I'd estimate is 10-15 years ahead of Russia and China (who is just conducting sea trials of their J-15 (Su-33) at present. China is advancing at a terrific rate though and I estimate will have a semi-stealthy ship born aircraft (J-31) perhaps in 10 years or less.

 

We are a long way away now from what I think are the really cool years of aviation - the 40's to the 70's. It's all going to be boring pilotless grey flying doritos from now. Will the F-35 be the last western manned fighter?

[ssculptor]

I think people often use the term "romance" to describe some activity that excites, scares, terrifies and totally engrosses them. People often try to find this heightened level of existence through love - a melding with another person which is exhilarating and scary at the same time. Most people live somewhat dull lives where one day is no different from any other day. So people seek some kind of excitement. Most often it is a vicarious thrill which is a lot safer than reality (movies, novels, electronic games, etc) Some people call the life of a brave soldier romantic. Ask any soldier coming out of the line after a battle, emotionally shaken, possibly wounded, with the blood of his fellow soldiers on his stinking uniform, if he has has a romantic episode. He'd probably think you were crazy.

I have often heard people refer to the life of an artist as being romantic. That has always make me laugh. I've been an artist for 50 years and it is anything but romantic.

The term "romantic" is what people who do not participate in a emotionally strenuous, dangerous activity call that experience.

Stephen

[Guest Peterpools]

No matter what, it's the new world we live in. I like other pilots see it as the new technology and I'm sure there won't be any going back. Just somehow, I'll never accept them as being part of the Band of Brothers. Someday, you're going to board an airliner and never realize a pilot isn't on board, just computers. I really don't want to see that day.

Peter

[Adam]

I think people often use the term "romance" to describe some activity that excites, scares, terrifies and totally engrosses them. People often try to find this heightened level of existence through love - a melding with another person which is exhilarating and scary at the same time. Most people live somewhat dull lives where one day is no different from any other day. So people seek some kind of excitement. Most often it is a vicarious thrill which is a lot safer than reality (movies, novels, electronic games, etc) Some people call the life of a brave soldier romantic. Ask any soldier coming out of the line after a battle, emotionally shaken, possibly wounded, with the blood of his fellow soldiers on his stinking uniform, if he has has a romantic episode. He'd probably think you were crazy.

I have often heard people refer to the life of an artist as being romantic. That has always make me laugh. I've been an artist for 50 years and it is anything but romantic.

The term "romantic" is what people who do not participate in a emotionally strenuous, dangerous activity call that experience.

Stephen

 

Hi Stephen

 

I do understand where you are coming from. Here are a couple of apt quotes from two legendary pilot/philosophers.

 

I belong to a group of men who fly alone. There is only one seat in the cockpit of a fighter airplane. There is no space alotted for another pilot to tune the radios in the weather or make the calls to air traffic control centers or to help with the emergency procedures or to call off the airspeed down final approach. There is no one else to break the solitude of a long cross-country flight. There is no one else to make decisions.

I do everything myself, from engine start to engine shutdown. In a war, I will face alone the missiles and the flak and the small-arms fire over the front lines.

If I die, I will die alone.

 

— Richard Bach,

Stranger to the Ground, 1963

 

And from one of my all time heroes - Brig. Gen. Robin Olds

 

Fighter pilot is an attitude. It is cockiness. It is aggressiveness. It is self-confidence. It is a streak of rebelliousness, and it is competitiveness. But there's something else - there's a spark. There's a desire to be good. To do well; in the eyes of your peers, and in your own mind.

 

I think it is love of that blue vault of sky that becomes your playground if, and only if, you are a fighter pilot. You don't understand it if you fly from A to B in straight and level, and merely climb and descend. You're moving through the basement of that bolt of blue.

 

A fighter pilot is a man in love with flying. A fighter pilot sees not a cloud but beauty. Not the ground but something remote from him, something that he doesn't belong to as long as he is airborne. He's a man who wants to be second best to no one.

 

 

 

I am not a figher pilot. I do fly single seat small aerobatic aeroplanes though. Aerobatic pilots are similar to fighter pilots in that we are in love with flying. When I see a puffy white cumulus cloud - I see a play ground - to zoom around the blinding white towers and valleys - screaming my head off in the pure joy of the experience. Whilst I've obviously never been shot at, I can imagine that this is pure primal fear. I have been in situations where I have been in fear of my life for a very short time - anyone who flys for a decent period of time will have these experiences at one time or another. I've met or known about 12 people who are now dead due to a flying accident over the last 28 years of my flying.

 

So, I do understand what you mean about the "romance" of flying. It's not all romance though.

 

All the best and a great thread by the way - very apt and topical at this time!

 

All the best

 

Adam

[ssculptor]

Hi Adam,

I took the liberty of enlarging the text of your quote so I and others could read it. It is deserving of being read.

 

You wrote:

And from one of my all time heroes - Brig. Gen. Robin Olds

 

Fighter pilot is an attitude. It is cockiness. It is aggressiveness. It is self-confidence. It is a streak of rebelliousness, and it is competitiveness. But there's something else - there's a spark. There's a desire to be good. To do well; in the eyes of your peers, and in your own mind.

 

I think it is love of that blue vault of sky that becomes your playground if, and only if, you are a fighter pilot. You don't understand it if you fly from A to B in straight and level, and merely climb and descend. You're moving through the basement of that bolt of blue.

 

A fighter pilot is a man in love with flying. A fighter pilot sees not a cloud but beauty. Not the ground but something remote from him, something that he doesn't belong to as long as he is airborne. He's a man who wants to be second best to no one.

 

I am not a fighter pilot. I do fly single seat small aerobatic aeroplanes though. Aerobatic pilots are similar to fighter pilots in that we are in love with flying. When I see a puffy white cumulus cloud - I see a play ground - to zoom around the blinding white towers and valleys - screaming my head off in the pure joy of the experience. Whilst I've obviously never been shot at, I can imagine that this is pure primal fear. I have been in situations where I have been in fear of my life for a very short time - anyone who flys for a decent period of time will have these experiences at one time or another. I've met or known about 12 people who are now dead due to a flying accident over the last 28 years of my flying.

Edited December 5, 2012 by ssculptor