Alias72

That was really neat. A few things you may want to consider. 1. fix the landing gear (though you already know that) 2. Ideally you should be able to fly without SAS. Actually it would be better if you can fly without SAS as SAS is giving you all the vibration. To do this you will need to set aircraft trim so that you can fly straight and level 3. FAR has built in flight assistance to replace SAS. the most important is Dsomething. it scales control input with velocity to help prevent things from going pearshaped, followed by missile shaped as your wings rip off and you smash into the dirt. 4. You may want to consider adjusting your control surfaces. You appear to have way more authority than you need and this may make flying difficult. 5. I suggest adding the procedural wings mod from BAC 9. All it does is add wings and control surfaces that you can scale and shape yourself. I consider it a requirement when designing FAR craft (though judging from the planes I have seen not everyone agrees.)

It appears your ailerons are trying to generate extra lift on your wings. If the COP of the wings is ahead of the aircraft's COM then the control surfaces will try and boost lift on the wings to pitch up. It would be better if I could see a side profile with COL and COM.

Another possibility is electric propulsion nuclear generation. Basically a submarine class reactor powering an ion-type array. The power output would partially compensate for the low thrust of current Ion engines (brute force). A constant burn trajectory allows for lower thrust options. Finally the thrust section could be re-usable. A series of missions could use the same reactor, thruster section.

This is a historical film that answers your question. (Beware this is 1950's Disney so expect stereotypes.) Your question is answered at the beginning of part 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beofFQ_QuiA

You could make the same argument about the CF 104 starfighter. We do need to buy modern aircraft. The question is which modern aircraft best fits our requirements.

1st. No radar cross section is zero. The greater the power sent to an emitter the larger the return off a small object (radar cross section being an effective size). Boosting power ALWAYS increases the ability for a detectable signal so long as the detector isn't damaged by that signal (though you might microwave a few birds). 2nd. I have conceded that the F 35 has all aspect stealth. an IDS is still useful as cross section is almost always larger along the sides. 3rd. The importance of heat seeking platforms is that even though they have a short range they are not readily detectable before launch (though search radars are). A true IADS will combine search radars communication systems as well as a variety of mobile SAM's. These systems are available on the market. 4th. I was expressing doubt about NATO's overall thinking. Whenever an opponent develops a new capability, or demonstrates an existing capability has been under-appreciated, NATO tends to look at how they can adjust their existing thinking to that new reality. They never seem to re-exam their thinking from a more fundamental level. The lesson NATO learned from kosovo is "well if the enemy has mobile SAM's we can't fly low and wind up using a ton of PGM's. I guess we need to build more PGM's". instead of "Well the enemy air defenses are defending the airspace. Perhaps we should rethink how we approach defended airspace". Which becomes even worse if NATO runs into an opponent who cannot be overwhelmed. It is possible to breach an IADS, but it is prohibitive to do so. NATO developing resources to penetrate an IADS with aircraft is playing into the defenders hands. Especially because the developers of these systems are not limited by weight the way an aircraft is. And as for anti-radiation missiles. Even if you fire one at an enemy silo they can shot down the radar and relocate, fire counter SAM's, and you have wasted a sortie on suppressing the enemy air defense network. That is exactly what the defenders want. If NATO continues to think that the solution to air defense is to brute force the air defense then it will continue to have capability gaps, many of which it is unaware of.

1. They wouldn't have known there was a hole unless they checked (which the administrators decided not to do because they didn't know there was a hole). 2. Foam strikes of this magnitude were highly uncommon. 3. Foam strikes were considered mission critical as of the start of the STS program. This never changed, people just stopped paying attention. The administrators in particular felt there was no need to investigate further. What happened is that intercity photo working group discovered the impact, forwarded a request to 3 different departments which formed a committee. That committee agreed to forward the request for imaging to Johnson space center engineering management directorate who declined the request. 4. I agree that there were limited alternatives. With hindsight we can conclude that any idea they came up with would have been better then reentering (because there was no chance they would survive a reentry). In fact NASA didn't know about the hole because they never looked. The Columbia report has the information you want here. They recommend removing all control of technical requirements and waivers from senior management and placing it in the hands of a new body of engineers, nto responsible at all to the body responsible for scheduling and program costs (CAIB R7.5-1).

It can detect IR missile ONCE FIRED. That is the key point. RADAR battery's give away their position before firing through their scan and search radars. But you are right about being able to detect a launched missile (those systems will detect any incoming missile). As for detecting an IR system by its IR signature. You can detect an aircraft far easier than a ground system. The ground system can hide amongst its surroundings and is not as limited by weight (and so can carry better detectors and longer range missiles). As for BVR Infrared engagements you can use mobile search radars located a distance from the target. And if you have set up your IADS properly you can use systems like the S 300 to funnel aircraft into predictable lines of engagement which you can cover with LOS Infrared. Against an integrated air defense network like the kind employed by ex WARPAC forces I am worried that the stealth characteristics of the F 35 will be inadequate (because multiple SAM batteries cover each other and can detect aircraft from their side aspect). NATO underestimating opposing SAM systems wouldn't be new. I am not trying to say that stealth is worthless (though it tends to become rapidly obsolete). I am saying that the F 35's stealth is not as prominent a factor as, say, the F 22 (which was designed for systems like the S 300). It helps but against modern SAM systems employed properly in an integrated defense network I am skeptical about its performance. Note* In general I agree with your posts. I replied here to early. But I do feel that NATO has been complacent about SAM systems and the risks they pose. I am worried that they are overselling their EW capabilities and selectively learning from examples. Allied Force, for example, was labelled as a success. The lessons the US took away was the need for allies to have PGM's and otherwise similar capabilities (part of what lead to the desire for everyone to adopt F 35 I imagine). Russia learned very different lessons. They learned that Mobile SAM systems are survivable even in an environment filled with PGM's. They learned that their deception strategies do work, and that the general philosophy behind their SAM thinking can lead to a large amount of virtual attrition on attacking combat aircraft. In a war (as the soviets had envisioned in the 1980's) there would be no time to fly many sorties with PGM's to hit a target. Either the target survived for its useful life or NATO would learn to lose more aircraft on missions.

Someone needs to put that on a rocket! It weighs virtually nothing. CALL ELON!

Another thing to add. Finding planets is hard Finding potentially habitable planets is harder Finding potentially habitable planets far away is almost impossible. It is no mistake that we found a number of potentially habitable planets close to us. We only recently gained the ability to detect potentially habitable planets and are focusing our efforts on the closest ones to maximize our chances of finding them.

Simply put the F 35 presents an inadequate increase in survival against modern weapons. There are 2 types of opponents that we may face. 1. Insurgencies. These forces are using highly outdated weaponry and our current arsenal has sufficient capabilities against them. 2. Intervention against a developed/developing nation. These forces can by semi-modern equipment on the market. Improvements in stealth will help against the first group, however, they are not a major threat to airpower anyway. The second threat poses the greatest risk to aircraft and can purchase systems that are indifferent to many of the features of newer fighters. The following two links are to weapon systems which the F 35, and in particular its stealth capabilities, are vulnerable. The first is a Heat Seeking SAM. The weapons intermediate range limits the defendable targets however you cannot fire an anti-radiation missile if the target has no radar. A system like this offers little warning to the targeted aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K35_Strela-10#Associated_systems_and_vehicles This is a modern SAM system. The weapon has a long range and fires a hypersonic missile. The F 35 has front aspect stealth. Systems like these are arranged so that they cover each other. An attack on one site will likely reveal the side aspect of an aircraft to another SAM. Additionally the high power RADAR of this SAM may be able to burn through the F 35's stealth. What this means is that an opponent with this system will have to be dealt with slowly and methodically. While the opponent has contested the airspace they are free to conduct ground operations. http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Grumble-Gargoyle.html As for drones I generally agree. We can, however, use them as expendable ground attack vehicles. Better to throw a drone at a SAM site then an F 35 if you feel the SAM might destroy you.

The biggest fear, so far as practical combat, would be another Yugoslavia. During the Kosovo air campaign the Serbian military deployed a number of highly mobile SAM systems. These systems (SA 6 Gainful) suffered a very low attrition rate, especially compared to the fixed (SA 2 Guideline SA 3 Goa) systems, and caused sever issues with NATO plans. This was compounded by the effective use of decoys by the Serbians. 1. NATO aircraft were forced to bomb targets from a higher altitude then they otherwise might have. This made bombing less accurate 2. Because precision was still required NATO aircraft began to use precision weapons in abundance. These weapons are more expensive. 3. Because aircraft flew higher and decoys were present more sorties had to be flown. This diminished the lifetime of the aircraft. Of course Serbia lost that campaign. They never had a chance. Any power NATO faces in the future will also likely lose. The real issue is the cost that a relatively small nation can exact upon NATO by exploiting their tendencies. Canada, the United States, and many other NATO allies continue to purchase state-of-the-art aircraft in the hopes that it will allow them to continue to use overwhelming force against outdated opponents. This will hopeful keep NATO attrition low and allow them to exploit deficiencies in older systems (such as bombing above the effective ceiling of older SAM systems). Anyway the problem with the F 18 is twofold. 1. The aircraft does not offer any new capabilities. This allows nations with older equipment to catch up. 2. All of the F 18's have seen extensive service. The lifetime on their airframes is limited and so maintenance would have to be frequent and expensive.

The droplet radiator will not work during a confrontation. It does not function during maneuvering (as you have particles free floating through space) and It involves a delicate frame with emitters and collectors (which can be destroyed). This means you still need to retract the radiator during battle which is the reason their are thermodynamic constraints to engagements. Sure if you could keep your radiators out you wouldn't have a problem but if they are destroyed the ship is dead. It will heat up until it is disabled. The debris problem is serious however it may be solvable through the use of a laser. By ablating the approaching edge of space debris their orbits can be decayed to the point where they contact the atmosphere and burn up. This isn't to say it would be cheap or easy.

You don't need fancy shields as an argument. Lasers generate a large amount of waste heat and so cannot be fired continuously. Kinetic weapons approach from a different vector and so a ship targeted by them has to split its focus between facing the incoming projectiles (armour towards them) facing the enemy (to shoot or protect against beams) and maneuvering. Distances are large but so are closing velocities. The problem is that the engagements are more like a jousting tournament with a few horse archers thrown in then Trafalgar. Actually you need to survive with enough functioning systems to make that survival worthwhile. A ship that loses its engine, for example, is dead. It cannot be recovered and will fly off (unless it was in a stable orbit however most interceptions will likely be made at the beginning or end of a transit. The reason for that is the speed is still relatively low (the setting in attack vector has fusion engines that may be used in a high ISP low thrust mode for transit to conserve fuel so they use a constant burn transfer) and the ship has committed to a maneuver (while in station above a planet the maneuvering options are plentiful as you remain in orbit for most of them. Losing life support is equally unpleasant (though you may be able to survive rotating out of functioning airlocks and using suits), still, that leaves you with limited expendables. As for defenses against beams. The armour is the defense against beams. Actually the armour sacrifices some ballistic qualities in order to better protect against beams (its a rigid ablative armour composite). The setting I describe does project a bit into the future whilst trying to remain practical. The waste heat problem is mitigated by the nature of the ships. They ships use a fusion torch for propulsion. These torches require power input (like most fusion devices today) which comes from a fission reactor. Once you make that leap the rest falls into place. The fission reactor requires large radiators to dissipate the heat. These are liabilities in a warship and so may be retracted. This necessitates large heat sinks for the duration of the battle. This also encourages electricity storage. The longer you can function with the reactor off the easier it is to manage the heat problem. The laser arrays cannot be fired continuously (they draw too much power) and so energy has to be stored. This was already encouraged by the thermodynamic problems earlier. The lasers also generate a lot of waste heat. Fortunately we already have massive heat sinks to provide combat endurance. They exist specifically to allow us to fire the lasers.

The kinetic jousters are also really important. The're maneuvers interfere with the circular motion of the beam armed vessels which tends to produce helical patterns. Another cool thing about diverse ship armaments is because of the delayed impact of kinetic weapons you can confine the maneuver of your enemy. most ships have a large amount of armour on their front. You can use a barrage of kinetic weapons to pin the enemies front towards them opening up their sides to beam fire. If they're a beam armed vessel they may just use point defense to fry the kinetic impactors while facing your beams but the power drain reduces their own salvoe and forces certain thermodynamic constraints. You are right about it being better to not get hit however that is simply not practical against a beam armed vessel. The best option against a beam armed vessel is a large amount of ablative armour, preferable over a narrow axis such as the front. The beam has the disadvantage in power. They are wasting electricity frying your armour while you can attempt to harm their vessel. The energy they use for offensive beams might impact their point defense, for example.

The issue there is directed energy weapons. It is possible to armour yourself against them and given their capabilities armour becomes necessary if only to prolong an engagement. every time a discussion on real spaceship combat comes up I redirect people to attack vector tactical. Its a simulation developed to model space warfare in the "near" future. http://www.adastragames.com/attack-vector-tactical/ Its 3d and newtonian. I feel that the best way to understand something as foreign as space war is to simulate it. In this case attack vector proposes a future in which spaceships take many forms and roles (though they are all basically spheres or cylinders). beam armed vessels tend to circle their opponents in an attempt to stay within optimal laser range but outside effective kinetic range whilst kinetic armed vessels tend to joust with their opponent. The result is a number of complicated engagements that I found rather enlightening.

Like previously mentioned it depends so much on the nature of the event. Every extinction level event to date is survivable by humans today. Catch 22 is they would still be a mass casualty events. We can even survive nuclear war (though that one is a major problem). If we had 5 years of prep time.... Maybe. The issue is that we could only save a small percentage of the population and that will likely upset a lot of people. I can imagine a large group of people who don't stand a chance at survival will try and ruin any chance of the rest surviving. Then there are the doomsday cults and profiteers who wouldn't be very helpful in the construction of large underground bunkers. One other thing is certain. Life would be Sh^&

Another example would be Yuri Gagarin's flight. He had a manual override, but for the most part he was simply strapped to a lawn chair that had been welded to the capsule. No input controls were necessary (until he had to bail out the front).

Yes if by "fighter" you mean unmanned expendable vehicle with an explosive on the end. by which I mean missile. You can make a missile. Bonus: It also doesn't show up to work drunk or forget its lines.

All of these are "things" in a mathematical sense. ok simple calculus. we have a function F that describes position in space. If we take the derivative (the change in) that function with respect to time we get: d(meters)/d(time) = m/s = velocity if we derive that with respect to time we get d(meters)/d(time(time)) = m/s^2 = acceleration. we can keep doing this forever though depending on the function the result loses all significance (for polynomials the answer becomes 0) as for names m/s^3 is jerk(or jolt or surge or lurch) and I don't think there are any more English names beyond that.

No. The entire concept of a plane-style RV was proven uneconomical within the first decade or two of the shuttle. The idea was that shuttle would partially cover its cost by partnering with companies for satellite maintenance and orbit adjustment but the cost was ridiculously prohibitive, no one needed the service, and the soviet union collapsed adding a vast number of cheap launch systems to the market. by 2002 the United States had lost virtually all of the commercial space market to Europe and Russia. The shuttle was not truly re-usable. The shuttle was difficult to maintain. The shuttle was overly complex. The shuttle was uneconomical. The shuttle was a failure. Colombia doesn't change this it merely quickens the death of the shuttle somewhat. Also keep in mind how old the shuttles actually were. When they were created the idea was to learn more about the economic and technical difficulties of space-planes. Lesson learned.

Hello. I was hoping you could help me. My deathtrap is suffering from a form of roll instability. I have tried a number of permutations and far says I am good on all of them. The control systems are properly aligned and working. When the aircraft is in a mild sideslip it begins to roll away from the direction of travel. This roll amplifies as the aircraft ends up in a barrel roll without deviating significantly from the direction of travel. I am using B9 procedural wings. I have tested stock aircraft and they appear to work fine. [IMG]http://i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag251/alexandercampbell1/screenshot0_zpsb1lxxjlv.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag251/alexandercampbell1/screenshot1_zpstdjfokkz.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag251/alexandercampbell1/screenshot3_zpspchg6lw4.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag251/alexandercampbell1/screenshot4_zpsnogyx2bh.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag251/alexandercampbell1/screenshot5_zpsyj3di0md.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag251/alexandercampbell1/screenshot6_zps8knrhbqp.png[/IMG]

[quote name='sal_vager']Who indeed, [U][URL="http://www.aerospaceweb.org/design/aerospike/losses.shtml"]when aerospikes do not maintain ISP throughout the flight envelope.[/URL][/U] Theory didn't match reality, and no amount of talking will change that.[/QUOTE] ummmm. The paper you linked to included performance enhancing suggestions that compensate, almost entirely, for the truncated aerospike. Namely sufficient bleed and sidewalls, with sufficient bleed being the most important. so actually your link proves that it is possible to closely match theoretical altitude compensating performance by using certain design tricks.

1. Can't tell without code 2. Orbits process in nature but Newtonian physics wont simulate that 3. 2 vs 3 dimension does not matter as all orbits occur on an orbital plane (2d surface) 4. maybe. Must see code 5. yes there should be planetary wobble but for immensely disproportionate masses it should be negligible. 6. KSP uses conic sections during timewarp (the orbit is "locked" in advance) also It probably is more careful with its numbers. without seeing the code the only thing I can suggest is to look for errors in numerical simulation. orbital mechanics is prone to cascading error.

guys all this nuclear stuff is great but also off topic. I have created a thread where we can continue this discussion and i believe it should be continued. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/138700-Nuclear-Energy-History-Ecology-Economy