The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Discussion regarding the Outsider webcomic, science, technology and science fiction.

Moderator: Outsider Moderators

Post Reply
Keter
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Jan 30, 2014 7:42 am

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Keter »

I forgot how cluttered the NSF forums can get, esp for newbies.
Reaction Engines thread 1
Reaction Engines thread 2
Reaction Engines thread 3

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Arioch »

Defense Secretary Hagel's soon-to-be-announced defense cuts include retiring the A-10.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/us/po ... level.html

NOMAD
Posts: 457
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 5:34 am

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by NOMAD »

NOOOOOOOOOOO, I thought the good old hog was staying until 2028 ????
I am a wander, going from place to place without a home I am a NOMAD

fredgiblet
Moderator
Posts: 983
Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2011 4:02 pm

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

Nope, it's been on the chopping block for a long time. The F-35 is supposed to replace it...somehow.

User avatar
Mr.Tucker
Posts: 303
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2013 4:45 pm

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Mr.Tucker »

Arioch wrote:Defense Secretary Hagel's soon-to-be-announced defense cuts include retiring the A-10.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/us/po ... level.html
Lol, I'm not even American, but still:
Image

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Arioch »

It's a pity, especially for an aviation enthusiast, but when I read in the headline that "an entire class of jet" was due to be cut, I was actually relieved that they only meant the A-10. Though it is a superb aircraft and the most efficient and cost-effective tank-killing platform out there, it flies low and is therefore vulnerable to ground fire, and despite its ruggedness the A-10 was always at or near the top of the list of aircraft being shot down. In today's world when just one or two captured pilots can become a crisis bigger than whatever the original mission was about, it's easy to see why both civilian and military planners are more comfortable killing tanks with JDAM's dropped by a stealth aircraft from 30,000 feet, or Hellfires fired from a drone... even though they are many times more expensive. The hordes of Soviet tanks that the A-10 was designed to cope with are not likely to be a threat any time soon. If in future another Evil Empire arises, fear not... the A-10's will be sitting, well-preserved, in the boneyard in Arizona, waiting for the call.

User avatar
pinheadh78
Posts: 68
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:36 am

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by pinheadh78 »

I've been thinking long and hard about this whole retiring the A-10 thing. I love love love the Hog but lets play devils advocate for a moment and the reason to retire it starts to make sense. And darn it I find myself starting to think that its not so bad.

What does the A-10 do that nothing else can do?
- Low and slow with long loiter time so it can stay with troops
- Withstand all small-arms and some missile fire
- Easy maintenance with seasoned ground crews
- 30mm gun is cheap low-cost fire support for shooting up light-cover and light armor / bunkers
- Withstand small-arms fire and small man-pad SAMs

So what is replacing it? Lets look at the contenders

Drons (Predator Avenger coming soon)
- Avoids small arms and most missile by being so high up
- Ultra long loiter time to provide over-watch support
- Can stay with convoy for duration of trip or clear path well in advance
- 4 Helfire-II missiles and 2 bombs is limited

C-130 (Harvest Hawk and Gunship)
- High enough to avoid small arms
- Long loiter time with strong flight range
- Lots of these things for parts, crews, maintenance
- Bolt-on kits or mods allow for missiles, guns, etc
- Lots of Brimstone missiles in cargo bay
- Hard points on wings for 8 Hellfire

Fast Jets
- Quick response to troops in-need (Hog limited to 460 mph)
- Precision bombs and missiles
- 20mm internal cannon for strafing

Attack helicopters
- Not really as these are as slow as drones with even shorter range and loiter time
- Lots of guns and missiles; fairly durable to most small arms
- Low and slow but usually show up late to the fight unless the fight is near a FOB

Very long-range rockets
- The newest MLRS is GPS guided and can put 12 missiles 110nmi in about 5 minutes
- Cheap over-all cost compared to a full on aircraft or drone (services, runway, etc)
- Requires fixed FOB or base to be within 110 miles and have semi-clean ballistic arc to target

Fast-Jets and drons and bout the speed of the A-10; I'd heard once that the insurgents had actually began to plan their attacks around how fast the A-10 could get from an airbase to the battlefield. They know that if they can start and finish the attack fast enough then it can be over before fire-support arrives on-station. Now with drones those are very slow but they are also almost always there due to long loiter times so fire-support is either already on-station at high-altitude or can be vectored in from a nearby drone. Having fast-jets supplement the drons further compresses the time to conduct an attack without having to worry about air support or surveillance over-watch.

Then the fast-jets can get on-station in under an hour which further compresses the time insurgents have to conduct an attach without having to worry about over-watch fire support.

Using a C-130 sounded stupid to me at first as that thing is big and slower than the A-10; but then I realized that its not such a bad idea. Here is why. The A-10 can only operate completely in the absence of major air opposition (IE we have air superiority) and most long-range or heavy-hitting SAMs have to be suppressed leaving only Man-Pads as the primary threat. This are the same conditions as the C-130 and other gun-ship variants require to conduct missions of any type; and Afghanistan doesn't have SAMs or Aircraft. In addition we have a huge inventory of C-130 aircraft and crews; lets pack the cargo-hold and its two outboard hard-points with short-range AG-missiles and bombs and use them.

At this point the A-10 has going for it is its 30mm gun and durability. The 30mm gun is fantastic but lets be honest, we have reached a point where smaller missiles are accurate enough to do CAS and cheap enough to use in quantity without much problem. You can build and fire dozens of those mini-missiles from a drone or C-130 for the cost of an A-10 being kept ready to fly and fight. Durability is less of an issue as the drones and C-130 just fly above the limited range of small-arms and man-pads but are still low and slow enough to provide air-cover for troops using those same mini-missiles.

I loved the hog as a kid and I think retiring it sucks; but if the budget is tight and other platforms can do the job then its redundant. Redundancy drives up cost and takes money that can be better spent else where.

F-35 sucks for CAS by the way; they aren't fooling anyone by saying it will do fine. The only way the F-35 will be useful for troops is by fast-response times to get bombs-on-target quickly as noted earlier. IF the F-35 is as stealthy as its proponents claim (and that's a big if) then it might be able to support forwards troops where some of the longer-range and heavy SAM sits are still active and some air opposition remains. If the F-35 can stealthily avoid those large SAM sites then it would indeed be able to provide rapid-response bombing to troops active in areas where large SAM sites and air opposition might still be active.

User avatar
RedDwarfIV
Posts: 398
Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2014 12:22 am

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by RedDwarfIV »

I'm sad that we just glanced over Skylon with a few links. Has everything about it already been said on those sites or something?

Skylon would look awesome with a cockpit at the front, though obviously that space is needed for propellant and fuel. It will be rated capable of carrying people though, which is great.
If every cloud had a silver lining, there would be a lot more plane crashes.

discord
Posts: 629
Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2011 7:44 am
Location: Umeå, Sweden

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by discord »

pinhead:
makes no sense either economic nor military, the only 'logic' is PR related, and USAF not liking the A-10 or it's mission.
okey, lets go through these 'replacements'.
drone, lets assume MQ-9 Reaper for the job. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MQ-9
at 17 million a pop it's actually not that expensive, but it is basically a high altitude bomber and surveillance craft, does not really have the staying power for CAS but it would be damn useful for carrying heavy anti armor weapons as fire support, and overhead cameras for situational awareness.

C130 conversion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130
it's a conversion and therefor not that expensive...relatively, high altitude bomber and precision firepower, can actually do CAS.
biggest issue is the USAF chronic shortage of airlift capacity, which this takes away from, secondary issue is to do a good job you need to go low, which makes you vulnerable to manpads.

F-35, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35
anyone saying this craft can do CAS is delusional, sure it can drop some bombs, but dropping some bombs(which are well known for going slightly off target) does not make for good CAS, the gun is also a nono, the official stall speed is unknown, but if it is even as low as double the 220km/h of the A-10 i would be surprised, so strafing runs is a joke.
cost: 153 million USD/unit flyaway.

bottom line, to do CAS you need either a very stable platform very high(gunships) or a durable one slow and low, fast and low(which the F-35 can do) is not such a great idea against non-stationary targets, high chance of blue on blue.
so, replacing A-10(current dollar value around 19 million) with MQ-9 reaper(17 million) and F-35(153 million) and you need both to approximate CAS(but not equal a single A-10), makes economic or military sense....how?

after thinking about it, i think a major problem is you CAN'T micromanage a good CAS craft, it's like trying to micromanage a single soldier, to fluid, and limits the effectiveness too much, this bugs USAF and leaders, delegating initiative is not liked, and very stupid.

User avatar
RedDwarfIV
Posts: 398
Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2014 12:22 am

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by RedDwarfIV »

Today I discovered Bristol Spaceplanes Ltd. They are working on updated 1960s spaceplane design concepts, using existing aerospace technologies. A two-man SSTO of theirs called Ascender could be operational before Skylon.

Ascender:
Image

A few years after that, they hope to have SpaceCab running, a 6-passenger craft intended for taking small satellites to orbit or crews to the ISS.

SpaceCab:
Image

And a few years after that, they hope to have a prototype for SpaceBus, a 50-passenger tourist carrier capable of hauling medium satellites to orbit.

SpaceBus:
Image

I assume that what lets those two larger craft reach orbit when SpaceShipOne/Two can't, is that their carrier aircraft are also spaceplanes, capable of suborbital hops with their rocket engines.
If every cloud had a silver lining, there would be a lot more plane crashes.

User avatar
GeoModder
Posts: 1038
Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2011 6:31 pm

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by GeoModder »

RedDwarfIV wrote:I assume that what lets those two larger craft reach orbit when SpaceShipOne/Two can't, is that their carrier aircraft are also spaceplanes, capable of suborbital hops with their rocket engines.
Heh. Manned rocket stages. :lol:
Image

User avatar
Mr.Tucker
Posts: 303
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2013 4:45 pm

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Mr.Tucker »

I thought I'd just leave this here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx-pDGR6DaU

User avatar
Grayhome
Posts: 550
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2011 2:11 am

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Grayhome »

Hey Arioch, where are we (real life humans) in Gurps tech level system? 8 going on 9?

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Arioch »

Grayhome wrote:Hey Arioch, where are we (real life humans) in Gurps tech level system? 8 going on 9?
When GURPS was designed in 1986, TL7 was meant to be "modern" technology. We have since progressed into the very early stages of TL8.

User avatar
Grayhome
Posts: 550
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2011 2:11 am

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Grayhome »

That is interesting and rouses another question Arioch, according to GURPS tech level guide of the Ultra-tech rule book (page 9), at what level would you rate humanity's real life tech progression? Will humanity have grav cars, life extension drugs and sensie entertainment in our lifetime?

User avatar
Smithy
Posts: 60
Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2012 6:10 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Smithy »

RedDwarfIV wrote:Today I discovered Bristol Spaceplanes Ltd. They are working on updated 1960s spaceplane design concepts, using existing aerospace technologies. A two-man SSTO of theirs called Ascender could be operational before Skylon.

A few years after that, they hope to have SpaceCab running, a 6-passenger craft intended for taking small satellites to orbit or crews to the ISS.

And a few years after that, they hope to have a prototype for SpaceBus, a 50-passenger tourist carrier capable of hauling medium satellites to orbit.

I assume that what lets those two larger craft reach orbit when SpaceShipOne/Two can't, is that their carrier aircraft are also spaceplanes, capable of suborbital hops with their rocket engines.
RedDwarfIV wrote:I'm sad that we just glanced over Skylon with a few links. Has everything about it already been said on those sites or something?

Skylon would look awesome with a cockpit at the front, though obviously that space is needed for propellant and fuel. It will be rated capable of carrying people though, which is great.
Skylon has been debated on these forums before, and the discussion got quite "heated", with opinions ranging from it being junk to the best thing since sliced bread...

Ascender is not a SSTO vehicle, it is actually a sub-orbital vehicle aimed at space tourism for a single passenger, albeit it's hoping to do that in a single stage. To compare it to Skylon which is a far, far more ambitious project would be wholly inappropriate. In other news reaction engines (skylon) just signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the US air force a few months back. As it has been gaining a lot of investment interest recently.

The technical challenges of a sub orbital hop are slightly underplayed to be fair in the articles I have found, as single stage to sub orbit has never been achieved, so I think claiming that the technology is already proven is a bit of a stretch. Especially considering that us engineers are more than aware that new yet undiscovered problems have an unhelpful way of appearing at inappropriate times...

It all looks quite heavily geared to capturing the space tourist industry which is quite interesting, It's worth watching but I wouldn't get too excited.

User avatar
RedDwarfIV
Posts: 398
Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2014 12:22 am

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by RedDwarfIV »

Ah. I think I missed the 'sub-orbital' part, although if it can do it in a single stage, that's still better than SpaceShipTwo (but with less passengers).

I think a bigger problem Bristol Spaceplanes has is... their donation system. I would have donated something to them, but they use an investment site. It's not like Kickstarter, where you pay them something and get a T-shirt if it succeeds - it's an actual investment. You have to fill in sheets about yourself, you have to be over a certain age, and there was some 100 question questionairre about your investment status which you have to get all 100 questions right to go through with...

... it's really no wonder that, when they had about a month to go, they had reached only about 5% of their goal.
If every cloud had a silver lining, there would be a lot more plane crashes.

User avatar
Smithy
Posts: 60
Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2012 6:10 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Smithy »

RedDwarfIV wrote:Ah. I think I missed the 'sub-orbital' part, although if it can do it in a single stage, that's still better than SpaceShipTwo (but with less passengers).

I think a bigger problem Bristol Spaceplanes has is... their donation system. I would have donated something to them, but they use an investment site. It's not like Kickstarter, where you pay them something and get a T-shirt if it succeeds - it's an actual investment. You have to fill in sheets about yourself, you have to be over a certain age, and there was some 100 question questionairre about your investment status which you have to get all 100 questions right to go through with...

... it's really no wonder that, when they had about a month to go, they had reached only about 5% of their goal.
Don't get me wrong and all, but Kickstarter really isn't the right kind of website to raise funding for a major aerospace venture, or really for serious business investment. It's raised plenty of cash, but primarily for computer games, and people's pet projects/products. If you notice Crowdcube's pitches all list the equity you will be entitled too, and the tax your returns may be subjected to. Crowdcube is a different kettle of fish altogether.

Crowdcube is much more professional, as an investor you have rights especially considering that your investment leads to you becoming a shareholder, which can have major ramifications in the event of a sell off, stock flotation, or the company going bankrupt. The fact you're not prepared to fill in a serious investment questionnaire, means you're not prepared to yet be a shareholder and the responsibilities and risks that brings.

BSp Ltd was happy to give away stock, kickstarter is not the website for selling stock.

Or perhaps the reason they struggled is because Crowdcube is "relatively" new, and space tourism is seen as quite a risk, the reason they probably pitched was more aimed at cheap marketing, something as novel as a "space" company "crowd-funding" would generate some news in investment circles and raise some long term interest in the company. Such as this article, and with news like this for example! Meeting the actual goal would of been a major bonus no doubt, but they need to boost their brand awareness and they won't be overly bothered I think. They have already received funding from the UK Space Agency for feasibility studies so they are probably secure for now.

User avatar
RedDwarfIV
Posts: 398
Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2014 12:22 am

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by RedDwarfIV »

I didn't fill it in because I wanted to donate, not invest.

And given the silliest sort of things that can make their goals on KickStarter? I don't think there's much Bristol Spaceplanes could have lost by doing it. By making it investment only... well, they aren't following up all the avenues they could be getting funding from.
If every cloud had a silver lining, there would be a lot more plane crashes.

User avatar
Smithy
Posts: 60
Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2012 6:10 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Smithy »

RedDwarfIV wrote:I didn't fill it in because I wanted to donate, not invest.

And given the silliest sort of things that can make their goals on KickStarter? I don't think there's much Bristol Spaceplanes could have lost by doing it. By making it investment only... well, they aren't following up all the avenues they could be getting funding from.
BSp Ltd want investors, not donors. Investors are extremely important to companies as they often are able to offer advice, help, connections, and even prestige. Plus a wide and diverse shareholder base is often viewed as a good sign for new investment.

Kickstarter is not really a crowdfunding platform for companies. Also Kickstarter does not allow for the offering of services, ergo, if you give BSp Ltd £20,000 (as promised on crowdcube) they cannot take you to space, and that was probably their must persuasive reward... To be accepted by Kickstarter you need to offer a product reward (hardware, software, albums, video games, etc.). Note that if you look at Kickstarter's guidelines, you'll find they aren't keen on all kind of rewards either, so if you wanted a T-shirt, Bristol Spaceplanes would have to start making T-shirts... Kickstarter is in all essence a tool/market to pre-sell products before they exist to customers who are happy to wait it out and pay up-front.

As BSp Ltd can't offer you trips to space, nor t-shirts, they would have to be pre-selling you spaceplanes... Ambitious to say the least...

Basically, BLt Ltd have asked themselves, do we offer anything that can be pre-sold to a large number of people...

The answer is obviously no, and that is why you don't see projects of this nature on Kickstarter. Because the only reward they can really sensibly offer is equity, which kickstarter vehemently suppresses. Hence why BSp Ltd offered themselves up on an investment website, because they don't want to pre-sell you stuff, they would rather offer you a good investment, with maybe the added perk of sub-orbital spaceflight. Something Kickstarter would never allow them to do.

Post Reply