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| Lockheed Martin Sea Ghost. |
I'm getting pissed.
via USNI News.
The Navy aims to build a stealthy pilotless aircraft to patrol at a minimum range of 600 nautical miles around an aircraft carrier at a maximum cost of $150 million a copy, according to a May Navy requirements documents obtained by USNI News.I mean seriously? Really? Why go unmanned if those are the parameters? Why not just buy additional F-35's???? An unproven concept to augment the Triton UAVs that cost as much as F-35's? And yet the Marine Corps can't buy Marine Personnel Carriers and Amphibious Combat Vehicles????
Time to punch a wall.
I just love how drone heads love to spout bs about how drones will be SO much cheaper than manned aircraft.... And then info like this gets out.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAs the saying goes... Context is everything.
ReplyDeleteHere is the actual quote referencing the 600 mile range.
"In the surveillance role, the Navy wants an aircraft system that can fly, “two unrefueled orbits at 600 nautical miles or one unrefueled orbit at 1200 nautical miles,” according to requirements documents. "
YOU NEED TO FUCKING RESTATE THAT RICKY TICK QUICK. ARE YOU SAYING THAT I LIED MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!
DeleteJesus Christ. You misread the release. Relax.
DeleteI wasn't implying anything. I assumed that you were reading someone else's opinion of the issue and had not seen the details.
DeleteAt first, I had made the same assumption about the range and had to delete my first post when I tracked down the article that I linked to in my second post.
Interesting....guy writes post....then shouts and threatens someone who checks the facts?
DeleteYeah, as Spudman said, the rest of that article explains things a bit more. The key word in the snippet you quoted is *patrol* (as opposed to strike) - the navy wants UCLASS to be be able to patrol at that distance for very long periods of time; the figure the article mentioned was the 12 hour gap between the end of one manned flying 'day' and the next. The navy wants the UCAV to fly out to what is effectively the strike range of an internal fuel only F-35 and sit there for half a day.
ReplyDeleteIn a companion article (http://news.usni.org/2013/06/26/uclass-by-the-numbers), USNI states that the navy requires the UCLASS to carry out an unrefueled *strike* mission at a range of 2000 nautical miles, 333% more than an F-35 on internal fuel.
You can take your fist out of the wall now.
Just for illustration, the navy wants the UCLASS to be able to perform two unrefueled 'orbits' of the carrier at 600nm. Each of those circular orbits would be 3770nm, plus 1200nm of transit. That's the better part of 9000nm in total.
DeleteUnrefueled.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteTwo orbits at 600nm = 4970
DeleteOne orbit at 1200nm = 6170
If you don't mind my asking, how are you getting those numbers? Circumference of a circle is 2*pi*radius, where the radius = 600nm (that's the distance from the UCAV to the carrier, which is in the centre of this hypothetical circle), I'm getting as 3770nm. Two of those is 7540nm, plus 1200nm in transit is 8740nm.
DeleteDamn my eyesight :)
DeleteI plugged in the numbers for Radius rather than Diameter. Here it is fixed:
Two orbits at a radius of 600nm is a total of 8736nm
One orbit at a radius of 1200nm is a total of 9936nm
Do any of you guys...like...work with aircraft in any capacity?
ReplyDeleteNope.
DeleteI'm a 19K US Army vet and now a Software/SQL developer.
Well, I have some experience with how the USAF mission plans, and I think the Navy uses the same terms. When the article says the aircraft will have a 600 NM range with two orbits, they're not saying the aircraft will fly two 600 NM radius orbits. They're saying the aircraft would fly 600 NM, then perform two orbits, then return. A 600 NM radius orbit would be HUGE!
ReplyDeleteAlso, from an engineering standpoint any aircraft with a 9936 NM range is going to be very large. The circumference of the earth at the equator is only about 21,600 NM, so this thing would only require 3 refueling to circumnavigate the globe...with a 3,000 lb payload to boot. Such an aircraft would either have a very large wingspan or a huge amount of fuel, or both. AND they'd have to make it carrier capable. I just don't see that as being feasible at all.
For comparison, a C-130 (which has made carrier landings before) only has a range of about 2000 NM.
I think the confusion comes from an undefined "orbit" and the graphic provided by USNI.org
Delete9000nm+ did seem a bit much :)
I thought 9000nm was a tad excessive, especially in light of the requirement for a strike range with a round trip of less than half that...but as Spudman said, all we given to go on were 'orbits', and an apparently very misleading graphic.
DeleteHere's a thought
DeleteWhat if the 600/1200 mile + orbit missions are recon only?
Since there is no need for a weapons payload, could the 3000lb+ bay be replaced by a huge gas tank to extend the range to the seemingly excessive 9k.
Nope.
DeleteFirst,the 3000 lb package only includes 1000 lbs of bombs. I assume this means the other 2000 lbs is the weight of the surveillance equipment itself.
So, if you take the bombs off the aircraft, that leaves you with 1000 lbs available for external fuel. That might sound like allot, but it's actually quite a small amount of fuel as far as jet aircraft go. JP-8 weighs 6.8 lbs/gallon, so 1000 lbs of gas equates to only 147 gallons. Even if 3000 lbs of extra gas was carried, that's still coming in at 441 gallons. These are very small numbers for combat aircraft. For comparison, the F-15C holds 13,455 lbs of fuel - internally. And it can carry 3x600 gallon external tanks. So a 3000 lb fuel tank is not "huge", in fact it's quite small actually and it's not gonna get you anywhere near 9,000+ NM.
I'll give you that ONI didn't provide the best graphic, but since I'm familiar with what type of information they're trying to convey I think I can clarify it a little. The red 600 NM arrow indicates the aircraft's range it can fly at while conducting two reconnaissance orbits. The 1200 NM arrow indicates it's range with one orbit. The 2000 NM arrow represent's the type's max range. The blue circular rings indicates the area the aircraft can reach from the carrier. This does NOT represent the total area the aircraft can cover in one sortie, but does represent the area that is within the carrier's striking/reconnaissance distance when employing this system.
DeleteAlso, orbits are generally flown in ovals, or "racetracks", so even if they were talking about an orbit with a radius of 600 NM your formula would still be off by quite a lot since it assumes a circular orbit.
ReplyDelete