Special Lecture: F-22 Flight Controls

0:48

you're always named for something silly.

0:50

So, the previous discussion about uh

0:52

crew resource management, if you're

0:54

single seat, you still have air traffic

0:56

control, you have other guys. Uh I am

0:58

living proof that that's 100% true. So,

1:01

I won't get into it too much, but

1:02

suffice to say if you know the biblical

1:04

story of Lazarus, you know a lot about

1:06

how I got my name and I'll leave it at

1:08

that. Normally, that's over a beer

1:09

afterwards. So, we're here to talk about

1:11

uh F-22 flight control stuff. I'm going

1:13

to give you the the punchline right at

1:15

the start. I'm here to tell you that

1:16

everything you're learning So, who who's

1:18

actually flown airplanes here already?

1:20

Like sailplanes. So, a lot of guys,

1:22

right? So, a lot of guys So, first time

1:23

then for probably the other half of the

1:24

class or so. Uh so, here's what I'm here

1:26

to tell you. The same stuff that you're

1:28

learning with respect to Cessnas and all

1:31

the stuff with respect to the ground

1:33

school, um there's no difference

1:35

between this and between my beloved

1:37

Raptor. It's the same thing. So, there's

1:40

great relevance. And you as MIT guys

1:42

have the ability to derive and figure

1:43

out what makes the Raptor look the way

1:46

that it does and we can talk a lot about

1:47

the flight controls. It's not cosmic. We

1:49

can go through that.

1:51

So, with that, uh they always have the

1:53

standard personal background slide. Um

1:55

here's here's the gig. I'll keep it

1:56

really simple. I am a test pilot. Uh

1:59

which means I am a fighter pilot and I'm

2:01

also an engineer. It means I like Beavis

2:03

and Butt-Head greatly and I read Carl

2:06

Sagan. It's the same thing to me. Uh so,

2:08

as a fighter test pilot, you live in the

2:10

world of being a fighter pilot, uh but

2:12

you also have the ability to understand

2:13

MATLAB and to be able to do cool neat

2:15

MIT-ish kind of things because all of

2:17

the stuff that you're working with as a

2:19

test pilot are brand new things. Uh new

2:22

weapons, new avionics, new airplanes in

2:25

some cases. And that's not the world of

2:27

a fighter pilot. Fighter pilots are

2:29

exceptionally good at taking this

2:31

airplane to combat and doing the normal

2:32

kind of missions with it, but when

2:33

there's something new on board, that

2:35

requires an engineer. So, uh I have a

2:38

deep deep connection with this

2:39

institution. I graduated here finished

2:41

up here last year in 2018 and then a

2:43

whole bunch of other kind of funky stuff

2:45

along the way.

2:46

Uh two combat tours. Uh that was a lot

2:48

of fun. I'll tell you flying is one of

2:50

my great passions. Flying and getting

2:51

shot at and missed is my second great

2:54

passion. That's much cooler. Um and then

2:56

when you can fly and you can use that

2:57

airplane to actually protect people from

2:59

bad guys, that's that's that's life

3:01

fulfilling, right? To go get a chance to

3:02

go do that. So, we can talk a little bit

3:04

more through that as well. Um test

3:07

pilot, we get a chance to fly a lot of

3:08

different stuff. So, you'll see this uh

3:10

76 different airplanes. Uh that might

3:12

sound weird to kind of the rest of the

3:15

world, but in the world of flight test,

3:16

that's pretty normal. And the reason

3:18

that's there is it's just like like So,

3:20

I By the way, warning, right? To the

3:22

class. I I talk a lot in terms of

3:24

movies, right? Game of Thrones shows or

3:26

whatever television shows and sports

3:28

because no matter where you come from,

3:29

those three topics always tend to bring

3:31

everybody all together. So, it is just

3:35

like what you've, you know, when you've

3:36

gone car shopping and you sit in this

3:38

car and go, "Ah, man, I really like this

3:40

way the steering wheel feels, but I hate

3:42

the way the radio is set up." And you go

3:43

to another car and you go, "Ah, man,

3:45

this is great from a, you know, from the

3:46

sunroof or whatever, but this stinks."

3:48

Uh that same kind of the discernment

3:51

that you have when you're shopping for

3:52

cars, you know, that this airplane is a

3:54

couple hundred million dollars. You

3:56

don't want to be wrong about that. And

3:57

so, you want your test pilots very very

3:59

experienced in a lot of different

4:00

airplanes. So, I've got a chance to fly

4:02

helicopters. Spectacular. In pilot

4:04

training, I don't know why, but we send

4:05

our worst pilot training students to

4:08

helicopters. It's the dumbest idea

4:10

because helicopters are really really

4:11

challenging to go fly. Um but we've had

4:13

a chance to fly helicopters. Your

4:15

discussion, Tina, earlier about right

4:16

away, I was laughing with that cuz I've

4:18

flown a zeppelin uh an airship. It It's

4:20

quite spectacular. It's a big lazy boy

4:22

couch

4:23

uh with a big trim wheel and big engines

4:25

that actually pivot on the outside so

4:27

you can turn the whole ship based on

4:28

that. Um that's pretty normal for for

4:30

being a test pilot is getting a chance

4:32

to fly a lot of different airplanes more

4:34

so than just one particular airplane

4:35

your whole life. Most of my stuff is in

4:37

fighters.

4:38

Um so, I've flown every frontline

4:40

fighter with the exception of the F-35.

4:42

Hopefully, I'll fix that soon shortly in

4:44

a few months.

4:46

Um but a lot of stuff. So, MIT guy,

4:48

Harvard guy, uh did some stuff. It's

4:50

it's been a good life. Um really at the

4:52

end of the day, what I want to impress

4:53

on you is uh I am 100% zero different

4:57

from anybody in this room. I just have

4:59

more battle scars on me just from a

5:00

lifetime of doing this. Uh I started off

5:03

flying Cessnas. I did that for several

5:04

years in my life. I still do it. I um

5:06

love it. Fly sailplanes. Still do it.

5:08

Love it.

5:10

Uh and all the stuff that you learn with

5:12

this has direct applicability to the

5:13

more advanced fighter airplanes. In

5:15

fact, I'll tell you, this is actually

5:18

harder to fly than the Raptor. And we'll

5:20

talk a little bit more about that as we

5:22

go through. All right. So, more fun and

5:24

games. All right. So, now comes the

5:26

class participation part. Uh my my talks

5:28

are very interactive. I love to kind of

5:30

hear what you guys think. So, we'll do a

5:31

quick thought exercise. I'll try and

5:33

keep a mental note cuz I stink at

5:34

writing on a chalkboard.

5:36

Um but we'll chat through this. Just so

5:37

you can understand that there's really

5:39

not that much difference from what

5:40

you're learning now to go off to do

5:41

something like that. So, why does a

5:43

Cessna look the way that it does? And

5:46

why does a Raptor look the way that it

5:48

does? What were the engineers trying to

5:50

do? And just just call them out. You

5:52

know where we're going. Guys, just

5:53

shoot.

5:53

Is it related to the Raptor? Okay, so

5:55

explain. Um you have um way more area

5:57

that's clear. The wings are uh swept

5:59

back and are kind of below you in the

6:01

back so you can go. Yeah. See over

6:04

there, right? So, you you've brought up

6:05

two things. One is the position of the

6:06

wings, right? So, in a Cessna,

6:08

uh the wings are obviously

6:10

Well, in a lot of airplanes really, not

6:12

just Cessnas, but in a Cessna, the wings

6:13

are directly above you. Big Hershey bar

6:15

wing. You know, why do they put the

6:16

wings this way in a Cessna?

6:22

You're You're doing great so far. Keep

6:24

going, man. I'm I'm going to answer

6:26

that. Get get in or out of a Cirrus in

6:28

the heavy rain and you will immediately

6:30

see the value of that Cessna wing. Yeah.

6:33

They did this so that my wife doesn't

6:34

yell at me in bad weather conditions so

6:36

that you can get inside the airplane

6:38

without getting completely wet. The

6:39

other part about the high wing is it's

6:40

great for visibility. Looking down,

6:43

right? Um where this is terrible is if

6:45

you're turning and you have to be able

6:47

to see through the wing because you're

6:48

kind of doing the old, you know, looking

6:49

over the side to see uh kind of out the

6:51

outside. So, that's one advantage,

6:53

right? Of where Raptor, right? It's not

6:54

a high wing or it's kind of like a mid

6:55

wing, if you will, but that wing is well

6:57

after the cockpit for what reason?

7:05

Visibility? Yeah.

7:07

That's that's the big huge reason why.

7:08

And then you also brought up the idea of

7:10

the swept wings.

7:11

All right. Uh why the swept wings

7:13

compared to, say, straight wings?

7:17

Um well, when they have an aerodynamic

7:18

advantage. Okay. What's that What's

7:20

What's that advantage? Um

7:22

something about um

7:26

You got a winglet or like wingtip

7:28

vortices?

7:30

Close.

7:31

Close. I'll I'll I'll stop picking on

7:32

you because you're a bold and went

7:33

first. Go ahead.

7:35

Yeah, Mach. So, so explain Mach.

7:38

Uh fast Closer you get to the speed of

7:40

sound, more compressibility is

7:41

important. Yep. Uh aerodynamically, the

7:44

wing really behaves

7:46

like it's going at the speed normal to

7:48

the leading edge.

7:49

Yeah. So, you ever you ever see those

7:51

old like the first jet airplanes that

7:53

came out? Um the wings on the jet

7:55

airplanes had wings that looked exactly

7:57

like this.

7:58

Um and that was a problem. I'm going to

7:59

do something I thought I wouldn't try to

8:01

do, but I'll try to do it. So, here's

8:02

your swept wing, right? Here's the air

8:04

as it comes over the wing.

8:07

Right? And then what ends up happening

8:08

is uh really what you care about is the

8:12

air that's going over top of the wing

8:14

that's normal to the chord line of the

8:16

wing itself. You know what I mean when I

8:17

say chord? Right? Just like this

8:19

imaginary line. So, on a Hershey bar

8:20

wing, all of that air hits the wing and

8:23

it goes directly over top of that chord

8:24

line of the wing. So, like when we

8:26

talked about over here, the wings have

8:28

camber.

8:29

So, what happens to the air as it goes

8:31

over top of any wing? Doesn't matter if

8:33

it's a fighter wing or whatever else.

8:35

But what what happens to the velocity of

8:36

the air as it goes over top?

8:38

Goes faster, right? So, if I'm already

8:40

going fast and air hits my wing and goes

8:43

over top of my wing and goes faster than

8:45

the rest of the airplane, uh that's

8:47

going to cause a problem when you get to

8:48

very high speeds approaching Mach cuz

8:51

what ends up happening is you'll you'll

8:52

get a shock wave forming on that wing.

8:54

And the moment you get a shock wave

8:55

forming there, that's like a big brick

8:57

wall to the to the wind and that causes

9:00

all types of drag downstream, slows down

9:02

the airplane, all types of things. So,

9:03

what they found is I can sweep the wing,

9:05

right? When I sweep the wing, some of

9:07

that air is normal to the chord line.

9:09

So, if this is like the fuselage over

9:11

here and here's the wing and it comes

9:12

back over here. Um some of that air is

9:14

going to be that way and some of that

9:16

air is going to actually go out and go

9:17

uh

9:18

go spanwise, if you will, like this. So,

9:21

I'm trying to draw this correctly to get

9:22

the to get the right angles, but you you

9:24

kind of get my point. So, some of that

9:26

air goes spanwise.

9:28

Some of the reason why you have wing

9:29

winglets, right? To present prevent some

9:31

of that drag that happens at the

9:31

winglet. But then also, what you're

9:33

worried about is rather than the full

9:34

component of this wind, you're only

9:35

worried about the wind that's normal to

9:38

the flow

9:39

of the way the chord line is set up. So,

9:40

that's why they sweep the wings, right?

9:42

Okay, so what else?

9:43

Why does a Cessna look this way? Why

9:45

does this look like that? Go ahead.

9:47

Uh

9:48

yeah, go ahead. Both.

9:49

Uh

9:50

stealth and payload and armor. Okay, so

9:52

stealth. Payload is an important thing.

9:53

Let's talk about the payload for a

9:55

second. Actually, we'll talk about

9:56

stealth since you brought it up. Um so

9:58

look at that plan form and what do you

10:00

notice with regards to stealth?

10:05

All angles. All angles, right? That

10:07

angle, that angle, that angle. No right

10:10

angles. Yeah, no right angles. So the

10:13

reason is and I'll do

10:15

my high-tech pizza, you know, aid here,

10:18

right?

10:19

So who's who's EE in here? Anyone EE

10:22

from MIT? Okay. So if you're a beam of

10:24

radar energy,

10:26

you love this, right? You love when you

10:29

have a nice flat thing directly to

10:31

reflect so all that radar energy you put

10:33

at me goes right back at you, right? Now

10:36

what happens if I take that panel and I

10:38

go like this a little bit, right? So

10:41

yeah, there's not so much. Now I'll

10:42

really mess with your mind. What happens

10:44

if I do that, right? And now you have to

10:46

start dealing with angles and edges,

10:47

right? Um

10:49

Raptor is this constant fight between

10:53

the EE guys and the aeronautical

10:55

engineers.

10:56

Um when you make an airplane like this

10:58

and you make angles like this and you

10:59

make it there's no right angles or

11:00

whatever else like that, you're exactly

11:02

right. It greatly reduces the stealth.

11:04

Now this is not Wonder Woman's airplane.

11:05

It's not like you just become invisible

11:07

and no one can see you. Um but it's very

11:09

very hard to see uh on radar. Um but

11:12

there's a challenge in that because when

11:13

you make an airplane that looks like

11:15

this, which the EE guys tend to like,

11:18

the aero engineer guys tend to hate

11:20

because it makes the airplane unstable.

11:23

Uh so we'll talk about that. Um this

11:25

airplane very very stable, very very

11:28

stable. Okay, what else? Couple other

11:29

things. So why does a Raptor look this

11:31

way?

11:32

Why does a Cessna look this way?

11:35

Go ahead. Uh I feel like the Cessna is

11:37

designed to be produced with cheap

11:39

commodity materials.

11:40

Yep. The Raptor probably uses exotic

11:43

metals, exotic metals. Yep.

11:45

Titanium, whole types of stuff, right?

11:47

So this is an airplane people buy

11:49

commercially.

11:50

If you had if you were Jeff Bezos, you

11:52

would never purchase this airplane.

11:54

Cuz it is hyper expensive. Um

11:56

my jets were test jets, uh which means

11:59

they were very different, almost like

12:01

hand-built custom F-22s. Each one

12:04

3 to 400 million dollars a piece. Uh

12:07

scary, right? In terms of how much it

12:08

actually costs. Uh the canopy on this

12:11

thing probably worth more than about 10

12:12

of these kind of all put together.

12:15

Um the payload part, you brought up

12:16

payload, too. So the other part about

12:18

the stealth, if you can see here, I've

12:20

got doors. So there's a big main weapon

12:22

bay door, big 17-ft doors, if you will,

12:24

and then there's doors on the side that

12:26

come open here. Um

12:28

Unlike a Cessna, I mean we talked about

12:30

you can Where'd Tina go? Oh, she

12:31

disappeared. The dropped object,

12:32

dropping pumpkins? Uh my pumpkins are

12:34

1,000 lb, uh come off the airplane just

12:37

like that, uh different missiles and

12:38

different bombs or whatever. The center

12:40

of gravity of the airplane is right

12:42

about where my finger is. And so I have

12:44

these weapons that are here that when I

12:45

release them, it's suddenly like

12:47

dropping a car off the front end of your

12:49

airplane. And so there's a huge center

12:51

of gravity shift that happens

12:54

just like that. And so the flight

12:55

controls need to be able to compensate

12:57

for something like that. Last piece I'll

12:58

give you just for sake of time is what's

13:00

the speed envelope, if you will, that

13:01

this airplane kind of operates.

13:07

What's that?

13:09

Oh, I wish 200. Man, I wish 200. I would

13:11

buy one right now if I could go 200 in

13:13

this thing.

13:16

160. Yeah, I mean on a good day, right?

13:19

You might get you know, if you were to

13:21

get a really really high-end general

13:22

aviation airplane, 160 knots or so

13:25

something like that. You can get more

13:26

than that, but then you start getting to

13:27

some real like Mercedes-Benz exotic

13:30

class kind of general aviation airplanes

13:32

that are like the Cirrus

13:34

that go beyond there. Um in general,

13:35

you're talking somewhere between 80 and

13:37

about 140, 150 for most of them or

13:39

something like that. Uh this airplane,

13:42

if believe it or not, this airplane can

13:43

actually fly as slow as the Cessna. But

13:47

it also can fly two times the speed of

13:49

sound.

13:50

Um and it does that pretty easily,

13:52

believe it or not. Um also this

13:54

airplane, um 60° of bank starts to get

13:57

really extreme, a little bit

13:58

uncomfortable. This airplane

14:00

fully aerobatic, doesn't care, pulls 9

14:02

Gs. You guys know what Gs are? The

14:04

accelerations of gravity. So everything,

14:06

you know, my human head, well, MIT MIT

14:08

heads weigh about 20 lb or so, a little

14:09

bit more than the than the norm. So at 9

14:12

Gs, everything on your body weighs nine

14:13

times as much. So that's 180 lb with

14:16

your neck has to be able to support

14:18

that. Imagine everything on this

14:19

airplane has to be stressed such that it

14:21

can tolerate that load and more. Also

14:23

can go negative G as well. Uh

14:26

altitude-wise, I think the highest I've

14:28

ever had a Cessna was about 14,000 ft

14:31

and it was wheezing. I mean it was

14:33

really really hard for it to get up

14:34

there. Uh this airplane goes 0 ft all

14:37

the way up to about 60 to 65,000 ft. So

14:40

it flies twice as high of what you would

14:42

see on your commercial airliners. What

14:44

I'm trying to impress on you is it's a

14:46

huge flight envelope with a very

14:49

different solution set

14:51

um compared to what you might have on a

14:52

Cessna. The only other thing I would say

14:54

with Raptor is uh this was something

14:57

that took me a while. My first combat

14:58

mission, I really understood this.

15:00

Uh in a Cessna, if I have a problem,

15:03

I can land and most likely people will

15:04

come out to help me and call home and

15:06

let everybody know I'm okay.

15:08

Uh in bad guy land,

15:10

uh if people are coming to get me,

15:11

they're they really are coming to get

15:12

me.

15:13

Uh so you're in very hostile territory

15:15

where you do not want to leave the

15:17

airplane if you can avoid it. So there's

15:19

a tremendous amount of redundancy that's

15:22

kind of built into this airplane. Uh

15:24

we'll talk more through that a little

15:25

bit. So anyway, um you've essentially

15:27

derived all of the challenges that a

15:30

flight control engineer would have to

15:31

deal with. um

15:35

I'll put this here just for sake of

15:37

making it easy to rest.

15:40

This airplane has what's called

15:41

reversible flight control system. What

15:43

does that mean?

15:46

You guys talked about that yet? Go

15:46

ahead. It means you It's basically

15:49

cables or when you move

15:50

Yep. say the direction of the ailerons.

15:52

Yep. So not only when you move the

15:53

stick. What happens if you go outside

15:54

the airplane, grab the aileron, move

15:56

that up and down? What happens inside?

15:57

The stick moves, right? So it's

15:58

reversible, right? So I move the stick

16:01

and the flight control surfaces will

16:02

deflect or I move the flight control

16:04

surfaces and the stick will deflect. So

16:06

they are directly connected with pulleys

16:07

and cables to one another. Um

16:11

For the guys who have flown, what does

16:12

the airplane feel like when you get to

16:14

100, 120, 130, 140 mph? I mean you're

16:17

really getting What what what does it

16:18

feel like on the control surfaces?

16:21

Yeah, lots. It gets heavy, right? It

16:22

gets real stick kind of heavy. Same

16:23

thing if you're slow, everything gets

16:25

kind of sloppy, if you will, and very

16:27

cuz you are directly feeling the air

16:29

loads on the airplane as transmitted to

16:31

the stick. Um in this airplane,

16:34

uh these flight control surfaces, this

16:36

this tail surface back here is about the

16:38

size of a lot of fighter wings. It's

16:40

huge. Um

16:41

and you can imagine at 120, 130, the

16:44

airplane's really hard to really move.

16:46

Well, what happens if you're going 1,000

16:48

mph? Um you could be Arnold

16:50

Schwarzenegger, you do not have the

16:51

strength to maneuver these controls

16:53

around. So this airplane has a very very

16:56

exotic hydraulic system and an computer

16:59

system and an electric system that

17:00

allows all that to operate. From the

17:02

hydraulics, I'm not kidding, there's

17:04

like 4,000 PSI of hydraulic fluid uh

17:08

that moves this whole thing around,

17:10

swings it back and forth.

17:12

Um from the electric standpoint, now

17:14

again, this is a reversible flight

17:16

control system, all manual. Um the

17:18

flight controls in this airplane don't

17:19

work unless the electrics are turned on

17:21

to go do it. Uh so your flight controls

17:25

are electrically

17:27

controlled, hydraulically powered but

17:29

electrically controlled, which is a

17:30

little weird when you think about it

17:33

because now all of a sudden electrical

17:35

problems in this airplane start

17:37

impacting your ability to fly the

17:39

airplane, which gets a little bit

17:41

strange. Um you guys ever hear of a

17:43

thing called a permanent magnetic

17:44

generator? Do you know what that is? A

17:46

little bit of a technical term.

17:48

Who knows? You know a lot, go ahead. Uh

17:50

is it a type of Is it a type of

17:52

generator that uses permanent magnets to

17:54

Outstanding. Yes, you have correctly

17:56

derived the definition of a permanent

17:58

magnetic generator. Now, the way it

18:00

works is um

18:03

this airplane has six permanent magnetic

18:04

generators. They are the primary source

18:06

of flight control power. All that has to

18:09

happen is the engines have to rotate.

18:11

That's it. So even if the engines are

18:13

shut down, I can just keep wind going

18:14

through the engines and they rotate.

18:16

They will rotate sufficient to generate

18:18

power from the permanent magnetic

18:19

generators. If those fail, the airplane

18:22

also has electrical generators on board.

18:24

There's two of them. There's actually

18:25

three of them on board. They can power

18:27

the flight controls as well. Worst case

18:29

scenario for a Raptor pilot, the engines

18:31

seize up, I lose my electrical power,

18:33

the only thing I have left is a battery.

18:35

And just like anything else battery, the

18:37

more you use it, the more it depletes.

18:38

So at that point, any deflection of the

18:40

flight control surfaces depletes the

18:42

electrical energy and you don't have

18:43

that much left to actually control it.

18:46

Okay, one last thing here, we'll move on

18:47

to the next slide. We'll talk a little

18:49

bit some just some definitions. Um the

18:52

wing has this thing on the front. You

18:53

know what that is what that's called?

18:55

Leading edge flaps, right? Okay,

18:57

perfect. All right. What's that called?

19:00

Ailerons. Um

19:02

now

19:03

What I What I hear I heard something

19:03

else. Flaps.

19:05

Ah, who who said that?

19:07

Ah, okay. Explain.

19:08

Uh it's a it's combination of both flap

19:10

and aileron. Um

19:12

flaps are on the outside, ailerons are

19:14

on the inside. And no, did I get that

19:17

backwards? Yep. All the way around.

19:19

Other way around, yeah. Yep. And um

19:21

depending on which you're doing of

19:22

flight you're you're in, you either have

19:24

full use of

19:25

control surfaces or part of it is

19:27

dedicated to being the flap and part of

19:28

it is dedicated to being the ailerons.

19:30

Yeah.

19:31

Outstanding. That's good. In this

19:33

airplane, this airplane has what?

19:35

Ailerons, right?

19:36

So if I want to go right and I move the

19:38

yoke right, what happens to the ailerons

19:41

here in this airplane?

19:42

Sorry, I'll put it that way, that way

19:44

you're set up. So I'm going this way. So

19:45

this aileron is doing what? Going down.

19:48

Going down, right? This aileron is doing

19:49

what? Up. Up, right? Um

19:53

So I'll cut to the chase.

19:55

These are ailerons. These are So, these

19:57

are the flaperons. Here in the inside,

19:59

these are the ailerons.

20:01

Um

20:01

in a Raptor uh those ailerons deflect

20:04

differentially. So, just like you have

20:06

in a Cessna, they can also both deflect

20:08

up. They can also both deflect down. The

20:12

flaps on the inboard are flaps and

20:14

ailerons, flaperons. So, they can

20:16

deflect up and they can deflect down.

20:19

We'll show why. That brings up some neat

20:21

stuff. Okay? Rudder, obviously, back

20:24

here.

20:25

Um in this airplane, when I push the

20:27

rudder left, the rudder deflects left. I

20:29

deflect right. Um this has two rudders.

20:32

Uh both rudders can deflect one way.

20:33

They can deflect the other way. They can

20:35

both deflect in, and there's some

20:37

reasons why you'd want to do that. And

20:39

they can both deflect out.

20:41

Uh the last piece I'll give you is uh

20:44

back here. Normally, this would be

20:45

called an elevator. But on a supersonic

20:47

airplane, we call these uh horizontal

20:49

stabilizers. Uh if you guys have read

20:51

the story of the Bell X-1, so Chuck

20:54

Yeager, when he went supersonic, we

20:56

talked a little bit earlier about

20:57

supersonic shock waves forming on the

20:59

airplane as you start going fast. Um

21:01

what Chuck Yeager discovered is that the

21:03

elevator, like in a traditional Cessna

21:06

that horizontal stabilizer does not

21:08

move. So, the elevator at the back

21:11

moves, but the horiz- but it but this

21:13

part stays fixed. That shock wave that

21:15

would form right here would actually

21:17

blank the air back to the elevator, and

21:20

they wouldn't have any pitch control.

21:22

So, when they talk about this thing

21:23

called Mach tuck, which was a scary

21:25

scary thing that happened to a lot of

21:27

World War fighter pilots when they got

21:29

into a dive

21:30

um they would start forming shock waves

21:31

on the airplane. They didn't have the

21:33

elevator authority to pull up, and so

21:35

they would actually nose dive all the

21:36

way in cuz they go faster and faster and

21:37

faster heading down. The answer was,

21:40

rather than the back end of this thing

21:42

maneuvering, the entire surface moves.

21:46

So, as a fighter pilot, especially when

21:48

you got people walking underneath the

21:49

airplane because their maintainers are

21:51

working on things, you always always

21:53

always you show them your hands because

21:54

if you tap that stick, again, the stick

21:57

is not directly connected just like it

21:58

is. The stick is connected to a

22:00

computer. The computer votes and allows

22:02

things to happen. It then commands a

22:03

4,000 hydraulic PSI system to deflect

22:06

basically this big old wing. You can

22:07

actually take a guy's head off um with

22:09

the flight control surfaces. So, you

22:10

always always show your hands whenever

22:12

you have people walking underneath the

22:13

airplane for that. So, it's got a very

22:16

very advanced flight control system on

22:18

board. We'll talk through a little bit

22:19

about what advantages that kind of gives

22:21

you.

22:22

Last piece I'll give you is the engines

22:25

at the back, um

22:27

which are a thing of beauty. I was a

22:28

propulsion guy, aeronautics engineer

22:30

kind of thing.

22:31

Um

22:32

it's almost like modern art masterpiece

22:33

to me. Um

22:35

those engines uh are have the ability to

22:37

call what's called thrust vectoring.

22:39

They'll swing up and they'll swing down.

22:42

Uh where would you want to use that? Why

22:44

does he Why do the engines have thrust

22:46

vectoring?

22:47

You've answered a lot, Meg.

22:48

You're smart though. You know what's

22:49

going on. Go ahead. Uh very low speeds.

22:52

Very low speeds. Outstanding, yep.

22:53

Where's it Where's another regime?

22:55

Think of the flight envelope of the

22:56

airplane.

22:58

What if

22:59

Yeah, very high altitude.

23:00

Very high altitude. So, so why high

23:01

altitudes?

23:04

Uh little lift from the wings or the

23:05

wings could be Yep. Yeah, yeah. Density

23:09

goes way down as you go up in altitude.

23:11

So, if I deflect this I mean, I have to

23:12

get more deflection to move that air to

23:15

be able to move the airplane if I'm

23:16

relying just on the aero surfaces alone.

23:19

The way I get around that is I put two

23:21

35,000 thrust pound engines, if you

23:24

will, uh on board the airplane. And just

23:26

like a fire hose, if I grab a fire hose

23:27

and I move it, you would feel that

23:29

torque on your body. The same thing here

23:31

uh with with the thrust vectoring on the

23:33

back. So, with just the movement of my

23:36

hand, I can deflect 70,000 lbs of thrust

23:38

um way at the back end of the airplane.

23:40

So, we talked about center of gravity

23:42

being right about here. So, that moment

23:45

arm of that thrust force is all the way

23:47

back here, and I can deflect that up.

23:48

And at very very low speeds where the

23:51

flight control surfaces might not be

23:52

doing well I can still move the airplane

23:55

just by using the the thrust alone. At

23:58

high altitude where I don't have a lot

23:59

of density, same thing. I can maneuver

24:01

the airplane just by using the thrust

24:03

alone. So, where that helps you, cuz

24:06

again, this is a dog fighter.

24:07

Um

24:08

here's what happens, and you'll you'll

24:09

see this from time to time. So, I'll do

24:10

this with the side look. When I get to

24:13

high angle of attack, so the wind is

24:14

coming like this and it's hitting the

24:16

bottom surface of the airplane um I

24:19

don't have the ability to really

24:21

maneuver a lot because sometimes some

24:23

aero surfaces are blanked by just the

24:25

the size of that fuselage coming right

24:27

out into the wing. So, I I cheat, if you

24:29

will, by using the engines to get that

24:31

final little pitch rate. We'll see later

24:33

on in the Raptor demo video where the

24:35

airplane will go It's called a high

24:37

alpha loop, high angle of attack loop.

24:39

It'll go vertical

24:41

um and rather than doing like a loop

24:42

where you see it prescribe this whole

24:44

path over here, the airplane will go

24:46

vertical. I'll engage the thrust

24:48

vectoring, and it'll pivot. So, the

24:49

velocity vector is still heading

24:51

straight up, so the airplane is still

24:52

moving up, but it kind of does this

24:54

gymnastics thing where I've now turned

24:57

the airplane using thrust vectoring even

24:58

though the airplane is still heading

24:59

straight up. It's wacky.

25:02

It's totally cool. All right.

25:06

All right, let's talk through a couple

25:08

other things.

25:09

Okay, so that's the flight controls. How

25:11

are we doing timeline? Okay, we're

25:12

looking pretty good.

25:13

Okay.

25:14

Okay.

25:15

Anyone recognize the cockpit on uh your

25:18

left?

25:21

F-15. F-15? Yeah, outstanding. Good.

25:23

This is my very first airplane. I didn't

25:25

know any better, right? I sat down and

25:27

said, "Wow, what a cool cockpit. Look at

25:29

all these cool stuff, buttons everywhere

25:30

and switches all over the place." Um

25:33

this is an airplane of the '70s. Uh

25:35

designed when uh Richard Nixon, Jimmy

25:38

Carter, that kind of era, if you will.

25:40

Uh

25:41

very very first intro to solid-state

25:44

electronics. Really wasn't fully fleshed

25:46

out at this stage. Um this airplane had

25:48

a hydromechanical system, which meant

25:50

that just like in this airplane where

25:51

there were cables and pulleys, um the

25:53

similar kind of flight control system in

25:55

it there. Um this picture is the

25:58

Raptor's cockpit on the inside. Some

26:00

pretty dramatic differences between the

26:02

two. So, again, just call them out. What

26:04

What What do you see?

26:06

Glass cockpit. Glass cockpit. Where does

26:08

that help you?

26:11

Glass cockpit.

26:14

Go ahead. You're doing well. It's

26:15

Multi-display. What's up? You can be

26:17

multi-display. You can change it to

26:19

Oh, yeah. It's great. You can see these

26:21

new digital cockpit uh Mercedes-Benzes

26:23

and BMWs or whatever where like in the

26:25

old days you just had, you know, speed

26:26

and tach, if you will. Now, you can

26:28

configure it however you want. Um now,

26:30

these become the moment you start

26:32

putting that in there No, got it. Yeah,

26:35

the moment you start doing stuff like

26:36

that, um you start creating a software

26:39

airplane, which gives you a lot of

26:40

flexibility and a danger, right? We'll

26:43

talk about that one a little bit later

26:44

on. What else do you see?

26:48

Flight controls-wise, since we're

26:49

talking mainly about flight controls

26:50

today.

26:52

Side stick. Side stick. Yeah. So

26:55

right there

26:58

is the control stick in an F-15. It sits

27:01

directly between your knees.

27:03

Um in a Raptor

27:05

that is your control stick. It's on the

27:07

side.

27:08

Why would you ever want to put something

27:10

like that on the side? Go ahead.

27:11

I can't use I can't move my head.

27:14

That's part of it. That helps. And

27:15

there's actually you can't see it here.

27:17

It's partly there, but kind of this

27:18

little section here It's a fold-out

27:19

armrest. So, your wrist is on the stick.

27:22

Your your elbow is, if you will, it's

27:25

resting on an armrest. So, it gives you

27:26

a lot of leverage from there. Um that's

27:28

one reason. What's couple other reasons

27:30

why you'd want to go side stick versus

27:31

center stick? Your legs get in the way

27:33

on the center stick.

27:33

Legs get in the way. That's a big deal.

27:36

Um because in this airplane

27:38

you actually got got pretty good after a

27:40

while flying it where if you really need

27:41

to maneuver the stick, you'd kind of do

27:42

the leg up and kind of move over that

27:44

way to get everything out of the way. Um

27:46

the other side about it, too, it might

27:47

not be quite so obvious, but you see how

27:49

that stick That's about where your eye

27:51

height would be. Um you see how that

27:53

stick kind of gets in the way of seeing

27:54

some of the instruments?

27:56

So, it it's just sitting right there,

27:57

right? In a side stick, um that's

27:59

completely off to the side, and all of

28:01

this real estate is completely open.

28:04

Um the other thing I'll give you again,

28:05

just for sake of time,

28:06

uh it's it's a little bit of a thought

28:09

change.

28:10

Um when you have a center stick

28:14

it's like when you're driving a car

28:16

and when you're at parking, you know,

28:19

you're trying to park your car, you want

28:20

to be able to maneuver that wheel around

28:22

a lot. Uh but when you're at highway

28:25

speeds, if you were to take the wheel

28:26

and maneuver it that much again, you're

28:28

going to roll the car. Um so in a center

28:32

stick you move the stick around to be

28:36

able to deflect the flight control

28:37

surfaces. There's a physical

28:38

displacement of the stick to make that

28:40

happen. On a side stick, that stick,

28:43

initially when they first put it in, um

28:45

did not move at all. So, imagine if you

28:49

were in your car when you wanted to

28:50

steer, and rather than the wheel

28:52

actually moving, you just put pressure

28:54

on the wheel itself, and that was enough

28:55

to transmit to the computer in the car

28:57

to turn the wheels.

28:59

Uh that was a problem initially,

29:02

uh which we can talk about after the

29:03

presentation. That's a little bit of a

29:04

sidebar discussion. This is a human

29:06

factors thing. It's a side stick.

29:09

Initially, it didn't move. Eventually,

29:10

they decided I'll put in some

29:12

deflection, so I can go a half inch

29:13

left, a half inch right, about a quarter

29:16

inch forward because normally uh you

29:19

know, I go about a half inch back

29:20

because normally I really want to get

29:21

the nose going this way. Um if I had

29:23

that much deflection forward, I don't

29:24

want to fly the airplane this way. So,

29:26

you have the ability to do that. Um but

29:28

it gives you a little bit of the best of

29:29

both worlds. There's some deflection to

29:31

give you feedback that you've input

29:33

something on the stick, but not so much

29:35

deflection that it kind of gets in the

29:36

way of everything else you're trying to

29:38

do. So, there's limited real estate in a

29:39

fighter cockpit.

29:41

Uh the last piece I'll give you, and

29:42

it's a little bit hard to see here, is

29:44

um Um, all those buttons there on the

29:47

stick,

29:48

uh, you know,

29:49

what you have the ability to do, so it's

29:51

it's exactly like modern cars car

29:54

steering wheels right now. You can

29:55

control volume, radio, everything else

29:57

like that. You can do it from the

29:58

steering wheel. Same thing in a fighter.

30:00

It's called hands-on throttle and stick,

30:02

HOTAS, and it allows you to control

30:04

everything that you would want to do on

30:05

the airplane with never having to leave

30:08

uh, your your hands from the throttle

30:10

and the stick. Uh, the other piece I'll

30:11

give you is that in a Raptor, so in a

30:13

fighter like this this is your stick,

30:15

this is your throttle. In a Raptor,

30:18

because the flight control modes can

30:19

change so much, this is your right

30:21

inceptor and this is your left inceptor.

30:25

It's all considered part of the flight

30:26

control system.

30:28

All right, let's keep going.

30:31

So,

30:32

um,

30:32

just like on your car where if you want

30:34

to go to XM radio, you go to media

30:37

source or whatever and go XM satellite

30:40

radio. Um, you have buttons because it's

30:41

a software driven jet just like we saw

30:44

before and I can pull up a flight

30:45

control display uh, that shows me the

30:47

position of all my flight control

30:49

surfaces. Again,

30:51

um, the pilot is way forward on the

30:53

front end of this airplane. As I deflect

30:55

things, sometimes I can't actually see

30:57

them.

30:58

And so initially this was a flight test

30:59

display. So but I don't have to do the

31:01

old poltergeist thing and try to rotate

31:03

all the way around to be able to see to

31:04

the back end of the airplane to see if

31:06

the elevator's moving.

31:07

Uh, I basically instrument everything

31:09

and I can see it here. Now, some of the

31:11

human factor stuff that's kind of cool

31:13

with how they did this,

31:15

so this right here,

31:17

so again, this tells you at the top uh,

31:19

rudder deflection surfaces, ailerons,

31:22

where the horizontal stabilizers are at,

31:24

how the engines are doing. This is a

31:25

little weird. I don't I don't really

31:27

like how they did this one, but this is

31:28

the leading edge flaps, LE flaps or

31:30

leading edge flaps, so it just shows you

31:31

how far they're deflected, dug in, dug

31:33

down. Um, on the lower left-hand corner

31:36

it shows you center of gravity.

31:38

So there's limits.

31:40

Uh, just like what you you know, what

31:41

you would normally do on flight planning

31:42

for your Cessna. Hey, I can only put

31:44

this much fuel with this much passengers

31:45

and I got to be within this limit for

31:47

takeoff for landing and everything else.

31:48

Uh, the airplane tells you that. Now

31:50

what's cool about some of the things

31:51

they've done in Raptor is that if it's

31:53

out of limits, again, it doesn't expect

31:55

you to get out the piece of paper with

31:56

the whiz wheel and the E6B. It just

31:58

changes color and it goes red and it

32:00

gives you a warning, right? And it says,

32:02

"Hey idiot, um, you are beyond the aft

32:05

center of gravity. Um, no gauge tells

32:07

you it's just having a hard time seeing

32:09

where all the fuel is and everything

32:10

else. That's a different story. But it

32:11

tells you where what percentage of mean

32:14

aerodynamic cord that you're sitting at

32:16

um, and it's able to adjust stuff

32:17

around. So,

32:19

I'll give that to you because what this

32:20

allows is uh, oh by the way, the last

32:22

part here is flight control. So in other

32:23

words, this tells you where you've moved

32:25

your stick and it tells you trim. So you

32:27

know where the trim is set and also

32:29

tells you where the stick is set. So you

32:30

know your inputs that kind of go through

32:32

there. When you have a software driven

32:34

machine, you can customize things and

32:37

make it very simple.

32:38

Uh, you guys have seen that terrible

32:40

terrible awful movie Top Gun, right?

32:42

It's just awful, right? So that scene

32:44

where Maverick loses his engines and

32:47

they go through this engine one is out,

32:48

engine two is out and they go on this

32:50

flat spin to sea, which is a bunch of

32:52

BS. When you're in a spin, you don't

32:54

translate over the ground, you fall

32:56

straight down. So, this whole flying out

32:58

to sea thing is ridiculous. Doesn't

32:59

happen that way. Um,

33:02

in if you don't have a software driven

33:04

airplane when you lose engines like

33:05

that, then you've got to go through this

33:06

whole It's like in a for instance in the

33:08

Cessna, if you lose a motor, lose the

33:10

motor,

33:11

uh, what do you got to do, right?

33:12

Establish your glide, get everything set

33:13

up, check to see am I left, right, or

33:15

both on the fuel source, what's my

33:17

whatever, blah blah blah and everything

33:18

else. Um, in the Raptor, it's the most

33:20

awesome thing possible. You literally do

33:22

nothing.

33:23

You sit there and the computer goes,

33:25

"Oh, you've lost a motor. I've noticed

33:27

that you have a problem. Let me see if I

33:28

can help you." And it will restart the

33:30

motor for you if it can, right? If it if

33:32

it can't restart the motor, chances are

33:33

it ain't going to restart and you can

33:34

just leave it shut down if you will. Um,

33:37

it allows some neat human factor designs

33:39

because in this airplane in the Raptor,

33:42

believe it or not, when you're flying

33:43

the Raptor, you're not

33:45

thinking about flying the Raptor. You're

33:46

thinking about employing the Raptor. So

33:49

you're trying to find where all of your

33:50

wingmates are, where the bad guys are,

33:52

etc. etc. Flying is secondary.

33:56

Whereas in this plane, flying is

33:58

everything.

33:59

Um, so they tried to as much as possible

34:01

alleviate the pilot from as much burden

34:03

of responsibility of thinking about

34:05

flying the airplane by doing kind of

34:06

neat little tricks like that.

34:08

Uh, the other thing I'll give you too

34:09

about the flight controls is again, we

34:10

talked about how ailerons can go up,

34:13

ailerons can come down. Flapperons go

34:15

up, they go down. Rudders come out, go

34:17

down. On takeoff mode,

34:19

I'll show you something kind of cool.

34:21

So,

34:22

here's the nose look on here. On takeoff

34:25

mode without any input from the pilot,

34:27

so there's no flap switch in the

34:29

cockpit, there's no leading edge There's

34:30

nothing. There's nothing like that. Um,

34:32

it just knows based on the fact that

34:34

you've got the gear handle down and that

34:36

you're on the ground and it senses the

34:38

weight on wheels, it thinks this guy

34:39

wants to take off. So, the rudders will

34:42

both deflect inward. Why would you do

34:44

that?

34:46

Go on. Is it a good time to

34:48

um,

34:49

sort of rev up to the um, thrust level

34:52

that would allow takeoff so that you use

34:54

a shorter runway? So, um,

34:56

not quite. Um,

34:58

there is a tie between the flight

34:59

controls though. So in other words, if I

35:00

take the rudders and I tow them both in,

35:03

so both rudders are deflected in,

35:05

what does that do from an aerodynamic

35:07

standpoint?

35:08

Which way is the nose going to go if

35:10

these rudders are deflected in?

35:12

Up, right? So it makes it easier to

35:15

rotate the airplane on takeoff because

35:17

the rudders are deflecting in. Both of

35:19

them go in, right? Uh, the other part

35:21

about it too is,

35:23

so we talked about this. You You guys

35:24

ever see like a competition aerobatic

35:26

like one of those extra 300 kind of

35:28

airplanes? See how the aileron runs the

35:30

entire length of the whole wing? So that

35:32

the pilot all they got to do is just tap

35:34

the wing and the airplane is going to do

35:35

corkscrews and spirals. On a Raptor,

35:38

that's part of the reason why the

35:39

aileron and the flapperon can move

35:40

together as one surface. And so the

35:43

leading edge flaps will dig in, the

35:45

trailing aileron and the trailing edge

35:48

flap, that will dig in as well. So, on

35:51

takeoff

35:52

with no input from the pilot,

35:55

whereas the wing normally would look

35:57

sort of like this with a little bit of

35:58

camber on it, on takeoff, the wing looks

36:01

like this.

36:04

It's kind of cool like when you look at

36:05

it from the side.

36:06

So if you're looking at it from

36:08

directly side on, that leading edge flap

36:10

comes down, these come down, that puts

36:12

in a whole bunch of camber on the wing

36:15

and it generates a lot of lift. So and

36:18

again, that's completely independent of

36:19

the pilot. The pilot has done nothing

36:21

other than just tell it I'm on the

36:22

ground because the gear handle is down.

36:25

Last Last, what's it What would be What

36:27

would be a typical rotation speed? Yeah,

36:30

so that's a good question. What do you

36:31

guys think?

36:33

So I start on the runway. By the way, I

36:34

need 8,000 ft of runway. This whole

36:36

2,500 ft is not for a Raptor,

36:38

unfortunately.

36:39

Um, 8,000 ft of runway, but by the time

36:41

I actually get ready to pull back on

36:42

that stick to rotate, um, how fast do

36:45

you think it's going?

36:50

I wish.

36:52

Well, of course, 150 is a usual usually

36:55

so about takeoff weights. By the way,

36:57

this airplane is about 34, 35 tons on

37:01

takeoff compared to like, you know,

37:03

2,500 lbs or whatever.

37:05

Um, so it's a very heavy airplane. Uh,

37:08

it's got to get a lot of speed to be

37:09

able to get that rotation. That's about

37:10

150, 160 knots uh, on takeoff, which is

37:14

like faster than like the never exceed

37:15

speed of the Cessna

37:17

uh, as it goes.

37:18

Um, but yeah, so the flight controls are

37:20

are there to help you. Um, the other

37:21

thing I'll show you too is uh, there is

37:23

so sailplane guys. Where are my

37:25

sailplane guys? Anybody fly sailplanes?

37:27

So, on the left

37:29

in a sailplane cockpit, you typically

37:30

have a lever for the speed brakes,

37:32

spoilers, right? So these big surfaces

37:34

that pop up on the wing to slow the

37:36

airplane down, adjust glide slopes and

37:38

those sorts of things.

37:39

Um, we talked a little bit earlier about

37:41

how the electrical engineer guys want

37:42

this thing to be completely stealthy and

37:44

whatever else. The last thing you want

37:46

to do, based on the discussion we just

37:47

had, is I don't want to have a big board

37:50

stick up in the middle of this airplane

37:51

because that's going to make my radar

37:52

reflection go very very large. So they

37:54

did something kind of remarkable. They

37:56

used the flight control surfaces

37:58

themselves as the speed brakes.

38:01

So if I need to slow the airplane down,

38:03

I hit a little switch on the throttle

38:05

and immediately what happens is

38:07

uh, the leading edge flaps will come

38:08

down a bit, the ailerons will both go

38:11

up.

38:12

Um, the rudders will go out, so they'll

38:15

both tow out. Um, and it's it's using

38:17

that to help slow the airplane kind of

38:19

down. It's actually quite effective

38:21

uh, which is pretty cool.

38:24

All right, couple other things we'll go

38:25

through.

38:27

Landing mode.

38:29

Pilot's done nothing. Touchdown.

38:31

Throttles are back.

38:33

Gear handle's down.

38:34

And all of this stuff happens here. Let

38:36

me get this zoomed in here.

38:38

So, that's the aileron. It's up. Holy

38:41

crap, the other one's up, too.

38:43

Um, the flapperon goes up on either

38:45

side. Um, the rudders, you can see how

38:47

they're both kind of kind of towing in

38:49

there a little bit. Um, the reason it's

38:51

doing that is it's trying to transfer

38:53

all of that weight from the wings and

38:55

put it into the gear. So it's trying to

38:57

kill all of the lift on the wings and

38:59

transfer that to the landing gear so

39:00

that you have the maximum traction on

39:03

the wheels as you hit the brakes as you

39:04

slow down.

39:07

Also on

39:09

uh, refueling,

39:12

so when you go air refueling, there's a

39:13

little switch

39:15

uh, that you open in the jet, that opens

39:17

up this door, that tells the jet that

39:19

I'm getting ready to refuel while I'm

39:20

airborne. When it does that, it says,

39:22

"This guy isn't trying to dog fight the

39:24

airplane anymore. They're trying to get

39:25

gas, so therefore I don't need all the

39:27

full roll capability and everything else

39:29

and really what I really want is an

39:31

airplane that's really responsive with

39:32

its lift." And so again, no input from

39:36

the pilot, but the leading edge flaps

39:38

will deploy down, the trailing edge

39:40

flaps and the ailerons will also deploy

39:41

down. Again, they're trying to create

39:43

camber on that wing. This is all digital

39:45

flight controls. No input from the pilot

39:47

whatsoever. What would a typical

39:49

airspeed be when doing this air

39:51

refueling? Uh this is about Oops, I'm

39:53

sorry. Let me go back one here.

39:56

This is about uh about 300 300 knots or

39:59

so something like that. Um you got to be

40:01

able to fly So, for a Raptor, that's

40:03

kind of slow. Um for the tanker

40:05

airplane, that's somewhat fast. Um so,

40:07

you're trying to find that marriage

40:08

where both airplanes have good flying

40:10

qualities so that one's not about to

40:12

stall and the other one's in full power

40:14

trying to catch up to them.

40:16

By the way, the most unnatural act I've

40:18

ever done as a fighter pilot is to

40:20

connect up my airplane to another

40:21

airplane. I just never got used to it. I

40:23

can do it just fine, but the whole

40:25

notion of this big boom connecting my

40:27

airplane to a big airliner was just

40:29

really strange and weird to me. Never

40:31

got used to it.

40:33

Okay, some of the limiters. So,

40:36

in an F-15 cuz we talked to that a

40:38

little bit earlier. F-15 can you can get

40:40

up to 500 600 miles an hour. You can

40:42

take both hands on the stick. You can

40:44

pull that stick all the way back and you

40:46

will rip the wings off the airplane. And

40:48

you will turn it into a big ball of

40:49

metal cascading down to the ground

40:51

because you have over-G'd the airplane.

40:54

Um again, that awful terrible movie Top

40:57

Gun in which Tom Cruise departs the

40:58

airplane and gets into a spin. Uh again,

41:01

you've exceeded some capability of the

41:03

airplane and the airplane departs

41:04

controlled flight and gets into some

41:06

type of uncontrolled situation. On a

41:08

Raptor, there used to be in the pilot

41:10

operating manual a little blurb that

41:12

said, quote, "You can maneuver this

41:14

airplane with quote reckless abandon um

41:18

and you will not over-G the airplane.

41:20

You will not depart the airplane from

41:21

controlled flight." They did a

41:23

spectacular

41:25

job uh allowing this airplane to get

41:27

right to the edge of performance but not

41:29

going over the top. So, one of the neat

41:33

things that they did,

41:35

airplanes in a left-hand turn. Look at

41:36

that aileron. It's up.

41:39

Look at that aileron. It's up.

41:42

What the crap is going on there?

41:45

And if you know this one, you really do

41:46

get the model.

41:49

Cuz I didn't know this for a long time.

41:53

So, again, just for sake of time cuz I

41:54

know we got guys coming in afterwards,

41:56

center of gravity

41:58

of the airplane sits right here.

42:00

Um in your engineering classes, you

42:01

always talk about forces acting on the

42:04

center of gravity and you kind of take

42:05

this whole airplane and you model it

42:06

down to a point mass. And you say that's

42:08

what's that's you know, for for sake of

42:10

all the the you know, sum of forces

42:12

analysis. Well, in real life, uh this

42:14

airplane's about 43 ft wide. Um yeah,

42:18

you can sum the forces through there,

42:20

but there's forces acting all over this

42:21

airplane at different spots. Think about

42:24

here on the wingtip. Um I put G on the

42:26

airplane and this wingtip, it's almost

42:29

like the wings want to bend up right as

42:31

I'm coming down. So, you put a lot of

42:33

stress out on the wingtips. So, their

42:35

answer, quite ingeniously, was to

42:38

deflect the ailerons down when you're at

42:40

high maneuvering. The way you know

42:41

you're at high maneuvering is you can

42:42

kind of see these little wispies forming

42:44

off the wingtips. So, you are creating

42:47

low pressure. That's another one, too.

42:48

You can see the clouds forming on the

42:49

front edge of the wing. Low pressure um

42:52

causes that air to condense and so you

42:53

make clouds. So, you know the airplane's

42:55

really maneuvering up. And in answer to

42:57

reduce stress at the wingtips, was to

43:00

deflect the ailerons up. What happens to

43:02

the lift out at the wingtips with the

43:03

ailerons up?

43:06

Goes down, right? So, it helps to kind

43:08

of

43:08

push those wings back down again. So,

43:10

you're not trying to overstress the

43:11

airplane. Um there are limiters uh like

43:14

this all over the airplane such that you

43:16

won't over-G the airplane. You can't um

43:18

you know, literally, you can do anything

43:19

you want to this airplane. That's what

43:20

I'm telling you. It's easier to fly a

43:22

Raptor than it is to fly a Cessna

43:25

because you really have to pay attention

43:26

to what you're doing in a Cessna. In a

43:27

Raptor, I could put my kid in there and

43:29

he can do this all day at whatever speed

43:30

and nothing bad will happen to the

43:32

airplane. It's really quite spectacular

43:34

how they did that.

43:36

Uh the other part I'll give you here is

43:38

some of the command systems. So, if I'm

43:39

in a dogfight and I'm trying to shoot

43:41

the other guy, I'm going against a

43:43

maneuvering target. And so, the flight

43:46

controls transfer over to what's called

43:48

a G command system. So, if I'm

43:51

maneuvering at 4 Gs and I let go of the

43:53

stick, the airplane will stay at 4 Gs.

43:55

And if I see that the target's

43:56

maneuvering, I need to go to 6 Gs or 7

43:58

Gs, I'll put that in and the airplane

43:59

will keep that. So, in other words,

44:01

again, it's a vote, right? I'm not

44:03

physically connected to anything. I talk

44:04

to the computer and I say I want 6 Gs

44:07

and the airplane does all types of black

44:08

magic and sorcery behind me. And lo and

44:11

behold, the airplane gets to 6 to 7 Gs.

44:13

Um that really matters when you're in a

44:15

high maneuvering kind of situation. So,

44:16

it goes G command. Um when you're

44:19

slower, i.e., on landing, and I want to

44:22

put that flight path marker right on

44:25

that edge of the runway cuz that's where

44:26

I want to touch down right at the

44:27

1,000-ft markers, uh

44:30

then in that scenario, I'm not really

44:31

cared so much about G command. I care

44:34

about pitch rate. And so, it transitions

44:36

over to a pitch rate command. And if I

44:38

put no input on the stick, it says zero

44:40

pitch rate. Again, black magic and

44:42

sorcery will happen behind me. The

44:44

flight controls will do whatever they

44:45

need to do to make sure that my pitch

44:47

rate stays at zero. So, it transitions

44:49

from one type of flight control system

44:50

to the other. No pilot input whatsoever.

44:52

It's just based off of flight flight

44:54

command system.

44:57

All right. So, let's talk through a

44:58

couple of the implications of that and

44:59

then we'll go to questions at the end.

45:01

Um

45:03

Can you do the flight control video

45:04

Raptor at the top? It's about a minute.

45:07

And then

45:08

bring it up to full screen and hit

45:09

pause.

45:27

Thank you.

45:28

Okay, this one is uh full screen and

45:31

pause. Okay. And can you go back to the

45:32

beginning on it real quick?

45:36

Okay.

45:37

So, video in cockpit facing display

45:40

screens is a big no-no uh because you

45:42

could see stuff. So, we won't even

45:43

bother with that. Uh but what they did,

45:45

this is the Raptor flight demonstration

45:47

team. This is out of Langley Air Force

45:49

Base, Virginia. They mounted a camera in

45:50

the cockpit kind of facing aft. What I

45:52

love about this is again, you can see

45:55

real quick kind of what's going on with

45:56

the airplane. So, again, the leading

45:58

edge slats, there's no input from the

46:01

pilot other than just maneuvering.

46:02

They'll deploy wherever they need to.

46:04

You'll see the horizontal stabilators

46:06

and if you're close, you can actually

46:07

see what the ailerons are doing and what

46:08

the flaperons are doing. Um a neat trick

46:11

and we'll see this as they go into this

46:12

high-G demo.

46:15

Um you guys know about Have you This

46:17

gets a little bit advanced, but a thing

46:18

called static margin,

46:20

uh which is a stability thing about this

46:22

airplane. Again, this airplane in its

46:24

bare airframe configuration, no

46:26

hydraulics, no computers, nothing on

46:28

board the airplane, totally unstable. Um

46:31

what keeps it stable is the computer

46:32

itself. Um what you'll see is you'll see

46:35

this maneuver where he'll go into a G

46:36

turn and you'll see all those clouds

46:38

forming on the back end of the airplane.

46:39

Pay attention to what the leading edge

46:41

flaps are doing. They're digging in. The

46:43

horizontal stabilators, um you'll see

46:46

them initially move to get the turn

46:47

going, but then once established in the

46:49

turn, um the way it's controlling things

46:52

is it's moving around the uh aerodynamic

46:54

center and the the center of gravity.

46:57

It's doing that by dorking around a bit

46:59

with the lift on the wing and it's doing

47:00

that by deflecting the leading edge

47:01

flaps. So, that flight control surface

47:03

display I showed you earlier, the

47:04

horizontal stabilators will be

47:06

completely streamlined. And all of the

47:08

maneuvering is coming from the wing

47:09

itself, which is pretty amazing.

47:12

The next video? No, no, go go to flight

47:14

controls. We'll watch that.

47:15

I'll go back. Okay. Yep. And then we'll

47:16

just kind of watch as it goes through.

47:18

This time without the funky club music,

47:20

I guess hopefully.

47:45

Incidentally, watch flight controls in

47:47

the back.

47:49

Oh man, you need You need somebody

47:50

better here.

47:51

I know, totally.

47:58

So, at that speed again, it's a G

47:59

command system. Pilot is commanding a

48:01

certain G rate and minor deflections are

48:04

happening all the way here back along

48:05

the back edge of the airplane. Pilot has

48:07

no input on that. The system is doing

48:09

everything possible to command that G

48:11

that the pilot has asked for.

48:15

You'll see one other maneuver here.

48:16

Pause for a second.

48:19

So, what this maneuver is is and again,

48:22

right, slow speed, um airplane's going

48:25

straight up and what they're trying to

48:27

do is basically pitch forward completely

48:29

um and get the airplane So, it's almost

48:31

like you're flying an L. Like you're

48:32

going straight up and then you want to

48:33

pitch forward and then accelerate out

48:35

horizontally that way. Um the way it

48:37

gets that is through that that thrust

48:39

vector and that happens. But as that

48:40

maneuver happens, again, all the pilot

48:42

is doing is just doing a direct push

48:43

forward on the stick. Watch what happens

48:46

to all the flight controls in the back

48:47

of the airplane to keep that airplane

48:49

going exactly where the air pilot wants

48:50

it to. Play.

48:54

So, you'll see huge deflections out of

48:56

that horizontal stabilator. It's kind of

48:58

neat. You can keep playing.

49:14

So, what you're seeing there is um from

49:15

the outside of the airplane, we'll see

49:16

this more on the demo, is um the

49:19

airplane is essentially pirouetting in

49:21

the sky. So, it's falling straight down,

49:23

but it's very controllable. It's flying

49:24

at speeds about 60 to 65 mph, um but

49:28

very very controllable. And you'll see

49:29

every bit of flight control surface on

49:31

the back end of this airplane deflecting

49:33

to do what it needs to do. So, don't

49:34

think of it in terms of aileron,

49:36

elevator. It's a little bit fluid when

49:38

it comes to a Raptor. It's stuff stuff

49:41

happens back there.

49:42

Touch and go video? Okay, so this shows

49:44

a little bit of Yeah, you can go ahead

49:45

and play that.

49:51

And hit pause for a second. We'll just

49:52

do the setup.

49:55

Okay. So very quick, the setup for this

49:57

video

49:58

this is the downside of a digital flight

50:00

control system

50:01

cuz on this airplane again, it's it's

50:04

pure cables, pulleys, right? It's ratios

50:06

and gears and stuff like that, right?

50:09

This airplane, it's software code. It's

50:12

zeros and ones.

50:13

And you better get it right. And

50:15

everything is interconnected. We talked

50:17

about how moving the gear handle tells

50:19

the flight control system something

50:20

different. If I open the air refueling

50:22

door, it tells the flight control

50:23

something different. In this case, the

50:26

power setting of the airplane

50:28

tells the airplane something different.

50:32

This guy, one of my good friends, test

50:34

pilot, outstanding guy, so don't think

50:35

of this as he's a bad pilot. He's not.

50:37

He's awesome. But the jet believed

50:40

something that wasn't really true

50:42

because there was an error in how the

50:44

software was coded. And you'll see the

50:46

first approach he'll do an approach

50:48

he'll take off again at what's called

50:50

military power, so they're not using

50:51

afterburner.

50:52

And the airplane behaves just fine.

50:55

The next time around he goes around

50:57

using afterburner power, so you'll see

50:58

fire come out of the back end of the

51:00

airplane. And that changes something in

51:02

the flight system for the engines which

51:04

tells the flight control computer a

51:07

different condition. And what ended up

51:08

happening is that the gains, if you

51:11

will, of the stick were completely off.

51:13

So again, this would be like if you were

51:15

on the highway speed and that same wheel

51:17

deflection you would use to park your

51:19

car in your garage, now that little

51:20

deflection of your wheel makes that same

51:22

turn of the tires up front. So you get

51:25

into what's called a pilot induced

51:27

oscillation PIO, which basically says

51:30

you're out of phase with the airplane.

51:31

If I'm driving my car and I turn the

51:32

steering wheel right, the car's going

51:34

left. As it's going left, I'm trying to

51:36

correct it I go right. Now the thing

51:37

goes right. And so you get out of phase

51:39

with the airplane. And you'll see what

51:40

happens. Go ahead and play.

51:42

By the way, you see all the flight

51:43

control surfaces deflecting in the back?

51:45

This is now in a pitch rate system, so

51:46

he's just trying to land the airplane.

51:48

The back of the airplane does whatever

51:50

it needs to do to keep that flight path

51:51

marker exactly where it needs to go.

51:57

And again, all the flight control

51:58

surfaces deflected military power cuz

52:00

the engines are are black, if you will,

52:02

on this one. On the next time around,

52:04

you'll see him maneuver with

52:06

afterburner. And you'll see him get into

52:08

this pitch induced oscillation.

52:18

That's the chase airplane, by the way.

52:19

It's an F-16 that follows him around.

52:29

So same thing getting set up to land.

52:30

The camera goes out of focus here for a

52:32

second, comes back in.

52:34

Again, just notice everything that's

52:35

happening on the back end of this

52:36

airplane to keep that pitch rate where

52:38

the pilot has commanded it to.

52:45

Two things will happen here. He selects

52:46

afterburner and he raises the gear. That

52:48

changes the flight control laws. And the

52:50

gains were not set correctly.

52:53

There's the afterburner. And now you see

52:56

where he's out of phase with the

52:57

airplane.

52:58

And he's doing everything to keep the

52:59

airplane from hitting the ground. And

53:01

can't can't avoid it.

53:04

He's okay.

53:07

But the airplane was fairly well scraped

53:09

up, you can imagine.

53:10

So it's it's just a danger, right? The

53:12

digital flight controls allow a lot of

53:14

flexibility and creativity.

53:16

There used to be a term it's only

53:17

software, you know, we can figure it

53:19

out. Not true when you're dealing with

53:22

you know, vehicles like this where small

53:25

changes in software code can have

53:26

dramatic implications on the ability of

53:28

the airplane. So takes

53:30

amazing amount of uh

53:32

demo? Yep, you can go ahead and do

53:33

Raptor demo. And with that we can go

53:34

questions cuz I'm a little bit over. Uh

53:37

No, it's fine. Okay.

53:40

So we we can play this full speed or

53:41

full full screen, if you will.

53:47

You want to take questions while it's

53:48

running?

53:48

Yeah. Yeah, so this is from another good

53:49

buddy of mine, guy named Zeke Skalicky,

53:52

who was the Raptor demo pilot,

53:53

outstanding guy.

53:54

Um but this is the Raptor demo, if

53:56

you've ever seen it. So we'll we'll take

53:57

some questions while this is going. Go

53:58

ahead.

54:00

So on F-22 Yeah, greater than one to

54:03

one. So the airplane about 63, 64,000 lb

54:07

normally it's on takeoff.

54:09

The thrust coming out the back is 70,000

54:11

lb. So on a nice cold day, like if

54:14

you're close enough to sea level, you

54:16

will actually go faster than the speed

54:17

of sound while you're climbing up. Which

54:21

is cool.

54:23

Yeah, yeah, but please

54:24

thrust vectoring while taking off?

54:27

I Let's try to

54:29

Oh yeah, try to repeat the question if

54:30

you can. Oh, sorry. Cuz he's not miked.

54:33

So the question was Well one, the

54:35

question was is thrust to weight ratio.

54:36

It's greater than one to one, a little

54:38

bit greater than one to one on takeoff.

54:40

By the way, watch this maneuver here

54:41

real quick. So that's the thrust

54:43

vectoring

54:45

kind of kicking in to really get the

54:47

airplane. So initially that's the flight

54:48

control surfaces. And then as things

54:49

slow down, the thrust vectoring kicks in

54:51

to basically turn the airplane into a

54:52

flat plate.

54:55

Second question was about the thrust

54:57

vectoring on takeoff. So it'll put in a

54:59

little bit up, not much, just a little

55:01

bit up just to help the nose rotate.

55:02

Just just a tad.

55:05

This is that high angle of attack kind

55:07

of maneuver, if you will.

55:12

Keep going. It's all good questions.

55:14

Yeah. You said all the software's

55:16

written so basically so the plane can't

55:18

damage itself. So this is the pilot

55:20

becoming a limiter? Yes. You in

55:21

situations where it can hurt you? Yeah,

55:24

very much so. In fact, we've kind of

55:25

achieved that spot now where the pilot

55:27

very much is limiting the performance of

55:29

the airplane itself cuz the airplane can

55:31

do so much more. What you So this is

55:33

what's called a fifth generation

55:35

fighter. First generation was like an

55:37

old Korean War

55:39

like F-86 kind of airplane. And then

55:40

successively through the generations,

55:42

you arrive at this fifth generation,

55:44

which to me is the pinnacle of what you

55:46

could get with a human and an airplane

55:49

together. Sixth generation is going to

55:51

involve teaming this airplane with

55:54

unmanned airplanes. And the unmanned

55:56

airplanes are going to have a lot more

55:57

capability from a maneuvering standpoint

55:59

because they don't have the limitation

56:00

of the pilot and all the life support

56:02

systems that come with it and everything

56:04

else. So all that weight you would

56:05

normally devote to that, you can get

56:07

away with putting other stuff in there.

56:09

When I was telling you it flies about

56:10

the same speed as like a Cessna,

56:13

I mean this is those types of maneuvers

56:14

there where you can get away with that.

56:15

Again, watch the flight control surfaces

56:17

in the back and what's going on.

56:20

Later on they'll do a pass where he'll

56:22

open up the doors and you can see the

56:23

main weapon bay, which is underneath the

56:25

airplane belly. And then you'll see the

56:26

side weapon bay doors. So you can kind

56:28

of see kind of where all the weapons are

56:29

carried inside the airplane. Again, a

56:31

huge center of gravity challenge.

56:33

Incidentally, so so here's a maneuver

56:34

there so you can see the doors open.

56:39

One thing I didn't really tell you about

56:40

is so in that situation cuz you know,

56:42

missiles weigh a couple hundred pounds a

56:44

piece or so. Some of the bombs are about

56:45

a thousand pounds a piece. When you lose

56:47

all that weight immediately, it's

56:48

literally like dropping a car off the

56:50

front end of the airplane. The way that

56:52

it fixes that center of gravity issue is

56:54

by changing fuel inside the airplane. So

56:56

it sloshes fuel forward or back to keep

56:58

the center of gravity again completely

57:00

pilot There's no fuel control panel

57:02

where I go, well, move this and click

57:03

this and whatever. It does it all

57:05

completely automatically. Go ahead.

57:07

Yeah.

57:11

The sensors that you can use? So all of

57:13

the fuel tanks are are instrumented.

57:15

So you know the status of fuel in terms

57:17

of where things are set up.

57:19

It you tell it what Actually, it has the

57:22

ability to know what's on the airplane.

57:23

So when you load a missile, it goes, oh,

57:24

it's this type of missile. And it goes

57:26

it weighs this much. And it knows the

57:27

mass properties of it. And so it sets it

57:29

up from there.

57:32

So

57:34

it actually identifies that all by

57:35

itself.

57:37

So like in a in a Cirrus, you have to go

57:39

you have to actually pull up a screen on

57:40

the Cirrus and go, my passenger weighs

57:42

this and I've got this baggage on board.

57:44

And and then it gives you the picture of

57:45

where the center of gravity is. Um this

57:47

thing because it's all digital, the

57:48

missile has a little connector rod that

57:50

connects in and it says, behold, I'm a

57:52

missile.

57:54

Oh, the pilot weight doesn't matter

57:56

because they they they spec it well

57:59

it matters, but for a different reason.

58:01

It matters for the ejection seat

58:03

predominantly. Because the ejection seat

58:05

you know, I think it's like 135 lb is

58:08

the light It's something like that. 115,

58:10

135 to like 220 or something. It's

58:13

something around that spot.

58:15

So to be able to be within the safe

58:16

envelope of the ejection seat, that's

58:18

where the weight of the pilot matters.

58:21

But they they spec the center of gravity

58:23

such that so long as

58:24

really anyone can sit up front and

58:26

you're not going to throw off the CG of

58:27

the airplane. Even though you're way far

58:29

forward of the of the CG and there there

58:31

there there's a moment arm there.

58:33

But between everything else in the

58:34

cockpit, I mean that ejection seat is

58:35

ridiculously heavy. And all the avionics

58:37

that sit up front, the radars up front.

58:39

I mean all these things that sit up

58:40

there have far more of a contribution to

58:42

the center of gravity than you do.

58:45

Unless you're like Shaq or something

58:47

like that. But go ahead.

58:49

Is it on the either flight cockpit or on

58:52

the helmet screen?

58:54

So in this airplane, not yet. That's

58:57

coming along soon. Some of the older

58:58

airplanes, believe it or not, have that.

59:00

Like the F-15 that I flew, you had a

59:01

special helmet that had all of the

59:04

information displayed on the visor

59:06

itself.

59:07

So in addition to that hands-on throttle

59:09

and stick, so I don't have to take my

59:10

hands off of anything to touch anything

59:11

in the cockpit. I also don't have to

59:13

look in the cockpit to see altitude,

59:16

airspeed, heading. It's it's all

59:18

displayed to me

59:20

up front. This airplane eventually will

59:22

get that. It it didn't make the This is

59:24

a programmatic discussion now, right?

59:26

They They only had so many dollars to

59:28

spend and they said this airplane is so

59:30

awesome that it shouldn't need a helmet

59:32

mounted display system because it should

59:34

be able to see uh all the bad guys from

59:36

far enough away and not be a problem.

59:38

We fielded the airplane that way and

59:40

every pilot So, the first batch of

59:41

pilots, they all transitioned from

59:43

airplanes that had that helmet mounted

59:45

system and they came to this airplane

59:47

where it didn't have it and they were

59:48

pissed. They're like, "We We got to have

59:50

that back." Right? So, that's kind of

59:52

where a lot of the efforts now are going

59:53

to modernize the airplane a bit.

59:56

What else? Good questions. Good. Yeah.

59:58

Yeah, why do they still need humans in

1:00:00

the cockpit? Why not just go for

1:00:01

unmanned systems?

1:00:04

It is It is the great debate of the

1:00:06

fighter community right now and you're

1:00:08

really touching on something really

1:00:09

really deep. Um

1:00:12

The best answer so far is that the

1:00:16

greatest I mean, we talked a lot about

1:00:17

the hardware and the systems on board

1:00:18

the airplane. Really, the greatest piece

1:00:20

of capability on the airplane is the

1:00:21

mind of the person flying

1:00:24

uh up front. If it's a very dynamic and

1:00:27

changing environment, uh to be able to

1:00:29

tell a machine to be able to incorporate

1:00:31

all those inputs and make the right

1:00:32

decisions based on that, kind of hard to

1:00:35

do right now. I'm not saying we're not

1:00:36

going to get there. Just right now it's

1:00:38

it's difficult. Where Where we use

1:00:40

unmanned systems a lot now is like in

1:00:42

surveillance

1:00:43

uh missions where you can just launch

1:00:44

the thing and it's got a pre-programmed

1:00:46

navigation and it knows what it needs to

1:00:47

do and it can set things up. Um those

1:00:50

are

1:00:51

somewhat bounded problems. Probably the

1:00:52

best way to to describe it where you

1:00:54

could use an unmanned system for that.

1:00:56

Where it gets difficult is in combat

1:00:57

situation, it's it's extremely dynamic.

1:01:00

It's It's Battle Royale, WWF, mosh pit,

1:01:03

any possible chaotic situation you can

1:01:05

put. That's kind of what it looks like.

1:01:07

Um and so, having a human mind attached

1:01:09

in that environment to be able to adapt

1:01:11

and do what the mind does better than a

1:01:13

machine does at least right now. That's

1:01:14

the main argument to keep humans in the

1:01:17

system.

1:01:18

For now. Right?

1:01:20

Yeah.

1:01:28

Yeah, it is. Um

1:01:31

Yeah, the question is is that if you

1:01:33

operate these things remotely, so even

1:01:35

if you had so, you know, classic

1:01:37

example, we'll use Sully Sullenberger,

1:01:39

all right, as a cuz we talked about

1:01:40

Sully in the previous one. Uh you take

1:01:43

off out of LaGuardia, you lose both

1:01:44

engines. Um if you could have a remote

1:01:46

pilot sitting somewhere else that could

1:01:48

take over and decide land on the Hudson

1:01:50

because a machine most likely wouldn't

1:01:51

have made that choice.

1:01:53

Um is there a time lag issue? The answer

1:01:55

is 100% yes.

1:01:57

Um there is a time lag issue between uh

1:01:59

getting that information display down,

1:02:00

make the input, that input goes back up

1:02:02

and comes back over. Um a thing we've

1:02:05

done at test pilot school is, remember

1:02:08

we showed earlier that flight path

1:02:09

marker?

1:02:10

Uh where as a pilot you put the flight

1:02:12

path marker and that's exactly where

1:02:13

your airplane's going to go. If there's

1:02:15

a time lag, that will actually mess you

1:02:17

up because there's some second or two

1:02:18

delay between what you're seeing and

1:02:20

what the airplane's actually going. At

1:02:21

test pilot school, they actually built a

1:02:23

flight test a flight path marker that

1:02:25

accounts for that time delay. If it

1:02:28

knows that time delay, it'll actually

1:02:29

account for it. So, you could fly the

1:02:31

airplane remotely

1:02:33

um even with the time lag and still be

1:02:34

able to do very high gain tasks like

1:02:36

land the airplane for instance where

1:02:38

things are changing very rapidly. So,

1:02:39

it's it's a new science, not fully

1:02:41

fleshed out yet, but the but the proof

1:02:42

of concept has been demonstrated to

1:02:44

control an airplane remotely

1:02:46

um even with the time lag.

1:02:49

Who really cares about that right now?

1:02:50

Are the airlines.

1:02:52

Because uh to be very frank, uh the

1:02:54

pilots tend to be a pain in the butt for

1:02:56

an airline company.

1:02:57

Um and if you can remove the pilots and

1:02:58

just have a remote operating system or

1:03:00

even an autonomous system, uh to the

1:03:02

from a business standpoint, the company

1:03:04

really likes that from an aviation

1:03:06

standpoint. It triggers all types of

1:03:08

discussions in a lot of other issues.

1:03:10

Um but that's one question. Good. Let me

1:03:12

jump Let me jump in for a minute with

1:03:13

that. I think actually, to me, one of

1:03:15

the holy grails of GA safety would be to

1:03:18

have uh

1:03:20

a

1:03:21

uh

1:03:22

human co-pilot perhaps, you know, on the

1:03:24

ground. So, if you had that kind of

1:03:26

telemetry that you have in a in a drone,

1:03:29

uh you know, human somewhere else could

1:03:31

say, you know, "You're running a little

1:03:32

short on fuel." Or you forgot to change

1:03:34

tanks. All the things that a human

1:03:36

uh co-pilot could do right in the

1:03:37

cockpit, you know, most of that safety,

1:03:39

running checklist could be probably

1:03:40

enhanced Yep. Uh remotely. So, that

1:03:43

would be a great add to a Cessna or a

1:03:45

Piper even. And you see a little bit now

1:03:47

in some of the more advanced airplanes

1:03:49

like we talked a little bit about if I

1:03:50

have an engine problem in the Raptor, I

1:03:51

literally do nothing. I just sit there

1:03:53

and stare at the clouds and go, "Wow,

1:03:54

what a lovely day." And the computer

1:03:55

fixes it for me. Right? Um there are

1:03:58

other scenarios where the jet will tell

1:04:00

me, "Hey, you've got a generator

1:04:01

problem." and then immediately pull up

1:04:03

the checklist for the generator failure

1:04:05

to allow me to fix it. So, you see some

1:04:08

basic automation right now kind of

1:04:10

already in play. Couple other questions,

1:04:11

I know we're running short. Good.

1:04:13

I'm good. Yeah.

1:04:25

Yeah, if it's a uh so, it's We have two

1:04:27

terms. One's called beyond visual range,

1:04:29

which means I can't see the other guy

1:04:31

with my eyes, um but my sensors can see

1:04:33

him. Um and if I'm shooting missiles

1:04:36

long distance like that, I I don't lose

1:04:38

any seat of the pants by being remotely.

1:04:40

It's like a video game. Like literally,

1:04:41

it's it's exactly like a video game. Um

1:04:43

if it's a maneuvering environment where

1:04:45

I see the guy and we're in a dog fight,

1:04:46

then yeah, you lose a lot, right? In

1:04:47

terms of seat of the pants, eyeball,

1:04:49

just things that are hard to to

1:04:51

automate. So, it's

1:04:52

half and half, right? In a drone

1:04:54

scenario, I mean,

1:04:56

what would a drone dog fight? I don't

1:04:57

know. It's a good question. I'm not

1:04:59

really sure.

1:05:00

Good.

1:05:06

You could. Um but then I have to have

1:05:08

some way to represent the physical

1:05:10

environment that the drone is seeing. I

1:05:12

got to be able to represent that to the

1:05:14

guy on the simulator on the ground. I I

1:05:16

have to be able to kind of relay that

1:05:18

real time. Um it matters. So,

1:05:20

uh

1:05:21

Who Who plays sports? Right? Guys, you

1:05:23

know, any I mean, whenever you're

1:05:25

playing sports, you got an opponent. Uh

1:05:27

you get if you play a lot like if it's

1:05:29

racquetball or football or something

1:05:30

like that, you get very good at looking

1:05:31

at your opponent and being able to see

1:05:33

micro movements before the actual big

1:05:35

movement happens so that you know, "Oh,

1:05:37

they're about to swing this way." Or

1:05:38

they're going to throw this way. So, you

1:05:40

can read your opponent and make a

1:05:42

decision about what's about to happen a

1:05:44

second or two from now. In a fighter

1:05:46

jet, the exact same thing. If I'm

1:05:48

fighting a guy and I see a control

1:05:50

surface deflection even before the

1:05:52

airplane has gone, I know person's going

1:05:54

this way.

1:05:56

I can position myself to be there before

1:05:57

they arrive.

1:05:59

I would need some way to represent that

1:06:01

if I'm in a simulator on the ground and

1:06:03

it would have to be kind of transparent

1:06:05

to the guy in the simulator

1:06:06

what what that feels like.

1:06:09

Good.

1:06:10

Lots of good questions. It's good class.

1:06:12

Let me ask actually, where's Who's here

1:06:14

from the flying club?

1:06:16

Uh Sebastian?

1:06:17

Yeah, actually, I wonder if lads, can

1:06:19

you stay another uh 10-15 minutes?

1:06:21

Absolutely. Why don't we have Sebastian

1:06:23

jump in, give his flying club spiel, and

1:06:26

then uh both of them will be up front

1:06:28

for uh questions right afterwards.

1:06:31

Thank you, lads.

1:06:31

No worries.

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