[00:16] Well, guys,
[00:17] you have picked the coolest
[00:20] independent activities period class you
[00:22] could ever do with ground school. This
[00:23] is the most awesome thing possible when
[00:25] I saw the course offerings. So, kudos to
[00:28] Tina and Phil for teaching this. This is
[00:30] a good good gig.
[00:32] Uh I go by Laz. It's a fighter pilot
[00:34] thing. All fighter pilots have call
[00:36] signs.
[00:37] Um they're not like what you see in the
[00:38] movies. By the way, Top Gun is the worst
[00:40] movie for any fighter pilot to watch.
[00:41] It's terrible. Drives you crazy. No one
[00:44] is called Maverick because they're the
[00:45] most awesome thing on the face of the
[00:46] planet. Never happens that way. Uh
[00:48] you're always named for something silly.
[00:50] So, the previous discussion about uh
[00:52] crew resource management, if you're
[00:54] single seat, you still have air traffic
[00:56] control, you have other guys. Uh I am
[00:58] living proof that that's 100% true. So,
[01:01] I won't get into it too much, but
[01:02] suffice to say if you know the biblical
[01:04] story of Lazarus, you know a lot about
[01:06] how I got my name and I'll leave it at
[01:08] that. Normally, that's over a beer
[01:09] afterwards. So, we're here to talk about
[01:11] uh F-22 flight control stuff. I'm going
[01:13] to give you the the punchline right at
[01:15] the start. I'm here to tell you that
[01:16] everything you're learning So, who who's
[01:18] actually flown airplanes here already?
[01:20] Like sailplanes. So, a lot of guys,
[01:22] right? So, a lot of guys So, first time
[01:23] then for probably the other half of the
[01:24] class or so. Uh so, here's what I'm here
[01:26] to tell you. The same stuff that you're
[01:28] learning with respect to Cessnas and all
[01:31] the stuff with respect to the ground
[01:33] school, um there's no difference
[01:35] between this and between my beloved
[01:37] Raptor. It's the same thing. So, there's
[01:40] great relevance. And you as MIT guys
[01:42] have the ability to derive and figure
[01:43] out what makes the Raptor look the way
[01:46] that it does and we can talk a lot about
[01:47] the flight controls. It's not cosmic. We
[01:49] can go through that.
[01:51] So, with that, uh they always have the
[01:53] standard personal background slide. Um
[01:55] here's here's the gig. I'll keep it
[01:56] really simple. I am a test pilot. Uh
[01:59] which means I am a fighter pilot and I'm
[02:01] also an engineer. It means I like Beavis
[02:03] and Butt-Head greatly and I read Carl
[02:06] Sagan. It's the same thing to me. Uh so,
[02:08] as a fighter test pilot, you live in the
[02:10] world of being a fighter pilot, uh but
[02:12] you also have the ability to understand
[02:13] MATLAB and to be able to do cool neat
[02:15] MIT-ish kind of things because all of
[02:17] the stuff that you're working with as a
[02:19] test pilot are brand new things. Uh new
[02:22] weapons, new avionics, new airplanes in
[02:25] some cases. And that's not the world of
[02:27] a fighter pilot. Fighter pilots are
[02:29] exceptionally good at taking this
[02:31] airplane to combat and doing the normal
[02:32] kind of missions with it, but when
[02:33] there's something new on board, that
[02:35] requires an engineer. So, uh I have a
[02:38] deep deep connection with this
[02:39] institution. I graduated here finished
[02:41] up here last year in 2018 and then a
[02:43] whole bunch of other kind of funky stuff
[02:45] along the way.
[02:46] Uh two combat tours. Uh that was a lot
[02:48] of fun. I'll tell you flying is one of
[02:50] my great passions. Flying and getting
[02:51] shot at and missed is my second great
[02:54] passion. That's much cooler. Um and then
[02:56] when you can fly and you can use that
[02:57] airplane to actually protect people from
[02:59] bad guys, that's that's that's life
[03:01] fulfilling, right? To go get a chance to
[03:02] go do that. So, we can talk a little bit
[03:04] more through that as well. Um test
[03:07] pilot, we get a chance to fly a lot of
[03:08] different stuff. So, you'll see this uh
[03:10] 76 different airplanes. Uh that might
[03:12] sound weird to kind of the rest of the
[03:15] world, but in the world of flight test,
[03:16] that's pretty normal. And the reason
[03:18] that's there is it's just like like So,
[03:20] I By the way, warning, right? To the
[03:22] class. I I talk a lot in terms of
[03:24] movies, right? Game of Thrones shows or
[03:26] whatever television shows and sports
[03:28] because no matter where you come from,
[03:29] those three topics always tend to bring
[03:31] everybody all together. So, it is just
[03:35] like what you've, you know, when you've
[03:36] gone car shopping and you sit in this
[03:38] car and go, "Ah, man, I really like this
[03:40] way the steering wheel feels, but I hate
[03:42] the way the radio is set up." And you go
[03:43] to another car and you go, "Ah, man,
[03:45] this is great from a, you know, from the
[03:46] sunroof or whatever, but this stinks."
[03:48] Uh that same kind of the discernment
[03:51] that you have when you're shopping for
[03:52] cars, you know, that this airplane is a
[03:54] couple hundred million dollars. You
[03:56] don't want to be wrong about that. And
[03:57] so, you want your test pilots very very
[03:59] experienced in a lot of different
[04:00] airplanes. So, I've got a chance to fly
[04:02] helicopters. Spectacular. In pilot
[04:04] training, I don't know why, but we send
[04:05] our worst pilot training students to
[04:08] helicopters. It's the dumbest idea
[04:10] because helicopters are really really
[04:11] challenging to go fly. Um but we've had
[04:13] a chance to fly helicopters. Your
[04:15] discussion, Tina, earlier about right
[04:16] away, I was laughing with that cuz I've
[04:18] flown a zeppelin uh an airship. It It's
[04:20] quite spectacular. It's a big lazy boy
[04:22] couch
[04:23] uh with a big trim wheel and big engines
[04:25] that actually pivot on the outside so
[04:27] you can turn the whole ship based on
[04:28] that. Um that's pretty normal for for
[04:30] being a test pilot is getting a chance
[04:32] to fly a lot of different airplanes more
[04:34] so than just one particular airplane
[04:35] your whole life. Most of my stuff is in
[04:37] fighters.
[04:38] Um so, I've flown every frontline
[04:40] fighter with the exception of the F-35.
[04:42] Hopefully, I'll fix that soon shortly in
[04:44] a few months.
[04:46] Um but a lot of stuff. So, MIT guy,
[04:48] Harvard guy, uh did some stuff. It's
[04:50] it's been a good life. Um really at the
[04:52] end of the day, what I want to impress
[04:53] on you is uh I am 100% zero different
[04:57] from anybody in this room. I just have
[04:59] more battle scars on me just from a
[05:00] lifetime of doing this. Uh I started off
[05:03] flying Cessnas. I did that for several
[05:04] years in my life. I still do it. I um
[05:06] love it. Fly sailplanes. Still do it.
[05:08] Love it.
[05:10] Uh and all the stuff that you learn with
[05:12] this has direct applicability to the
[05:13] more advanced fighter airplanes. In
[05:15] fact, I'll tell you, this is actually
[05:18] harder to fly than the Raptor. And we'll
[05:20] talk a little bit more about that as we
[05:22] go through. All right. So, more fun and
[05:24] games. All right. So, now comes the
[05:26] class participation part. Uh my my talks
[05:28] are very interactive. I love to kind of
[05:30] hear what you guys think. So, we'll do a
[05:31] quick thought exercise. I'll try and
[05:33] keep a mental note cuz I stink at
[05:34] writing on a chalkboard.
[05:36] Um but we'll chat through this. Just so
[05:37] you can understand that there's really
[05:39] not that much difference from what
[05:40] you're learning now to go off to do
[05:41] something like that. So, why does a
[05:43] Cessna look the way that it does? And
[05:46] why does a Raptor look the way that it
[05:48] does? What were the engineers trying to
[05:50] do? And just just call them out. You
[05:52] know where we're going. Guys, just
[05:53] shoot.
[05:53] Is it related to the Raptor? Okay, so
[05:55] explain. Um you have um way more area
[05:57] that's clear. The wings are uh swept
[05:59] back and are kind of below you in the
[06:01] back so you can go. Yeah. See over
[06:04] there, right? So, you you've brought up
[06:05] two things. One is the position of the
[06:06] wings, right? So, in a Cessna,
[06:08] uh the wings are obviously
[06:10] Well, in a lot of airplanes really, not
[06:12] just Cessnas, but in a Cessna, the wings
[06:13] are directly above you. Big Hershey bar
[06:15] wing. You know, why do they put the
[06:16] wings this way in a Cessna?
[06:22] You're You're doing great so far. Keep
[06:24] going, man. I'm I'm going to answer
[06:26] that. Get get in or out of a Cirrus in
[06:28] the heavy rain and you will immediately
[06:30] see the value of that Cessna wing. Yeah.
[06:33] They did this so that my wife doesn't
[06:34] yell at me in bad weather conditions so
[06:36] that you can get inside the airplane
[06:38] without getting completely wet. The
[06:39] other part about the high wing is it's
[06:40] great for visibility. Looking down,
[06:43] right? Um where this is terrible is if
[06:45] you're turning and you have to be able
[06:47] to see through the wing because you're
[06:48] kind of doing the old, you know, looking
[06:49] over the side to see uh kind of out the
[06:51] outside. So, that's one advantage,
[06:53] right? Of where Raptor, right? It's not
[06:54] a high wing or it's kind of like a mid
[06:55] wing, if you will, but that wing is well
[06:57] after the cockpit for what reason?
[07:05] Visibility? Yeah.
[07:07] That's that's the big huge reason why.
[07:08] And then you also brought up the idea of
[07:10] the swept wings.
[07:11] All right. Uh why the swept wings
[07:13] compared to, say, straight wings?
[07:17] Um well, when they have an aerodynamic
[07:18] advantage. Okay. What's that What's
[07:20] What's that advantage? Um
[07:22] something about um
[07:26] You got a winglet or like wingtip
[07:28] vortices?
[07:30] Close.
[07:31] Close. I'll I'll I'll stop picking on
[07:32] you because you're a bold and went
[07:33] first. Go ahead.
[07:35] Yeah, Mach. So, so explain Mach.
[07:38] Uh fast Closer you get to the speed of
[07:40] sound, more compressibility is
[07:41] important. Yep. Uh aerodynamically, the
[07:44] wing really behaves
[07:46] like it's going at the speed normal to
[07:48] the leading edge.
[07:49] Yeah. So, you ever you ever see those
[07:51] old like the first jet airplanes that
[07:53] came out? Um the wings on the jet
[07:55] airplanes had wings that looked exactly
[07:57] like this.
[07:58] Um and that was a problem. I'm going to
[07:59] do something I thought I wouldn't try to
[08:01] do, but I'll try to do it. So, here's
[08:02] your swept wing, right? Here's the air
[08:04] as it comes over the wing.
[08:07] Right? And then what ends up happening
[08:08] is uh really what you care about is the
[08:12] air that's going over top of the wing
[08:14] that's normal to the chord line of the
[08:16] wing itself. You know what I mean when I
[08:17] say chord? Right? Just like this
[08:19] imaginary line. So, on a Hershey bar
[08:20] wing, all of that air hits the wing and
[08:23] it goes directly over top of that chord
[08:24] line of the wing. So, like when we
[08:26] talked about over here, the wings have
[08:28] camber.
[08:29] So, what happens to the air as it goes
[08:31] over top of any wing? Doesn't matter if
[08:33] it's a fighter wing or whatever else.
[08:35] But what what happens to the velocity of
[08:36] the air as it goes over top?
[08:38] Goes faster, right? So, if I'm already
[08:40] going fast and air hits my wing and goes
[08:43] over top of my wing and goes faster than
[08:45] the rest of the airplane, uh that's
[08:47] going to cause a problem when you get to
[08:48] very high speeds approaching Mach cuz
[08:51] what ends up happening is you'll you'll
[08:52] get a shock wave forming on that wing.
[08:54] And the moment you get a shock wave
[08:55] forming there, that's like a big brick
[08:57] wall to the to the wind and that causes
[09:00] all types of drag downstream, slows down
[09:02] the airplane, all types of things. So,
[09:03] what they found is I can sweep the wing,
[09:05] right? When I sweep the wing, some of
[09:07] that air is normal to the chord line.
[09:09] So, if this is like the fuselage over
[09:11] here and here's the wing and it comes
[09:12] back over here. Um some of that air is
[09:14] going to be that way and some of that
[09:16] air is going to actually go out and go
[09:17] uh
[09:18] go spanwise, if you will, like this. So,
[09:21] I'm trying to draw this correctly to get
[09:22] the to get the right angles, but you you
[09:24] kind of get my point. So, some of that
[09:26] air goes spanwise.
[09:28] Some of the reason why you have wing
[09:29] winglets, right? To present prevent some
[09:31] of that drag that happens at the
[09:31] winglet. But then also, what you're
[09:33] worried about is rather than the full
[09:34] component of this wind, you're only
[09:35] worried about the wind that's normal to
[09:38] the flow
[09:39] of the way the chord line is set up. So,
[09:40] that's why they sweep the wings, right?
[09:42] Okay, so what else?
[09:43] Why does a Cessna look this way? Why
[09:45] does this look like that? Go ahead.
[09:47] Uh
[09:48] yeah, go ahead. Both.
[09:49] Uh
[09:50] stealth and payload and armor. Okay, so
[09:52] stealth. Payload is an important thing.
[09:53] Let's talk about the payload for a
[09:55] second. Actually, we'll talk about
[09:56] stealth since you brought it up. Um so
[09:58] 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
[01:00:00] the cockpit? Why not just go for
[01:00:01] unmanned systems?
[01:00:04] It is It is the great debate of the
[01:00:06] fighter community right now and you're
[01:00:08] really touching on something really
[01:00:09] really deep. Um
[01:00:12] The best answer so far is that the
[01:00:16] greatest I mean, we talked a lot about
[01:00:17] the hardware and the systems on board
[01:00:18] the airplane. Really, the greatest piece
[01:00:20] of capability on the airplane is the
[01:00:21] mind of the person flying
[01:00:24] uh up front. If it's a very dynamic and
[01:00:27] changing environment, uh to be able to
[01:00:29] tell a machine to be able to incorporate
[01:00:31] all those inputs and make the right
[01:00:32] decisions based on that, kind of hard to
[01:00:35] do right now. I'm not saying we're not
[01:00:36] going to get there. Just right now it's
[01:00:38] it's difficult. Where Where we use
[01:00:40] unmanned systems a lot now is like in
[01:00:42] surveillance
[01:00:43] uh missions where you can just launch
[01:00:44] the thing and it's got a pre-programmed
[01:00:46] navigation and it knows what it needs to
[01:00:47] do and it can set things up. Um those
[01:00:50] are
[01:00:51] somewhat bounded problems. Probably the
[01:00:52] best way to to describe it where you
[01:00:54] could use an unmanned system for that.
[01:00:56] Where it gets difficult is in combat
[01:00:57] situation, it's it's extremely dynamic.
[01:01:00] It's It's Battle Royale, WWF, mosh pit,
[01:01:03] any possible chaotic situation you can
[01:01:05] put. That's kind of what it looks like.
[01:01:07] Um and so, having a human mind attached
[01:01:09] in that environment to be able to adapt
[01:01:11] and do what the mind does better than a
[01:01:13] machine does at least right now. That's
[01:01:14] the main argument to keep humans in the
[01:01:17] system.
[01:01:18] For now. Right?
[01:01:20] Yeah.
[01:01:28] Yeah, it is. Um
[01:01:31] Yeah, the question is is that if you
[01:01:33] operate these things remotely, so even
[01:01:35] if you had so, you know, classic
[01:01:37] example, we'll use Sully Sullenberger,
[01:01:39] all right, as a cuz we talked about
[01:01:40] Sully in the previous one. Uh you take
[01:01:43] off out of LaGuardia, you lose both
[01:01:44] engines. Um if you could have a remote
[01:01:46] pilot sitting somewhere else that could
[01:01:48] take over and decide land on the Hudson
[01:01:50] because a machine most likely wouldn't
[01:01:51] have made that choice.
[01:01:53] Um is there a time lag issue? The answer
[01:01:55] is 100% yes.
[01:01:57] Um there is a time lag issue between uh
[01:01:59] getting that information display down,
[01:02:00] make the input, that input goes back up
[01:02:02] and comes back over. Um a thing we've
[01:02:05] done at test pilot school is, remember
[01:02:08] we showed earlier that flight path
[01:02:09] marker?
[01:02:10] Uh where as a pilot you put the flight
[01:02:12] path marker and that's exactly where
[01:02:13] your airplane's going to go. If there's
[01:02:15] a time lag, that will actually mess you
[01:02:17] up because there's some second or two
[01:02:18] delay between what you're seeing and
[01:02:20] what the airplane's actually going. At
[01:02:21] test pilot school, they actually built a
[01:02:23] flight test a flight path marker that
[01:02:25] accounts for that time delay. If it
[01:02:28] knows that time delay, it'll actually
[01:02:29] account for it. So, you could fly the
[01:02:31] airplane remotely
[01:02:33] um even with the time lag and still be
[01:02:34] able to do very high gain tasks like
[01:02:36] land the airplane for instance where
[01:02:38] things are changing very rapidly. So,
[01:02:39] it's it's a new science, not fully
[01:02:41] fleshed out yet, but the but the proof
[01:02:42] of concept has been demonstrated to
[01:02:44] control an airplane remotely
[01:02:46] um even with the time lag.
[01:02:49] Who really cares about that right now?
[01:02:50] Are the airlines.
[01:02:52] Because uh to be very frank, uh the
[01:02:54] pilots tend to be a pain in the butt for
[01:02:56] an airline company.
[01:02:57] Um and if you can remove the pilots and
[01:02:58] just have a remote operating system or
[01:03:00] even an autonomous system, uh to the
[01:03:02] from a business standpoint, the company
[01:03:04] really likes that from an aviation
[01:03:06] standpoint. It triggers all types of
[01:03:08] discussions in a lot of other issues.
[01:03:10] Um but that's one question. Good. Let me
[01:03:12] jump Let me jump in for a minute with
[01:03:13] that. I think actually, to me, one of
[01:03:15] the holy grails of GA safety would be to
[01:03:18] have uh
[01:03:20] a
[01:03:21] uh
[01:03:22] human co-pilot perhaps, you know, on the
[01:03:24] ground. So, if you had that kind of
[01:03:26] telemetry that you have in a in a drone,
[01:03:29] uh you know, human somewhere else could
[01:03:31] say, you know, "You're running a little
[01:03:32] short on fuel." Or you forgot to change
[01:03:34] tanks. All the things that a human
[01:03:36] uh co-pilot could do right in the
[01:03:37] cockpit, you know, most of that safety,
[01:03:39] running checklist could be probably
[01:03:40] enhanced Yep. Uh remotely. So, that
[01:03:43] would be a great add to a Cessna or a
[01:03:45] Piper even. And you see a little bit now
[01:03:47] in some of the more advanced airplanes
[01:03:49] like we talked a little bit about if I
[01:03:50] have an engine problem in the Raptor, I
[01:03:51] literally do nothing. I just sit there
[01:03:53] and stare at the clouds and go, "Wow,
[01:03:54] what a lovely day." And the computer
[01:03:55] fixes it for me. Right? Um there are
[01:03:58] other scenarios where the jet will tell
[01:04:00] me, "Hey, you've got a generator
[01:04:01] problem." and then immediately pull up
[01:04:03] the checklist for the generator failure
[01:04:05] to allow me to fix it. So, you see some
[01:04:08] basic automation right now kind of
[01:04:10] already in play. Couple other questions,
[01:04:11] I know we're running short. Good.
[01:04:13] I'm good. Yeah.
[01:04:25] Yeah, if it's a uh so, it's We have two
[01:04:27] terms. One's called beyond visual range,
[01:04:29] which means I can't see the other guy
[01:04:31] with my eyes, um but my sensors can see
[01:04:33] him. Um and if I'm shooting missiles
[01:04:36] long distance like that, I I don't lose
[01:04:38] any seat of the pants by being remotely.
[01:04:40] It's like a video game. Like literally,
[01:04:41] it's it's exactly like a video game. Um
[01:04:43] if it's a maneuvering environment where
[01:04:45] I see the guy and we're in a dog fight,
[01:04:46] then yeah, you lose a lot, right? In
[01:04:47] terms of seat of the pants, eyeball,
[01:04:49] just things that are hard to to
[01:04:51] automate. So, it's
[01:04:52] half and half, right? In a drone
[01:04:54] scenario, I mean,
[01:04:56] what would a drone dog fight? I don't
[01:04:57] know. It's a good question. I'm not
[01:04:59] really sure.
[01:05:00] Good.
[01:05:06] You could. Um but then I have to have
[01:05:08] some way to represent the physical
[01:05:10] environment that the drone is seeing. I
[01:05:12] got to be able to represent that to the
[01:05:14] guy on the simulator on the ground. I I
[01:05:16] have to be able to kind of relay that
[01:05:18] real time. Um it matters. So,
[01:05:20] uh
[01:05:21] Who Who plays sports? Right? Guys, you
[01:05:23] know, any I mean, whenever you're
[01:05:25] playing sports, you got an opponent. Uh
[01:05:27] you get if you play a lot like if it's
[01:05:29] racquetball or football or something
[01:05:30] like that, you get very good at looking
[01:05:31] at your opponent and being able to see
[01:05:33] micro movements before the actual big
[01:05:35] movement happens so that you know, "Oh,
[01:05:37] they're about to swing this way." Or
[01:05:38] they're going to throw this way. So, you
[01:05:40] can read your opponent and make a
[01:05:42] decision about what's about to happen a
[01:05:44] second or two from now. In a fighter
[01:05:46] jet, the exact same thing. If I'm
[01:05:48] fighting a guy and I see a control
[01:05:50] surface deflection even before the
[01:05:52] airplane has gone, I know person's going
[01:05:54] this way.
[01:05:56] I can position myself to be there before
[01:05:57] they arrive.
[01:05:59] I would need some way to represent that
[01:06:01] if I'm in a simulator on the ground and
[01:06:03] it would have to be kind of transparent
[01:06:05] to the guy in the simulator
[01:06:06] what what that feels like.
[01:06:09] Good.
[01:06:10] Lots of good questions. It's good class.
[01:06:12] Let me ask actually, where's Who's here
[01:06:14] from the flying club?
[01:06:16] Uh Sebastian?
[01:06:17] Yeah, actually, I wonder if lads, can
[01:06:19] you stay another uh 10-15 minutes?
[01:06:21] Absolutely. Why don't we have Sebastian
[01:06:23] jump in, give his flying club spiel, and
[01:06:26] then uh both of them will be up front
[01:06:28] for uh questions right afterwards.
[01:06:31] Thank you, lads.
[01:06:31] No worries.