Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: bryden@vax1.acs.udel.edu (Christopher F. Bryden) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: dogfighting Message-ID: <7363@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 12 Jun 89 00:58:36 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: University of Delaware (ACIT account) Lines: 48 Approved: military@att.att.com From: "Christopher F. Bryden" An interesting side note : While listening to General Yeager speak to an auidence at the Air and Space Museum about 8 months ago, I got the feeling that with sealth, radar and missle technology the role of the dogfight is becoming less and less important in a tactical sense. In fact, General Yeager seemed to be of the opinion that the weight and space used for carrying "close in" weapons and ammo is, in fact, wasted space. Besides this, the biological limits of the human body have already been reached in dogfighting. Stuka dive bombers would come back from bombing raids coughing up blood from damaged lung tissue (not dogfighing exactly, but similar g-forces are involved). Blood vessels in the eye damage very easily (3-4 g's) and, even with g-suits, well conditioned pilots pass out after about 10-15 seconds at 8g's. It really is only a matter of time before the hook the pilot up to a computer that will determine of he/she is conscious or not, and it will be able to carry on the dogfight with or without their consciousness. Unmaned smart fighters are, of course, the ultimate direction that technology would lead us if it were not guided by risk. I would like to think that, no matter how unreliable, a human pilot will always be part of the control loop. However, more and more the human pilots' control inputs are becoming control suggestions (witness the new generation X-planes). I think that there will always be a human pilot in the control loop for the single reason that we like to have someone rather than something to blame when technology fails to work correctly (the Airbus crash?). In addition to having someone to blame, computers don't understand foreign policy all that well. I guess you could argue that you average pilot doesn't either, but they seem to preform rather will when you have an touchy situation like intercepting Soviet bombers that skim our airspace. I don't mean to imply that the ablitiy to preform under "close in" situations is not important. Unfortunatly, the dogfight is the icon by which most fighter pilots and planes get judged by. Many people believe that the dogfight is the ultimate position that tactical maneuvers involving fighters are supposed to end in. This is a fallacy. Chris -- arpa : bryden@vax1.acs.udel.edu | In the land of the fat, balding tourists, bitnet: AIT05167 at ACSVM | the one eyed surfer dude is king. plato : bryden/itpt/udel ----------------- I could turn you inside out uucp : ...{unidot,uunet}!cfg!udel!udccvax1!bryden | ...what I choose not to do.