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US Navy remotely lands F/A-18 Super Hornet on carrier deck
- jordache 9y agohmm is that such a feat? landing on a carrier compared to landing on land? The variables involved should be pretty predictable and can be modeled accurately...
- vermontdevil 9y agoOcean swells is quite a variable to deal with on a carrier deck
- philip1209 9y agoIt's a moving runway
- flr03 9y agoThe track is narrow and short, with potential movements in 3 dimensions.
- jonathanstrange 9y agoThat doesn't make much of a difference, given how fast the plane moves. Being accurate enough in turbulent weather to catch the hook seems to be the main problem.
- dragontamer 9y agoA plane moves slowest when its landing. Its not like they're landing at Mach-speeds.
- jonathanstrange 9y agoI know this very well, but the point is that this is irrelevant anyway, because the relative movement of the carrier matter much less than the difficulty of catching the hook. Whether you match the speed to the carrier deck or to the ground makes (almost) no difference. It's not as if the carrier was suddenly accelerating while a plane lands. Catching the hook while the plane is in a controlled crash, that's the problem.
- bkohlmann 9y agoAdd in a pitching deck and all predictable variables go out the window.
- jordache 9y agoi would venture to say this is more of a controlled environment than autonomous vehicles. The variables you have to deal with in real-time for vehicles is much greater than landing on a carrier.
- bkohlmann 9y agoHaving done both extensively, in all weather conditions, I respectfully disagree. Now, modeling that in an algorithm...you may be accurate. The thing about a pitching deck is that it's somewhat, but not completely, predictable. Swells are measurable and generally periodic...but the generality breaks down enough to make it unpredictable. It's why boarding rates (i.e. the ratio of landings to attempt) drop by a factor of 2-3 (i.e. from around 90+% to 30-ish%) in pitching deck situations.
- anonymousDan 9y agoI can heartily recommend 'The Right Stuff' by Tom Wolfe, where he gives a great description of how challenging it is for new pilots to learn this skill.
- chomp 9y agoAnother: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gGMI8d3vLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gGMI8d3vLs
- snowwrestler 9y agoThat whole series was so good.
- moftz 9y agoThere is more involved with landing on a carrier vs a land runway. The carrier deck is much shorter so the plane needs to grab the arresting cable and there is only a small window for this. If you miss it, you need to quickly speed up and take off again for another pass.
- alistairSH 9y agoyou need to quickly speed up and take off again for another pass. In fact, the aircraft always go to max throttle at touchdown, just in case they need to go around for another try. This, as opposed to going to max throttle after realizing there's a problem.
- ape4 9y agoI wonder if they do model the movement of the deck.
- verandaguy_alt 9y agoIt definitely is a feat. Carrier landings on US-supercarrier-style carriers especially are pretty notorious -- between the ocean swell, the short runway and tiny margin of error, plus a runway that's actually angled with regards to the carrier's direction of travel, it's pretty challenging.
- Steve44 9y ago> plus a runway that's actually angled with regards to the carrier's direction of travel, it's pretty challenging I hadn't really considered that before. Say the carrier is doing 20 knots then even on a one minute final approach the carrier will have moved by getting on for half a mile. ( very much fag-packet estimated maths but enough to show you can't just point at the carrier and land in a straight line)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Merad 9y agoThe US Navy has actually had automatic carrier landing systems since the 1960s. The advancement here appears to be the carrier "taking over" the plane in order to land it with no input from the pilot.
- bkohlmann 9y agoThis is interesting. I’ve been out of the cockpit for about 5 years, but we had what we called “mode 1” approaches back then where the carrier would lock onto our f-18. We could land without touching the controls. At the end of my time, they actually incentivized us to fly these approaches more frequently to develop unmanned systems more quickly. (Incentive was giving a perfect grade for a landing...usually Mode Ones were a “no count” in the grading rubric.) I guess the difference here is that an actual person (the LSO) is controlling the jet vice the computer?
- moftz 9y agoI'm not really sure what the benefit of having a remote operator landing the plane vs having a computer do it. I guess the remote pilot can be the third tier in who can land the plane (in-seat pilot, computer, ship remote pilot) and for UAVs (UAV pilot, computer, ship remote pilot). Is the automated landing system that crappy that they want to add in a remote operator? If they can already land a plane automatically, the the next step they should focus on is an automated air traffic control, landing and launching any planes within the 5 mile radius (assuming that doesn't already exist). Imagine a smaller carrier like a LHD totally devoted to UAVs that launch and land without anyone on the tarmac.
- icegreentea2 9y agoI think the idea is that UAV operators/pilots might not even attempt landings. There's a future where assume control of UAVs as they approach station, and release as they return to base. In that scheme, they were probably expecting the UAVs to land automatically on the carrier, with something like ATARI being the backup. This way they can leave their operators focusing on mission tasks instead of recovery.
- goldenkey 9y agoSeems like a small gain for a small chance of the loss of a $100 million asset. Wouldn't it be good to give pilots practice landing in adverse conditions just in case this "autoland" fails similarly to how Tesla and Uber's autopilot screws up fatally when the road lines are a bit faded? On the other hand, landing probably is an easier task than driving given the small amount of ways it can go right versus wrong.
- lallysingh 9y agoATARI system? Is this post a few days old?
- neverminder 9y agoAircraft Terminal Approach Remote Inceptor. An unfortunate choice of an acronym, yes, just like KGB (Knowledge Generation Bureau) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Generation_Bureau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Generation_Bureau
- burnte 9y agoOr, as I suspect, an intentional acronym.
- borgchick 9y agoAs soon as I saw ATARI, I thought this has gotta be an April fools day joke, then I saw it wasn't posted on the 1st, then I was confused...
- MBCook 9y agoApril 1st would be when they announce they’re dropping it for the COmbat Landing w/Electronic COntrol system.... COLECO.
- smoyer 9y agoIt's an interesting choice of wording when they say the LSO can "take over" - I hope the encryption is strong enough that LulzSec doesn't also "take over" a military aircraft.
- goldenkey 9y agoWouldn't existing drones be using similar, albeit lower powered communications?
- Jesus_Jones 9y agoWhat could go wrong with remote control technology over our important military assets? Of course the answer is a lot, especially in wartime. For all the paranoid people thinking that the military or police or whatever US security service will take over the country in a secret coup, the people who make up those forces are an important bulwark against tyranny from within or without. It's very dangerous to be a pilot and a soldier but as a software engineer I don't know how I could ever feel safe in a world without people making decisions about how to use weapons.
- 2020-3030 9y agoYou are absolutely correct about the need for people to be making decisions. A small number of people have already averted what could have been global nuclear war (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-soviet-submarine-captain-who-averted-nuclear-war-awarded-future-of-life-prize https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/27/vasili-arkhi... and other similar articles and especially item #8 on this list http://metro.co.uk/2016/07/18/13-times-the-world-came-close-to-nuclear-war-6013942/ http://metro.co.uk/2016/07/18/13-times-the-world-came-close-...)
- smoyer 9y agoYes ... and Iran has already claimed to have taken over one of the (at the time) most technologically advanced U.S. drones - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid....
- desireco42 9y agoJust wait till Iranians or someone like that hacks into this, like they already did to one US drone.
- dmix 9y agoIt's not autonomous like a drone, it's controlled by human(s) on the aircraft carrier with a pilot in the cockpit. It's also being billed as a "backup system" for safety (to correct course) and for emergencies.
- desireco42 9y agoIt still opens it to hacking, as much as people don't want to hear it. Essentially you have system for remote operation and if it can be hacked, then it can be used to direct the plane.
- tfha 9y agoIf you can remotely control something, so can your enemy.
- jimrandomh 9y agoNot true. Cryptography does work.
- stouset 9y agoCryptography works, but the implementations are frequently flawed. Plus, things like this introduce systemic risk where an adversary can take over multiple aircraft simultaneously, or at least render them all inert midair.
- monkeynotes 9y agoIf remote controlled aircraft are a problem then basically anything on a network is a problem. Pretty sure nuclear power stations, missile silos, satellites, dams, darn near everything has a remote controlling and monitoring element these days. You could just shut down a whole country.
- stouset 9y agoIf Stuxnet taught us anything, you’re not wrong.
- tfha 9y agoWe are going to have a very sorry series of tragedies if that doesn't change. Remote monitoring is fine, remote control is not. At least, not for things like nuclear power, weapons systems, vehicles that can drive very fast, etc
- erkkie 9y agoRemote control of assets is not going to go away, we will need to adapt as an industry to produce secure systems.