8 ms·

In the prior threads some posters were speculating “how do we know the Russians hit it, couldn’t the fuel have done it…” I don’t know how one can watch the jet’

by mint2 4y ago

In the prior threads some posters were speculating “how do we know the Russians hit it, couldn’t the fuel have done it…” I don’t know how one can watch the jet’s trajectory on both passes and doubt it hit on the second.

AustinDev 4y ago
Yeah, I've been in the room with Reaper operators many times and held my tongue hoping they'd release a video. Those things have so many cameras and sensors... I would not be surprised if they could tell you which pilot was flying the Su-27. The ISR capabilities of the Reaper platform are amazing.
advisedwang 4y ago
The video is 100% consistent with either the jet hitting it or the fuel hitting it. 1. We don't know the field of view of the camera, which makes it impossible to judge distances and positions correctly. 2. We don't know whether the camera cutting out is actually the point of impact or some time before it (perhaps there is a buffer that got lost, or the US cut it early to mislead).
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  How does the propeller blade get bent?
  - advisedwang 4y ago
    I'm not an aviation expert, but it's not implausible to me that the propeller is fragile enough to get bent by a stream of jet fuel traveling at fighter-jet speeds. On the contrary, a mid-air collision that just bends a couple of propeller blades and not the rest of the drone seems like either incredible flying or incredible luck.
    - t0mas88 4y ago
      Propellers are quite fragile things. If you hit a traffic cone with one on a small trainer aircraft, it's unairworthy immediately and requires an inspection of the propeller and engine.
    - Symbiote 4y ago
      It's not a "fighter jet speed" collision, since the drone is travelling at drone speed. It's the difference, which seems fairly small. The US military said there was a collision, and with this video there seems no reason to doubt them. https://www.eucom.mil/pressrelease/42314/russian-aircraft-collides-into-us-unmanned-system-in-international-waters https://www.eucom.mil/pressrelease/42314/russian-aircraft-co...
    - guenthert 4y ago
      Well, to this non-aviator, the flying as shown is immensely impressive. I mean, a jet approaching a drone heads-on and turning a few yards away? Russian military might not be all that popular on the english speaking internet at this time, but credit were credit is due -- mad respect for that pilot's skill.
      - mint2 4y ago
        It’s not head on, the jet is already turned to pull away but the pilot either misjudged distance a bit or intentionally did it. Because they’re pulling away the collision is at a low relative velocity
      - chiph 4y ago
        It's not head-on. The MQ-9 is a pusher-prop design (the prop is in the rear), so both aircraft were flying in the same direction. If there had been a direct collision, the impact velocity would have been the difference between them, not addition.
        guenthert 4y ago
        Ah, right, thanks.
  - noitdont 4y ago
    It doesnt. Relative velocity of blade tip much faster than jet wing tip.. Wing tip cant traverse bladed plane within 1/4 revolution of prop. Impossible angle to clear elevators and engine cowling and catch a single blade tip. Video is fabricated.
  - LispSporks22 4y ago
    It’s an artifact of the camera https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21446/what-happened-to-the-blades-in-this-picture https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21446/what-happ...
    - dole 4y ago
      It’s not rolling shutter artifacts, you can see the one blade is bent in the same direction as it spins, unlike rolling shutter which makes most of the blades appears to bend towards the same direction regardless of which angle the propeller’s at. (Probably not the clearest explanation, but still doesn’t look like rolling shutter.)
- noodlesUK 4y ago
  I think as regards point 2., we can definitely tell that the quality has been degraded. I don't believe for a moment that the best video feed to come off of a multimillion dollar surveillance drone is rivalled by an iPhone 3GS. I expect that this is a degraded or auxiliary video feed. The cutout seemed rather analog to me which is a bit interesting. I don't think it's public knowledge how reapers get their video to the ground station (It supports satellite uplink, but I don't know if that's the only mode of operation). I do generally agree that the video looks consistent with the idea that the drone was either damaged by the fuel or actually hit.
  - gpderetta 4y ago
    I thought that US military purposefully severely degrades videos before releasing them, probably to hide capabilities. This is in fact surprisingly high quality.
    - wil421 4y ago
      If you remember Trump tweeted a photo of Iran and twitter sleuths were all over it and calculated its capabilities. Navy pilots who witnessed the UFOs said they saw much better quality video at the time of the incident.
  - dogma1138 4y ago
    The feed likely wasn’t from the primary sensor, UAVs have engineering and TOAL cameras that are far lower quality than their primary sensor electro optic package. Also I believe the drone itself was configured for a SIGINT/SAR mission so it would have an SAR pod and a bunch of antennas instead of an electro optic sensor payload.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mzs 4y ago
  This is a very good thread geolocating this video but the answer as to why it shows contact is here: https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1636749222195101696 https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1636749222195101696
- dogma1138 4y ago
  These are engineering or TOAL cameras also sometimes called flight cameras. They are for visual inspection of key flight systems e.g. flight surfaces, rotors and landing gear. As well as for assisting in non visual range take off approach and landing operations. The primary sensors are which take the nice photos aren’t designed for that, their optics and sensors itself won’t be able to focus on objects so close and the gimbal and pod location aren’t suited for inspecting the aircraft. The cutout in the stream is simply because the drone streams via satellite which is extremely sensitive to sharp disruptions in its location in 3D space so a drop in altitude or a rapid attitude change will cut the link. (This is also why the SpaceX stream often cuts out or at least used too). These cameras have far lower quality than the massive electro optical sensors in the primary sensor package and they also are allocated far less bandwidth than the primary mission package whether it’s ElOp, SIGINT or SAR.

by mint2 4y ago

AustinDev 4y ago

Yeah, I've been in the room with Reaper operators many times and held my tongue hoping they'd release a video. Those things have so many cameras and sensors... I would not be surprised if they could tell you which pilot was flying the Su-27. The ISR capabilities of the Reaper platform are amazing.

advisedwang 4y ago

The video is 100% consistent with either the jet hitting it or the fuel hitting it. 1. We don't know the field of view of the camera, which makes it impossible to judge distances and positions correctly. 2. We don't know whether the camera cutting out is actually the point of impact or some time before it (perhaps there is a buffer that got lost, or the US cut it early to mislead).

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
How does the propeller blade get bent?
- advisedwang 4y ago
  I'm not an aviation expert, but it's not implausible to me that the propeller is fragile enough to get bent by a stream of jet fuel traveling at fighter-jet speeds. On the contrary, a mid-air collision that just bends a couple of propeller blades and not the rest of the drone seems like either incredible flying or incredible luck.
  - t0mas88 4y ago
    Propellers are quite fragile things. If you hit a traffic cone with one on a small trainer aircraft, it's unairworthy immediately and requires an inspection of the propeller and engine.
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    It's not a "fighter jet speed" collision, since the drone is travelling at drone speed. It's the difference, which seems fairly small. The US military said there was a collision, and with this video there seems no reason to doubt them. https://www.eucom.mil/pressrelease/42314/russian-aircraft-collides-into-us-unmanned-system-in-international-waters https://www.eucom.mil/pressrelease/42314/russian-aircraft-co...
  - guenthert 4y ago
    Well, to this non-aviator, the flying as shown is immensely impressive. I mean, a jet approaching a drone heads-on and turning a few yards away? Russian military might not be all that popular on the english speaking internet at this time, but credit were credit is due -- mad respect for that pilot's skill.
    - mint2 4y ago
      It’s not head on, the jet is already turned to pull away but the pilot either misjudged distance a bit or intentionally did it. Because they’re pulling away the collision is at a low relative velocity
    - chiph 4y ago
      It's not head-on. The MQ-9 is a pusher-prop design (the prop is in the rear), so both aircraft were flying in the same direction. If there had been a direct collision, the impact velocity would have been the difference between them, not addition.
      - guenthert 4y ago
        Ah, right, thanks.
- noitdont 4y ago
  It doesnt. Relative velocity of blade tip much faster than jet wing tip.. Wing tip cant traverse bladed plane within 1/4 revolution of prop. Impossible angle to clear elevators and engine cowling and catch a single blade tip. Video is fabricated.
- LispSporks22 4y ago
  It’s an artifact of the camera https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21446/what-happened-to-the-blades-in-this-picture https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21446/what-happ...
  - dole 4y ago
    It’s not rolling shutter artifacts, you can see the one blade is bent in the same direction as it spins, unlike rolling shutter which makes most of the blades appears to bend towards the same direction regardless of which angle the propeller’s at. (Probably not the clearest explanation, but still doesn’t look like rolling shutter.)
noodlesUK 4y ago
I think as regards point 2., we can definitely tell that the quality has been degraded. I don't believe for a moment that the best video feed to come off of a multimillion dollar surveillance drone is rivalled by an iPhone 3GS. I expect that this is a degraded or auxiliary video feed. The cutout seemed rather analog to me which is a bit interesting. I don't think it's public knowledge how reapers get their video to the ground station (It supports satellite uplink, but I don't know if that's the only mode of operation). I do generally agree that the video looks consistent with the idea that the drone was either damaged by the fuel or actually hit.
- gpderetta 4y ago
  I thought that US military purposefully severely degrades videos before releasing them, probably to hide capabilities. This is in fact surprisingly high quality.
  - wil421 4y ago
    If you remember Trump tweeted a photo of Iran and twitter sleuths were all over it and calculated its capabilities. Navy pilots who witnessed the UFOs said they saw much better quality video at the time of the incident.
- dogma1138 4y ago
  The feed likely wasn’t from the primary sensor, UAVs have engineering and TOAL cameras that are far lower quality than their primary sensor electro optic package. Also I believe the drone itself was configured for a SIGINT/SAR mission so it would have an SAR pod and a bunch of antennas instead of an electro optic sensor payload.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
mzs 4y ago
This is a very good thread geolocating this video but the answer as to why it shows contact is here: https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1636749222195101696 https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1636749222195101696
dogma1138 4y ago
These are engineering or TOAL cameras also sometimes called flight cameras. They are for visual inspection of key flight systems e.g. flight surfaces, rotors and landing gear. As well as for assisting in non visual range take off approach and landing operations. The primary sensors are which take the nice photos aren’t designed for that, their optics and sensors itself won’t be able to focus on objects so close and the gimbal and pod location aren’t suited for inspecting the aircraft. The cutout in the stream is simply because the drone streams via satellite which is extremely sensitive to sharp disruptions in its location in 3D space so a drop in altitude or a rapid attitude change will cut the link. (This is also why the SpaceX stream often cuts out or at least used too). These cameras have far lower quality than the massive electro optical sensors in the primary sensor package and they also are allocated far less bandwidth than the primary mission package whether it’s ElOp, SIGINT or SAR.