Tomorrow's fighters: aircraft or integrated weapon systems?
Armada International › Vol. 14 Nbr. 4, August 1990
Linked as:
Extract
Tomorrow's fighters: aircraft or integrated weapon systems?
Tomorrow's Fighters: Aircraft or Integrated Weapon Systems?
Technology is no Longer the Number One Problem If Clement Ader and the Wright brothers were still alive, they would probably be bemused to see how aeroplanes are designed today. These aviation pioneers had to learn everything about lift and aerodynamics, had no computers to help them, no choice of lightweight materials, short of wood and fabrics, and engines were appallingly heavy, unreliable and underpowered. They would probably think that today's engineers have almost everything they need to make the world's best aircraft, including special design software like the Catia developed by Dassault, which is also used in the United States. But, ironically, most problems encountered by aeronautical experts have a human origin, and engineers have to design their aircraft according to the moves made in one of the most complicated forms of strategic games: the three-dimensional chess game (in which three perspex chess boards are stacked). The bottom board is played by the military (requirements), the middle one by the budget and financial experts and the top one by the politicians. In this game all three levels are, of course, interactive. Ask any western high-technology aircraft manufacturer from Seattle to Naples what is the current keyword to the design of tomorrow's fighters. Invariably the answer is: integration. As the word implies, almost all the vital elements of the aircraft have to be determined from the outset. The best radar plus the best airframe plus the best engine no longer necessarily give the best aircraft if each one of these components (to name only three) do not "k...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
