What's new

Iran missile strike successful ,Israel failed to detect missile's warhead separation

@LeGenD how does a stealth UAV with a service ceiling of 50,000 ft (and let's be honest it was flying at something like that level, certainly thousands and thousands of feet) just glide gracefully to the ground and sustain only very minor (almost un- noticeable) fuselage damage (and probably some broken gear if deployed)? Bearing in mind that flying wings are notoriously difficult to keep in the air and need constant FBW input just to keep them from going out of control.
Everything you said is wrong in the technical issues.

To start off...A UAV with long straight wings is NOT a flying wing design. To see a true flying wing design, look at the B-2 and its predecessors.

Now...A UAV with long straight wings is essentially a glider when without power. In fact, there is a documented event of an F-106 that entered a flat spin, the pilot believed his situation to be non-recoverable and ejected, the jet self recovered, and landed itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber

Long straight wings are designed to maximize lift at most flight conditions, so yes, it is more than possible that an unattended UAV can land itself with barely any damages.
 
Last edited:
.
To start off...A UAV with long straight wings is NOT a flying wing design. To see a true flying wing design, look at the B-2 and its predecessors.

You are insinuating that it is a blended wing body design. However it is usually adressed as flying wing. I would argue that it is no less a flying wing design compared to B2, with B2 having a larger center body (in ratio of end wings) and greater sweep angle.

In the end it is does not matter one bit. @AmirPatriot point still stands. These designs are inherently more difficult to stabilise since it is an unstable design especially in the jaw axis. The point stands!

Furthermore you are wrong to call it a straight wing design. A straight wing design does not have any sweep whatsoever.

20120224100756047958.jpg

400px-NORTHROP_B-2.png


Now...A UAV with long straight wings is essentially a glider when without power. In fact, there is a documented event of an F-106 that entered a flat spin, the pilot believed his situation to be non-recoverable and ejected, the jet self recovered, and landed itself.

F-106 has a delta wing. It could land because of an unforeseen and advantageous phenomena where the center of gravity of the aircraft was changed following the pilots ejection. Your comparison is invalid since there is no way you can use this example to extrapolate on the rq-170. Different designs and different circumstances.

Long straight wings are designed to maximize lift at most flight conditions, so yes, it is more than possible that an unattended UAV can land itself with barely any damages.

Your conclusion is invalid based on the before-mentioned (debunked) claims.

Everything you said is wrong in the technical issues.

Yes, everything you said is wrong on a technical level!
 
.
You are insinuating that it is a blended wing body design. However it is usually adressed as flying wing. I would argue that it is no less a flying wing design compared to B2, with B2 having a larger center body (in ratio of end wings) and greater sweep angle.

In the end it is does not matter one bit. @AmirPatriot point still stands. These designs are inherently more difficult to stabilise since it is an unstable design especially in the jaw axis. The point stands!

Furthermore you are wrong to call it a straight wing design. A straight wing design does not have any sweep whatsoever.
Let us grant that he was talking about a UAV that is of a B-2 style design.

All UAVs are designed to be with some degrees of autonomous flight. I know because I used to work with people who built these things before drones became famous. A cruise missile is a UAV. Are you telling me that there is a pilot per cruise missile at the other end ?

Let us settle that question before we move on, shall we ?
 
.
Let us grant that he was talking about a UAV that is of a B-2 style design.

All UAVs are designed to be with some degrees of autonomous flight. I know because I used to work with people who built these things before drones became famous. A cruise missile is a UAV. Are you telling me that there is a pilot per cruise missile at the other end ?

Let us settle that question before we move on, shall we ?


A cruise missile is unmanned yes. But it is not an UAV per definition: "An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard." For the discussion at hand it does not matter that much.

I am guessing that what you are pointing to is the fact that the stability control of the aircraft is autonomous. Yes of course! It could most probably fly routes without human interaction as well. However I would be surprised (in contrast to cruise missiles) if the drone does not get any signals from a pilot/operator/"whatever you want to call it" while performing its operations.

I don't know if that was the answer to your somewhat fuzzy question. In either case please make your point with whatever base conditions you need.
 
.
All UAVs are designed to be with some degrees of autonomous flight

So?

If it can fly autonomously, why would a comms malfunction cause it to crash in the first place? After all, assuming it hasn't been GPS spoofed, it can simply use GPS to get back to home base. And if GPS is broken, INS or other backups.

The only possibility regarding malfunction I can think of here is engine trouble but I'm not sure how likely that is given that - assuming the UAV still is under operator control - the operator would know that the UAV is not going to make it and either start any self-destruct measures of the UAV or simply crash nose first into ground. Not leave the UAV almost completely intact, including all its data, in enemy territory.
 
.
Advanced American drones are likely to have autonomous capabilities - X-47B and Global Hawk can perform (entire) missions autonomously. Take a look at this case: https://www.theverge.com/2013/7/10/4511476/autonomous-drone-first-landing-on-navy-aircraft-carrier

Even the relatively less advanced Reaper drone has autonomous take-off and landing capabilities: http://www.afahc.ro/ro/afases/2014/forte/BENO.pdf

Learn more from here: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21352/how-do-drones-overcome-latency
 
.
View attachment 407590

View attachment 407591

مقر فرماندهی - مخابراتی داعش در شهر المیادین - به دکل‌ها دقت کنید
View attachment 407592

اولین لحظه پس از اصابت موشک - موشک به جداره‌های دیوار ساختمان شماره 3 اصابت کرده است (پایین)
View attachment 407593

6 Zolfaqar were fired, why they show us only 4 impacts?
1 Qiam BM was also fired, were is video of it?
Minimum 7 missiles fired, only 4 impacts shown....
 
.
6 Zolfaqar were fired, why they show us only 4 impacts?
1 Qiam BM was also fired, were is video of it?
Minimum 7 missiles fired, only 4 impacts shown....
6 missiles not 7 and I guess they didn't have all missiles covered by UAV's.
 
.
6 missiles not 7 and I guess they didn't have all missiles covered by UAV's.

Cmon, thats BS.
they fire first missiles since 30 years and they cant cover all 6 missiles with cheap UAV? BS!
they have everything on tape....
 
. .
Cmon, thats BS.
they fire first missiles since 30 years and they cant cover all 6 missiles with cheap UAV? BS!
they have everything on tape....
Who knows maybe they even had camera's on warheads
 
.
Cmon, thats BS.
they fire first missiles since 30 years and they cant cover all 6 missiles with cheap UAV? BS!
they have everything on tape....
the drones don't have Sat-link so the operator must be in area , maybe they don't had enough drones operator in that area as here the time was critical
 
.
A cruise missile is unmanned yes. But it is not an UAV per definition: "An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard." For the discussion at hand it does not matter that much.
There is a difference between 'unmanned' and 'unpiloted'.

In flight, if the pilot is somehow incapacitated and there is no one to assume control in the same capacity, the aircraft is essentially unpiloted, even if there are other people on board. Unmanned does not mean unpiloted. Unmanned can also mean remotely piloted. An unmanned aircraft can be designed to be remotely piloted no matter what, it means if without constant inputs from that remote pilot, the aircraft will enter uncontrolled flight.

I am guessing that what you are pointing to is the fact that the stability control of the aircraft is autonomous. Yes of course! It could most probably fly routes without human interaction as well. However I would be surprised (in contrast to cruise missiles) if the drone does not get any signals from a pilot/operator/"whatever you want to call it" while performing its operations.
Flight control stability is not operations, course, and mission autonomy.

Modern flight controls have high, and increasing, autonomy. It means that flight operations are within the aircraft's own programming, removing much of the flying burdens from the pilot, whether that pilot is on board or remote. Flight controls stability fall under operations autonomy.

Course and mission autonomy are where things can get confusing for lay people. Course is simply going to point A to point B. In this, UAV, which includes the cruise missile, can and do have high degrees of autonomy. The mission, or the goal, is where the remote pilot is needed. For example, if the mission is observation only, then the UAV can be mostly autonomous, from take off at point A, to flying a path to point B, to assuming an observation flight path at point B. There will be minimal human interactions even at point B. On the other hand, if the mission is to deliver a weapon at time unknown, then at point B, human interactions will be maximum.

I don't know if that was the answer to your somewhat fuzzy question. In either case please make your point with whatever base conditions you need.
The bottom line is that this statement...

Bearing in mind that flying wings are notoriously difficult to keep in the air and need constant FBW input just to keep them from going out of control.

...Is technically wrong.

The flying wing design is problematic in the yaw axis, but that is solved decades ago. There is a false assumption that 'constant FBW input' means human inputs. The reality is that the fly-by-wire flight controls system removes the human pilot from that problem, at least with US designs anyway. What this means is that if human pilot inputs are absent, the flying wing UAV will revert to programmed responses, whatever they are. But it does not mean the flying wing UAV will enter uncontrolled flight, crash, and there is a wreckage of aircraft parts on the ground.
 
.
There is no necessity to publicize all the drone footage. The aim is to show some thing to public not for military specialists! As it may even lead to unwanted leak of information.
This is the footage of Russian Navy striking ISIS with 6 Kalibr missiles a few days after Iranian attack. However only 4 impacts are visible in this video.
 
.
There is no necessity to publicize all the drone footage. The aim is to show some thing to public not for military specialists! As it may even lead to unwanted leak of information.
This is the footage of Russian Navy striking ISIS with 6 Kalibr missiles a few days after Iranian attack. However only 4 impacts are visible in this video.

Couldn't have said it better myself.
 
.
Back
Top Bottom