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PittTheElder posted:Wait, are NATO ground controllers really handling measurements in knots and feet? loving hell. A quick perusal of the internet also seems to suggest that civilian air traffic control is still done in English Customary. I realize that these things all got going before the west really hopped on board the metrification train, but I had high hopes that like other serious professions, ATC would have moved to metric. It doesn't really matter. Units are units. Nobody's taking altitude in feet and doing the mental math to convert it to miles, or calculating the kinetic energy of a 737 flying at 450 knots.
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Nov 19, 2014 01:53
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PittTheElder posted:Wait, are NATO ground controllers really handling measurements in knots and feet? loving hell. A quick perusal of the internet also seems to suggest that civilian air traffic control is still done in English Customary. I realize that these things all got going before the west really hopped on board the metrification train, but I had high hopes that like other serious professions, ATC would have moved to metric. A nautical mile (and therefore a knot) is technically a metric measurement.  It's equal to one minute of arc of latitude (since longitude varies based on your latitude) and has been standardized as 1,852 m. As for altitude, we won the war so it's feet.
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Nov 19, 2014 01:57
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Dead Reckoning posted:A nautical mile (and therefore a knot) is technically a metric measurement. Shouldn't have the yoke of colonial oppressors been thrown off instead of keeping the measurement system of ye olde England?!?
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Nov 19, 2014 02:00
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Dead Reckoning posted:A nautical mile (and therefore a knot) is technically a metric measurement. Pretty much. I love, though, when engineers get all sniffy and roll their eyes when we're talking in the loving NATO standard about missiles while they program in pure metric. Listen, Mr. Engineer, you can program any way you like, but when we evaluate the equipment, we're going to use the units we'd use in war, get over it.
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Nov 19, 2014 02:08
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PittTheElder posted:Wait, are NATO ground controllers really handling measurements in knots and feet? loving hell. A quick perusal of the internet also seems to suggest that civilian air traffic control is still done in English Customary. I realize that these things all got going before the west really hopped on board the metrification train, but I had high hopes that like other serious professions, ATC would have moved to metric. Go crash an orbiter about it.
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Nov 19, 2014 02:16
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priznat posted:Shouldn't have the yoke of colonial oppressors been thrown off instead of keeping the measurement system of ye olde England?!? A combination of nobody wanting to learn a new system and a healthy dash of latter day gently caress Your Meters.
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Nov 19, 2014 02:30
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priznat posted:Shouldn't have the yoke of colonial oppressors been thrown off instead of keeping the measurement system of ye olde England?!? The whole point of the revolution is that 'Merica don't want foreign rulers
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Nov 19, 2014 02:33
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Smiling Jack posted:The whole point of the revolution is that 'Merica don't want foreign rulers  Very nice.
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Nov 19, 2014 02:36
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That's a beauty 
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Nov 19, 2014 02:47
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Smiling Jack posted:The whole point of the revolution is that 'Merica don't want foreign rulers 
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Nov 19, 2014 03:00
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Dead Reckoning posted:A nautical mile (and therefore a knot) is technically a metric measurement. Well, if you want to go that far, then every imperial customary unit is actually a metric unit, since they were redefined based on metric standard units ages ago. But still, I really figured ATC would have adopted a modernization program at some point. But now that I think about it, Alaan posted:Good loving luck telling everyone they have to change all their aircraft displays, every ground control display, and retrain all your pilots to be thinking in a different unit. It's one of those things that is such a tremendous pain in the dick to change you just keep rolling with it. this is probably a fair reason why it'll never happen. Unless glass cockpits start to really dominate one day, then we might have the ability to one day flip a switch and have everything change over at once. Are guys like Airbus and SAAB cranking out all-imperial displays? Smiling Jack posted:The whole point of the revolution is that 'Merica don't want foreign rulers
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Nov 19, 2014 03:30
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Knots are really loving useful because they're a nautical mile an hour. Nautical miles are loving useful because, as had been said, they're roughly equivalent to one minute of arc of latitude (a minute of arc of latitude at 45 degrees to be precise). When you're doing spherical trig or what have you because you need to calculate how long it's going to take to get from Newfoundland to the channel... Converting back and forth to metric would be a pain in the rear end. The Earth isn't metric. Let's put it another way: the GPS is in nautical miles (gently caress decimal degrees, what the gently caress is this poo poo*), the sextant is in nautical miles, the chart is in nautical mile. Knots are here to stay. Feet I don't really care about, whatever. *Also gently caress degree minutes second, degree minutes decimal minutes forever.
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Nov 19, 2014 04:23
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Godholio posted:Against anything in the F-15/Su-27/F-16/MiG-29 families, or any Eurasian fighter since about 1980, an F-5 is hosed. It's going to die before it gets a chance to shoot. The problem with the F-5 in a modern environment(this problem plagued both the f-20 and mig-21 90s era modifications) is that they just aren't cheaper enough than real modern fighters to be worth going that route for. Only mig-21s have any success in the market at all and it's not that great. That being said, mig-21s and f-20s with pricey modernization packages could compete, but it's just not very practical on procurement terms. Better to just take your old mig-21s and f-5s and use them as bomb trucks.
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Nov 19, 2014 04:44
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FrozenVent posted:The Earth isn't metric. Yeah, about that... Also, unless you're travelling directly North or South, that mental math isn't going to be accurate, owing to oblate spheres and geodesics and such. quote:Let's put it another way: the GPS is in nautical miles... I guarantee you it isn't; WGS-84 is defined in metric units, and any GPS made in the last 30 years is doing it's computations in that frame using metric units. Hell, I'm working with a military GPS receiver from ca. 1995, and even it reports everything in metric units. It also uses non-IEEE numbers and has a whopping 10 tracking channels. 
PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 05:07
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PittTheElder posted:Also, unless you're travelling directly North or South, that mental math isn't going to be accurate, owing to oblate spheres and geodesics and such. It's often close enough for a TLAR or sanity check though, and it's super loving useful when plotting on a chart, because you can throw any line against the nearest meridian to get an accurate distance. The nautical mile is a good and useful unit and everyone who uses them agrees. Haters vacate. FrozenVent posted:*Also gently caress degree minutes second, degree minutes decimal minutes forever.  Por vida.
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Nov 19, 2014 05:59
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Yeah sure but the display I'm looking at is showing DD MM.mm. And the mental math is close enough anyway - anytime you need precision you're pulling out the calculator or straight up working on a computer. I'm sure the GPS can output cubits if I need it to, but day to day poo poo at sea gets done in degree minute decimal of minutes. When we switch the entire lat / long grid to metric, sure, whatever. Until then? Learn to multiply by 1.852 and deal with it.
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Nov 19, 2014 06:03
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I've never heard any reason why aviation should be converted to metric apart from the usual "olol you are so backward join this millennium" argument trotted out by eggheads Also DMS for life, gently caress the haters. E: I should also mention that difference between a perfect sphere and the oblate spheroid shape of the Earth is important in many areas, it is almost inconsequential when it comes to navigating an aircraft. If it were not accounted for, over the length of the longest commercial flights being flown today (which approach 8000 nautical miles in length), it would be less than 10 nautical miles of error - not even two minutes of flying time over a total of nearly 16 hours flying time. Now if you're trying to post a missile through someone's bathroom window, it sure is important. But for a manned aircraft? Not so much. MrChips fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 07:56
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As long as your radios and navigation are working, sure.
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Nov 19, 2014 08:39
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MrChips posted:I've never heard any reason why aviation should be converted to metric apart from the usual "olol you are so backward join this millennium" argument trotted out by eggheads That's a pretty good argument, to be fair. I just think a system with a grounding in reality, where all other units of measurements can quickly be converted against each other is the right and proper way. On the other hand, I like the sound of the word "knot", so there is that.
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Nov 19, 2014 11:11
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When you're doing long range navigation, minutes of latitude, nautical miles and knots are all grounded in reality and easily convertible to one another. And you don't really use anything else. Also if you support DD MM SS.ss, you've either never had to correct charts the hard way or you're weird in the head. Or both.
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Nov 19, 2014 13:01
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OhYeah posted:That's a pretty good argument, to be fair. That might very well be true, but it is still swapping one highly arbitrary set of units for one that, at least from the perspective of aviation, is equally arbitrary. For time, distance and speed calculations, you could use practically any unit; as long as I know how many smoots per hour I am doing, and how many more smoots I have to go before I reach my destination (or run out of fuel) that's all that really matters. Speaking to fuel, unit conversions between volume and mass for fuel, arguably the second most important calculation in aviation, are no easier in SI units than they are in imperial. After all, a litre of Jet A weighs 802 grams, give or take five percent depending on the temperature of the fuel...not a particularly round number to deal with; no worse than 6 and 2/3 pounds per US gallon at least. And beyond that, the most important unit in aviation is already sort of in metric; the buck. Usually needed in mega- or giga- sized quantities.
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Nov 19, 2014 13:07
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MrChips posted:That might very well be true, but it is still swapping one highly arbitrary set of units for one that, at least from the perspective of aviation, is equally arbitrary. I think that's the gist of it, yeah. quote:And beyond that, the most important unit in aviation is already sort of in metric; the buck. Usually needed in mega- or giga- sized quantities.
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Nov 19, 2014 13:24
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OhYeah posted:I just think a system with a grounding in reality explain to me how imperial units don't have a grounding in reality, what with existing in our reality and all.
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Nov 19, 2014 17:52
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OhYeah posted:I just think a system with a grounding in reality, where all other units of measurements can quickly be converted against each other is the right and proper way.
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Nov 19, 2014 18:50
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Psion posted:explain to me how imperial units don't have a grounding in reality, what with existing in our reality and all. Europe stopped caring about winning wars, and now just spergs out about how the US doesn't use the right units of measure.
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Nov 19, 2014 18:57
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Metric units are just as arbitrary, and so is base 10 for that matter, we should do all calculations in Mortabis fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 19:09
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Dead Reckoning posted:Maybe you shouldn't tell other people what the "right and proper way" to do their job is. military.txt
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Nov 19, 2014 19:10
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You'd be socked just how quick and natural it becomes to convert nm to km and vice versa when you have to. Up until a recent software patch that is still being rolled out, patriot battalions reported only in km to the bde engagement controller, working in nm. Some systems can do this automatically at bde level, others don't.
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Nov 19, 2014 20:10
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Meanwhile, Pluto as seen by Russians: 
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Nov 19, 2014 22:18
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About as warm, too.
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Nov 19, 2014 22:37
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From this angle, the F-22 is all about that bass: http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/50-totally-stunning-combat-aircraft-photos-taken-around-1660494241
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Nov 19, 2014 23:35
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Seriously gently caress your metric system
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Nov 20, 2014 00:11
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Crossposting from Aeronautical Insanity Got to fly a C-17 simulator today. Couldn't take pictures, unfortunately. Blame the OpSec Wizard.  Overall, a really cool experience. My entire prior piloting experience consisted of dicking around in Microsoft Flight Simulator and a flight in a Navy T-34 when I was ten. Warmed up with a couple of takeoffs and landings to get the hang of things. Didn't crash the jet. Even with 50,000 pounds of "cargo" in the back, the C-17 struck me as a surprisingly hot ship. Rotated quickly at takeoff, climbed rapidly, and handled sharp banks easily. I could get the aircraft to do what I wanted. And I'm a very rusty stick-and-rudder pilot. Cockpit layout was very logical and easy to follow. The HUD was enormously helpful. V1, artificial horizon, airspeed indicator, altitude, and navigational indicators were all right there. Tried aerial refueling with a KC-135. poo poo is way harder than it looks. Even with the tanker flying straight and level, simply approaching the tanker was loving hard. You really become aware of the C-17s bulk. There was major lag between control inputs and aircraft response. Not to mention the wake turbulence from the tanker. The simulator was actually shaking at some points. It was like trying to pick up a grain of rice in a windstorm while using telephone poles for chopsticks. Wrapped the day up with a simulated assault landing. Started at about 5000 feet or so. The pilot I was with hit all four thrust reversers, set flaps, and pointed the nose down. Simulator started rattling like a monkey cage and the plane dropped like an elevator. Meanwhile, the guy running the simulator starts chucking MANPADs at us. Leveled off for a short final approach and touched down. No sooner had our wheels landed, than he had the reversers and brakes back on. Jet stopped in about 2000 feet. Got to walk around the actual jet too. For some reason the Opsec Wizard didn't object to this.   The loadmaster's seat. Got to see the loadmaster sim, too.    Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Feb 20, 2017 |
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Nov 20, 2014 00:28
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUVsyEiACx4 Watch the bags under this man's eyes during the high G maneuvers. Also pretty fun to see the canards at work. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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Nov 20, 2014 01:21
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TheFluff posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUVsyEiACx4 "NO STEP" warnings in English and Bitching Betty talking in English? Is English used that much in the Swedish military, or just Swedish military aircraft? Craptacular fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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Nov 20, 2014 02:14
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Aircraft in general is my understanding.
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Nov 20, 2014 02:45
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Craptacular posted:"NO STEP" warnings in English and Bitching Betty talking in English? Is English used that much in the Swedish military, or just aircraft? The Swedish air force did everything in Swedish up until the late 90's/early 2000's when suddenly there was a massive doctrine shift from national defense to international expeditions. These days everyone is expected to be able to work in a NATO-led context and so exercises are held in English occasionally. In the air force though the working language in general is English these days since they've switched everything over to NATO standard, including the command language and brevity codes etc. Before the doctrine shift though the air force had a completely different way of doing things. For example, stuff like the NATO "bullseye" (a known point that you use for navigation; you express the positions of things relative to that point) simply didn't exist back then. Instead everything was done with national grid coordinates and similar systems because projecting power outside of our own backyard just wasn't a consideration at all. Same thing with the data links; there no need to talk to anyone else so a completely proprietary system was used. Most importantly though, FARA looks much better on an air intake than DANGER does, and TRYCK EJ HÄR ("do not press here") will forever be associated with anti-ship missiles in my mind.      I mean, it's obvious which one is better, right? (The two-seater Viggens in the upper left image are the electronic warfare version; the other Viggen is a photo recon version. The Gripen in splinter camo was a one-off paintjob for the last Gripen A flight in the Swedish air force; the splinter camo has never been used operationally on the Gripen.) TheFluff fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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Nov 20, 2014 03:03
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Bacarruda posted:Tried aerial refueling with a KC-135. poo poo is way harder than it looks. I remember one of Major Kong's articles where he tells you that in order to get good at refueling a B-52, you need to hold a ten-pound hand-weight outstretched for half an hour, with no breaks, and you're ready to refuel a heavy.
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Nov 20, 2014 03:19
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OhYeah posted:Haha, I would love to hear more stories like this, if anyone has to share. Here's the opposite of that, something I posted earlier in the thread: iyaayas01 posted:e: I can't remember if I posted this story here or in another thread, but I've got a story that's basically the opposite of that...there was an airlift focused vul during a RF-A exercise. Instead of being ancillary to the fight the scenario focus for that vul was doing an airfield seizure in enemy territory, so airlifters were the main show. A C-17 and a bunch of Herks were supposed to ingress and fly to a dirt strip, where they'd simulate infiltrating a force of Rangers or whatever, and then haul rear end out of the airspace, while everyone else (OCA, SEAD, Escort, etc) covered/supported them. Well something went terribly, terribly wrong with the escort plan, because wires got crossed somewhere and the airlifters were left hanging out to dry...all of them were dead within a minute of the start of the vul. Literal turkey shoot. Pretty sure that C-17 got shot at least 4 times in the first 15 seconds. That was one of the few shot vals I actually sat in on (I did logistics stuff so I mostly stayed away from the ops side of things because I had other stuff to do). It was hilarious when they got to that spot on the playback.
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Nov 20, 2014 04:59
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TheFluff posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUVsyEiACx4  STARBUTT (yeah, I guess it means something else in swedish, but STARBUTT) Gervasius fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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