March 28, 2007:
Attempts
to create flight simulators that are 100 percent realistic have always fallen
short when it comes to recreating the g-forces encountered during violent
maneuvering by fighters. Gravity cannot be simulated realistically. G-forces
are not a problem for most other aircraft, but it's a critical shortcoming for modern
fighters. Over the last decade, more powerful engines, and computer assisted
flight controls, have enabled fighters to not only execute increasingly violent
maneuvers, but to do it more quickly and in different directions. Because of
this, medical doctors have gotten involved in the design of these aircraft, and
of the simulators as well. This is because the flight control systems have to
be designed so that the aircraft cannot easily make a maneuver that the pilot
cannot handle.
For over half a century,
aircraft have been capable to executing maneuvers, usually sharp turns while
moving at high speeds, that create a gravitational force (g-force) that causes
the pilot to black out. If a pilot is properly equipped, with special flight
suits that use small liquid or air
filled bladders to help prevent blood from rushing from the brain, and causing
a blackout, during high g force maneuvers, a g-force nine times normal gravity
("9 gs") can be tolerated.
In the last few decades,
computer assisted flight controls have been developed that prevent the pilot
from executing a maneuver that would exceed 9 gs. But as aircraft become faster and more agile, there were more
directions the aircraft can be going while pulling lots of gs. Pilots now have
to worry about neck injuries, if they execute certain maneuvers without
positioning their head just so. Just another thing to keep in mind during a dog
fight.
There are several ways to
avoid these problems. The U.S. Air Force has put a lot of time and money into
developing powerful radars, and long range missiles (like Sparrow and AMRAAM)
that eliminate the need for most high speed maneuvers. You still find yourself
doing some fancy flying to get into position to fire an AMRAAM, but nothing
like what you would do if using a shorter range heat seeker (like Sidewinder)
in a traditional dog fight. Also, when your sensors spot a long range missile
headed your way, some violent maneuvers can help, but the most protection
you're going to get is from electronic countermeasures and decoys. American
pilots still practice using short range missiles, but not as much in the past.
Short range fighting is a higher risk operation that is best avoided.
The ultimate solution to
this medical problem is to use UAVs for air-to-air combat. That's under
development, and has been for several decades. The current concept is to have a
human pilot remotely controlling a UAV fighter. This was tried as long ago as
the 1970s, and found to work quite well. But reliability and security
(maintaining the radio link) issues have delayed the arrival of UAV fighters.
Senior air force officers (most of them fighter pilots) have not been terribly
enthusiastic about this particular new technology. But the fact is that it's
becoming too expensive, and dangerous, to keep humans on board combat aircraft.