Re: FT in a Fluid

Peter Mancini wrote:

>Instead of calling the manuever in "swerving" I would suggest either
>"induced yaw" or "attitude skew". 

Thanks! Knew I should've known it, but I could only remember the
Swedish term :-(

>Someone pointed out to me that the reason you don't want to yaw the
>missile is it now has much increased surface area in the flow of the
>air stream and thus needs to be redesigned to compensate.

Part of the structural integrity problems I talked about earlier,
yes...

>What is easier, redesigning every missile or one aircraft?  :-\

Depends. If you want to keep all your old missiles, it's easier to give
the new aircraft new acrobatic abilities, but *do* you want to keep the
old missiles? 

You'll want to replace their warheads and engines eventually (the
propellants and explosives change characteristics in storage), and
you'll definitely want to replace much of their electronics and
avionics (since there's much more powerful stuff available now)... all
that remains is the basic hull structure, and that's by far the least
expensive part of the entire missile...

...so if the "rotating hardpoint" concept is workable with today's
technology, why don't even the "next-generation" aircraft like F22, JSF
or Typhoon which are designed to use next-generation missiles (which
*could* be designed to survive yaw-airstream-induced stresses) use it?

>On an unrelated note, how much computing power are in ATGM's >these
days? From a hacker point of view I have found that even >mundane
things like Pinball games have significant computers in >them (i.e. way
beyond 4 function calculators).  I am curious how >much hacking is
possible on the launcher or the round.	(This from >the guy that wants
to put a wireless web server in his truck to monitor >the truck
computer and view the engine performance on line...)

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you" :-( 

It really depends on what weapon you're looking at. The Strix mortar
round (not an ATGM of course, but still a fire-and-forget precision
weapon) can be quite seriously programmed on launch; some weapons use
hardwired circuits instead (so you can't reprogram them except by
replacing the electronics). But I can safely say that they're usually
more capable than a 4-function calculator <g>

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."