Re: Fighter Fur Balls a thing of the past?

Allan Goodall wrote:

> On Thu, 31 May 2001 10:42:16 -0400, Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>
wrote:
>
> >There is an article on Jane's site about this very thing. UCAVs. Take
> >a look at that one too....
>
> Funny, about 4 years ago I had a discussion about FT fighters likely
to be
> unmanned. I got a bunch of people saying the old, "computers are
predictable,
> humans aren't, they will always have an edge, so will always be in the
> cockpit" arguments. I countered with the old, "computers can handle
sustained
> 25 gs, I can't" argument...
>
> Personally, I see it happening. I see fighters going "unmanned" or
partially
> controlled by humans. By the time FT comes around, I see fighters
totally
> unmanned. Which makes me feel better about losing hordes of fighters
in an FT
> game. *G*

If you can sidestep Einstein, odds are the inertial compensators can get
around
the problem of g-loading pilots to death.  The simple expedient is fill
the
cockpit, and internal voids of the pilot, with a fluid that both CO2 and
O2 are
highly soluble in.  Osmotic pressure removes CO2 and from, and brings O2
into the
lungs.	As long as the fluid is both incompressible and of the same
specific
gravity of the pilot, the pilot is unaffected by most g-loads that do
not destroy
the craft.  Forty g's is not unduly harmful, so if we can avoid blood
pooling
(and this scheme does), we can return to the heyday of pilots being
limited by
their machines.

There are two reasons why this scheme is not in use now:
1)  The only candidate fluid so far known to mankind kills the rats (but
not by
asphyxiation) in an unacceptably short amount of time.

2) Building a cockpit that can support the enormous pressure loading
(nothing
comes for free), while still leaving the aircraft maneuverable enough to
need it,
is beyond our technology.