Spatial awereness

[Gatecrasher]

Sorry for getting this thread off topic..

If the technical details were easy then everyone would be building supercomputers and 787's and F1 cars. A supercomputer is just a bunch of transistors (sorry electrical switches) with some interconnects. A 787 is a plane that uses moving air to help lift it off the ground. A F1 car is simply 4 wheels and a powerful engine. The real technology behind each that makes one version better than the other however is massively complex. I know a little on the first, I assume the same for 787 and F1.

I agree following money is superficial however that is the reality of the world we live in for most people.

[autogyro]

What is massively complicated about a super computer a 787 or an F1 car.
You do the courses and follow the instructions.(or regulations)
Simple.
It is why they all look the same and do the same things.
Non of them are any more complex in detail to putting a spade in the ground and digging up potatoes.
At least potato has also got an advantage it can keep you alive the others cannot.

[riff_raff]

In our field of interest we remember and applaud the work and judgement of the Chapmans, Uhlenhauts, Duckworths, Neweys etc
not that of those apparently well qualified who didn't really appreciate and engage in the field they got assigned to
eg the Millenium bridge, the Space Shuttle failures, even Chernoby

I worked as an engineer on the US Space Shuttle program, the F-18 program, the F-22 program, the F-35 program, the Rolls-Royce BR710/BR715 engine programs, and NASA's recent SLS rocket program. And the technical people I worked with on all of these projects were hands-down far more capable than Chapman, Duckworth or Newey. In fact, neither Chapman, Duckworth or Newey would last for long in the current aerospace engineering environment, since they don't have the attention to detail the work requires.

[J.A.W.]

How many F1 World Championships have you made primary engineering contributions to r-r?

As many as those blokes you seemingly dismiss - so blithely?

[autogyro]

I worked as an engineer on the US Space Shuttle program, the F-18 program, the F-22 program, the F-35 program, the Rolls-Royce BR710/BR715 engine programs, and NASA's recent SLS rocket program. And the technical people I worked with on all of these projects were hands-down far more capable than Chapman, Duckworth or Newey. In fact, neither Chapman, Duckworth or Newey would last for long in the current aerospace engineering environment, since they don't have the attention to detail the work requires.

Sorry riff-raff but you have just vindicated exactly what I posted.
All the above can only be called success if you consider success as the ability to throw the public's money at a project.
I do not want to insult the obvious ability of yourself and some of the great engineers you have worked with.
However, I doubt many of them can work outside the box.

In 1976 I prepared Range Rover number 6 for a crossing of the Sahara I made with Ginger Baker.
We did the trip in four and a half days.
This trip formed the basis for the first Paris Dakar rally in 1978.
Ginger and I had no back up at all, no super computers, no 787s, no F18s, no raptors and definitely no F35s.
The last would have assured our demise.

In fact on a thread about spatial awareness our achievement and the trillions of wasted public dollars spent on the F35 project should stand as a perfect comparison of human ability bringing success through achievement over others inability to use innovation to achieve anything worth while at all, even with an endless supply of other peoples money.

I am annoyed at your insults directed at people like Chapman and Newey and not because I have met them either.
I am sorry but all the American achievements you list, (including the American led RR projects), were only possible because of other countries past expertise and I think everyone reading this knows it.

I apologise again riff-raff, I have worked with many American engineers with great ability, it is their system that is wrong not them.

Aerospace is today dominated by computers, it is reducing investment and development in many primary engineering disciplines.

Basic new aviation ideas stopped about 50 years ago.
The American and other aircraft systems in service are ideas from that time upgraded with computer application nothing more, you can easily trace back to the original ideas they came from.
It is the same with F1, everything else has been done to death years ago.

I am interested in finding out if it is now possible to overtake human control ability with computers.
Obviously it is with a basic system even google can do it (and I doubt they know much about vehicle development), it is the decision making that we seem unsure about.

[trinidefender]

I worked as an engineer on the US Space Shuttle program, the F-18 program, the F-22 program, the F-35 program, the Rolls-Royce BR710/BR715 engine programs, and NASA's recent SLS rocket program. And the technical people I worked with on all of these projects were hands-down far more capable than Chapman, Duckworth or Newey. In fact, neither Chapman, Duckworth or Newey would last for long in the current aerospace engineering environment, since they don't have the attention to detail the work requires.

Sorry riff-raff but you have just vindicated exactly what I posted.
All the above can only be called success if you consider success as the ability to throw the public's money at a project.
I do not want to insult the obvious ability of yourself and some of the great engineers you have worked with.
However, I doubt many of them can work outside the box.

In 1976 I prepared Range Rover number 6 for a crossing of the Sahara I made with Ginger Baker.
We did the trip in four and a half days.
This trip formed the basis for the first Paris Dakar rally in 1978.
Ginger and I had no back up at all, no super computers, no 787s, no F18s, no raptors and definitely no F35s.
The last would have assured our demise.

In fact on a thread about spatial awareness our achievement and the trillions of wasted public dollars spent on the F35 project should stand as a perfect comparison of human ability bringing success through achievement over others inability to use innovation to achieve anything worth while at all, even with an endless supply of other peoples money.

I am annoyed at your insults directed at people like Chapman and Newey and not because I have met them either.
I am sorry but all the American achievements you list, (including the American led RR projects), were only possible because of other countries past expertise and I think everyone reading this knows it.

I apologise again riff-raff, I have worked with many American engineers with great ability, it is their system that is wrong not them.

Aerospace is today dominated by computers, it is reducing investment and development in many primary engineering disciplines.

Basic new aviation ideas stopped about 50 years ago.
The American and other aircraft systems in service are ideas from that time upgraded with computer application nothing more, you can easily trace back to the original ideas they came from.
It is the same with F1, everything else has been done to death years ago.

I am interested in finding out if it is now possible to overtake human control ability with computers.
Obviously it is with a basic system even google can do it (and I doubt they know much about vehicle development), it is the decision making that we seem unsure about.

Autogyro I think your post can be summed up thusly as "if you throw enough s**t (money) at a wall, some of it must stick"

[Cold Fussion]

I don't think he believes that at all, you only have to read his commentary on the F35 to see that.

[autogyro]

If that was the case Ferrari would have won every F1 race.
American F1 teams would have been the only ones capable of beating them and we all know what American F1 teams have managed to achieve dont we.

Sorry I do not want this thread to dissolve into another bickering match.
Please focus on spatial awareness.

[MadMatt]

For the American members here that still think their NASA and aerospace industry is the best in the world and other stupid crap, just remember who you owe this to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

Just my 2 cents.

[autogyro]

Come on MM, even Von Braun admitted that it was an American rocket engineer who gave him a lot of his ideas in the 1930s.
American engineers are as good as any.
It is their short term profit in dollars for a minority ideology that I dislike and most American engineers I have met do not like it either.
America is now receiving the negative side of this policy on the world stage and it should be the responsibility of all democratic and free nations to help them recover.

Can we return to spatial awareness?

[riff_raff]

Sorry riff-raff but you have just vindicated exactly what I posted.
All the above can only be called success if you consider success as the ability to throw the public's money at a project.
I do not want to insult the obvious ability of yourself and some of the great engineers you have worked with.
However, I doubt many of them can work outside the box.

In 1976 I prepared Range Rover number 6 for a crossing of the Sahara I made with Ginger Baker.
We did the trip in four and a half days.
This trip formed the basis for the first Paris Dakar rally in 1978.
Ginger and I had no back up at all, no super computers, no 787s, no F18s, no raptors and definitely no F35s.
The last would have assured our demise.

In fact on a thread about spatial awareness our achievement and the trillions of wasted public dollars spent on the F35 project should stand as a perfect comparison of human ability bringing success through achievement over others inability to use innovation to achieve anything worth while at all, even with an endless supply of other peoples money.

I am annoyed at your insults directed at people like Chapman and Newey and not because I have met them either.
I am sorry but all the American achievements you list, (including the American led RR projects), were only possible because of other countries past expertise and I think everyone reading this knows it.

I apologise again riff-raff, I have worked with many American engineers with great ability, it is their system that is wrong not them.

Aerospace is today dominated by computers, it is reducing investment and development in many primary engineering disciplines.

Basic new aviation ideas stopped about 50 years ago.
The American and other aircraft systems in service are ideas from that time upgraded with computer application nothing more, you can easily trace back to the original ideas they came from.
It is the same with F1, everything else has been done to death years ago.

I am interested in finding out if it is now possible to overtake human control ability with computers.
Obviously it is with a basic system even google can do it (and I doubt they know much about vehicle development), it is the decision making that we seem unsure about.

I actually spent a couple years as a design engineer for an IMSA factory GTP team that won 3 consecutive championships during that period. Not F1, but at that time our budget, facilities and level of technical effort was similar to an F1 team. I did not intend to demean what Chapman, Newey or Duckworth achieved in the racing environment. I simply meant to point out that while I have worked in both, the aerospace engineering environment is far more demanding than any race engineering environment. Of course, the reason for this is that there is far more money applied to aerospace programs than any racing program, but the stakes are also far greater.

As for contribution to the collective technical knowledge of society, I would argue that aerospace spending has provided more value than F1 racing spending has.

[J.A.W.]

If r-r, in "couple years" you materially contributed to "3 consecutive championships during that (same)period"..
& in the same program.. then oddly, ( 2=3?).. ..your figures seemingly 'do not compute'..

Would you also concede that aero-space, & particularly the military part of it, has wasted O of M more $ than M-sport?

[autogyro]

riff-raff wrote
As for contribution to the collective technical knowledge of society, I would argue that aerospace spending has provided more value than F1 racing spending has.

I have to disagree with this.
Aerospace in the modern world is public tax money.
IMO opinion mostly wasted by ill informed governments and brain washed airlines.
F1 remains private money.

A debate on value for money on either would take a great deal of time and would have to cover all the history of both disciplines.
I do wish we could get away from this obsession with money it is the usual sad diversion from important issues.

[Cold Fussion]

Surely most of the problems with modern military aerospace is that requirements are set by Politicians who were beamed into this world armed with their MBA's and not any useful expertise? I am sure if they were allowed to, Lockheed could develop a plane to a focused set of requirements in a timely matter, and not be complete garbage.

[autogyro]

Surely most of the problems with modern military aerospace is that requirements are set by Politicians who were beamed into this world armed with their MBA's and not any useful expertise? I am sure if they were allowed to, Lockheed could develop a plane to a focused set of requirements in a timely matter, and not be complete garbage.

I am unsure how this discussion on aircraft design qualifies for the title 'spatial awareness' but I suppose the concept applies or in Lockheed's case does not.
Lockheed followed the tried tested, funded and made hugely profitable American aerospace method of operation that has been in force since 1945 and even before that.
Little spatial awareness needed.
Lockheed looked at the hugely successful Harrier, they looked at their own countries VTOL development and found it wanting.
So they looked overseas for someone else's ideas.
They realised that the sub sonic Harrier could not be developed into a much heavier aircraft for sonic operations using vectored thrust so they looked at a Russian in service heavy VTOL combat aircraft without vectored thrust.
Lockheed copied these ideas into the F35 concept.
Just like the American attempt to copy the Concorde and the Russian Concordski Lockheed failed dismally.

Of course there have been failures in aircraft design many times in the past and the program simply gets dropped.
Unfortunately Americas number one ally England had a government and civil service made up of idiots at the time and England had contracted two huge through deck carriers based on the operational needs of the Harrier.
These carriers have no angled flight decks or steam cats so they cannot operate conventional or carrier fixed wing aircraft.
When Lockheed finally admitted that the F35 could in no way operate as a VTOL sonic all purpose combat aircraft, it was too late and far to expensive to alter the carrier designs.
England was stuck with the F35 come hell or high water.
Lockheed then proceeded to use part of the multi Trillion dollar American tax payer pool it had been given by equally idiotic American governments (the largest defence budget in history), to con its allies into ordering the worst and most expensive military aviation failure in history.
Lockheed even renamed the F35 a STOVL aircraft which was never its original design demand.

In simple terms the F35 project has become an uncontrolled monster draining the resources of most of the western worlds defence budgets to achieve an inferior obsolete aviation system.
The sad thing is the American themselves have the answer to sonic VTOL combat but are too money tunnel focused to even see it.
If only they had used more spatial awareness.
If I had a fraction of the Lockheed budget I would show them how.
As it is I am learning to speak Arabic and waiting for the effect Argentina has on world oil prices.