Where ya been, Bill?
F-14 Questions Answered - Ask Away
- Thread starter Astro14
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I've been keeping busy around here getting a lot of projects finished up. I had some issues logging on for a while as well. But that's all behind me. How have you been?
I honestly don’t know if they take a set. Full torque isn’t used often. So, perhaps not.
The acceleration is actually impressive. I don’t have numbers, and they’re likely as classified as the top speed numbers, but it doesn’t take long. The CVN can leave the rest of the strike group behind and what’s impressive about that is the speed, and maneuverability, of the DDGs, but the CVN itself is just plain fast when it needs to be.
I think it would depend on the material, but there is no metal that's perfectly rigid. I remember doing hardness and strength tests in a materials science lab class. We put rods on a rig that would try to pull them apart until they snapped. At a certain point they would permanently deform, but there's always some elasticity before that, even if we don't necessarily notice it. Over a 200 ft long shaft, it's likely to twist under load.
I hate thinking about the physics, but this tries to explain torsion stress on a shaft. I guess permanent deformation happens when it reaches a certain limit.
As described above, for a shaft in torsion, the shear stress varies from zero at the center of the shaft (the axis) to a maximum at the surface of the shaft. When the surface reaches the elastic limit and begins to yield, the interior will still exhibit elastic behavior for some additional amount of torque. At some point, the applied torque causes the shaft to enter its plastic region, where the strain increases while torque is constant. Only when the torque causes fully plastic behavior does the entire cross-section yield.
Great, thanks! Got married, had a son (he’s almost 8 mos), and have a daughter on the way now!
Been back at work for a year now (got furloughed for 4 mos from April-August 2020), and things are rolling along.
Running nearly every day, and just enjoying life!
Wish ammo was cheaper!
How about you? How are yall liking your new home?
Loving it! We had 2 new sliding glass doors installed last week. New window treatments coming in 2 to 3 weeks. I don't mind that because I won't have to do anything except watch. We're coming to the tail end of all the projects and work. But it's all been worth it. Soon it will be cooling off, and I'll be out shooting Trap again. I loaded over 4,000 rounds over the Summer. Not an empty case left in the joint!
Do you think if we had the computing technology we had today, that the F-14 would have needed a RIO? Or was that all so specialized that another crew member would still have been needed?
RIOs would argue this point, but for an air to air mission, modern cockpits and computers enable a single crew to operate the jet. F-16, F-15, F/A-18, F-22, F-35, Typhoon, Rafal, Gripen all bear witness to that.
For air to ground, a second crew member is really important. Target acquisition, threat management, communications, can make it a workload/task saturation problem. A-10 guys would argue the point but F-15E and F/A-18F work better with two.
one for Astro14 :
Love it!
What do you think of the development of single pilot airliners that are being proposed?
Utter foolishness. Reduction of redundancy and safety to curtail costs. Only bean counters think this is a good thing.
I think the RIOs would answer that they often had to fly with different pilots.
When I was instructing, I had a different (student) RIO on nearly every flight.
In the fleet, a squadron would have a roster, known as a TAC-ORG, tactical organization, with crews, including pilot/RIO, flight leads/wingmen and division leads.
Flight lead was a more qualified pilot. Division lead was more qualified than flight lead. Wingmen were the new guys.
You generally (not always) flew with your assigned crew. This enabled crews to work better together as they learned each other’s habits, preferences, etc. and they got used to each other.
SOP defined roles and responsibilities, how things were done, but having the same RIO/pilot combo made the team more effective.
For example, I didn’t want to hear the RIO talk* when I was flying the ball (last 15-18 seconds of landing). Some RIOs were trained to be, and liked to be, the talking airspeed indicator, calling out a knot slow or fast. I trimmed the jet precisely and could feel that, so I didn’t want the extraneous information through my headset. Constant talking in my ear was a distraction.
Some pilots found the talking airspeed to be a huge help in identifying an airspeed trend early. Learning what the other guy wanted and smoothing over that detail was part of why we kept crews together.
*Ironically, I spent most of my first deployment (Desert Storm) crewed with the squadron XO. A senior RIO who held the rank of commander while I was a JG and then LT. He liked to talk on the ball. He would ask what I wanted, “nothing sir, unless you see airspeed off by four knots” was my usual reply, and he would talk, non stop, all the way down. Non stop airspeed calls in my ear for the entire pass “one knot fast, on speed, you’re on speed, one knot slow, and you’re on speed, all…the…way…down…”.
I learned to turn down the intercom in the break, knowing that the distracting chatter was soon to come. Being paired together was supposed to improve crew effectiveness. In this case, I learned to anticipate, and reduce, his most annoying habits. So, I suppose being paired together helped, but…
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Not really a matter of rank in that sense. Though, with an equal distribution of rank between pilots and RIOs, there would have to be an equal number of crews with higher ranking pilots to the number of crews with higher ranking RIOs. Often, crews were made up junior/senior, so that the new guy (front or back) would “learn the ropes” from the old guy (front or back).
My RIO outranked me by a considerable amount. He was both a superior and the mission commander, responsible for success of the mission.
But I was pilot in command and final authority on the operation of the airplane. Having the only set of flight controls made that more than just an academic point.
Why am I now thinking of the foot locker drawing scene from the movie Jarhead?
I don’t know the scene, but yes, sometimes, being a pilot (especially a fighter pilot) requires focus, and the ability to simply ignore distractions, noise, people, whatever, and focus on what needs to be done right now.
To be able to do that task, whatever it is, with precision, despite all the stuff (radio calls, intercom, radar warning receiver alerts, flak) going on around you.
Astro,
When you flew the F-14 with the engines running in full AB, producing all the power they could possibly make, about how many RPM's were the the compressors turning?
When you flew the F-14 with the engines running in full AB, producing all the power they could possibly make, about how many RPM's were the the compressors turning?
That is a great question. I have no idea.
The gauge in the cockpit was in RPM %. Not actual RPM. 100% was the nominal max, but you could go up to 104%. The gauges went up to about 110%
The RPM limit was one limit, but often the engines were limited by Exhaust Gas Temperature (EGT in the case of the F-110) or by Turbine Inlet Temperature (TIT in the case of the TF-30). Depending on speed and altitude, the max RPM might be a bit different for a given TIT/EGT.
Here's the wikipedia on the engines, still don't see an RPM...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_&_Whitney_TF30
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_F110
