Misplaced wings no sweat for DARPA's new aircraft control system

One of the problems -- outside of the obvious -- with a significantly damaged aircraft is that pilots often overreact and add to the situation. In other words, when a plane gets nailed by something like a missile, the person at the wheel panics. DARPA and Athena's Damage Tolerance and Autonomous Landing Solution adds a full flight automation and backup system that uses a plane's internal inertial navigation system and GPS systems to land safely by automatically adjusting to the new configuration -- a physics computation that a human is in no condition to deal with during such a crisis. In a recent unmanned flight test, Rockwell Collins showed off the tech with a scaled-model F-18 in which nearly half a wing is blown off and then landing the plane safely. Hit the read link to watch the strangely calming video.

[Thanks, jr]

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2008 7:54AM]

Wonder if they can use this for commercial use.

[LEDfoot Posted Jun 12th 2008 10:29AM]

Mr Blurrycam, meet Mr Shakycam.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2008 10:51AM]

How bout using a real Plane and have a missile hit the wing, blowing it off......lets see how well it holds up then...

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2008 11:47AM]

I'd think that if you had catostrophic wing failure from enemy munitions, you'd still be engaged by said enemy. An autonomous system lazily (pardon the vernacular) bringing the pilot home might need to be a little more, shall we say, proactive in avoiding any further incoming enemy fire. Though, if he/she sees incoming fire after the automated system takes over, ejection is still an option. So, I think this could work for the instances of 'fire and forget' from long range where the plane structurally survived the initial impact.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2008 12:52PM]

The point of the system is not to bring the pilot home but to allow him to fly the plane almost like normal, even if a wing is blown off.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2008 2:48PM]

Man, instead of, HOLY CRAP! MY WING JUST GOT BLOWN OFF MAYDAY MAYDAY!

I wanna hear, SHIELDS DOWN TO 35%! SHE'S PACKING QUITE A WHALLOP!!!!

You have no idea how much I wish shields for the later star trek show and movies existed! Not those Undiscovered Country's Enterprise shields which still put holes all over the damn ship!

Can anyone explain why the older star treks allowed ship to be physically damaged even though the shields were still up? Just a change in tech I suppose, bless you Gene!

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2008 8:23AM]

If the rockets uses heatseeking to track its target, the missile will hit the engine,
How about landing an F18 without engine capability?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 16th 2008 6:19PM]

Well, they did this with a 5th scale Hornet but nowhere did I see a 5th scale tanker to gas her up after takeoff...

Seriously, useful technology, both on maned and unmanned assets, once it matures.