Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#21 Post by Boac » Wed May 23, 2018 4:00 pm

1) I think so, although the drag rise with the huge intakes was enormous at higher IAS. I'll need to 'research' my Harrier stuff to confirm --- UPDATE - Cannot cross-reference at present but I think around M1.2 has been achieved in a (very) steep dive

2) Yes - 'Limiter' switches' were fitted in front of the throttle and could be 'tripped' when needed. The 'naughty' mates would 'trip' them in combat if it looked as if I was winning.... :))

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#22 Post by Cacophonix » Wed May 23, 2018 5:53 pm

Boac wrote:
Wed May 23, 2018 4:00 pm
1) I think so, although the drag rise with the huge intakes was enormous at higher IAS. I'll need to 'research' my Harrier stuff to confirm --- UPDATE - Cannot cross-reference at present but I think around M1.2 has been achieved in a (very) steep dive

2) Yes - 'Limiter' switches' were fitted in front of the throttle and could be 'tripped' when needed. The 'naughty' mates would 'trip' them in combat if it looked as if I was winning.... :))

Very much appreciate your kind, and amusing, response(s) to my questions Boac! :-bd

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#23 Post by boing » Wed May 23, 2018 8:05 pm

The Harrier (nee 1127) did have a follow-up, it was the 1154 and I actually saw the initial cockpit area mock-up. It was at Brough airfield I believe.

The 1154 was a slab-sided design rather like the TSR2 and we were told it would have near Mach2 performance.
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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#24 Post by boing » Wed May 23, 2018 8:36 pm

the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#25 Post by Cacophonix » Thu May 24, 2018 4:07 am

boing wrote:
Wed May 23, 2018 8:05 pm
The Harrier (nee 1127) did have a follow-up, it was the 1154 and I actually saw the initial cockpit area mock-up. It was at Brough airfield I believe.

The 1154 was a slab-sided design rather like the TSR2 and we were told it would have near Mach2 performance.
Yes, good point Boing, and what a tale of missed opportunities, poor overall programme leadership in the services and muddled thinking overall that was! The whole ill-starred effort being finally corrupted by the bad judgement of a politician, Peter Thornycroft. His insistence on both the RAF and the Navy having the same configuration for a single aircraft, thus attempting to combine strike fighter attributes with those of an interceptor with VTOL capabilities (sounds familiar, just think of the F-35) doomed the programme to still birth. That the Navy then went away with the very capable (but not VTOL capable) F-4 Phantom II and the Labour Party (more foolish politicians) cancelled the P.1154 programme and the RAF was ultimately forced to accept a variant of the Phantom as well, was the proverbial icing on the ***** cake!

Of course, not even, the Phantom purchase was uncorrupted by stupid thinking because the necessity of fitting the larger Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan to replace the GE J79 turbojet on the carrier borne Phantoms (along with two different Ferranti built radar systems for the two services) resulted in the two different variants (F4-K and the F-4M) and the total unit cost of the Phantom to the British fiscus was some 3 times what the GE engined aircraft would have been! Moreover, it seems that the Spey engined F-4K Phantom FG.1 caused issues due to deck buckling when reheat was used on take off and while the Spey allowed operation from the decks of the smaller UK carriers, its fitting resulted poorer high altitude acceleration than the US originals.

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#26 Post by Cacophonix » Thu May 24, 2018 4:43 am

Boac wrote:
Wed May 23, 2018 4:00 pm
1) I think so, although the drag rise with the huge intakes was enormous at higher IAS. I'll need to 'research' my Harrier stuff to confirm --- UPDATE - Cannot cross-reference at present but I think around M1.2 has been achieved in a (very) steep dive

2) Yes - 'Limiter' switches' were fitted in front of the throttle and could be 'tripped' when needed. The 'naughty' mates would 'trip' them in combat if it looked as if I was winning.... :))
Yours truly has been delighted to read further in Andrew Dow's excellent oeuvre about the development of the Harrier's hydromechanical and digital fuel systems, an area of software development I was engaged in in another life in the automotive industry, although testing such systems on automobiles wasn't as fraught as it appears things could be with an aircraft like the Harrier as the example below shows
Rapid acceleration was required for many reasons. On the ground it was needed so that in vertical take-off the aircraft could rise rapidly and get clear of any chance of hot gas reingestion. At sea, the acceleration of the engine occurred as the aircraft ran the length of the deck in a short take-off (STO), whether or not it had a ski-jump structure at the bow. The pilot needed to be assured that the full acceleration would take place so that STO could be completed. It was for this reason, when the Dowty hydromechanical fuel system was still in use, that pilots (almost) always performed an acceleration check (‘ accel’) before take-off... But even when it was done it had its hazards. Lt Cdr Nick Richardson, a Sea Harrier pilot in the Bosnian conflict, recorded that on one occasion he performed the customary accel check before a flight, and in doing so blew a Wren off the deck. Fortunately Wren Alexander survived, as she was caught in a safety net, but clearly she should not have walked behind the aircraft.
Dow, Andrew. Pegasus, The Heart of the Harrier: The History and Development of the World's First Operational Vertical Take-off and Landing Jet Engine

Women had their uses when calibrating the Pegasus manual fuel control (MFC) it seems.
The Pegasus 10 was the first engine put into service by the US Marines, and it was clear that they required to have a back-up to the fuel system, in the form of a manual fuel control (MFC). Dowty’s first proposal for an MFC was regarded as much too complicated – on a system already growing in complexity – and Roy Taylor looked at the principles afresh. He had had some experience of MFCs when at Blackburn, and he knew what not to do. Although many similar systems had provided compensation for altitude, it was decided even to avoid this. When such a back-up was required, the main fuel system had failed and the aircraft was likely to be descending at 6,000 feet per minute. The system had to be simple, and for the pilot it was a switch, to tell the system to go to MFC. He then used the throttle to return to base. Whether or not the throttle was the right control for the MFC was debated. A simple test was set up in XV277 in the development flight shed, in which the incremental uses of the throttle were tested under conditions where the pilot was distracted. This was on the basis that he knew he might be in trouble and was hoping that the MFC would get him home, and while he had much else to do in the cockpit. The test was not particularly scientific, but the pilot was duly distracted by a parade of pretty girls in summer dresses on the balcony of the first-floor offices in the flight shed. It showed that he might move the throttle in approximately seven increments over the quadrant, and this translated into meaningful but not excessive increments within the authority of the MFC: nothing excessive or inadequate. The MFC was limited; it was unusual in having no compensation for altitude, but it was there to get him home.
Dow, Andrew. Pegasus, The Heart of the Harrier: The History and Development of the World's First Operational Vertical Take-off and Landing Jet Engine

=))

Ultimately this work and the integration of Digital Engine Control Systems (DECS and Digital Engine Control Units (DECU), developed in conjunction with Dowty and Smiths industries, resulted in the use of something akin to a full FADEC with the later Pegaus engines\Harriers and this use of digital control systems morphed into the VAAC programme (pronounced 'vark' which is the Afrikaans word for pig by the way)!
Vectored thrust Aircraft Advanced flight Control (VAAC, pronounced ‘vark’). Over the years the project involved RAE Farnborough, Cranfield Aerospace and Qinetiq, the privatisation-era successor to RAE Farnborough. In due course the second Harrier T2, XW175, was modified by Cranfield Aerospace in the early 1980s, to test and develop the system. The front cockpit remained as built, but the rear cockpit was given fly-by-wire controls, and the nozzle lever was deleted. All of this was done on the basis that the pilot would tell the engine and the flying-controls what he wanted to do simply by moving the stick. The computers assess the status of the aircraft, interpret his intent, and act accordingly. The basic premise was that moving the stick forward meant going down. Pulling the stick back meant going up. And so, the pilot on the ground, wishing to take off, pulls the stick back. The computer assesses zero air speed, the undercarriage still down and locked, and the engine running at idle. In those circumstances the only interpretation that can be made of the pilot’s intent is his wish to take off. And so the rearward movement of the stick increases the throttle setting, puts the nozzles down, and the aircraft rises. As Michel Wibault might have said, ‘Voilà!’ Of course, the reality is far more complex than that, and the student of fly-by-wire systems will read the foregoing with a dozen or more ‘What if…?’ questions in his mind. But the fact is that fly-by-wire has been successfully applied to VTOL, and the system has paved the way for the sort of controls needed on the F-35B, the VTOL version of the Joint Strike Fighter. The most pressing reason, of course, is because like most other modern fighters, JSF is fundamentally unstable and cannot be flown without fly-by-wire techniques.
Dow, Andrew. Pegasus, The Heart of the Harrier: The History and Development of the World's First Operational Vertical Take-off and Landing Jet Engine

I leave it to Boac to opine Dow's comments reference the raison d'etre for "fly by wire" and John Farley's candid and sensible comments about this subject...
But there is another reason, best expressed in the words of John Farley, who is honest enough to admit that the P. 1127 required more skills than he possessed to fly it. He was an extraordinarily successful test pilot of the Harrier 1, and participated in the development of VAAC. He said in interview: It requires no skill, no training. It is the Holy Grail of aviation. What on earth do you want to have people use skill for? Skill or lack of it causes accidents. Skill causes the need for training, for currency checks, exams, and incurs cost. Harrier pilots loathed this notion. But only because they’ve learned how to use a nozzle lever, they’re now better than all the pilots who can’t use a nozzle lever. They’re better in the bar, they’re better at the party, and probably think they’re better in bed because they’ve got this nozzle lever. It’s tosh, isn’t it?

Dow, Andrew. Pegasus, The Heart of the Harrier: The History and Development of the World's First Operational Vertical Take-off and Landing Jet Engine

Is this true Boac? =))

Caco

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#27 Post by Boac » Thu May 24, 2018 7:05 am

Shucks - I'm embarrassed to say :ymblushing: I should add that although I know JF I decline to comment on his perfomance in bed. :))

I'll have to re-read his book to see how you accelerate forwards from the hover with VAAC. It appears that trying to lower the nose will just result in going down!

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#28 Post by Cacophonix » Thu May 24, 2018 8:27 am

Boac wrote:
Thu May 24, 2018 7:05 am
Shucks - I'm embarrassed to say :ymblushing: I should add that although I know JF I decline to comment on his perfomance in bed. :))

I'll have to re-read his book to see how you accelerate forwards from the hover with VAAC. It appears that trying to lower the nose will just result in going down!
A bit like a helicopter (he says with the huge benefit of a total 1hr 47 min PUT time in a helicopter). =)) :YMPARTY:

I guess the application of power in a specific mode would imply a climb in such a system.

On another subject and apropos your answer ref. Harriers at Mach 1 and above I noted this in the Dow book...
The second FSD AV-8B was used for a further test of the DECS, accumulating over 100 flights at St Louis, Patuxent River, and Edwards Air Force Base. 19 In the later years of testing the AV-8B at St Louis, Jack Jackson was the only AV-8B pilot on the McDonnell company payroll, and so he was busy. He was keen to see the DECS come into service, because he was aware of the shortcomings of the hydromechanical system, which he described as 1,500 moving parts, none of which moved more than a quarter of an inch. He was also unusual in getting an AV-8B to go supersonic. This occurred in the course of testing to remove a buzz in the rudder, and involved diving to obtain high speed. On one occasion he reported that he had exceeded the speed of sound, but he was not believed. Two days later a complaint came in from a lady living nearby, who was worried about the double bang she had heard. A check of air traffic records showed that no other aircraft was in the air that day which could have been responsible. This earned the lady a small gift from Jack Jackson, for proving him right.
Dow, Andrew. Pegasus, The Heart of the Harrier: The History and Development of the World's First Operational Vertical Take-off and Landing Jet Engine

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#29 Post by Boac » Thu May 24, 2018 8:41 am

That's the problem, Caco - NOT like a helicopeter. Move the cyclic forward in a palm tree and you translate forwards, no?

Re Supersonic - I believe the Sea Harrier is 'documented' at M1.2.

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#30 Post by Cacophonix » Thu May 24, 2018 8:56 am

Boac wrote:
Thu May 24, 2018 8:41 am
That's the problem, Caco - NOT like a helicopeter. Move the cyclic forward in a palm tree and you translate forwards, no?

Re Supersonic - I believe the Sea Harrier is 'documented' at M1.2.
Yes but if you don't do anything else, like adding more a little more power via the collective to compensate for the reduced vertical life component you may also start descending as the rotor tilts forward! Hey, it sounds like I know what I am talking about! :)

We await the sage words of an FD2 or a C16 to put the whippersnapper in his place!

A little more about Jack Jackson, the supersonic American Harrier pilot...




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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#31 Post by Boac » Thu May 24, 2018 2:32 pm

Hmm - if you need to add collective/throttle when you nudge forwards, I think you ain't doing it right! You certainly do NOT push the cyclic forwards to descend, or hovering on the spot would be even more of a disaster! :))

I do recall JF talking about an electric (slide switch) nozzle control on top of the ?throttle? at some stage of the design. I'll dig his book out again.

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#32 Post by Cacophonix » Thu May 24, 2018 3:04 pm

Boac wrote:
Thu May 24, 2018 2:32 pm
Hmm - if you need to add collective/throttle when you nudge forwards, I think you ain't doing it right! You certainly do NOT push the cyclic forwards to descend, or hovering on the spot would be even more of a disaster! :))

I do recall JF talking about an electric (slide switch) nozzle control on top of the ?throttle? at some stage of the design. I'll dig his book out again.
I wasn't suggesting that one should use the cyclic to descend but that a secondary effect of pushing it forward without the requisite amount of power/collective could result in a descent! ;)))

I put it to you (dons wig) that if one is hovering perfectly stationary (like I don't) and not climbing, then forward cyclic will to move the helicopter forward but will require a soupcon of power and/or cyclic to maintain precisely the same height above the ground. :)

What is the name of Mr Farley's book and also the name of yours? If you haven't written one then you should!

Caco

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#33 Post by Cacophonix » Thu May 24, 2018 3:20 pm

Forward flight[edit]
In forward flight, a helicopter's flight controls behave more like those in a fixed-wing aircraft. Moving the cyclic forward makes the nose pitch down, thus losing altitude and increasing airspeed.

You see what you have done on this lovely sunny afternoon Boac, made me pull out my text book! =))

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#34 Post by Boac » Thu May 24, 2018 3:26 pm

Technically correct, Caco, - you will lose 'lift', but in a Harrier transition from hover to foward the loss of jet lift is minute and rapidly recovered by wing lift.

"A View from the Hover', John Farley (aka Harrier 'god' ^:)^ ) Seager PublishingISBN (paperback)978 0 95327 52 5 0. It even has a whole chapter converting you to the Harrier (but no mention of bedtime =)) )

I will PM you an extract from Graham Tomlinson's talk on the F-35 and how the 'vertical' bit works. Bear in mind it will probably be out-of-date by now! JF covers 'Unified' (an RAE project) in his book.

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#35 Post by Cacophonix » Thu May 24, 2018 3:47 pm

Boac wrote:
Thu May 24, 2018 3:26 pm
Technically correct, Caco, - you will lose 'lift', but in a Harrier transition from hover to foward the loss of jet lift is minute and rapidly recovered by wing lift.

"A View from the Hover', John Farley (aka Harrier 'god' ^:)^ ) Seager PublishingISBN (paperback)978 0 95327 52 5 0. It even has a whole chapter converting you to the Harrier (but no mention of bedtime =)) )

I will PM you an extract from Graham Tomlinson's talk on the F-35 and how the 'vertical' bit works. Bear in mind it will probably be out-of-date by now! JF covers 'Unified' (an RAE project) in his book.
Cheers and big thanks for that link and the reference to John Farley's book. See PM.

Best regards

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#36 Post by Boac » Thu May 24, 2018 3:50 pm

Any time, Sir. :-bd

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#37 Post by Cacophonix » Sat May 26, 2018 3:06 pm

If anybody here should ever win the Pepsi Harrier prize!

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/getti ... ierd-away/

In 1996 PepsiCo ran a promotion through which consumers who collected empty Pepsi containers could earn “Pepsi Points” that could be redeemed for hats, jackets, bikes and other such merchandise. (To gain a

“Pepsi Points” T-shirt, for instance, took 80 points, or the equivalent of 40 two-liter Pepsi bottles.)

Kicking off the “Buy Pepsi, Get Stuff” campaign was a playful television commercial showcasing a number of the items being offered. This controversial ad showed a suburban teen preparing for school and wearing a number of Pepsi items, such as a T-shirt, a leather jacket, and sunglasses. As the items were depicted, words at the bottom of the screen revealed how many “Pepsi Points” they cost. The commercial concluded with the teen landing a Harrier jet near a bike rack at his school and the plane’s searing jet stream stripping a teacher to his underwear. The smug teen says, “Sure beats the bus,” before the words “Harrier Fighter: 7,000,000 Pepsi Points” appeared on the screen.

Enter John Leonard, then a 21-year-old business student. Upon seeing that commercial and discovering he could purchase individual Pepsi points from the company for 10¢ each, he set about to get himself a Harrier at an unbelievable bargain rate.

On 28 March 1996, Leonard forked over 15 original points plus a check for $700,008.50 raised from five investors for the remaining 6,999,985 points “plus shipping and handling” and demanded his jet. Pepsi laughed off the claim, pointing out the Harrier had never been offered in the Pepsi Points catalogue and was just in the commercial to provide a humorous completion to the piece.

“If we have to put disclaimers on spots that are obviously farces, where does it end?” Pepsi spokesman Jon Harris said.

Well, it didn’t end there.

Leonard filed suit in Miami against Pepsi for breach of contract, fraud, deceptive and unfair trade practices, and misleading advertising. The issue then landed in federal court in Manhattan with Pepsi responding by asking the court for a declaratory judgment saying it did not have to give Leonard a Harrier.

In August 1999, the New York judge upheld Pepsi’s case. “No objective person could reasonably have concluded that the commercial actually offered consumers a Harrier jet,” U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood said.

Not that Leonard would have ended up with the full jet anyway if things had gone his way. The Pentagon quashed the promotion in September 1997 when it announced that these $33.8 million jets are not for sale in flyable shape. The Pentagon said any of the Marine aircraft would have to be “demilitarized” before being offered to the public (including disabling the Harriers’ ability to take off and land vertically), which in this case would have meant both stripping them of their armaments and rendering them unable to fly.

Barbara “jet streamed” Mikkelson

Here's the flight manual!

https://info.publicintelligence.net/AV-8B-000.pdf

https://info.publicintelligence.net/AV-8B-410.pdf


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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#38 Post by Cacophonix » Sat May 26, 2018 3:26 pm

Boac wrote:
Thu May 24, 2018 3:26 pm
Technically correct, Caco, - you will lose 'lift', but in a Harrier transition from hover to foward the loss of jet lift is minute and rapidly recovered by wing lift.

"A View from the Hover', John Farley (aka Harrier 'god' ^:)^ ) Seager PublishingISBN (paperback)978 0 95327 52 5 0. It even has a whole chapter converting you to the Harrier (but no mention of bedtime =)) )

I will PM you an extract from Graham Tomlinson's talk on the F-35 and how the 'vertical' bit works. Bear in mind it will probably be out-of-date by now! JF covers 'Unified' (an RAE project) in his book.
I have purchased Mr Farley's book Boac.

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#39 Post by Boac » Sat May 26, 2018 4:21 pm

:-bd Right! Just have to have a word with Art Nalls in the States and get you checked out (in the aeroplane, not in bed) =)) .

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Re: Michel Wibault - the Frenchman who foresaw the Harrier

#40 Post by boing » Sat May 26, 2018 8:09 pm

Happened to work with TLT for a while. A most interesting fellow.

(View mainly from 2.48 on)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToDQuNpOPnQ


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