Message posted by Alex (UK) on October 15, 2008 at 16:02:19 PST:
Heres something that might help a bit, if you think back to operation paperclip, which bought nazi scientists (and im certain, unfinished exotic aircraft programmes) to the States after the war, observers noted that the germans were anywhere between 5 and 15 years ahead of the USA at that time. Building on this, with Groom and the USAF gaining another half a century of know how, my estimations would put the technology at groom around 20 years ahead of the current crop. The raptor is an interesting exception, as i dont think what they are testing at groom would have much more advanced avionics than the raptor. Perhaps just more exotic forms of thrust vectoring and stealth. Id imagine Groom invests most of its time nowadays in, as i said above, forms of thrust vectoring and more advanced stealth technology (after all, we already know the f117a isnt invincible, after being shot out of the sky by 20 year old "obsolete" Soviet SAM battery and its irregular Serb crew in Kosovo...) and also probably invests alot of time in UAV's. However, i do not believe the age of the UAV spells the end for the human pilot... i cant really put my finger on why i think this, but ive just got a feeling on this one... :D. As for how long a project takes to leave the tarmac and hit the runway somewhere in the white world... take this quote from wikipedia on the subject of the F117, it should give you some idea of the timescale involved....
"The project began with a model called "The Hopeless Diamond" in 1975 due to its bizarre appearance. In 1977 Lockheed produced two 60% scale models under the Have Blue contract. The Have Blue program lasted from 1976 to 1979. The F-117 first flew in June 1981, only 31 months after the full-scale development decision. The first production F-117A was delivered in 1982, operational capability was achieved in October 1983, and the last of 59 airplanes was delivered in the summer of 1990.[9] The Air Force denied the existence of the aircraft until 1988, when a grainy photograph was released to the public. In April 1990 two were flown into Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, arriving during daylight and visible to a crowd of tens of thousands"
Timescales were obviously different with each aircraft, but if you search the history of projects such as the bird of prey and tactic blue, you should be able to get an average out of that.
Hope this helps
Alex (UK)
In Reply to: How far advanced is our technology? posted by Robert on October 15, 2008 at 14:42:55 PST:
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