in: Cristina; Cristina > 2008-03-18;
| # Posted 2008-03-19 07:52:21 | |
| triple-double: | "14 seconds too late" and you are out--that's some tough check! Btw, why do _you_ have to get everyone there? |
| # Posted 2008-03-19 09:18:32 | |
| Cristina: | Well, the pilots are busy doing what I tell them to do and not flying into the ground, and the engineer is busy making sure our plane isn't broken, so that just leaves me in charge of making sure we're not late to the party. And getting those sandbags to land close to the target, because a party is a lot more fun with a sandbag. |
| # Posted 2008-03-19 18:22:19 | |
| ebuckley: | Seems it wouldn't matter too much on a drop, but I could sure see 14 seconds being a big deal for re-fueling. Especially if your were hooking up with something like a Blackbird (do they even fly those anymore?) that doesn't particularly like to go slow. |
| # Posted 2008-03-19 18:52:20 | |
| jjcote: | Is Vne for a C-130 as fast as Vstall for an SR-71? I thought Cristina's kind of plane was used for refueling things like helicopters. One way or another, though, there's some target time window, and if you're 14 seconds past it, then you're late. I didn't read that as being 14 seconds past the ideal time, but rather 14 seconds past the deadline (I could be wrong).
Like in the Billygoat, if you go over 3.5 hours, you don't get the shirt, but that doesn't mean that you're aiming for 3.5 hours. Some people have suggested that things be a little lenient, that if somebody is within a minute, then they should still get the shirt, but that's just moving the deadline. You could view it as a 3:29 time limit, but we'll cut you slack if you miss by a minute. |
| # Posted 2008-03-19 22:38:34 | |
| Cristina: | For airdrops, approaches, and helicopter air refueling rendezvous we have a 1 minute window. The window is +/- 30 seconds for the first two, but on time to a minute late for the helos.
In a permissive environment it may not matter what time we get to the drop zone or landing zone. We might just need to drop PJs or equipment to the survivor on the ground no matter when we get there. But in a non-permissive environment it might be really important to get there within our window - there might be A-10s "sanitizing" the area ahead of us, for instance, and arriving early would be flat-out stupid. For refueling, it's really important not to be early since we're moving a lot faster than the helos - their window is on-time to a minute early. Basically, as long as we get there after them we're okay; we catch up to them, slow down as we're passing them, and let them hook up to our drogues. I have no idea if the stall speed of the SR-71 is published. Whatever it is, I have a feeling that we probably wouldn't play with them, even if we did refuel fixed-wing dudes. |
| # Posted 2008-03-19 23:37:18 | |
| unpronunciation: | PJs? It's a slumber party the sand bags are going to? |
| # Posted 2008-03-20 00:11:29 | |
| Cristina: | Yes.
Though we would never drop a sandbag and a PJ at the same time. The sandbags are pretend PJs. Except they weigh a lot less... |
| # Posted 2008-03-20 00:21:02 | |
| unpronunciation: | Hope they never get mixed up. "So that others might live" applies equally well to both. |
| # Posted 2008-03-20 00:34:36 | |
| jtorranc: | I assume Cristina just stepped in some grammatical ambiguity but, if it's true that USAF sandbags weigh a lot less than their PJs, I hope never to be reliant on having them air drop PJs to me.
Maybe these are arctic survival PJs that make you look like the Michelin Man (kind of like a sleeping bag with limbs I saw an ad for in a magazine recently) and/or include an active heating system. |
| # Posted 2008-03-20 01:07:46 | |
| Cristina: | Our sandbags weigh 15 lbs. You'd be hard pressed to squeeze a PJ into that small a package. ;-)
Oh, and if you're ever in a situation where we need to drop PJs to you, you're having a really, really bad day. |
| # Posted 2008-03-20 01:38:16 | |
| walk: | If these conversions are near correct (and I could be well off), the guys jumping out over Lakeland at 130 knots would be 935m off target in 14 seconds. That would be a long swim carrying their PJs. |
| # Posted 2008-03-20 21:39:56 | |
| Cristina: | Your math is correct (or at least close enough), which is why we would rather drop them late at the right place than drop them on time not at the right place... An off-drop zone drop is a Very Bad Thing for a navigator (and perhaps also for the PJ or equipment being dropped). |
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