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Watch This F-18 Pick Up An Airborne Cruise Missile And Guide It Into A Moving Ship — Parallax Forums

Watch This F-18 Pick Up An Airborne Cruise Missile And Guide It Into A Moving Ship

Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
edited 2015-02-15 01:42 in General Discussion
http://news.yahoo.com/watch-f-18-pick-airborne-cruise-missile-guide-170458025.html
Last month the U.S. Navy tested a new way to guide long-range cruise missiles to hit moving targets accurately — in this case, by handing control of an airborne Tomahawk to an F/A-18 Super Hornet, which guided the missile to strike a moving ship.

During the test conducted of the coast of San Nicolas Island, Calif. on Jan. 27, the destroyer USS Kidd launched the Tomahawk and handed control of the missile over to the Super Hornet pilot, who steered it into the target ship and punched a hole through a shipping container.

Comments

  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    edited 2015-02-13 10:53
    Was #19 the container they were aiming for?

    I'm glad they accounted for the safety of the pigeons. I was about ready to dash a note off to my Congressman regarding the total disregard for pigeon safety during Naval missile testing programs.

    The flames after the punch-through are interesting. Did the missile spring a fuel leak after tearing through the container?

    All in all, pretty cool!
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2015-02-13 14:22
    Hm...

    Here in Norway we don't bother aiming for the container with Chinese imports...
    (We have customs people for that... )

    Instead we build our missiles to steer themselves and strike at the waterline, you know, so that the missile can sink its target without tying up a pilot and fighter jet for longer than necessary.
    'Fire and forget' I think they call it...
    At least that's what the Penguin missiles did way back when I did my stint in the RNoAF.

    I'm told that the pilots really like not being (potentially)visible on enemy radar for longer than it takes to get a radar lock on the target...

    Also, we use slightly more solid targets, such as old frigates...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jspEovlEK-w
    (That's the new Naval Strike Missile)
  • W9GFOW9GFO Posts: 4,010
    edited 2015-02-13 15:19
    mindrobots wrote: »
    The flames after the punch-through are interesting. Did the missile spring a fuel leak after tearing through the container?

    My guess is that the flames are a result of dust, which came mostly from the missiles shell, was ignited by the heat of the impact. I think fuel related flames would have trailed much further.
  • CuriousOneCuriousOne Posts: 931
    edited 2015-02-14 02:45
    At slo-mo it can be seen that pidgeons actually sensed something coming in, and they were ready to take off...
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2015-02-14 10:11
    So there are Norwegin peguins. I always suspect they didn't just reside at the South Pole.

    Due to global warming, we may have to make an effort to save the polar bear. Does anyone want to airlift a few hundred to the South Pole?

    I suspect that the whole exercise avoided shooting at the waterline. Containers are cheap, sinking ships gets rather expensive in practise and training exercises.

    Pigeons? Why pigeons at sea? Where are the sea gulls? Maybe these were spy pigeons.
  • MoskogMoskog Posts: 554
    edited 2015-02-14 11:34
    Loopy Byteloose wrote: »
    Due to global warming, we may have to make an effort to save the polar bear. Does anyone want to airlift a few hundred to the South Pole?

    Would be bad news for the emperor penguins and other penguins (not the missile ones) who already live there.
    Here is another story of introducing arctic species to antarctic environment:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reindeer_in_South_Georgia
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2015-02-14 12:12
    I don't know. But is was common in the second world war to use pigeons to communicate from ships at sea. Especially
    from convoys of cargo ships.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_pigeon
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2015-02-15 01:42
    Pidgeon is all wrong...(archaic usage -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgeon) either that is Pidgin or Pigeon accepted modern English. The first is a less than perfect cross-cultural use of a language (like a creole), the latter is called squab when served up for dinner.

    Yes pigeons can fly over great expanses of water... but I don't believe they land on it or eat fish. So such journeys are out into an aquatic desert for them. The area of Southern California where the testing took place has several off-shore islands. So I guess that the pigeons were laying over on a commute.
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