What about a comparison between the Vigilante and the Mirage IV ?
They were very similar (no bomb bay: the AN-52 nuclear bomb was semi-recessed under the belly). The Mirage flew 10 month after the Vigilante, in June 1959. It had nearly the same power (Atar was roughly equivalent to the J79, and the delta wing was ligher; The Mirage stay in nuclear alert from october 1964 to July 1996; it’s career as recon airplane ended in… july 2005!!
The Mirage IV was tested, too, by the RAAF (General Hancock, 1963);
More, there was even a project of Mirage IV* (star) for the RAF. It had two Rolls-Royce RB-168 Spey and the electronics of the TSR-2. In 1965, France and GB were allied on concorde, the Jaguar, the AVFG… the project was less costly than buying
F-111. Rolls-Royce fought for the project but the british governement made his choice in favor of the F-111 (which turn to a financial disaster)

The Mirage suffered from avionic availability. At that time only US had working inertial systems and were reluctant to deliver them to France. The Mirage IV was a high burden for the French but outmoded very fast. Like the British it showed that strategic bombers (even in smaller size) are hardly affordable for medium countries. I would rate the Vigilante as more versatile and overall modern. Can somebody say something about the range.

Has anyone yet mentioned that FBW systems offer a potentially greater degree of flight safety by allowing multiple, redundant control systems to co-exist ?

No, that wasn’t mentioned. The limiting factor of controls is often the availibility of hydraulic power. In some terms FBW has a disadvantage because it needs electricity while other flight controls directly pull on the actuator, therefore no need for electricity. Anyways, if hydraulic power is available so is electricity.

For military aircraft this may be of use because I have alternative ways. both convetional controls and FBW have already proven their reliability. The next step would be to take away the rudder panels from the pilot or to reduce his authority on it to a absolute minimum (yaw damper rules and pilot nmay give advice).

r

It’s interesting how Airbus and Boeing differ in terms of FBW design philosophy. Airbus aircraft are constantly subject to the operational restrictions of the FBW computer, and these can not be by-passed (hence a certain incident at a certain French airshow, even if the pilot was 70 feet lower than he should have been).

The FBW computer on the 777 that restricts certain manoeuvers such as extreme bank angles is designed so it can be by-passed by the pilot in an emergency. Boeing believe the pilot, not a computer, should make the ultimate decision as to what the aircraft can and can’t do, and the pilot should have the knowledge to make that decision.

Both approaches are correct, it’s just interesting.

Paul

Which is only partly correct. The accidient you are talking of is the crash in Strasbourg. The pilot used the system faulty. It remaines the best forest landing ever.
But to the topic: Airbus envelope-protection cvan easily by-passed. If even I know it every pilot will know it. The bottom line of the whole system is the direct law, which has no envelope protection. This law cannot be set but at least you can switch of some computers and force the system to divert to this law.
However, if you look closely at some accidents you will find some which would have been prevented with envelope protection. The future will see aircraft which are even tighter protected by the computer in order to save weight by reducing safety margins (without reducing the safety itself).

Some points are right, some not. Envelope protection would go without FBW, too. It is easier with FBW to link a computer to the controls. Everythings what goes in an Airbus would go without FBW maybe except the sidestick, because you need real force to pull.
Just because you have FBW you still have feedback “from your butt”. FBW doesn’t cancel the normal physics. Otherwise people would get less often sick in an Airbus aircraft than in other aircraft. But that is not the case, or if, it is related to the crappy interior of some B757 on charter duty.

apparently there’s a lot of differents “fly-by-wire” !!
– to correct unstability on one of the three axis of a plane (yaw, pitch or roll)
(YF-107)
– to make secondary tasks (example : moving the airs intakes according to speed as in the XB-70 , SR-71, Vigilante, Tomcat etc.)
– to control unstable “aircrafts” such as X-15 or Dyna soar (Stability Augmentation Systems)
Even complicated : apparently there was Analog and Digital fly-by-wire!!

That’s not easy to understand what “Fly-by-wire” means…

No No No No No No No No No!

There are different ways of “control” which sometimes use “fly-by-wire”. The first serial aircraft which was unstable was the F-16, all other were less desirable in handling but generally stable.

An analogy:
You can go to somebody’s office, you can call him or you write him an email. Which way you use to communicate doesn’t say anything about your type of business, or does it?

Essentially, Chechnya separatist campaign is a part of larger panislamist effort in the Middle East and is financed by the same sources as Al Quada. This is a short and simple answer.

That is an opinion and maybe a fact, but that would reason a lot of things.

(actually I was aware that Chechnya is not an isolated incident; Russia is fighting a little war on its southern edge against the growing influence of fundamentalistic islamic “freedom fighters”; this is in my opinion the reason why the “West” is relatively quiet about the issue and just regurlarly put claims like “there has to happen something”. Please understand that to keep the view of the world in the head of the simple people right we have to superficially fight evil and bad in the world whereever and whenever possible)

Russia already has one of the best education system in the world. And it’s an affordable one, as is healthcare.

Western Europe is a bad example. European countries don’t consider each other and US hostile. But despite assurances, they do consider Russia hostile. Some (of the many!) examples of the West’s silent undermining of Russia:
– Installment of the puppet government in the Ukraine
– Support for Chechnya terrorists
– Recent UK spy scandal in Russia
– (unusually candid) Merkel’s public refusal to name Russia a friendly nation

No, between the ordes of Chinese in the East and the backstabbing in the West, Russia defense should be top priority.

But let’s not get into politics…

Sorry, Mister, that is kind of naiv, and if you want to avoid politics, don’t write about stuff you may have heard in a 30 second spot on CNN (that is in my experience all time Europe-Russian relations get on American news).
The relationship of Western Europe to Russia is not a one-sided affair. We did not install any puppet government and Merkel’s refusal is just to bring German-Russian relations in the right frame. Russia is still distant to Europe, but that is not solely Western Europe’s fault. The claim we supported the chechnya terrorists is stupid at best. We just try to get them to a sustainable solution and haven’t been succesful with it yet. Actually I think Western Europe sometimes puts not enough pressure on Russian government.

GarryB: I guess we know each other’s opinion by now. I think that your points are that of a militaristic MiG-happy guy, but they are your points. You seem to think in outdated frames, comparing tanks and fighters and crying for every MiG that goes out of service because it might deliver the deciding bomb on the bl00dy Western society (and we all deserve it, don’t we?). Everybody wants to attack Russia, sure. China, the West, the US Navy and after all even the terrorists. So build more army, train more soldiers! Russia has to understand that keeping huge forces by itself is a provocation to its direct neighbors (not talking about USA).

But after all I think none of us is in the position to “advice” anything.