grigolosi

Yup I spent 23 yrs in the USAF as an F-16 crew chief. I have seen a lot of real world stuff on fighters. That is probably one of the other reasons of many I like macross so much. I love fighter aircraft. Kawamori has designed some beautiful aircraft over the past 30 yrs. Thanks for the welcome!

My thoughts are that the HOTAS flight control system (introduced with the Block 6 upgrades to the VF-1) allows for better space & atmospheric maneuvering.

It's responsible for the vernier motors firing to allow a semblance of aerial maneuvers in the vacuum of space (the program algorithms/calculations for burn times on which motors would induce headaches in most).

While inside an atmosphere, the same system utilizes all control functions (flaps, verniers & anything else) to provide the best performance possible.

If said program is faulty/incomplete, the craft will be hard to control, which may have been an additional problem/reason the YF-19 burning through pilots (besides the biological barrier due to the craft's performance).

While the HOTAS system streamlined the 53 controls (number might be wrong) in the original VF-1 cockpit, I feel Macross Zero brings up two things.

First is that the VF-0 cockpit had the HOTAS controls, and not the original VF-1 style. Which would make little/no sense for a preproduction/training unit (with the military's 'train like you fight' philosophy). Though that could be for entertainment reasons.

And second, I believe I read somewhere that the flight control system had a learning capability to be able to perform better. That maybe true, though (could be speculated) the system would also learn the pilot's behavior and try to facilitate for that individual (& making it hard for anyone else to control the unit).

Since we seem to also be discussing verniers & thrust vectoring, I do have a question.

There is no doubt about the vernier motors have enough thrust to lift a VF into VTO...

Which brings up my point.

The puff-jets on a Harrier helps in transition from level flight to hovering & back.

Above is a training VF-1 in GERWALK mode, though what is the mode below?

Is it GERWALK simply Without Arms deployed, or a aircraft with extreme thrust vectoring by moving the main engines (JBO's comment about emergency stopping comes to mind)?

Considering my theoretical VTOL with just using the vernier motors (in Real World Technological References of Macross Variable Aircraft) was with the original controls, not the Block 6 HOTAS system (which the computerized controls very well may not allow such maneuvers).

The HOTAS is strictly a cockpit configuration designed to ease the load on the pilot so he can focus on flying and fighting. The FLCS is a seperate system, when they introduced the HOTAS Blk 6 mod to the VF-1 it more than likely had no impact on the actual flight control system in use on it. Even now we use a HOTAS configured cockpit in most of our 4th and definitely the 5th gen fighters. Most FLCS system computers are programmed with the aircraft frame and flight control limits like you mentioned. In the case of an aircraft like the VF-1 built with an already stronger than normal frame and the ECS to provide further reinforcement, the flight control envelope must be beyond what our pilots now could estimate. This would mean the pilot of a VF would have to be literally attempting to crush the frame to push the FLCS beyond its limits. This is just speculation but it seems these frames were built to push even the tech in Macross to its limits.

And assuming the hydrogen slush they use for fuel is as volatile as regular hydrogen... you'd better not ignore the 'no smoking' sign.

Seriously, I was at the Abbotsford airshow one year and there was a fuel leak and a bunch of morons were smoking around the spilled jet fuel (the clean up crews were cleaning it up while people were puffing away watching).

The jet fuel in use now is on the same lines as kerosene or diesel. You can throw a lit cigarette or match in it and it won't even spark. Now if you bring an electrical spark into play, say goodbye. when we refuel fighters we worry more about static discharge than anything else........Try changing a tire on an F-16 while the knuckleheads in the bay next to you are trying to refuel in a thunderstorm......gotta love foreign AF's.