Another "praise the Raptor" article

[SynixMan]

I'd say I would feel a lot more comfortable about the F-35C but, considering:

A) Prototype hasn't even been rolled out
B) Prototype hasn't even flown

I'm a bit skeptical. Seems the A and B variants get all the attention and Navy is out in the cold.

 

[rrpilot]

Scientists use rat brain to 'fly' F-22

Seeing as how I'm not a military aviator, I'll have to leave the joke making about this in the hands of others...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/07/rat_brain_flies_jet/

 

[Mos]

After a while, it produces a nice straight and level trajectory.

F*ck, I can't do that. I'm worth less than a rat brain. :icon_cry:

 

[Jim123]

"You must think in Russian..."

Wait, wrong movie.

 

[rrpilot]

"You must think in Russian..."

Wait, wrong movie.

Ah...Firefox,lol, weren't the cockpit scenes filmed in a Phantom?....

 

[FormerRecruitingGuru]

So students at a university spent half a million dollars to make a brain that can fly jets?

 

[HackerF15E]

"When we first hooked them up, the plane 'crashed' all the time," Dr Thomas DeMarse, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida, said. "But over time, the neural network slowly adapts as the brain learns to control the pitch and roll of the aircraft. After a while, it produces a nice straight and level trajectory."

How is this any different than teaching the idiots who walk in the door the first day of flight school how to fly? From the way it's described above, it sounds exactly the same.

Unfrtunately, it's even less than that. This 'skill' is something that 99% of 3rd graders in the Xbox Generation can do these days.

All of which is a Grand Canyon's worth of difference from being able to walk out to a Raptor on the ramp, hop in, and fly it.

 

[srqwho]

How is this any different than teaching the idiots who walk in the door the first day of flight school how to fly? From the way it's described above, it sounds exactly the same.

Unfrtunately, it's even less than that. This 'skill' is something that 99% of 3rd graders in the Xbox Generation can do these days.

All of which is a Grand Canyon's worth of difference from being able to walk out to a Raptor on the ramp, hop in, and fly it.

Yeah it sounds like the scientists picked the F-22 because somebody was like "This one time, when I was space camp, we heard about this jet...", and not because of its systems/avionics package. I didn't hear anything about weapon systems, etc. Like Hacker said, they taught the goo to control the plane once airborne, and that's about it. Still kind of impressive in a way...

 

[AJTranny]

It's a fuckin rat brain!! Even a dumb third grader must have superior intelligence over a rat. How is this not impressive?

 

[kito]

So students at a university spent half a million dollars to make a brain that can fly jets?

If I read that right, the half a mil was to figure out how in the world it works, now that they've got it working.

Personally I'm impressed. I've seen plenty of neural nets fly planes (we've got one at work that I work with). But an actual biological one? That's pretty neat. Sounds like it'll be more fault tolerant too.

 

[FlyBoyd]

Sounds like it'll be more fault tolerant too.

Can we inject that into my wife's brain?

 

[Flugelman]

Can we inject that into my wife's brain?

Sorry, no. Wives brains are programmed to reject anything that resembles compassion for husbands.

 

[insanebikerboy]

My thought is that they wanted to test a proof of concept and it sounds a lot cooler in the resulting report if the brain could "fly" a sim of a multi-gazzillion dollar F-22 instead of a Microsoft Flight Sim Cessna 172.

 

[Jim123]

My thought is that they wanted to test a proof of concept and it sounds a lot cooler in the resulting report if the brain could "fly" a sim of a multi-gazzillion dollar F-22 instead of a Microsoft Flight Sim Cessna 172.

Right. By the sounds of it we're still a ways away from "a lump of cloned rat brain cells planned and executed a simulated F-22 mission involving friendly air and ground forces, enemy forces, etc. etc." Learning to maintain pitch and roll parameters sounds a lot like a simple hand-eye coordination test--an impressive scientific accomplishment--but nobody wants to read about or more importantly fund something intangible and unexciting like that.

'Course I'm not worried unless they teach a rat brain to hover

 

[PR1 H]

Ahhhh.. will wonders never cease? I'm reading this article... talking about using organic live computers in machines to do things that are to dangerous for humans to do... and all I can see is this being the conclusion down the road:

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6HP_AOJybE