Posted on 04/19/2010 10:10:50 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
American warplanes are being equipped with electronic tags, so that aerial tankers can automatically note who got what when they are refueled in flight. These records used to be updated manually, which led to errors, and a distraction for the boom operator who was handling the refueling operation.
The electronic tag is called RFID (radio-frequency identification), and it's been in development for years, to replace bar codes (which was the previous revolution in keeping track of stuff). RFID uses small labels containing a cheap (less than a buck now, headed towards pennies each) electronic device that contains information about what is inside whatever it is attached to. The RFID is written to by a PC equipped with RFID writer hardware and software, or, in the latest generation of RFID chips, via a wireless device. What makes it all work is the ability of RFID to broadcast back when an electronic RFID reader is within range (3-4 meters, or at least ten feet) of an RFID tag. The RFID tag requires no power, it simply reflects back when hit with electromagnetic energy from the RFID reader, sending the data placed on the tag back as well. You then plug the RFID reader into a PC and transmit the RFID data back to a central database that is updated. The air force tanker version ( ARAI, or Automatic Receiver Aircraft Identification) has a longer range, as the refueling boom is about 12 meters (39 feet) long, and the aircraft is often 20 meters away (if booms attached to the wings are used.)
(Excerpt) Read more at strategypage.com ...
Innovative, but I’ve worked with this stuff for 15 years and sometimes it’s not a benefit to “automate” something so simple.
Often, with automation, errors are being EVERY TIME, but nobody notices because it’s automated.
KISS still rules, in both military and industry.
I guess you have never had the pleasure of reading aircraft numbers off an aircraft at night......
Next we will have to get out and wash his wind screen.
Maybe not.
But I HAVE had the pleasure of contracting, creating and installing such systems (barcode and RF ID) and having poured through days, months, YEARS of faulty data.
If it works, it works, but I’ve seen and worked with A LOT of military automation that hasn’t worked as advertised. Field Artillery data sytems, Maneuver Control System (MCS), Mobile Subscriber Equipment (MSE), etc. ad nauseam. Many of these “improvements” introduced more problems than they solved, at a far greater price.
Unlike manufacturing RFID applications, you don’t get to run the F-16 through the reader again, or run it right up against the reader to get a good read ;)
Just my experienced observation..
I wonder if there’s ever been an incident where late at night, an air plane of the “wrong sort of country”, played out an elaborate spoof of an American jet and got themselves a free air refueling courtesy of the US AirForce?
It would be pretty serious incident but also very balsy of the jet pilot so involved.
For that matter has the US AF offered courtesy refuelings for other nations jets, obstensibly to get them out of our air space or as a friendly gesture to keep them from crashing?
Will this mean that the boom operator will get a sales commission?
Just green stamps (if you remember them).
Really?
I doubt it.
It’s a logistics of the thing.
Fueling has always been complex, even for ground vehicles.
Actually, ESPECIALLY for ground vehicles, because of the number of refuels. An Army POL line is easily as complex an operation as you’ll find. Not as dangerous, but many more fuels and many more units. Record-keeping sucks there too, but the solution shouldn’t be more complicated than the problem.
I was thinking more of air refueling than ground refueling.
I got that.
But you think maybe somebody snuck up on a KC-135 and got free fuel? Maybe even a non-allied nation?
Sounds impossible, but then again, I would’ve thought that “accidentally” loading live nuclear weapons and flying them across country would be impossible, too ;)
And all will be numbered "666". lolol.
They still haven’t solved the “I don’t need any fuel, I just gotta use the rest room” problem.
Oh where is the Photoshop of an F-22 with gang tags all over it?
Well, I can tell you, as a refueling observer on KC-130 aircraft, that anything that can help ID tanking aircraft that doesn’t involve getting on the radio and ASKING for it is a good thing....
Well, you said “anything” and I’ve never put it past the USAF (or the DOD, in general) to come up with a billion-dollar solution ;)
Hope it works out.
Nobody ever wants to talk to the customer anymore ...
Someone’s going to figure out how to use these RFID chips against us. Because they are passive and reflect energy back, someone will come up with gear to make these planes more detectable.
“Often, with automation, errors are being EVERY TIME, but nobody notices because it’s automated.”
And often, with typing, errors are being EVERY TIME, but few notice because it’s typed.
LOL.
Now, imagine my mistakes X eleventybillion and you get the idea.
Nah -
“Roscoe 22, Squak mode 3, code 22”
“Roger ARCO 16, will Squak mode 3, code 22”
Check out this for more -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identification_friend_or_foe
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