Cool idea http://www.fokker.com/sites/default/files/media/Files/Services/Services_Brochures/Fokker-SkyView-Panoramic-Window-B737.pdf
Would have to agree but trying to shoehorn my 6'4" tall body of a defensive lineman on a pro football team with size 16 feet just will not work on a F-16
Jim- The AC cools them down really quickly. Sitting on the ramp at Nellis AFB NV, with the canopies up on an F-111F, where the temperature was around 110 F, we were really jealous of the F-15s and F-16s with their canopies down and the AC keeping things comfortable. When I flew in the F-15 and F-16 in Europe, the AC system also could just about instantaneously clear the canopy of mist. The AC helped when you were pulling high g, too, and all your muscles were working overtime. The AC only worked on the F-111 when you were airborne, otherwise the avionics ate all the cooling air at idle, at least after Pave Tack was fitted.
It has been said before, but--you guys are so in-frickng-credibly lucky to do that. I have dreamed days and nights for decades to be able to do that.
Super cool. I wonder if it's just thicker glass or different material that can withstand the high pressure differentials.
No, and no. They get down right hot! AC spends all it's time cooling the radar on the deck so once airborne it catches up right about the time when the ambient temp decrease starts helping. In summer in AZ we routinely soaked our T-shirts in icewater and put them on under our flight suits right before stepping ot to the jet in order to make it through preflight and ground ops. Shirts were completely dry by takeoff. Not sure what F-16s Taz flew in Nevada on warm days, but they must have been different...
Will- Sounds like you had the same problems the F-111Fs had in later versions, all the avionics including LANTIRN/LITENING/Sniper ate up your cooling air. The F-16s on the ramps I was mentioning were in 1983-86 and did not have the pods and later radars fitted to late C models, so they worked fine. The F-111F was the same way before they fitted Pave Tack. The ones I flew in Europe were also pre-PGM, except for Mavericks, with no pods.
Had a friend that flew F-4's in Nam. Hotter than hot. And humid. Nothing dried out. Said it was awful until they got to altitude.
F-4 was even further behind in crew comfort. Plus at 5'7", my head was bouncing on the rear canopy. No idea how those 6' plus guys lived back there. All my sorties in the F-4G and RF-4C were in Europe, so not nearly as hot as SEA, George, or Bergstrom. Incidentally, back to the original topic, an ~4 1/2' x ~1 1/2' window in an aircraft is huge. Has to be a great view.
It could very well be a laminate (acrylic and polycarbonate) in a similar fashion to fighter transparencies, although birdstrike will not be a principle design criteria as on fighters.
Birdstrike is only an issue on windshields, not sides, so that's not a factor. Even on fighters, only on the front windshield can have strikes, which are all very thick glass as far as I know. No hard birdstrikes on the canopy. Pressure at altitude from pressurization is the real strength factor, and a lot of that is taken by the seal between window and body as long as the window is stout enough to handle the differential.
Likewise, I was wondering about loads as they will be extreme over that much area. But they were engineered , I'm sure.
That is what I said. The window itself is a relatively minor issue. The bigger issue is transfer of load around the larger cutout (2 frames cut), with the principal load being circumferential due to internal pressure. Aft fuselage is also more critical than fwd due to larger vertical shear and torsion loads from the empennage.
Southwest had a bird strike on a passenger window recently. The impact was enough to displace the window momentarily and allow bird guts inside of the aircraft but managed to seal back up under pressure. The pilots took the 737 up to FL300 before deciding to return to the airport.. Incident: Southwest B737 at Los Angeles on Jan 8th 2017, bird strike
Interesting that it displaced the seal on both primary and secondary transparencies. Panes are only held in by clips, so had to of happened prior to any appreciable pressurization.
Jim- Did you fly them after they added all the modern pods and glass cockpits? Those really suck the cool air out of a fighter.
