Time Travel - how far back could you send a modern jet fighter before its useless?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Just something I was mulling over today, for the purposes of the hypothetical a modern jet fighter* is sent back in time to somewhere in Western Europe, how far back can it be sent before it gradually loses its usefulness? Assume its fully fuelled and armed but with no manuals or other operating instructions.

People of the WW2 era could probably figure out how to fly it but the more complex systems would be a lot more difficult to understand. What if it was sent to the 1970’s, would it just give a boost to the aerospace industry of the era?

Send it back to the medieval period and they would probably realise it was a vehicle of some kind (it has a seat and wheels after all) but how much more could they discern?

Thanks in advance!

*something like the Eurofighter Typhoon: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/06/05/article-2336526-1A2AA0D3000005DC-252_964x673.jpg

2

There’s a story (“Hawk among the Sparrows” by Dean McLaughlin) about the problems that arise when a jetfighter is transported (with its pilot) to WWI. I think we’ve discussed this story on the list before.

3

Actually yes I’ve read that one, forgot about it though!

And on re-reading my OP I think the ‘no manuals’ rule isn’t necessary, at a certain point it would be indecipherable anyway, “OK ‘activate the radar’…what is ‘radar’?!?”

4

Without the maintenance infrastructure, a couple of flights and it is a lump of aluminum and exotic alloys - probably in a crater.

5

The real value is to the aerospace industry. I’d say at any point after the development of aviation, it would be useful. Marginally useful in the few years before the Wright Brothers. The reason is that while scientists and engineers of those eras would not be able to duplicate it exactly, there is an immense amount they could learn.

Nobody is ever going to be able to fly one, not with one load of fuel and weapons. It takes just too much training and almost certain if someone tried, they’d crash. Even with manuals. Even if you had a trained pilot who went back with the aircraft, you wouldn’t be able to use the fighter to end ww2 by going and killing hitler - for one thing, unless it’s armed with a nuke, a 2000 lb bomb or so isn’t going to break through the bunker he is hiding in, and the Allies wouldn’t know his location. (even if they did, with no GPS it would be hard to find the exact building from the air ) Similarly, if the Germans got it, there is no single person they could kill to end the Allied cause.

So in all cases, the only gain to the faction that gets the fighter is the knowledge. Knowledge about jet turbine construction, metallurgy, digital computers, aerodynamics, plastics - tons and tons of things. It could be used to advance industry by decades over the original timeline, since it’s a lot easier to fund a project into something if you already have strong evidence that what you are trying to do could work.

For instance, we kind of think a general AI or nanotech assembler is possible, but our governments are not spending trillions of dollars annually to try to get one. What if an example of one were discovered, sent back in time and working long enough to prove that the idea is possible? It would trigger an arms race.

6

We did a similar thread some time ago about sending an M1 Abrams back to WWII, what would its effect on the war be?

Conclusion: some extremely small positive number/percentage greater than zero.

A single tank (plane) doesn’t carry sufficient munitions to be a strategic game-changer; at best, you get one spectacular single-use tactical advantage; played smartly, that could cause a positive strategic shift for the side using it.

After that, the high-tech munitions are depleted and the tech-base of the time cannot replenish.

7

At what point in history would a runway or runway-like structure exist? You could know everything you needed to know about operating the aircraft, but if there’s not a place to get it off the ground, it’s kinda useless.

8

This. And no one would be able to fly it. A WWII pilot/ground crew might figure out how to start the engine/s.

Many of todays commercial airline pilots are from the military. But I wonder if a modern commercial pilot that did not get training in the military could fly say an F-15? No instruction beyond “there it is”. I really, really doubt it.

9

IMO …

Sorta. Jets is jets at some level. For most jet pilots if you can figure out how to get it started you can get it into the air and probably back down again in one piece. On a nice sunny day.

After that, absent some knowledge about similar-era weapons systems, the only way to use it to hurt somebody else is to crash it into them. That’s where your non-military jet driver would (almost certainly) be lost with no clue.

10

LSLguy, you’re a guy who flies jets, even. If you have no manual, how do you even know what RPM the turbine wants to run at? Sure, a modern jet has automated engine management, but where’s the switch to enable that? What do all these acronyms in the options menus mean? Say you’re sitting on the ground, tabbing through the various MFDs…what happens when you drain the aircraft’s batteries? How do people in ww2 even figure out you need a start cart?

11

I was answering **enipla **just above. His question was what if we put somebody like **Llama Llagophile **who has flown RJ airliners & now flies bizjets but has never flown fighters into the cockpit of an F-whatever. For something like an F-18 and earlier IMO he’ll figure it out. I truly don’t know enough about later stuff to opine with much confidence.

How to steal a fighter: Move the throttles & look for and feel for a mechanical lock or detent between off & idle. Ensure you’re in off but know how to move to idle & back. Find a switch labeled “battery” which is probably lever-locking. Turn it on and see some electrical stuff start to happen. Find the switch labeled “APU start” or “engine start” and flip it to Start or On. etc. for a couple more steps.

Eventually you’ll get the engine(s) rotating and once the cranking RPM stops increasing, put the throttle to idle. If it lights off it’ll settle down at whatever RPM it thinks is idle soon enough. I don’t know the number and I don’t care.

Figure out where the gear and flap controls are. If the flaps are even pilot controllable. Waggle the controls and make sure all the wing & tail feathers move as you expect.

Find the parking brake knob or switch, release it, find a runway, and shove the throttle up to full blast. You’re flying 20 seconds later. Take note of what speed it wants to lift off at. Plan to fly approach 10-15 knots below that.

The key thing is that at least up through that era of fighters, 99% of controlling the airplane systems is through more or less conventional switches and conventional controls. Every airplane is just a variant of the same overarching theme.

Conversely, all the weapons & radar and ECM & … stuff is totally in the computers / MFDs / HUD / magic helmet, etc. And, as I said, good friggin’ luck to anyone, even somebody like me after 30ish years, figuring any of that out any time soon. With the engine running you’ll have normal electricity so you can play with thebuttons for awhile, but there’s a couple hours worth of fiddling to begin to start to make sense of the easy parts. Why bother? At least for enipla’s question.

Somebody like *LLama *or myself could use it to go joyriding on a sunny day. And probably live to tell the tail at least once. But we couldn’t use it as a weapon, even against cooperative targets.

Would some P-51/Spitfire pilot in 1943 be able to figure even this much out and go joyriding? Almost certainly not.

12

I just spent a bit more time googling around. The F-22 looks to be not that different from the earlier era in terms of switchology for getting it running. The F-35 cockpit looks a lot more minimalist, implying pretty much everything is onscreen.

Which might be more difficult to figure out, or it might have the big “EASY” button. At least for the process of getting the airplane started. Which is really the only hard part if you just want to go joyriding.

13

Sounds like someone seen the Philadelphia experiment two

the Philadelphia experiment two (really low budget) apparently someone did the experiment again and managed to send a b-2 type of plane back to the third reich (and incidentally pulled the hero who was in the first movie along with it )

which they used to win ww2 by bombing Washington dc Well one of their designers claimed it as his but when he couldn’t fix it or make another he killed himself in disgrace They couldn’t even find bombs for it

when in the reich dominated future resistance figured out what happened they sent the hero back in time to destroy it he went back in the past and blew it and where they were doing the experiment up and restored time to what it was supposed to be

14

Tomorrow.

15

I can establish a physics-based bright line.

Before Earth’s Great Oxygenation Event, the atmosphere would lack the oxygen needed to sustain any air-breathing engine. The engines of a jet or prop plane would flame out or sputter to a stop if the aircraft were magically time-teleported into the early Palæoproterozoic Era.

So, no farther back than 2.5 billion years. :smiley:

16

Heh. In the Carboniferous era (350million - 300 million years ago), the atmospheric oxygen content was 50% higher than it is now. Might make burning that JP5 a bit… energetic.

17

Do you want a span when it’d be continuously useful, or the earliest time it’d be useful, period? A medieval king would have use for it whatsoever, but a paleolithic man would find the cockpit to be an excellent shelter, far surpassing any of his other options.

18

Fuelwise you aren’t going back further than mid-19th century or so. Assuming your plane will burn kerosene.

And electrics will be impossible pre-Tesla.

19

I was thinking about that as well. The utility of it would change from era to era. I’m skeptical that a medieval king would find no use for it (I’m guessing there’s a typo in that sentence). It could be a marvelous work of art, it could advance science, it could provide rare materials such as ultra-hard steel or aluminum (I obviously have no idea what modern fighter jets are made from), it could just provide excellent wheels for the king’s carriage if they’re hacked off and bolted on.

More than a couple of decades back, and I suspect that it’d be useless as a flying conveyance; but humans are endlessly inventive, and I suspect that in any era, a sufficiently creative human could figure out some excellent use for a fighter jet.

20

I seem to recall F-15’s need Hydrazine for their APU’s, so that is a two edged limit. One, you need it to start, Two, it’s hazmat.