RE: Earth re-entry problems

ahh it was just a thought garry…….

as for fuel, why not have it stored on the ISS??

coanda

RE: Earth re-entry problems

re-entry speed will always be an issue and cost cutters will always want the least fatigue on the airframe, so that it can carry out the maximum number of missions before it becomes a danger to fly.

Garry, in your post, after mine, you have said the same thing as me. you can come through quicker, at a steeper angle or you can go through slower at less of an angle.

what about this, you stop the orbiter where you want it to be, you make it STILL in space. then you allow the orbiter, using a little persuasion perhaps, to fall into the atmosphere, which for all intents and purposes is also NOT moving. if you do this at a big enough number of orbital rotations away from where you want to land you could quite plausibly fall under some rocket braking initially and then via para foil or parachute to the landing zone. the time this would take prob wouldnt be great enough for the earth to advance through its own orbit around the sun to make any real differnce.

just a thought………..

coanda

RE: Earth re-entry problems

yeah, stop in mid space and drop vertically to the ground, in controlled descent, this would work!

asfar as the control fothe columbia goes, it was as far as I am aware fully automated and the autopilot itself holds its own ‘chinese parliament’ with all teh data it collects and acts to adjust the aircraft so that it remains within the limits its set.

in this case the autopilot WAS trying to correct the extra drag problem, it couldnt do it quick enough or with enough deflection, and perhaps it isnt given enough options. autopilots dont get much better than this to be honest. all but one re entry with the shuttle as I understand has been carried out under autopilot (one USMC guy flew a re entry once.)

There is NO easier way to get through the atmosphere it just has to be done this way, you either go through very quickly with very high temps or you go through slowly with lower temps, either way you’ll have the same problems of heating.

TOO MANY VARIABLES

coanda

RE: FlightSim

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 02-02-03 AT 11:15 PM (GMT)]if your buying it out of a catalogue then its going to be version 5 I wouldnt get it, save a bit more and then go and buy from x-plane.org
version 6.

The updates are free to download between major versions, ie. 6.->6.99

If you have any questions you can ask me, I have version 5 and 6, and the most recent update, aswell as the scenery for the uk, as done by something called GLOS (basically more accurate than the scenery on the disk.)

If you have a desire to try it out then go to x-plane.com.

Ok the download is pretty hefty but thats because it IS the sim, with some restrictions, this is WHAT YOU WILL GET.

the scenery is held under close scrutiny, and its for you to decide whether or not you want to spend the time in actually MAKING your own scenery with worldmaker(with a little intellect you can import tiles taken from photographs), part of x-plane or whether your happy with MSFS.

I also suggest you take a look at the forums on x-plane.org.

all in all for realism and flight model it DOES NOT get any better, if its screwy, its YOUR fault, it doesnt run off tables it runs off of mathematics.

You can design your own aircraft and scenery and objects (even if this one is abit lengthy)and make your own airfoils.

you can land the shuttle, land aboard frigates/carriers/oilrigs…..you can make airports, add navaids/ils’s

its a very versatile program as long as you can use it.

buy MSFS if your happy to fly around on rails and not worry about where your flight model is coming from, or that you can spin the learjet across the sky for eternity if you so wished.

as for addons, well at the moment they are all free. you should again go to x-plane.org and search their moderate database to see what takes your fancy (note the aircraft are version specific)

there are no buy-on add ons as with MSFS, but with the SDK plugins that are now happening, things are about to get a whole lot better for x-plane (which in my opinion is doing better than MSFS in an number of ways already)

frankly there is nothing that somebody who can input data into a failsafe table can do that x-plane cant model better in the flight regime, thats not my opinion, thats fact. If the designer of the aircraft is good and gets it right then you have an excellent model, however there arent that many brilliant designers (nearly all of whom are engineers or pilots in some way themselves who understand the physics behind it).

the choice is about what you like to see in a sim, realism in flight model, or pretty ground……

coanda

RE: Display Routines-Fast and Low or Lots of Aeros?

I’m afraid theres more to calculating the risks of close formation flying than the distance between individual airframes.

Credit must be given where credit is due…..The pilots are perhaps some of the best in this country. The trio(breitling) of aircraft i saw at the first duxford last year, and at yeovilton last year were, in my humble opinion flown in the most professional way I could possibly imagine. They were incredible!

Charlie Browns Spit display at yeovilton was also one of the few displays I look at and actually say verbally……’thats good’ with ADDED nod of head! (I have to say that the Tucano display at last years yeovilton was also excellent from ALL aspects…but thats aside the main point!) When these aircraft were originally made….they were more or less falling over them (ok ok within reason) and the operating conditions required of them were extremely harsh…so the majority of these warbird aircraft are not namby pamby little things…..or at least werent in squadron service….even if each did have their own little foibles.

I think you’ll find many warbirds are g limited anyway. The skill and profesionalism of pilots who fly the great majority of these aircraft would never regularly allow them to exceed the limits set (hell i used to fly a bulldog that was g limited through fatigue…and thats on a 20 yr old airframe!).

They’d prob get the sack too……

all of the main aerobatic manouveres need not be carried out above 3 g’s..it just takes a bit longer, and you have to watch the speed a little bit more…..

I often think that aircraft flown from one end of the crowd line to another, more or less straight and level dont do much for the people who JUST go for the day out…for us rivet counters its enough just to see it fly. Mainly because the majority understand that we are quite priveliged to see it in the air.

i’m all for vigourousness……and in fact i really rather enjoy the yak 52 displays when i see them…..and the extra 300’s…..I think they are great….however much they may sound like lawnmowers and tractors… I never was one for flying straight and level!!

however if its rare and you just know thats the only one…then you must always play safe.

The RAF is guidelines oriented like no other force…and canted towards eeking out as much as possible from one source..or at least it is nowadays!! tighter than a camels wotsit in a snow storm now.

my solution? more like the breitling!!!!!!!!

and i am going to take a very large liberty in posting a couple of my shots….sorry!

Attachments:

RE: Scrap Heap Challenge

HOOOOOOORAAAAAAAAA for the UK…..we, by far, in my personal, biast, opinion made the better of the aircraft, the flight performance alone shows that…

the french bleriot looked really quite nice but unfortunatley for the americans….they built a brick….sack the guy who did the CG calcs!

otherwise, damn good show. and a big thankyou for the FAA who must have bent over backwards to allow this to happen.

coanda

RE: That song we sing a new years eve

isnt this scottish??

if so, everybody outside of scotland i dont think is supposed to know anyway. :-):-)

coanda