On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:07:22 +1100, in a place far, far away, Sylvia
Else made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

kT wrote:
I was just thinking it might be wise to put a fifth small turbofan,
something like a Williams International, above the pylon, just in case.

I'm assuming this thing can just about glide anywhere, but I'm wondering
how well this thing flies with multiple engine outs. Since they will
presumably have paying passengers in this thing, a small pusher fan
might be in order. Those main engines seem pretty powerful for that.

Anybody have any idea how something like this might handle with a single
engine, and almost empty on fuel?

Seems to me that if you lose two on one side, you're going to be
wondering where the required area of rudder is. Maybe you just pull the
thrust on the other two as well, and glide down (hoping, or planning,
that there's somewhere to glide to from rotation onwards).

I'd also be worrying about the whole thing coming apart from the
transients arising from an abrupt loss of an engine. That structure just
doesn't look very stiff.

I'm sure that it's a lot stiffer than it looks. It's composite, and
Scaled has been building airplanes like this for a long time.