Debris found in Southern CA Desert - Anyone know what it might be?

On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 08:03:20 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

I want to know what the "cheek bulges" on the side of the forward
fuselage are all about.

....Mumps.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
I want to know what the "cheek bulges" on the side of the forward
fuselage are all about.

If memory serves, the Crusader had a single bulge -- one side only --
because its otherwise quite skillful designers had somehow neglected to
provide space for a retractable flight-refueling probe, and somewhere
between the design freeze and the production order, the USN decided to
insist on having one.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 22:41:11 +0800, "Neil Gerace"
wrote:


"OM" om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote
in message ...

...For some reason when I look at that damn thing, the word "seagull"
pops into my mind, and I suddenly have an urge to throw a few dozen
Alka-Seltzers in the intakes :-P

Do Alka-Seltzers cause seagulls to explode? Must give that a go next time
I'm at the cricket.

....That's the myth. The truth is that it inflates their stomach to the
point that the pain prevents them from flying, and they auger fatally
into the drink.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

"OM" om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote
in message ...
On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 22:41:11 +0800, "Neil Gerace"
wrote:

Do Alka-Seltzers cause seagulls to explode? Must give that a go next time
I'm at the cricket.

...That's the myth. The truth is that it inflates their stomach to the
point that the pain prevents them from flying, and they auger fatally
into the drink.

That doesn't sound like a nice way to die Good, I'll try it. Hate them,
those flying water rats.

(william mook) wrote:
[...]
Do you have a GPS coordinate of the wreckage? You can buy a GPS
system from Meijer or Walmart for a few hundred bucks.

If you can't do under $150, you aren't trying. Under $100 is possible
on a good day. If you need differential capabilities or excessive map
hand-holding, that will run you more.

/dps

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
I want to know what the "cheek bulges" on the side of the forward
fuselage are all about.

If memory serves, the Crusader had a single bulge -- one side only --
because its otherwise quite skillful designers had somehow neglected to
provide space for a retractable flight-refueling probe, and somewhere
between the design freeze and the production order, the USN decided to
insist on having one.

That doesn't make sense, as (IIRC) most USN aircraft of the era simply
laid the probe alone side the fuselage with little attention paid to
aerodynamics at all. That bulge is quite a bit larger, and in the
wrong position anyhow.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 01:37:57 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Mary Shafer wrote:

Someone asked about a refueling receptacle back by the tail on the
F-8. First, receptacles are on the forebody, not at the back end.
Secondly, the F-8, being a Navy airplane, has a probe, not a
receptacle. It's on the left side, just below the cockpit, I think.

I think it was a reference to a ground refueling point; but it clearly
is hydraulically related given the writing on the data placard.

It wouldn't be on the top, up at the back. The Crusader is a Navy
airplane, operated off carriers. The Navy doesn't make the mechanics
climb up and stand on the airplane to refuel it, because even super
carriers develop quite a lot of deck motion in high sea states.

We put a flight control computer in that space, after removing the
probe, on our F-8, so I'm going by memory of the dummy probe we
strapped onto the airplane for my PIO suppression filter testing.

Ever see the cool looking supercritical wing test F8? Or is this the one
you are referring to?

Naturally. It's parked on a concrete pad right beside my F-8, which
was the Digital Fly-By-Wire. They're both F-8Cs that we got from the
Navy. In fact, we asked for an F-8 for the supercritical wing.

We also had some plans to put a skew wing on the F-8 DFBW, jointly
with the Navy. Because all you have to do is disengage the jack screw
at the front of the wing and remove the pin from the hinge at the back
to lift the entire wing structure right off, the F-8 is a natural for
putting new wings onto. Using the DFBW would have let us use a flight
control system that greatly reduced the cross-axis effects (pitch
maneuvers causing roll and yaw movements and vice versa).

This would have been a transonic airplane and the major advantage of
the skew wing would have been the reduction in spotting factor. The
skew wing spotting factor would have been 0.7, while a regular F-8 had
a spotting factor of 1.3 (I think the A-4 was still the standard,
although it may have been the A-7). That's a substantial reduction,
one that the Navy would really like to see. But Dryden and the piece
of the Navy advocating this couldn't get approval at the higher levels
of our respective agencies, so we never did it.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 21:18:49 GMT, Doug...
wrote:

Also, recall that several different types of planes have been used as
unmanned drones in target practice over the Southern California desert.
Not only do you need to test new weapons, to make sure they'll work
properly, you also need to train crews on the actual use of these
weapons. Which means you occasionally need to be able to shoot down
real jets.

This isn't done just anywhere, though. You have to have a range that
you can drop big chunks of airplane on without smashing houses, cars,
livestock, and people.

The Navy does it at China Lake, as part of their missile testing.
They're using QF-4s right now. If the USAF uses drones, it's probably
only at Eglin.

Does anyone know if the Crusader was ever used regularly in drone
service?

I don't think so, because we sold them to the Philippines. They even
took the F-8B, which was at Dryden. It was a two-seat airplane but
its biggest distinction was that it was the last US fighter with a
pushrod and cable flight control system.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 00:30:04 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Some F8A's were converted as drone control aircraft as DF8L's, but I
haven't found any info on ones that were converted to target drones as such.

I think you mean QF-8L. The designator for drones is Q and the hyphen
is part of the reformed designations system, which was put in place
just before the F-8 came online.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 19:07:43 GMT, (Derek
Lyons) wrote:

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

If memory serves, the Crusader had a single bulge -- one side only --
because its otherwise quite skillful designers had somehow neglected to
provide space for a retractable flight-refueling probe, and somewhere
between the design freeze and the production order, the USN decided to
insist on having one.

That doesn't make sense, as (IIRC) most USN aircraft of the era simply
laid the probe alone side the fuselage with little attention paid to
aerodynamics at all. That bulge is quite a bit larger, and in the
wrong position anyhow.

The external probe is for airplanes like the A-6, not for the
fighters. The F-8 went Mach 1.4, so there's no way they'd put a fixed
external probe on it.

It might be the gun, though.

You can see more photos of the SCW and the F-8 DFBW in the gallery at
www.dfrc.nasa.gov if you're interested.

If there is a photo of the F-8 DFBW with a fuel probe, that's not the
real thing. That's an F-4 probe tip stuck onto a dummy probe. I was
doing a study of the PIO suppressor filter, the one we came up with
for the Orbiter after ALT-5, using the F-8 DFBW because we wondered
how it would work in high-performance aircraft.

I wanted a high-gain, repeatable precision task, so aerial refueling
was a natural. The tiny detail that we'd taken the F-8's probe out
and used its space for computer equipment meant we had to come up with
a substitute. So we built the dummy probe. It's nice to have all the
shops and skills on site.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer