feedback on orbiter concept?

http://splitreflection.com/cal/shuttle.png

A simple shuttle orbiter concept I've drawn up based on certain princibles.

- This would be an upper stage, though I can see SSTO adaptation.

- It would reenter at ~65 deg angle of attack for high hypersonic lift
while still maintaining some pretense of blunt body operation.

- Leading edges and nose are largest radius consistant with lifting body
thickness.

- Control surfaces (brown in drawing) extend/retract parallel to body
surface to maintain clean flow without sharp leading edges.

- To extent practical, harder to fabricate compound curves are avoided.

- And yes, the astronauts could fly it down. ;-)

Cameron Dorrough wrote:
Have you tried doing an X-Plane sim on this? (www.x-plane.com)

It would give you a good idea of how well your concept might work.

Even if it ran on my computer (too slow, not enough RAM, unsupported
OS), the aerodynamic analysis it does doesn't appear valid for reentry
conditions.

Guess I need to buckle down and finish up that CFD project.

"Penguinista" wrote in message
...

http://splitreflection.com/cal/shuttle.png

A simple shuttle orbiter concept I've drawn up based on certain

princibles.

- This would be an upper stage, though I can see SSTO adaptation.

- It would reenter at ~65 deg angle of attack for high hypersonic lift
while still maintaining some pretense of blunt body operation.

- Leading edges and nose are largest radius consistant with lifting body
thickness.

- Control surfaces (brown in drawing) extend/retract parallel to body
surface to maintain clean flow without sharp leading edges.

- To extent practical, harder to fabricate compound curves are avoided.

- And yes, the astronauts could fly it down. ;-)

Penguinista :

Cameron Dorrough wrote:
Have you tried doing an X-Plane sim on this? (www.x-plane.com)

It would give you a good idea of how well your concept might work.

Even if it ran on my computer (too slow, not enough RAM, unsupported
OS), the aerodynamic analysis it does doesn't appear valid for reentry
conditions.

Guess I need to buckle down and finish up that CFD project.

If you can't run x-plane then I doubt you will find you CFD program will run
at a speed that lets you play with diffirent parameters to test your ideas in
a reasonable amount of time.

CFD sucks up CPU power.

Earl Colby Pottinger

PS. I can't run x-plane either, it does not support my OS.

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