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#11
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T-38s as Astronaut aircraft: how much longer in service?
Henry Spencer wrote: Most any actual flying -- especially in a relatively hot, high-performance aircraft -- contributes well to maintaining proficiency. Which is not to say that they weren't also status symbols. I was surprised to find out that Shuttle commanders complete 1,000 landings in the Shuttle Training Aircraft as part of their training. Practice is a good thing, but 1,000 landings seems a bit much. The downside of the T-38 is that four astronauts have been killed in crashes of them over the years. At least they are safer than the LLRV/LLTV, which was a bad idea from the get-go IMHO: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17-lltv.html Pat Pat |
#12
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T-38s as Astronaut aircraft: how much longer in service?
"Matt Wiser" writes:
Given that NASA has been flying T-38s as Astronaut proficency aircraft since the 1960s, and although they haven't seen as much stress on the airframe as USAF T-38s, they won't last forever. Any idea as to how long the T-38 will be in NASA service, and what would be a likely replacement? Demilitarized F-16Bs or -Ds, perhaps? As I recall, NASA borrowed the first lot, and at some point the USAF had the audacity to want them back.. -- A host is a host from coast to & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433 |
#13
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T-38s as Astronaut aircraft: how much longer in service?
A-4 slow and plodding? Not at all. It was nick-named "Heinemann's
Hot-Rod" due to it's fighter-like performance, good enough to be used by the US Navy in dissimilar air combat exercises flying against F-4 , F-8, F-14 and F-18 crews to teach them how to deal with hard to kill opponents in close quarters combat that are using small, fast, agile aircraft. It also had performance impressive enough to be used by the Blue Angels demonstration team: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-4_Skyhawk Among the aircraft operated by the US Navy in the early 1960s, the only real slouches I can think of are the A-1 Skyraiders (a prop attack aircraft) and the A-3 Skywarrior: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-1_Skyraider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-3_Skywarrior and various other cargo, anti-submarine and utility aircraft. Perhaps you were thinking of the A-6 Intruder which, while not exactly "fighter-like" in its performance, was still regarded by it's crews as a "hot" aircraft. Several shuttle-era astronauts from the Navy flew it (Fred Hauck, Dan Brandenstein and Mark Kelly come to mind); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-6_Intruder Among other attack aircraft of questionable slouchiness flown by the Navy during the 1960s are the high subsonic and agile A-7 Corsair II: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-7_Corsair_II and the supersonic (Mach 2) A-5 Vigilante beastie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-5_Vigilante KMM Henry Spencer wrote: In article .com, Gene DiGennaro wrote: ...I often wondered considering the abundance of Navy/Marine aviators as early astronauts why the TA-4 wasn't considered. Probably because it wasn't supersonic, at a time when that still had a lot of technological sex appeal. Remember also that the Navy pilot fraternity was then split into fighter pilots and bomber pilots (aka "attack aircraft" pilots, because "bomber" was a registered trademark of SAC :-)). Those Navy/Marine aviators came almost entirely from the fighter-pilot side of the house, whereas the A-4 was one of those slow, plodding aircraft that the bomber guys flew. -- |
#14
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T-38s as Astronaut aircraft: how much longer in service?
In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote: At least they are safer than the LLRV/LLTV, which was a bad idea from the get-go IMHO... Well, unfortunately Neil Armstrong disagreed with you, and I'm inclined to weight his opinion a bit more heavily. :-) (While recognizing the hazard -- having ejected from one of them -- he, like other Apollo commanders, said there was nothing else in the training program that simulated the landing nearly as well.) -- spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | |
#16
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T-38s as Astronaut aircraft: how much longer in service?
Pat Flannery wrote:
mike flugennock wrote: Y'know, I was wondering, myself, lately -- _were_ they ever any help for astronauts' flying skills or were they, in fact, "flying Corvettes"? They'd be helpful as far as general flying skills and for building up a tolerance for maneuvers and G forces, but they wouldn't handle at all like a Shuttle. It would make more sense to ferry the astronauts around in the Shuttle Training Aircraft, where every landing could serve as a practice Shuttle landing. Pat, you've descended into Stuffie territory. His first appearance in this group was on just that subject, voicing just that opinion. (Are you sure you want to go down this road?) Statistically, the STA's much more dangerous. Of the two that were built, one was lost, with all hands. My comments from back then: BTW, the Shuttle Training Aircraft conversions of the Gulfstram II were entirely gutted to allow for the computers and systems required to make all the added flappery and thrust reversers & oddball controls & stuff required to make it behave like a landing Shuttle. The crew consists of the Simulator Pilot (Shuttle Pilot), the Instrustor Pilot, who is the conventional controls pilot and safety lookout, and the Flight Simulation Engineer, who keeps everything behaving, hopefully. The STA doesn't land when simulation the Shuttle - the approach is flown down to where the Shuttle Pilot's eyes would be in the real thing, and then the IP performs a go-round. (BTW, the STA flights are chased, usually by a (Wait For It!) T-38. The Shuttle approach would never be allowed at any sort of regular airport- it's too disruptive to the normal flow of traffic and would jeapordize safety. -- Pete Stickney Without data, all you have is an opinion |
#17
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T-38s as Astronaut aircraft: how much longer in service?
Henry Spencer wrote: In article , Pat Flannery wrote: At least they are safer than the LLRV/LLTV, which was a bad idea from the get-go IMHO... Well, unfortunately Neil Armstrong disagreed with you, and I'm inclined to weight his opinion a bit more heavily. :-) (While recognizing the hazard -- having ejected from one of them -- he, like other Apollo commanders, said there was nothing else in the training program that simulated the landing nearly as well.) If you note those reminisces about the device though, one reason more training wasn't down with them is that they were considered dangerous: "Cernan - "The reasoning behind giving only Commanders LLTV training, as best I can remember, was a combination of time, cost, and, quite frankly, safety. All the lunar module pilots wanted to fly the LLTV, strictly from a piloting point of view. When I was a lunar module pilot, I wanted to fly it. But, because we didn't have plans to land on Apollo 10, there wasn't any point in either Tom Stafford or I training in the LLTV; and, even for the actual landing missions, quite frankly, there was no need for LMP LLTV training. It would have been nice gravy to put on a chicken fried steak if the LMPs could have flown it as well as the Commanders; but, in reality, there was no need. There were two people to train for each flight anyway: the Commander and the Back-up Commander; and that pretty much took up all the time that was available. There were also some very real safety issues. We started out with four training vehicles, I believe, and we ended up with one. Joe Algranti http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/JSC-OralHist.html (a NASA test pilot) ejected out of the first one. He was heading our aircraft operation before Neil ever flew the LLTV. And then two other people had to eject. So I was the last to fly the last one. It was a very unstable vehicle." (There were actually five built of which three crashed) The vehicle was sort of an afterthought to the main program, and didn't cost all that much to make- they only cost 2.5 million each for the three LLTV "production" versions, and only 1.8 million each for the two LLRV prototypes. When you think about it, what Bell had to do was build a single seat VTOL aircraft using jet thrust for lift, something that we had not had a heck of a lot of luck with over the years, then stick rockets on it besides, and have it ready to go in 14 months: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apoollrv.htm This all was a very challenging specification in its own right, although I imagine Bell's success with the ATV and X-14 played a major part in them getting the contract, as well as the British Rolls-Royce "Flying Bedstand"s success, and Bell seems to have had a great deal of input in getting the thing contracted for in the first place, having come up with the idea at around the same time NASA's Flight Research Center did so independently, and already having drawn up plans for it. If you go down to the July 27th and November 7th, 1967 entries in that article, it also seems that the work on these vehicles might have been sloppy, probably due to the timeline and fairly meager funding. The Soviets had built a vehicle somewhat similar to the LLTV in their "Turbolyot" VTOL jet lift research vehicle: http://www.moninoaviation.com/31a.jpg ....yet, despite its obvious simultaneously to a lunar lander they did not use it to train cosmonauts, relying on helicopters instead. Pat |
#18
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T-38s as Astronaut aircraft: how much longer in service?
In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote: When you think about it, what Bell had to do was build a single seat VTOL aircraft using jet thrust for lift, something that we had not had a heck of a lot of luck with over the years, then stick rockets on it besides, and have it ready to go in 14 months... There was one further subtlety that the VTOL aircraft never had to contend with: the need for the jet engine to be gimbaled and gyro-stabilized, so that it stayed vertical as the vehicle maneuvered. Against that, not having to fly fast or far or efficiently was a big advantage. -- spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | |
#19
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T-38s as Astronaut aircraft: how much longer in service?
In article .com,
wrote: A-4 slow and plodding? Not at all. It was nick-named "Heinemann's Hot-Rod" due to it's fighter-like performance, good enough to be used by the US Navy in dissimilar air combat... Slow and plodding, by the standards of the *fighter* pilots in the early 1960s -- well before Vietnam woke the military up to the need for dissimilar air combat training. People, especially fighter pilots, hadn't yet realized that absolute maximum straight-line speed was not the only important figure of merit. This was at a time -- if I'm remembering the timing correctly -- when the fighters in the pipeline included the Mach 3 F-108 and the Mach 4 F-103, and the USAF was considering demanding that the replacement for the F-105 be supersonic at sea level (a requirement that became a millstone around the neck of the F-111 developers). All subsonic aircraft were slow and plodding by definition, if you asked a fighter pilot. :-) -- spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | |
#20
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T-38s as Astronaut aircraft: how much longer in service?
Peter Stickney wrote: Pat, you've descended into Stuffie territory. His first appearance in this group was on just that subject, voicing just that opinion. (Are you sure you want to go down this road?) Statistically, the STA's much more dangerous. Of the two that were built, one was lost, with all hands. If every one of our Shuttle commanders has flown 1,000 test approaches in them, they can't be all that dangerous, even with one being lost. They do have limitations as far as passenger carriage, but the T-38 does also. ;-) Both of them will be moot once the Shuttle is retired, as "flying" the CEV during reentry isn't going to be anything like flying a Shuttle, STA, or T-38. Save the taxpayers some money, and get the astronauts a nice Lear Jet or Gulfstream to get around in. It'll be safer and more economical to operate, and will also have considerably less maintenance requirements and greatly improved crew comfort. On the business jet, the astronauts can actually discuss things and go over written material while going from point-to-point, which is sort of difficult in a Talon. Pat |
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