SpaceShipTwo design unveiled!

Twin fuselages, four turbofans:
http://content.zdnet.com/2346-10532_22-184522-1.html

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:
Twin fuselages, four turbofans:
http://content.zdnet.com/2346-10532_22-184522-1.html

Notice the common passenger compartment/cockpit and nose design between
the spaceplane and carrier aircraft, like SpaceShipOne used.
Cockpit glazing is far more conventional than the SpaceShipOne, and
although this makes more sense from a operational aircraft, I'll admit
I'm going to miss the cool forward fuselage with all the portholes -
which looked like it should have had Flash Gordon at the control stick,
and a heat ray cannon projecting out of the nose tip. :-)
Raises a interesting question: pilot in one fuselage, copilot in the
other? Or two people side-by-side in all three cockpits?
Also, you can now sell tickets to passengers who want to watch the
launch from one of the twin fuselages of the carrier aircraft at quite
low prices, and kick up your profits a bit.

Pat

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 19:50:48 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Pat Flannery wrote:
Twin fuselages, four turbofans:
http://content.zdnet.com/2346-10532_22-184522-1.html

Notice the common passenger compartment/cockpit and nose design between
the spaceplane and carrier aircraft, like SpaceShipOne used.
Cockpit glazing is far more conventional than the SpaceShipOne, and
although this makes more sense from a operational aircraft, I'll admit
I'm going to miss the cool forward fuselage with all the portholes -
which looked like it should have had Flash Gordon at the control stick,
and a heat ray cannon projecting out of the nose tip. :-)
Raises a interesting question: pilot in one fuselage, copilot in the
other? Or two people side-by-side in all three cockpits?
Also, you can now sell tickets to passengers who want to watch the
launch from one of the twin fuselages of the carrier aircraft at quite
low prices, and kick up your profits a bit.

Supposedly the passengers in WK2 will do parabolas after SS2 is
released.

On Jan 23, 6:32 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Twin fuselages, four turbofans:http://content.zdnet.com/2346-10532_22-184522-1.html

Pat

When trips to space are affordable to the working class lemme know...

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:32:03 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Twin fuselages, four turbofans:
http://content.zdnet.com/2346-10532_22-184522-1.html

....Is it me, or does it look like something Douglass would have
concocted back in the early 30's?

OM
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OM wrote:
...Is it me, or does it look like something Douglass would have
concocted back in the early 30's?

I'm a weak student of aviation history, but would have thought that
Douglas' designs were more conventional? Perhaps Jack Northrop (sp?)
instead?

One of the news blurbs - perhaps it was the one on space.com -
suggested that WK2 could also hoist aloft small unmanned orbital
rockets. I wonder if that is code for being able to carry Pegasus?

rick jones
--
The glass is neither half-empty nor half-full. The glass has a leak.
The real question is "Can it be patched?"
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
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On Jan 25, 7:10*am, Rick Jones wrote:

I'm a weak student of aviation history, but would have thought that
Douglas' designs were more conventional?

The DC-2 created its own conventions

Neil Gerace wrote:
On Jan 25, 7:10?am, Rick Jones wrote:
I'm a weak student of aviation history, but would have thought that
Douglas' designs were more conventional?

The DC-2 created its own conventions

Well, OK, but it still more or less looked (to this eye at least) like
a "regular" airplane

rick jones
--
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these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

"OM" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:32:03 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Twin fuselages, four turbofans:
http://content.zdnet.com/2346-10532_22-184522-1.html

...Is it me, or does it look like something Douglass would have
concocted back in the early 30's?


Not sure about that, but does look like you could snap it in 1/2 and both
would still be able to fly.


OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[



--
Greg Moore
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Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html

Rick Jones wrote:
One of the news blurbs - perhaps it was the one on space.com -
suggested that WK2 could also hoist aloft small unmanned orbital
rockets. I wonder if that is code for being able to carry Pegasus?


They've already been using WK1 for dropping the X-37:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8008541/
WK2 is ideally sized to carry a Pegasus-like vehicle, but is there
enough launch demand for those to make it worthwhile to switch to it
from the L-1011? We only launch around 2-3 a year on average.

Pat