SpaceShipOne Busts Sound Barrier

"Mary Shafer" wrote in message
...
Er, they may well have had, but they never flew anywhere near that
fast. When discussing aircraft, like other vehicles, it's important
to keep actual and predicted number separate.

Sorry. I was under the impression they had.

-Kim-

Jim Kingdon wrote in message ...
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tiero...ews/121703.htm

Not only did they break the sound barrier, but they did some tests of
the inflight reconfiguration (is there a less awkward term? Maybe
not, since I'm not particularly aware of other aircraft that have a
similar capability):

I suggest the term 'tailbrake,' or 'tailbraking' to describe the
braking effect of the high drag configuration, (also it's alliterative
with 'tail break' to describe the what's visually happening to the
craft's shape).

Tom Merkle

Jim Kingdon wrote in message ...
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tiero...ews/121703.htm

Woohoo! Great day!

So, Rutan has won the silver, will he now go for the gold?

If I'm not reading too much into
http://www.xprize.org/papers/XPupdate_1203.pdf (page 2), that would
appear to be 6-9 months off.

Of course if another group looked anywhere near, I'm sure they could
speed it up. But right now they're all alone on the playing field.

I'm interested at how much wider the spread is in current capabilities
of the different teams. When Lindberg actually took off from Long
Island, his closest competitor expected to take off a couple of days
later.

Tom Merkle

Jim Kingdon wrote:

http://www.scaled.com/projects/tiero...ews/121703.htm

Not only did they break the sound barrier, but they did some tests of
the inflight reconfiguration (is there a less awkward term? Maybe
not, since I'm not particularly aware of other aircraft that have a
similar capability):

He then configured the ship in its high-drag "feathered" shape to
simulate the condition it will experience when it enters the
atmosphere after a space flight. . . . After descending in feathered
flight for about a minute, Brian reconfigured the ship to its
conventional glider shape and flew a 12-minute glide to landing at
Scaled's home airport of Mojave.

Hard to believe this is the first small company supersonic aircraft,
but I can't think of a counterexample.

That's one of Burt's talking points, actually -- that whereas the first 12
years after Kittyhawk saw explosive growth internationally in aviation
innovation, what's happened in aerospace has been retrenchment and total
lack of a "possibility space" for innovation. The Russians and Americans
have figured bigger is better and never mind new designs.

Burt wants the little guy involved or, should I say, thousands of little
guys.

At EAA Airventure in Oshkosh last summer he said he'd like to fly into
space at Oshkosh and return *during* the afternoon air show. I'm hoping
that signals a live possibility for the 1st year of the second century of
powered flight!

Will I be at Oshkosh next summer?

hehe.

- Scott

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 19:00:13 -0800 (PST), "Kim Keller"
wrote:

"Mary Shafer" wrote in message
...
Er, they may well have had, but they never flew anywhere near that
fast. When discussing aircraft, like other vehicles, it's important
to keep actual and predicted number separate.

Sorry. I was under the impression they had.

Don't be sorry. You thought exactly what they wanted you to think and
they were very clever about it.

I'm not sure, and the SETP proceedings are still boxed up so I can't
check, that the BD-10 ever got above Mach 0.8 or so. At first it was
an engine-inlet problem but I think it turned into a aerodynamic
problem (predicted thrust not being enough, meaning the engine didn't
meet spec or drag was much higher than expected).

Now, this is all by memory and is probably seriously wrong here and
there, so don't believe the details, just the general outline. Bede
sold off the BD-10, subsequent owners didn't have any more success
going over Mach 1, at least two prototypes crashed and killed the
pilot (who was the owner, I think), and, maybe, the BD-10 has lost
enough momentum that's it's over.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

(Tom Merkle) wrote:

I'm interested at how much wider the spread is in current capabilities
of the different teams. When Lindberg actually took off from Long
Island, his closest competitor expected to take off a couple of days
later.

Partially because Burt's system could be done mostly on paper and on a
small scale until time for full scale testing. He's working on an
aerodynamic craft *and* has the personal and team expertise that
others lack.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

Scott Marquardt wrote in message ...

Hard to believe this is the first small company supersonic aircraft,
but I can't think of a counterexample.

That's one of Burt's talking points, actually -- that whereas the first 12
years after Kittyhawk saw explosive growth internationally in aviation
innovation, what's happened in aerospace has been retrenchment and total
lack of a "possibility space" for innovation. The Russians and Americans
have figured bigger is better and never mind new designs.

Burt wants the little guy involved or, should I say, thousands of little
guys.

Yeah, but the same thing happened with cars, railroads, ironworks,
computers--the list goes on. Eventually infant industries mature to
the point where the basics are already settled upon and every new
company starts looking like the old ones--so it takes a significant
change in the industry (for cars, it was the Japanese car companies)
before you begin to see innovation again--and even then the little
guys will fail more often than they succeed.
Remember Delorean?

Tom Merkle

In article , Tom Merkle wrote:
Jim Kingdon wrote in message ...
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tiero...ews/121703.htm

Not only did they break the sound barrier, but they did some tests of
the inflight reconfiguration (is there a less awkward term? Maybe
not, since I'm not particularly aware of other aircraft that have a
similar capability):

I suggest the term 'tailbrake,' or 'tailbraking' to describe the
braking effect of the high drag configuration, (also it's alliterative
with 'tail break' to describe the what's visually happening to the
craft's shape).

I vaguely recall seeing "shuttlecocking" somewhere, which is nice,
although it's a bit unwieldy. (it also conjures up images of a *huge*
racquet about to smack them back into the stratosphere g)

--
-Andrew Gray

In article ,
Tom Merkle wrote:
Of course if another group looked anywhere near, I'm sure they could
speed it up. But right now they're all alone on the playing field.
...When Lindberg actually took off from Long
Island, his closest competitor expected to take off a couple of days
later.

As Peter Diamandis commented at last year's Space Access, "it's not over
until somebody wins". The odds-on favorite for the Orteig Prize was
Admiral Byrd, who sank $100k+ into his entry, back when that was a massive
amount of money... and crashed on takeoff and was out of the race.

Rutan is *not* alone on the playing field. He's farther into his
development program than most of his competitors, but he's also got a
rather complex vehicle that needs a longer development program before it's
ready to try for the prize. (He's already had one landing accident; all
it takes is a slightly worse one to put him way behind.)
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
In article ,
Tom Merkle wrote:
Of course if another group looked anywhere near, I'm sure they could
speed it up. But right now they're all alone on the playing field.
...When Lindberg actually took off from Long
Island, his closest competitor expected to take off a couple of days
later.

As Peter Diamandis commented at last year's Space Access, "it's not over
until somebody wins". The odds-on favorite for the Orteig Prize was
Admiral Byrd, who sank $100k+ into his entry, back when that was a massive
amount of money... and crashed on takeoff and was out of the race.

Rutan is *not* alone on the playing field. He's farther into his
development program than most of his competitors, but he's also got a
rather complex vehicle that needs a longer development program before it's
ready to try for the prize. (He's already had one landing accident; all
it takes is a slightly worse one to put him way behind.)
Which is intriguing. Does he have SpaceShipTwo standing by somewhere
in the hangar, or did he really go with just one flight test article ?
That has been the stumbling block of many past development programs.
Armadillo, for instance, has stated that they could build another
vehicle in couple of weeks from scratch and are comfortable with
crashing at least one vehicle in testings. According to their latest
update they have made some preparations already, i.e. ordered a new,
bigger tank.

-kert