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Captain Apollo posted:Just FYI not all airplanes have more than one engine. Also FYI, not all twin engine airplanes can climb in only one good engine. Right. And birds still fly around all over the place and pilots are trained to avoid them when possible and the planes are still designed to cope with impacts up to a certain level. A canada goose is larger and heavier than probably 95% of the quadcopter drones out there, and there are literally millions of them all over north america. For the 5% that are bigger than a goose, well, those are the fixed-wing metallic ones that Ferret King is talking about, I don't think anyone is arguing that they shouldn't be regulated.
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Jan 19, 2015 01:22
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Nebakenezzer posted:Can I interrupt the drone chat for a infodump that is at least 50% about dumb things that are wrong? Please god yes
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Jan 19, 2015 01:22
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Has anyone tested what happens when an engine ingests mechanical hardware? There are lots of bird strike test videos and even one of an engine taking in a big pan of sand, but I can't find one where a little quadcopter gets chewed up.
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Jan 19, 2015 01:25
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Back to this:Psion posted:Bringing this back, getting to Udvar-Hazy from downtown DC via transit: Easy, just takes like 90-120 minutes. I went on a weekday, but there would have to be literally 40x the people doing it on a weekend for this to be a problem - the train was near empty, the bus had like 5 people total, of which I was the only person out to U-H. Just leave in the morning (like 8:30) so you miss the crowds at U-H itself as well as have the entire transit system to yourself. You want to do this anyway whether you drive or take transit, because crowds mean more people in between your eyes/camera lens and the SR-71. How crowded do U-H and Smithsonian get on weekends? Are they better done during the week? If I had to choose between U-H, Smithsonian A&S and Natural History over a Fri-Sun, is there one that should be done on the Friday? (24-26 April) Alternately, I'll look for something else to do on the mid atlantic coast that weekend and visit Mon-Wed, but I've got NFI what to do.
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Jan 19, 2015 01:29
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Sagebrush posted:Right. And birds still fly around all over the place and pilots are trained to avoid them when possible and the planes are still designed to cope with impacts up to a certain level. Hi - you're not a pilot and your opinion is null and void for me. But here's the thing about drones, they aren't following insects or trying to find a nice place to nest for the night. Birds are relatively predictable. Got a lot of water or crops? I know to avoid that like the plague. DRONES though, in particular the Cletus and Bobs of the drone worlds, don't have any logic for how I can avoid them. Are they around buildings? Yes. Are they around flat areas? Yes. Are they literally anywhere? Yeah, and most typically they're following some man made thing again like hospitals or college or buildings or whatever. It's impossible to predict where they will be, as opposed to birds Also birds don't like the big noisy airplanes zooming by. They avoid us pretty well, drones cant/don't. Let me know when you get that pilots certificate so you can have some input on the real world.
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Jan 19, 2015 01:34
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Glorgnole posted:Has anyone tested what happens when an engine ingests mechanical hardware? poo poo breaks.
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Jan 19, 2015 01:36
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Captain Postal posted:Back to this: The U-H is never crowded uncomfortably, it is a huge building, and it is a pain in the rear end to get to. The Air and Space and Natural History on the mall are always slammed, though weekdays are marginally better, as are evenings an hour before close. If you are uncomfortable with all the sharp-elbowed school groups at Natural History, I'd suggest a breather at the Sackler-Freer Gallery. It is one robber baron's collection of East Asian art, right on the mall, and it is always dead empty. The food at the Native American Museum is pretty good, grilled bison with blueberry reduction was better than the microwaved sysco you expect at museums. You do pay museum prices though. The Botanic Garden is also nice, and bite-sized thing to do for an hour, also on the mall. As far as other things to do, the Marine Museum down in Quantico is very new, and very nice, and very cutting-edge-museum-science, but the drive down can be a goddamn nightmare. You'll want to be very aware of what I-95 traffic is looking like both ways, or you can lose an hour. Slo-Tek fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 01:38
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Captain Apollo posted:Also another FYI, the windshield in an airplane is lovely as gently caress. Ever see the bird going through the cockpit window? I saw a T-38 at an FBO a few months ago where it went through two. Smashed through the canopy, grazed the head of the guy in front, through the divider between the front and back cockpits (which looked like it had been a decently thick piece of glass or plastic), and left an outline of the back guy stenciled in bird guts all over the rear of the cockpit. Thankfully both pilots were okay, though back seat had to go to the hospital and is probably still trying to wash the smell of snarge out of his hair. Nothing to do with drones, I just thought it was interesting (as did the FBO staff, who were all "hey, come look at this T-38 we just got!  ").
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Jan 19, 2015 01:50
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Captain Apollo posted:Hi - you're not a pilot and your opinion is null and void for me. This is why pilots won't get the regulations they want, what a tool.
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Jan 19, 2015 01:53
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Captain Apollo posted:Hi - you're not a pilot and your opinion is null and void for me.  Let me know the next time you're buzzed by a drone. Can you show me a single instance of a civilian drone causing damage to a flying aircraft? Let alone a crash? One single example.
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Jan 19, 2015 01:55
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 Junkers 290 III: Did the Ju 290 Make Secret Flights to Atlantis?!? At the start of this series, I said I wanted to share everything I'd learned about an interesting but obscure airplane, the Junkers 290. This includes the comet tail of crazy history following it. If 'Flights to Manchuria' were the fact-ish sorta head of this comet, then this post is all about the mist of bad thinking and sensationalism stretching behind. But before we drift off entirely, though, there's one more bit of real history we can do, and cover the Junkers 390. In previous posts I've been mentioning the Ju 390 without getting into details, and in many ways it was the Ju 290 program squared. If the Ju 290 was a long range low production aircraft that many hopes were pinned to, then the Ju 390 was a very long range aircraft that even more grandiose hopes were pinned to that never left the prototype phase. While that means the program had almost no real-world impact whatsoever, I think the planning surrounding the aircraft is pretty interesting, and a good snapshot as to what might have developed has the German aircraft industry been less messed up. It also is necessary, since its capability and obscurity make it even better than the Ju 290 for being the central character in many a France to Mushroom Kingdom flight. X: The Junkers 390 from the Perspective of a Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy Most people reading this will have at least heard of the Amerika bomber project, a catch-all term for Nazi bombers capable of reaching the United States, bombing it, and then returning. On the face of it, it is surprising that even big dreamers like the Nazis thought about doing this, as their attempts at producing a modern strategic bomber were in perpetual disarray. A transcontinental bomber was a whole order of magnitude more difficult, and a positive pipe dream given the messed up state of the Nazi aviation industry. Still, the Nazis persisted with the idea, even after they ended production of everything but fighters and jet aircraft. The reason was simple - it gave Nazi leaders the fantasy that they could knock the United States out of the war. Earlier on in the war it was presumed even one strike against New York would so unnerve those decadent Jazz listening democrats so much they would immediately sue for peace - in the late war, the Nazis upped the ante somewhat by imagining Nazi nuclear bombers razing the east coast to accomplish the same thing. (The Nazis were not anywhere near having an actual atomic bomb, no more than they had a transcontinental bomber, but you can't stop them from dreaming.) Still, even the Nazis with their almost magical view of technology, had to modify these dreams slightly in the face of the huge engineering challenges. Most Amerika Bomber designs assumed ( the Nazis being the eternal optimists that they were) that the war against all non-Germans would go so well that Fascist Spain and/or Portugal would enter the war on the Axis side, or at least become friendly enough to the Axis to allow Germany to use the Canary Islands, or the Azores as a staging area for attacking North America. This allowed the Nazis to dream of a Amerika bomber deployable before, say, the early 1950s. Even with this unlikely concession, most of the Nazi efforts in this direction remained paper projects: a joy to aviation nerds like me, but about as useful to Nazi victory as those "hang in there, baby" posters Hitler kept putting up. Only two Amerika bombers actually existed as functional prototypes: the Me 264, and the Ju 390. When the initial specification was issued by the RLM in early 1942, someone at Junkers had the quite sensible idea. Instead of developing a whole new airframe, why not use a suitable existing design (IE the Ju 290) and simply expand the wings and fuselage? Compared to the alternatives, this approach was incredibly fast and cheap: not only had most of the engineering work already been done in the Ju 290 program, the new airplane could use existing Ju 290 tooling instead of needing bespoke machinery. In April 1942, the Ju 90B V6 returned to Dessau, where over about a year it was made into a six-engined super Ju 290 with a 150 ft wingspan - the first Ju 390.   The round cabin windows show off the Ju 390's origins as a Ju 90. A Ju 290 had a wingspan of 42.00 m (137 ft 9 in), and a length of 28.64 m (93 ft 11 in). The Ju 390 had a wingspan of 50.30 m (165 ft 1 in), and a length of 34.20 m (112 ft 2 in). These modifications worked well, and the Ju 390 had a projected range (at least) of the Ju 290 A-9: 9000 km, with some sources placing it close to 10,000 km. This modification may have also given the 390 an expanded cargo lift capacity - though this is quite murky. Sources vary on this, saying anywhere from a 10% payload boost to something like a 75% increase. (As the 390 gained only six meters, or 18 ft in length for aerodynamic stability reasons, I'd err on the side of caution for that estimate.) Speed and altitude remained the same as the Ju 290. It should also be remarked that flying from the Azores, the Ju 390 as a bomber could have reached New York City, as well as Philadelphia, some parts of New England, the Canadian Maritimes, and Newfoundland. This is not too shabby for a World War 2 airplane.  A 9000 km range from the Azores gives you the NE United States...  ...but that same range will only give you Newfoundland from Mont-De-Marsain. At any rate, the new prototype pleased the top Nazis extremely when it first flew in late 1943. An immediate order was placed for 25. Like a teenage girl sketching out a whole life-plan with the cute boy she just met, the Nazis imagined a whole new series of aircraft based on the Ju 390. Like the Ju 290, the 390 was soon seen as the start of a whole family of aircraft - getting the Ju 290 B upgrade and being used for pretty much everything the fuselage could do: from a bomber to a transport. That makes the unrealized Ju 290/390 family a fairly incredible production efficiency for Nazi Germany - had these plans come to pass, nearly all of the Luftwaffe large aircraft functions would have been met by one airframe that scaled in cost and complexity depending on mission, and one that furthermore used identical tooling and identical spare parts.The 390 also would have been a natural choice for flights over Siberia to Japan. All of these plans, of course, didn't happen. The first prototype, Ju 390 V1, flew extensive flight tests, and even was brought to Mont-de-Marsain to be examined by FAGr 5 crews. It also was rumored to have been a part of aerial refueling experiments, though I don't have good information on this. (As the Azores gambit seemed more and more unlikely, the Luftwaffe turned to thinking of the possibilities of in-flight refueling for their transcontinental bomber instead.) The fighter emergency program in the spring 1944 ended Ju 290 production, which naturally ended 390 production as well. In late 1944, the Ju 390 V1 returned to the Junkers HQ at Dessau where it was cannibalized for spare parts, presumably to keep the remaining Ju 290s operational. What remained was blown up in 1945 when American forces approached Dessau. The other prototype has an even murkier history. The Schrodinger's cat of Nazi aircraft, the Ju 390 V2's existence is a superposition, existing and not existing at the same time. Post-war, the Head of engineering at Junkers testified to the British that a Ju 390 V2 was started - but was broken up in the factory after the fighter-emergency program ended 290/390 production. Contrary to this, flight logs identify a Ju 390 V2 being flown several times by Luftwaffe test pilots. My main source for KG 200 also claims the Ju 390 V2 was accepted into KG 200 - and then the paper trail for it abruptly ends. The fact that the evidence is conflicting is not especially surprising, given the chaos of late war German aircraft production - but the whole thing is something of a tempest in a teapot. According to the pro-existence camp's evidence, the Ju 390 V2 flew very little: only flying a few times before being destroyed to keep it out of Soviet hands. XI: The New Adventures of Junkers 'n Friends So: the Ju 390 was a prototype that was very capable, and is notable because it existed, unlike nearly every other Amerika bomber aspirant. Not surprisingly, its rumored career is much more spectacular than its actual one. In 1944, a British intelligence report states that the Ju 390 while visiting FAGr 5 was used for several very long distance flights, including one that got within 20 km of New York City, and returned with photos of the great metropolis. Where this report came from is unknown. After World War 2, these reports seemed to have inspired an argument in a British Aviation magazine, where two letters a year apart claim that these flights were made twice. The first one claims the Ju 290 circled New York airspace for an hour, and the second letter sticks closer to the intelligence report, saying that the flights reached viable distance of NYC. At the same time, a men's magazine did a story on these claims. This magazine was contacted by two ex-RAF officers who claimed to have proof of these flights in the form of reports and photographs taken during that flight. As you'd expect, the reporter asked if he could see this evidence. The officers replied "You sure can!" and were not heard from again. That's pretty much the total of the real-world evidence. Despite the fact that the case was as flimsy as a leftover crepe, the claim of Ju 390 flights to New York was repeated in books after, and because of this, serious aviation historians have looked into the claims to see what they could find. The result, like the search for flights to Manchuria evidence, have turned up nothing. Looking at the capabilities of the aircraft in question was somewhat more useful, as they demonstrated that the Ju 390 (or the Ju 290 A-9, which had a similar capabilities) had nowhere near the range to fly to New York City and return from France. Karl Kössler and Günter Ott, who wrote the definitive work on the Ju 290 family (sadly now long out of print and never translated from German) calculated the fuel payload needed to make the flight was triple that of the Ju 390's maximum takeoff weight. In addition, pesky historians that they are, they point out that Ju 390 V1 was never at Mont-De-Marsain during the time that the flights are attributed to have taken place. (In their reckoning, the Ju 390 V2 superposition aircraft was only completed in late 1944.) Historian Kenneth Werrell had a look at the numbers in the paper I posted last time, and discovered that while the Ju 390 V1 could have flown from France to St. John's, Newfoundland and returned, (pretty drat impressive for bodged World War 2 technology) the several thousand extra kilometers necessary to get down to New York made the flight "most unlikely."  And one time, I caught a fish THIS BIG! (Gestures with wings.) There is also an intelligence report of the Ju 390 making a reconnaissance flight to Cape Town, and then returning. The problems with this story are similar to the New York flight - that to fly there and return was far beyond the capacity of the airframes in question, and there's no evidence of these flights happening. In addition to that, you could ask why the Nazis would, during a time when the Reich was under constant air attack and critically short of aviation fuel, make these flights in the first place. The only possible reason would be for propaganda purposes, and I'm not sure even the Nazis would spend enough fuel for a flight of 6-8 single engined fighters in an attempt to take photos of faraway enemy cities. (Hitler forbid New York City was foggy that day the flight was made. ) The simplest explanation for these stories, and Baumgut's tale from last time is very simple: that these were all part of a deliberate misinformation campaign by the Nazis. The pilots of FAGr 5 had seen the Ju 390, and were closely connected with German Military intelligence. Thus, they were in a position to try and confuse Allied Intelligence efforts with tales riffing off of existing operations that were possibly known to the Allies. The Cape Town tale was lent some plausibility by KG 200 operations in North Africa, and Ju 290 pilots were in fact involved with plans for flights to the far east. This was turned into a further grey area in that the Ju 390's capability was unknown to the Allies. This tall tales were of course in a background where Nazi Germany really was astounding the world with its technological advances. So as a low risk move to confound the Allies, it makes perfect sense. German intelligence had also succeeded (inadvertently) before in this sort of thing before: a 1944 German Propaganda film aimed at German audiences lied about the existence of new super tanks. This was taken as evidence that these new types actually existed, a rare misstep by Allied Intelligence. So! Make up stories about how far our air force can reach! Maybe that will cause the Allies to hesitate... And they had to do something: the Nazi propaganda swing effort was backfiring after certain events made it really, really, funny. XII: Anna Kreisling Of course, none of this has stopped (or even slowed down) creation of even more outlandish adventures for the Ju 290/390. If you are reading this, then you are likely at least somewhat familiar with people who believe in conspiracy theory, and you know the Cardinal Rule: do not argue with them. Why this is a coworker once expertly summarized for me. This coworker is one of those people who thinks the moon landing was fake. When I learned this, before I could even get past "grimly amused", she just looked at me and said "I know what you're thinking, and you should know that I don't care about facts or reason." Which I really can't add anything to. Anyway, "secret history" is a kind of disease especially common in World War 2, as it remains a historical event that engages a lot of public interest, and often involves the Nazis, who were the prototype for modern pulp fiction villains. I imagine these things get started by people wanting to sell books or bad documentaries to Discovery and the History channel, and then they get repeated and fervently defensed by, well, people who don't care about facts or reason. (Major props, by the way, to whomever is editing the Wikipedia entries on the Ju 290 and 390 - they have been admirably diligent in editing out the nonsense theories and explicitly refuting the more plausible ones addressed by serious scholars. They have been so diligent, in fact, they are web pages who often start their conspiracy mongering with "the truth that Wikipedia editors can't handle!" As Freud once said: "Many enemies, much honor.") Anna Kreisling is one of these inventions. As a general pattern, "secret history" stories start with real confusion or plausible stories that didn't happen. Then these tales are improved upon to make them more spectacular and interesting. Anna Kreisling is the result of this iteration carried on for a few generations - a character partially based on real things (but more spectacular) and partially based on previous generations of bullshit (but more spectacular.) First made up by a journalist in Ohio, (who claimed that the very elderly Kresling was his neighbor) the Legend of Anna Kreisling has become very popular with the "no facts or logic" set on the internet. Here are some absolutely true and not at all made up things I can tell you about Mrs. Kreisling, the "White Wolf of the Luftwaffe": *She has blonde hair and blue eyes, and is beautiful! Like a movie star! (Regardless of circumstances, this exact simile is always used.)  So like this woman except racist to the point of being fine with genocide. * She landed Ju 52s inside Stalingrad during the doomed airlift (quite a feat considering tanks frequently had trouble moving about the city streets.) * No photographs exist of Anna Kresling, as she is "married to one of the world's richest men." * She was part of the most daring reconnaissance flight of World War 2, flying a Junkers 390 over Upper Canada (IE Southern Quebec and Ontario), Michigan, Ohio, and New York. This flight was possible because the Ju 390 was twice the size of the B-29, and had a range even larger than the post war B-36; * Also if that's not enough range for that flight, she flew in the Jet Stream out to the States and back to France again, a singularly amazing feat on several counts, since it assumed 1) a B-36-like altitude capability that the unpressurized Ju 390 did not have, and 2) has the jet stream reversing direction. * Complete lack of evidence is of course evidence of all these things actually happening, since the evidence was systematically suppressed by the Nazis/the SS/Freemasons/the CIA etc... *You can see what a wide ranging information blackout there is on this woman, as she has met several US Presidents, including Bill Clinton, but there is no photographs or evidence for this. And it spins outward from there. There are made-up interviews with Kreisling, and a bunch of people arguing with skeptics that Anna Kreisling is totally a person. Naturally the sheer vehemence of people saying Kreisling exists has far eclipsed any discussion of what this super accomplished Nazi Starlet miracle pilot actually did. It's worth mentioning that Anna Kreisling is not only made up, the name Kreisiling isn't even a German name in Germany or Austria, it being some mysterious wurst of German-ish sounds. (If you were doing the same thing with Canadian names, I'd love to know what you'd end up with: possibly "Marshall MacDonald" or "Shinaia Mapletree".) This weirdness infects most places where the Ju 390 is discussed online. For the most part, this is a quite sedate web site, mostly a online aircraft reference. The entry for the Ju 390, however, is something else: a twelve hundred page argument between the true believers and the skeptics about the various adventures of Kreisling and her friend the Ju 390. The fact people are now trolling the thread with fanfiction involving Edward Snowden's adventures in Russia, where the Clinton machine, Bill and Hillary, have come to assassinate Snowden and are having a whole series of adventures on the streets of Moscow that resemble "Smokey and the Bandit." The whole Anna Kreisling thing is so bizarre and idiotic I wouldn't be surprised to learn it was some sort of deliberate prank from somethingawful.com or 4chan.  File photo 1954: Anna Kreisling More well read/less credulous minds will notice some parallels with somebody who actually existed, Hanna Reitsch. She was a famous avatrix in the Third Reich, and aside from being a fearless and highly skilled pilot, she also landed a Fieseler Storch on the streets of Berlin during the Soviet siege. She was not movie star gorgeous, though, and therefore not worth talking about. In conclusion, while intrigue and speculation are somewhat to be expected when thinking about the Ju 290's/390's career, keep it inside the bounds of sense, even if it is a little anticlimactic sometimes. Also, maybe we should use "Anna Kreisling" as the term for sensationalist bullshit in history? Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 01:56
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lmbo at "birds are relatively predictable" too
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Jan 19, 2015 01:57
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Captain Apollo posted:
Birds are not as predictable as you seem to think. I've seen birds of prey thermalling a good few thousand feet, and often in places that aren't expected. Generally birds will go into a dive when they see you coming but that isn't always the case either. It really isn't that much different to a drone. I'd much rather take my chances with a small drone rather than a canada goose. I've had a couple of bird strikes coming into land, fortunately they have been on the undercarriage at slow speeds with no damage, sometimes there's not a lot you can do. The answer of something like ADS-B would be a useful addition in my opinion , although it doesn't help people operating a/c with no electrical system. There are all sorts of obstacles out there , so keep your eyes peeled.  There's enough division within aviation anyway, especially ga.
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Jan 19, 2015 02:06
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Captain Apollo posted:Hi - you're not a pilot and your opinion is null and void for me. Can you please repeat your act from a few years ago and quit the thread?
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Jan 19, 2015 02:12
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Captain Apollo posted:Hi - you're not a pilot and your opinion is null and void for me. Very recently you a commercially rated flight instructor recomended a student pilot ignore the gross weight of a cessna 150 your opinion is null and void for me.
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Jan 19, 2015 02:21
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helno posted:Very recently you a commercially rated flight instructor recomended a student pilot ignore the gross weight of a cessna 150 your opinion is null and void for me. Hey man those regulations are just suggestions. Where were we? Oh yes, drone pilots skirting the FAA regulatory framework should be executed.
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Jan 19, 2015 02:30
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Splode posted:This is why pilots won't get the regulations they want, what a tool. Yeah, we will. Sagebrush posted:
So legislation needs to be enacted after a drone brings down a plane? That's...not smart. Putting a flight ceiling on drones and establishing "drone no fly zones" within x miles/km of an airport is not an reasonable request. If a civilian drone operator needs to go above the flight ceiling, petition the FAA for a one time waiver for a specific time, date, and ceiling needed.
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Jan 19, 2015 02:43
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Tide posted:Putting a flight ceiling on drones and establishing "drone no fly zones" within x miles/km of an airport is not an reasonable request. If a civilian drone operator needs to go above the flight ceiling, petition the FAA for a one time waiver for a specific time, date, and ceiling needed. People in this thread keep saying "isn't there already a regulatory framework and legal structure preventing people from doing $thing within range of an airport?" for flying kites, launching fireworks or model rockets, having a laser show, etc, and obviously there is, but the Fat Apollos of the thread are ignoring it. I'm not in any way opposed to reasonable regulations, but holy hell some of you people are hostile to the very concept of people flying these things around. How do you feel about model airplanes? I've seen some that could easily reach 5000+ feet and some that are bigger than a Predator, but their operators don't file NOTAMs or anything and no one complains. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 02:52
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If you create drone laws then only the criminal will have drones  Can we stop doing this loving argument? Yes, drones need to be regulated, ESPECIALLY around a loving airport.
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Jan 19, 2015 02:57
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helno posted:Very recently you a commercially rated flight instructor recomended a student pilot ignore the gross weight of a cessna 150 your opinion is null and void for me. READ THE ENTIRE POST BEFORE REPLYING Anybody with any experience flying airplanes know that the REAL WORLD GENERAL AVIATION application of weight and balance of airplanes is often times complete bullshit and smoke and mirrors. The weight and balance of an airplane when it rolls off the factor is going to be completely different 40 years after the fact. New paint, different avionics, years and years of grease and grime... All these things add up. NO A&P worth anything would ever reweigh an airplane unless every assurance had been made that it would stay relatively the same. Example, I flew a Cessna 175 that had a useful load somewhere around 1000 or so. The owner had it reweighed from scratch (not just adustments in weight for new avionics etc) and the new useful load was 700lbs. All I'm saying is - two pilots in a Cessna 150 were over gross the instant they put full fuel and a couple ham sandwiches in their belly. edit: Nebekaneezer posted something great - lets go focus on that Captain Apollo fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 02:58
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Sagebrush posted:but their operators don't file NOTAMs or anything and no one complains. Actually they do, as required by law.
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Jan 19, 2015 03:01
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Captain Apollo posted:Caps lock I seem to recall this advice was given to either a fresh ppl or even a guy in training. The w&b envelope is a safety net for a reason. Yes with experience some people might push it understanding the risks involved, but it's ridiculous to do it anything but your own aeroplane with the understanding of the implications.
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Jan 19, 2015 03:19
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Sagebrush posted:People in this thread keep saying "isn't there already a regulatory framework and legal structure preventing people from doing $thing within range of an airport?" for flying kites, launching fireworks or model rockets, having a laser show, etc, and obviously there is, but the Fat Apollos of the thread are ignoring it. There is? Where?
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Jan 19, 2015 03:19
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There's no law against performing actions near an airport that might distract a pilot or cause damage to an aircraft? That guy who got 2 years in jail in Phoenix for shooting a laser at the planes on approach, he was wrongfully convicted? If I went to my local airport and sat outside the fence lighting off fireworks, the cops couldn't touch me? If there is literally no law against these things, that points to a way larger failing in the structure of the FAA than just an inability to classify drones.
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Jan 19, 2015 03:23
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Slo-Tek posted:The U-H is never crowded uncomfortably, it is a huge building, and it is a pain in the rear end to get to. The Air and Space and Natural History on the mall are always slammed, though weekdays are marginally better, as are evenings an hour before close. If you are uncomfortable with all the sharp-elbowed school groups at Natural History, I'd suggest a breather at the Sackler-Freer Gallery. It is one robber baron's collection of East Asian art, right on the mall, and it is always dead empty. The food at the Native American Museum is pretty good, grilled bison with blueberry reduction was better than the microwaved sysco you expect at museums. You do pay museum prices though. The Botanic Garden is also nice, and bite-sized thing to do for an hour, also on the mall. Udvar-Hazy is less than an hour from downtown Washington on a weekend, and if you live in the good part of the region (i.e. outside the beltway in Virginia) then it's closer than the one on the mall.
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Jan 19, 2015 03:26
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Colonel K posted:I seem to recall this advice was given to either a fresh ppl or even a guy in training. The w&b envelope is a safety net for a reason. Yes with experience some people might push it understanding the risks involved, but it's ridiculous to do it anything but your own aeroplane with the understanding of the implications. Yeah and he was worried about if he could pack an overnight sack and a toothbrush. He was flying with his CFI - Great opportunity to learn! Theres not even enough room in a cessna 150 to put anything of substance in the back anyway!
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Jan 19, 2015 03:33
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Sagebrush posted:There's no law against performing actions near an airport that might distract a pilot or cause damage to an aircraft? That guy who got 2 years in jail in Phoenix for shooting a laser at the planes on approach, he was wrongfully convicted? If I went to my local airport and sat outside the fence lighting off fireworks, the cops couldn't touch me? Again, the FAA doesn't make criminal law. Yes there is a federal law against shining lasers on aircraft. We need federal regulation for dumbasses flying their toy airplanes around busy airports too.
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Jan 19, 2015 03:47
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The Ferret King posted:Again, the FAA doesn't make criminal law. I think this is the sticking point. The FAA is like the DOT. The DOT can't put some unlicensed 18-year-old in jail for stealing a car and driving like a maniac. Since the kid is doing stuff illegally, they have absolutely no power over HIM. The local police, however, CAN put him in jail because he broke a law. If the guy were an interstate truck driver driving like a maniac, then the DOT can suspend the guy's license and maybe fine him, but still not put him in jail. The FAA can't put idiots flying drones around an airport in jail. Right now, the police can't put the same idiots in jail unless they are causing a hazard to navigation (something we've got laws against).
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Jan 19, 2015 04:02
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SHUT THE gently caress UP ABOUT DRONES ALREADYNebakenezzer posted:
Talk to me about landing gear. Is the bottom plane V2 or could they retract the gear in sets of two?
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Jan 19, 2015 04:08
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Advent Horizon posted:Talk to me about landing gear. Is the bottom plane V2 or could they retract the gear in sets of two? They used inner wing sections to kick out the wings, and this came with the advantage that they could use the extra landing gear. I'm guessing that they could retract each set of landing gear separately; maybe they only needed both sets on takeoff and landing. As for the V2, apparently no pictures of it exist. The pictures I used in the post are like 80% of extant pictures for the V1, so maybe that's not surprising. vvvvvv durrr, yeah Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 04:15
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Nebakenezzer posted:I'm guessing that they could retract each set of landing gear separately; maybe they only needed both sets on takeoff and landing. As opposed to all the other times you need landing gear? 
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Jan 19, 2015 04:20
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Midjack posted:As opposed to all the other times you need landing gear? The Corsair used them as speed brakes for dive bombing. And it wasn't an informally adapted use in the field either, there was a lever marked "dive brakes" in the cockpit that extended the mains (but not the tail wheel).
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Jan 19, 2015 04:28
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Midjack posted:As opposed to all the other times you need landing gear? Like modern airliners that only run one engine when taxiing, the Germans ordered their pilots to retract the second set of gear in order to save on strategically important tire rubber.
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Jan 19, 2015 04:30
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It is possible that the FAA will open up the doors for off the street hiring for ATC in March: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3608176&pagenumber=18#post440421391
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Jan 19, 2015 05:14
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The Ferret King posted:It is possible that the FAA will open up the doors for off the street hiring for ATC in March: I cannot even fathom the drop out rate, let alone the burn out rate.
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Jan 19, 2015 05:51
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Honestly the pay is so high that if you make it in this job, you won't leave it even if you do burn out.
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Jan 19, 2015 06:06
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In a bid to join the ranks of the Aeronautical Insanity Effortpost Superstars, I shall write about the Streak Eagle, the famous prototype F-15 that was stripped down and pumped up in order to snatch a bunch of Time to Climb records from Communist hands in 1975. I'll cover the airplane itself, and the technique used to fly it in the record-setting flights: the Rutowski climb profile. Part one, the Rutowski climb profile First, a little background. All light plane pilots and many aviation enthusiasts are familiar with the best rate of climb speed, or Vy; it's the speed at which the product of drag and airspeed is the least, and an airplane flown at that airspeed will gain altitude the quickest. By this simplistic analysis, a pilot attempting a time to climb record should simply fly at his aircraft's Vy. But things are actually more complicated. In the way of some more background, most people are familiar with two types of energy, potential and kinetic. It's accurate enough to say that altitude is potential energy, and airspeed is kinetic energy. One can almost freely be exchanged for the other, back and forth, most familiarly as in a roller coaster. It's also what happens when a glider does aerobatics. Every time it pulls up (a “zoom climb”), it trades airspeed for altitude; and every time it dives, it trades altitude for airspeed. A powered airplane does the same thing, in addition to the constant influx of energy from its engines. In a steady-state climb (as opposed to a zoom climb), airspeed stays the same (most optimally, at Vy) while altitude constantly grows due to that steady influx. So, here's the deal. Since airspeed and altitude (i.e., kinetic and potential energies) are exchangeable, what we are really concerned with maximizing in the shortest amount of time is total energy, or the sum of the two together. Imagine you're trying to set a time to climb record to 10 thousand feet in your Cessna 172. You climb your airplane at Vy (79 knots) and get there in 20 minutes. Thing is, when you get to your altitude, you have a bunch of now-useless airspeed on your hands that, earlier, you could have zoomed up and converted to altitude. So, to beat you, in my identical 172, I'll climb at Vy to 9800 feet and then pull up to zoom-climb the last 200 feet, thereby losing ~20 knots and beating you by a few seconds. An even quicker way to reach 10,000 feet would be to climb at a knot or two (more probably, a fraction of a knot) faster speed than Vy, and therefore be able to start your final zoom at an earlier point than 200 feet to go. In bug smashers, this difference is not significant because only a very small percentage of your total energy is stored as airspeed. Nevertheless, the correct airspeed to fly to maximize total (rather than potential, i.e., altitude) energy gain is a slightly faster speed than Vy, so as to take advantage of that energy store. Of course, this difference is fleeting and not worth bothering with. The fighter planes of WWI were at about the same state. But as airspeeds increased along with the march of progress, the superfighters and interceptors of the mid Cold War could store about half of their total energy as airspeed, and therefore this difference became significant. This was first noticed by a German engineer by the name of F. Kaiser, who worked on the Me-262 project. Under the task of defending airspace or setting performance records, the prime concern is to increase total energy as quickly as possible; later you can convert it (via zooming or diving) into whatever type you actually need. This is illustrated here on a graph of airspeed (horizontal axis) vs. altitude (vertical axis.)  First, look only at the dashed curves in the background. They represent constant states of total energy. From any starting position (a certain altitude and airspeed), you can do a zoom climb and follow the contours up and to the left, ending up at a slower airspeed but higher altitude; or you can dive and follow the contours down and to the right, ending up faster and lower. Any airspeed-altitude exchange moves you along the contours (total energy remains unchanged), while any energy injected by the engines or lost to drag, moves you across the contours (total energy is gained or lost). What we want to do is move as quickly as we can across the contours up and to the right. Now look at the superimposed black blobby shape (just the outer one). It is the airspeed-altitude envelope for sustained flight of a typical fighter. Anywhere inside it, it's able to sustain flight. Naturally, the top is the highest possible altitude, and the right side is the highest possible airspeed. As you can see, it changes with altitude. Well starting from state I, which is basically the highest and fastest you can go (remember, sustained) you can zoom up (following the contours) to state F. You've traded airspeed for altitude, and now you're going slowly, and at a much higher altitude than you can sustain. You're there for just a moment, and you'll shortly descend whether you like it or not. Likewise, from I you can dive to a lower altitude and high speed state where there's no mark on this graph, but let's say it's just a bit to the right of H, which is faster than you could have accelerated if you were at that lower altitude all along. Again not a sustainable state, and drag will quickly overcome your speed and place you back within the envelope. It is not possible to reach state G, under any circumstance. Well that was perhaps a too-long-winded explanation of zooms and dives, but hopefully now everyone understands what's going on with your energy state. Now it's time for a little more detail. Inside of the envelope, you'll see more contours that look like it, but getting smaller and smaller. These are different levels of Specific Excess Power, or Ps. This is the rate of gain of total energy. It's really a 3D graph, with each level of contour representing a certain Ps, just like a topographical map with contours representing terrain height. The higher the Ps, the more total energy gain per time. So obviously, we want to Here's another example, that's a little more detailed.  There are two regions where Ps is great: 1) Low altitude, where the air is thickest and engines are most powerful, and 2) High speed (power = thrust times speed). Between those two lies a trough due to the tremendous drag increase at/slightly above Mach 1. A standard climb profile for a lower-performance (or even higher performance, but heavily combat-loaded) jet would sit at the ridge at Mach .9. Enter another engineer, a Mr. Rutowski, who figured out how to game this to the fullest:  From takeoff, you hold the plane on the deck so it accelerates, as quickly as possible, to the ridge at Mach .9. Then, you yank it up exploiting the high Ps contours at that speed as you quickly gain altitude. If this is a low-altitude record attempt, you just zoom up till you hit the target altitude and you're done. If you're attempting a high-altitude record, however, this is where things get interesting. You level off, or even descend, so as to speed up through the low-Ps trough at Mach 1 quickly. (We're losing altitude yes, but it doesn't matter because remember that it's total energy that matters, and lingering at the low-Ps region would rob you of that. Dive through it!) Next you fly level or climb at a slight angle as you pass through the high-Ps “hill” on the right side. Notice how it's oblong... that is why you fly such that the the speed-altitude plot slants up and to the right so as to take advantage of that by staying in the highest Ps level at each point along the acceleration. Finally is the cumshot of this whole act, which this graph I found online crucially failed to show. Once you achieve the predetermined speed for the particular altitude you want to reach, you pull up into the final zoom climb to cash in that airspeed until you reach that altitude. This is the red path curving up and to the left, which I added myself (with some crappy free picture editor on a laptop without a mouse) following the total energy contours. (Also the scale is wrong, the highest record was just under 100,000 feet, and on this graph it takes us to close to 150,000. And the total energy contours stop before they get to where we are.)[edit: It didn't show the final zoom because it's not a picture of a time to climb record; it's just a picture of using the Rutowski profile to get to the highest total energy state and then being ready to do whatever from there. I added the whatever.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLka4GoUbLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7YAN9--3MA Here's a 2-part video (posted earlier in this thread, probably more than once) of the set of flights in question. You can see, for the low altitude records, them simply holding it on the deck and zooming up. And, for the high altitude records, you can see that they perform an immelman (which is the most efficient way of leveling off after a vertical climb) and then proceeding with the supersonic acceleration in the opposite direction from takeoff, until the speed is right for the 60 degree final zoom climb.  A final note about the Rutowski climb profile's advantage over a conventional climb... when you have an established procedure and then come up with some way to optimize it, how much of an improvement do you expect? A few percent? 10%? 20%? Well the Rutowski profile more than doubled the average climb rate, which is a pretty stunning increase. Of course in tactical usage with a combat load they wouldn't go vertical or reverse course, but they'd still follow the same path in the graph along the high-Ps levels, with a bunt or a half-roll and pull-down to accelerate through Mach 1. Part 2, the airplane, to come tomorrow vessbot fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 07:08
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vessbot posted:the Rutowski climb profile.  this is very cool stuff and I am kind of tempted to try it out in DCS now. Do you have a list somewhere of the specific numbers to follow (airspeeds, altitudes and alphas) ?
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Jan 19, 2015 07:19
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Sagebrush posted:
Past what's in the picture above, no. But it should give you a good start. I did it a few times a while ago, but not enough to get a consistent outcome (and I don't remember the inconsistent outcomes). This was before the FM overhaul, too. I don't have access to this computer anymore. It was super fun and geeky. Obviously you want to clean the airplane up as much as you can. No ordnance, but the pylons will always be there. 1% fuel, and unlimited fuel (i.e., no burn). Of course that's less fuel than they used IRL, but it's still not cheating because they did all sorts of mods that you can't. Try to precisely control your G, and see what altitude you come out on top. If it's too high, add more G next time. Too low, less G. In fact now that I think about it, I remember popping in and out of the speed of sound on the way up, which is not supposed to happen. It turned out I was pulling up too late. I was doing it at high Mach numbers, which is right for the low altitude records, but it's supposed to be earlier at Mach .65 for the immelman ones. Actually looking at it again, that's not even right re: the low altitude ones. Here are the profiles:  And set the temperature to cold. vessbot fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 07:51
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 07:19 |
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I love that they stripped off the loving paint to make it that much lighter. Awesome post, I've heard of the Rutowski profile before but never seen a detailed explanation.
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Jan 19, 2015 08:10
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