X-15 self-launch?
John Charles
(with or without drop tanks) could have launched itself vertically from
a launch pad? And if so, how high could it have gone? A quick google
search did not show anything. Any pointers will be appreciated.
John Charles
Houston, Texas
Dave Michelson
The XLR-99 provided a maximum thrust of 57,000 lb. Launch weight of the
X-15 was 31,275 lb, decreasing to 12,295 lb at burnout.
So, it appears that the X-15 could have launched vertically from a
launch pad. As for how high it could go....
--
Dave Michelson
da...@ece.ubc.ca
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)
<johnbc...@houston.rr.com> wrote:
No.
Mary
--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
We didn't just do weird stuff at Dryden, we wrote reports about it.
reunite....@gmail.com or mil...@qnet.com
Joseph T Major
news:7Qvdg.189739$P01.150080@pd7tw3no...
Wasn't there a proposal to fit an advanced X-15 on top of a Redstone?
Could that have achieved orbit? (And more to the point, could it have
achieved _reentry_?)
Joseph T Major
Rand Simberg
T Major" <jtm...@iglou.com> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:
>> The XLR-99 provided a maximum thrust of 57,000 lb. Launch weight of the
>> X-15 was 31,275 lb, decreasing to 12,295 lb at burnout.
>>
>> So, it appears that the X-15 could have launched vertically from a
>> launch pad. As for how high it could go....
>
> Wasn't there a proposal to fit an advanced X-15 on top of a Redstone?
>Could that have achieved orbit? (And more to the point, could it have
>achieved _reentry_?)
Almost certainly no, and no, particularly the latter.
mma...@my-deja.com
> Wasn't there a proposal to fit an advanced X-15 on top of a Redstone?
> Could that have achieved orbit? (And more to the point, could it have
> achieved _reentry_?)
Navaho or Titain, apparently:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/x15b.htm
I'm sure I've seen a PDF file somewhere with far more detail on the
plans.
Mark
Joseph T Major
news:1148648322.9...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
I checked this out. Especially the part about the pilot ejecting and
the plane ditching in the Gulf of Mexico. Somebody must have been _VERY_
bored that day. Or desperate for a headline.
Joseph T Major
Jud McCranie
>Did anyone decide if the X-15 could have done a rolling takeoff with
>those short wings? I'm pretty sure it's a "yes, but you won't be
>breaking any records afterwards"
Speaking of that, I thought that an airplane had to take off and land
itself to qualify for records, but the X-1 and X-15 didn't take off by
themselves. Does this count as far as records?
---
Replace you know what by j to email
Pat Flannery
Joseph T Major wrote:
> Wasn't there a proposal to fit an advanced X-15 on top of a Redstone?
>
>
There was a plan to launch it on a cluster of four Titan missile
boosters: http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/models/vault/X15.bmp
...and one to piggyback it on a Navaho booster:
http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/lvs/navhox15.htm
(I don't think that one is orbit capable.)
>Could that have achieved orbit? (And more to the point, could it have
>achieved _reentry_?)
>
>
I assume on the Titan varient, you fire the four joined first stage
boosters, then jettison them, and then fire the four joined second
stages. It sounds like enough thrust once the X-15's XLR-99 is used.
(And more to the point, could it have
achieved _reentry_?)
That's the iffy part; the "once around and back" orbital X-15 flight
envisioned a X-15 with no landing gear and the pilot ejecting after reentry.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Joseph T Major wrote:
> I checked this out. Especially the part about the pilot ejecting and
>the plane ditching in the Gulf of Mexico. Somebody must have been _VERY_
>bored that day. Or desperate for a headline.
>
>
You think that's odd? How about sending a Gemini to Mars?:
http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/models/gemini/winggemini.html
Pat
Pat Flannery
Gene Cash wrote:
>
>Did anyone decide if the X-15 could have done a rolling takeoff with
>those short wings? I'm pretty sure it's a "yes, but you won't be
>breaking any records afterwards" and I'm also pretty sure this was
>slated as a "yes, we would have liked to test this. we would have also
>liked a pony."
>
>
I think you'd better put some wheels on those rear skids. ;-)
If they got the X-3 airborne on those anemic jet engines, they could
definitely have gotten the X-15 airborne with beefed up landing gear
(remember, it's supposed to land with empty tanks, so the gear isn't
that strong.)
What the plots wanted to do according to Milt Thompson's great book "At
The Edge Of Space" was crank up the motor at low altitude and start
flying the thing around like a fighter plane.
Pat
mike flugennock
Not that I recall; the closest they had -- for suborbital launch, iirc
-- was a proposed solution involving the use of a Navajo cruise missile,
but obviously nothing came of it.
Sordid details on the X15 pages at Mark Wade's, http://www.astronautix.com
--
.
"Though I could not caution all, I yet may warn a few:
Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools!"
--grateful dead.
_______________________________________________________________
Mike Flugennock, flugennock at sinkers dot org
"Mikey'zine": dubya dubya dubya dot sinkers dot org
mike flugennock
>
> Wasn't there a proposal to fit an advanced X-15 on top of a Redstone?
> Could that have achieved orbit? (And more to the point, could it have
> achieved _reentry_?)
I think the original plan was for the pilot to bail out at a suitable
altitude, and just "lose" the X15, aka the "Gagarin Method".
mike flugennock
Jayzus. Get _outta_ here. A week and a half to the Moon, or two weeks in
orbit, would be about as much as an even reasonably-trained astronaut
could handle in that damn' thing; who the hell was thinking of sending
two guys in a Gemini to friggin' _Mars_, f'crissake -- oh, and get this,
after basically spending several months doing the equivalent of flying
to Mars in a Corvette, they expect these guys to just pop the hatches,
unbend themselves, climb on down the ladder, plant the ol' flag and have
a stroll around.
At least when they were talking about sending a crew to Mars with an
Apollo CSM, they had the sense to include a Skylab-like "workshop" where
the crew could stretch out and get a little elbow room and avoid ripping
their crewmates limb-from-limb before they even _got_ to Mars.
mike flugennock
>
>
> Joseph T Major wrote:
>
>> Wasn't there a proposal to fit an advanced X-15 on top of a
>> Redstone?
>>
> There was a plan to launch it on a cluster of four Titan missile
> boosters: http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/models/vault/X15.bmp
D'ahh ha ha hah. God damn; had anyone figured out how many Titans they
were going to have to go through before they got one of those things
"man-rated"? Cripes, man.
Henry Spencer
John Charles <johnbc...@houston.rr.com> wrote:
>An idle question: could the X-15, with the XLR-99 engine, fully-fueled
>(with or without drop tanks) could have launched itself vertically from
>a launch pad?
It had the thrust, but not the control -- the X-15 engine had no thrust
vectoring, so the aircraft had to be moving fast enough for aerodynamic
control. Launched from a pad, it would promptly have fallen over.
I'm also not positive that all the subsystems would have worked for
startup in a vertical orientation.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | he...@spsystems.net
Henry Spencer
Joseph T Major <jtm...@iglou.com> wrote:
> Wasn't there a proposal to fit an advanced X-15 on top of a Redstone?
There were *lots* of proposals to put X-15 derivatives on top of a wide
variety of rockets.
>Could that have achieved orbit?
Not with a Redstone. With a big enough rocket, yes, although if you
wanted the X-15 to do any of the work, there'd be the problem that its RCS
system wasn't big enough to do attitude control with the main engine
firing. (And, for that matter, that the main engine wasn't built for a
free-fall start.)
>(And more to the point, could it have achieved _reentry_?)
Assuming that it could somehow have achieved retrofire... no. The various
orbital-X-15 proposals included a lot of handwaving about thermal
protection, but there was a distinct shortage of realistic concepts and
detailed engineering. Even if you concede that the aircraft would have
almost nothing in common with the X-15 except general shape, it wasn't
an easy problem.
Henry Spencer
>Did anyone decide if the X-15 could have done a rolling takeoff with
>those short wings?
Not with the skid landing gear, especially since (a) it put the aircraft
in a nose-down attitude, and (b) it was built for the landing weight
rather than the takeoff weight.
With a launch sled to supply the wheels, and also the control until the
X-15 was up to aerodynamic control speed... yeah, probably, although it
would have been a very high-speed takeoff.
>...I'm also pretty sure this was
>slated as a "yes, we would have liked to test this. we would have also
>liked a pony."
The X-1 was built to be capable of a runway takeoff. It was done once,
so they could say they did it.
The Douglas Skyrocket (first aircraft to Mach 2; the USN's answer to the
X-1) originally had a couple of little jet engines in its belly, so it
could do its own takeoffs. After trying that for a while, they ripped the
jets out and switched to air launch, using the space and mass for more
rocket fuel.
As far as I know, runway takeoff was never even idly contemplated for the
X-15. It was built from the start for pure air launch.
Henry Spencer
Jud McCranie <youknowwha...@adelphia.net> wrote:
>Speaking of that, I thought that an airplane had to take off and land
>itself to qualify for records, but the X-1 and X-15 didn't take off by
>themselves. Does this count as far as records?
If memory serves, all the X-1 and X-15 records are unofficial. For
example, the speed record for aircraft is held by the SR-71, not the X-15.
Pat Flannery
mike flugennock wrote:
>
> Jayzus. Get _outta_ here. A week and a half to the Moon, or two weeks
> in orbit, would be about as much as an even reasonably-trained
> astronaut could handle in that damn' thing; who the hell was thinking
> of sending two guys in a Gemini to friggin' _Mars_, f'crissake -- oh,
> and get this, after basically spending several months doing the
> equivalent of flying to Mars in a Corvette, they expect these guys to
> just pop the hatches, unbend themselves, climb on down the ladder,
> plant the ol' flag and have a stroll around.
They can get into the living quarters via a heatshield hatch on this
one...but exactly how many Martian samples can you bring home inside of
a Gemini RV?
Notice that the wings have no control surfaces? This should be fun.
Pat
Pat Flannery
mike flugennock wrote:
>
> D'ahh ha ha hah. God damn; had anyone figured out how many Titans they
> were going to have to go through before they got one of those things
> "man-rated"? Cripes, man.
>
You can see where it came from though: "Okay, a Titan can carry XXX
pounds to orbit, which is around 1/4 of the weight of a fueled X-15...so
if we were to figure out a way to launch _four_ Titans at once...."
And, as Kosh said: "and so it begins..." :-)
Pat
Pat Flannery
Henry Spencer wrote:
>
>It had the thrust, but not the control -- the X-15 engine had no thrust
>vectoring, so the aircraft had to be moving fast enough for aerodynamic
>control. Launched from a pad, it would promptly have fallen over.
>
>I'm also not positive that all the subsystems would have worked for
>startup in a vertical orientation.
>
Okay, we beef up those H2O2 RCS jets...
Pat
Dave Michelson
>
> Henry Spencer wrote:
>
>> It had the thrust, but not the control -- the X-15 engine had no thrust
>> vectoring, so the aircraft had to be moving fast enough for aerodynamic
>> control. Launched from a pad, it would promptly have fallen over.
>
Or go the model rocket route and add a launch rod :-0
--
Dave Michelson
da...@ece.ubc.ca
Jeff Findley
"mike flugennock" <flvg3...@stinkers.org> wrote in message
news:14510$44778b27$4366619c$17...@msgid.meganewsservers.com...
> Pat Flannery wrote:
>> You think that's odd? How about sending a Gemini to Mars?:
>> http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/models/gemini/winggemini.html
>
> Apollo CSM, they had the sense to include a Skylab-like "workshop" where
> the crew could stretch out and get a little elbow room and avoid ripping
> their crewmates limb-from-limb before they even _got_ to Mars.
You must have missed the text that described the crew quarters and "storm
shelter".
Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)
Carsten Nielsen
X-15B would ditch in the Mexican Gulf.
Waste of a good plane, if you ask me.
Regards
Carsten Nielsen
Denmark
Geert Sassen
It did not have enough structural strength for a groundlevel launch
(whether vertical or horizontal), speed would build up so quickly that
aerodynamic forces would rip it apart before it reached enough altitude.
The main reason for an airlaunch was to have the thing high up, where
there was less air and thus less aerodynamic pressure. By the time it
came back down its speed was already subsonic...
Read Milt Thompsons description of what happened during those
'heating-flights' where they tested the limits of aerodynamic pressure,
had they flown that fast only a bit lower, the whole thing would have
gone to smithereens..
Geert Sassen
Henry Spencer wrote:
>
> Not with a Redstone. With a big enough rocket, yes, although if you
> wanted the X-15 to do any of the work, there'd be the problem that its RCS
> system wasn't big enough to do attitude control with the main engine
> firing. (And, for that matter, that the main engine wasn't built for a
> free-fall start.)
Try to change your orbit with that engine or a retrofire...
Power to weight ratio is such that you would have to be very, very, sure
about your attitude and timing, the slightest mistake and you burn up...
> Assuming that it could somehow have achieved retrofire... no. The various
> orbital-X-15 proposals included a lot of handwaving about thermal
> protection, but there was a distinct shortage of realistic concepts and
> detailed engineering. Even if you concede that the aircraft would have
> almost nothing in common with the X-15 except general shape, it wasn't
> an easy problem.
They had a big problem with stability at high angles of attack, that's
why they never flew the maximum achieveble mission (400 000 ft). Quite
apart from the issue with thermal protection/heatshield the aircraft
shape itself was not very suitable for high speed re-entry..
There were some plans to fit a more stable delta wing and launch from
atop a XB 70 Valkyre but like many others this plan came to naught, and
experiences with the Blackbird drone launches showed that a supersonic
airlaunch is not something you do that easily..
Pat Flannery
Dave Michelson wrote:
>>
>> Okay, we beef up those H2O2 RCS jets...
>
>
> Or go the model rocket route and add a launch rod :-0
Actually when you think about it, you could probably add graphite
exhaust control vanes to the XLR-99's nozzle without too much trouble.
This is a good excuse to show a only recently revealed Soviet project-
the VTOL fighter design that appears to be based on a MiG-25 fuselage
design:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1857802217.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V54461984_.jpg
Doesn't SHADO operate some of these? ;-)
Pat
mike flugennock
Hm, I don't recall right off how much of that is living space and how
much is taken up by the guts of the engine.
> Notice that the wings have no control surfaces? This should be fun.
Damn', man; I didn't even catch that. I was busying thinking "jeezus,
the AF must be getting really desperate to continue DynaSoar!"
mike flugennock
Istr Frank Borman being really ingenious about finding little nooks and
crevices in the cabin to stash the used food wrappers prior to his Two
Weeks In A Men's Room.
mike flugennock
> "mike flugennock" <flvg3...@stinkers.org> wrote in message
> news:14510$44778b27$4366619c$17...@msgid.meganewsservers.com...
>
>>Pat Flannery wrote:
>>
>>>You think that's odd? How about sending a Gemini to Mars?:
>>>http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/models/gemini/winggemini.html
>>
>>At least when they were talking about sending a crew to Mars with an
>>Apollo CSM, they had the sense to include a Skylab-like "workshop" where
>>the crew could stretch out and get a little elbow room and avoid ripping
>>their crewmates limb-from-limb before they even _got_ to Mars.
>
>
>
> You must have missed the text that described the crew quarters and "storm
> shelter".
True, I was assuming most of that was engine guts, fuel tankage and
such, and laughing at the fake DynaSoar rear end.
mike flugennock
Based on my own recent observation of history, though, when looking at
concepts like this, my eyeballs go directly to things like the
fuselage/booster attach points to guess if a)they really have any idea
of what kind of hardware will handle the job and b)imagine the stress on
the attach points when all those Titans light up at once, each one
likely generating a slightly different amount of thrust than each
other...kind of like trying to build the first stage of N1.
Pat Flannery
Jeff Findley wrote:
>You must have missed the text that described the crew quarters and "storm
>shelter".
>
>
And monkey no doubt.
Pat
mike flugennock
Either that, or we can try out that really cool Phil Bono concept at
http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/SpaceLVs/Slides/sld011.htm
Hey, c'mon; it'd work. I've been out that way, and there's shitloads of
really tall mesas that look just like that. We just can't make the same
mistake a certain W.E.Coyote made by making Acme Industries his "prime".
mike flugennock
Nah, that looks more like a rejected "Thunderbird" concept, kind of an
F18 Meets Thunderbird 3.
Pat Flannery
Geert Sassen wrote:
>
> Try to change your orbit with that engine or a retrofire...
> Power to weight ratio is such that you would have to be very, very,
> sure about your attitude and timing, the slightest mistake and you
> burn up...
Scott Lowther found an illustration of the X-15 orbital varient- the
XLR-99 was to be replaced with a cluster of three smaller engines, and
two crew were to be carried:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=230.0
pat
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)
> "Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)" <reunite....@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > On 25 May 2006 19:17:07 -0700, "John Charles"
> > <johnbc...@houston.rr.com> wrote:
> >
> > > An idle question: could the X-15, with the XLR-99 engine, fully-fueled
> > > (with or without drop tanks) could have launched itself vertically from
> > > a launch pad? And if so, how high could it have gone? A quick google
> > > search did not show anything. Any pointers will be appreciated.
> >
> > No.
>
> And of course, the followup question:
>
> Did anyone decide if the X-15 could have done a rolling takeoff with
> those short wings? I'm pretty sure it's a "yes, but you won't be
> breaking any records afterwards" and I'm also pretty sure this was
> slated as a "yes, we would have liked to test this. we would have also
> liked a pony."
First you have to have wheels, if you want to make a rolling takeoff.
Landing skids just don't work out for that. Gear designed to bring
the vehicle to a halt without any braking are somewhat suboptimal for
accelerating and taking off. Plus which, rotation is difficult.
> Does anyone know what the takeoff speed would be? (I guess that's the
> same as asking "what's the stall+10% on an X-15 at sea level?")
That I might be able to tell you, but it'll take a while. Someone
else should be quicker. Stall speed is important for any vehicle,
even a low-L/D one like the X-15. So is minimum control speed.
Mary
--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
We didn't just do weird stuff at Dryden, we wrote reports about it.
reunite....@gmail.com or mil...@qnet.com
Pat Flannery
mike flugennock wrote:
>
> Based on my own recent observation of history, though, when looking at
> concepts like this, my eyeballs go directly to things like the
> fuselage/booster attach points to guess if a)they really have any idea
> of what kind of hardware will handle the job and b)imagine the stress
> on the attach points when all those Titans light up at once, each one
> likely generating a slightly different amount of thrust than each
> other...kind of like trying to build the first stage of N1.
Yeah, I get the feeling that on the finished one the four boosters would
not have been held together by big horizontal rods like on that model.
In fact, is there any reason not to have the four boosters just hunkered
up against one another? If they all fire at once it makes more sense
just to have it be a cluster of four in a rectangular pattern with the
X-15 riding on the centerline of the cluster (okay, this does leave a
gap between the second stages, but that shouldn't be much of a problem
from an aerodynamic point of view.)
I still think that the standard X-15 wings and horizontal tail surfaces
are going to burn off on reentry; the delta version looks a lot better
from an reentry aerodynamics point of view.
Pat
Pat Flannery
mike flugennock wrote:
>
> Either that, or we can try out that really cool Phil Bono concept at
> http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/SpaceLVs/Slides/sld011.htm
>
> Hey, c'mon; it'd work. I've been out that way, and there's shitloads
> of really tall mesas that look just like that. We just can't make the
> same mistake a certain W.E.Coyote made by making Acme Industries his
> "prime".
First time I saw that painting, all I could think was "Someone has been
watching 'When Worlds Collide' _way_ too much."
I'd like to see how many Gs the crew pulls when it transitions from the
horizontal to vertical track at several hundred mph in a matter of a
second or two. You'll note that it's going so fast that they have to
slow the launch sled down with retros even though its going uphill.
Still, that's better than just throwing it away like the Fireball XL-5
launch cradle
Pat
Pat Flannery
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer) wrote:
>First you have to have wheels, if you want to make a rolling takeoff.
>Landing skids just don't work out for that. Gear designed to bring
>the vehicle to a halt without any braking are somewhat suboptimal for
>accelerating and taking off. Plus which, rotation is difficult.
>
>
With its nose-down attitude at rest, rotation is going to be _real_
difficult. :-)
Pat
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)
wrote:
My point exactly.
Incidentally, the skids were strong enough to land on at GTOW, if only
because that's what it would weigh if the engine didn't start. You'd
want to kiss it on at that weight, not spike it onto the lakebed, to
keep the g down, of course. The skids would have been strong enough
for takeoff, in consequence.
Mary "Goes without saying"
Henry Spencer
Geert Sassen <ge...@invalid.com> wrote:
>There were some plans to fit a more stable delta wing and launch from
The delta-wing X-15 effort actually was a funded and approved project,
briefly, although it was to use B-52 launch. It was going to rebuild the
third X-15, the one with the fancy fly-by-wire control system. That plan
evaporated, and the project died, when X-15-3 was destroyed in the
accident that killed Mike Adams.
(One of the others could have been refitted, but it would have driven up
the project cost quite substantially. The project had only lukewarm
support to begin with... and this was in late 1967, right after the NASA
budget disaster of summer 1967 -- a very bad time for a weakly-supported
new project to suddenly require significant extra money.)
Incidentally, what really killed hopes of using the XB-70 for air launch
was the crash of the second XB-70. The first one lacked the definitive
control system and wasn't cleared for Mach 3; all plans for an XB-70
air launch required using the second one.
Pat Flannery
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer) wrote:
>
>Incidentally, the skids were strong enough to land on at GTOW, if only
>because that's what it would weigh if the engine didn't start. You'd
>want to kiss it on at that weight, not spike it onto the lakebed, to
>keep the g down, of course.
>
>
And we all know what happened when it did actually land with most of the
propellent load on board:
http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/graphics/x/x15crash.jpg
Jud McCranie
wrote:
>If memory serves, all the X-1 and X-15 records are unofficial. For
>example, the speed record for aircraft is held by the SR-71, not the X-15.
That suggests an interesting (trivia) question: What was the first
plane to officially break the sound barrier? (I don't know.)
---
Replace you know what by j to email
Henry Spencer
Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
>And we all know what happened when it did actually land with most of the
>propellent load on board:
>http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/graphics/x/x15crash.jpg
That little faux pas turned out to be partly due to a minor design bug in
the nose gear, which made its shock absorber rather less effective than
planned.
Henry Spencer
Jud McCranie <youknowwha...@adelphia.net> wrote:
>>If memory serves, all the X-1 and X-15 records are unofficial. For
>>example, the speed record for aircraft is held by the SR-71, not the X-15.
>
>That suggests an interesting (trivia) question: What was the first
>plane to officially break the sound barrier? (I don't know.)
Slightly tricky question, because there isn't a formal record category for
that. :-) The records are based on speed, not Mach number, and I'm not
sure offhand which speed record was the first that corresponded to a Mach
number exceeding 1.0. Probably it was the first of the high-altitude
aircraft speed records.
The original speed-record rules required very low altitudes, and the first
supersonic jet fighters couldn't quite go supersonic at treetop altitude,
although they pushed up quite close to Mach 1 in some fairly hair-raising
record runs. Then a new set of rules was introduced, allowing record runs
at any (well-measured) altitude, and the record runs moved up into the
stratosphere and the speeds jumped to match. I'd guess the first of the
high-altitude record holders was one of the F-100 prototypes, since the
Skyray -- which held the low-altitude record briefly before the F-100 took
it -- was still handicapped by its original Westinghouse engine.
The first non-air-launched aircraft to go supersonic was pretty definitely
one of the F-86 prototypes -- in fact, there has long been speculation
that it might have happened before Yeager's X-1 supersonic run -- but it
could not set an official supersonic record, because either set of record
rules required level flight, and the F-86 was supersonic only in a dive.
Geert Sassen
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer) wrote:
> Incidentally, the skids were strong enough to land on at GTOW, if only
> because that's what it would weigh if the engine didn't start.
I doubt if the skids were strong enough for a landing at GTOW, all books
again and again state the major importance of dumping all fuel as soon
as possible if the engine didn't start.
And quite apart from the skids, steering the X15 down for a deadstick
landing with all fuel still onboard would be really nasty, and the
nosegear probably would not survive during landing if the skids didn't
break first...
Markus Baur
andsomebody must have paid LOTS of hazard pay to the helicopter pilots
close by ..
servus
markus
Bruce Hoult
Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
You can do it with the X-15 in x-plane, but you've got to get pretty
fast before it'll rotate and it'll then happily fly much slower than the
rotation speed (if you throttle back). [1]
Caution: x-plane is not reality
[1] which is also true of the GAF Nomad I flew once. No matter what you
did it would not rotate until 80 knots, even though it would then
happily climb out at 60 or 65 knots. And on touchwodn, if you were
below 80 knots (which you should be!) then there was none of that
holding the nosewheel off stuff.
This may well be beneficial on short, rough strips.
--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------
Dale
>Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer) wrote:
>
>> Incidentally, the skids were strong enough to land on at GTOW, if only
>> because that's what it would weigh if the engine didn't start.
>
>I doubt if the skids were strong enough for a landing at GTOW, all books
> again and again state the major importance of dumping all fuel as soon
>as possible if the engine didn't start.
Mary said "You'd want to kiss it on at that weight". That means the lightest
touchdown possible. I don't think this contradicts your books stressing the
importance of dumping fuel if possible. Don't doubt Mary :)
>And quite apart from the skids, steering the X15 down for a deadstick
>landing with all fuel still onboard would be really nasty, and the
>nosegear probably would not survive during landing if the skids didn't
>break first...
Or the back of the airframe :)
Dale
Dale
>In article <127h5b4...@corp.supernews.com>,
> Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
>> With its nose-down attitude at rest, rotation is going to be _real_
>> difficult. :-)
>
>You can do it with the X-15 in x-plane, but you've got to get pretty
>fast before it'll rotate and it'll then happily fly much slower than the
>rotation speed (if you throttle back). [1]
>[1] which is also true of the GAF Nomad I flew once.
I'm curious- why only once? :) There's just something about that
plane that doesn't look right. Looks almost like it oughta be a
helicopter instead. I don't know.... here's a page with a couple of
pictures-
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~ito-nori/nomad.html
Dale
Dale
>On Sun, 28 May 2006 19:59:46 +1200, Bruce Hoult <br...@hoult.org> wrote:
>>[1] which is also true of the GAF Nomad I flew once.
>
>I'm curious- why only once? :) There's just something about that
>plane that doesn't look right. Looks almost like it oughta be a
>helicopter instead. I don't know.... here's a page with a couple of
>pictures-
>
>http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~ito-nori/nomad.html
I looked around that website a bit more. Here'e a plane I'd like
to try flying once. That would be plenty, I think :)
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~ito-nori/skyvan.html
The aft view looks like something out of a 1925 Popular
Mechanics magazine. Anybody here ever flown in a
Shorts Skyvan?
Dale
Gonna try fitting wings and a tailboom to my Morris tomorrow :)
Monte Davis
>The original speed-record rules required very low altitudes, and the first
>supersonic jet fighters couldn't quite go supersonic at treetop altitude,
>although they pushed up quite close to Mach 1 in some fairly hair-raising
>record runs. Then a new set of rules was introduced, allowing record runs
>at any (well-measured) altitude, and the record runs moved up into the
>stratosphere and the speeds jumped to match. I'd guess the first of the
>high-altitude record holders was one of the F-100 prototypes, since the
>Skyray -- which held the low-altitude record briefly before the F-100 took
>it -- was still handicapped by its original Westinghouse engine.
You want hair-raising? From a Skyray article in the new Air&Space --
after the P&W J57-P-2 went in to replace the Westinghouse, before they
solved trimming issues with pressure changes over the big delta wing
of the F-4D ("Ford"):
***
On an afternoon in 1955, Bob Rahn leapt off the Los Angeles
International Airport's runway in a production Skyray, heading out
over the Pacific a hundred feet above the waves. The idea was to see
whether enough pitch trim was available with the new engine to
compensate for the airplane's tuck-under at transonic speeds. He later
wrote, "I had accelerated to Mach .98 (approximately 750 mph) in
afterburner. This Mach speed created the maximum tuck-under. Full
trimmer deflection was required to maintain trimmed flight. Therefore
I concluded that the engineers had done a good job with respect to
adequate trim for this low-altitude, highspeed flight environment. For
all practical purposes, the test was completed. So I nonchalantly shut
off the afterburner."
The Skyray decelerated so rapidly that the trimmer became
super-effective, flipping the nose suddenly skyward. "My Skyray and I
were pitched up at a gut-wrenching 9.1 Gs," Rahn wrote. "The airplane
had a design limit of 7.0 Gs. Moreover I wasn't wearing a g-suit. I
immediately blacked out." Rahn lost his vision but was aware of his
situation. Reluctant to touch anything for fear of making a bad
situation worse, he endured the ride. When his eyes cleared, his
windscreen was all blue Pacific. "I was in a vertical dive after
completing three-fourths of a loop." Gingerly recovering at about
3,000 feet, he looked out at the wings. "They were wrinkled from wing
tip to wing tip, resembling dried prunes."
Back on the ground at LAX, Rahn found that the rest of the Skyray's
skin was wrinkled, the wings were incurably bent, and some of the
vertical stabilizer's stringers were protruding, like broken bones.
The engine had torn off its mounts and was resting on the
engine-compartment access door, pinching a fuel line. Later, Rahn
reckoned that the event had been caused by the added thrust and the
resulting increase in tuck-under. The corresponding increase in
nose-up trim had made the Ford go nuts when it suddenly decelerated.
Scratch one Skyray...
***
No doubt test flights can get hairier than that, but I would guess the
chances of a first-person account diminish rapidly...
Bruce Hoult
Dale <d...@oz.net> wrote:
> >[1] which is also true of the GAF Nomad I flew once.
>
> I'm curious- why only once? :) There's just something about that
> plane that doesn't look right. Looks almost like it oughta be a
> helicopter instead. I don't know.... here's a page with a couple of
> pictures-
>
> http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~ito-nori/nomad.html
Actually, I think it was three times. I don't have a rating in that
size of aircraft, or a PPL license, for that matter. I've soloed a C152
and a Tomahawk (at Wellington International airport) and I've got a
couple of hundred hours in sailplanes, but I've only ever played in
things such as the Nomad, Caravan, Texan, Huey, R22 etc with an
instructor-rated pilot on board.
Actually, the Nomad was quite fun, although a bit agricultural. One
night there was quiet a strong northerly and I was accompanying a friend
on a freight run from Wellington to Blenheim and back. When departing
on runway 34 on an IFR flight you have to maintain runway heading until
reaching 3000ft. So, given the 30 knot northerly we decided to try and
achieve 3000ft by the end of the 6000 ft runway and climbed out with the
stall warning buzzer going. Missed it by *that* much, and turned onto
heading abeam Greta Pt.
http://www.zoomin.co.nz/nz/wellington/miramar/miramar+avenue/10/
On returning we touched down on the turn-on area at the south end of
runway 34, stopped *before* the numbers, and turned off the runway on to
the taxiway normally used to enter the runway.
Dale
<great reply snipped>
Wow, thanks. I'm glad I asked!! :)
Dale
Pat Flannery
Henry Spencer wrote:
>In article <127hm5o...@corp.supernews.com>,
>Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
>
>
>>And we all know what happened when it did actually land with most of the
>>propellent load on board:
>>http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/graphics/x/x15crash.jpg
>>
>>
>
>That little faux pas turned out to be partly due to a minor design bug in
>the nose gear, which made its shock absorber rather less effective than
>planned.
>
>
That makes two slips in the nose gear design; the other being the
airscoop that lowers to use ram air pressure to open the gear doors on
nose gear activation. The airscoop that's connected to the cockpit
handle by the activation cable. The activation cable that pulls tight
when heat of multi-Mach flight causes the nose to grow longer via
thermal expansion, and caused the scoop to deploy at Mach 5.2 on flight
83 (it lowered at over Mach 3 on an earlier flight).
You know, you go through Thompson's book and all of the problems that
kept occurring during X-15's test flights, and it seems amazing that
they only lost one aircraft and pilot during that program. That was one
tough aircraft piloted by some very sharp test pilots.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Henry Spencer wrote:
>Slightly tricky question, because there isn't a formal record category for
>that. :-) The records are based on speed, not Mach number, and I'm not
>sure offhand which speed record was the first that corresponded to a Mach
>number exceeding 1.0. Probably it was the first of the high-altitude
>aircraft speed records.
>
According to Jane's Record Breaking Aircraft, it was first done
officially by Col. Horace A. Hanes (under the new no altitude limit
rules) in a F-100C at Palmdale, California on August 20th, 1955. He
reached a speed of 822.135 mph.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Markus Baur wrote:
>
> andsomebody must have paid LOTS of hazard pay to the helicopter pilots
> close by ..
>
> servus
>
> markus
>
I still like using the B-70 for low altitude parachute cargo drops:
http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/space60s/ithacus2.jpg
Wouldn't those guys in the rocket belts make sitting duck targets for
snipers?
Can you imagine what happens if the Ithacus gets hit by a missile* as
its descending to land? Not every day the enemy can nail over 1,000 men
with one missile, outside of nuking an aircraft carrier.
* Bet an IR missile could home on it fairly easily also. :-D
Pat
Pat Flannery
Dale wrote:
>
>
>>And quite apart from the skids, steering the X15 down for a deadstick
>>landing with all fuel still onboard would be really nasty, and the
>>nosegear probably would not survive during landing if the skids didn't
>>break first...
>>
>>
>
>Or the back of the airframe :)
>
>
>
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/X-15/Small/E-9543.jpg
Pat
Pat Flannery
Dale wrote:
>I'm curious- why only once? :) There's just something about that
>plane that doesn't look right. Looks almost like it oughta be a
>helicopter instead. I don't know.... here's a page with a couple of
>pictures-
>
>http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~ito-nori/nomad.html
>
>Dale
>
>
Think that's odd? No way am I getting in one of these:
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~ito-nori/trisla10.html
I keep picturing the tail falling off and just flying away on its own. :-D
Pat
Pat Flannery
Dale wrote:
>I looked around that website a bit more. Here'e a plane I'd like
>to try flying once. That would be plenty, I think :)
>
>http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~ito-nori/skyvan.html
>
>The aft view looks like something out of a 1925 Popular
>Mechanics magazine. Anybody here ever flown in a
>Shorts Skyvan?
>
>
Maybe it becomes a C-130 when it grows up, and this is what the larva
looks like. :-)
Would you believe that brick can get to 440 mph? Well I wouldn't, as
that's BS no matter what Wikipedia says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorts_Skyvan
The aircraft was built in Belfast, and a study of the meaning of the
words "Irish Blarney" may explain that speed figure. The design was
considered an outstanding success, and if nothing else I talked to a
pilot who has flown them...they fly just fine. The basic concept was
take a box and put wings and a tail on it; they're great for short haul
cargo movement and skydiving, and can operate off of very rough strips.
He flew them between the islands of Hawaii.
Pat
Geert Sassen
Pat Flannery wrote:
> You know, you go through Thompson's book and all of the problems that
> kept occurring during X-15's test flights, and it seems amazing that
> they only lost one aircraft and pilot during that program. That was one
> tough aircraft piloted by some very sharp test pilots.
Exactly what my feelings where after reading that book (and other X15
stories).
Amazingly also the ease at which potentially very nasty problems (nose
wheel scoop door just one of them, cockpit depressurisations, autopilot
and other electrical problems, etc) where very quickly solved almost
without any big delays to the flightprogram. Can you imagine the delay
we would have in the Shuttle program if a nosewheel accidently deployed
at Mach 5 during landing?
Those were different times...
Regards,
Geert Sassen
Pat Flannery
Monte Davis wrote:
>You want hair-raising? From a Skyray article in the new Air&Space --
>after the P&W J57-P-2 went in to replace the Westinghouse, before they
>solved trimming issues with pressure changes over the big delta wing
>of the F-4D ("Ford")
>
>
Never heard that one before... I'll bet he needed a drink after that
flight...provided he could shudder his way over to the Officer's Club. :-)
pat
Pat Flannery
Bruce Hoult wrote:
>Actually, I think it was three times. I don't have a rating in that
>size of aircraft, or a PPL license, for that matter. I've soloed a C152
>and a Tomahawk (at Wellington International airport) and I've got a
>couple of hundred hours in sailplanes, but I've only ever played in
>things such as the Nomad, Caravan, Texan, Huey, R22 etc with an
>instructor-rated pilot on board.
>
>
>
I want to talk to someone whose flown one of these:
http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/farmer/120/airtruk.html
Other than Gyro Captain that is....I don't want to meet The Mouth Of Sauron.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Geert Sassen wrote:
>
> Exactly what my feelings where after reading that book (and other X15
> stories).
>
> Amazingly also the ease at which potentially very nasty problems (nose
> wheel scoop door just one of them, cockpit depressurisations,
> autopilot and other electrical problems, etc) where very quickly
> solved almost without any big delays to the flightprogram.
Yeah, before I read the book I had the impression that the X-15 was a
highly complex and sophisticated piece of machinery; but after reading
the book you realize that in a lot of ways it was designed to be very
simple and even crude to give it toughness.
Pat
Andrew Bunting
[ regarding level M1+ flight ]
> According to Jane's Record Breaking Aircraft, it was first done
> officially by Col. Horace A. Hanes (under the new no altitude limit
> rules) in a F-100C at Palmdale, California on August 20th, 1955. He
> reached a speed of 822.135 mph.
Sometime in Jan / Feb 1954*, Gheorgiy Sedov had achieved
M1.33 in level flight in the SM-9/1 prototype ( forerunner
of the MiG-19 ) but as it was part of a test program without
official observers it could not be submitted for record
consideration.
Looks like it was up around 10km so that would make it
about 877 mph. Would this have been after the new altitude
rules? The VVS received its first production MiG-19s in
March 1955 so I'm a little surprised that they didn't take
one out for a record attempt after Col Hanes' run.
* Yefim Gordon mangled his dates in this section of the
MiG-19 book so it's not entirely clear.
--
Andrew Bunting
Geert Sassen
Pat Flannery wrote:
> Yeah, before I read the book I had the impression that the X-15 was a
> highly complex and sophisticated piece of machinery; but after reading
> the book you realize that in a lot of ways it was designed to be very
> simple and even crude to give it toughness.
Compared to the X1 and other early X-planes it was "sophisticated" (fly
by wire, etc) but it sure was mostly a very tough plane, which offcourse
is one of the differences between something designed purely for research
or a plane designed for mass-production. Reading the stories it's
amazing how much damage it could survive, and how easy damage could be
repaired.
Some of the story's are quite hair-raising, but within a few weeks the
next mission was flown, safety-culture was a bit different from what we
would have done today...
Probably the biggest show-stopper were the stability problems at high
angles of attack, which limited the maximum altitude it could reach.
Even after they removed the lower ventral it could not go beyond 45 deg
angle of attack (I don't have the exact figures here at hand, but I
guess Spaceship 1 used a much steeper path and much higher angles of
attack due to its special design). Those stability problems were
predicted from the very first and only the delta wing version would
probably have solved that issue completely (although it would have added
complexity to the design, and thus reduce its toughness).
Regards,
Geert.
Thomas
It has to hang under a B-52 that brings the ship about 15 km in the
sky.
Then thy start the engine and the X-15 taks of.
Pat Flannery
Andrew Bunting wrote:
>Looks like it was up around 10km so that would make it
>about 877 mph. Would this have been after the new altitude
>rules? The VVS received its first production MiG-19s in
>March 1955 so I'm a little surprised that they didn't take
>one out for a record attempt after Col Hanes' run.
>
>
I've e-mailed the FAI to find out the exact date of the rules change.
This should make an interesting subject, because there are quite a few
contenders in the same time frame.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Geert Sassen wrote:
>
>
>
> Compared to the X1 and other early X-planes it was "sophisticated"
> (fly by wire, etc) but it sure was mostly a very tough plane, which
> offcourse is one of the differences between something designed purely
> for research or a plane designed for mass-production. Reading the
> stories it's amazing how much damage it could survive, and how easy
> damage could be repaired.
I got a kick of just how "throttlable" the XLR-99 was in real life as
compared to the design specs.
Pat
Derek Lyons
>Exactly what my feelings where after reading that book (and other X15
>stories).
>
>Amazingly also the ease at which potentially very nasty problems (nose
>wheel scoop door just one of them, cockpit depressurisations, autopilot
>and other electrical problems, etc) where very quickly solved almost
>without any big delays to the flightprogram. Can you imagine the delay
>we would have in the Shuttle program if a nosewheel accidently deployed
>at Mach 5 during landing?
>Those were different times...
No, they were different programs. One was a smallish backwater
conducted far from the public eye - the other is carried out in full
view of the entire country.
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
Darren J Longhorn
wrote:
>Probably the biggest show-stopper were the stability problems at high
>angles of attack, which limited the maximum altitude it could reach.
>Even after they removed the lower ventral it could not go beyond 45 deg
>angle of attack (I don't have the exact figures here at hand, but I
>guess Spaceship 1 used a much steeper path and much higher angles of
>attack due to its special design). Those stability problems were
>predicted from the very first and only the delta wing version would
>probably have solved that issue completely (although it would have added
>complexity to the design, and thus reduce its toughness).
I don't understand why problems at high angles of attack limit the
maximum attitude. Do you actually mean "angle of attack"? I thought
angle of attack was:
"the angle between the airfoil's chord line and the direction of
airflow wind, effectively the direction in which the aircraft is
currently moving"
Or are you talking about the attitude of the climbing aircraft with
respect to the ground?
Henry Spencer
Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
>>Shorts Skyvan?
>
>pilot who has flown them...they fly just fine. The basic concept was
It's also reportedly known as the Shorts Shed.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | he...@spsystems.net
Geert Sassen
Darren J Longhorn wrote:
> I don't understand why problems at high angles of attack limit the
> maximum attitude. Do you actually mean "angle of attack"? I thought
> angle of attack was:
>
> "the angle between the airfoil's chord line and the direction of
> airflow wind, effectively the direction in which the aircraft is
> currently moving"
>
> Or are you talking about the attitude of the climbing aircraft with
> respect to the ground?
No, I was indeed talking about angle of attack, although in this case
both are interlocked.
You need a high angle of attack if you 'pull out' of your descending
(ballistic) flight. The steeper your ballistic flight, the higher your
angle of attack will need to be when you do the 'pull out' (if you don't
want to hit the ground before you reach level flight).
As your exo-atmospheric flight (the largest part of an altitude-flight)
is purely ballistic (engine burnt out very quickly) you will come down
at the same angle as you came up, in other words a steep climb upwards
will result in a steep dive downwards. The steeper the downward dive,
the higher your angle of attack needs to be when pulling out of this
dive (that is, when you get back inside the atmosphere and can use
aerodynamic controls again).
However, given a certain maximum speed, to go as high as possible, you
need to climb up at a steep angle. Theoretically the X15 could reach
altitudes well in excess of 400 000 feet (purely based on engine
performance etc), but it could not safely descent from such heights. The
atmosphere (which you need to make the pull-out) extends only to a very
limited height, within that limited space, you need to make a "turn"
(pull-out) to a horizontal flightpath before you hit the ground. The
sharper the "turn" the higher your angle of attack needs to be while
making the turn. If you can't reach a high angle of attack, you're turn
will be much wider, and thus, in order to avoid hitting the bricks, you
will need to descent into the atmosphere in a less steep flightpath. And
that in turn requires a less steep ascent, and thus a reduced maximum
height. (really it makes more sense if you make a drawing).
This also explains why spaceship 1 used far less engine-power and far
less speed then the X15, and still reached a higher altitude. It used
less speed but a much steeper flightpath, while the X15 had to use a
more shallow flightpath at much more speed.
Regards,
Geert Sassen
Jim McCauley
news:127jcup...@corp.supernews.com...
> Would you believe that brick can get to 440 mph?
Reminds me of an old joke among F-4 Phantom pilots. "The Phantom is proof
positive that, given sufficiently powerful jet engines, even a brick will
fly." This was no slight to the airplane, but rather a reflection on its
toughness. F-4s sustained appalling damage over North Vietnam and brought
their crews home safe more often than not.
Boeing has a nice website devoted to the aircraft. Crew reminiscences, some
amusing and others hair-raising, begin here:
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/f4/remember.htm.
Tomorrow, we must reflect on the fates of all those who flew this tough old
bird, whether they came back in one piece or not. And of course, all their
brother and sister warriors as well.
Jim McCauley
Darren J Longhorn
wrote:
>
>Darren J Longhorn wrote:
>
>> I don't understand why problems at high angles of attack limit the
>> maximum attitude. Do you actually mean "angle of attack"? I thought
>> angle of attack was:
>>
>> "the angle between the airfoil's chord line and the direction of
>> airflow wind, effectively the direction in which the aircraft is
>> currently moving"
>>
>> Or are you talking about the attitude of the climbing aircraft with
>> respect to the ground?
>
>No, I was indeed talking about angle of attack, although in this case
>both are interlocked.
<snip explanation>
Thanks very much, I believe I have a better understanding now.
Pat Flannery
Jim McCauley wrote:
>Reminds me of an old joke among F-4 Phantom pilots. "The Phantom is proof
>positive that, given sufficiently powerful jet engines, even a brick will
>fly." This was no slight to the airplane, but rather a reflection on its
>toughness. F-4s sustained appalling damage over North Vietnam and brought
>their crews home safe more often than not.
>
>
>
Our Fargo ANG unit ("The Happy Hooligans") transitioned from F-101B's to
F-4Es; they didn't much care for it, saying "if you lose one engine you
are in a controlled glide."
They now operate F-16's, which they love.
Shortly, they are scheduled to transition to Predator drones, and you
can well imagine how that's going over.
>Boeing has a nice website devoted to the aircraft. Crew reminiscences, some
>amusing and others hair-raising, begin here:
>http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/f4/remember.htm.
>
>Tomorrow, we must reflect on the fates of all those who flew this tough old
>bird, whether they came back in one piece or not. And of course, all their
>brother and sister warriors as well.
>
>
It was certainly one mean looking piece of machinery, and very
versatile to boot, but there was a "jack of all trades, master of none"
aspect to its use in many of its roles.
In retrospect, it isn't rated as highly today as it was during the
Vietnam War by the aviation press... when I was a kid, the aircraft had
an almost mythological reputation to it, like the P-51 Mustang.
When it came right down to it, it was closer to a P-47 than a P-51.
The one that had the truly appalling Vietnam war loss rate was the
F-105, due to it being sent into very heavily defended airspace.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Geert Sassen wrote:
>
> As your exo-atmospheric flight (the largest part of an
> altitude-flight) is purely ballistic (engine burnt out very quickly)
> you will come down at the same angle as you came up, in other words a
> steep climb upwards will result in a steep dive downwards. The steeper
> the downward dive, the higher your angle of attack needs to be when
> pulling out of this dive (that is, when you get back inside the
> atmosphere and can use aerodynamic controls again).
The X-15 descended into the atmosphere in a nose-up attitude like the
Shuttle does to kill off its speed via drag, before beginning a more
conventional gliding flight at lower altitude.
There's a discussion of the nose-up attitude during reentry and control
aspects during it here:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/x15lect/piloting.html
Pat
Henry Spencer
Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>...Can you imagine the delay we would have in the Shuttle program if a
>>nosewheel accidently deployed at Mach 5 during landing?
>>Those were different times...
>
>No, they were different programs. One was a smallish backwater
Uh, the X-15? No way. Lots of publicity, lots of public attention. TV
coverage, magazine articles galore, several books, a major movie ("X-15",
Charles Bronson / Brad Dexter / James Gregory / Mary Tyler Moore). Not
quite as front-and-center as Mercury and Gemini, but well-known and much
watched, in its pioneering early days.
It *was* a different kind of program, yes, but publicity wasn't the major
difference. The early X-15 flight program was very much a *development*
program, and was designed and billed as such. Dozens of test flights,
gradual expansion of the envelope, a robust fault-tolerant design, and a
deliberate plan that final debugging of subsystems would take place in
flight rather than everything being expected to be perfect in advance.
Henry Spencer
Geert Sassen <ge...@invalid.com> wrote:
>It did not have enough structural strength for a groundlevel launch
>(whether vertical or horizontal), speed would build up so quickly that
>aerodynamic forces would rip it apart before it reached enough altitude.
I'd think this is solvable. Remember that the engine was throttlable,
fairly deeply so. Throttling back until up in thinner air is the orthodox
launcher solution to such a problem... and the X-15 was much more strongly
built than a typical launcher.
Henry Spencer
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer) <reunite....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Does anyone know what the takeoff speed would be? (I guess that's the
>> same as asking "what's the stall+10% on an X-15 at sea level?")
>
>That I might be able to tell you, but it'll take a while. Someone
>else should be quicker. Stall speed is important for any vehicle,
>even a low-L/D one like the X-15. So is minimum control speed.
Let's see here, in the "Utility Flight Manual" -- one of the later
versions of the flight manual, helpfully reprinted in the Apogee Books
"X-15" book -- it says that minimum speed is set by controllability, not
lift. With gear and flaps up and lower ventral attached, for 1_G and
0_deg bank (i.e. no maneuvering), about 210_kt is minimum. That goes up
to about 230_kt if you want to allow for a bit of maneuverability.
Bruce Hoult
Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
I used to know a few when I was a farm kid/teenager in the 70's,
although they all seemed to move to Fletchers as soon as humanly
possible! I'd bet they're all retired now.
The airtruk was known in the parts I grew up in as the "widowmaker" on
account of their tendency to roll forward in a crash with the pilot
rather exposed on top of it. My dad still has slides he took of one
crashing at (I think) the Mystery Creek field days in the mid 60's.
--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------
Pat Flannery
Henry Spencer wrote:
>I'd think this is solvable. Remember that the engine was throttlable,
>fairly deeply so.
>
Theoretically you could throttle the LR-99 from 30% to 100% thrust,
however in practice it wasn't suggested to throttle it lower than 40%
for fear that it would cease combustion.
IIRC, they pretty much gave up on throttling the motor as the program
went on, and relied more on flight path and engine burn duration at 100%
thrust to get the altitude and speed they desired.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Bruce Hoult wrote:
>I used to know a few when I was a farm kid/teenager in the 70's,
>although they all seemed to move to Fletchers as soon as humanly
>possible! I'd bet they're all retired now.
>
>
>
Another answer to a question no one ever asked- in this case, "What
would a jet powered biplane crop duster look like?":
http://www.k12.nf.ca/sptech/projects/aviation/private/pzl-mielecm-15belphegor.html
You know you're in the land of collective farms when you need a jet to
get to the far end of the farm field in a reasonable period of time. :-D
The only ag plane to have a two seat trainer version built also?
Pat
Peter Stickney
> In article <44787c4e$0$31637$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>,
> Geert Sassen <ge...@invalid.com> wrote:
>>There were some plans to fit a more stable delta wing and launch from
>>atop a XB 70 Valkyre but like many others this plan came to naught...
>
> The delta-wing X-15 effort actually was a funded and approved project,
> briefly, although it was to use B-52 launch. It was going to rebuild the
> third X-15, the one with the fancy fly-by-wire control system. That plan
> evaporated, and the project died, when X-15-3 was destroyed in the
> accident that killed Mike Adams.
>
> (One of the others could have been refitted, but it would have driven up
> the project cost quite substantially. The project had only lukewarm
> support to begin with... and this was in late 1967, right after the NASA
> budget disaster of summer 1967 -- a very bad time for a weakly-supported
> new project to suddenly require significant extra money.)
>
> Incidentally, what really killed hopes of using the XB-70 for air launch
> was the crash of the second XB-70. The first one lacked the definitive
> control system and wasn't cleared for Mach 3; all plans for an XB-70
> air launch required using the second one.
Erm, Henry,
XB-70 #1 _was_ cleared for Mach 3 flight. (It did lack the improved control
system and the dihedralled wing.
It demonstrated Mach 3 plus flight on at least one occasion - don't have my
copies of the logs with me right now, but I'll give the specifics later.
--
Pete Stickney
Without data, all you have is an opinion
Derek Lyons
>In article <4479ed0c...@news.supernews.com>,
>Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>...Can you imagine the delay we would have in the Shuttle program if a
>>>nosewheel accidently deployed at Mach 5 during landing?
>>>Those were different times...
>>
>>No, they were different programs. One was a smallish backwater
>>conducted far from the public eye...
>
>Uh, the X-15? No way. Lots of publicity, lots of public attention. TV
>coverage, magazine articles galore, several books, a major movie ("X-15",
>Charles Bronson / Brad Dexter / James Gregory / Mary Tyler Moore). Not
>quite as front-and-center as Mercury and Gemini, but well-known and much
>watched, in its pioneering early days.
Lots of *publicity*, very little *coverage*, there's a significant
difference there. While the average American was quite aware that
there was an X-15 progam - the actual day-to-day operations were terra
incognito. The actual program was carried out far from the public
eye. (And the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo programs were little different -
think about the oopses and details coming out in the last decade or
so.)
hop
> >
> According to Jane's Record Breaking Aircraft, it was first done
> officially by Col. Horace A. Hanes (under the new no altitude limit
> rules) in a F-100C at Palmdale, California on August 20th, 1955. He
> reached a speed of 822.135 mph.
>
Hmm, there was the one X-1 ground takeoff flight flown by Yeager in Jan
1949. I don't see a source offhand for speed and altitude attained
though.
Geert Sassen
Henry Spencer wrote:
> In article <4478796d$0$31641$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>,
> Geert Sassen <ge...@invalid.com> wrote:
>
>>It did not have enough structural strength for a groundlevel launch
>>(whether vertical or horizontal), speed would build up so quickly that
>>aerodynamic forces would rip it apart before it reached enough altitude.
>
>
> I'd think this is solvable. Remember that the engine was throttlable,
> fairly deeply so. Throttling back until up in thinner air is the orthodox
> launcher solution to such a problem... and the X-15 was much more strongly
> built than a typical launcher.
Most of the early engine start problems were caused by starting the
engine at 30% throttle, on all later missions they always started at
100% throttle. As has been mentioned before in this discussion the XLR99
was by far not so throttlable as the specs seemed to suggest. The
flightrule was *never* to throttle the engine down until you were sure
you could make it back safely if the thing quit. Throttling down during
a ground-launch is just something you don't want to do...
There is also something else to that ground launch, if you do a vertical
launch (as has been suggested) your flightpath will be much too steep
(you go straight up... you come straight down..), so you need to pitch
down fairly quickly if you like to make a change of landing somewhere,
in other words you lose all advantages of a vertical ground launch. If
you do a horizontal groundlaunch (assuming your landinggear would
survive) you would have spend most of your fuel already just getting off
the ground. Remember the engine ran only a few minutes!
With the engine running the X15 was not very steerable, Milt Thompson
remarks that this was the only plane were you were happy when the engine
quit.. Accellaration was so big that the slightest error in pitch/yaw
immediately resulted in an enormous error in your flightpath, and you
need to follow that flightpath accurately if you like to get back to a
landing-spot (dry lakebeds are big, but not *that* big). Taking off from
a runway with that engine running would be nice in a movie but otherwise..
Regards,
Geert
Pat Flannery
hop wrote:
Speed and altitude for that flight aren't in Miller's "X-planes" book
either.
Pat
Geert Sassen
Pat Flannery wrote:
> Speed and altitude for that flight aren't in Miller's "X-planes" book
> either.
see http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/X-1/index.html
--quote--:
In early 1949 Chuck Yeager made the one and only ground-launch of a
rocket-powered X-plane. He took off from an Edwards runway, and rocketed
to 23,000 feet in only 90 seconds. Yeager then cut the power and made a
normal, gliding return to the field jettisoning the remaining fuel
before landing.
-- unquote --
I am still looking for pictures/movies of that ground-launch, must have
been quite spectacular.
However, it is noted that the X-1 was originally *designed* for
ground-launch, only after the design was already finished they deceided
to opt for air-launch. This is quite different from the situation with
the X-15 which was designed for air-launch from the very start.
Regards,
Geert.
Jonathan Silverlight
<fla...@daktel.com> writes
>
>
>Bruce Hoult wrote:
>
>>I used to know a few when I was a farm kid/teenager in the 70's,
>>although they all seemed to move to Fletchers as soon as humanly
>>possible! I'd bet they're all retired now.
>>
>>
>
>Another answer to a question no one ever asked- in this case, "What
>would a jet powered biplane crop duster look like?":
>http://www.k12.nf.ca/sptech/projects/aviation/private/pzl-mielecm-15belp
>hegor.html
Belphegor (the name is a variation on the demon Baal-Phagor).
According to Wikipedia it's also "the moniker of a line of trucks
manufactured by Citroën."
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belphegor_%28disambiguation%29>
Jonathan Silverlight
<fair...@gmail.com> writes
I found some real gems, such as Robert Gilruth talking about a Big Joe
test
"We didn't have it when they wanted it. By the time we had it, they
didn't want to publish it - especially since it was a success."
<http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/dsh/TRANSCPT/GILRUTH4.HTM>
and James Webb
"NASA has not attempted to encourage press coverage of the first
Mercury-Redstone manned flight."
<http://www.astronautix.com/project/mercury.htm>
BTW, the film sounds fascinating. Direction by Richard Donner, narration
by James Stewart, a climax with the X-15 getting into orbit... Wow.
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055627/>
Pat Flannery
Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>
> BTW, the film sounds fascinating. Direction by Richard Donner,
> narration by James Stewart, a climax with the X-15 getting into
> orbit... Wow.
> <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055627/>
And don't forget the F-100 crash, and the X-15 blowing up during the
ground test of the LR-99.
Actually, it's only okay, and has a lot of mushy kissy stuff in it. We
need Grandpa to do us a Princess Bride version of it.
Now, you want to see X-planes, latch onto "Toward The Unknown" which is
crawling with goodies, including a Martin XB-51 and James Garner's film
debut...as a lovable cowboy card sharp/conman/private detective down at
Pancho Barnes "Happy Bottom Riding Club". He's the one that uncovers the
problem with the X-1's Ulmer Leather gasket, but must flee after Glennis
Yeager gets a crush on him, and Chuck starts gunning for him. ;-)
(The film was re-released as "Support Your Local Test Pilot" in 1970.)
Pat
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)
wrote:
> Lots of *publicity*, very little *coverage*, there's a significant
> difference there. While the average American was quite aware that
> there was an X-15 progam - the actual day-to-day operations were terra
> incognito. The actual program was carried out far from the public
> eye. (And the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo programs were little different -
> think about the oopses and details coming out in the last decade or
> so.)
Not true. The press was on hand for every X-15 flight and around
fairly often at other times. While some of the program was
classified, operations never were.
Mary "The program began with the X-15s being dragged through the
center of town"
--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
We didn't just do weird stuff at Dryden, we wrote reports about it.
reunite....@gmail.com or mil...@qnet.com
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)
wrote:
> Reminds me of an old joke among F-4 Phantom pilots. "The Phantom is proof
> positive that, given sufficiently powerful jet engines, even a brick will
> fly." This was no slight to the airplane, but rather a reflection on its
> toughness. F-4s sustained appalling damage over North Vietnam and brought
> their crews home safe more often than not.
The F-4 represents the triumph of thrust over aerodynamics.
Mary "I love the Phantom"
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)
wrote:
> In article <g62h729c6k20i4r6s...@4ax.com>,
> Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer) <reunite....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Does anyone know what the takeoff speed would be? (I guess that's the
> >> same as asking "what's the stall+10% on an X-15 at sea level?")
> >
> >That I might be able to tell you, but it'll take a while. Someone
> >else should be quicker. Stall speed is important for any vehicle,
> >even a low-L/D one like the X-15. So is minimum control speed.
>
> Let's see here, in the "Utility Flight Manual" -- one of the later
> versions of the flight manual, helpfully reprinted in the Apogee Books
> "X-15" book -- it says that minimum speed is set by controllability, not
> lift. With gear and flaps up and lower ventral attached, for 1_G and
> 0_deg bank (i.e. no maneuvering), about 210_kt is minimum. That goes up
> to about 230_kt if you want to allow for a bit of maneuverability.
Speaking of minimum control speeds, did I ever tell you about the
uproar when someone noticed, during the CDR (Critical Design Review),
that the LASRE would slow the SR-71 down on takeoff? Someone asked if
it would put the airplane below minimum single-engine control speed
and I, being in charge of that area, said that yes, taking off
heavyweight we'd unstick below minimum control speed.
Well, you'd have thought the end of the world was at hand. Then I
pointed out that this wasn't special for LASRE, as we always came
unstuck below minimum control speed when we took off heavyweight. The
crew was _always_ springloaded to eject if they had an engine shut
down right after takeoff. Adding the LASRE meant we'd increase the
time we were below speed by a second or so.
They wouldn't believe me. I had to get one of the RSOs to stand up
and tell them I was right, which really annoyed me. There was some
talk about never letting us take off heavyweight again, but pragmatism
won.
Mary "Gracious in victory (I didn't say "I told you so.")"
Frank Scrooby
Perhaps I've missed it already but:
What would be the mission of a vertically launched or self-launched X-15?
More research data? What could the X-15 do that contemporary ballistic
missiles or sounding rockets could not?
Military? I can't see what the military utility of such beast would be -
maybe someone in the Pentagon might spec up a vertically launched X-15 armed
with one of those nuclear warhead armed air-to-air missiles meant to stop
the swarms of Russian bombers coming over the Pacific.
More records? Most Gs exerted on a pilot at take-off? Altitude?
The X-15B proposal at least has some potential, sensible military use
(global recon anywhere you want, at a higher altitude that anyone can
interfere with). The loss of the vehicle and potential danger to the pilot
(and photographic cargo) are big minuses in this design and even first
generation photo-recon satellites would out-perform the photo-recon X-15B.
So what would be the purpose, need or attraction of ground launching a X-15
(other than the 'oh that's cool factor', and the huge hole it made in the
tarmac when it lit up the engine.
Thanks and regards
Frank Scrooby
Dale
>Perhaps I've missed it already but:
>
>What would be the mission of a vertically launched or self-launched X-15?
I don't think you missed anything. People were just curious as to it's theoretical
capabilities. No particular mission in mind, unless I missed it too.
Dale
Geert Sassen
Frank Scrooby wrote:
> Hi all
>
> Perhaps I've missed it already but:
>
> What would be the mission of a vertically launched or self-launched X-15?
>
There was no particular purpose as I understand it, the original
question in this treath was 'could the X-15 make a ground launch instead
of an airlaunch'. I think the general consenses more or less is *no* or
at least not without major changes to the design.