20% is really steep...
Sigmund Skjelnes
someone says the descent angle was 20%; the shuttle falls 1 ft as it
flies 5 ft. forward. I discovered some days ago that this is *really*
steep! I and a friend was doing some lumbering, and we worked upon an
hill. The 'road' uphill was really steep, and I estimated it to bee
about an 20%. At first I decided to back the tractor uphill, and it
went OK, but on the next loads I tried to drive up (push the envelope..)
and it went OK too. When uphill, I winched in 5 logs and drove downhil
again. Bet on I drove slowly, and used the low gear! Its an steel sheet
on the rear of the tractor, which the winch are mounted on, as the logs
can bump into.
I have the fully respect for the Shuttle pilots, they have an very
difficult task, and only one try to land the Shuttle. Good luck to
everyone!
*******************************************************************
* Sigmund Skjelnes, Varaldsoey, Norway. *
* e-mail: skje...@vestnett.no (NOTE new adress) *
* (sigmund....@thcave.bbs.no is available until end of month)*
* Farming, logging, sawmill, electronics, computing, astronomy....*
*******************************************************************
William T. Overton
> someone says the descent angle was 20%; the shuttle falls 1 ft as it
> flies 5 ft. forward.
Actually, it's worse! It's not 20%, it's 20 degrees! Which a quickie
calculation tells me is 1 foot down for every 2.75 feet forward! Yes,
that my friends is steep. Speaking as someone lucky enough to have had a
chance to ride in the STA (Shuttle Training Aircraft), and lucky enought
to have flown the VMS (Vertical Motion Simulator at NASA/Ames), I can tell
you that it is quite steep. I can best describe the situation as being
similar to when you ride up the big hill on a roller coaster, then your
nose over, and Whoa!!!!!! Pretty great ride, though. B)
> I have the fully respect for the Shuttle pilots, they have an very
> difficult task, and only one try to land the Shuttle
Agreed.
WTO
---
William T. Overton
ove...@l14h13.jsc.nasa.gov (Primary)
ove...@pat.mdc.com (Secondary)
Christopher Story
No kidding. I found an image (forget where) taken from
the front office of either the Shuttle or the
STA when landing at Edwards. The picture is
taken just as the vehicle rolls onto final, and
to make it really cool, it has the HUD superimposed
on the image. The HUD reads, lessee.... an
altitude of just over 9500', an indicated
airspeed of about 303 kts, and, from
my estimation, about 5 miles to fly
to the runway. Sheesh!
I currently have this image as my workstation wallpaper.
When I get bored or frustrated, I switch off all my
windows and pretend I'm a Shuttle Commander winging
my way down to Edwards.
--------------------
Chris Story
email : cst...@bnr.ca
Disclaimer : Just my opinions
Taylor, Peter M.
steep descent angle was very noticable. Definately not your typical commercial airline flight.
Tons of fun!
John Callender
the shuttle in person. One piece of advice for anyone living in southern
California who's never seen this: GO! Opportunities don't come too often now
that KSC is the main landing site, apparently. Thank goodness for those
thunderstorms in Florida. :)
On the steep-descent thing, it was really weird seeing the shuttle come in. (I
realize this isn't news to most of those here; apologies in advance for
wasting bandwidth.) I was in the hillside viewing area off Rosamond Blvd., and
when we heard the booms it was just a few seconds until I saw some people with
their arms in the air, and following their lead I was able to spot the shuttle
WAY overhead. It looked like a 747 (with a black underbelly and stubby wings,
though, natch) cruising by at about 40,000 feet; it was pretty much straight
overhead. And here's the weird thing, that you can't really get from watching
CNN coverage of landings, because you can't really tell where the camera is
pointing: you're looking way up over your head, and thinking, "Sheesh. That
thing isn't landing HERE, it's going to end up in Las Vegas or somewhere." And
then it does a roll to the left, and another roll to the left, so it's
pointing right back at you, and bam, 30 seconds later it's on the ground.
That really must be a wild ride. I envy you folks who have taken it.
In the wake of this trip, I'm now hot and heavy to get a good shuttle
simulator for Windows. Does anyone know of such a thing? I've spent lots (too
many) hours flying older versions of MS Flight Simulator; does the new one
have anything shuttle-esque? Or are there separate programs that give a decent
shuttle experience? I suppose I could do what NASA does, and simulate a
shuttle landing by taking MS Flight Sim's learjet up to 45,000 ft and putting
the engines in reverse, though actually I can't recall now if the program has
a "reverse engines" option. Hmmm.
--
John Callender
j...@cyberverse.com
Chris Story
In article <jcall.1....@primenet.com>, jc...@primenet.com (John Callender) writes:
[snip]
|> In the wake of this trip, I'm now hot and heavy to get a good shuttle
|> simulator for Windows. Does anyone know of such a thing? I've spent lots (too
|> many) hours flying older versions of MS Flight Simulator; does the new one
|> have anything shuttle-esque? Or are there separate programs that give a decent
|> shuttle experience? I suppose I could do what NASA does, and simulate a
|> shuttle landing by taking MS Flight Sim's learjet up to 45,000 ft and putting
|> the engines in reverse, though actually I can't recall now if the program has
|> a "reverse engines" option. Hmmm.
|>
|> --
|> John Callender
|> j...@cyberverse.com
There is a shuttle simulator available now. It's called
SALS (Shuttle Approach and Landing Simulator). I've played
the demo version of it, which was included as a cover
disk on one of last month's computer game magazines.
The demo looked pretty spiffy, but what I really liked
was the extensive digitized voices which, near as I could
tell, were exactly accurate, right down to the
final altitude/speed calls to touchdown. Worked on
my AdLib too!.
SALS Order Dept.
Binary Star Ltd.
Box 580568
Houston TX 77058
The price includes shipping & handling, and no extra charge is levied for
shipment to Canada.
Quoted price is $25.00 US.
You can also contact Binary Star directly at : '71055...@compuserve.com'
-------------------------
Robert Horvatich
>
> In the wake of this trip, I'm now hot and heavy to get a good shuttle
> simulator for Windows. Does anyone know of such a thing?
When I was in Houston, I did the NASA thing. They had available in
the gift shop flight simulator programs of the shuttle. They had a
couple mock up stations there running the landing sequence. Wanna
talk about sluggish. Neither me nor my brother could land the thing.
I put it in the swamp short of the strip. He landed it with a vertical
descent of something like 40 fps. OUCH!
Not exactly a performance jet fighter. Challenging none the less.
email: |"You can't take life too seriously,
rho...@tbd161.tbd.ford.com | you don't get out alive." Bugs Bunny
Mike Jensen
: >
: > In the wake of this trip, I'm now hot and heavy to get a good shuttle
: > simulator for Windows. Does anyone know of such a thing?
: When I was in Houston, I did the NASA thing. They had available in
: the gift shop flight simulator programs of the shuttle. They had a
: couple mock up stations there running the landing sequence. Wanna
: talk about sluggish. Neither me nor my brother could land the thing.
: I put it in the swamp short of the strip. He landed it with a vertical
: descent of something like 40 fps. OUCH!
: Not exactly a performance jet fighter. Challenging none the less.
FYI, the simulators at "Space Center Houston" are not highly realistic
of the flight characteristics of the vehicle. The "Real" simulators
(and hence the real vehicle) handle quite differently.. (actually a
lot more responsive than you would imagine..) I havn't tried that
SALS program yet, but I've heard plenty of people like it.
Mike
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have made this letter longer that usual, because I lack the time to
make it shorter. -- Blaise Pascal
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mje...@cpe.valpo.edu / mje...@gp803.jsc.nasa.gov