Slashdot Mirror
GlobalFlyer 'Round The World Solo Flight Takes Off
bryanthompson writes "The Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer took off from the Salina Municipal Airport this evening at about 6:47 CST. The Salina Airport was chosen for its central location, and the fact that it is one of the few air strips long enough for the flyer to take off successfully. The trip around the world is expected to take about 80 hours, with speeds averaging 285 mph. The craft was designed for Sir Richard Branson by Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites, who also designed SpaceShipOne." Steve Fossett is piloting the craft, intended (as reader aallan puts it), "to be the first solo non-stop flight around the world without refuelling."
With so many stagnant, marketing-centric companies out there, it is good to see some real technical innovation come about. This is what the early inventors were all about, including the Wright Brothers; doing it to see if it can be done. Though I don't doubt that there is some profit motive, the market for this can't be the only motivator.
like Scaled Composites is going to be the high-tech aerospace leader, first SpaceShipOne then this.
Maybe they will get to Mars before NASA?
All your Sybase are belong to us.
I think that the flight you are refering to was a two person flight, and they managed to go around the world, although they had some problems with fuel management. Although no one has even flown solo around the world, he thought that that would be too easy, so he decided to challange himself, and use a jet instead of a prop. I suppose this could lead to more innovation in the idea of engine efficiency, but not all that much else (not to say that efficiency is a small matter).
All of this talk has looked over one important aspect: the jet engine he is using on his aircraft. If I remember correctly, jet engines are fuel hogs, so:
A) What kind of jet is he using?
B) How is he storing all that fuel?
This post has been filtered for sanity.
I'm starting to get the impression that the editors inbox is so overflowing with crap, or their mail client is just so shite its unbelievable.
The amount of people like yourself who HAVE attempted to get things fixed is remarkable, I wonder if theres anyone that HAS managed to get a story modified/cancelled before it hits the front page?
liqbase
Even more imoportantly, how does one decide on the best "central location" for an around the world flight!
The flight plan was adjusted once more later Monday after Algeria closed a portion of its airspace, mission control director Kevin Stass said. The change, he said, would slightly reduce the overall length of the flight and save some of the 18,000 pounds of fuel aboard the single-engine jet.
It can only mean that they were going out of their way to fly over Algeria in their initial plans, but that makes even less sense.
That was my line of thinking. Even after I almost died several times. Knowing people in their 20s and 30s getting cancer or dying from weird causes helped change my mind.
Then getting epilepsy from the last time I almost died really pushed me. I can't be killed, but I can be injured.
I might get hit by a bus this afternoon and I might live another 70 years.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
I mean any long-range plane can fly "around the world" at 89 degrees latitude, if it can get there. And these guys are not flying a great circle. So clearly there is some magic latitude that counts as going around the world, and some other that doesn't.
So how do you possibly decide what it is? Is 45 degrees enough? Above a certain latitude, weather and national politics might create an issue of course. They are getting down to 15 degrees in Hawai`i so it looks "real" but how do you quantify it?
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
The plane is very light, hence very fragile. It can only handle incredibly low accelerations, turning and altitude changes without snapping appart. Also, the small jet engine is operating at the speed at which it has maximum effiency, which is not that fast. Think of it like cars: An F1 race car goes over 200 mph, but need refuling every mile or two. A VW Lupo maxes out at like 75 mph, but gets 70 MPG, or 600 miles per tank.
No, he didn't. They were practically running on fumes when they landed:
http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Explorers_ Record_Setters_and_Daredevils/rutan/EX32.htm
Rutan and Yeager completed their journey when they touched down at Edwards Air Force Base at 8:06 a.m. on December 23, 1986. The entire 24,986-mile trip had taken 9 days, 3 minutes, and 44 seconds, or a little more than 216 hours. During their trip, they had averaged around 116 miles per hour (187 kilometers per hour), and when they landed, they only had a few gallons of fuel left.
So this thing weighs 10 tons. 83% of that is fuel so 8300 kg. It has 15% extra fuel as reserve, so it will need an estimated 7000 kilograms. Fuel has a density of around .83 Kg/L so this is 8400 L of fuel. The circumference of the earth is 40,000 km leading to a fuel efficiency of 21 L/100 km.
Or... in miles per gallon it would be 26000 miles/2200 gallons = 12 miles per gallon.
Not bad at all for a 10 ton craft (initially) that flies.
In fact, it beats the hummer and many SUV's.
I have no idea how you can stay awake that long! I recall Burt Rutan and his wife tried this a few years ago and there was some heat between them, probably set on by the lack of sleep. Judgement is sacraficed under those conditions.
I've heard that Boeing wants to demonstrate the extreme long range of the new 777-200 Long Range model by doing what could be the longest flight ever by a standard jet engine airliner.
Remember, the 777-200LR can fly over 9,000 nautical miles with a standard passenger load and a slightly-reduced cargo load with extra fuel tanks; imagine stripping down a 777-200LR so you can can get the weight equivalent of the cabin fittings and cargo load in extra fuel load. Pre-cool all that Jet A fuel and this modified 777-200LR could probably travel over 13,000 nautical miles easily, though a round-the-world non-stop flight is probably out of the question.
Jet engines act as their own superchargers. So they can fly at very high altitudes. Piston engines need separate superchargers for this.
And, since jets can fly higher (and produce much more thrust) they can fly faster.
Well, this flight doesn't need to be particularly fast. So there is plenty of reason to question why the answer to the questions for this flight are different from those for the airline industry.
If you are going to use a jet, you'd want a ultra high bypass engine. This means that it both passes air through the regular jet combustion part and also pushes more air out hte back around the combustion area. That means it really acts like a turboprop.
Honestly, that engine looks too small to be a true UHP engine. But I guess it does well enough for this very light vehicle.
I know Rutan does very high tech stuff, but he sourced the engines for White Knight from surplus that was cheaply available. This plane probably also uses an engine that was "close enough" instead of purpose designed.
While I'm at it, I want to mention how silly this whole thing is. An autopilot could fly that plane around the entire world while Fossett sleeps. Technology has made this record pointless.
I say after Fossett flies around the world in this thing he gets out, they gas it up and send it off without a pilot to do another lap.
Actually, that should be qualified as 'the last operational flight by an Air Force SR-71...' due to the fact that NASA flew them until quite recently (indeed it may still be flying them).
I have been capturing the JPG stream of the cockpit image (using Beausoft WebcamWatcher). I'm up to over 5400 images so far, they are updating the JPG every six seconds, over a satellite phone (IIRC) to their website. Will be interesting to make a MOV out of the complete batch of JPGs from the cabin. Each JPG is about 11KB, 352x240 pixels. I also do see the "loss of data" every once in a while but usually only for a few minutes at a time.
Seems as if most of that technology already exists. Auto land has been around for quite a while, there are even model aircraft that can fly course, altitude and GPS waypoint profiles. What's keeping us from putting it all together?
Seems like the only time a modern aircraft needs help from a human is if there's a problem.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
This is way OT, but Homeland Insecurity once would not allow a pilot to carry a screwdriver onto HIS OWN airplane he was flying solo! I guess they didn't want him hijacking himself.
I'm wondering if you could create a flight management system that could handle the roll out, flight to a destination and successfully land with either minimal help from a human pilot or possibly none at all?
Yes.
Recent Boeing and Airbus planes are already able to auto-takeoff, auto-land, and auto-navigate en route. AFAIK, the only thing they can't do is take direction from Air Traffic Control.
I'd like to see FedEx or UPS go fully robotic, so that a few years from now, commercial passenger planes would do likewise. Computers don't drink, they don't sleep, they don't have fights with their wives, and they're not subject to intimidation by armed thugs.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I do not understand, why they are flying completely different route than they planned? They should have been flying over Europe, but they go over Africa instead. What's up?