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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."
That should read 80 days, Passepartout!!
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Live Tracking
Anyone know how you can stay up for 80hours straight and still land a plane? I'm not talking about Viagra.
I don't know if that's important, but it is the first solo non-refueling JET flight.
Fellowship 9/11
I was under the impression Rutan himself achieved this many moons ago. This one would the first jet-powered craft to do it, though.
The revolution will not be televised.
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.
I hope they have a few air strips along the way that are long enough for the flyer to land successfully - you know, in case of emergency.
This sig is intentionally blank
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.
A frazzled billionare being extracted from the remnants of his mangled craft, breathlessly explaining to a throng of reporters. "It was going quite well, but the wind just picked up so suddenly we didn't have a chance. Damnable shame, ah well on to my next silly adventure/reality show"
Mr. Rutan was accompanied by Ms. Yeager.
This kind of reminds me of the world's longest cheesecake record that someone set here a little while ago. I mean, sure, it's great to have a world record, but who cares? First solo, non-stop flight around the world, without refueling. Remove any one clause, and it's already been done.
All that said, it's a big engineering challenge to build planes that can do this. Improvement in aviation technology is still a Good Thing. So good luck to him.
Acius the unfamous
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).
Or maybe I should have read the article summary a little more carefully.
That plane was so loaded with fuel on takeoff, that the rate of climb was very very slow, maybe 150 ft/minute. The wings, which were loaded with fuel would droop down and had to be supported by small wheels at the wingtips until the plane gathered enough speed for the wings to develop lift.
I wish Fosset good luck on this journey. Things will be touch and go for awhile until the fuel load has been lightened and the plane becomes responsive. A lot of things can go wrong, but hopefully improved technology will make things easier and improve his chance of success for this round the world flight.
err, well... I sortof have to take credit for the original mistake. my t key sticks sometimes. *whoops*
It got accepted, and I read through it again, then emailed the editor on duty (daddypants) before it went out to you non-subscribers... I hoped it'd be fixed in time.
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.
Don't worry... you misspelled it right
Next will be first solo flight around the world wearing a tutu while humming "Windy"... Who's walking down the streets of the city, smiling at every body she sees... yadda yadda
Then, first solo flight around the world while building a little ship inside a bottle......
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
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
The fastest jet plane in the world is still the SR71 Blackbird. It flew at Mach 3.35 or 2,275 mph (3,660 km/h). The circumference of the earth is 24,859.82 miles (40,008 km). So that means the Blackbird would do a flight around the world in 11 hours. Unfortunately it only had a range of 2,590 nm (4,800 km), so it would have to refuel at least 9 times. In a way, it's amazing that someone can build a plane that can carry enough fuel and still do the trip in less than 8x the time.
How we know is more important than what we know.
They spent all kinds of money to design and build a machine that would consume fuel for 80 hours and then be where it started from.
I propose that a more cost effective device. It would be made of baked clay. This rectangular object could be placed at any location. Not just on a runway. 80 hours later we could verify that it was it was still there.
They held up progress in aviation for almost 10 years in the US by making their plans secret and suing anybody who made planes. Their big patent fight was against Curtis Aircraft who invented ailerons, whereas the Wright's used wing-warping. During that time up till the early 20's, France took the lead in aviation, hence all the French sounding parts: fuselage, aileron, empenage, etc. Of course they contributed the most out of anyone in the old days but after the first few flyers there wasn't nearly as much innovation coming out of Wright Airplanes. The last truly succesful product they made, please correct me if I'm wrong, was the Wright Cyclone, a large radial engine used in WWII aircraft.
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
I don't know how that guy is going to stay awake, but there is a student pilot here on campus that is making the same trip in a mod for Microsoft flight sim 2004. He has a plasma screen, cool joystick, a chair, and has to stay there and simulate the entire 80 hour trip. We are going to bug the hell out of this guy to keep him awake, too bad the real global flier pilot doesn't have an entire campus to inflict jackassery upon him.
You mean you hope he doesn't fly over your house ;-)
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
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.
The little thing lost off the wingtip was not a stabilizer, but a winglet. Its only function is to modify the airflow around the wingtip in a subtle way that decreases the drag slightly, and the impact of losing it was a decrease in gas mileage.[/pedantry]
rj
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.
An F1 does not need to refule every two miles or so. F1's are some of the most efficient automobiles in the world right now. People think efficiency is about low gas milage, but it is really about wasting as little energy as possible. In a race, wasted energy corresponds to wasted time.
Think of it this way: When you're on a curvy race track, like the Monaco GP, you're constantly accelerating, trying to go as fast as you can, until you come to a turn and have to brake hard. (You want really good brakes too, so that you can stop quickly) Then you have to accelerate again. The more efficiently you convert chemical energy into forward motion, the faster you reach top speed and coast a bit before slowing down as quickly as possible.
After all, I am strangely colored.
The GlobalFlyer is actually powered by a turbofan, not a jet. These engines use a jet engine to spin a fan which produces the majority of the thrust. Air entering the cowling is divided between entering a the compressor intake and (the majority) bypasses the compressor and is blown out by the fan. A minority percentage of the thrust actually comes from the combustion gases. Turbofans are what move commercial airliners. In a true jet powered craft, all the thrust comes from combustion gases.
At the time that they landed, they thought they had enough fuel to fly most of the way across the US. I was watching the live coverage, and I remember it. It wasn't until after they drained/dipped the tanks that they realized they were running so short on fuel.
A few gallons would probably have been all that they needed to do this. At that point the thing was mostly a glider.
The Voyager flew most of the time only on the Continental IOL-200 rear engine. It's an unusual engine, so fuel flow specs aren't easily found, but the Continental O-200 from which it was derived consumes 5.5-6 gallons/hour (or 33-36 lbs/hour) at cruise. The IOL-200 is more efficient, but not enough to make a substantial difference in endurance with only 6 of fuel. That's usually over the range of 50% to 75% power, which is what aviation engines cruise at. Outside that range, they are not very efficient.
You can get some idea of Voyager's average fuel flow from:
http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/ruta nvoy.htm
They lifted off with 7,011 lbs of fuel. They landed with 48 lbs (8 gallons). Having flown 24,986 miles in just a bit over 216 hours, that's 3.6 miles per lb of fuel, or 32 lb/hour. Using those average numbers, they weren't going to get much further on 48 lbs of fuel.
Of course as you point out, they had burned off most of their gross weight. But the reduced weight would only reduce the induced drag. It wouldn't have reduced the parasitic drag. So, the increased fuel efficiency would not be as large as the difference in the gross weight. There's no way they could have kept the engine running for 3000+ miles on 8 gallons of gas.
And I can tell you from personal experience (I have a glider rating on my pilot certificate), even the highest performance glider won't cover any significant portion of the distance across the continental US in the absence of power or lift in the form of thermals or mountain waves. And the Voyager wasn't designed to fly any distance without power.
Err... Main language turn on?
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.
If it were that easy, somebody would have done it a long time ago. The problem is that adding fuel tanks adds weight, a lot of weight. Most planes a designed to carry a certain weight of cargo, including people and packages, but just adding that much weight in fuel does not get you that much more.
By using a smaller plane they can use much less fuel at a time, and they worked very hard to get the exact mixture of fuel-weight ratio. Simply adding another tank would throw off the whole equation. You have a lot more weight and while the amount of weight may go down over time as the fuel is used, you have to have a bigger engine simply to take off. Even when the extra fuel is depleted you still have the extra weight of the fuel tanks.
As I said in my other post, Popular Science wrote a great article on it.
-> Fritz
Spooooon!!!!!
Servlet v2.4 container in a single 161KB jar file ? Try Winstone
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.
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.