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Fuel Loss May Cut Short GlobalFlyer's Journey
chris mazuc writes "Apparently the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer has lost 2,600 lbs of fuel and might be forced to abort the attempt." According to the article, "Jon Karkow from Scaled Composites was unable to say whether it was due to leakage or evaporation. "We really don't know what it is... It's more than likely a system issue, such as a fuel venting line. It's been very puzzling for us, and we saw it quite early on.".
An amount of fuel was predicted to be lost due to evaporation, but as the aircraft's tanks had not been tested at full capacity , Mission Control were unable to predict the exact amount that would be lost.
Uh .. I don't think I'm quite as eager as I once was to go up on Virgin Galactic* The Global Flyer would more appropriately be named The Bleeding Edge.
*The joint venture between Rutan's Scaled Composites and Branson's Virgin.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Aliens.
Aliens with a thirst for fuel.
air and light and time and space
Why not just land on a flying fortess and never really stop?
His plane was supposed to be loaded with 12400 hogsheads to make the 18,000 hectaire journey. Instead they used gallons.
We men all know cars still have half a tank even when on empty.
They never were going to make it around the world and they knew it! This is just a lame way to save face. Meanwhile, of all the dollars that were given to the project, only about 10% made it to the project the other 90% went to "operating costs" (ie. Someone out there has a whole lotta "mad money"!) Let's bring out the torches and form a mob!!! ;P
They saw this early on. This indicates a problem that could have been found with a couple short test flights. Surely they had test flights, I mean, I wouldn't climb aboard a flying gas tank unless the thing had undergone some degree of flight testing prior to being loaded down for the long haul.
That is about 380 gallons of gas, if you calculate avgas at 6.84 lbs/gallon.
-ted
Expect a go-nogo decision on going across the Pacific shortly after that ...
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
It was due to a defective fuel guage showing a full tankload, despite it being 2600 lbs short.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
...there's a difference between the Global Flyer and the Galactic, in that the Global Flyer is a non commercial interest. The galactic carries paying passengers - I doubt the Global Flyer will ever do such a thing, given its capacity.
Further more, the global flyer has been designed for a speed record attempt, and so must be at the bleeding edge to beat what's gone before. Sure, the Galactic would also be a record breaking craft, but it isn't going to be chasing speed records. The Global Flyer has to be the fastest machine, and therefore utilise more unproven technology than, say, the Galactic.
The article mentioned they will have to decide before departing Japaneese airspace, but you can see from the current posit, they are several uhnder miles off the coast.
If they lose 2600lbs of fuel...
F = ma
F staying the same
m is reduced by ~1.4 tonnes
a must increase?
Does it mean the reduced mass will accelerate faster with the same thrust?
(Note to moderators: I know about high school physics and stuff, this is a joke!)
"Let my takeoff-to-safe landings ratio always remain at 1:1."
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Damn Jawas!
...what kind of sense does it have to fly around the earth? Just to get into the Guinness recors-book? Come on. Wasting fuel, a pile of money, for one entry. pitiful.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
combustion...
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
They said a critical point to make a decision to abort the mission was at Japan. He just passed Japan so I guess they are going to contiue on.
If you are tired of hearing about the latest billionaire's attempt to break some record.
Less fuel = less weight = can go further.
They always screw you when you order "Full Service".
a ton or so of gas evaporating....seems a bit much? How much was in there to start anyway for them to not notice that much missing?
- I got my free iPod and a free Nintendo DS....why not
everyone is missing the point.. its not about some millionaire breaking a record...well maybe for the millionaire it is... but doing things like this opens the doors for innovation in the feild. if this works, this will give a massive ammount of data to the aviation industry to help with fuel economy on its jets. ( and lets face it, the aviation needs all the help it can get nowadays)
Good Karma, Bad Karma, doesnt matter to me... I'm still going to say whats on my mind!
When learning to fly a Cessna 150, my instructor always made me not trust the fuel gage since what it reports can safely be confirmed another way -- I'd have to look in the tanks and dip a stick in the fuel to be sure there was enough. When flying, it's a different story as you must trust your instruments.
I'd hate to get struck by lightning while flying that thing...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
I also is quite possible (more like probable) that it would be unsafe to land the aircraft with a full load of fuel. So there is no such thing as a "short test flight" with a full load of fuel as you'd either have to circle around until you burnt a lot of it or dump it.
"It's been very puzzling for us, and we saw it quite early on" Saw the leak early on? AND they still went flying over an ocean?? Thats plain irresponsible - especially if a nation's coast guard was called out to rescue the clown in dangerous seas. Putting the rescuer's life at risk for an idiot who knew he was running out of gas!
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
... start at the pole and roll it around the world in around 30 seconds. Then you could move out from there!
If he had bought the Virgin Toyota PriusFlyer hybrid drive instead of that Virgin Cadillac EscaladeFlyer, he would be fine. Maybe the waiting list was too long for Sir Richard. Now poor Steve Fossett is going to crash because he wanted the bling bling gold package... Flying gas hogs just doesn't pay!
2600 lbs, huh? sounds like a phreaking problem.
"when the sun sets on the ghetto, all the broken stuff gets cold"
Lister: Oh god, aliens? Your explanation for anything slightly peculiar is aliens, isn't it? You lose your keys, it's aliens. A picture falls off the wall, it's aliens. That time we used up a whole bog roll in a day, you thought that was aliens as well. Rimmer: Well we didn't use it all, Lister. Who did? Lister: Rimmer, aliens used our bog roll? Rimmer: Just 'cause they're aliens doesn't mean to say they don't have to visit the little boys' room. Only they probably do something weird and alienesque, like it comes out of the top of their heads or something. Lister: Well I wouldn't like to be stuck behind one in a cinema.
I don't get it.
This guy has never really been successful in any Round-The-World (RTW) flight attempts. He tried five times to do a solo-balloon flight round the world. He failed everytime. The sixth one in July, 2002 was claimed to be a successful RTW flight but many authorities disagree because he was too far south of the equator.
I guess, as long as he has his billions, he can continue to indulge in these quests until he succeeds - whether it is via a balloon or a jet-powered airplane.
Gallons in the UK are about 20% bigger.
I guess the King wanted bigger jugs.
Oh Lord, please don't let me screw up. - Alan Shepherd
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
To qualify for the record, does the airplane have to stay within a set of latitudes? What would prevent someone from just circling one of the poles?
The Virgin web site has an interesting story about Branson giving Fossett a fancy watch to aid him on the flight,
Watch to the rescue: "When speaking at a press conference the day before take-off of the emergency systems in place in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer if something were to go drastically wrong, Sir Richard Branson promptly took off his watch and gave it to his great friend Steve Fossett." But here's the rest of the story.
According to people who were there, Richard Branson walks into the press conference holding two huge and obviously heavy suitcases when the topic came up about issues regarding the timing of the flight.
Branson sighs, puts down the suitcases and glances at his wrist. "It's now a quarter to six," he says, and goes on to explain the planned timing for the next day's flight.
"Hey, that's a pretty fancy watch!" exclaims Steve Fossett, the pilot.
Branson brightens a little. "Yeah, it's not bad. Check this out" - and he shows him a time zone display not just for every time zone in the world, but for the 86 largest metropoli. He hits a few buttons and from somewhere on the watch a voice says "The time is eleven minutes to six" in a posh British accent. A few more buttons and the same voice says something in Japanese. Branson continues, "I've put in regional accents for each city". The display is unbelievably high quality and the voice is simply astounding.
Fossett is struck dumb with admiration.
"That's not all," says Branson. He pushes a few more buttons and a tiny but very hi-resolution map of central London appears on the display. "The flashing dot shows our location by satellite positioning," explains Branson. "View recede ten," Branson says, and the display changes to show the whole of Greater London.
"I need this watch!" says Fossett.
"Oh, no, it's not ready for sale yet; this is a prototype and the inventor is still working out the bugs," says Branson. "But look at this," and he proceeds to demonstrate that the watch is also a very creditable little FM radio receiver with a digital tuner, a sonar device that can measure distances up to 125 meters, a pager with thermal paper printout and most impressive of all, the capacity for voice recordings of up to 300 standard-size books," though I only have 32 of my favourites in there so far" says Sir Richard.
"I've got to have this watch!" says Fossett. "It's just what I need for my flight!"
"No, you don't understand; it's not ready."
"I'll give you whatever you want for it! I'll give up my share of the royalties for the promotional tour after the flight!"
Branson abruptly makes his decision. "OK," he says and peels off the watch, handing it to Fossett, who starts happily away, heading to the plane.
"Hey, wait a minute," Sir Richard calls after Fossett, who turns around warily. Branson points to the two suitcases he'd been trying to lug into the press conference. "Don't forget your batteries."
Detachable tanks would also have helped Voyager, but they aren't permitted by the rules; you have to land with all the airframe you took off with (fragments of winglets apparently excepted). If it weren't for this it would be possible to drop tanks, wings and engines like a staged rocket.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
At least they got balls to do something that haven't been done before.
*brrrrrrreeeeerrrrereeere* "G-D it all Hal, did you remember to put gas in it?" "You know what? I only put $5 worh in. Woaaaahhhh.."
:-M
...fuel-hungry mynocks?
Blog,Twitter
I'm skeptical about the claim of designing for one cycle (how do you withstand turbulence?) but it does explain why the team did not re-plumb the fuel lines, fill most of the tanks with a full load's weight of water (with antifreeze as required), and perform a takeoff and climb test before dumping the ballast and coming back down.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Guys, just shut up and pray for good winds so that he can make it!!!!
I'd carry out my life long dream to build a popsicle stick bridge to the moon. I'd try it every so often and get the press all excited about it. Then, of course, I'd fail and then I'd blame it on some technical problem.
That'd be great.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
"If he happens to need to jump out of the aircraft, he DOES have the GPS watch Richard Branson gave him just in case he's stranded in the middle of the Pacific somewhere"
My little site.
I could be wrong, but I thought jet fuel was basicly very pure Kerosene ?
wanted: one clever sig,apply within
Previously updated about every six seconds, now I am only getting refreshes every 45-60 seconds.
Would it have been that hard to say "Here's a tank with 1200 gallons of fuel in it. Let's make sure we put it all in the plane before it takes off"? Rather than just trusting that the little $2 gauge is right?
This kind of stuff happens all the time (i.e. the Genesis' upside-down accelerometer) and it just amazes me.
Actually, due to a design to keep the structural mass low and due to the mass of the fuel, it can't land safely with a full (or even half) load of fuel.
The plane just isn't strong enough. Making the plane stronger would make it heavier, and a heavier plane would require more fuel. Its a compromise that had to be made.
On a side note, they actually wanted to use a different turbine that was more fuel efficient but, were unable to locate one. So since the turbine they are using consumes more fuel, more compromises had to be made in the design.
With a flight like this, you have to get rid of every last once of weight possible.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
The average price was about $1.30 a gallon in 01/05.
_ publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/curren t/pdf/table15.pdf/
I would much rather buy at that price than my local price of around $1.70 a gallon. Especially if I was considering losing a few thousand pounds of it.
Here is a link to a DOE pdf of the prices.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data
Their fuel "empty" sensors are of the kind used for HP cartridges.
Jets run on Kerosene.
There isn't a commercial airliner currently flying that is rated to land with full fuel - at least without some kind of overstress inspection if it happens. They'll fly around in circles for some time burning and/or dumping fuel until they're light enough to land. There's nothing particularly odd about this issue.
But as has been noted here already, even Voyager had an issue the first time they tried full fuel - a big issue, but one that didn't prevent success.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
Anyone know where Kevin's been lately? ...
on a pay phone in New York City?
Naaaa! Can't be!
well, if the perso who designed the craft has even a tiny brain they would have made compartments for the fuel....
So why not fill one tank with fuel and fill the others with water...
This lets you test what happens at full weight AND you can dump the water before landing...
Now you may need to do this test once per tank on the plane since only one tank will actually have feul in it but it would still be cheaper than a one shot deal...after all they probably had a large number of things they needed to check in flight besides the fuel
...but the live updates say they're shifting the fuel between tanks. This may be to help with an emergency landing, OR they may have some other trick up their sleeve. The pilot was also said to be sounding upbeat, which doesn't sound like a person who is about to abandon a world record-breaking effort.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Sorry, Steve!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Looks like the GlobalFlyer is going to remain a virgin and not go all the way...
One plane, one flight, one world...
Never enough fuel.
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
My vote is this turns out to be pilot error, and he has been flying with the fan blades improperly feathered. Or running the mixture wrong for his altitude.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
...you would have noticed I'd preceded that quotation with "the global flyer has been designed for a speed record attempt".
I think it was fairly obvious I was referring to my previous comment, but then again, this is Slashdot, so everyone likes scoring cheap points off everyone else...
So, global flyer has "lost" about 15% of its fuel load. (~ 2600/18500)
But, didn't they plan on carrying about 15% EXTRA fuel than was strictly needed, just in case?
How convienient.
They wouldn't be trying to stage a dramatic finish, coasting to the airfield running on fumes?
Or perhaps I just shouldn't post on slashdot when I'm tierd and more cynical than usual(!)
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
Extra fuel is not a problem for landing - you just dump it overboard at 10,000 feet before you descend to land. This is standard operating procedure on the boeing 747 - it isn't certified to land at a full fuel+passenger/cargo load (landing gear will collapse) so once it takes off it has to get rid of fuel before it lands again one way or another. So if some dude has a heart attack right after takeoff, they will climb the airplane up and dump the fuel before landing again (they have to be at a certain height to ensure that all the fuel evaporates on its way down and distributes evenly far from populated areas).
I'm watching this live as Fossett is still quite a ways north west of Hawaii. Look at the map and it is clear that Hawaii is a long ways off course. Fossett would want to stay probably 500 miles north of Hawaii on a great circle route to Kansas. They haven't said anything yet about whether he will abort, but if so he will have to change course to the south.
Round the world flight non-stop was done already way back in 1986, this is just "round the world solo". Next it will be "round the world solo by a woman", "youngest round the world solo" etc. etc.
No worries, just knock it into neutral and coast. It's all downhill from there.
I won't cite specific posts, but there have been several posters who were incredulous at the idea that the plane couldn't land immediately after takoff.
I've got big news for everyone. In 'real planes' (big twins and up) there is always a differece in Max Take-Off Weight (MTOW) and MLW (Max Landing Weight). That rights right folks: when a planes full-up, if it landed right after take-off, structural limits would be exceeded. They plane may not break catastrophically, but it would require quite a few inspection hours to be sure nothing was damaged.
This weight delta is frequently so large (think, 4~12,000 lbs, or more) that for short hops, the plane can't take-off at MTOW -- the full burn is less than the amount required to get below MLW. In this case, MTOW cannot be achieved.
-- Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
Um. I just got to see two frames before "loss of data" and those two frames really looked like "water approaching" and "under water". I sure hope it's transmission trouble and that the pilot is OK...
search for: Gimli Glider
Amazing story.
Units can kill.
-- Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
climate should be climb out
http://michaelsmith.id.au
No wait, that's just the VAGF web site.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."--Feynman
Considering my education and that I have worked for a couple of aerospace companies and for NASA/JPL, and that I have been a licensed pilot for two thirds of my life, I'd say that I, random Joe Slashdot Reader know a good bit about the subject.
OTOH, indeed he does know what he's doing, he's building radical craft and flying them. What most readers don't seem to realize is that anomalous behavior does not imply a CRASH!
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
They're hosting the site and video and can't come close to keeping up with demand.
No one had ever flown a Saturn Five with a full crew before someone did it.
No one had ever flown the Lunar Module in a vacuum at 1/6 G before someone did it.
No one had ever flown across the Atlantic until someone did it. And when he did it, he took off with more fuel than that airplane had ever carried before.
Notice that none of these record setting, adventurous people are your everyday pampered consumers smothered in the over protective blankets of civil litigation. They are willing and able to take measured risks and do it successfully.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
So what happened to the fuel? The only mention on the Global Flyer page is the note "fuel readings indicated that the aircraft had lost a significant amount of fuel shortly after take-off". Were the readings wrong? Did they really add a ton of excess fuel to the original amount? Was there something wrong withthe plane? Did he get a favorable wind? Was it all a publicity stunt? What?
This illustrates one of my complaints with the media, its obsession with sensationalism. "OhMyGodThePlanesGonnaCrashAndHesGonnaDIE!!" appears on newspaper headlines worldwide, yet when the plane doesn't, in fact, crash and the pilot doesn't die, the news is ignored. If the news media, or Virgin Atlantic, makes a prediction and are wrong, I'd like to know why.
Why did they think the plane was short of fuel? Does Virgin Atlantic not know how to measure fuel? I'd think that is something that passengers flying their planes should know. Did the media sensationalize an insignificant measurement uncertainty? Their readers should know that, too.
Instead, we get total silence on the matter. I have no idea why misleading informatin was being reported worldwide, and it looks like I'll never know.