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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
Sure, sure, but they didn't test at full capacity? Cripes, that has nothing to do with bleeding edge engineering, that's just being in too damn big a hurry. I think quite a lot of /. readers are familiar with the phrase, "You can have it done right, or have it done right now, take your pick."
That they went for "right now" suggests there's been corners cut and we're on the verge of (what May 15th?) NASA restarting the shuttle program after much soul searching. What a fine example this [globale flyer] team has set.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I thought about this two and I decided that there was a simple reason---
Taking off fully loaded was supposed to be the most dangerous part of the flight. How easy would it be to land with that much fuel? Is that something that should be tested? Or saved for an emergency?
I doubt that the airplane was designed to easily land when fully loaded without emergency measures in place
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
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.
Previously updated about every six seconds, now I am only getting refreshes every 45-60 seconds.
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.