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Fuel Loss May Cut Short GlobalFlyer's Journey

Posted by timothy on from the knock-on-wood dept.

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.".

3 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. Rigorous Testing? by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "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.

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. Re:Bit of a difference... by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The Global Flyer has to be the fastest machine, and therefore utilise more unproven technology than, say, the Galactic.

    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.

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  3. Re:Bit of a difference... by einhverfr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

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    LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP