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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 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
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.
"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
Guess they couldn't wait for the news conference. Looks to be a bit east of Japan...
Why? It wasn't tax payer money. If some rich guy wants to blow his wad on something stupid like this, don't kick his ass, laugh when it fails.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
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.
... start at the pole and roll it around the world in around 30 seconds. Then you could move out from there!
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.
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
Actually, planes are pretty well protected from most lighting as you can see here: http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae568 .cfm.
It's actually reverse lightning that causes problems, though I can't find a link talking about that right now. Basically, the reverse, or positive, lightning is much more powerful (it feeds sprites and jets in the upper atmosphere) and thus can overcome conventional protection of planes.
Previously updated about every six seconds, now I am only getting refreshes every 45-60 seconds.
I read this on the website a while back, and my memory may be rough.
There may be more, but that is what I recall
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 proper definition is slightly different, and is what most other bodies recognize (specifically those certifying records for sailors). The trip must cross over 2 points on the globe that are diametrically opposed, and it must cross every meridian (longitude line). It must end at or beyond the point of departure, so in the case of an aircraft, it's normal to overfly the departing airport prior to landing, just to void any possibility of someone showing that you landed on the runway at a point prior to the point of liftoff, so you didn't really go 'all the way around'.
To be technically correct, your quick circle of the north pole will qualify, if the same flight includes a pass over the south pole, and lands back at, or beyond the point of departure.
For the purposes of this trip, FAI has bastardized the rules, but, i suspect they actually do have diametrically points on the globe in the flight plan, so that the record can be recognized by other sanctioning bodies.
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 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.
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