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X-Wing Rocket Launches, Disintegrates
An anonymous reader writes "Remember the 21-foot X-Wing with four rocket engines? It launched yesterday from Plaster City and here's the video showing what many thought inevitable: total destruction in mid-air. From the post: "I can only say two things. The first is: absolutely amazing. And the second: poor Porkins." "
That kid really enjoying the destruction is pretty funny.
For those who'd like to do something similar but on a much smaller scale, Estes has done a number of smaller model rockets based on the Star Wars movies. A couple decent models are R2-D2 and my favorite, Vader's TIE fighter. But I would guess the most appropriate to this discussion would be the X Wing
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
/ You look like you're trying to pilot an \
\ X-Wing. May I help you? /
\ ____
\ / __ \
\ O| |O|
|| | |
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|___/
cpu0: Microsoft Clippium ("GenuineClippy" ChromedMetal-Class). Paperbinding, lockpicking, fish-hook-hack support.
....Surprised, I am not.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I, for one, welcome our X-wing-rocket-flying... oh, never mind.
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But shreds are not uncommon in high power rocketry.
I'm sure they'll learn from the failure and build another one until they get it right.
That's pretty much the whole point of the hobby. If you don't have the occasional spectacular failure, you're probably not innovating enough.
Come on baby....aw hell.
12:50 - press return.
w00t! im in ur death star, pwning ur x-wing!
I've often been amazed how bad the aerodynamics of Science Fiction are. The X wing is a pretty good example, with those huge laser weapons on the ends of the wings that guarantee flutter problems in the wings. I also find it hilarious that the leading edges of the wings are flat. Then there's the silliness of having 4 engines instead of two. The whole problem is instead of being practical, science fiction spacecraft are just there to look cool. If the rebels can't figure out a few obvious improvements like these then they deserve to be crushed like a bug by the Emperor.
..."The Farce is strong with this one."
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
As much as I loved the idea, these people were not engineers or this would never have happened. For all the jokes about "rocket science," reliable rocket design isn't that hard. The forces from the engine are known from the manufacturer, the aerodynamic forces are relatively easy to estimate, checking stability is simple (basic childhood rocketry books tell you how), the forces inside the structure aren't that hard to work out, and the material strengths can be looked up or discovered with a few tests. The point is that engineering lets one design something that just works. Sure, if one really wants to push the envelope on performance (e.g., the highest performance engines on the lightest possible structures), then it becomes necessary to do some testing, but by the time a full-scale model is done, the chances of success should be fairly high (and the risk of failure known).
With a bit of thought, pencil, paper, and a calculator (or slide rule) these folks could have built an X-Wing that really flew well again and again. But perhaps that wasn't their goal. Sometimes the goal is just to watch stuff blow up.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
the kids wearing blue in the forground is clearly rooting for it to crash, you see his left arm raise victorious before the crowd goes ohhhhhh, and he continues to cheer as pieces fall.
and, if you listen carefully at the very end of the video, the announcer proclaims, "shit" over the loudspeaker
hilarious.
I had a little ~18" x-wing solid fuel rocket. Flew pretty nice, too.
Technoli
How often do these large ships often re-enter many different atmospheres with little to no problem?
Hell, they even landed a city (Atlantis) from a non-orbit.
Whatever. I suppose with enough shields and inertia dampeners you can do almost anything.
That was lame. Even if it hadn't disintegrated early, it was on an arc that would have hit the ground in about five seconds.
Now if they'd built it as a large R/C model aircraft, it would have been cool. That's been done in a 24 inch wingspan model, so it's possible to fly that shape.
anyone who's ever built those x-wing rocket models would know this was going to happen- it is the reason they were launched last. simply because at least one of them broke apart and nearly killed someone on the ground.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The overall design of the x-wing serves one purpose: to look cool in a movie. Don't overanalyze. Accept it for what it is.
Hi,
had the same prob.
Just activate JavaScript and you will be able to see the video.
Keeping in mind it was only build from mostly wood and some aluminium, I must say it's interesting that the booster rockets haven't ripped it apart through the start, so from my point
of view I consider the construction itself as usable for further designs.
I think I can also come up with a possible solution why the construction collapsed.
The thrusters aren't to be blamed for this.
It's the X-shaped twin wing, which is the problem in here, with the increasing velocity the wind forces between the twin wings pushed them into opposite directions, resulting in an alteration of the flightvector as you can see in the video, and when it collapsed,
the wings acted like long arms which applied huge torque onto the vessels body,
and so breaking it apart.
Wedge wasn't doing any good down there anyway.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I implore you... please don't put these people in charge of Gundam.
Tautologies, they are what they are.
Ha-ha!
How long will it be until someone edits in some TIEs and shoots down the X-wing rather than it just disintegrating?
What I find amazing is that there's really a place called Plaster City.
If you've spent any time at all in this hobby each launch is a gamble - from the rocket exploding, to the parachute not deploying, to just plain loosing sight of the rocket and not finding it on it's return.
That was *very* cool and I'm sure the creators knew a catastrophic failure was a possible outcome.
Looking at the construction photos... ... the engines were not really mounted with much reinforcement. That could be a big part in the blunder :/
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/star-wars/rocketpowered-21foot-long-xwing-model-actually-flies-updated-new-pics-show-it-even-has-builtin-r2d2-305976.php
R.I.P. Porkins
Look harder. Fireballs can be pretty hard to spot sometimes.
Preferably one that can lock down stabilizer units when asked to.
Send inquiries to L. Skywalker, Endor National Hospital.
come on guys, focus on the positive... the chute worked, pity there was nothing left to save...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Yes, the multiple engines adds challenge, but it's not insurmountable.
A multiple engine rocket can fly without breaking up in the same way that an multi-engine airplane can survive an engine shutdown. The engines don't need to be perfect. Instead, the designer only needs to ensure that the center of pressure is far enough aft of the center of gravity to compensate for any expected asymmetry in thrust. Sure, if one engine is stronger than the rest or one engine fails to ignite, the rocket will fly in a long curving loop (whose radius can be estimated by the design engineer before launch), but it does not mean it will tear itself apart (unless the engineer failed to do their job).
A real engineer would make the 4-engine X-wing configuration work.
It actually flew rather gracefully for a good... er... second.
The video was incomplete. Obviously they cut the frames where the X-Wing was hit by a Tie Fighter's laser beams!
I can find no other explanation for the disintegration of the X-Wing other than the following. Lucas sensed a disturbance in "The Force". This disturbance is caused by Trademark infringement. When he sensed the disturbance, he crushed the Rebel alliance that dared to go against "The Force". .... suddenly I feel something strange grasping my neck..... Session Terminated.......
Am I the only one who is unable to view the video? I know that it is not blocked... have they removed it?
"Stay on target. Stay on target."
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
"This is not the rocket design you were looking for. Move along, nothing to see here."
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
across the Empire, im not suprised the Death Star blew up, twice!
Fun to laugh and all, but it I'm wondering if the pilot is alright. Seems his chute didn't open up all the way, he break anything?
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
They came from... Behind! *BOOM*
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
They used too much force!
*ducks and runs*
The GNOME people get usability right, Linus does not.
for the crowd that the oversized trash can went up!
Well, how's his wife holding out?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I wasn't there to see it but somehow I sensed (via video) a great disturbance as if many voices suddenly cried out.
Brilliant vid. Thanks. It was kind of poignant to see Richard Hammond while the other presenter (the one I don't like) was saying "All of our big projects end in failure" or something to that effect.
Yeah, that's probably what Porkins REALLY said...before Lucas edited the dialog to make it more kid-friendly.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Porkins: NO, I'm all ri-- AAAARRRGHHHH!!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
are now breathing a sigh of relief. Honestly, I think that this rocket is a sign of success - it flew a lot longer (probably a full 10 seconds longer) than even the most optimistic person would have thought.
I must be stupid or something, but I can't find the video. Maybe I have too many flash blockers and script blockers installed...
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
No, I'm not kidding -- nine external hosts. Who let that happen? Have they caught him yet?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
All rockets are inherently unstable without a feedback control system to move the unstable open loop poles into the left half of the s-plane. This is also true of airplanes. Providing stabilizing feedback was the most important contribution of the Wright brothers, as people had pretty much figured out how to provide the other two necessities of successful flight, lift and thrust.
It is clear from the video that this rocket fell apart because it was unstable. I suppose that it is pretty easy to strap some engines onto a structure, but to make the engines steerable and to provide sensors and a stabilizing control is much harder.
We see X-wings in atmo in the movies, but for some reason people feel compelled to ignore that and say "it's a spaceship, aerodynamics don't count" and others see this and instead of modding it down for being obviously wrong or ignoring it, they mod that crap up.
You guys call yourselves nerds? Dorks, maybe, but nerds would know x-wings can land and take off in atmospheres.
You can't take the sky from me...
Just captured the flash video for those of you who don't like flash/java:
.mov)
http://g.appleguru.org/x_wing_flight.mov
(5.7MB, H.264, AAC,
appleguru.org
It looked like it lasted maybe 3 seconds in the air, no "deploying of X-wings" going to happen that way. What I was surprised about is that the rocket motors seemed to die just about the time the ship did. For a solid fuel motor I'd have expected them to burn until they were consumed. If they only had 3-4 second burn times that ship didn't look like it was in for a flight much longer than it did. The only difference might be that it landed in pieces rather than landing whole and breaking up on impact.
Come on guys, where is the link of the edited video with a Tie Fighter shooting down the X-Wing? :)
i'm thinking the same. it seemed to be going well at the start, but then it started to drift a bit, and as soon as the wing surface wasn't nicely aligned with the movement, it quickly fell apart. if they had some good stabilizing, i think it would have made a fair chance to complete the flight. ofcourse, i know nothing about aircraft design, etc... but from what i saw, that's what happened, as soon as it didn't face straight up anymore, it got torn apart.
Hmmm - I'll rephrase: "Fucking Christ, these two things made me laugh!"
Frankly, I am God Damn Sick of you Fucking opinionated traditionalist Assholes who Bitch about special, emotion-laden words that a small subset has decided are taboo and "inappropriate" to use. Keep your Shitty opinions to yourself and your Cock-Sucking, toe-tapping bathroom partners. Don't try and Guilt people for not accepting your judgemental BullShit.
We have so many taboos in our (Western) society it is frightening. You, mister AC would be much better off worried about the killing and the raping and the extortion and torture and genocide and bombings and suicides and censorship, and isolation and intimidation that all really happen, today, on this planet. All those things that are in fact intrinsically vulgar and horrible, but have nice neat, socially-acceptable, non-taboo words that are appropriate to use in public and in front of the virgin ears of the children. If people stopped lying and hiding reality (like bad words) so much from our children they might learn to live with more openness, compassion, and honesty.
Andy has relatively favorable record with "extreme" projects. One of his more memorable recent flights was this full-stack shuttle with r/c recovery of the orbiter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQRl37aI1yk
Uncounted numbers of rockets over many centuries have flown without any sort of feedback control system. If the CG is sufficiently forward of the CP, there you go. No feedback control system necessary.
Hit a dust speck straight on at, say, 1/3 C and you'll probably tear your hull apart.
This takes me back to the original "Waterworld" novelette (Analog, March, 1994, Lee Goodloe & Jerry Oltion), where a speck of dust goes through an interstellar colony ship like a small nuke, taking most of the volatiles with it. The remaining crew finds a melted iceball orbiting a gas giant, and drops a carbon/diamond straw to suck up some juice.
Luke, help me take this mask off
I was there to see it take off too. I also took video, might be a little clearer in this vid: http://view.break.com/378238 Greg
It's oddly reminicent of one of the Pod Racers's machine in Episode 1 where the two engines break away from the pilot's section and zip off in different directions. So really they perfectly emulated a part of Star Wars, only the wrong part.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
which script set you need to enable to see this, from the dozen-plus that hit your NOSCRIPT, it's gawker.
People, please quit with the 8 million scripts running on your site.
-Styopa
14 ft tall scaled UP model of an Estes FAT BOY rocket. This one did a fine job throughout it's performance envelope, but someone misjudged the wind, so it landed on top of a van, thusly tearing a nice hole in the roof.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4d8J7N5Sts
Now when did you get a chance to come home and wifey asks you how was your drive, you can say "oh, had a rocket hit my van"?
And another one, a Goblin went rogue when it's motor mount tore loose. nice curlicues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqtNhcODfCk&mode=related&search=Polecat%20Goblin%20rocket
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
I thought this was somewhat relevent...
Originally posted at rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc back in Feb '98
Author: Eric Bycer
"Eject!" came the voice of the comm system.
"I can hold it," Porkins exclaimed. An instant later he dropped his cheesesteak. "Damn it," he muttered. "How the hell can they expect me to fly an X-wing in combat, AND eat my between meals snack at the same time? Oh, man, there's cheese all over the controls..."
A light started flashing. "What? Geez, I wish I had paid attention when people were teaching me how to fly. OK. Red light, flashing. Hmm. What could that mean? Let me pull out the manual." Porkins removed a paper from his neck (he had been using it as a bib), and turned it over.
"So there's where I put my manual. OK. Let's see here. Red flashing light. Red flashing light. Ah, here it is. 'Red flashing light means imminent explosion.' Oh, man! No time for a hot dog!"
Sealing up his spacesuit...well, trying to seal up his spacesuit...
"Shouldn't have had that last chocolate-chicken pot pie. Come on, Porkins suck it in. Almost there...almost there... Good. Sealed up. Now to eject. Where the heck is the eject button?
"What? They put the eject button under my cinnabon maker? How inconsiderate of them. I mean, how often does a pilot eject? Versus, how often does a pilot feel the need for a nice cinnabon. Mmmmm. Cinnabon.
"Damn, now I've got drool all over the inside of my helmet! OK, move the cinnabon maker out of the way and hit the eject button."
Porkins hits the eject button, and the canopy goes flying away. The seat starts to eject, but just moves a little bit. "Hey! What the hell is wrong with this damn thing! I told them *not* to get an American X-Wing. I wanted a Japanese X-wing, or at least a Volkswagon! OK, don't panic. Think about survival, and getting back to base, where they will reward with two tons of candy. Yes, think about the candy..."
In his strange state of meditation, Porkins taps into the Force and ejects himself into space. Floating above the Death Star, he pulls out a plate of pasta. "Been almost two minutes since I ate. Now *that's willpower!"
"Guys, we're going in and we're going in full throttle! That oughtta keep those fighters off our tails!"
"Damn farmboy. He's so thin he could probably pack in a whole side of beef into his X-wing. Lucky sonovabitch..."
"YEE HAW! You're all clear kid! Now let's blow this thing and go home!"
"GOD DAMN IT! That bastard made me spill my Coke all over the place. Why the hell did he have to yell like that? Now what am I going to drink while eating my frozen yogurt and waiting to be picked up?
"Wait...if he has a clear shot...and I'm floating here...and he hits the target...what will happen...when the Death Star explodes?!?"
Eric Bycer
"Oh, my souffle!"
All of that work and they could not even bother do their finite element modeling to check if the structure was sound or upto the stresses that were going to be generated by the rockets.
It reminds me of a show I once saw on tv of this guy wanting to jump a river with a rocket car. All of that work to get the sponsorship and he could not even bother check that:
- the ramp was smooth enough.
- the wind was coming from the right direction.. the car was blown back to the same bank where the ramp was.
- the wings attached to the car were actually going to stand the drag and lift of the car.
A.
EJECT! EJECT!
Oh, wait. Wrong geenky genre film.
Never mind.
Carry on.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
I saw a story about this earlier and said to myself "This thing is going to tear itself a part."
It was kind of sad to see someone's hard efforts go to pieces but very much expected. I only hope a lot of money was not invested in this.
-- Posted from my parent's basement
Almost there....
Next time they can use better materials.
VirtualWorldsHub.com - News, forums, resources
If pigs could fly......
It was pretty cool until it fell apart.
The desert launch location was very Tatoine-like (with the second sun hidden, of course). There was a bit of wind blowing off and on throughout the day, but there was never any doubt that the X-Wing launch was going to happen.
I was part of the group recruited to transfer the X-Wing from its trailer to its launch stand. The wings had to be removed to transfer the X-Wing across the launch field because the wind was gusting too strong. The launcher was given an approximate 3 degree tilt North, into the wind, to reduce launch stresses and to help ensure the craft wouldn't go toward the crowds.
It didn't work out that way. One close observer missed being crushed by the descending debris only by a few feet. There was a major FUBAR regarding proper clearing of the launch area. The RSO (Range Safety Officer) dropped the ball big time on that one (IMHO), though the ultimate responsibility resides with the NAR and/or Tripoli certified rocketry expert performing or supervising the button push. I'm not sure who that person was, though a likely assumption is that the button was pushed by the primary builder, Andy Woerner, of Polecat Aerospace.
About the X-Wing itself: Placing big motors on any rocket separated by more than a few inches is an inherently high-risk configuration. The 4 large motors on the X-Wing were about 2-3 feet apart. Even a slight start delay between the motors would have placed immense tortional stresses on the airframe. I suspect the airframe received a significant smack at ignition that seriously weakened it.
The wings were retained only by 4 bolts that looked to be less than half an inch in diameter. The bolt holes did not appear to have any special reinforcement: Everything was clearly optimized for weight. This was a one-shot flight. The craft was never intended to survive this one flight.
Notice in the video that the X-Wing arced toward the camera, downwind, when the intent was to send it upwind or vertical. Despite the wings being at the base of the craft, the large body ensured even a slight wind would push the assembly downwind. Which is why the launch occurred at the extreme far end of the launch area. Even a downwind trajectory was allowed for, though I wish the downwind range had been properly cleared.
Next, notice the relatively short burn duration, and the low airspeed at the end of the burn. Even with an ideal trajectory and a perfect burn, that X-Wing wasn't going to be rising very high.
Immediately after the landing, the engine casings, electronics, and parachute equipment were recovered from the broken craft. The rest was piled in the center of the launch area and set ablaze as the sun set. The funeral pyre was accompanied by Star Wars music playing over the PA.
Well, most of the debris was in the pyre. The campsite next to mine had a laser canon barrel sticking out of the sand. It looked like it a Bantha had had walked all over it.
Just prior to the X-Wing launch, a 1/4-scale Y-Wing was launched. It had a premature parachute deployment that removed the entire nose section. The remainder of the Y-Wing miraculously stabilized itself, then descended gracefully to a sliding belly-flop into the sand.
Soon after the X-Wing, a full-scale R2D2 was launched. It soared about 10 feet up, hten flopped onto its side and, motors blazing, drove itself into the sand. It probably heard about the Banthas and wanted to hide.
All these flights illustrate the nature of wildly experimental high-power "entertainment" rocketry:
1. One flight is all you get, and maybe not even that.
2. Don't even expect to find all the pieces afterwards.
3. Only the first one or two seconds count. That's because the disintegration you know is occurring simply hasn't become visible yet.
If you wanted to see some "real" experimental amateur rocketry, you should have seen the rocket designed, built and launched by my 12 year old nephew: It was 9 feet tall, 3" in diameter, and powered by a cluster of 4 "E" engines. He n
Reminds me of my teenage years with model rockets.
I've seen some "EnerJet disasters" before, and this one was
up there the best of them. At least the 'chutes worked!
It looks like they have enough thrust; that's sometimes hard to guage, without a CAD-style development program. If you'll look close, either the thrust is uneven, or the center of balance was off.
I'd like to see it again with changes:
1. Strengthen it length-wise. That's where the structure collapsed.
2. Replace the SRBs with ducted-fans
3. Either use a custom-built Linux system for guidance, or at least a decent R/C system.
Their design, other than the structural weakness looks reasonably flyable; even more than I thought it would. But the SRBs can be a cruel mistress; they don't shut off or throttle down no matter what.
If they could rebuild with ducted fans, a decent R/C system could use the mixing magic of these systems to actually steer it by way of the fans. For up, decrease the uppers, increase the lowers- you get the idea.
I doubt it'd be _landable_ but that's what the parachutes were for, in the first place.
These guys put a lot of work into this; a little more and a company could be crankin' them out for the entire world of Slashdotters out there.
Good start, guys!
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
If by estimate you'll allow testing, a wind tunnel works quite nicely. You can even do it yourself quite cheaply.
Put your model (or full scale X-wing) on top of a truck or van. Secure it with force gages (spring scales if you have a way of seeing them). Drive on down the road. You can now measure forces and drag. Even measure at various speeds if you don't think it's going to be linear. Yes, you are limited in speed and you have effects from the vehicle, but results can still be surprisingly good for such a silly test method.
Alternately, you can mount your model with force gages and wait for a really strong wind.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
The rebels are f*cked!
Well.. to be technical.... For atmospheric flight, the S-foils are supposed to be in the locked position.
"Hmmmm...maybe those wings were designed to look cool, but aren't actually very aerodynamic."
"Ya. I'm sure we'll have better luck with the Tie fighters."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.