Canard aircraft are, in principle, more efficient than conventional aircraft.
In a conventional layout, the horizontal tail generates lift in the downward direction, to balance the center of gravity, which for stability reasons is located ahead of the lift vector of the main wing. Therefore, the main wing must generate enough lift to carry the aircraft, and enough lift to offset the downward force from the tail. This extra lift also creates extra induced drag. (Any time you create lift, you also create drag. No getting around it.)
Since the canard locates lifting surfaces at either end of the airplane, with the CG in the middle, both surfaces can generate lift in the upward direction. Less lift overall is required.
Properly designed canard aircraft are also extremely resistant to stalling. Since the canard is typically shorter in chord than the main wing, it will stall first and bring the nose of the airplane down.
Rutan has built two aircraft that have been resounding public successes (the Vari-EX homebuilt and its derivatives and the Voyager), and numerous military prototypes. Just for fun, he designed his personal aircraft (the Boomerang) to be completely asymmetrical.
The thing that I love about aero. engineering is that aircraft that are properly designed also, by virtue of the laws of nature that drive their shape, have an aesthetic sensibility to them. So, in that sense, it IS about the thing being pretty. Obviously, there's more to it than that, but there is a fundamental aesthetic to good aerodynamic design.
Rutan also has a history of extreme lateral thinking when solving aerodynamic problems. Unlike most designers, he throws the history book out the window when he builds a new airplane, and he often comes up with insightful and clever new layouts in the process.
The Pond Racer was another favorite of mine, but its engines were problematic. Unfortunately, it crashed in 1993, killing its pilot. Air racing is dangerous.
Disclaimer noted. I'm far from an expert, but I do know a thing or two about airplanes. : )
I can think of several aircraft that have used pusher propellers. I can't imagine how that would be a fatal flaw.
The engines are on the sides of the cabin on just about every light jet on Earth...and a lot of twin-engine turboprops. The fact that the props are far aft should actually decrease noise.
All-composite construction 10 years ago was really expensive. However, today, Beech (now Raytheon Aircraft) is using it on a couple of their jets. The expertise (and cost savings) of this technique were developed using the Starship, so it's unreasonable to fault the Starship alone for this "flaw". It was real Buck Rogers stuff...and now it's really cost effective.
I'd say that any aero engineer that hated the plane on first blush were either way pessimistic or didn't have any soul. The airplane was a work of art. It obviously had some serious technical hurdles to vault to get into production, but it is neither the first nor the last great design to have that problem.
Looks right, flies right. If it works for Kelly Johnson, it's good enough for me.
You didn't even make a cursory inspection of the article, did you? Neither did your bone-head mods.
The man said that this was "flight hardware". That means it's the actual vehicle that is going to do the mission.
He said he wasn't soliciting money.
It's still undergoing flight tests, but they're full-up hardware in the loop tests. Rutan is not going to make an X-Prize attempt before he's actually done it successfully more than once outside the scrutiny of the public (and the judges).
It's a PR stunt, yes...but for somebody who actually knows something about things that go up in the air (that'd be me) it's pretty fucking impressive.
It seems to me that Mr. Rutan is trying to design a multi-trick pony, though.
The design you guys are using is certainly far simpler, but it seems to me like the carrier aircraft is going to allow for a bunch of different mission profiles that perhaps your capsule won't be able to perform
I certainly wouldn't argue that one system is better than the other, just that they're designed to scratch different itches. From where I sit, it looks like you all at Armadillo are (at this point in your design evolution) aiming directly for X-Prize, while Rutan is designing something that will be more commercially viable outside the requirements for the prize.
I love Rutan's designs, but I sure would like to see you guys beat him to 60kft. : )
An orbit is just a trajectory that doesn't hit the Earth.
Well, a better way to say it is, an orbit is/defined as/ a stable trajectory that doesn't strike a large body. So, in other words, a parabolic (sub-orbital) trajectory is, by definition, not an orbit.
You are in orbit IFF you can maintain it for a long period of time. (Note that low orbits require boosters to maintain. Air resistance and tidal forces cause orbits to decay over medium to long periods of time.)
See, the problem is, 90% of men simply don't understand women. I know I sure don't. I like women...a LOT. I am interested in how they percieve the world around them. It's a worldview very different, even alien, from my own.
Now that's not to say that there aren't women who "think like" men and vice versa...but there are definite (and interesting) ways that men differ from women.
What I don't appreciate is women who sit on the sidelines criticizing the way games get made. Don't like it? Write your own. Don't expect your desires to be catered to...act to fulfill your own needs.
Now, of course, I'm sure that's a disgustingly male patriarchal viewpoint, but it's mine. And I like it.
I have had fun in real life. Real life is "ultra-realistic". Therefore, ultra-realism/IS/ fun.
I've heard the same arguments against real flight simulators. Me, I think flying an F-14 in combat, with a real RIO driving the radar and helping me look for bad guys, would be crazy lots of fun.
Jane's ATF (and its ilk) is not fun, because I don't/believe/ that I'm in the airplane. I believe I'm in some sort of bastardized idealization of the airplane, crammed into a flight model that's the same for all the 100+ aircraft "modeled" in the game.
Lots of people disagree with me. That's OK, I'm used to it.
You know, the thing is, he probably has. It's just not/better enough/. MS has been a big impediment to the state of the art, but their initial "jump start" of computing made a big impact.
So, yes, I'd say BillyG was a net productivity gain. I just wish we could get rid of his albatross ass.
I'd like to be in a "bad financial situation" where I had 6 billion dollars sitting in a bank account. That'd be cool.
Get with the program. MS paid off Apple so they wouldn't lose their nuts in a lawsuit over stealing Quicktime code. It was an out-of-court settlement, nothing more or less.
The people who laboriously set up this contraption stole NOTHING from "The Way Things Go". None of the mechanisms are the same. Honda's people may have been/INSPIRED/ by those Swiss blokes, who were undoubtedly inspired by others (like the Mousetrap game, or Rube Goldberg himself, or whoever).
Listen carefully. Using an idea is not "stealing". Commit that to memory.
Art is about the chain of inspiration, stretching back over the centuries. Any time an artist says that their ideas should not be incorporated into the next generation of art, they cease to be an artist, and they betray everything they should be holding dear. Disney is a superb example of the type.
The person was giving a piece of information that you may or may not have had. I know I was interested to find out that Flash 6 used Sorensen, and it's available for Linux.
There was no reason for you to jump halfway up his ass.
For what it's worth, I have a 48G and a Handspring Visor. I change the batteries in my Handspring about every month or so. I use rechargeable NIMH cells. I change the batteries in my 48G, like, never.
The thing I like about this emulator is that I can get all the functions I love in a package that fits easily in my pocket, so I don't have to schlep the 48. The Handspring is on my person at all times...the 48 is not.
The thing I don't like is that I can't run the emu on my Visor.
Anybody want to hire a smart new engineering graduate in, like, May? : )
From an American POV (like mine) that "artistic, intellectual" thing makes more sense.
See, we only get the "artistic, intellectual" foreign films imported into here. We produce utter crap (like "Showgirls" and "Dude, Where's My Car?") locally, and the market is saturated. So, when a movie gets imported from abroad (like Intacto, or Amelie, or even Spirited Away, all of which I loved) it's likely to fall into that "artistic, intellectual" category.
That's one reason I like "foreign" films so much...they don't insult my intelligence... and I am pretty good at reading subtitles. : )
Now, of course, Hong Kong cinema is on a totally different track. When I got a foreign film, with Jean Reno, that was also a kung-fu flick (Wasabi) my brain 'bout melted. Call me crazy, but I loved that flick.
I don't pretend to be a film (excuse me.../feeelm/) connoisseur. In order to be one of those, I'd have had to like Magnolia, which I thought was a big reeking turd of a movie. But I do know what I like, and I feel my tastes are pretty broad. Fortunately, with a little hunting around, I can scratch my "smart people movies" itch without having to buy a whole lot of discs first.
Sure wish I could have finished it. I played about 3/4 of the way through, and got stuck with a mis-set game flag in the plot. I was trapped in the spaceport of the first city you start in (don't remember the name) behind the police cordon with the on-fire guy.
I got to see the on-fire guy this time, though. That was fun.
Paying $60 for a game I couldn't finish, and couldn't get support on...well, that's what I get for buying Ion Storm products.
The tanks are all World War II era, so no M1A2 vs. T-80. Although with the A2, they'd have to come with a set of thermal night vision goggles for the M1 operator, and a blindfold for the T80 driver.
Slashdot Mirror
How do you figure?
Are you saying it's not possible to make wheels spin faster?
My car disagrees.
Yeah. What you said.
Canard aircraft are, in principle, more efficient than conventional aircraft.
In a conventional layout, the horizontal tail generates lift in the downward direction, to balance the center of gravity, which for stability reasons is located ahead of the lift vector of the main wing. Therefore, the main wing must generate enough lift to carry the aircraft, and enough lift to offset the downward force from the tail. This extra lift also creates extra induced drag. (Any time you create lift, you also create drag. No getting around it.)
Since the canard locates lifting surfaces at either end of the airplane, with the CG in the middle, both surfaces can generate lift in the upward direction. Less lift overall is required.
Properly designed canard aircraft are also extremely resistant to stalling. Since the canard is typically shorter in chord than the main wing, it will stall first and bring the nose of the airplane down.
Rutan has built two aircraft that have been resounding public successes (the Vari-EX homebuilt and its derivatives and the Voyager), and numerous military prototypes. Just for fun, he designed his personal aircraft (the Boomerang) to be completely asymmetrical.
The thing that I love about aero. engineering is that aircraft that are properly designed also, by virtue of the laws of nature that drive their shape, have an aesthetic sensibility to them. So, in that sense, it IS about the thing being pretty. Obviously, there's more to it than that, but there is a fundamental aesthetic to good aerodynamic design.
Rutan also has a history of extreme lateral thinking when solving aerodynamic problems. Unlike most designers, he throws the history book out the window when he builds a new airplane, and he often comes up with insightful and clever new layouts in the process.
The Pond Racer was another favorite of mine, but its engines were problematic. Unfortunately, it crashed in 1993, killing its pilot. Air racing is dangerous.
Wouldn't surprise me if they were photoshopping on a LESS realistic nozzle to disguise their design.
Just a thought.
Dude, that was good.
Disclaimer noted. I'm far from an expert, but I do know a thing or two about airplanes. : )
I can think of several aircraft that have used pusher propellers. I can't imagine how that would be a fatal flaw.
The engines are on the sides of the cabin on just about every light jet on Earth...and a lot of twin-engine turboprops. The fact that the props are far aft should actually decrease noise.
All-composite construction 10 years ago was really expensive. However, today, Beech (now Raytheon Aircraft) is using it on a couple of their jets. The expertise (and cost savings) of this technique were developed using the Starship, so it's unreasonable to fault the Starship alone for this "flaw". It was real Buck Rogers stuff...and now it's really cost effective.
I'd say that any aero engineer that hated the plane on first blush were either way pessimistic or didn't have any soul. The airplane was a work of art. It obviously had some serious technical hurdles to vault to get into production, but it is neither the first nor the last great design to have that problem.
Looks right, flies right. If it works for Kelly Johnson, it's good enough for me.
You didn't even make a cursory inspection of the article, did you? Neither did your bone-head mods.
The man said that this was "flight hardware". That means it's the actual vehicle that is going to do the mission.
He said he wasn't soliciting money.
It's still undergoing flight tests, but they're full-up hardware in the loop tests. Rutan is not going to make an X-Prize attempt before he's actually done it successfully more than once outside the scrutiny of the public (and the judges).
It's a PR stunt, yes...but for somebody who actually knows something about things that go up in the air (that'd be me) it's pretty fucking impressive.
It seems to me that Mr. Rutan is trying to design a multi-trick pony, though.
The design you guys are using is certainly far simpler, but it seems to me like the carrier aircraft is going to allow for a bunch of different mission profiles that perhaps your capsule won't be able to perform
I certainly wouldn't argue that one system is better than the other, just that they're designed to scratch different itches. From where I sit, it looks like you all at Armadillo are (at this point in your design evolution) aiming directly for X-Prize, while Rutan is designing something that will be more commercially viable outside the requirements for the prize.
I love Rutan's designs, but I sure would like to see you guys beat him to 60kft. : )
An orbit is just a trajectory that doesn't hit the Earth.
/defined as/ a stable trajectory that doesn't strike a large body. So, in other words, a parabolic (sub-orbital) trajectory is, by definition, not an orbit.
Well, a better way to say it is, an orbit is
You are in orbit IFF you can maintain it for a long period of time. (Note that low orbits require boosters to maintain. Air resistance and tidal forces cause orbits to decay over medium to long periods of time.)
Hold on there, skippy.
Overpriced comes from poor cost control, not poor design.
Noisy slow fuel hog comes from poor engine design and selection.
The Starship was a great design that turned into a mediocre aircraft. Burt Rutan has a long history of brilliant, successful aircraft designs.
Vote for who?
See, the problem is, 90% of men simply don't understand women. I know I sure don't. I like women...a LOT. I am interested in how they percieve the world around them. It's a worldview very different, even alien, from my own.
Now that's not to say that there aren't women who "think like" men and vice versa...but there are definite (and interesting) ways that men differ from women.
What I don't appreciate is women who sit on the sidelines criticizing the way games get made. Don't like it? Write your own. Don't expect your desires to be catered to...act to fulfill your own needs.
Now, of course, I'm sure that's a disgustingly male patriarchal viewpoint, but it's mine. And I like it.
I concur. There are certainly lots of things that are more fun that /my/ life. Which is why I can't figure out why The Sims is so popular.
I just take issue with this idea that "reality can't be fun". It's a silly axiom.
That's an absurd premise.
/IS/ fun.
/believe/ that I'm in the airplane. I believe I'm in some sort of bastardized idealization of the airplane, crammed into a flight model that's the same for all the 100+ aircraft "modeled" in the game.
I have had fun in real life.
Real life is "ultra-realistic".
Therefore, ultra-realism
I've heard the same arguments against real flight simulators. Me, I think flying an F-14 in combat, with a real RIO driving the radar and helping me look for bad guys, would be crazy lots of fun.
Jane's ATF (and its ilk) is not fun, because I don't
Lots of people disagree with me. That's OK, I'm used to it.
Yep, and the article was /wrong/. Does that surprise you?
You know, the thing is, he probably has. It's just not /better enough/. MS has been a big impediment to the state of the art, but their initial "jump start" of computing made a big impact.
So, yes, I'd say BillyG was a net productivity gain. I just wish we could get rid of his albatross ass.
I'd like to be in a "bad financial situation" where I had 6 billion dollars sitting in a bank account. That'd be cool.
Get with the program. MS paid off Apple so they wouldn't lose their nuts in a lawsuit over stealing Quicktime code. It was an out-of-court settlement, nothing more or less.
That's just stupid.
/INSPIRED/ by those Swiss blokes, who were undoubtedly inspired by others (like the Mousetrap game, or Rube Goldberg himself, or whoever).
The people who laboriously set up this contraption stole NOTHING from "The Way Things Go". None of the mechanisms are the same. Honda's people may have been
Listen carefully. Using an idea is not "stealing". Commit that to memory.
Art is about the chain of inspiration, stretching back over the centuries. Any time an artist says that their ideas should not be incorporated into the next generation of art, they cease to be an artist, and they betray everything they should be holding dear. Disney is a superb example of the type.
You're a dick.
The person was giving a piece of information that you may or may not have had. I know I was interested to find out that Flash 6 used Sorensen, and it's available for Linux.
There was no reason for you to jump halfway up his ass.
Lighten up. You'll live longer.
You mean there is only one The Cheat. It's a proper name, dude. Show some respect.
I'm going to go drink some soy sauce and fly Bubs' concession stand too.
Did you see the thing in a bag?
For what it's worth, I have a 48G and a Handspring Visor. I change the batteries in my Handspring about every month or so. I use rechargeable NIMH cells. I change the batteries in my 48G, like, never.
The thing I like about this emulator is that I can get all the functions I love in a package that fits easily in my pocket, so I don't have to schlep the 48. The Handspring is on my person at all times...the 48 is not.
The thing I don't like is that I can't run the emu on my Visor.
Anybody want to hire a smart new engineering graduate in, like, May? : )
From an American POV (like mine) that "artistic, intellectual" thing makes more sense.
See, we only get the "artistic, intellectual" foreign films imported into here. We produce utter crap (like "Showgirls" and "Dude, Where's My Car?") locally, and the market is saturated. So, when a movie gets imported from abroad (like Intacto, or Amelie, or even Spirited Away, all of which I loved) it's likely to fall into that "artistic, intellectual" category.
That's one reason I like "foreign" films so much...they don't insult my intelligence...
and I am pretty good at reading subtitles. : )
Now, of course, Hong Kong cinema is on a totally different track. When I got a foreign film, with Jean Reno, that was also a kung-fu flick (Wasabi) my brain 'bout melted. Call me crazy, but I loved that flick.
I don't pretend to be a film (excuse me.../feeelm/) connoisseur. In order to be one of those, I'd have had to like Magnolia, which I thought was a big reeking turd of a movie. But I do know what I like, and I feel my tastes are pretty broad. Fortunately, with a little hunting around, I can scratch my "smart people movies" itch without having to buy a whole lot of discs first.
Sure wish I could have finished it. I played about 3/4 of the way through, and got stuck with a mis-set game flag in the plot. I was trapped in the spaceport of the first city you start in (don't remember the name) behind the police cordon with the on-fire guy.
I got to see the on-fire guy this time, though. That was fun.
Paying $60 for a game I couldn't finish, and couldn't get support on...well, that's what I get for buying Ion Storm products.
The tanks are all World War II era, so no M1A2 vs. T-80. Although with the A2, they'd have to come with a set of thermal night vision goggles for the M1 operator, and a blindfold for the T80 driver.
That'd be cool.