QUICK ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS
July 20, 2004 - Here is a collection of answers to some of the more common Sport Pilot questions:
Gross weight = 1,320 pounds (600 kilograms)
Floatplanes = 1,430 (650 kilograms)
Maximum Full Power Speed = 120 knots (138 mph)
Stall Speed = 45 knots (52 mph) no more dual stall speeds
Fixed Prop - may be ground adjustable
Fixed Gear - amphibians allowed "repositionable" gear
Two Place - pilot and one passenger
Day VFR
Driver's License Medical Approved - however, if you have received a letter with the word "denied" from FAA, not from your doctor, you must get a one-time special issuance or FAA authorization even if you have been denied in the past, you can try again for special issuance (medicines have changed, for example) more on this as EAA continues to analyze the new rule
Owner Maintenance Approved on ELSAs - no changes - if you are operating an Amateur-Built or Standard category as an LSA, maintenance remains as it was without change
No Recertification of aircraft required or permitted (this means ultralights are converted to ELSAs; all other aircraft certification and maintenance remain the same)
Rule Effective Date = 9/1/04
This is the easy corner of the flight envelope. The spacecraft will eventually have to go Mach 2+ and handle re-entry conditions. That will be the real test. The reasons I don't have a high degree of confidence they'll pull it off are:
1) Only CFD was used for design and analysis, no wind tunnel testing. This is a cardinal sin. Orbital Sciences has been burned twice for doing this, once on the first flight of the Pegasus XL, and recently on the first flight of the X-43A.
2) The thermal protection system consists of an ablative paint over the composite structure. Such a system has never been used on a re-entry vehicle. I do not believe it will provide sufficient protection.
3) The high-drag re-entry configuration, with a potentially inaccurate aerodynamics model, could put the vehicle in a vastly different re-entry trajectory than planned. The vehicle could be subjected to thermal and aerodynamic loads far greater than anticipated.
4) There are areas of the high speed/high altitude flight envelope that you can't just bite off one piece at a time. There can be uncontrollable speed/altitude regions in the flight envelope that require careful trajectory planning to avoid. Chuck Yeager found one of these regions in the NF-104A, that lead to a near fatal loss of control.
Yes, I know what I'm talking about. I'm an aerospace engineer.
But what about the density of those clouds. Those clouds are so heavy because they're really big, but if they were any denser than the air they displace, then they'd be down here instead of up there. So you could just as easily say "Oh my God! That cubic mile of empty air up there weighs 1.127x10^10 pounds!" (yes I did calculate that)
I have a sneaking suspicion that these computers aren't going to be used as a supercomputer for long. I bet they set this up, get on the supercomputer list, and then in six months or a year farm out the computers to use in computer labs around campus. Besides, I haven't heard a compelling reason why VT *needs* a supercomputer.
So, did anyone see anything really cool? It seemed to me that most of the people getting excited don't realize that you can see Mars all the time.
It's just one of those things that people make a big fuss over just because they're statistically rare even though there isn't anything tangible that happens. Kinda like birthdays. Or baseball stats. It made for some good Hubble pictures though.
In short, the difference between the amount of energy you need to get into orbit and just into space is a factor of 25
Was there not a smooth progression of increasing capacity rockets from the V2 era of suborbital rockets up to the first orbital rockets? What would preclude the same from occuring this time?
Realistic reusable designs are usually not staged designs,
because it's hard to recover and reuse the first stages.
The shuttle first stage (SRB) is reusable. The second stage (SSME) is also reusable. Only (I realize it's a big part) the external tank is not reused in some way.
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Here's a good page of information from the Experimental Aircraft Association
QUICK ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS
July 20, 2004 - Here is a collection of answers to some of the more common Sport Pilot questions:
Gross weight = 1,320 pounds (600 kilograms)
Floatplanes = 1,430 (650 kilograms)
Maximum Full Power Speed = 120 knots (138 mph)
Stall Speed = 45 knots (52 mph) no more dual stall speeds
Fixed Prop - may be ground adjustable
Fixed Gear - amphibians allowed "repositionable" gear
Two Place - pilot and one passenger
Day VFR
Driver's License Medical Approved - however, if you have received a letter with the word "denied" from FAA, not from your doctor, you must get a one-time special issuance or FAA authorization even if you have been denied in the past, you can try again for special issuance (medicines have changed, for example) more on this as EAA continues to analyze the new rule
Owner Maintenance Approved on ELSAs - no changes - if you are operating an Amateur-Built or Standard category as an LSA, maintenance remains as it was without change
No Recertification of aircraft required or permitted (this means ultralights are converted to ELSAs; all other aircraft certification and maintenance remain the same)
Rule Effective Date = 9/1/04
But what if there are hanging chads? Is that bit a one or a zero?
You'd think that someone could have predicted this back when the Big Mac was first being hyped. I just overestimated the longevity by a month. My bad.
What about a P2P honeypot network? I'd think that would greatly increase the overall effectiveness.
Two questions are cost and how often the sensor gives false positives. If it gives too many false positives, then pilots will ignore it.
These early flights are all well and good, but:
1) They are low altitude flights
2) They are low airspeed flights
This is the easy corner of the flight envelope. The spacecraft will eventually have to go Mach 2+ and handle re-entry conditions. That will be the real test. The reasons I don't have a high degree of confidence they'll pull it off are:
1) Only CFD was used for design and analysis, no wind tunnel testing. This is a cardinal sin. Orbital Sciences has been burned twice for doing this, once on the first flight of the Pegasus XL, and recently on the first flight of the X-43A.
2) The thermal protection system consists of an ablative paint over the composite structure. Such a system has never been used on a re-entry vehicle. I do not believe it will provide sufficient protection.
3) The high-drag re-entry configuration, with a potentially inaccurate aerodynamics model, could put the vehicle in a vastly different re-entry trajectory than planned. The vehicle could be subjected to thermal and aerodynamic loads far greater than anticipated.
4) There are areas of the high speed/high altitude flight envelope that you can't just bite off one piece at a time. There can be uncontrollable speed/altitude regions in the flight envelope that require careful trajectory planning to avoid. Chuck Yeager found one of these regions in the NF-104A, that lead to a near fatal loss of control.
Yes, I know what I'm talking about. I'm an aerospace engineer.
But what about the density of those clouds. Those clouds are so heavy because they're really big, but if they were any denser than the air they displace, then they'd be down here instead of up there. So you could just as easily say "Oh my God! That cubic mile of empty air up there weighs 1.127x10^10 pounds!" (yes I did calculate that)
I have a sneaking suspicion that these computers aren't going to be used as a supercomputer for long. I bet they set this up, get on the supercomputer list, and then in six months or a year farm out the computers to use in computer labs around campus. Besides, I haven't heard a compelling reason why VT *needs* a supercomputer.
that no one is more experienced with traveling to Mars than William K. Hartmann.
What was the big deal about with Mars?
So, did anyone see anything really cool? It seemed to me that most of the people getting excited don't realize that you can see Mars all the time.
It's just one of those things that people make a big fuss over just because they're statistically rare even though there isn't anything tangible that happens. Kinda like birthdays. Or baseball stats. It made for some good Hubble pictures though.
You just need to eat some tasty tasty Lamisil cream. Mmmmm!
In short, the difference between the amount of energy you need to get into
orbit and just into space is a factor of 25
Was there not a smooth progression of increasing capacity rockets from the
V2 era of suborbital rockets up to the first orbital rockets? What would
preclude the same from occuring this time?
Realistic reusable designs are usually not staged designs, because it's hard
to recover and reuse the first stages.
The shuttle first stage (SRB) is reusable. The second stage (SSME) is also
reusable. Only (I realize it's a big part) the external tank is not reused in some
way.
DUH!