Aviation Geeks unite?! Anybody else care about planes here?

[publiusr]

I wonder if that would make more sense on Titan…. low gravity but still has a think atmosphere.

Combo rover wheels and airfoils

Ironically, the Enterprise shape does better at high speeds over Star Wars ships?

Hypersonic Propulsion News and Developments

LOL at SpaceNews' crappy new website design. :rolleyes: https://ai.spacewar.com/apex/r/a234249/fasterrocket/spx?p63_id_1=304605 New DOD-funded project will develop morphing hypersonic engine Illustration of scramjet hypersonic propulsion engine design by UCF, which will be used to...

www.secretprojects.co.uk

Sad

Air India flight AI171 Boeing 787-8 crash in Ahmedabad

Updates on link below. Flight AI171 included 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian Air India has said that the passengers on its flight AI171 included 169 Indiannationals, 53 British, seven Portugueseand one Canadian. In a statement on X, Air India said: Air...

www.secretprojects.co.uk

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

OK two interesting links, one in text and a fun video

No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air

Do recent explanations solve the mysteries of aerodynamic lift?

www.scientificamerican.com

And the fun video

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[publiusr]

As it turns out, flow around a simple cone becomes problematic in the hypersonic regime;

https://scitechdaily.com/mach-16-mayhem-supercomputer-uncovers-chaos-in-hypersonic-flows/

Nice RC

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[Kamen Rider Blade]

As it turns out, flow around a simple cone becomes problematic in the hypersonic regime;

https://scitechdaily.com/mach-16-mayhem-supercomputer-uncovers-chaos-in-hypersonic-flows/

So would Mach 16 be a new temporary "Speed Barrier"?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

So would Mach 16 be a new temporary "Speed Barrier"?

No idea, but what goes that fast anyway?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

No idea, but what goes that fast anyway?

Only the Space Shuttle & Rockets escaping Earth's Gravity.

Most vessels & vehicles don't travel that fast in atmosphere.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Only the Space Shuttle & Rockets escaping Earth's Gravity.

Most vessels & vehicles don't travel that fast in atmosphere.

OK didn't realise rockets travel around that fast at launch

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

OK didn't realise rockets travel around that fast at launch

Oh, those can go WAY faster.
The Space Shuttle needs to maintain Mach 22.808 or (17,500 mph) to maintain Orbital Velocity.

But the Space Shuttle isn't trying to fly consistently within Atmosphere, it's in LEO (Low Earth Orbit), well into the Vacuum of Space.

So that's a completely different problem that they are trying to solve.

Intentionally flying that fast while still in Atmosphere is a different challenge.

Remember this fun little fact:
401,280' = 76 mi = 122.310 km ~ 122 km = Space Shuttle uses Aircraft Control Surfaces instead of Steering Thrusters AKA (RCS).

So the Maximum Altitude you can fly before you basically need RCS for control of your vehicle is that hard limit.

Ignore the 100 km Karman Line or USAF's 50 mi definition of what altitude "Space is".

IMO, if your vehicle can use Aircraft Control Surfaces to steer, then you're within Atmosphere, even if it's the furthest edge of that definition.

The moment your vessel requires RCS to properly manuever, you're in the "Vacuum of Space".

IMO, that should be the new definition of what Altitude should Space officially be.

 

[publiusr]

An odd effect has been seen in fluids:

An exception to the laws of thermodynamics: Shape-recovering liquid defies textbooks

A team of researchers led by a physics graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst made the surprising discovery of what they call a "shape-recovering liquid," which defies some long-held expectations derived from the laws of thermodynamics.

phys.org

Gelled fuels: Luminal-A, Alumizin, etc

Michel Van: "One Moment Luminal-A ? was Glusko also in Alumizine propellant ?!" Right, luminal-a is soviet analog of american alumizine. Some theoretical works was conducted at OKB-456 (chief designer V. P. Glushko; today NPO "Energomash"), then conducted some static fire tests. OKB-456 has...

www.secretprojects.co.uk

I wonder if that could be used in MHDs?

 

[publiusr]

A horrible accident has occurred—here the chopper fuselage fell independently of the tail rotor?

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[Gingerbread Demon]

A horrible accident has occurred—here the chopper fuselage fell independently of the rotor blades that came down like a giant shuriken

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That happened last week, what the heck is going on with aircraft lately? is it a lack of proper care and maintenance?

 

[XCV330]

OK didn't realise rockets travel around that fast at launch

They don't. They build speed over time. At Max-Q, for instance, the highest aerodynamic pressure on its body at launch, Falcon 9 is only doing around 1000mph and is just entering the stratosphere (about the same as the Space Shuttle). Launch vehicles don't reach those high hypersonic mach numbers until they are well out of most of the earths atmosphere.

A scramjet missile needs to stay in atmo to breathe enough air to keep its engine running. They'll be built to withstand that kind of extreme heat, just like an ICMB's MIRV is (Rapid deceleration before deployment over ground target) . That whole problem of airflow at those speeds has been a problem for years. If you ever look at the old F4 Phantom 2, you'll notice those odd vertical panels between the air intakes and the fueselage: those were used to automatically slow air down going into the intakes at really high speed to keep the supersonic air from hitting the engines. Other really fast jets like Concorde had similar solutions to the problem.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

This British Indian Man is the only survivor on the Air India crash today.
1 out of 242 that survived on the Air India flight with the rest on that flight perishing on crash; not counting anybody else who was lost when the flight crashed on top of the buildings shortly after take-off.

Such a tragedy for so many families and Boeing took another hit since this is the first DreamLiner crash incident.

He must have incredible survivors guilt.

There is current Speculation of 'very rare' double engine failure
But what if Both Engines failed, the APU failed, and your Single RAT (Ram Air Turbine) failed or failed to deploy?

Maybe it would be a good idea to have more RAT's installed on your aircraft to account for this rare failure event.

Especially since the DreamLiner has the vast majority of it's systems run purely on Electrical Power instead of a Mix of Hydraulics & Electrics.

Spoiler: Real Engineering - How the Boeing 787 Works

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[Asbo Zaprudder]

Why was the landing gear still down and the flaps seemingly not extended?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Why was the landing gear still down and the flaps seemingly not extended?

Yeah it looked weird like it was trying to take off like that and then down it went a few seconds later. Technical fault, pilot error who knows

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Could be other factors as well. Pointless to speculate really.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Could be other factors as well. Pointless to speculate really.

That's true

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The RAT (ram air turbine) was reportedly deployed, so that could indicate major problems with the electrical systems.

 

[Marc]

The RAT (ram air turbine) was reportedly deployed, so that could indicate major problems with the electrical systems.

From one news reports experts have raised 3 possible causes a) double engine failure due a bird strike, b) massive systems failure or c) incorrect configuration for take off re slats an flaps.

For (a) the airport has a big problem, (b) you'd have to look at possible causes but if you lost both engines you're suddenly on batteries or needing the RAT and c) would be human error.

The gear being still down could have been a result of (a) and/or (b) taking out the hydraulics. There are alternative methods to dropping the gear in the even of hydraulic issues but not sure if there's any method to retract it. Normally if the gear won't come up the aircraft will simply circle around at a safe air speed either coming in for an overweight landing or following fuel burn or jettison.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The plane reportedly took the entire length of the 11,000+ foot runway to get in the air at all, so my suspicion is that the engines were not delivering the thrust expected. People have also commented that the flaps were only set at the most 1 (leading-edge slats) rather than 5 or 15, but the videos are too grainy to tell in my opinion (for what little that's worth). I don't know what level of deployment would be required to avoid cockpit voice warnings. The incident seems very odd, but I suspect human error rather than malicious intent. Fuel contamination has been mentioned, but why was only this plane affected if that were the case? It'll be interesting to hear the results of the investigation.