Moving your plane without permission

[aviatoreb]

Just now, cliffy said:

Actually it is a too shallow angle that causes the skip off the atmosphere. Too steep and it burns up (IIRC)

I knew a for real rocket scientist once. Really, he really was a rocket scientist. 

...right - and both those things are bad.  And besides too steep - if your heat shields aren't pointing down, you still burn up even if not too steep.

I figure a good parachute and no problem right?

...I've known a few rocket scientists.  But most notably - recently - my SON!

In any case - rocket science - or er Brain Surgery - its not like its rocket science...  good punchline - watch it through.

 

[EricJ]

22 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Actually - come to think of it - maybe the SR71 and the Space Shuttle had parachutes because they were never spin tested.  Does anyone know how well you can recover a Space Shuttle from a spin?  I don't mean a fully developed spin - just a little spin.  I assume its normal procedures.  Modified a little.  Otherwise should be easy and obvious -   Cut power to the rocket engines.  Neutralize the yoke - opposite rudder.  Try to make sure your heat shields are still pointing at the atmosphere so you don't burn up upon re-entry.  And not too steep so you don't skip off the atmosphere like a stone skipping on a lake.  Easy.

I was thinking the parachutes on the SR-71, space shuttle, and F-4 and similar airplanes that used them would also help to prevent ground loops.    They must work because I never heard of any of those ground looping.

15 minutes ago, cliffy said:

Actually it is a too shallow angle that causes the skip off the atmosphere. Too steep and it burns up (IIRC)

I knew a for real rocket scientist once. Really, he really was a rocket scientist. 

For a very brief period of my career (<6 mos) I worked at a rocket facility helping with their radio links, for telemetry and control, range safety, etc.   Couldn't get out of there fast enough.   They had a couple complete and spectacular mission failures in the short time I was there, and both were easily preventable and anticipatable.  Now whenever I hear "rocket science" I just smirk a little.   

[aviatoreb]

24 minutes ago, EricJ said:

I was thinking the parachutes on the SR-71, space shuttle, and F-4 and similar airplanes that used them would also help to prevent ground loops.    They must work because I never heard of any of those ground looping.

For a very brief period of my career (<6 mos) I worked at a rocket facility helping with their radio links, for telemetry and control, range safety, etc.   Couldn't get out of there fast enough.   They had a couple complete and spectacular mission failures in the short time I was there, and both were easily preventable and anticipatable.  Now whenever I hear "rocket science" I just smirk a little.   

You go bwoy!

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, aviatoreb said:

You go bwoy!

Newtonian physics isn't all that hard.   Knowing that a signal shorted to ground will pass a "max noise test" on an IMU output means that that test isn't sufficient to detect signal output wires caught in the connector backshells during assembly and probably shouldn't be counted on as the only production test for that system.   The range safety link got exercised by the RSO when the rocket went hard over to one side a few seconds after launch because one axis of the IMU was shorted to ground, and had been confirmed and noted so during testing; "I'd never seen an axis output that clean before!"  It was notable that the assembly with the shorted backshell was one of the few assemblies that survived the range safety detonation in a recognizable form and was recovered, and the caught wire was apparently pretty obvious.   Otherwise they'd probably never have figured out what went wrong.

And there's this thing called "chuffing" that solid rockets did pretty commonly, apparently, where the motor can sputter back to life a few times while the remaining fuel chunks reignite and provide intermittent thrust until they're fully depleted.   If you separate the third stage from a solid-fueled second stage too soon after you detect initial loss of thrust (i.e., fuel depletion), there's a significant chance that the second stage will "chuff" and reignite and launch itself into your separated third stage/payload and destroy it.   In the failure analysis the chief rocket scientist described how that was a well-known phenomenon and that a timer could be used to delay the separation from a solid-fuel stage until the likelihood of more chuffing was low.   Really sophisticated stuff.  <sarcasm note.

Those were both very expensive missions with space/defense research payloads.

I have a ton of stories about that place from my very short time there.   It was one of the more reputable integration companies and I was hearing that this sort of thing wasn't that unusual.   I left there to go to Honeywell Air Transport and work on avionics for the B777, which was like night and day as far as engineering and test and verification methodologies went.   I liked that a lot better.  Rocket science, hoo-boy.   My experience with it was interesting.  

Clearly that doesn't represent all outfits or all contributing engineers/scientists, but it was an interesting look into what seemed to be typical in the industry at the time.  It's always been interesting to me how different industries or practice areas have different cultures when it comes to analysis or process discipline.    I like that aviation has grown up with a pretty healthy culture of discipline for training and maintenance and currency, etc.   It ain't perfect, but it's a lot better than it could be, and I like that people make an effort to keep it working properly.

 

Edited September 9, 2019 by EricJ

[M20F-1968]

 

Here are pictures of the Do Not Tow device - John Breda

Here are the p

John Breda

[EricJ]

That's not going to prevent the use of a lot of the tugs that are out there these days.   Many use this type of nose gear lift and then just strap to the nose hardware somewhere.   Some of these have a turntable that relieves turning pressure on the nose gear, and some, like this one, don't.    When they hooked this up to my airplane to take it out of the hangar I asked him to be careful since Mooneys have limits on nose gear deflection.    He just said, "They all do."     He was right.   I hate being that guy. 

 

Edited October 27, 2019 by EricJ