Which cockpit has the best visibility?

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 00:39:02 GMT, "Sid Wood"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .
On 19 Nov 2003 18:41:40 GMT, (ArtKramr) wrote:

Subject: Which cockpit has the best visibility?
I recall that -23 was
designed to be pretty good as well, although I left the program before
I saw if they could cast a bubble that big and that narrow without
distortion.


Ed, is that true? Are canopies "cast"?
For some reason I thought they were formed from sheet material.


Sorry, precision with language is usually a strong point, but I
dribbled before shooting on that one. They aren't "cast", as in poured
liquid, but they also are a bit more difficult to make than simply
pressing softened sheet in a mold.

My point was that the profile of the -23 was for a relatively narrow
faced canopy that would have required a lot of careful fabrication to
keep any semblance of optical correctness.

I will have to say that having been from the generation of flying
barndoors, driven at Mach 2 by hugely inefficient powerplants, that
the canopies of modern "teen" fighters are incredible engineering
achievements. I always get the sensation that I'm sitting above the
airplane, riding on a broomstick and unrestrained, about to fall out
into the nothingness of space. Of course I've always had a healthy
dose of acrophobia.

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 01:05:01 GMT, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

I will have to say that having been from the generation of flying
barndoors, driven at Mach 2 by hugely inefficient powerplants, that
the canopies of modern "teen" fighters are incredible engineering
achievements. I always get the sensation that I'm sitting above the
airplane, riding on a broomstick and unrestrained, about to fall out
into the nothingness of space.

I had that same feeling flying the F-16, like I was in a plexiglas
bubble zooming through the sky. (Of course, I only have the front
seat of the NT-33 to compare it to, since I rode in the backseat in
the F-104 and F-4.) When I told our test pilots about this, they all
agreed and one of them told me that there had been some accidents
involving pilots with the same illusion. Apparently, they forgot they
were dragging an airplane around behind them and hit something with
it.

Of course I've always had a healthy
dose of acrophobia.

I have a bit of acrophobia, but I've never noticed it in aircraft.
Apparently, this is common. I guess it's silly to require senseless
phobias to be consistent, though.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

Odd thing, acrophobia. I have worked on oil rigs (when I was 18 and
immortal) but have experienced airborne acrophobia twice - once in the
nose of a B25 looking for a crashed T33 - suddenly realized I was at
the wrong end of a long narrow tunnel with no parachute and a very
thin sheet of aluminum under my 225 pounds. But I stayed there anyway
because the view was superb. (We did find it. The crew had punched out
safely at about 43000 when an 11FIS F102 shot its rudder off with a
Falcon (radar!) missile. Big oops; an aircraft swap and the pilot
didn't know the bird was loaded, so he ran the systems check he was
briefed to do. System worked just fine.) The second time was in a 747.
There were only 50 or so people aboard so I was wandering around
checking it out. I was standing in door 4L, all the way back, looking
at the Rockies about 6 miles below, when I discovered I could look
straight down out the door's window due to the curvature of the
fuselage back there. About then I realized I was standing with my nose
against the door window - sans parachute. Always having had a healthy
distrust of machinery - probably from 600 hours flying the F86D, a
flying demonstration of Murphy's Law - I hastened back to my seat and
belted myself in. No 'Mary Poppins' for me!

Walt BJ