Why does the shuttle throttle on ascent?

Skywise wrote:
That, and now "Columbia, Houston. UHF comm check."

Got chills just typing that.



Though it all happened so fast that it didn't sink in at the time, when
reading the transcripts the spooky part is when the temperature sensors
start climbing, then failing.

Pat

Morgans wrote:
I had always heard that the fuselage tank was the source of the instability,
with it being so far behind the CG, to give it a dangerously aft CG. Today,
in peacetime, I don't suppose they would ever dream of putting that much
weight that far back, but it was war.

Comments?

I'll take that any day of the week over the Bf-109, where you're main
fuselage tank goes under the pilot's seat, or the Me-163 where you're
sitting squeezed in between two tanks of hydrogen peroxide at your sides.
Another "brilliant" move was on the Sukhoi Su-7, where a cylindrical
fuselage fuel tank has a tunnel down its inside in which the jet engine
rests, so that bullets of shrapnel piercing the rear fuselage will
penetrate the fuel tank...and then the engine...letting superheated air
enter the fuel tank.
This led to some wonderful combat shots in the 1973 Yom Kippur war and
the wars between India and Pakistan of Su-7s plunging earthwards with
everything behind the wings ablaze and spraying fire all over the place
like a flamethrower.

Pat

John wrote:


Ummm . . . a FW-190 (option: replace FW-190 with opponent on your six
. . . really close . . . perhaps still there and shooting after after
what you have just finished what you used to think was your very best
move . . . in my book that rises to the level of an emergency. At that
point getting the pilot home was goal one.

It's probably not going to help if the thing behind you has two
Junkers-Jumo 004 turbojets on it, and four MK-108 30 mm cannons pointing
toward you though. :-)

Pat

Danny Deger wrote:
Why does the shuttle throttle to 3 Gs on ascent?

You would move like hell yourself if your ass was on fire.

Bill Sullivan

"What, me worry?" - Neuman

Pat Flannery wrote in news:12q559nm7crqq10
@corp.supernews.com:



Skywise wrote:
That, and now "Columbia, Houston. UHF comm check."

Got chills just typing that.



Though it all happened so fast that it didn't sink in at the time, when
reading the transcripts the spooky part is when the temperature sensors
start climbing, then failing.

Pat

Although there was little chance of it, this was the first reentry
that I attempted to observe. If I could see it, it would have been
about 10 degrees off my northern horizon from here in the LA area.
Mountains and haze made it a long shot. But I got up anyway and had
NASA TV streaming to my computer.

I didn't see a thing so I just listened to the live feed. I wasn't
paying real close attention until I kept hearing that call for
comm check repeated. At first it didn't seem too serious. But when
I heard them ask when they expected tracking at Merritt Island
and they said "one minute ago" I got concerned. That's when I
turned on CNN.

Touchdown time came and went.

I'm thinkig, heck, maybe they had a problem and bailed out somewhere.
Maybe they had to use that new fangled escape chute thingy. Perhaps
they're in the Gulf of Mexico waiting for rescue. Or crash landed
somewhere else.

Then there was that first report of multiple trails seen over Texas
and I knew it was over, that there was no hope. That's when it really
hit me.

Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Quake "predictions": http://www.skywise711.com/quakes/EQDB/index.html
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

Dylan Smith wrote in
:

On 2007-01-07, Danny Deger wrote:

"Tony" wrote in message
ps.com...
You airn't never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3. I learned
that bit of wisdom from an air force jock. I can get lost at 150 kts.


I have never been lost in an airplane. Though, I have suffered from
temperary disorintation due to poorly designed maps :-)

I'm never lost - I'm always "here". The big question is of course where
"here" actuallyl is.

No matter where you go, there you are.

Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Quake "predictions": http://www.skywise711.com/quakes/EQDB/index.html
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

Skywise wrote:
Touchdown time came and went.

I'm thinkig, heck, maybe they had a problem and bailed out somewhere.
Maybe they had to use that new fangled escape chute thingy. Perhaps
they're in the Gulf of Mexico waiting for rescue. Or crash landed
somewhere else.

Then there was that first report of multiple trails seen over Texas
and I knew it was over, that there was no hope. That's when it really
hit me.

Brian


I of course managed to skip the launch of Challenger as by that time it
was getting old-hat, and I'd seen the other twenty-four launches.
My dad came upstairs and told me the space shuttle had exploded. I got
down those steps inside of around five seconds.
Then I skipped the landing of Columbia, as the whole mission had been
going so well.
My friend called up and told me the Columbia was missing. On went the TV
set inside of five seconds.
The topper was of course walking into the same friend's business on the
morning of September 11th, 2001 and after looking at the television set
to see some building on fire, asking him if there was a skyscraper on
fire somewhere. Just then the building collapsed.
If the Sun ever unexpectedly goes nova or WW III starts, I will of
course miss it till someone tells me or telephones me about it. :-[

Pat

Mxsmanic wrote:
No, I don't. I've never flown in combat.
Well, a lot of people have never flown in combat, but one could have deduced
from the fact that we were talking about the P-51 Mustang (a WWII fighter
plane) and the "war" part in "war emergency power" that the most likely
application of war emergency power was indeed, um, during wartime? War, as
in, combat?

I tried to reply to you personally, but the e-mail address doesn't work.


I flew a D, as well as various other prop fighters as a civilian operator.
Never flew ours with external tanks. The airplane is stable on takeoff if
flown correctly and I wouldn't anticipate any specific issues with the
external tanks except the extended run. I believe the only caution on the
external tanks was for high speed buffet above 400 mph.
We had the fuselage tank removed and only flew the Mustang using the 2 mains
at 92 gallons each.(90 usable)
If you are interested in a pilot report on what it was like to fly the D, I
did one for the Warbirdalley site some years ago at the following ;
http://www.warbirdalley.com/articles/p51pr.htm#pirep1
Hope you find the report interesting.
Dudley Henriques

Thanks for putting me on to that pilot report, that was very interesting
to read.
The overall feeling I got from it was of an aircraft that takes a lot of
effort to get fully attuned to and in sync with, but is capable of doing
outstanding things once you get enough hours in on it and understand how
it behaves.
I particularly liked your description of starting the Merlin up. :-D
You mentioned you had flown several types of prop driven fighters, what
other ones did you fly?
I once talked to a Navy pilot of a Grumman Bearcat who was very taken by
that aircraft.
About the most fascinating conversation I ever had with a pilot was
years ago after the Soviet Union had just fallen who flew a two-seater
TA-4J Skyhawk to the Minot N.D. airshow. He worked for Navy R&D and had
done three tours in Vietnam with the A-4.
His backseater was in awe of him, and like most really competent combat
pilots, he was one of the easiest-going down-to-earth guys you ever ran
into... no attitude, no mirrored sunglasses, no waxed mustache.
The reason he was there was that the Ukrainian Air Force had sent a pair
of MiG-29's on a U.S. tour, and the Navy wanted to see what they could
do aerobatically and try to get some insight into what they'd do if they
came up against a FA-18, so they had him and his inconspicuous Skyhawk
following them around the airshow circuit and observing them in action.
One thing we both noticed was the effortless way the Fulcrum could
ignite its afterburner stages; this is apparently nearly fully
automatic- the pilot merely advances the throttle, and the aircraft
senses airspeed, g forces, air density, and what type of maneuver is
going on and gives the amount of afterburner required. The MiG was going
in and out of various degrees of afterburner at several points during
even fairly simple aerobatic maneuvers.
He had been in on the abortive A-12 program, and his take on it was that
the Navy screwed over General Dynamics because it wanted to spend money
elsewhere after the end of the cold war; he described flying the
simulator and stated that he thought it was an excellent aircraft,
particularly complementing the pilot's view out of the cockpit, which he
said was truly outstanding.

Pat

Anno v. Heimburg writes:

Well, a lot of people have never flown in combat, but one could have deduced
from the fact that we were talking about the P-51 Mustang (a WWII fighter
plane) and the "war" part in "war emergency power" that the most likely
application of war emergency power was indeed, um, during wartime? War, as
in, combat?

A lot of aircraft have flown in a lot of wartime, but they didn't do
it at emergency war power. Obviously, more than just wartime is
required to justify it.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.