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#1
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Here's a question for the trolls and flight simmers
I know we beat on you guys a lot here but here is a serious question for you to explore. scenario: you are flying along on a bright sunny day with no cloud cover. your wingspan is about 20 ft, fuselage length 14ft and tailplane about 8ft span. your altitude is 4,500ft. you look down below you in the exact opposite direction to the sun. what do you see below you scooting along the ground below you? is it a sharply defined shadow of your aircraft? a fuzzy indistinct shadow of your aeroplane? or what? it is quite distinct and you can pick it from nearly a mile away. .....now pilots dont tell them. these guys are actually quite intelligent but not in' hands on' aviation matters. they should be able to work this out. John Gribbin's book 'Science - A History' contains a neat explanation in the discussion of Fresnel's model of light on p408. Stealth Pilot |
#2
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Here's a question for the trolls and flight simmers
"Stealth Pilot" wrote in message
... I know we beat on you guys a lot here but here is a serious question for you to explore. scenario: you are flying along on a bright sunny day with no cloud cover. your wingspan is about 20 ft, fuselage length 14ft and tailplane about 8ft span. your altitude is 4,500ft. you look down below you in the exact opposite direction to the sun. what do you see below you scooting along the ground below you? is it a sharply defined shadow of your aircraft? a fuzzy indistinct shadow of your aeroplane? or what? it is quite distinct and you can pick it from nearly a mile away. ....now pilots dont tell them. these guys are actually quite intelligent but not in' hands on' aviation matters. they should be able to work this out. In the grand scheme of "hands on aviation matters", how many beans are in this hill? |
#3
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Here's a question for the trolls and flight simmers
On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:43:21 GMT, "Mike" wrote:
"Stealth Pilot" wrote in message .. . I know we beat on you guys a lot here but here is a serious question for you to explore. scenario: you are flying along on a bright sunny day with no cloud cover. your wingspan is about 20 ft, fuselage length 14ft and tailplane about 8ft span. your altitude is 4,500ft. you look down below you in the exact opposite direction to the sun. what do you see below you scooting along the ground below you? is it a sharply defined shadow of your aircraft? a fuzzy indistinct shadow of your aeroplane? or what? it is quite distinct and you can pick it from nearly a mile away. ....now pilots dont tell them. these guys are actually quite intelligent but not in' hands on' aviation matters. they should be able to work this out. In the grand scheme of "hands on aviation matters", how many beans are in this hill? I notice that there are no attempts at an answer. |
#4
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Here's a question for the trolls and flight simmers
Stealth Pilot wrote:
On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:43:21 GMT, "Mike" wrote: "Stealth Pilot" wrote in message . .. I know we beat on you guys a lot here but here is a serious question for you to explore. scenario: you are flying along on a bright sunny day with no cloud cover. your wingspan is about 20 ft, fuselage length 14ft and tailplane about 8ft span. your altitude is 4,500ft. you look down below you in the exact opposite direction to the sun. what do you see below you scooting along the ground below you? is it a sharply defined shadow of your aircraft? a fuzzy indistinct shadow of your aeroplane? or what? it is quite distinct and you can pick it from nearly a mile away. ....now pilots dont tell them. these guys are actually quite intelligent but not in' hands on' aviation matters. they should be able to work this out. In the grand scheme of "hands on aviation matters", how many beans are in this hill? I notice that there are no attempts at an answer. Well, you directed the question to flight simmers and trolls. If you want to open it up to non-pilot lurkers, I'll take a guess. Assuming you will reveal the correct answer and explain it. -- Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently. |
#5
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Here's a question for the trolls and flight simmers
glory be, what can the answer be?
On Jun 25, 10:46 am, alexy wrote: Stealth Pilot wrote: On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:43:21 GMT, "Mike" wrote: "Stealth Pilot" wrote in message . .. I know we beat on you guys a lot here but here is a serious question for you to explore. scenario: you are flying along on a bright sunny day with no cloud cover. your wingspan is about 20 ft, fuselage length 14ft and tailplane about 8ft span. your altitude is 4,500ft. you look down below you in the exact opposite direction to the sun. what do you see below you scooting along the ground below you? is it a sharply defined shadow of your aircraft? a fuzzy indistinct shadow of your aeroplane? or what? it is quite distinct and you can pick it from nearly a mile away. ....now pilots dont tell them. these guys are actually quite intelligent but not in' hands on' aviation matters. they should be able to work this out. In the grand scheme of "hands on aviation matters", how many beans are in this hill? I notice that there are no attempts at an answer. Well, you directed the question to flight simmers and trolls. If you want to open it up to non-pilot lurkers, I'll take a guess. Assuming you will reveal the correct answer and explain it. -- Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently. |
#6
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Here's a question for the trolls and flight simmers
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#7
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Here's a question for the trolls and flight simmers
On Jun 19, 8:49 am, Stealth Pilot
wrote: I know we beat on you guys a lot here but here is a serious question for you to explore. scenario: you are flying along on a bright sunny day with no cloud cover. your wingspan is about 20 ft, fuselage length 14ft and tailplane about 8ft span. your altitude is 4,500ft. you look down below you in the exact opposite direction to the sun. what do you see below you scooting along the ground below you? is it a sharply defined shadow of your aircraft? a fuzzy indistinct shadow of your aeroplane? or what? it is quite distinct and you can pick it from nearly a mile away. ....now pilots dont tell them. these guys are actually quite intelligent but not in' hands on' aviation matters. they should be able to work this out. John Gribbin's book 'Science - A History' contains a neat explanation in the discussion of Fresnel's model of light on p408. Stealth Pilot Is this a test, or are you curious what the sim does? :/ In real life, you will see a vague outline of the plane, but it will be pretty fuzzy in general. In the present sim I use, "FSX" the shadow is always sharp.. They don't have that "fuzzy" technology down yet.. I have pictures of both real shadows, and can easily fire up the sim for it's version if needed. Dunno about 4500 ft though.. I'm not sure if he was quite that high in the best examples I have, which were taken from a Piper Cub.. The sim has the same Cub, so it would be easy to compare real to sim, using the same exact aircraft. But I can tell you right now, the real version is going to be a lot fuzzier than the sim. |
#8
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Here's a question for the trolls and flight simmers
On Jun 25, 4:32 pm, wrote:
On Jun 19, 8:49 am, Stealth Pilot wrote: I know we beat on you guys a lot here but here is a serious question for you to explore. scenario: you are flying along on a bright sunny day with no cloud cover. your wingspan is about 20 ft, fuselage length 14ft and tailplane about 8ft span. your altitude is 4,500ft. you look down below you in the exact opposite direction to the sun. what do you see below you scooting along the ground below you? is it a sharply defined shadow of your aircraft? a fuzzy indistinct shadow of your aeroplane? or what? it is quite distinct and you can pick it from nearly a mile away. ....now pilots dont tell them. these guys are actually quite intelligent but not in' hands on' aviation matters. they should be able to work this out. John Gribbin's book 'Science - A History' contains a neat explanation in the discussion of Fresnel's model of light on p408. Stealth Pilot Is this a test, or are you curious what the sim does? :/ In real life, you will see a vague outline of the plane, but it will be pretty fuzzy in general. In the present sim I use, "FSX" the shadow is always sharp.. They don't have that "fuzzy" technology down yet.. I have pictures of both real shadows, and can easily fire up the sim for it's version if needed. Dunno about 4500 ft though.. I'm not sure if he was quite that high in the best examples I have, which were taken from a Piper Cub.. The sim has the same Cub, so it would be easy to compare real to sim, using the same exact aircraft. But I can tell you right now, the real version is going to be a lot fuzzier than the sim. look up 'glory' in an aviation context. |
#9
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Here's a question for the trolls and flight simmers
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#10
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Here's a question for the trolls and flight simmers
On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:05:19 -0400, alexy wrote:
wrote: Well, you directed the question to flight simmers and trolls. If you want to open it up to non-pilot lurkers, I'll take a guess. Assuming you will reveal the correct answer and explain it. glory be, what can the answer be? My guess is that since the plane will subtend a much smaller angle than the sun, there would be no noticeable shadow. My guess is a "halo" around where the shadow would be, caused by diffraction, Since most of the edges tend to be inline with the plane's axis or perpendicular to it, it seems that this halo might be somewhat brighter on those two axes, but I wonder if that would be noticeable. The halo might have a slightly bluish cast, since the red end of the spectrum would get diffracted more, and being over a larger area would be not as bright. So, what's the real answer? sitting on the ground with the sun about 93 million miles away the aircraft casts a sharp shadow on the ground. at 500ft altitude the aircraft is 500ft closer to the sun than the previous 93 million miles, which is next to no change at all, so there will be very little change to the shadow you'd think. but there is. at 500ft the aircraft shadow is a very indistinct blur surrounded by a halo of bright light. at 4,500ft (the original question) the aircraft has no shadow at all but at the sub solar point (were you'd think the shadow should be) there is a distinct bright area tracking along under the aircraft. for thirty years this quietly puzzled me. it is a fact that aircraft at altitude have no shadow. below them tracking along the ground is a bright spot of light. the reference I gave gives details of some original work by Fresnel which proposed that light passing beside a gravitational mass should be bent slightly by the mass and behind the body there should be a bright spot. this seems to me to be the explanation for the absense of the shadow. the mass of the aircraft acts as a gravitational lens and this causes the bright spot. the reason I asked the question was to point out that simulators work on a simplified model of the reality that real pilots are exposed to. people like mxsmanic seem utterly oblivious to the fact that their exposure to the simulator will never give them competent knowledge because all they are exposed to is a simplified model of reality. it is only exposure to the actual reality that will allow you to achieve competent knowledge. if simulators dont get something as simple as the aircraft's shadow right can you trust that anything else they show you is right? Stealth Pilot |
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