81–90 of 104 posts
I asked my dad what they did on a long (8+ hours) bombing mission in WW2 when nature calls (a subject never covered by documentaries). He said "we used empty ammo boxes". I asked what they then did with the ammo boxes. He said "extra bombs".
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How the $*^% is that possible... Are there any more details available about this, or is there just that FlightAware log? How does one ensure they have enough fuel to do this?!
https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/news/the-latest/2022/08/30/...
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Fighter jets and the B2 are by no means inherently stable, in fact they're inherently extremely unstable relative or to earlier designs. It's just that the fly by wire systems make them fly stable.
yeah, it was a typo, I meant unstable
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As you said, stable is not necessarily good. A fully developed spin is incredibly stable to the point where you might not recover from it even if you try, but it also reliably takes you into the ground with too much vertical speed.
For conventional layout aircraft, with a suitably sized tail, stable mostly means nose-heavy. Which implies constant negative lift on the tail, and corresponding excess positive lift on the wings. Which means additional induced drag. All of which adds up to an efficiency and performance penalty. And if the tail controls aren't suitably sized, then the pilots won't have enough control authority to move of of the very…
Reminds me of the cannon ball run, is there a flight equivalent?
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Entire life of the engine. After 1800 hours total operation, the engine should be overhauled: taken apart, cleaned, each part examined and replaced if necessary. Note that per FAA regulations in the USA, only actual flight time counts toward this limit, not time spent taxiing on the ground. It'll take a normal private pilot a few years to reach 1800h of operation, so it's more economical if you're not flying the plan…
Electric airplanes are already used in training in Europe. They are less expensive to operate on an hourly basis just because of fuel/energy cost. But they are probably also cheaper to overhaul; the Emrax motors in Pipistrels are relatively simple, and it would probably cost less to buy two and swap one out (sending the other one back to Emrax for a new bearings) than to do one thermal engine overhaul. And almost no…
Reminds me of the cannon ball run, is there a flight equivalent?
Honorable mention goes to the Swedes with the Saab Viggen who managed to get missile lock on the SR-71 as it cruised through a narrow corridor past their airspace. The Viggen wasn't fast enough on its own, but much like modern cannonball runs, careful planning and coordination made it possible.