LOHAN teases with quick flash of spaceplane
It's with a portentous drumroll and fanfare of trumpets that we reveal today the design of our Vulture 2 spaceplane - the rocket-powered vehicle at the centre of our audacious Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) ballocket mission. Click here for a bigger version of the LOHAN graphic At the end of 2011, a heavyweight …
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Oooooh Ahhhhhhh
Light up the sky with.......
A nice challenge to try to mimic using Estes kit bits and pieces!
Looks strangely familiar
Have you got a stash of issues of Eagle?
Mmmmm.....
On purely visual grounds, a Fireball XL5 style vertical stabiliser on the tip of each main wing would finish it nicely.
Re: Mmmmm.....
Yes - the drawing is missing the wingtip rudders.
Re: Mmmmm.....
Thanks, Lester - I was wondering where the vertical control surfaces were going to be (I *had* read the Bootnote, but was still going to ask much the same question as Vulch!)
Re: Re: Mmmmm.....
Yes, it looks a bit unstable without the rudders.
Nice
Pointy and barbed. What kind of warhead will it carry?
Re: Nice
In the light of recent, errmm, misdaventures, possibly something anti-shipping would be appropriate?
Aerodynamics
I think all that purple text will make it unstable........
Sorry
Re: Aerodynamics
Pardon me while I both up-vote you and boo you at the same time.
Space Shuttle?
At least it's a proven design! Then again, that thing flew like a brick and was tiled with bricks.
Testing?
Looks great.
Will you be flight testing the airframe & autopilot this time? either dropping it from a balloon or chucking it off a skyscaper / cliff should do the trick.
Rest assured....
.. that the concept design diagram you submitted will soon appear in the Iranian press as a "homebrewed Iranial rocket powered drone that will singlehandedly lead to the destruction of the enemies of the ayatollah"
Stabilisation
Will there be sufficient air pressure at the launch altitude to allow the winged surfaces to stabilise the direction of the craft?
Re: Stabilisation
The design guys are on the case. It's all about how fast the aircraft exits the launch rod...
Re: Stabilisation
Test firing at ground level in a LATTE?
Low Altitude Test of Truss Exit...
Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator
Low Orbit *Hydrogen* Assisted Navigator. My one man campaign to update the name continues... :-)
Re: Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator
It's a lonely path you're treading, but stick with it
Gerry Anderson would be proud
Please tell me it's missing a high 'T-tail' and the cockpit is going in the tail section.
Fireflash was such a great looking idea. As i child, i really couldn't understand why passenger jets a) never looked this cool b) weren't nuclear powered.
Re: Gerry Anderson would be proud
Someone did Fireflash in XPlane! Kick-ass video link and writeup follows:
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15156
The conclusion seems to be that it's a really stupid design for an aeroplane. Looks fantastic, though.
Kerbal Space Program
... would provide a fun (if not particularly informative) simulation of this design.
What's that? XPlane? Too much like hard work...
don't forget...
the "This way up", "Other side up" decals on the wings... plus the playmonaut needs a blister/window...
First thing to my mind when I saw the shape was "lawn dart"
The lawn-dart-like design does have a fairly successful historical precedent, i.e North American X-15 space plane.
says
Looks like someone has been channelling Chesley Bonestell.
Which is only right.
It looks superb.
Re: says
'Looks like someone has been channelling Chesley Bonestell.'
Or Wile E Coyote.
Re: says
I was thinking Willy Ley, myself -- but, yes, they would be proud. This is what a space-plane is SUPPOSED to look like!
Re: Re: says
I couldn't agree more. Doubles all round for the Southampton chaps.
"Rest assured, the thing will fly"
Carved on a granite marker at the launch site, it will be.
//Orville and Wilbur nod and smile, knowingly
Handley Page lives!
This all puts me in mind of the Handley Page Victor. The wing shape is similar.
Re: Handley Page lives!
Not quite the scimatar/crescent wing of the Victor but I see what you mean.
Back end similarities with Armstrong Whitworth A.W.52, General Aircraft GAL.56?
Frederick and George Miles would no doubt approve of a canard/tandem wing design
Nice 'poon. Next stop moon?
We're whalers on the Moon, we carry a harpoon. But there ain't no whales so we tell tall tales and sing our whaling tune.
Will it scale?
You know, So it prints in a single go on let's say a 7" x 7" work area. Hypothetically, of course. Oh and you wouldn't happen to have a link to such an STL file would you?
Re: Will it scale?
The links to such files, if they in fact exist, would be highly classified.
Re: Will it scale?
Alright then, I'll just have to settle for the desktop model of Vulture 1 and not a matched set. heavy sigh
Re: Re: Will it scale?
Fret ye not. We'll release all the CAD stuff when the project's wrapped.
Re: Will it scale?
You know what? You guys are half left regardless of that fella who says you're all right. Cheers!
Bah!
If this contraption is capable of planoforming it will need to be big enough to hold a couple of pinlighters and a snoozing of cats in addition to the Playmonaut or "Go Captain" to use the correct term. This will in turn require a much bigger launch truss and volume of whatever lift gas is deemed best.
I look forward to the acrimony of the cost-overrun committee meetings.
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