Airplane Porn (and the occasional helicopter)

[paradime]

Quote

 

No human had to trust it, it's an unmanned aircraft, top speed is 233mph, it has a 200 foot wingspan, it's a spy plane.

Sorry, didn't mean to suggest it was a manned plane Wayno. 233 mph is it's cruising speed at altitude, NOT at sea level like I said. The reason it has a whisper thin 200 foot wingspan is so it can generate enough lift in the thin air at 67K. Look at pictures of it flying near ground and you'll see the wings bending upwards dramatically. Up to 20 ft higher at the wingtip. At altitude, it's wings are straight as an arrow because it's generating enough speed to flatten them out. If you look at the outer portion of the wing you can see the shape has almost no curve in the surface. This gives it close to a 50 50 flow rate over the top and bottom. With equal force top and bottom the wings will flatten out at speed. Try and push it to 233 at sea level though and it would flap itself apart. This is known as aeroelastic instability which is a byproduct of high aspect ratio configuration like the Condor.

 

 

 

Next trivia question:

 

What is the highest altitude a prop driven spy plain has flown and what plane is it?

[red13]

Sorry, didn't mean to suggest it was a manned stunt plane Wayno. 233 mph is it's cruising speed at altitude, NOT at sea level like I said. The reason it has a whisper thin 200 foot wingspan is so it can generate enough lift in the thin air at 67K. Look at pictures of it flying near ground and you'll see the wings bending upwards dramatically. Up to 20 ft higher at the wingtip. At altitude, it's wings are straight as an arrow because it's generating enough speed to flatten them out. Try and push it to 233 at sea level and it would flap itself apart. This is known as aeroelastic instability which is a byproduct of high aspect ratio configuration like the Condor.

 

 

 

Next trivia question:

 

What is the highest altitude a prop driven spy plain has flown and what plane is it?

my school that i went to for my a and p licence had one of these nacelles.  they only built 2

[Z-train]

World only all original flying Focke Wulf 190.

 

Not for long.

 

http://www.collingsfoundation.org/ma_FockeWulfFwF8.htm

[VFR800]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[VFR800]

 

 

[q-tip]

[/url]

 

Enough ordnance to level a mountain range right there

[Burabuda]

flightworthy repro

 

[]2eDeYe]

 

 

That G35 is smoking hot!

 

 

Thanks, I like it :)

 

A Jimmy Buffet et al concert combined with an airshow. What could be better???

 

 

Just engine noises would have been better :D

[paradime]

Next trivia question:

 

What is the highest altitude a prop driven spy plain has flown and what plane is it?

 

96K  and it was NASA's Helios 

 

[Jesse C.]

[Jesse C.]

[Jesse C.]

[wayno]

Sorry, didn't mean to suggest it was a manned plane Wayno. 233 mph is it's cruising speed at altitude, NOT at sea level like I said. The reason it has a whisper thin 200 foot wingspan is so it can generate enough lift in the thin air at 67K. Look at pictures of it flying near ground and you'll see the wings bending upwards dramatically. Up to 20 ft higher at the wingtip. At altitude, it's wings are straight as an arrow because it's generating enough speed to flatten them out. If you look at the outer portion of the wing you can see the shape has almost no curve in the surface. This gives it close to a 50 50 flow rate over the top and bottom. With equal force top and bottom the wings will flatten out at speed. Try and push it to 233 at sea level though and it would flap itself apart. This is known as aeroelastic instability which is a byproduct of high aspect ratio configuration like the Condor.

 

 

 

Next trivia question:

 

What is the highest altitude a prop driven spy plain has flown and what plane is it?

 

When I searched your question, it was mentioned that when it took off, the planes wings looked like this because of the weight of the fuel, it could not get to 67K with a full tank, it had to have a half tank or less to get really high, and it carried a lot of fuel, but I can't remember how much now.

It's climb rate was not that great either, so it took a lot of fuel just to get up high, as it took a long time, if it had a pilot, the guy would likely have died of boredom.

[Z-train]

Looks familiar...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCQnRKPIYZc#t=239

 

 

 

Video from the show I shot my pictures at.

[RTB]

Some of my favorite planes

 

Bonus, the aircraft that should have won the JSF contract. X32

 

[Burabuda]

[Laecaon]

[Jesse C.]

[Jesse C.]

[Jesse C.]

[Jesse C.]

From this

 

 

[Jesse C.]

To this

 

[]2eDeYe]

 

Video from the show I shot my pictures at.

 

 

 

 

Now that has a great sound track :cool:

[paradime]

When I searched your question, it was mentioned that when it took off, the planes wings looked like this because of the weight of the fuel, it could not get to 67K with a full tank, it had to have a half tank or less to get really high, and it carried a lot of fuel, but I can't remember how much now.

It's climb rate was not that great either, so it took a lot of fuel just to get up high, as it took a long time, if it had a pilot, the guy would likely have died of boredom.

 

Check out the Video I posted above of the Helios. This plane has the same upward swept wings as the Condor, yet it is an electric plane with no fuel onboard. In this video you can see the Helios has a canard at the wing tip and a massive aeroelastic curve center wing. At low speed take off and landing the center portion of the wing bends up, but the wing begins to flatten out as it picks up speed and altitude. Again, You can see the Helios wing do this in the video. This is part of it's design to give it greater antiroll stability with lower stall rate at low speed, and when it flattens out at speed it has less limit-cycle oscillation (The flapping I was talking about).

 

Focus in the mid wing. In this opening picture at altitude cruising speed you can see it's quite flat. Compare that to takeoff.

 

 

 

 

The U2 spy plane had a high aspect ratio configuration but rigid wings. Trying to land it with even the slightest crosswind without dragging a wingtip was tough to say the least. it was joint research between the AF and Boeing Fantom works that created the bending wing aircraft we're talking about.

 

If you want to really geek out on this stuff here are some research articles on the subject that better explain what I'm talking about. BTW the term "nonlinear" is describing the top and bottom curve shape of the wing is not the same at the tip (very flat) as it is at the inside (curved top). This is what makes the wing flatten out at speed.

 

Aeroelasticity of joined-wing airplane configurations - Past work and future challenges

http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2001-1370

 

Nonlinear Aeroelasticity and Flight Dynamics of High-Altitude Long-Endurance Aircraft

http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/2.2738

 

Abstract

The aeroelastic analysis of high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) aircraft that features high-aspect-ratio flexible wings needs take into account structural geometrical nonlinearities and dynamic stall. For a generic nonlinear aeroelastic system, besides the stability boundary, the characteristics of the limit-cycle oscillation (LCO) should also be accurately predicted. In order to conduct nonlinear aeroelastic analysis of high-aspect-ratio flexible wings, a first-order, state-space model is developed by combining a geometrically exact, nonlinear anisotropic beam model with nonlinear ONERA (Edlin) dynamic stall model. The present investigations focus on the initiation and sustaining mechanism of the LCO and the effects of flight speed and drag on aeroelastic behaviors. Numerical results indicate that structural geometrical nonlinearities could lead to the LCO without stall occurring. As flight speed increases, dynamic stall becomes dominant and the LCO increasingly complicated. Drag could be negligible for LCO type, but should be considered to exactly predict the onset speed of flutter or LCO of high-aspect-ratio flexible wings.

[Z-train]

To this

 

P-61?