🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <20004@mindlink.bc.ca> Bruce_Dunn@mindlink.bc.ca (Bruce Dunn) writes:
>Regarding my posting in which I related the Delta Clipper landing sequence
>as:
>1) start engines
>2) flip to base-first attitude
>
>
>> Larry Wall writes:
>> How do they guarantee they don't get upside-down-spraycan syndrome?
>
>
>
>I checked my notes again, and the notes give the start engines, then flip
>sequence.  It is possible that I misheard the speaker (Gaubatz from McDonnell
>Douglas).  I expect the most likely explanation is that I have
>mis-interpreted the sequence.  An alternate possibility is that the "engines"
>started are the RCS thrusters, which run on gaseous hydrogen and gaseous
>oxygen.
>--
>Bruce Dunn    Vancouver, Canada   Bruce_Dunn@mindlink.bc.ca

According to one of the pilots for Delta Clipper, there are four
different methods they plan to test for the "flipover".  I am no
expert, so any questions on these have a fair chance of being answered,
"I dunno.."

1. The "death swoop" - use the momentum and body flaps to do a
zoom climb (think of the bottom half of an inside loop).

2. Use the engines to power the bird around.

3.  There is a point on entry when the bottom-heavy clipper becomes
unstable in a nose-down attitude.  Let gravity do the work and when
the bottom points down, catch it with the RCS.

4. Shove a pilot chute out the nose.

DC-x is scheduled to try all of these as part of the flight test program

++rich
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   rich kolker       rkolker@nuchat.sccsi.com
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