Anyone heard of this concept plane?

[Spaaro]

I tried using the search function but it is currently down.

I figure some of the RCG community is aware of this aviation developement, if not a direct contributer/team member outright. It's news to me :cool:

link:http://www.aviationblog.com/2007/04/is-this-future-of-general-aviation.html

Reminds me of the one-man submersible dolphin/racer from "Seaquest" and the "Bongo" from SW:Phantom Menace.

[Ollie]

They fly with poorer soaring. They need lots and lots of power.

[Flyingwingbat1]

short wingspan=lots of induced drag at normal GA speeds, no matter how pretty the curves are.

[JetPlaneFlyer]

It's got a lot of X-24B about it:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/X24B.jpg

The X-24B flew about 35 years ago and was a development step toward the space shuttle, so this design is nothing new... It may have a lot going for it at hypersonic speeds but at normal flying speeds the lifting body / low aspect ratio wing design is very inefficient... I can only think this is some form of publicity stunt.

Steve

[Ollie]

The plane, with no power, flies like a brick. I will crash except for a landing flare near the ground.

Think about thrust bigger than weight and no failure thrust with flying.

It mainly flies on thrust.

[Tom Harper]

Yeah, but it really looks neat!!!

[Sparky Paul]

Just don't contribute to any plea for funds.
This is a money scam, more than anything else.
The X-24B came down like an anvil from 100,000 feet.. on the ground in about 2 minutes.

[ciurpita]

this concept plane looks more like a submarine than an aircraft. if you like cool, you might be interested in the x-36 tailless research vehicle.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/x-36.htm

the x-24 is one of the last of the early lifting bodies that demonstrated the concept of a controllable decent vehicle rather than being a typical aircraft able to gain altitude. at the time, space vehicles decended on parachutes. liftiing bodies also proved that such a vehicle could land at a high angle of attack without any boost (rockets) to make up for the extra drag. both these concepts are critical in the space shuttle.

i never understood what lifting bodies were until i read "wingless flight" by dale reed when it was posted electronically on the nasa dryden web site. the book describes the original concept tested with models, early evaluation of the vertical control surfaces using an early flight simulator, and tow testing behind a modified pontiac.

[James Frolik]

The concept can work. It's called a Smart Fish. I took this photo at Aspach 2002—yes, that was 5 years ago. And it certainly doesn't fly like NASA's X-24B brick. This photo is from my Aspach 2002 report in The E Zone's archive.

Here is what I wrote about the model:

Here’s a bunch of Smart Fishes. The EDF is a fiberglass ARF kit by Rotschi (http://www.smartfish-model.com) and costs about €570 euros, or about US$600. Measurements: wing span 77 cm (30.31 in), length 1 m (39.37 in) and weight 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs). Power (used in Ulf Herder's): Lehner 15-30-6Y in a WeMoTec 480 Mini Fan, Schulze Future 18.61 ESC and 16 x Panasonic 3000 NiMH. Flight time is 6 minutes.

Unfortunately that link is 5 years old and today it directs you to an unrelated site with the same URL. (So I assume the original Smart Fish URL was sold.) Ditto for the [same] link posted in back in November 2002 (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74663) about the Smart Fish in the EDF Discussion Column.

[Sparky Paul]

Model wing loadings aren't any indication of how the full-scale will (won't) work.
It's a brick/anvil/anchor.
Suitable for a re-entry vehicle, if that.

[HELModels]

Cant hold altitude, she's breaking up, she's breaking up...Col. Steve Austin, a man barely alive...Dah nah nah na, na na nah nah na na nah na nuh

[BMatthews]

Low aspect delta wings with jet engine spool up times = lots of dead gen av pilots.

This is just not a good idea for sport aviation. Yes it looks sexy as heck but it will not be a forgiving design at general av type speeds.

[HELModels]

Col. Austin crashed the A model of the X-24, but they say only one was built. That crash looked catastrophic.

[Brandano]

Hmm, dunno, for a pure delta I'd agree, but this has tail feathers, much like a Mig21. With that shape I'd be most concerned with vertical surface blanking at high AOA, otherwise it should be pretty much like anoy other low wing loading delta, mushing a bit instead of snapping on a stall, and possibly keeping control after the stall.

[ciurpita]

it was actually the m2-f2, not an x-24
http://www1.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/M2-F2/HTML/E-16731.html

the nasa site has several movies showing the various lifting bodies: m2-f1, m2-f2, m2-f3, hl-10, x24a and b.

notice also that there are no wings projecting outward, horizontal from the body that might burn up on re-entry. for those interested, the book is still online from the nasa technical report server
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19980169231_1998082126.pdf

[HELModels]

If Peterson hadnt been distracted before landing, then the M2-F2 gear would have been down and locked in time. That is an interesting read you linked. Their flight times were short and very busy.

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tvshows/319-the-six-million-dollar-man/

Link shows the real footage used. Peterson lost his eye from staph infection. No bionics for him, unfortanately.

[rosco]

found somthing else...
http://gizmag.com/go/7113/
cheers
rosco

[JetPlaneFlyer]

From the video it appears to have an aerodynamic efficiency akin to a bunch of keys :rolleyes:

[BMatthews]

Yep, typical high drag during high lift coefficient operation for a delta of this low aspect ratio.

[JetPlaneFlyer]

Yep... It appears to be incapable of even maintaining level flight. It only stayed airborn at all because he chucked it off a big hill :rolleyes:
I'm amazed they released the video to be honest.

[Sparky Paul]

Those kind of guys will do anything to get your money.
I recall a "new way to pedal" a bicycle, from Oz.
Used levers instead of that pesky main gear.
The thing was going to be used in the Tour de France!
The video showed quite a turn of speed, if you ignored that it was obviously edited to remove frames between frames to get the speed.

[biber]

This design seems to pop up every now and then in the media around here in Europe.
And it is nothing more than a funny looking sleek shape, made by a designer
(note I rather wouldn't say engineer) from Switzerland, if I remember correctly.
They constantly try to get that thing into public as the new subsonic cruiser,
or next time as a super efficient hydrogen powered testbed,
or as the every day plane for everybody...
But, still it is merely a nice looking shape, not much of engineering in it.

However, there are only few examples known to me making such a bad AR look as good as this one does. :rolleyes:

biber

[Accu157]

The aviationblog is gone? I clicked it, and all I'm getting is "therawfeed.com"... :confused: I had to go to archive.org to see what the website looked like.

Anyway, the lifting body program helped inspire some of the space shuttles characteristics, and the since abandoned X-33 project. It was close to working, but they scrapped the project when the tanks failed to hold under extreme pressure. It would have been flying by now. For some reason they thought it was a good idea to use something other than spherical or tube like tanks. I've got a feeling a capsule is the way to go, in the long run.

[DT56]

text

[HELModels]

this concept plane looks more like a submarine than an aircraft. if you like cool, you might be interested in the x-36 tailless research vehicle.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/x-36.htm

the x-24 is one of the last of the early lifting bodies that demonstrated the concept of a controllable decent vehicle rather than being a typical aircraft able to gain altitude. at the time, space vehicles decended on parachutes. liftiing bodies also proved that such a vehicle could land at a high angle of attack without any boost (rockets) to make up for the extra drag. both these concepts are critical in the space shuttle.

i never understood what lifting bodies were until i read "wingless flight" by dale reed when it was posted electronically on the nasa dryden web site. the book describes the original concept tested with models, early evaluation of the vertical control surfaces using an early flight simulator, and tow testing behind a modified pontiac.

I'm glad you linked that! I watched the intro to $6 man again and I think they show an M2-F3 seperating from the B-52. The M2-F3 was the rebuilt M2-F2 after Peterson's crash. If I have read the Wingless Flight .pdf correctly, they added a vertical fin between the outer 2 after his crash and redesignated it. The comm between pilot and NASA sounds pretty accurate and even mentions the side stick which was big bidness in the book.

Here is the one TV showed seperating:

[lincoln]

Don't be so sure you can't have an efficient low aspect ratio design. Certainly you won't see a competitive sailplane that's that low, but then powered airplanes don't usually spend as much time at high lift as sailplanes do. Barnaby Wainfan flew a homebuilt, the Facetmobile, with an aspect ratio less than one from someplace in California to Oshkosh. I have a tape where he explains it. One advantage is that structural weight can be much lower. Also, Reynold's numbers are higher. Much higher. Stall spin accidents, if the thing is properly designed, are very unlikely. Barnaby's design, as I recall, in full stall mode is supposed to descend at about the same rate as a fighter landing on a carrier. Would hurt, but probably not fatal. If you go by payload weight to drag ratio, his plane is not bad at all. And that's with no curves. I'll also point out that the Dyke Delta is known to be a good performer, and it's also a very low aspect ratio. There are some serious design studies of low aspect ratio airliners for certain purposes, and they are not uncompetitive in performance. However, the perceived risk of going in that direction is pretty high compared to tried and true technology.

One neat thing about Barnaby's configuration is that if you make a 4 passenger version it will have the interior space of a Winnebago. Of course, if you put in furniture, a fridge, and a sink, with a water tank, it will fly like a Winnebago as well. He reports that in his single place version, he could stick his arms out straight to the side without hitting anything.

There's some fun stuff to look at on the Facetmobile web site.

I once worked out some figures for a low performance, low aspect ratio glider. I recall that at less than 3:1 aspect ratio you could still get maybe 12:1 or better L/D.