An interesting light reading article. I also saw Paul McReady's talk on the albatross and dynamic soaring. Nicely presented but that stuff gets pretty technical. (bad transition) The US Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base were using an L23 - I won't mention it's full name - to test dynamic soaring, discussed on this newsgroup a while ago with the usual comments on the test aircraft. Unlike the albatross, the current wind gradients were displayed in detail on a tablet PC in the cockpit. Nice to have a second seat for the person reading the heads down display. Much like rally driving, it involved instructions to push, pull, turn, etc. The albatross seems to be able to do all that while sleeping. Between the instrumentation and all the "field approval" inspections and paperwork involved in the installation and removal of various appendages on a certified aircraft, the TPS invested more tax dollars in modifications than the airframe was worth. Flights were conducted down to 100 feet above Rogers Dry Lake, and mostly piloted by Mark "Forger" Stuckey. Mark is also known as "Dope On A Rope" not because he is known to fly paraglider but from the days he piloted an F106 towed behind a C141. For those who haven't witnessed that experiment: http://www.f-106deltadart.com/eclipse.htm Jim
--- On Wed, 12/24/08, ventus45 <[email protected]> wrote: From: ventus45 <[email protected]> Subject: [Aus-soaring] Dynamic soaring. To: "Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia." <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, December 24, 2008, 3:42 AM A little light reading. http://esoaring.com/albatros_presentation_esa.pdf_______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
_______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
