On Sat, 13 Sep 2003, Ian Woollard wrote:Yup.
We've heard that one before.Which is why people build the tunnels.They don't build them much anymore. Computational windtunnels are pretty good...
However, computational windtunnels are getting better all the time; physical windtunnels aren't, and they have limitations too, particularly at mach 6-8; and real-life supersonic windtunnels are freaking expensive to start with. I visited one at the site where my father worked a few years ago, they had 30 megawatt power from the grid going into the site, and the windtunnel itself was tiny; I think it maxed out at mach 5, but I may have misremembered that, it may well have been much lower. They've closed it down now though; not enough demand. The subsonic tunnel he worked at is still running, although it's now used by sports car racing teams (and occasionally speed skiers).
The accident investigation boards, e.g. the one for the first Pegasus XL, tend not to be too impressed by it.Still, accident investigation boards are easily unimpressed, in fact they start out unimpressed: "You crashed?" :-)
Henry Spencer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
