--- David Weinshenker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > (A ring of 8 engines, with 2 oppositely-canted units > at > each "corner", would allow roll control to be much > more > independent of yaw-pitch operations.)
6 engines, arranged the same but at corners of a triangle, would also work. That's the magic number for this pair trick: you have to have an even number, and 2*2 or 1*2 doesn't give you both yaw and pitch (or gives you at most three of +yaw, -yaw, +pitch, and -pitch). For identical engines which can only be set to +roll or -roll, and not, say, +0.5 roll, the magic number is probably either 6 or 4. 6 works as described above; 4 works as Dave M. described. 5 or 3 would not seem to allow for symmetrical solutions - if +p, +y can get no roll, then -p, -y can't, or maybe +p, -y or -p, +y - without placing two engines so close together they might as well be one. And of course one can't robustly balance a rocket on 1 or 2 immobile (relative to the rocket) engines (place one engine a millimeter off, and...). _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
