This story made the national news. A Learjet had landing gear trouble and took it's time to figure out how to land at St Louis Downtown Airport in Cahokia, Illinois. The plane ended up making a safe landing at Lambert Airport at the pilots request for a wider landing strip. The front gear was the one the pilot was concerned about. Apparently it could come down and retract, but it was 30 degrees tilted off center. That was revealed to the pilot after a flyby of the tower at the St Louis Downtown Airport. The crew and eight passengers were aboard. I'll comment about the aircraft and the landing.
Learjet 45
Learjet is the maker of business jet aircraft that have better speed than airliners. The Learjet in the story was a model 45. It has a cruise speed of 500 mph and a range of 1968 mi. It was developed in the early 1990's so it's not a new aircraft. In fact, there was an upgrade to this model called the model 45XR.
With nose gear problems, a pilot might try keeping the nose in the air while landing and slowing the plane to a near stop. I've seen this maneuver done by F-15 pilots. Apparently they like to see who can keep the nose up the longest. I don't think a Learjet could do such a stunt. The pilot might have preferred to let the nose down as slow as possible. The Grimli Glider had a nose gear that didn't want to lock as one of its problems. The gear collapsed on landing and the front part of the fuselage halted the aircraft. The pilot of the Learjet took a long time to land apparently figuring out the best way to minimize damage to the plane and injury to the passengers. He tried a couple of times to land but aborted before landing at Lambert. To his credit, he succeeded without incident.
As to emergency landings, this one ended on a good note. Too often they don't end well. I suppose it made the national news because the pilot requested the main airport rather than the smaller one. The story was covered by Fox 2 News.
Growing up making model aircraft and learning about all kinds of craft, I bought a book on helicopters. It documented all the helicopters up to that time, 1980's. The designs were interesting and varied. I did notice a brand of helicopter that seemed pretty fancy and yet I hadn't heard of. It was the Augusta helicopters. They seem to rival high end VIP helicopters of Bell. Recently I was saddened to hear that AugustaWestland had some serious allegations against them in their deal with selling some helicopters to India. Westland was a British aircraft firm. Augusta and Westland were merged in 2000. Both companies have a good history in making high quality helicopters. Let's check out a couple of these beauties.
Westland Lynx
The Lynx was originally developed by Westland for the British military. Westland shared its production with the french company Aerospatiale, now a part of Eurocopter. This helicopter has had long history with British, French, and many other countries' military. Whether with wheels or skids it has had a lot of different configurations for multiple roles. It's popularity is not surprising, since it set the speed record for helicopters in 1986. I've seen footage where this very capable craft has even done the unimaginable for rotary wing, barrel roles. It's a great air platform. The updated version of the Lynx is called the AugustaWestland AW159 Wildcat. It made an appearance in the movie Skyfall. The Wildcat has a max speed of 296 kph (183.9 mph), and a range of 787.3 km (489.2 mi). It can take 2 crew and 6 passengers.
AW101
The AW101 was originally a joint effort by Westland and Augusta under the name of EH101. They call it Merlin. It's a medium lift craft that replaces the S-61's role with many modern features. Troop carrier, sub hunter, search and rescue, this craft can do it all and in all weather conditions. Looking at the specs, it can hold 2 crew members and 30 passengers. It has a range of 1058 km (657.4 mi). It has a cruising speed of 278 kph (172.7 mph).
AW 609
The AW609 was developed by Augusta and Bell and it's being produced by AugustaWestland. The tiltrotor technology was developed by Bell in a project called XV-15. Out of it came V-22 Osprey. You can say that the AW609 is the civilian version of the tiltrotor tech. It has a cruise speed of 465 kph (299 mph). It has a range of 1390 km (852 mi). It up to 9 passengers with a crew of 2. This exceeds the speed and range of the AW101 and the Wildcat. This is the purpose of the tiltrotor, to have a VTOL aircraft that can fly longer and faster than a helicopter. Sikorsky's X-2 and Carter Copter's Slowed Rotor techs are competing for similar markets as the tiltrotor tech.
If you haven't heard of AugustaWestland before, now you have. It happens to be a mainstay company in the rotary wing craft business just like Boeing, Sikorsky, and others. They have an impressive presence in Europe but do business world-wide. They are bold enough to try to market the tiltrotor in the commercial markets when no other company will. I'd keep an eye on these guys see what they will do next.
If there is anything that Aerospace was made for, its go save the planet and life on it. B612 Foundation is doing just that and its non government. The are counting on your donation.
They want to build and fly an observatory in solar orbit to find the unknown asteroids. This observatory will be launched by SpaceX. Check this video out.
Today a rock from space hit Russia in the Ural Mountains. Many people were injured due to glass breaking because of the shock wave from the rock breaking up and exploding. Here is an LA times article.
NASA also informed us that Asteroid 2012 DA14 is making a very close flyby the earth. IT seems these asteroids are getting closer and closer to the Earth.
These incidents puts it into perceptive. We need to take action and try to secure the safety of Earth from asteroids. The B612 Foundation needs your donation. It will take years, so your donation over time should help. I'm planning on donating myself.
The following video is PBS NOVA episode on the analysis of the meteor in the Urals:
Well, recently the Missouri Governor bought a plane . Well technically it was Missouri Highway Patrol that bought it. The Governor is going to use it though. This caused the legislature to complain because of the cost and the fact they weren't informed of the purchase beforehand. Could we call this Missouri Force One? Not likely. The aircraft is far from an air liner like Air Force One is. It happens to be a King Air 250 made by Beechcraft. The plane is also supposed to be used by Highway Patrol for drug interdiction. Let's check out its specifications and the company that markets it.
King Air 250
It's max speed is about 356 mph. Its range is about 1362 miles with four passengers. It can operate up to 35,000 ft. It can carry up to 10 passengers with one pilot. That's not at all bad for a prop plane. I can see the justification of using it for law enforcement. It could track ground vehicles quite nicely. It seems to be more economical than a jet. It only runs $3.06 a mile. It can cover the State of Missouri handily. The state is only 240 miles by 300 miles. Add some surveillance devices on the craft and you have a good platform for law enforcement. Missouri is located in the middle of the continental United States so we get a lot of through traffic that's legal and illegal. It should be a nice plane for the Governor as well to travel to other states and such. Though the public might think of planes as being a cost just for the big wigs, AVweb put out a good article about state planes which explains cost and usage of these aircraft. There seems to be a valid argument for these planes. Coupled with another mission of law enforcement, it seems the administration has done its homework.
Beechcraft is a company that markets these small business planes though they are manufactured by different companies. Its a company that started in 1932 and was bought up by Raytheon in 1980. Raytheon merged it with Hawker in 1994. In 2006, Raytheon sold the company to Goldman Sachs and Onex Corporation to make Hawker Beechcraft. The recession was not good to the company. They went dove into bankruptcy and pulled out of it in Oct 2012. It now stand proudly on its own as Beechcraft Corporation. Hawker, of course, is the legendary company the made the Hawker Hurricane of Battle of Britain fame. What a history for such an iconic brand. I hope the best for them.
There you have it. A legislature up in arms, a Governor with a plane, and a company getting back on its feet. What amazing times we live in.
While I don't claim to have the whole story behind the new commercial space effort, I did start to follow it in spring 2004. I think some of the 'old guard' of spaceflight are trying to discredit the new companies. Some of the attacks leverage peoples' ignorance on how these companies got their start. So, here's a layout of the history of new commercial space.
Mike Melvill and SpaceShipOne
Now its 'new' commercial space because NASA and the US Military have contracted with commercial companies to launch satellites into orbit since the beginning of the space race. Those were cost plus contacts. Boeing, Lockheed, and McDonnell Douglas were among these companies, and they made up the establishment. In 1996 the X Prize put set up a competition for the first company to send 3 humans to suborbital heights twice in two weeks with the same craft. I have to say that back then the X-Prize foundation set up shop at the St Louis Science Center. Such a feat was not done by anyone including NASA and Roscosmos. That may sound strange, but orbital flight and flights to the moon were more important than suborbital flight in the 1960's space race. We're talking manned missions here. This would be a coup for reusable spacecraft. In 2004 Scaled Composites won. Its SpaceShipOne did 3 space flights that year. Mike Melvill was one of the pilots and was the first commercial astronaut pilot. The first was a test flight while the other two were for the prize. Instead of sending up 3 people, they had the pilot and the equivalent weight of two other bodies. SpaceShipOne and its mother ship WhiteKnight became the first totally reusable launch system since the X-15 and its B52 mother ship. After the win, Richard Branson contracted with Scaled Composites to make SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo thus forming Virgin Galactic.
Of course, Space Adventures was the company that started the space tourism with Dennis Tito the International Space Station in 2001.
Masten Space Systems competed with Armadillo Aerospace in the Lunar Lander Challenge. They managed to win the level 2 prize. Now they are pursuing reusable suborbital launch rockets demonstrating VTVL technology. NASA has long used sounding rockets for research since the V-2 rocket. Those were single use rockets. NASA has been experimenting with these reusable rockets from both Armadillo and Masten in the last couple of years to present. The benefits of such vehicles are obvious. They supply multiple missions. I think of Masten and Armadillo as a type of rocket company that is contracted by other rocket and/or space companies rather than catering to the public. These guys seem small, but they are not to be underestimated. Once they mature the technology, space will never be the same.
SpaceX Dragon
Other companies sprung up with the X-Prize momentum. Space Exploration Technologies started in 2004 and had a preliminary design of their Dragon capsule and a family of rockets known as Falcon. They were going after the cost plus launch companies and a cheaper way to launch to orbit. At this time they received no government moneys. It wasn't until the X-Prize was won that NASA seriously looked at the new companies. XCOR came up with a space plane called Xerus around 2002. Now, they are touting a smaller suborbital space plane called Lynx. If and when the Lynx flies, it will be the first fully reusable commercial suborbital space plane in a single stage. Now XCOR has plans to use the old Space Shuttle landing strip in Cape Canaveral for the Lynx.
Of all these space companies, one really is in a league of their own. Bigelow Aerospace makes inflatable space stations. They started in 1999. Their design was based on some inflatable space modules ideas from NASA. In 2006 and 2007, they launched two test modules that were successful, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Now NASA has bought a small inflatable module to attach to the ISS and taken up there by SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft.
What's next for space competition? There a current competition, the Google Lunar X-Prize. This started in 2007. Watch these competitors. The idea is to put a rover or probe on the surface of the moon. Yes, commercial space is looking at the moon even if NASA is not. If all goes according to pattern, one or two teams will spearhead through and land taking the prize. Then contracts will emerge from NASA and other space companies.
NASA Administrator Bolden congratulating Musk after COTS demo
When NASA got interested in this New Commercial Space, they started with a program that was designed to check out then new companies capabilities. This program was called Commercial Orbiting Transportation Services (COTS). It started in 2006 with SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler. SpaceX proved their worthiness but Rocketplane Kistler was another story. It failed and put a black mark on commercial space. In its place, NASA elected Orbital Sciences. This company started in 1982 with the advent of the Pegasus air launched rocket. It seemed to be a bold attempt at making access to space cheaper at the time. Orbital still operates and sells launches with Pegasus and with other more traditional rockets. Orbital has had some setbacks. Now its fixing to launch its new Cygnus spacecraft and Antares rocket to satisfy COTS. Now NASA has Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts with SpaceX and Orbital. They also are hosting a competition for development of hardware for commercial companies to transport Astronauts to orbit in their Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program. COTS, CRS, and CCDev are the programs that give money to the competing companies so far.
Now for two humble space companies. In 1998, UP Aerospace was founded. Their launch vehicle is a small suborbital rocket. They have scored some NASA and DOD contracts. They have been launching from Spaceport America in New Mexico since 2006. In 1977 the concept of an all volunteer lighter than air company was imagined. Out of that meeting came JP Aerospace. It may be the oldest commercial space company that was not part of the establishment. They have launched many balloon missions to the edge of space. They have even launched some rockets from their balloons. Their ultimate goal is to create a ground to orbit system using airships and a lither than air station. It sounds wacky, but to me it seems more plausible than the space elevator concept. To their credit, JP Aerospace made and flew the highest dirigible ever to fly called the Tandem in 2011.
Well, that's the start of the New Commercial Space. It started with just dreams and private money and now NASA is helping out here and there. New companies are still being made and the market is likely to grow. Deep Space Industries wants to mine asteroids; Golden Spike wants to sell you a ticket to the moon; and Stratolaunch wants to air launch medium sized rockets. These were formed in 2011 and 2012. This is history in the making. This is rocket science and rocket business. I don't know which is more daunting.
I read in a NASA Spaceflight.com article that Boeing came out with a moon exploration plan. The plan entails a small space station put at Earth Moon Lagrange Point 2 (EML2). That's a region of space past the dark side of the moon. From there you can have a variety of missions ranging from moon missions to asteroid missions to mars missions. We're told to think of it as a staging area. It's supposed to be easy to get to and not that much fuel is needed. They call it Earth Moon Lagrange point Platform (EMLP). Then Boeing came out with a Mars exploration plan as stated in this NASA Spaceflight.com article. They use the EML2 as a staging are to launch to Mars with a combination of chemical and ion propulsion system craft. Are these a good ideas? I tend to think that it is, but I'm also a little skeptic.
Sure it seems you can do it all with these plans, but at what cost? SLS doesn't promise to be economical. It will take several launches of SLS to make the Moon plan work. It will also take several (at least 2) launches of the same rocket to make the Mars plan work even after the EMLP has been established. The only reusable part of the SLS are its solid rocket boosters. At least in the moon plan a reusable moon lander is called for, and the EMLP is designed to be a multi-mission asset. These plans call for many in-space and landing assets to be built. This is not cheap. I am also skeptic about this Mars lander that is supposed to land and launch astronauts on to and from the Martian surface. How big does that thing need to be? How much fuel does it need? Mars is about one third of the gravity of Earth. Sp they seem to need one third of the energy of a Earth based rocket to get to orbit. Like a third of a Falcon 9. I'm just guessing here, the details I'm sure are different due in part Mars' gravitational field's profile (gravity is not linear with altitude). Yet, it gives you an idea of the problem. Think of all that hardware and fuel launching from Earth, in parts, and sending off to Mars. Its huge! The Mars plan seems to imply that the large transfer vehicle is for only one use, and one mission. So if we want to make another go at it, we need to spend a lot of money to do so.
Apollo used all throw away assets to do its 7 moon landings. It was canceled due to cost. I hold the philosophy that space assets should and ought to be reusable, that is used for more than one mission. The trans-lunar injection was performed by Saturn V's third stage. That function can be made by a reusable space tug. A reusable space tug would be equipped with propulsion (chemical, ion, and/or plasma), communication, and power (solar or nuclear). They would dock with a manned capsule or cargo capsule/canister and take them to their destination. I don't see why NASA does not pursue this route rather than majoring on throw away assets. A reusable space tug can take crew, cargo, and/or modules from Earth orbit to Lunar or Martian orbits and return to Earth orbit. Then they could be refueled and loaded up with a payload and do the next mission. The only thing that has not been mastered in this sequence is an unmanned tug returning to Earth orbit. Yet, space programs do have experience getting into Mar's orbit and using aerobraking to do it. Similar techniques could be used with the tug. Of course, when its taking a capsule back to Earth, the capsule would disengage the tug before the tug maneuvers to Earth orbit because it could take weeks for the tug to get to low orbit. NASA could make its own, or a company can make its own and sell the services to NASA. I wonder if some company out there is doing just that? I don't know. I did think up this reusable tug idea back in 2004 when SpaceShipOne was making its historical flights. I posted this idea on Space.com forums at the time. It seems that NASA thought of the Space Tug concept too in 1969. These tugs could be of variable sizes for a variety of missions for many customers. They could go to Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, the Asteroid Belt, and even the gas giants. They could form an effective fleet for space exploration and commercial exploitation such as mining. I imagine that reusable in-space assets, such as the space tug, could bring down the cost of traveling to the Moon and Mars significantly since the commercial launch companies can also leverage their launch capabilities.
Yes, the Boeing plans are cool. I believe they will be too costly for Congress to flip the bill. Making good use of the new commercial space approach with reusable assets could make the missions cheaper and help keep them going for a long time.
The P-38 is not like many planes in World War II. It had twin booms. Twin boom aircraft are among the most stunning looking and intriguing aircraft. It seems that reasons for having a twin boom rather than a mono-body are varied and have little to do with aerodynamics. This configuration allows for rear cargo doors, a push propeller, rear observations or electronics, stable overall frame, central exterior cargo, and other things that I can't think of. When your designing something and you start to look at the numbers, different characteristics are desired over others based on the desired role of the aircraft. A twin boom design might just flip the bill. Let's check out a few of my favorites.
P-38 Lightning
P-61 Black Widow
World War II was an interesting era for aircraft design. The P-38 and the P-61 had similar twin boom configurations. Their crews were housed in a central nacelle set between the two booms that housed the twin prop engines. In the case of the P-38, there was seating only for one and all the guns and cannons were directly in front of the pilot. No propeller interrupt was needed. It was designed as a high altitude (20,000 ft.) interceptor. It featured a large rear elevator, a large wing area, and a twin boom design. The twin booms were ideal to keep structural integrity and low weight. It was successful in its missions and had a number of variants and upgrades. The P-61 was a night fighter that had a crew of 3 and would be in flight for 8 hours. It was used to hunt bombers, and had a newly developed aircraft radar system. Such equipment for that era was large and heavy. On top of that, this plane was armed to the teeth. It was classified as a fighter. The rear of the middle nacelle was where the radar guy sat. Jack Northrop made the initial design and gave it its twin booms. I wish I knew why.
There were some cargo aircraft of this configuration. Now, they are all but abandoned. One in particular starred in the 1965 movie Flight of the Phoenix. The plane was the C-119 Boxcar. It had a large central nacelle where cargo and crew were. The rear of that nacelle featured large doors that opened to the sides. Now cargo planes have a very different design for the rear doors that allows for more traditional craft design. In the movie, the plane crashes and the survivors make a new plane using one engine boom and attaching the wings to it. I do recommend the movie. A remake was made of it in 2004, but I like the original.
WhiteKnightTwo
He 111 z
The strangest of the twin booms are the twin fuselages. These are used for various reasons. These differ from the P-38 design in that the elevators are not joined. One I like a lot is the Heinkel 111 Z. It was a makeshift of two Heinkel 111s that were joined together by the main wing. A fifth engine was added in the middle. The purpose of it was to tow the biggest glider of World War II, the Me 321. I found some great pictures of this aircraft in a french web site (click here, Google translated here). Its definitely one of the more unique aircraft. In modern times, Scaled Composites created a mother ship to launch a rocket spaceplane into suborbital heights. The plane was the WhiteKnite. It featured twin booms, a middle nacelle for cockpit and engines. The main wing raised from the booms to the center in order to give clearance to the main cargo, the space plane. Burt Rutan designed it and came up with it out of neccesity and speed of manufacturing. They were in the Ansari X-Prize competition, and ended up winning. The descendant of this plane was WhiteKnightTwo. This had twin fuselages and was a more concise design. Its purpose was also to carry a rocket spaceplane and be able to launch it form altitude. At the time of its construction, it was the largest all composite aircraft to date. Another twin body mother ship was the proposed aircraft of Stratolaunch. Stratolaunch want to launch medium sized space launchers from the air. The mother ship would be the biggest airplane by wing span. There's a lot of things to be done before such a vision becomes a reality.
O-2 Skymaster
OV-10 Bronco
In the category of observation aircraft, we have the O-2 Skymaster and the OV-10 Bronco. The Skymaster was from a civilian aircraft. It featured two props, a puller and a pusher. The booms were really skinny and just made to work around the pusher prop. The US used this in the Vietnam Conflict as an observation platform. It would track enemy ground troops. It was featured in the movie Bat-21. That was a really good flick. One of the problems with it is that it was shot down by small arms fire. In later years, the US Air Force acquired the OV-10 as an observation platform. This craft was rugged. It could land anywhere, and it could short takeoff as well. It featured a design like the P-38, but it could carry 2 people and had a small cargo hold. So it could resupply a small ground troop unit in the bush. It did have ejector seats, but you'd better be wearing your helmet because your going to crash through the cockpit class. The glass did not eject. I bet it hurt.
Wow! There's a lot of these twin boom aircraft. From the P-38 to the modern WhiteKnightTwo, it seems these configurations aren't going away. There are even unmanned aerial vehicles with twin booms. This types of aircraft have a multitude of uses. I believe they are a prime example of what makes airplanes so great.
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