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On 6 Apr 1993 14:06:57 -0400, [email protected] (Pat) said: |
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Pat> In article <[email protected]> |
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Pat> [email protected] (Mary Shafer) writes: |
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>successful we were. (Mind you, the Avro Arrow and the X-15 were both |
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>fly-by-wire aircraft much earlier, but analog.) |
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Pat> Gee, I thought the X-15 was Cable controlled. Didn't one of them |
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Pat> have a total electrical failure in flight? Was there machanical |
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Pat> backup systems? |
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All reaction-controlled aircraft are fly-by-wire, at least the RCS part |
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is. On the X-15 the aerodynamic control surfaces (elevator, rudder, etc) |
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were conventionally controlled (pushrods and cables) but the RCS jets |
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were fly-by-wire. |
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|The NASA habit of acquiring second-hand military aircraft and using |
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|them for testbeds can make things kind of confusing. On the other |
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|hand, all those second-hand Navy planes give our test pilots a chance |
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|to fold the wings--something most pilots at Edwards Air Force Base |
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|can't do. |
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Pat> What do you mean? Overstress the wings, and they fail at teh |
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Pat> joints? |
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Navy aircraft have folding or sweeping wings, in order to save space |
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on the hangar deck. The F-14 wings sweep, all the rest fold the |
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wingtips up at a joint. |
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Air Force planes don't have folding wings, since the Air Force has |
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lots of room. |
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Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA |
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[email protected] Of course I don't speak for NASA |
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"A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all." Unknown US fighter pilot |
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