Discovery Launches at 11:38 EDT. Expects to Reach and Dock With ISS in 44 Hours!

reply to post by housegroove23


housegroove, you are welcome.

As I said (well, I didn't say it yet, but I'm about to...)

I will put Science ahead of Dogma!

OK, that's my slogan...why is everyone running away? Just kidding...I'm not a writer, really. I just try to type what I think, and what I would say if we were sitting and talking to each other. Thing is, this forum is one-way only, isn't it? Not like a discussion at all. Hmmmmmm...

Well, not exactly one-way, just time-delayed.

Cheers

reply to post by zorgon


Dear Zorgon,

I don't insult. If I violated any 'T&C' by being new to this, then I apologize. I only today learned how to 'reply to' and 'quote' from links provided by ATS!!!

Respect

Originally posted by weedwhacker

I'm seeing a simularity in this Zorgon's post to things I've seen on YouTube...a haven, might I say, for morons. Unlike ATS, which attracts educated people.
Simularities include, but are not limited to: silly assertions, bad science, and, worst of all, horrible spelling and/or grammar.

Dear Zorgon,

I don't insult.... being new to this, then I apologize.

Apology accepted

i]Originally posted by 1553B

Stop getting your knowledge from movies like Armageddon and get a clue about how real spaceflight works - launching a space shuttle is just about the most complicated thing humans have ever done.

Thanks for the post 1553B. Yes, launching is a busy time but as far as the operation or flying of the shuttle I believe everything is automatic including the docking. Everything is pre-programmed and all the Astronauts do is select data and press buttons. Its not all that complex.

Flight Control System Push Button Indicators
These indicators are located on panel F2 for the commander and panel F4 for the pilot. The flight control system's push button light indicators transmit flight crew moding requests to the digital autopilot in the flight control software and reflect selection by illuminating the effective DAP state.
The push button light indicators are used to command and reflect the status of the pitch control mode. The pitch and roll/yaw indicators transmit moding requests to the digital autopilot and indicate the effective state of the pitch, roll and yaw DAP channels by lighting.
Auto indicates that control is automatic and no crew inputs are required. CSS is control stick steering; crew inputs are required but are smoothed by the DAP (stability augmentation, turn coordination)

spaceflight.nasa.gov...

Once you get the hang of it its like falling off a log.

Thanks for the post.

reply to post by housegroove23


Responding to Housegroove...

Thank you for your polite response. If we could be sitting across a table and chatting face to face it would be equally polite.

Sorry there are those who care to pollute civil discussions with their outlandish behaviour.

ATS is, after all, a forum for civil discourse. Isn't that what we should all try to achieve?

Yes, we are typing in our comments, and thinking about what we just wrote, then 'backspacing' to correct it, then hitting send without realising we;ve misspelled (or, put in the wrong punctuation) but HEY! Society, well, a free society suggests we have the right to say waht we want. Irrespective of any Government or other Social Authority that says otherwise.

I live in the USA, currently. I fully expect to be thrown in jail for what I've just written, and that is a sad statement...

reply to post by johnlear


Hello, Capt Lear

I could not resist asking...have you ever flown an airplane that was certified for, or have you also been certified for, CATIII ops? CAT IIIa, CAT IIIb or CAT IIIc?

The reason I ask, not to put you on the spot...the L1011, as far as I know. was never certified for AutoLand. Nor were the B727, the DC-10, the DC-9 nor MD-80.

I have been trained to Cat III standards. Just thought you should know.

Respect.

Originally posted by johnlear
Yes, launching is a busy time but as far as the operation or flying of the shuttle I believe everything is automatic including the docking.

WRONG. The pilot or commander manually flies the Shuttle in for docking, doing the RPM (Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver) on the way. Undocking are likewise NOT automatic and are followed by an astronaut flown ISS "fly-around."

www.shuttlepresskit.com...
216.92.110.5...
forum.nasaspaceflight.com...
www.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by johnlear

Flight Control System Push Button Indicators
These indicators are located on panel F2 for the commander and panel F4 for the pilot. The flight control system's push button light indicators transmit flight crew moding requests to the digital autopilot in the flight control software and reflect selection by illuminating the effective DAP state.

The DAP is used mostly for rendezvous (NOT docking) burns where it is impossible for a human to fly the spacecraft e.g. exacting deorbit burns, MECO to OPS 2 transitions, etc.

Ever notice that shuttle launches always happen at an odd time never on the hour?

Originally posted by dznetworks
Ever notice that shuttle launches always happen at an odd time never on the hour?

Yeah, because the launch window for reaching the ISS is only 10 minutes long per day. That's assuming the day of launch even works with thermal constraints due to the Beta angle:

The beta angle is the angle between the orbital plane and a line drawn from the Sun to the Earth. As the beta angle increases, the ISS is exposed to more sunlight per orbit, and eventually it will be in constant sunlight -- in other words, there is no passing into the Earth's shadow for extended periods of time. This can create thermal problems, so special attitudes are chosen to counter these effects. The shuttle also has thermal constraints under these conditions. Since the attitude requirements of the ISS and shuttle would conflict when docked, shuttle/ISS flights are scheduled to avoid periods when the beta angle exceeds 60 degrees.

This is yet another reason that the notion of the Shuttle flying to secret space station's en route to or from the ISS is ridiculous.

reply to post by 1553B



Come on, don't you know since John Lear flew a prop plane he's an expert on Space Shuttle flight and soul catchers?

Originally posted by weedwhacker

Hello, Capt Lear

I could not resist asking...have you ever flown an airplane that was certified for, or have you also been certified for, CATIII ops? CAT IIIa, CAT IIIb or CAT IIIc?

The reason I ask, not to put you on the spot...the L1011, as far as I know. was never certified for AutoLand. Nor were the B727, the DC-10, the DC-9 nor MD-80.

I have been trained to Cat III standards. Just thought you should know.

Respect.

Thanks for the post weedwhacker.

In fact the Lockheed L-1011 was first airliner certificated by the FAA for CAT III3c operations, that is: Full Autoland in zero/zero conditions. And that Automatic Flight Control System had been designed by my father and was a Lear L-102c AFCS.

My father pioneered automatic flight control in the 1950’s. He developed the autopilot for the Lockheed U-2 spyplane.

It was he who came up with the concept of one channel for cruise and two channels for approach. This was the beginning of comparative ’crosstalk’ for autopilots in other words each channel would “talk” to another channel and say, “Hey, this is my information, I believe it because it is identical to the information that you say you have.” Or, for instance Channel B could say “Hey WTF? I’m getting information that doesn’t agree with the information that you say you are getting. Are you sure your information is valid?

If that situation occurred there where checks that the auto flight system could make within itself to diagnose the problem.

The first Lear Autoland (L-102B) to be certificated on an airliner went on the Sud-Aviation Caravelle 4 for Air France in 1958. For that my father won the Grande Silver Medal of the City of Paris.

My father sold Lear, Inc. to Siegler Corp. in 1961 and the buyout company became Lear Siegler, now a very large government contractor.

My father took that money and developed the Lear Jet which he sold to Gates Rubber Company in 1968.

In 1966 American Airlines asked Lockheed to develop an airliner for their use and out of that request was born the Lockheed L-1011.

Lockheed, in an incredible display of airplane development savvy, knowledge and wisdom went to Lear Siegler and said, “Hey, we want to build a large airliner but we want to be absolutely certain it will be able to land CAT III3c (zero/zero ceiing and visibility) how do we have to configure the flight control system to be able to accomplish this?”

And thus began an intimate technical cooperation between between Lear Siegler and Lockheed Aircraft Cooperation which resulted in the first United States Federal Aviation Administration Certification of an airliner to CAT III3c (or authorization to land fully automatically, touchdown and rollout without any input by the pilot whatsoever) called the Lear Siegler L-102C Automatic Flight Control System.

The original Lockheed Chief of Flight Test, Bill Weaver, (L-1011) was and is still a very good friend of mine who currently lives in San Diego and is Chief Pilot for the Orbital Sciences L-1011 Launch Aircraft for the Pegasus and other rockets. Bill was the first and only survivor of a Mach 3 bailout of an SR-71 Blackbird which occurred during an extreme aft CG test flight while over New Mexico.

In fact, the TWA Lockheed L-1011 was the first U.S. Airline airliner to be certificated to CAT III3c and landed regularly in zero/zero conditions but never advertised the fact because they believed that passengers might be apprehensive that the flight crew was not making the landing themselves and that it was an Automatic Pilot in full control.

Although I was a Check Airman on the Lockheed L-1011 for several airlines I was never certificated to CAT III3c because this certification is extremely involved and expensive and not worth it for the small fleet of L-1011’s each of these airlines had. (American Trans Air, American International Airways, Kitty Hawk International).

And in response to your question that the DC-10, Boeing 727, DC-9 or MD-80 were never certificated CATIIIc, the ability of an automatic pilot to perform CAT IIIc is not an ‘add-on’ feature. It must be built into the original design of an aircraft to meet CATIII3c certification standards.

For instance there is a required parameter on a go-around profile where the nose must be brought up so many degrees above the horizon in a certain amount of time to initiate the go-around.

If your flight control system consisted of elevators and elevator trim only you are not going to be able to meet the required standard.

Lockheed designed not only an elevator and elevator trim control but had a series of inflight spoilers that could be used and were used for pitch control and this enabled them to meet the requirements with ease.

When Douglas designed the DC-10, they designed the airplane and then called up the autopilot manufacturer (I believe Honeywell but I am not sure) and said, “Hey can you guys come over and put an autopilot in our DC-10”. The autopilot was installed but of course couldn’t even begin to meet CAT IIIc standards.

Thanks for the post.

Originally posted by 1553B

The beta angle is the angle between the orbital plane and a line drawn from the Sun to the Earth. As the beta angle increases, the ISS is exposed to more sunlight per orbit, and eventually it will be in constant sunlight -- in other words, there is no passing into the Earth's shadow for extended periods of time. This can create thermal problems, so special attitudes are chosen to counter these effects. The shuttle also has thermal constraints under these conditions. Since the attitude requirements of the ISS and shuttle would conflict when docked, shuttle/ISS flights are scheduled to avoid periods when the beta angle exceeds 60 degrees.

Thanks for the post 1553B. I was just wondering if the sun puts out heat in space why did the crew of Apollo 13 nearly freeze to death?

Thanks for the post.

Originally posted by johnlear
Thanks for the post 1553B. I was just wondering if the sun puts out heat in space why did the crew of Apollo 13 nearly freeze to death?

And I was just wondering why you refuse to do a little research before you post something like that? Is it that hard? I can explain, John. You type the following string:

www.google.com

in your browser's URL, and then type in keywords pertinent to the information you want to retrieve. That's a new technology, John, only 10 years old, it's called "search engine", and you may not be abreast with it.

lsda.jsc.nasa.gov...

Keeping the heat balance inside the space vehicle was achieved with radiators. Once there was less heat produced inside the vehicle due to power failure (heard of that, John?), the temps went down.


[edit on 15-11-2007 by buddhasystem]

Hi John

Just wanted to say thanks for the L-1011 post. It´s been my favourite airliner ever since I can remember, flew both Delta and Eastern ships. Your knowledge about this plane must be outstanding. Hope to hear more from you on the subject. (perhaps on a different thread?).

By the way, I came to know abovetopsecret because of you. I did not know you were a conspiracy master, but I knew you were a famous airman, and that one of the models that you flew was the L-1011. Being that aviation is my hobby and that I just admire the engineering and craftsmanship of Lockheed, the road led to you and to this forum.

Cheerio

Camilo

reply to post by zorgon



Just love how you have so much time to post here yet when it comes to the Baut forums you cant waste your precious time waiting for responses.


Guess you dont want to get owned again over there

Originally posted by Camilo1

Hi John

Just wanted to say thanks for the L-1011 post. It´s been my favourite airliner ever since I can remember, flew both Delta and Eastern ships. Your knowledge about this plane must be outstanding. Hope to hear more from you on the subject. (perhaps on a different thread?).

By the way, I came to know abovetopsecret because of you. I did not know you were a conspiracy master, but I knew you were a famous airman, and that one of the models that you flew was the L-1011. Being that aviation is my hobby and that I just admire the engineering and craftsmanship of Lockheed, the road led to you and to this forum.

Cheerio

Camilo

Thanks Camilo. My favorite airplanes (all Lockheed) that I flew were the Connie, P-38, Lodestar L-18, L-1011 and F-104A.

As far as my knowledge of the Lockheed L-1011, my mentor, the all knowing-all seeing L-1011 knowledge repository of the Universe, my friend, my drinking buddy, the pilot who I would be honored to co-pilot for anywhere, anytime, former Lockheed L-1011 production test pilot Rodney Boone, was the source of my understanding and knowledge of the L-1011.

reply to post by johnlear


You are extremely correct, sir. Thank you for your excellent explanation. It does show me, (though I never doubted) as well as others who may doubt your experience, that you are, indeed, who you say you are.

Enjoy

Originally posted by buddhasystem

Keeping the heat balance inside the space vehicle was achieved with radiators. Once there was less heat produced inside the vehicle due to power failure (heard of that, John?), the temps went down.

Thanks for the post BS, the information on the system you call "google" was extremely informative and helpful. I had no idea such a site existed. My sincerest appreciation and thanks for bringing that to my attention.

So the sun doesn't produce any heat that would warm the spacecraft?

Thanks again for the information and your post.

Sorry folks, I did it again. I indulged myself in a little hero worship and threw the thread off topic. However, maybe it's good now and then to wend our way thru discussions, you never know what you might learn.

Peace

Originally posted by johnlear
Thanks for the post BS, the information on the system you call "google" was extremely informative and helpful. I had no idea such a site existed.

I'm glad I've dragged another person from dark ages into the era of accessible information and learning aids. I'm sure that from now on you will do a little looking around before posting trivial questions on the forum. Good work!

So the sun doesn't produce any heat that would warm the spacecraft?

Oops, I celebrated too early. John, Sun does produce heat but the heat can be reflected, and indeed was. If the craft was painted black, it would probably be as hot as a furnace, but you don't want the astronauts to be BBQd, do you? The radiators were tuned to dump a specific amount of heat into space, and when there was less energy availble, the balance was broken. There are high school physics textbooks which I highly recommend in addition to "google".



[edit on 15-11-2007 by buddhasystem]