Stratolaunch Monster to have Maiden Flight this summer

Kind of an interesting landing. Official landing photo from Stratolaunch.

a reply to: Phage

That's what engineers are for.

I agree, on a more serious note how many miles to the gallon will she do?

a reply to: Zaphod58

Wonder if that will have caused any damage at all?!

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

The 747, with four CF6s (same engines on this), burns around 5 gallons per mile.

a reply to: Woody510

Good question. I'm sure they're going to go over it with a fine toothed comb either way.

a reply to: Zaphod58

pretty close to what an M-1 tank needs, iirc.

a reply to: anzha

Yeah, I always heard between 5 and 8, depending on speed.

a reply to: Zaphod58

A LOT more drag on this thing than a B747.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Wow I wouldn't have thought it was that efficient.

I was half joking with the question as I knew I'd probably get a quicker answer from the Board than googling.

Thank you.

pheonix358:: The stress on the centre section will be enormous especially when they load that centre point with a payload.

Question if you may know:

I've always been curious, didn't the Concorde fly in the Stratosphere?Now if I'm understanding the following correctly Delta wings designs are not for the stratosphere? And yet the shuttle rises above it.

www.aopa.org...

Wouldnt the 2 fuselage shape of the Stratosphere place enormous stresses on the Joining(?) wing? Especially if its piggybacking a space launcher?

Thank you for your thoughts

You can fly a swept wing at any height... if you go fast enough...

a reply to: RadioRobert

Enough thrust and even bricks will fly.

a reply to: anzha

SR-71/A-12 family is essentially a modified delta. Goes pretty high... Goes pretty fast.

Concorde flew at ~50,000' ... Going pretty fast.

B747 typically flies under 42,000'... Doesn't go as fast.


An airplane needs X amount of lift to fly if it weighs X pounds.
X= L = Cl * A * .5 * r * V^2

Cl or coefficient of lift depends on the wing's sectional shape relevant to oncoming air
A is area
r is the air density (altitude, pressure, temperature related)
V^2 is the velocity of airflow squared

If we want to fly higher where air is thinner and r is decreased, then we need to change another variable to keep L the same. We can't change the wing shape and area (generally speaking), so you need to change the velocity.

The good news is thinner air is less drag... The bad news is your engines/propellers have less air to work with so unless you're using an engine designed for altitude work or a rocket that doesn't need much (or any) air for combustion, you cannot raise your velocity enough to make L=Weight. That's your effective ceiling where each plane tops out.

a reply to: RadioRobert

I know, but it's the best comparison we're going to find.

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLightI'm glad it worked for them. That is one big load of ugly.

Every video of that plane flying by, what a beautiful sound! 6 seems to be the sweet spot for those engines! I'd imagine that's a pretty stout aircraft of they plan to lift with the center section. I don't get why everyone would worry about it's structural strength when it's design basis is to lift heavy loads.

Again, that sound!

a reply to: Caughtlurking

Because a design like that has inherent weaknesses you don't see with a standard tube design. And when they were building it, it suffered damage.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Do you see it actually being worth its time being built or is it going to be one of this projects and dies fast?

a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

I can see it having some use as a replacement for the Orbital L1011, but beyond that, not really. Without a dedicated rocket, it's going go carry a Pegasus. It's a stupidly large platform for that.

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

It gets a whole lot less efficient when you remember that it cruises at 580mph which means that at cruise speed the fuel burn is 2900 gallons/hour, or 19,430 pounds of jet A per hour.

For easy reference, that's roughly the equivalent of burning an entire 9,000 gallon tractor trailer tanker truck's worth of fuel every three hours, and a 6 hour flight from JFK to Heathrow burns two whole semi trailer tankers worth of fuel.

On the flip side, compared to how much kerosene a Falcon 9 burns, the 747 looks looks like a moped.

a reply to: Barnalby

thanks