From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #592 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Friday, 5 January 1996 Volume 05 : Number 592 In this issue: Convair... Re: Convair... Re: diamonds RE: 990 & NASA See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the skunk-works or skunk-works-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Lednicer Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 08:09:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Convair... What killed the Convair 880 was not its drag - it was one of the fastest airliners of its generation. Rather, the problem was that they went with a fuselage cross-section that was too small, and the airlines found that passengers didn't like them. Convair figured that speed was more important than comfort and they were wrong. Their other mistake was using GE engines (a derivative of the J-79). Howard Hughes (who owned TWA at the time) suckered them into building the 880. The follow-up, the Convair 990, was even bigger disaster. Here, they did miss the drag initially and they went through a lot of development work to get the performance back. There is a excellent AIAA paper about the drag reduction work done on the 990. The airliners were built in San Diego and that plant now builds Atlases as part of LockMart. Last I saw of the plant, a year ago, it looked awfully empty. - ------------------------------------------------------------------- David Lednicer | "Applied Computational Fluid Dynamics" Analytical Methods, Inc. | email: dave@amiwest.com 2133 152nd Ave NE | tel: (206) 643-9090 Redmond, WA 98052 USA | fax: (206) 746-1299 ------------------------------ From: Greg Fieser Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 11:33:19 -0600 Subject: Re: Convair... Doesn't NASA still fly either a Convair 880 or 990 that's modified to test landing gears? I seem to remember reading an article somewhere about NASA testing the Space Shuttle main landing gear on a Convair... Greg Fieser ------------------------------ From: David Windle Date: Thu, 04 Jan 1996 09:51:34 Subject: Re: diamonds Albert wrote: ..>Then there is an attempt to restart the engine. This is followed by >a tremendous explosion that looked to me like it was powerful enough >to destroy the entire plane! But the cockpit was sturdy enough to >keep Mr. Crossfield alive....I don't know if he suffered any injuries >at all...such as whiplash. Scott Crossfield has a good story about this incident. When the X-15 was engulfed in fire, he saw his mechanic trying to get to the canopy release through the inferno and wall of water. SC said he was quite safe in the cockpit,which had detatched from the a/c as it should, so he gestured to his man to keep away..he could see that the mechanic wasn't about to do any such thing and that his hands were searing on the hot canopy. SC decided that he'd have to get out to prevent this exteremely brave and loyal man from being badly injured. SC scrambled out, fell on top of his mechanic,with both of them ending up on the very wet ground, with no injuries to SC and only minor burns to the mechanic's hands. Before he could tell the factory that they had a somewhat fire damaged X Plane, the press started to hustle him. Keen to alay any hype, SC told them that the only casualty was the cut of his trousers when they became wet after falling onto the ground. SC then realised 'what I'd given the B*@'~~~~~ds'....The headline: X-15 EXPLODES..PILOT WETS PANTS ! I love these true stories. Best D ------------------------------ From: JOHN SZALAY Date: Thu, 4 Jan 96 15:00:32 EST Subject: RE: 990 & NASA > FROM:"greg_fieser@ftw.paging.mot.com" "Greg Fieser" > Subj: Re: Convair... > Doesn't NASA still fly either a Convair 880 or 990 that's modified to test > landing gears? I seem to remember reading an article somewhere about NASA > testing the Space Shuttle main landing gear on a Convair... Right you are..... NASA # 810 A Convair 990 (CV-990) aircraft formerly used as a medium-altitude research platform by NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., has been converted to a Landing Systems Research Aircraft to test Space Shuttle landing gear and braking systems. A Space shuttle landing gear retraction system was installed in the lower fuselage area of the CV-990, between the aircraft's main landing gear. The landing gear system of the CV-990 will be unaffected by the shuttle test components. Aircraft Specifications The CV-990 was built by the Convair Division of General Dynamics Corp., Ft. Worth, Tex., in 1962. The aircraft was used for commercial passenger service by American Airlines and Modern Air Transport until acquired by NASA in 1975 for use as a research aircraft at the Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. It has a cruise speed of 432 kph (496 mph), is 139 feet long and has a wing span of 120 feet. It is powered by four General Electric CJ805-23 engines, each producing 16,000 pounds of thrust. - -------------------------------------------------------------- Tests were scheduled for 1993 & 1994 and I could not find anything on what the current status of the aircraft is. Had to refresh my memory on this A/C, so went to the NASA Dryden home page on the WWW, there are 9 pictures of the beast available (got some nice pics of the NASA Blackbirds as well ) There that should clear me with the topic squad. :) John jpszalay@tacl.dnet.ge.com ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #592 ********************************* To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@mail.orst.edu". If you want to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from, such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the "subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-skunk-works": subscribe skunk-works-digest local-skunk-works@your.domain.net To unsubscribe, send mail to the same address, with the command: unsubscribe skunk-works-digest in the body. 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