One more reason I want out.

[taylorcraftbc65]

Re: One more reason I want out.

I also have a Phantom U/L that's a blast to fly! It stressed for 9+ 6- Gs. It's cable braced,very strong,cruises 70mph and is very responsive. It will get in & out of very small places. When you chop the power it drops like a rock & takeoff roll is 100-150'. The only drawback is it burns more fuel than the Tcraft! The '38 Tcraft & the Phantom are a fun pair.

Owning an Avenger, I KNOW how you feel, kind of like "HOW SWEEEEET IT IS"!! Sabrina

[VictorBravo]

Re: One more reason I want out.

Have you heard of the Carbon Dragon?? It is a foot launched, ultralight legal, glider with some Very good performance numbers. Sabrina

Oh yeah, I've heard of the Dragon

Sorry in advance to sound off like a know-it-all, but I was indeed hanging around there and know/knew some of the people involved personally. It was designed and built at my home gliderport of Tehachapi.

Jim Maupin the designer used a couple of strange ideas like vertical dowels between the spar caps for shear webs, which baffles me. Jim also designed the plane with HOPES that it could be foot launched, but it came in at something like 140 pounds. They foot launched it a few times with great effort to say that it COULD be done, but the reality for most of the time was a car tow.

The airplane flew well but not perfectly. It did however offer some extraordinary soaring abilities in very weak or small lift. A talented fellow named Gary Osoba bought it and promptly reinvented part of the sport of soaring, pioneering the concept of "micro-lift" and ultralight soaring which is now all the rage.

The Carbon Dragon was an impressive accomplishment in it's time, but has been superseded by other designs with better performance. New materials and the availability of defense surplus composites enabled a team in Oregon to come3 up with the Sparrowhawk, which was used by Gary Osoba to embarrass everyone at the 15 meter nationals if memory serves. There is an exceptionally light glider called the Light Hawk, but only one has been built and it is a complex/expensive airplane. Several other new ultralight sailpalnes are being built. One spectacular achievement is the "Archaeopetryx" , built in Switzerland. Do a google search and see videos of it flying. This is a 150 pound 15 meter sailpalne which has been foot launched (see a video clip on their website) and has the potential for 30-1 glide.

All that being said, and even not really being a flying wing proponent, I must say that a Horten HXc built with carbon rod spars and proper use of high tech materials, is capable of yielding a 60 or 80 pound sailplane which could rewrite the book once again that Osoba originally rewrote using the Carbon dragon.

[taylorcraftbc65]

Re: One more reason I want out.

Bill,
It is nice to hear from someone who knows some of the backscenes story about the Carbon Dragon. I was thinking about building one at one time, but then I saw the Pioneer II flying wing, and fell in love. I LOVE flying wings. I wrote the designer and asked what he thought about running two large tip to fuselage to opposing tip carbon fiber blue foam filled hollow box spars, fairing the wings into the fuselage, a la the B-2, and fairing the leading edges into a slightly more pointed nose, slightly further ahead, to offset the installation of a Gluharrof propane fired jet in the tail, with its intake halfway up the vertical sabiltzer. He actually said it might be the "next step" to power the glider with a small, low thrust jet engine, but was unsure how much weight I would save with the box spars. The partially completed airframe sits in my workshop. Someday, I will finish it. Sabrina

[VictorBravo]

Re: One more reason I want out.

Bill,
I saw the Pioneer II flying wing, and fell in love.

two large tip to fuselage to opposing tip carbon fiber blue foam filled hollow box spars,

a Gluharrof propane fired jet in the tail, with its intake halfway up the vertical sabiltzer.

Sabrina

Brie, look further into what Jim Marske has done recently with the carbon rods as spar caps. That material hols out a LOT of promise for ultralight aero structures. One of Marske's Monarch UL gliders was finally built with those spars I tink.

My version of the Horten HXc that I mentioned was indeed going to have a very large chord box spar (like some airliners), where a soft EPP foam leading edge was glued to the front for impact resistance, and the control surfaces were hinged to the back. (Similar to Gunther Rochelt's Flair 30 if you can find info on that.

The way I was going to try to get the weight down was to use those carbon rods in the corners of the box spar as caps, then 1/4" rigid foam core sandwich for all four "faces" of the box, and some vertical grain balsa
"ribs" inside the hollow box every 6 or 12 inches. I agree with Marske that an old school Rutan blue foam solid core would be too heavy... at least for the ultra light version.

Since you are severely afflicted with the multiple diseases of soaring, flying wings, and ultralights, your presence is therefore required at the Sailplane Homebuilder's event (now called the E Soaring group) in Tehachapi over the Labor Day weekend in September.

Forgive my assumption of your innocence, but on the off chance you are still not aware of the following resources:

Google search Stewart Midwinter's Rigid Wing Homepage (I think it's http://midwinter.ca or something like that) This is the largest resource on advanced (meanng an aircraft not a kite) hang gliders. There are some incredibly interesting things, ideas, photos, and information on rigid wing gliders here.

Look up the SHA / Esoaring folks on the web, there's a great homepage with links and info. I think it's now www.esoaring.com or something. Dan Armstrong and his wife Jan are the head honchos, great people, aero engineers and soaring/hang gliding people to boot. Dan was the guy who foot launched the Carbon Dragon, BTW

Look up TWITT the flying wing addicts group. (The Wing Is The Thing). This is where the REAL hardcore flying wing engineers and gray haired wise folks are. If you want to rub elbows with the likes of Barnaby Wainfan and Bruce Carmichael, Paul MacCready, Taras Kuceniuk (Icarus HG designer), and a dozen other equally brilliant folks, this is the place.

Douglas Bullards' FABULOUS webpage www.nurflugel.com has all known photos and histories of flying wing research vehicles, production, prototypes, etc. This is IV Heroin for the flying wing enthusiast.

GOTTA look up Mike Sandlin's BUG homepage! Do a Google search for < sandlin bug glider > and you will instantly want to build one of his garage-level gliders. For literally $500 worth of Home Depot hardware and pop rivets and his FREE online CAD drawings, you can have more fun soaring than you ever thought possible. The monoplane version GOAT and the biplane version BUG are truly spectacular achievements. They break the cost barrier for soaring with a safe, well designed low-tech machine. You can't look at this webpage and not see how much fun they're having!

Serioously, make the effort to spend the long weekend in Tehachapi. They will publish a list of the forums and activities in advance, and you can get a lot of info beforehand from Dan and Janice about past events to convince yourself that it is well worth attending. Last two years Eric Raymond flew in in his Sunseeker electric powered sailplane. Everyone who is anyone in the UL sailplane world (except Marske, unfotunately) is there.

This event, although not .001% of the size of Sun n Fun or Copperstate, is the de facto center of the ultralight soaring, sailplane homebuilding, and high efficiency low powered flight universe.

Bill

[taylorcraftbc65]

Re: One more reason I want out.

Brie,Since you are severely afflicted with the multiple diseases of soaring, flying wings, and ultralights, your presence is therefore required at the Sailplane Homebuilder's event (now called the E Soaring group) in Tehachapi over the Labor Day weekend in September.

Bill

O.K. Bill, my "wing" won't be there, but I will. Now YOU have to be there too.
I'll be looking for you, You will know where to find me, I'll be near the flying wings. Sabrina
P.S., I told Marske about my idea in 1995. I just have to take my time building the wing as I get the bucks to do so. He never said don't do it, he actually told me it might be the next step. That shocked me that he would not climb right down my throat for suggesting that I would try and modify his design.

[Carl Ellis]

Re: One more reason I want out.

Bill -

You will find this article interesting.

Paraglider survives after soaring to 32,000 feet

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17185299/

- Carl -

[taylorcraftbc65]

Re: One more reason I want out.

Forget hypoxia or hypothermia,, she's lucky her blood didn't boill in her veins due to the low perssure of both the altitude, and the low pressure zone she was in. Brie

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: One more reason I want out.

Extreme low pressure will kill you but it is a common misconception that your blood boils. What DOES happen is Nitrogen can come out of solution (usually in the joints) and forms small bubbles. It is extremely painful and divers call it the "Bends". Untreated it can eventually kill you, especially if a bubble in the blood moves to the heart or brain.
There was an "interesting" incident at NASA when a new space suit was being tested in a vacuum chamber. The subject was in the suit, in the chamber with a hard vacuum. The suit ruptured, the subject screamed (which saved his life) and he passed out in just about 20 seconds. The vent valves were opened to let air back in the chamber as soon as the suit ruptured but it took time for the pressure to rise in the chamber. When the body is put in a vacuum bubbles form in your joints and other fluids in the body. It isn't really "boiling" in the traditional sense because the temperature isn't rising, but more like a few bubbles coming out of solution in soda pop. The test subject woke up after the accident and said the last thing he remembered was his mouth filling with foam as his saliva out-gassed. The low pressure would have burst the Avioli in his lungs except he screamed and let all the air rush out of his lungs. When the pressure was raised to normal in the chamber all of the bubbles were forced back into solution and from what I heard the subject was in pretty good condition, although I don't know if he volunteered to do it again.
Lots of really interesting things happened in the early space program. The media has a way of REALLY screwing up the reports on most of it leading to lots of popular msconceptions.
Hank

[Ed O'Brien]

Re: One more reason I want out.

Turner Classic Pictures often shows an old movie titled "Test Pilot." It was shot before WW2 and takes place in San Diego. In a particularly memorable scene the Flight Surgeon, Walter Pigeon, is talks to a young test pilot,
John Payne. The Doctor says "There are two lines on my chart, one line is a man's age, the other indicates pilot stress, when the two lines converge... he's washed out."

John Payne asks, "What causes pilot stress, Doc?" To which Doc Pigeon answers, "No one knows, cigarette?"
And then Payne takes the smoke offered by Pigeon, lights, up, inhapes deeply, and the scene closes with the 2 men smoking with puzzled looks on their faces as they ponder the pilot stress question, sucking on smokes.

My point? Flight Medicine is often wrong, always dynamic,
and given to occasional miss-steps. We can be excused for not having every detail at hand. That said, it's always good to get the straight story and just one of the reasons I love this website.
With regards;
ED OBRIEN

[fearofpavement]

Re: One more reason I want out.

Wow, has this thread morphed or what? Anyway, since we now seem to be on the subject of boiling blood, I would like to point out that the temperature something boils at is directly related to pressure. That is why you need to cook things longer at high altitudes and is also why a pressure cooker cooks things faster than if they are boiled in a pot. I don't know diddly about flight at SR-71 altitudes but do know that at very low pressure things will boil at a much lower temperature. Whether that temperature/pressure combination can ever reach the 100 degree farenheit point for blood I don't know but suspect it can. Regarding the bends, this is certainly a risk at altitudes much lower than the top of a Thunderstorm and is one reason scuba diving should not be followed by high altitude flight. I have never experience that but from accounts I've read it is a good thing to not do.

[DanBrown]

Re: One more reason I want out.

Yes,these threads often veer interesting directions! Are you aware of the Perlan Projcet -- an attempt to fly a glider to 100,00 feet using stratospheric waves? They managed to break the glider altitude record by going to 50,671 feet last summer. See http://www.perlanproject.com/blog/

[VictorBravo]

Re: One more reason I want out.

As far as getting "the bends" at altitude, I had a friend once who had just that happen.

Interesting story... he was a Marine crew chief on A-4 Skyhawks at MCAS El Toro here in California. The kid had been one of my retrieve crews in glider racing in the early 1980's. Good looking gung ho kid that loved airplanes of all types. The Marines framed him as a "golden boy" and had him on a fast track for flight school as soon as he finished school, sneaking him time in the A-4 simulators and what not while he was a crew chief.

He wanted to break the world altitude record in gliders, whichw as 46,267 feet at the time. But Buddy was all balls and only half brains, so he took his sailplane up to 42 or 43K with just a "regular" pressure demand A-14 oxygen regulator instead of a suit. He got "the bends" and came back with an "embolism" (sp).

The Marines took him down to the Scripps hospital in San Diego, put him in the decompression tank, and the doc told him he was lucky and would still be able to fly for the Marines. A couple of weeks later another flight surgeon came in and back-pedaled, and said no he would never fly for the Marines, basically killed his dreams on the spot.

This was RIGHT about the time the movie Top Gun came out. So this kid decided he came to fly and fly he would... so one fine evening he eased himself into the cockpit of the A-4 he was working on, fired up the engine, and took himself out for a ride over the Southern CA coast. He managed to evade a couple of alert flighters that were scrambled from March AFB for about five minutes while they tried to figure out whether he was a Russian airplane thief or a crazy pilot. He later told me he knew it wouldn't take too long for them to get permission to splash him, so he just moseyed back over the southern part of the greater Los Angeles metro area (Orange County before they called it "the OC"), knowing they wouldn't do it over the city. After a few minutes of mild aerobatics, he landed the airplane (without so much as scuffing the tires), got out and let the boys put the bracelets on.

Anyway, that's the story of my old sailplane crew Buddy Foote... so kiddies remember: Don't fly above 35,000 feet in your Taylorcraft without a working pressure suit!!! The Perlan Project I heard about, the chief pilot is a well known sailplane pilot and high level retired test pilot named Einar Enevoldson. He was an Edwards AFB jockey for along time. Nice guy, owns a Fairchild 24 if I recall.

Brie, I'll be there if at all possible. TODAY at our local EAA chapter meeting, a member brought in samples of the carbon rods that Jim Marske uses for the spars I discussed earlier. WOW! That stuff is awesome. Imagine a set of Spars for a Taylorcraft that weigh 1/3 or 1/4 of the weight of solid Spruce spars, and would not break under 7 or 8 G's.

[VictorBravo]

Re: One more reason I want out.

Hank, I tried to send a PM to you about something unrelated, did you get it?

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: One more reason I want out.

No PMs showing buddy. Try hjarrett2 at cox.net
Yea, I know, not good to go in the open but I figure if someone wants to do the work to figure it out I probably want to talk to them anyway.(;f
Hank