James Neill

iTrader: (1)

Just watched it land - no engine power. The thing just glides in.

BBC News Player - Landing of Atlantis shuttle

Just how the hell does is actually glide? It has the shortest stubbiest wings I've seen with a massive great body. You'd think airliners would have more ability to glide that the shuttle, yet airline pilots are the first to complain if the engines don't work on a landing. Are the shuttles just designed to land like a brick (ie, high speed) and normal planes aren't?

NotoriousREV

You can glide a looooooong way when you're flying at 17,000 miles per hour.

NotoriousREV

This explains a lot of stuff:

Re: What is the maximum speed that a Space Shuttle will reach during Re-Entry?

Brendan Hughes

Wow.

If you are lucky enough
to see it go by at this stage (perhaps if you live in the Midwest, and the
landing is targeted for Florida), you will see a fireball streaking
through the sky. When the shuttle is about 60 miles from the runway, it
starts a series of S-turns that slow it down from 1,700 mph and drop it
from 83,000 feet. Finally, at about 25 miles from the runway and 49,000
feet altitude the shuttle drops below the speed of sound (this is about as
high as regular jets fly). When it is about 8 miles from the runway, it is
still at 10,000 feet, doing about 330 mph which is about twice as fast as
a jet, and 10 times as high. The view from the cockpit at this point is
pretty scary for a regular pilot – your brain just screams at you that you
are coming in WAY too steep and fast.

ScoTTyB

Good job their astronauts then, or they'd be fcuked.

Jamie

I did like the Space shuttle back-flips it is on the same clip james neill posted

Snazy

Duh !! Its hardly rocket science is it

Sorry, had to say it.
I can remember watching the first one ever landing (sad eh)
When no one understood about it tumbling to earth... Oh the panic.

Top stuff to watch though

TopBanana

Not very well at all! It has a glide ratio of about 1:1 - which means for every meter it glides forwards, it drops 1 meter.

john_s

iTrader: (1)

From wikipedia:

A quick googling suggests that a 747 has a glide ratio of somewhere in the region of 17:1, so the Space Shuttle does seem to be a bit of a brick in aerodynamic terms.

Leslie

It does have a steep approach which actually makes it easier to get to the right point before the runway for the flare before landing. The approach is computer guided anyway so the pilot just follows the needles and flares for landing at the appropriate point. Being a delta, although the wings dont look so big, the wing area is plenty large enough and also like the Concorde the vortex generated at the leading edge of the wing will provide all the lift it needs for landing. You can see as it lands that there is plenty of lift available to hold off for a smooth touchdown unlike aircraft with a high wing loading which tend to make what is known as "an arrival"!

Les

CrisPDuk

That'll be the average British Airways shuttle flight then Les

I've lost count of the number of (barely) controlled impacts I've arrived at Heathrow or Manchester on at either end of connecting flights

I try and avoid our national flag carrier whenever possible these days

CrisPDuk

By the way, on an almost completely unrelated subject, I read the other day that Prince Charles qualified to fly Vulcans during his stint in the RAF

Was he actually any good at it I know his ability to judge runway lengths when flying BAe 146s is slightly questionable

Leslie

HaHa CPD,

He never qualified to fly them, but he did have a ride in the Co Pilot's seat I think with an instructor. There was as you can imagine a bit of a hoo hah over that flight! It was just the one flight. He did quite enjoy it though. I remember meeting him once at White Waltham when I was instructing on London UAS and he was doing his training in his bright red Chipmunk. He looked like a 6th former then

I often had unqualified people in the right hand seat with me, the best was when I swapped rides in Singapore with a Lightning and a Hunter pilot. I got two fantastic trips with them and when they came up with me I could not get them away from the controls without a fight because they enjoyed it so much. We had one long trip in Florida at Orlando once when I taught nearly every member of my crew how to land it. The AEO was so good he even managed a roller landing!

Yes we all remember the BA 146 "hot" landing downwind. I felt sorry for the captain with him who had to carry the can for that one

Les