Flying wingless

[Chris]

Interesting story here

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005380500,00.html

and more Photos of the damage here

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/cmfalloon/album?.dir=b755&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/cmfalloon/my_photos

Luck of the Irish I call it.

[Flyingmonk]

See also this thread:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.aviation.homebuilt/browse_frm/thread/e68b932f50f79bcc/f06f1e2316f7fe23?lnk=st&q=&rnum=2&hl=en#f06f1e2316f7fe23

[Seth Masia]

Sounds like a Wrong Way Corrigan hoax.

"Flyingmonk" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> See also this thread:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/rec.aviation.homebuilt/browse_frm/thread/e68b932f50f79bcc/f06f1e2316f7fe23?lnk=st&q=&rnum=2&hl=en#f06f1e2316f7fe23
>

[George Patterson]

Seth Masia wrote:
> Sounds like a Wrong Way Corrigan hoax.

Hard to tell. He lost an aileron. Unless there were problems with the controls
of that one, a single aileron would give about the same control feel in normal
flight. He lost some lift on that side. But he also lost an auxiliary tank. That
tank may be assumed to have contained a fair amount of fuel, since he said he
only noticed a problem when he saw the gauge for that tank showing empty. So,
the loss of lift was probably countered by the loss of weight on that side.
There's also a radar pod under the other wing.

The plane might actually have flown a bit better this way.

On the other hand, it's hard to imagine hitting something hard enough to remove
part of the wing and have nobody on board notice.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

[Dylan Smith]

On 2005-08-21, George Patterson > wrote:
> On the other hand, it's hard to imagine hitting something hard enough to remove
> part of the wing and have nobody on board notice.

Knowing how well the press are fooled on aviation matters, I'm taking
this one with a gigantic pinch of salt.

This should be a reportable incident to the NTSB since it's an
N-registered aircraft. The first two digits of the N-number are visible,
therefore it should be findable in the NTSB within the next week or two.

It certainly should appear in Britain's AAIB database if this thing's
real and it really landed in Jersey, since the CAA adminsiter that
airspace.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

[Flyingmonk]

Let's not forget that the Boomerang by Rutan was Asymetrical and it
flew fine.

Bryan

[[email protected]]

> Let's not forget that the Boomerang by Rutan was Asymetrical and it
>flew fine.

So why don't Cessna and Beech and Piper and the rest just saw off
some wing, decrease drag and go faster? Asymmetric airplanes look
asymmetric but are designed to be balanced. The Germans had a similar
setup during WWII but it wasn't terribly successful.
Removing anything--wings sections, control surfaces, or
anything else--from an airplane will render it dangerous and certainly
less than cooperative. Ask any WWII bomber pilot who had to limp home
(or couldn't even do that) with such things shot away.

Dan

[John Clonts]

> wrote in message oups.com...
>> Let's not forget that the Boomerang by Rutan was Asymetrical and it
>>flew fine.
>
> So why don't Cessna and Beech and Piper and the rest just saw off
> some wing, decrease drag and go faster?

http://www.avweb.com/newswire/11_34a/briefs/190422-1.html

[Flyingmonk]

http://www.micom.net/oops/F-18mid-air1.jpg

http://www.micom.net/oops/F-18mid-air2.jpg

http://www.micom.net/oops/F-18mid-air3.jpg