Montblack wrote:

I don't want to be poisonously cynical ....but ...don't these
fuel losses generate tons of interest in a 'Virgin Atlantic'
flight that would otherwise be a non-event for most of the
world's press?

I realize that you're 1/2 joking, but as someone who sits next to the
folks at Scaled that are analyzing this mission on a minute by minute
basis to ensure Steve's safety and understand the performance of the
airplane, I can assure you that this isn't the case.

As a cynical person myself, my motto is: "never attribute to malice what
can be attributed to stupidity". Although I would never use the word
"stupidity" in this case, I would use the word "ignorance", where
"ignorance" is purely descriptive, and has no pejorative value.

The fuel system on the GF is extremely complex for many reasons (W&B,
fuel flow, prevention of fuel freezing, etc.), and determining what's
going to happen in a full fuel situation is non-trivial (especially
since the two ATW flights are the only ones in which the plane has ever
been fully fueled). So, while modifications were made to ameliorate the
fuel loss, apparently they didn't work perfectly, but the fuel system
did work better than last time.

--
Marc J. Zeitlin
http://www.cozybuilders.org/
Copyright (c) 2006