On Tuesday, April 25, 2017 at 2:41:21 PM UTC-7, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 3:50:47 PM UTC-7, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 23 Apr 2017 14:40:30 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

On 4/23/2017 10:05 AM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 23 Apr 2017 07:38:17 -0700, Bruce Hoult wrote:

On Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 4:48:21 PM UTC+3, Ron Gleason wrote:
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/Features/
TGALS_first_flight.html

Looks like a SH fuselage with side canopy hinges. Anyone know more
details?
27 foot (8.2m) wingspan, even with two joined together!

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/f...mbnails/image/
ed14-0320-034.jpg

Surely the main question is why did they bother?

Scaled Composites seem to have the problem of designing and building
this type of aircraft pretty much cracked, and already carrying quite
large rockets, so why not buy one or two from them?

Not Invented Here?

I wondered if that might be it. My guess is that NIH plus at least one
of the project bosses obviously being a keen RC flyer, is a reasonable
explanation. The link Bruce posted makes the RC connection clear.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

I think it's that it's really a lot cheaper to build something that's derived from production aircraft than starting with a new design that's 100% purpose-built. There are a number of NASA, commercial and military projects looking at using production gliders as a starting point - particularly for proof-of-concept. After all, modern gliders are pretty well optimized aerodynamically...and dirt cheap compared to the alternatives.

Off-the-shelf RC gliders are even cheaper and give you at least some insight into the flight behavior of the gliders they are patterned after.

Here's a link to an interesting series of videos describing the logic behind the project.

http://www.amaflightschool.org/video...launch-concept

Andy Blackburn
9B

Andy, thanks for the link to the videos. Great stuff!

Craig Funston
7Q