On Mon, 26 May 2003 17:47:02 -0400 (EDT), Henry Spencer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>While I prefer VTVL myself, complete loss of power is one case that HTHL >systems do handle rather better. This is because losing power doesn't immediately kill your lift. I'm kind of surprised no one has yet made the case for this option in a VTVL: Roton, in the smaller earlier design, used the rotor to take off. It would have had at least some autorotation capability. >The risk is that a problem which affects half the propulsion will affect >the other half as well. This is more likely in the development phase than >in operation, but it can occur in either. (Witness the TriStar that lost >all three engines because the same maintenance mistake was made on all >three.) I use this as an example of why conservatism on the flight deck *works*. They weren't required to turn back when the first engine started losing oil pressure. They did anyway. Good thing, because to stay in the air in the final minutes of the flight, they had to restart the engine they had first shut down - it was the only one that wasn't melting. They wouldn't have reached their destination, and TriStars don't float. -R -- "We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true." -- Robert Wilensky, UC Berkeley _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
