Virgin galactic spaceship two cade nel deserto di Mojave

[VerySlowFlyer]

Percui alla fine è un errore di pilotaggio che ha comportato l'incidente! Adesso per riprendere i test in volo aggiungeranno un automatismo che non sblocchi la coda fino a mach 1.4

ciauz sky3boy

Ho passato i miei anni giovane con mio padre che faceva collaudi per velivoli militari in anni 60s-70s, con la famiglia guardaviamo il cielo ogni giorno e sperando che non succede niente. La sera coi amici a sentire come un aereo vola bene e male felici che tutti sono al tavolo a mangiare. Ma tanti non hanno fatto le cene. Mio padre cessato il lavoro con 3 vertebra rotte e quando abbiamo portato a casa da ospedale non era triste, diceva che era fortunato che ha avuto avviso che altri non hanno potuto avere.
Anche oggi, con la tecnologia, non e' semplice in questo modo. Non basta il controllo su speed < Mach 1.4 o su qualsiasi altra cosa. Per mettere un controllo tu devi avere i parametri su cui impostare, queste persone non leggono il manuale di velivolo prima di andare, lo scrivono quando torna. Con un pochi voli non ci sono troppe cose conosciute e tante le scopri al ultimo momento. Per quello motivo molti meccanismi che proteggono envelope su aerei "pronti" non si possono mettere su i prototipi.
Il volo 3 puoi fare deploy a M 1.4, al volo 4 con un profilo diverso stessa azione fai a 1.2 o 1.6. Anche con i computer, sensore e telemetry noi mettiamo una persona in quel velicvolo perche' ha un cervello flessibile che in questo tipo di volo e' essenziale, un collaudatore con esperienza ha un valore enorme per come il suo cervello funziona. E ha una cosa che rende unico che e' il suo culo. Con quello senti le cose che la telemetria registra ma non correla. Collaudatore deve avere cervello, culo e cuore che insieme permettono a lui di comandare il velivolo e se pensa che una leva deve muovere, lui lo fa. Puo' sbagliare e spesso paga con la sua vita, anche per quello ha un collega con lui. Alla fine tutti siamo persone umani e possiamo sbagliare e puossono sbagliare anche chi progetta velivolo e rimane tranquillo a terra. Non ho mai conosciuto un collaudatore che non si fida di suoi ingegneri o ingegneri che si fida cosi tanto di se che toglie una importante opzione di agire al collaudatore (non siamo urss).
Purtroppo abbiamo imparato una lezione nel modo duro, certo ora lo scriviamo bene.
Grazie Michael, spero che adesso hai un buon vento sempre.

 

[sky3boy]

VerySlowFlyer bellissimo intervento e nel mio post non volevo assolutamente sminuire il lavoro dei collaudatori. Anzi è grazie a gente che si è sacrificata come loro, che oggi noi possiamo stare comodamente seduti su una poltrona ad usare internet mentre attraversiamo l'oceano.

Ho avuto la fortuna di conoscere qualche collaudatore tra cui Bob Hover e tutto quello che c'è verso di loro è solo ammirazione.

Almeno adesso i velivoli vengono simulati al computer ma nei tempi del pionerismo erano i collaudatori a scrivere i manuali di volo, le check list, la gestione delle emergenze, perchè le provavano sulla loro pelle.

ciao e grazie sky3boy

 

[Seaking]

Grazie per la testimonianza, veryslowflyer

 

[VerySlowFlyer]

VerySlowFlyer bellissimo intervento e nel mio post non volevo assolutamente sminuire il lavoro dei collaudatori. Anzi è grazie a gente che si è sacrificata come loro, che oggi noi possiamo stare comodamente seduti su una poltrona ad usare internet mentre attraversiamo l'oceano.

Non c'e' problema avevo capito! Ho fatto piu' fatica ora per capire "sminuire"
Ciao

 

[Janrus]

Veryslowflyer, bellissima testimonianza!!!

 

[AZ209]

Aggiornamento, per la prima volta uno dei piloti coinvolti nell'incidente ha parlato con i media


Virgin Galactic pilot recalls colleague's crash

For the first time, one of the pilots involved in Virgin Galactic's spaceship crash has spoken to the media.

Dave Mackay, the company's chief pilot, spoke to the BBC about last October, when the company's new spaceship broke apart in mid-air over California.
"We were listening out on the radio and it became apparent fairly early that something had gone seriously wrong," he said.
The final report into the accident is due within the next few months.
Mr Mackay, from Helmsdale in the Scottish Highlands, was flying the mother ship, called White Knight Two, that had ferried the rocket plane to around 50,000ft before releasing it to the sky.
We stand overlooking the endless, scrub-strewn desert plains where the accident happened.
"We didn't see anything. We launch the spaceship and it drops below us several hundred feet before it ignites the rocket motor," he said.
"When it was apparent the wreckage had hit the ground, we descended to try to give some support in any way we could. Which involved, basically, finding out where the vehicle was and finding out where the survivor was and relaying that position back to emergency services."
According to investigators at the NTSB, the co-pilot, Mike Alsbury, pulled a lever too soon. It unlocks the spaceship's revolutionary "feathering" system, which then seems to have deployed of its own accord.
If you can picture it, the vehicle has two long tails that actually pivot by 65 degrees. It's an odd sight. Like taking two darts and bending them in the middle.
But by folding up like that, the ship slows down, so it's ready to glide back to earth. If those tails move at the wrong time, however, the consequences can be lethal.
Frankly, it's a miracle that the pilot, Peter Siebold survived the crash. After being thrown from the ship and blacking out, he came to, falling through the air and still strapped in his seat.
Somehow he managed to unbuckle himself, which triggered his emergency parachute. His colleague and friend Mike Alsbury was killed.
Flying just a few hundred feet above them that day, Dave Mackay described arriving back at base.
"I was very proud of the way that everybody reacted. It took some time to get over the shock and the sadness," he said.
Then the figurehead for the whole project arrived on the scene.
"Very soon afterwards, within a few hours, Richard Branson and his son Sam came out. Richard obviously was very shocked and saddened as well. But Richard was as determined as everyone else to see this through."

The doubts

Sir Richard Branson is under pressure to prove his dream can still come true.
At the Virgin Galactic launch in 2004, he told customers they could be floating 66 miles above the earth within three to four years.
A decade later, his radical plane has only made four powered flights, with heights well short of the 350,000 promised in the brochure. They've barely got above 70,000ft.
And there are still daunting technical hurdles to overcome, including working out which fuel will give them enough power. Sceptics have suggested flying could still be years away, and even some of its hopeful customers recently told the BBC that they were resigned to thinking it may never happen.
I met Virgin Galactic's chief executive, George Whitesides, in the shadow of his new spaceship. Like everyone here in Mojave, he comes with a stratospheric CV. Princeton, Cambridge, former chief of staff at Nasa.
"The vast majority of our customers, so about 98%, have been really terrific, very supportive. What we are doing is not easy, it's an historic thing. What we are doing is opening up space to the rest of us. We are democratising space."
He tells me they are happy they have the right rocket for the job. That the new spaceship is safe, otherwise he wouldn't go in it (he's taking one of the first flights). That the investors are supportive; in other words, the money won't run dry. And that it will make a profit once it's all going.
This thing has already burnt up hundreds of millions of dollars.
Then we spar over flight dates. In the end, the best I could get was that paying customers could be up within 18 months to two years, maybe sooner, but not much longer, so not five years, for example.
As regards the altitude, he says that getting to 70,000ft and the speed of sound is the disproportionately tricky bit. Leaping from there to space should be much quicker.

The new ship

Virgin have been building a new spaceship since 2012, tucked away in a shiny hangar being battered by the desert wind. They showed us how it's coming along.
Stripped down to the bare, brown carbon-fibre body, it's clearly nowhere near ready to fly. The body was in effect finished last weekend, now engineers are fitting the wires and levers that will bring it to life.
Not that we were allowed to film either the inside, or any of the manufacturing processes going on around us. It's all restricted by the US government, which currently treats the project the same as it would treat a new military weapon.
Filming the wrong bit could land people in prison, we were frequently reminded.
I can tell you that some small changes have been made to prevent a repeat of last year's crash. I don't have details, but I understand it'll be made physically harder to unlock the feathering system at the wrong time.
However, Virgin are confident this wasn't a design issue, so most of the improvements will come in the way the pilots communicate their actions with each other and with ground control.

The desert team

Mojave space port is an odd place.
The 300 or so engineers have often given up a nice, well-paid life in a smart city to come and work in this barren town with hostile sunshine, an airplane graveyard and rusty trains out back and no nice shops. Think Breaking Bad and you get the picture. Partners often find it a difficult move.
Among the five pilots on board is a man who flew the space shuttle four times. Another flew the SR71 Blackbird and was once voted US Air Force test pilot of the year. One man I spoke to told me his wife works for Nasa, driving the Mars Rover. Not your average couple.
They all share a determination to make a mark on this stark landscape.
When I ask him about the future, Dave Mackay often conjures up the past.
"You could look back to Otto Lilienthal crashing in his glider," he says. "If people had said then, you know this flying is dangerous, let's stick to walking on the ground, where would we be today?
"It is hard. It has turned out to be harder than we thought it would. But if it was easy, it would have been done a long time ago.
"We're enjoying the challenge."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33002052