The Great Ongoing Aviation Thread (general and other)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1581

Synthetic vision is a coming thing. Which amounts to a camera in a turret that may be using IR or visible light or both. Which will be overlaid on a cartoon version of what should be seen out the window. A la the scene generated and displayed in a training simulator or high end video game.

This can permit lower safer approaches in bad visibility with less expensive ground equipment and aircraft avionics than current practice. The aerodynamic and structural hit from real windows is tolerable for subsonic aircraft, so I expect EVS to be in addition to, not instead of, cockpit windows for subsonic aircraft UFN. See for more:

But … the aerodynamic and structural hit from real windows gets to be a problem for supersonics, and especially for low-boom supersonics. The way to make a low-boom supersonic airplane is to make it extremely long and thin. Given the size of the engines, wings, and payload compartment, the best way to make it thin(ner) is to put a skinny stupid-long beak on the front. Sort of like the current style in men’s dress shoes but turned up to eleventy.

And with a beak that long it’s impractical to have a drooping nose a la Concorde or XB-70. In that case the pilot’s view out the front will be 100% through the camera(s). Logically akin to Lindbergh’s periscope back on the Spirit of St. Louis, but vastly more capable.

This experimental airplane is an example:

This proposed low-boom executive jet SST flies at a fairly low Mach. And can just barely afford windows. Based on the nose shape plus likely AOA on landing I would expect the pilots to be landing mostly via what they see through the camera(s), not out the windows. Much like taxiing a taildragger, the view straight ahead is full of airplane. Which is much better when it’s your airplane filling your windscreen rather than some other one. :wink:

The next gen of Aerion-like airplanes that’re faster will probably lack cockpit windows. Assuming such are ever built.

1582

Interesting - thanks. Hadn’t heard about those two supersonic jets in development.

1583

Here’s one more I had forgotten. They just rolled out the actual demonstrator and hope to fly it in 2021. Particularly relevant to recent posts is the pitiful forward view out the windshield.

This vid gives a good look at the overall vehicle & the cockpit and nose

Their website has more vids, but are more hype-ful than informative IMO.

Overall it reminds me of the Douglas X-3; which was a noxious example of how not to design an airplane. Modern CFD and computerized flight controls can work miracles.

1584

More hype-ful than helpful?

1585

Much mo betta. Thank you.

1586

[wing-wag]

1587

I’m a glider pilot and own a sailplane. The view out of one of these canopies is exceptional (and, in my opinion, one of the best things about soaring) but I don’t need a bunch of instruments to fly and the panel is quite small. I have very few flights in powered GA aircraft but can tell you that, on those occasions, I thought, “Damn, you can’t see shit from in here”. Just spoiled, I guess.

1588

Keep in mind the year the X-3 was built. Interesting bid of X-3 trivia. The pilot seat extended down from the cockpit.

1589

As I said. Lacking CFD and FBW they did what they could; it just wasn’t enough.

I’m glad for the test pilots’ sake’s they never did up-engine it to meet the original performance specs. Would probably have been a real death trap at higher Mach, even by the death-trappy standards of all the early X-designs.

Nowadays we’re pretty much pushing the boundaries of aero- engineering. Back then they were pushing the boundaries of aero- physics knowledge and also aero- engineering. One is solving known unknowns. The other includes encountering unknown unknowns. Big difference in risk profile and big difference in success-or-oops rate.

1590

I agree but it did demonstrate issues that higher mach numbers created without reaching those speeds… So while it wasn’t the test bed it was meant to be it really did provide useful data for planes like the F-104. I don’t think too many pilots wanted to experience -6 g’s down, 7 g’s up and 2 g’s laterally in one go. It’s amazing that plane was brought back in 1 piece.

1591

IIRC, the X-3 had a near accident involving roll coupling (or yaw coupling), which provided useful data for the F-104.

1592

There is a pic at your link which illustrates the window question perfectly. It has front window but the pilot can’t see much of anything but space out of them.

1593

Maybe the difference is most planes the pilot is the driver and there is no concern for his/her experience. The vehicle is meant to get you from point A to B safely and efficiently. There is little concern about the pilot enjoying him or herself.

For a sailplane it is ONLY about the experience of the person driving (I suppose there are two-seater sailplanes but most I see seem to be single seaters). The whole thing is just there to enjoy the thrill of flying. So it makes sense for manufacturers to improve that experience with great visibility out of the cockpit.

1594

While there may be something to this I think it has more to do with the fact that there’s an engine in front of you dictating the shape of the plane behind it. And attached to the engine is a propeller that dictates how high the engine has to be in order for it to clear the ground. And finally, we need all the radios and gauges to navigate and supply redundancy.

All of that is missing from a glider.

1595

Just to be a nitpicky pain…pusher prop in the back?

Or wing mounted engines?

Or engines on the tail?

Or behind you integral to the plane (see military fighters)?

1596

I doubt it has anything to do with whether the pilot is expected to enjoy the scenery or not, it’s more that the pilot’s forward visibility tends to come second to other design considerations. Some of the purest fun machines have terrible forward visibility.

Gliders are designed for pure visual flying. One of the most important instruments in a glider is the variometer which indicates whether the glider is in lift or not. The variometer in a glider has a tone that rises and falls in pitch so that the pilot can gauge their vertical speed without ever having to look at it, they just listen. Gliders also have a bit of string stuck to the front of the canopy to show whether the glider is slipping or not. Again this means the pilot can see a basic instrument without having to look inside. Compare this to 99% of powered aircraft that are either fitted out for instrument flight or capable of being fitted out for instrument flight. The “six pack”, the set of six main flight instruments, have to be positioned so the pilot can easily see them without the control yoke getting in the way, this means sitting up quite close to the pilot’s sight line.

Slight tangent, I was looking for video with the sound of the variometer and found this. Looks like lots of fun.

1597

I am not a pilot so I will have to take your word for it that the joy of flying is mostly about staring at instruments.

That a sailplane pilot is up there to experience the joy of looking at his/her instrument panel for a few hours.

1598

You misunderstand. I was talking about purpose built aerobatic machines.

The forward visibility out of something like a Pitts Special is terrible. Example:

This is because visibility is not the primary design goal. Visibility comes behind structural integrity, aerodynamics, cockpit ergonomics etc etc. This is true whether it’s a glider or an airliner. The difference between a glider and an airliner is that the glider is simple enough that all the other design requirements don’t preclude a lovely bubble canopy.

1599

My question is why would you want to fly such a machine?

Pilots gush about how amazing flying is and you are telling us for most pilots the experience is all about staring at instruments? Is that what these pilots who enjoy flying so much are saying? It is barely glancing out a window and all about reading gauges?

That’s depressing.

1600

Which machine in particular? A Pitts Special? Because it is a heap of fun. The sensation of flying is amazing when flying something capable of being twisted, turned, spun, and rolled. The forward visibility is terrible, but most of the time you aren’t looking forward, most of the time it’s up, sideways, behind you and so on. The visibility in most of the other directions is great.

The point about the Pitts Special is that it is an aeroplane designed for fun, but it still has poor forward visibility. It had to be good at aerobatics which meant it had to be strong, so it has a biplane design, which means forward visibility is bad. More modern aerobatic aircraft could be designed with sufficient strength with a single wing and so the visibility got better, but visibility was never the purpose of the plane. The purpose was to be good at aerobatics, visibility came after. it’s fun because flying aerobatics is fun and challenging.

I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that most powered aircraft are designed to be capable of flying solely on instruments, that means you simply can’t have a cockpit that doesn’t prominently feature instruments, or the space to put them. As aircraft get bigger and more complex you have to put the controls, dials, switches, system panels somewhere. It can’t just be window. but, as pointed out in my first response on the subject, even from an airliner, you still get a nice view. You can’t judge the visibility based on cockpit photos taken from behind and below the pilot’s eye position, many of which are taken with the intent of showing the interior of the cockpit.

Google Photos

Google Photos

The above photos were taken from an Airbus A320. It is an office that I used to spend anything up to 10 hours in. It might have the crumbs from the previous crew’s crackers on the seat cushion, a coffee stain on the floor, and a finger print or two on the windscreen. The view is not as good as that from a glider, but it is miles better than the view from a cubicle in the middle of an office block, and that is the relevant comparison. Likewise the view from a Cessna 172 is not as good as that from a balloon, but it is miles better than the view from a car, the equivalent earth bound machine.

All that said, although the views you get while flying can be spectacular, that was never my own reason for flying and if asked what I enjoy about it, the view wouldn’t be top of the list. Climb a mountain if you want a view.