#airplanes
Wed, 01 Jun 2022 08:51:03
Sun, 22 May 2022 10:14:18
Sun, 22 May 2022 10:11:23
Fri, 29 Apr 2022 10:04:06
Tue, 26 Apr 2022 10:29:36
Mon, 05 Jun 2017 10:50:08
Fri, 15 Oct 2021 08:27:38
When engineers make paper airplanes
whaaaaaaaaaat look at this floaty chubby plane boi I love him
fun fact but modern passenger jets are actually FANTASTIC gliders! you wouldn’t think so from how chunky they look but most of them have a glide ratio a little under 20:1, meaning that even if the plane has no engine power at all and is falling out of the fucking sky for every ONE FOOT of height the plane loses, it glides forward almost TWENTY FEET!
For context:
- Actual gliders can exceed a glide ratio of 50:1, which combined with their slow flight speed means that with even a moderate updraft they can actually gain altitude without an engine.
- A typical glide ratio for light single-engine airplanes like a Cessna 172 or Piper Cub might be around 8:1 - for a variety of reasons including different wing shapes, the presence of wing struts on many aircraft, fixed landing gear, and fixed-pitch propellers which can’t be “feathered” to reduce drag. On the other hand depending on the area the light aircraft has a lot more places it can safely make an emergency landing because it can fly so much slower. For aircraft designed for short takeoff and landing a lower glide ratio can actually be better because it allows the plane to fly a steeper approach.
- I couldn’t find published glide ratios for fighter jets. But it’s bad enough that fighter pilots are told not to bother trying to land with no engines.
- The Concorde was apparently around 12:1 maximum, but that was while flying at just under Mach 1 and it would decrease to 4:1.
- I don’t know the SR-71′s glide ratio but it had the notable problem that in some circumstances a failure ofone engine while at top speed would mean the asymmetric thrust would make the plane turn sideways at mach 3 and turn into titanium confetti. Airliners don’t tend to do this.
- A helicopter has a “glide” ratio of around 4:1 (in autorotation).
- A wingsuit can apparently get up to a glide ratio of 3:1 with good technique, which is a little better than the gliding animals they imitate, but a person in a wingsuit can’t glide at a safe landing speed.
- The space shuttle had a glide ratio of around 4.5:1 at landing (and a glide ratio of DON’T at takeoff), which is much higher than the 1:1 people often talk about when mentioning how awful it was at gliding. The 1:1 glide ratio was at high hypersonic speeds, a regime where it was intentionally designed to slow down rapidly. Still, its glide ratio was so comically bad that the aircraft used to trained pilots to land it had to be modified to use its thrust reversers in midair at full power to simulate the shuttle’s combination of low glide ratio and very high speed.
- The Apollo Command Module had a glide ratio of up to 0.5.
- A skydiver without a wingsuit or a parachute can achieve a glide ratio of up to about 1:1.
Mon, 05 Apr 2021 15:36:57
Fri, 06 Nov 2015 10:15:43
Wed, 24 May 2017 04:26:01
Tue, 01 Apr 2014 00:13:48
Thu, 31 May 2018 04:47:23
Tue, 07 Apr 2015 23:20:59
Sat, 06 Feb 2016 23:33:16
Mon, 22 Apr 2019 12:25:43