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Will StratoLaunch Fly?


fredinno

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On 5/1/2021 at 2:43 AM, tater said:

Yeah, that is what I assumed, it's just not what I'm used to seeing—the last time there were such planes being messed with they were smaller (There were a bunch of oddball looking planes in ww2, and yeah, the tail was linked as well (F-82, etc).

So the 2 fuselage and center wing has to be quite rigid, and the outboard wings are then more typical of what gets done generally.

It's actually interesting to me how far apart the 2 fuselage segments are. I assume that the rocket or hypersonic vehicle will be dropped, then fire engines, so presumably plume interaction is not that likely, though.

I'd bet that if anything, the fuselages would have to be more rigid if they were connected at the tail. As is they are each free to flail about as they like without worrying about the other one. If they were connected any differential forces on them would concentrate as all sorts of stresses in silly crucial points in the structure. I think that may also be a major driver behind the separation of the hulls, to minimize any turbulence caused by one interacting with the other.

I think what NG wants in Stratolaunch is the plane. As the last TriStar in operation Orbital's StarGazer is no less bespoke and closing in on it's 50th birthday must be getting expensive to keep flying. Whether building it was financially reasonable  can be argued, but as somebody else has already paid for it NG can just as well reap the benefits from having a plane specifically designed for the job. So I expect Stratolaunch to merge into their Space Systems sector in not so distant future.

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On 12/9/2021 at 9:40 PM, DDE said:

Fun fact: China's H-6N bomber (a derivative of a variant of a license built Tu-16 Badger), specifically designed to carry air launched ballistic missiles, can carry a missile with an HGV, as seen during the National Day parade in 2019 (I think, it may have been another event).

This is probably what this is intended to replicate. Perhaps it is related to things like Kinzhal too?

The article only mentions HGVs for SRBMs and ICBMs.

Edited by SunlitZelkova
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13 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

OK, maybe they didn't just buy it for the parts.

From what I can find Roc has Pratt&Whitney blowers and Cosmic Girl runs on GE windmills. So pretty much only some of the wing mechanisms possibly remain the same between the two aircraft. No much point buying a whole aircraft to use such a tiny part of it for parts.

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