Reaching for the Stars [PH] - Jane's VI 3 Feb 15

[Deathsoul097]

Dude. No need to apologize for anything. IRL comes first, especially on occasions like that.

[NathanKell]

III: Faster than the Sun

Postwar British Jet Research

Program

: Operation MERCURY

Administered by:

Royal Aircraft Establishment

Partners:

Aeroplane and Armaments Experimental Establishment, Royal Air Force, Fleet Air Arm, Gloster Aircraft Company, Miles Aircraft Limited, Rolls Royce

Crew:

Sqn Ldr Phillip Edward Gerald “Gerry†Sayer OBE DSO DFC

Aircraft:

JRC Mk III

W4041

Launch Site:

RAF Boscombe Down (A&AEE)

Objective:

Pass Mach 2; research high speed flight in the Mach 2+ regime.

Outcome:

Success.

Notes

The British had invented the jet engine shortly before the Second World War, and during the war had led the world in high-speed aircraft. The Supermarine Swift, the “workhorse of the war,†defined jet hunters in the late-war and postwar period. A considerable leap over the near-prototype first generation of jet hunters and attack aircraft used mid-war, it pioneered in-service use of three innovations that were crucial to the success of second generation jet hunters, and to flight in the transonic regime: a stovepipe design where the single engine formed the body of the aircraft, with its intake as the nose and exhaust as the tail; a “flying†tail, and swept wings. In the transonic region, compression forces push conventional control surfaces to remain level; a flying tail, however, keeps forces in balance and makes control much easier. The swept wing greatly lowers drag in the transonic and supersonic regime, considerably improving performance. With these advances, the Swift could routinely break the sound barrier in dives, though it could not reach supersonic speed in level flight. That task was for the JRC Mk II.

The first Jet Research Craft, the JRC Mk I, built before the Second World War, demonstrated the advantages (and pitfalls) of jet-powered aircraft to the Air Ministry. The JRC Mk I was built by the innovative F. G. Miles of Miles Aircraft to a reasonably conventional design; it was, however, the first aircraft to use the stovepipe design made famous by the Swift and other early hunters. The JRC Mk II, also built by Miles and this time with a flying tail, was used for high speed research in the transonic and supersonic regime; assisted by rockets, and later again under its own power with an uprated engine, it was the first aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound. A derivative, the JRC Mk IIS, tested swept wings.

Given the history of procurement contracts, it is not as surprising as it might be that Supermarine rather than Miles was chosen to build the RAF’s service fighter. The Swift, not Miles’s innovative research aircraft, receives credit in popular imagination as the progenitor of the modern jet hunter. Then again, the Air Ministry had its reasons: Miles was not a large company, and did not have experience with combat aircraft; further, the company was already busy manufacturing trainers for the RAF and Fleet Air Arm, and further the Air Ministry did not wish to interrupt or distract Miles from important research.

What is perhaps more surprising is that, immediately after the war, the Air Ministry turned to Gloster rather than Miles when it came time for the next aircraft in the series: the JRC Mk III. Its reasoning remains unclear, but what is clear is that an exception aircraft was the result. Just as the JRC Mk I was the prototype for the early jets, and the Mk II pioneered features made famous by the Swift and other second-generation hunters, the Mk III’s layout would itself be repeated many times in third-generation hunters and attack planes. It too featured highly swept wings and a (swept) all-moving flying tail, but its wings were low-aspect, its intakes were moved to the fuselage sides and ramps added to aid in inlet compression at supersonic speed, and it featured an early, untheorized implementation of the area rule to reduce transonic and supersonic drag. In testing various fuselage/intake combinations in the new transonic wind tunnel at RAE at Farnborough, a design featuring side inlets that tapered in while the wings extended out was found to have far less drag than other designs; later research on this result would lead to the theorization of the area rule.

In 1946, with sounding rockets routinely breaking Mach 5, airplanes seemed a distant second when it came to speed. Indeed, no aircraft had yet passed Mach 1.3 in sustained flight. The JRC Mk III would change that in Operation MERCURY. The JRC Mk III had been conceived in the last days of the war to investigate the flight regime that the Swift and other second-generation hunters only experienced in steep dives, and to test new advances that might lead to far higher supersonic performance. Mercury, named after the Roman god of speed, was conceived along with the Mk III itself; at first merely a name for the entire program it came to also signify an attempt to not just break the aircraft speed record but shatter it to pieces: to fly past Mach 2 in level flight. The Mk III’s innovations were necessary for this purpose, as was the exceptionally powerful Rolls Royce Avon turbojet, the first British axial flow (rather than centrifugal flow) jet engine. With reheat, the Avon used in the JRC Mk III developed 73kN static thrust. With a dry weight of 5,480kg, this meant the Mk III had an astounding thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.36 with empty tanks, and a near one-to-one ratio even fully loaded.

The man chosen to pilot the JRC Mk III was intimately familiar with jets. Gerry Sayer had served before the war as Gloster’s chief test pilot, and he was the fourth Briton to fly a jet aircraft, the prototype of the Gloster Gladiator twin-jet hunter. With the coming of the war his RAF commission was reactivated; by 1941 a hunter ace, he was soon seconded to RAE at Farnborough, first to help other RAF pilots transition to jets and then to help establish the Empire Test Pilots’ School. He ended the war a Squadron Leader with 16 victories. After the war he returned to Gloster and after putting the Mk III through its paces he was selected to pilot it for Mercury.

After a number of flights to test out the Mk III’s handling and transonic / low-supersonic performance, in late May Sayer prepared for the record-breaking flight. On 31 May 1946 Gerry Sayer became the first man to fly “faster than the sun.â€Â

W4041 in the hangar at RAF Boscome Down, prior to rollout.

W4041 is clear for takeoff. Flaps set to Takeoff, the Avon spools up to maximum static thrust. Reheat on.

Ignition!

Rotation! Vrot 128kts.

Retracting gear.

Gear up, flaps coming closed.

Clean ship, turning north and beginning climb to cruising altitude.

Climbing to 50,000ft.

Leveling off at 50,000ft. Beginning speed run. The southern coast of England (and Normandy beyond it) is clearly visible.

Approaching Mach 1.

Passing Mach 1, throttle to the stops.

Passing Mach 2.

1477KTAS.

Note considerable up-trim to counteract mach tuck, and roughly 3 degrees angle of attack to maintain altitude

Beginning high speed turn. Sayer is about to experience one of the chief dangers of high-speed flight.

Inertia coupling sets in as Sayer rolls to begin his turn. Violent pitching and yawing nearly renders him unconscious and flips the Mk III almost entirely around.

The Mk III enters a dangerous flat spin. Sayer struggles to recover, dumping fuel from all but the forward tank.

At little more than 6000ft AGL Sayer finally recovers, returning the Mk III to stable flight.

Accelerating back up through Mach 1, Sayer turns to a homeward heading and begins his climb back to 50,000ft.

Climbing.

Back to Mach 2.

Passing 1450 knots. Sayer claims to have reached 1500KTAS (Mach 2.6) but the radar at Boscombe Down cannot confirm.

Sayer begins his descent towards home.

Field in sight!

Lowering gear. Clear for landing.

Downwind leg. Gear down and locked, flaps coming down.

Flaps to landing.

Turning for final approach.

Lining up.

Lined up, a little fast. Hot ship.

Nearly down.

Flaring.

Touchdown! Raising flaps, brakes engaged.

W4041 rolls to a stop.

Edited March 9, 2014 by NathanKell

[NathanKell]

Well, finally got to post the update I was working on two weeks ago. All the shots are from back then (a 1 hour KSP session I squeezed in before flying out); the writeup I got down various evenings since. It's Sayer, not Twiss, who's faster than the sun ITTL; but just as in the last time I wrote these, Twiss will get the bigger bragging rights in the end. No craft posted yet because I have to dig up all the small odds and ends it uses and add them to the RftS pack. Sayer's experience with inertia coupling is rather like Yeager's in the X-1A.

Also, a note: I plan to retcon Chapter 1 shortly; I goofed on my dates a bit there. It should take place mid-late war, though the Wren (with modifications) will continue to be used after the war.

Edited March 9, 2014 by NathanKell

[BombastixderTeutone]

OH boy I can't wait for Occolus Rift support for KSP and flying planes in Real Solar System then

Edited March 10, 2014 by BombastixderTeutone

[Captain_Party]

Is that my RSS Launch Pad config? :3

[NathanKell]

Did you do one for Boscombe Down too? Last I checked you were planning to but hadn't yet...This was one I cooked up myself.

[NathanKell]

Also: As I mentioned early on, I had been considering cross-posting to alternatehistory.com. Well, I have now done so.

[NathanKell]

As promised, retcon'd Chapter 1.

[Captain_Party]

I have a question Nathan, how did you put the gear inside the cockpit?

[NathanKell]

Surface attached a rotated gear to the front of the cockpit part such that the bottom of the gear well was above the bottom of the part, then put the nosecone on.

[GranoblasticMan]

Is there any chance someone could re-host the RftS_Pack_v2.zip? Dropbox is giving an "error 509":

"Error (509)

This account's public links are generating too much traffic and have been temporarily disabled!"

[DasBananenbrot]

Is there any chance someone could re-host the RftS_Pack_v2.zip? Dropbox is giving an "error 509":

"Error (509)

This account's public links are generating too much traffic and have been temporarily disabled!"

Try again NathanKell fixed it

[ThorBeorn]

Great alternative history NathanKell. Found many inspiring airplanes on your imgur albums also - soon off to the SPH for me!

Now for something completely different: Will the next update of RftS contain any configs for Dtobis Space Shuttle engines? I just found out WinterOwl started a new youtube series using the 6.4 x kerbol system. He has some cool new spaceplanes going on using stock engines and stock configs for Real Fuels (man, you're work is everywere). Inspired by that I felt like going back to building spaceplanes with external tanks again. I've already stolen SRFJackBauer's config for the RS-25D, but it would certainly be cool with some more angled engines (for different sizes and thrust mostly) with the necessary gimbaling built in.

And again, really thanks for all the work you put in with these mods. I would not have played KSP one fifth of the time if it was not for your mods and I would not have become interested in space travel in the same way at all. You deserve nothing but flatter good sir and maybe a check from Squad - pitching KSP to my friends is never done without mentioning your work nowadays

Edit: I will probably fiddle with my own RO configs for Dtobis engines when I have time, but I don't know how to integrate them into the RPL MS18 tech tree, giving them better performance as you unlock the tech tree etc.

Edited April 13, 2014 by ThorBeorn

[NathanKell]

ThorBeorn: Thanks! Yeah, I've kinda been addicted to the SPH since camlost wrote AJE. Currently remaking the JRC Mk. IV _again_.

As Realism Overhaul doesn't even have properly-weighted spaceplane parts yet spaceplane engines haven't been much on my radar; I believe stockalike RF configs do support them (with tech levels), and if you strip out the *other* engine configs from the stockalike cfg you can use it with RftSEngines. I'll see about adding the XS25 though at some point.

Hey, thanks so much! Always happy when people enjoy this stuff.

Re: edit: As for tech tree integration, you'll have to ask Medieval Nerd. Best bet would be to find out the name of an appropriate node, and set their TechRequired as such.

[coldblade2000]

About engine ignitor, what are the configs like? Realistic or fictional?

[manuelasa1999]

Why the enginer don´t have gimbal?

[NathanKell]

coldblade2000: realistic. Fictional too, of course, since all this is fiction. But realistic. You won't be restarting much; some engines with hypergolic mixtures can be restarted a few to a dozen times in orbit, and some pressure-fed hypergolic engines (like SPS) can be restarted at will, but otherwise, one and done.

manuelasa1999: Follow the instructions in the paragraph where you downloaded the pack: it tells you you must download ExsurgentEngineering for gimbal support. Also, if you are using TweakableGimbals (or, IIRC, Tweakable Everything), uninstall them.

[NathanKell]

A note. I have been busy of late but this remains Not Dead. I'm having to remake the JRC Mk4 *again* to be AJE-compliant (and also the various other planes I've demonstrated). Expect to see, at some point in the not-too-distant future:

Jane's All the World's Jet Hunters

Missiles to Boosters: A Look at Late-War Projects

Wikinger

For now, a JRC Mk4 in progress:

[romie]

wow i like how you build your crafts i so need help building in rss lol but am trying

[ThorBeorn]

Where did you get that cockpit from for the JRC Mk.4? I think I've had that part before on an old install, but I can't remember from where it came. You build fantastic planes as always NK.

Edit: Oh, and whenever you update RftS, should we look for it here?

[Turbojet]

The British Jet one.

Where can I get that?

Edited May 17, 2014 by Turbojet

[NathanKell]

romie: thanks!

ThorBeorn: Thanks! It's the Mettworks inline cockpit, though I had to fix the nodes a bit (and I recolored it). It'll be in RftS v3. Also, I plan to make a full thread in Releases for RftS v3, I've just been shamefully ignoring it...got making prop planes, like the Eule, Hawk Mk II and Mk V, and Tomcat.

Turbojet: The British jet...which one do you mean? The long post about the JRC Mk 3, or the Swift, or the remade JRC Mk 3 a few posts up (only 1 picture)?

[Wedgenet]

I'm trying to track down the cause of a visual problem I've been having while running RSS+RO using RftSEngines.cfg.

The KW Rocketry Engines always draws the shroud, even when there is no part attached to the bottom of the engine. Like so

I can deal with it by removing the shrouds from the part entirely by commenting out the shroud model lines from each KW engine in RftsEngines.cfg, but that means no shrouds ever. I can live with that, but it's not as pretty.

MODEL

{

model = KWRocketry/Parts/Structural/KWDecouplerShroud/KW_Auto_1mWildcatShroud

scale = 2.0, 2.0, 2.0

}

Is there a way I can wrangle this to not draw the shrouds unless there is a part attached to the engine bottom? I'm puzzled by this, since I've never seen this behavior before, and I can't pin down if it's a modulemanager, KW, RftS, or PEBKAC issue. Any theories would be appreciated.

modulemanager v 2.1.0

rfts v2

KSP.log

[NathanKell]

That seems strange. I will try some engines when I get home, but last I tried the shrouds seemed to work correctly.

[Wedgenet]

Thanks. If this isn't the expected behavior, maybe I should just re-install KW?