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fun with picture analysis


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There are a few bright folk here, the premise is simple:

Whats going on in this picture?

http://www.wordiq.com/knowledge/images/8/8e/Crash.arp.600pix.jpg

Obviously the makings of a bad day, but other then that, whats happening, why is he ejecting?

 

some things to look at:

-the slats

-the position of elevators

-the exhaust trail

-the condensation/smoke accumulation on top of the wings.

-the altitude

 

Mowgli, Mensan, give everyone else a chance before you spoil it. ;)

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Originally posted by Rotarded:

What we have here is a pictorial representation of Eric's last encounter with a female.

 

Note how he bails from the mission, right before he crashes and burns.

Buwhahahahahaha! Funny because its true!

 

Or maybe the jet has a manual tranny? He shifts like Anthony, missed 3rd, and had to bail?

 

Or how about this: this is CR. I don't come here to think. I come here to read funny shit and make fun of stupid people. Just tell us the answer already.

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A guy at work has this picture that he printed of in 8x10. It won a 'Damn I can't believe you got that picture' contest on some photo website he's on.

 

Needless to say, I already know exactly what happened. The guy who took that said he accidentally got that picture didn't even know he got that when he took it and wasn't trying to. He thought he was just taking a picture of the plane, but by the time he snapped, and the shutter closed and opened back up, that's what he saw. The photographer of that picture was on scaffolding and that wreckage stopped just short of the scaffolding. :eek:

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I've got this video somewhere both in cockpit and out, it's pilot error all the way which is strange since it is one of the thunderbirds so you would think that they wouldnt make a stupid mistake like this. I'll post the cause later if someone doesnt post it first. Needless to say this photo is taken lessthan a second before the plane hits the ground.
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The leading-edge of the wings lowers to increase low-speed lift. It looks like a flat spin, because the pilot did EVERYTHING (pull the stick back, trim the flaps on the wings, throttle the engine) to try to keep it aloft.

 

That's my guess. Then again, aside from going to the Cleveland Nat'l Air Show every year up into my 20s I'm just a banker with little usable knowledge of aerodynamics smile.gif

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Guest Ranger_Man

"Whats going on in this picture?"

 

the plane is crashing

 

"Obviously the makings of a bad day, but other then that, whats happening, why is he ejecting?"

 

errrr, because the plane is crashing?

 

so what do i win?

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I just watched the video... google works.

 

After take off he went into a steep climb, did a half barrel to loop around back toward the runway. Guess he didnt get high enough initially so he smacked the ground.

 

I think it was pretty obvious with the clues you gave.

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Only one thing you didn't find Ken, why was he ever that close to the ground/why did he start the maneuver too low?

 

It's actually pretty interesting and I didn't know anything about the reason why until the photography buff here told me the story about the picture.

 

You can either base your altitude off of sea level, or above ground level. Above sea level is obviously going to be a standard no matter where you are. Above ground level on the other hand obviously needs to be adjusted for where you are. I believe the story goes that guy was practicing at a different location the day before that air show and was using the above ground level base for altitude. Problem was the place he practiced at was lower (closer to sea level) than the place where the air show was. He never corrected the next day at the air show, so what he though was ground level was somewhere below the actual ground. IIRC, because of that incident all of the stunt teams now use sea level as a standard and just have to know how far above sea level the ground is. He ejected during the last thousandths of a second before the plane hit the ground.

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I'll guess that he hit stall speed somehow, steep angle of attack, going slow for the crowd maybe, gave him no lift, dropped like a rock, he couldn't save it in time.

 

Sort of like Space Ship One about a month or two ago, going straight up to try and get every foot necessary for records, hit stall speed and lost control, started spinning. Luckily they were going the opposite direction of this ejecting guy! The next week they added a few degrees to their climb, they didn't go straight up, and they kept control.

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Neo nailed it...cheater. tongue.gif I didnt know it was a system fart, just from what I saw it was deffinately pilot error, too steep, too low, too fast.

Lots of good gueses, but int he name of learning, some answers:

Those of you noticing fire/blast:

-Ejection seats use small solid fuel rockets to get you the fuck out of the cockpit and explosive bolts onte canopy to get it out of the way first.

 

Trying to land w/o gear.

-Kinda, but its going way to fast and way to steep. Not pilot is tht dense...I hope tongue.gif

 

Wings iced over?

-Obviously in a desert environment. Way to low for ice to form. And F16's have systems to combat that.

 

broken control cable and secondary system failure:

-F16s are all fly by wire.

 

His planes on fire?

-its about to be ;)

 

flat spin.

- If ya look at the exhaust, you can see it is exiting the tail in a downward angle. Further more it is in a trail streaming behind the plane, this indicates forward motion. The clincher, look at the exhaust plume in the area of the ejected canopy. You see a symetrical buterfly shape to it. That is the wake of the wings moving it around. Symetry indicates a uniform flow of air, which you would not have in the event of a spin.

 

Stall speed

- Given that he's in level flight just out of a dive, combined with the path of the exhaust, it points to more then sufficient speed.

 

Originally posted by Hoosier Daddy:

Sort of like Space Ship One about a month or two ago, going straight up to try and get every foot necessary for records, hit stall speed and lost control, started spinning.

Did what now? I followed that religeously, at least I think I did, and dont remember any uncontroled stalling...? I do rememeber the problems with the universal control system taking a shit under G load, and the guy flying blind. He also had trouble with exesive roll due to over correction. The in cocpit shots of the 3 pilot who flew it are priceless. None of them were ready for the kick of that rocket, and were all leaning slightly foward. The Rocket ignition corrected that quick, fast, and in a hurry. tongue.gif The craft was doing Mach++ up into the upper thermosphere, where the engine was put out. The craft still had enough momentum to carry it into the exosphere, thus clinching the record. At the peak of its journey, it stopped, so yes it did stall. At the apex, the feather was put up and it did enter a breif flat spin, but this was breif and done deliberately to slow its entry speed back onto the atmosphere.
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Originally posted by BrockSamson:

Did what now? I followed that religeously, at least I think I did, and dont remember any uncontroled stalling...? I do rememeber the problems with the universal control system taking a shit under G load, and the guy flying blind. He also had trouble with exesive roll due to over correction. The in cocpit shots of the 3 pilot who flew it are priceless. None of them were ready for the kick of that rocket, and were all leaning slightly foward. The Rocket ignition corrected that quick, fast, and in a hurry. tongue.gif The craft was doing Mach++ up into the upper thermosphere, where the engine was put out. The craft still had enough momentum to carry it into the exosphere, thus clinching the record. At the peak of its journey, it stopped, so yes it did stall. At the apex, the feather was put up and it did enter a breif flat spin, but this was breif and done deliberately to slow its entry speed back onto the atmosphere.

Hmmm, I'm probably wrong then. I don't mean at the apex. It was Melville's 2nd rocket flight I think, when he got into the rolls on the way up close to the edge of the atmosphere... not his first rocket flight where the control system went out and he flew it sort of blind.

 

Afterwards Rutan did't say stall speed, but he did say something like "To correct this next time, we won't take a 0 degree angle of attack, we'll leave it off a few degrees, still get some lift, still making a slight turn" so that's what I'm thinking of. I just assumed the uncontrolled rolls were from a loss of lift mainly due to the steep angle, instead of air flowing over the wings it creates turbulance, no control.

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ahh, true. The wings dont work as they should at 90deg verticle. The control sufaces are basicaly in neutral and serve to keep it pointed in one direction. They severely lack in rotational stability. After the flight you mentioned, they also redesigned the tail sections. Lacking a wind tunnel, they strapped them to the front of a pickup truck and drove them around...true story. smile.gif

Ya did catch me off guard there though. Despite not technicly being a stall, the wings did effectively stop producing lift. graemlins/thumb.gif

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