It's failed - 0540 UTC about 440 miles out. Perhaps they should make it fly a bit higher ... that way it won't fly into the side of ships.
it is flying at 300Meters (approx 1000Feet ASL) I don't think there are too many ships that sit 1000 feet above water.
Craig
AIRSHIPS! ;^)
From what I have seen they have done extensive land testing. They are planning another launch this evening. So far they have done a lot better than last year. The first plane only got a few miles last season. This time the first got just as far as the last one from last year. They have no idea what could have caused the plane to go down. They can only assume some sort of mechanical problem. The weather looks even better tonight.
Considering that everything has been designed and built by the team, they are doing great. It is a pleasure to get the opportunity to work along side of Maynard and his team.
Lets keep our fingers crossed.
Craig
That got a chuckle or two over here.
Ed Cregger
Seems if they had done enough testing they would have seen any failure modes that result in 4 out of 4 failures after a relatively short distance.
I wish them luck because it seems like that is the operative word now.
I wonder if they are flying near a submarine pen?
Ed Cregger
Maynard Hill has set a large number of distance, endurance and altitude records.
He has logged thousands and thousands of hours testing his designs, engines, batteries, radios, etc.
The one thing over-land tests can't do is to duplicate the conditions found over salt water at altitude after four or five hours of operation.
An 11-pound model can only carry so many systems. They can't get telemetry on every single component. They haven't got a perfect wind/weather picture for what is going on.
If they could retrieve the planes and do a post-mortem, I'm sure it would help.
They seem to be having fun working on the project. More power to 'em.
Marty
If anyone is getting the email updates and they're not too big, could that be posted here in plaintext, please.
Yeah I agree, flying it across country might give them a sense of what is failing along the way by providing a way to do post-mordems... Repeatedly flying a few hundred miles and dying in the ocean without much in terms of a lessons learned before trying again is not real smart engineering... I guess its good to have the extra cash to try the same faulty line thinking over and over again...
What was that saying, something about repeating the same thing over and over expecting a different result....
You know what is really funny...... Every time anything noteworthy happens the experts come out of the woodwork to tell the world how stupid those participating in said project are because of this or that. In reality, a high percentage of those doing the bashing DON'T have a clue as to what type, and to what extent testing has already been done. But they certainly KNOW better than the individuals in the project...... makes you wonder why they don't market their smarts to the team to 'insure' a successful project. Well newbee.... can you tell us when you will attempt a successful Trans-Atlantic crossing??? I can..... never.
Robert
Newbee wrote:
For the record the second attempt will be airborne in about 90 minutes from now.
The only time I will fly the Atlantic will be in a 747.
Unless you have seen the actual work involved in developing the planes and system most of us have no idea what is involved. I applaud the team...whether they make it or not.
Craig
Most commercial airlines fly a sorta overland route. It is also shorter because the circumference of the earth further north is less. That's why the airlines do it.
Are they near the bermuda triangle? ;-)
Right on: The age of the ARF. A modeler that doesn't know of Maynard Hill's accomplishments will be a Newbie until he is 106.
For the record: His records. . . . . Maynard Hill, the Transatlantic team leader, holds the world's record for a closed circuit distance - 808.4 miles, set in 1998. He also holds the duration record, 33h 39mn 15s set in 1992. Then throw in his altitude record of 26919 feet and I would conclude that he has the experience and know-how for this attempt.
Now we will leave it to the Newbie experts for their first successful club field crossing and return.
Red S.
The plane that got 450 miles out last year ran into a major storm. So I would safely assume that it was the storm that done it in. As of right now the guys do not know what happened to the model last night. For all we know it may still be on route with a computer failure on the satellite uplink. Weather does not seem to have been a concern last night.
Just remember the Aerosond team that flew a 45lb model across a few years ago lost 3 on the attempts. And they had a 1/2 million dollar budget with almost unlimited resources.
Craig
Maybe they should fly one of the test models on autopilot around a football field, or up and down a road, for the equivalent distance of the width of the Atlantic ocean. Then when it dies at after 450 miles, a post-mortem analysis can be made of the aircraft.
He also (in the early 1980's) had the straight line distance record. Wrote about in in MA. When did he loose the straight line distance record to someone else?
Jim Branaum AMA 1428
Six_O'clock_High Target snipped-for-privacy@Guns.com
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