1,360
edits
Flying the Shuttle - Final Approach: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Flying the Shuttle - Final Approach (view source)
Revision as of 09:49, 26 March 2016
, 26 March 2016→The last five minutes - a tutorial
| Line 80: | Line 80: | ||
[[File:TAEM02.jpg|600px|TAEM tutorial 2]] | [[File:TAEM02.jpg|600px|TAEM tutorial 2]] | ||
Expect extremely high descent rates during the whole pattern - in subsonic flight, the Shuttle drops a good 7000 ft/min, in the early supersonic stage it might drop even faster than this to stay on the trajectory. The glide ratio you can expect at best is some 4.5 in the late phases of the approach (a typical airliner might be closer to 20), so you're not flying a very nimble vessel. The only thing that makes TAEM work is that we come in extremely high and fast and thus have plenty of energy to dissipate. | |||
* A minute into the flight or so, you'll see the touchdown point and the HAC come into view. The aim point to intercept the HAC is on the tangent to the circle you're seeing such that when you fly around on the circle, you're led right into the line aiming at the touchdown point. Take a look at the red annotations: | * A minute into the flight or so, you'll see the touchdown point and the HAC come into view. The aim point to intercept the HAC is on the tangent to the circle you're seeing such that when you fly around on the circle, you're led right into the line aiming at the touchdown point. Take a look at the red annotations: | ||