Fun project Joe, thanks for sharing!

You're welcome Bob. I got some good flights on it down in Rosewood last year...... With the flickers of success I decided to scale the project up. hopefully I can give this a try this year.

Can you say Go BIG or go Home!

This one is going to be epic, go Joe go

Gee Joe, I hope you can see it!!!

You should do it like a Buran - they had one on jet power for testing and training. It had an extendable nose strut for take off. They found that they actually had to have the turbines producing some thrust during the "glide" landing or otherwise it came down too fast!

https://speyer.technik-museum.de/en/spaceshuttle-buran


I actually got to climb through this one on a trip through Germany a couple of years ago.

Bob Klenke

Hey Bob,

The landing speed is reasonable in the steep approach on the 80 powered shuttle with good aerodynamic breaking in the flare. The big shuttle will hopefully have a split rudder airbrake to help on final. I got the nose high takeoff attitude by shortening the mains although they are fixed. I have an idea to be able to shorten the main retracts by locking them partially retracted with a second strut that will swing away after takeoff. It will also help move the mains closer to the CG on takeoff. we'll figure it out with a little trial and error.... Is that your pic of the Buran?

No, that's a stock picture, but Louie and I got to see it and walk through it when we visited the Technik Museum in Speyer Germany last year.

Bob