NASA's Future

[gaetanomarano]

<br /><br />"...It was a magnificent one, and the studies done with it <font color="yellow">have been astoundingly influential...</font>, you quote...<br /><br />to-day's airplanes and spacecrafts are SONS of ALL previous planes, prototypes and research, including X-15, then, it still "fly"!<br />

 

[n_kitson]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Boeing had actually developed a Jet called a B-52 that was successful before the 707<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />The B52 provided minimal, if any, data on addressing the problems facing Comet. The Comet failed due to metal fatigue. The B52 only had a pressurized cockpit, and this never suffered the airframe stresses that Comet experienced on most of the fuselage.

 

[dobbins]

Boeing had already solved the problem of a pressurized cabin on the 377 Stratocruiser, a passenger derivative of the B-29.<br /><br />

 

[wdobner]

They hadn't 'solved' the problem by 1988 when Aloha Air flight 234 lost a large section of it's fuselage, what makes you think they solved it back in the 1940s? <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> Correct me if I'm wrong, not only did the Comet fly higher and climb faster than the propeller driven planes, it also featured a higher pressurization than the 377 and B-29 (amongst other pressurized propeller liners) would have had. Boeing may have had a pressurized airliner back in the 1930s in the Stratoliner, but that plane would have been under far less stress than the later jet airliners. The propellerliners were working with a turbo or supercharger bleed while I would imagine the Comet's engines supplied the cabin pressurization from somewhere on the compressor, potentially supplying it with a higher cabin pressurization. I realize it'd be regulated down from whatever the pressure would be in the compressor, but I thought I heard that was a contributing factor in the Comet's problems. I suppose the biggest problem was that the Comet's structure was all too similar to the earlier pressurized propliners, with big square windows, but it didn't help that they were blowing the plane up like a balloon on every flight when compared with the propliners.

 

[dobbins]

The Comet's problem was the square windows that the designers insisted on so they wouldn't look like portholes. The Comet III never had any problems, other than a bad reputation, after the window shape was changed.<br /> <br />The investigation of the Aloha incident found the problem was the airline's inspection procedures.<br /><br />

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>to-day's airplanes and spacecrafts are SONS of ALL previous planes, prototypes and research, including X-15, then, it still "fly"! <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Ah, now I'm following you. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> Yes, the work done in X-15 has influenced many aircraft, although predominantly not airliners. It's mainly been significant in the fastest vehicles. It definitely influenced SR-71 and the Space Shuttle. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>