LOHAN teases with quick flash of spaceplane

It's with a portentous drumroll and fanfare of trumpets that we reveal today the design of our Vulture 2 spaceplane - the rocket-powered vehicle at the centre of our audacious Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) ballocket mission. Click here for a bigger version of the LOHAN graphic At the end of 2011, a heavyweight …

[taxman]

Oooooh Ahhhhhhh

Light up the sky with.......

A nice challenge to try to mimic using Estes kit bits and pieces!

[Mike 140]

Looks strangely familiar

Have you got a stash of issues of Eagle?

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

Oh!

Ah!

[Vulch]

Mmmmm.....

On purely visual grounds, a Fireball XL5 style vertical stabiliser on the tip of each main wing would finish it nicely.

[Lester Haines]

Re: Mmmmm.....

Yes - the drawing is missing the wingtip rudders.

[Vulch]

Re: Mmmmm.....

Ah, splendid!

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: Mmmmm.....

Thanks, Lester - I was wondering where the vertical control surfaces were going to be (I *had* read the Bootnote, but was still going to ask much the same question as Vulch!)

[Lester Haines]

Re: Re: Mmmmm.....

Yes, it looks a bit unstable without the rudders.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Nice

Pointy and barbed. What kind of warhead will it carry?

[Return To Sender]

Re: Nice

In the light of recent, errmm, misdaventures, possibly something anti-shipping would be appropriate?

[Euripides Pants]

Re: Nice

A shark with frikkin' laser beams

[ISYS]

Aerodynamics

I think all that purple text will make it unstable........

Sorry

[John Gamble]

Re: Aerodynamics

Pardon me while I both up-vote you and boo you at the same time.

[Evil Auditor]

Space Shuttle?

At least it's a proven design! Then again, that thing flew like a brick and was tiled with bricks.

[Medium Aardvark]

Testing?

Looks great.

Will you be flight testing the airframe & autopilot this time? either dropping it from a balloon or chucking it off a skyscaper / cliff should do the trick.

[Lester Haines]

Re: Testing?

Some testing is certainly in order.

[Mondo the Magnificent]

Rest assured....

.. that the concept design diagram you submitted will soon appear in the Iranian press as a "homebrewed Iranial rocket powered drone that will singlehandedly lead to the destruction of the enemies of the ayatollah"

[annodomini2]

Stabilisation

Will there be sufficient air pressure at the launch altitude to allow the winged surfaces to stabilise the direction of the craft?

[Lester Haines]

Re: Stabilisation

The design guys are on the case. It's all about how fast the aircraft exits the launch rod...

[Vulch]

Re: Stabilisation

Test firing at ground level in a LATTE?

Low Altitude Test of Truss Exit...

[Annihilator]

Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator

Low Orbit *Hydrogen* Assisted Navigator. My one man campaign to update the name continues... :-)

[Lester Haines]

Re: Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator

It's a lonely path you're treading, but stick with it

[7-zark-7]

Gerry Anderson would be proud

Please tell me it's missing a high 'T-tail' and the cockpit is going in the tail section.

Fireflash was such a great looking idea. As i child, i really couldn't understand why passenger jets a) never looked this cool b) weren't nuclear powered.

[David Given]

Re: Gerry Anderson would be proud

Someone did Fireflash in XPlane! Kick-ass video link and writeup follows:

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15156

The conclusion seems to be that it's a really stupid design for an aeroplane. Looks fantastic, though.

[PKM]

Kerbal Space Program

... would provide a fun (if not particularly informative) simulation of this design.

What's that? XPlane? Too much like hard work...

[paulc]

don't forget...

the "This way up", "Other side up" decals on the wings... plus the playmonaut needs a blister/window...

[Katie Saucey]

First thing to my mind when I saw the shape was "lawn dart"

The lawn-dart-like design does have a fairly successful historical precedent, i.e North American X-15 space plane.

[lawndart]

says

Looks like someone has been channelling Chesley Bonestell.

Which is only right.

It looks superb.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: says

'Looks like someone has been channelling Chesley Bonestell.'

Or Wile E Coyote.

[Mike Moyle]

Re: says

I was thinking Willy Ley, myself -- but, yes, they would be proud. This is what a space-plane is SUPPOSED to look like!

[Lester Haines]

Re: Re: says

I couldn't agree more. Doubles all round for the Southampton chaps.

[Peter Simpson 1]

"Rest assured, the thing will fly"

Carved on a granite marker at the launch site, it will be.

//Orville and Wilbur nod and smile, knowingly

[Dave Bell]

Handley Page lives!

This all puts me in mind of the Handley Page Victor. The wing shape is similar.

[graeme leggett]

Re: Handley Page lives!

Not quite the scimatar/crescent wing of the Victor but I see what you mean.

Back end similarities with Armstrong Whitworth A.W.52, General Aircraft GAL.56?

Frederick and George Miles would no doubt approve of a canard/tandem wing design

[ukgnome]

Awesome - in remindes me of fireball xl5

[Harvey Trowell]

Nice 'poon. Next stop moon?

We're whalers on the Moon, we carry a harpoon. But there ain't no whales so we tell tall tales and sing our whaling tune.

[Eddy Ito]

Will it scale?

You know, So it prints in a single go on let's say a 7" x 7" work area. Hypothetically, of course. Oh and you wouldn't happen to have a link to such an STL file would you?

[Lester Haines]

Re: Will it scale?

The links to such files, if they in fact exist, would be highly classified.

[Eddy Ito]

Re: Will it scale?

Alright then, I'll just have to settle for the desktop model of Vulture 1 and not a matched set. heavy sigh

[Lester Haines]

Re: Re: Will it scale?

Fret ye not. We'll release all the CAD stuff when the project's wrapped.

[Eddy Ito]

Re: Will it scale?

You know what? You guys are half left regardless of that fella who says you're all right. Cheers!

[Steve Mann]

Bah!

If this contraption is capable of planoforming it will need to be big enough to hold a couple of pinlighters and a snoozing of cats in addition to the Playmonaut or "Go Captain" to use the correct term. This will in turn require a much bigger launch truss and volume of whatever lift gas is deemed best.

I look forward to the acrimony of the cost-overrun committee meetings.