Classic British Flight Sim

Hi,

For anyone interested, at the moment [Sat 5 March] the Shuttle is due to land on Wednesday 9th at 16.58 Uk time, after having two extra days in orbit, they should show it live on NASA TV, all being well,

What i find interesting is the view though the HUD as it comes into land and "look Ma no engines"!

Cheers,

Roger.

Thanks for that.

Just had a look at what's on, NASA TV is currently showing live ISS video. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

Discovery's last landing

Oh well

Kind regards

John

It's not just "look ma' no engines", it's "oh, so a brick CAN fly."

With a glide ratio of 0.8:1, it really is just falling. Heck, even an F-16 has a better glide ratio (about 0.98:1). 80,000+ pounds of falling shuttle is interesting to fly. Flown both one of the real Shuttle sims and also the ones they have out for the public at Johnson Space Center, and impressively, they handle about the same, and both I crashed more than once when I first attempted to land them. It's not as easy as Virgin's Shuttle! makes it seem, but the Rate Control Law system that the shuttle uses is definitely nice since all you do to stop it's movement is let go of the stick and it holds whatever attitude you've put it in.

BTW, if you get the chance to try them, the public simulators at JSC feature John de Lancie (aka "Q" on Star Trek) narrating. He's got some pretty funny quips when you crash.