Classic British Flight Sim

Shalom and greetings all my pals,

What is minimum runway distance for Comet for take off and landing please? I was surprised to see BEA Comets using lxgb Gibalator airport considering the fact it had 5,875 foot long runway!!

Regards,

Aharon

They would be severely WAT (Weight, Altitude, Temperature) restricted at Gibraltar.

Clearly altitude is not a problem, but temperature could easily be and the runway length would have imposed a significant weight restriction.

As far as runway length is concerned, take yourself (virtually) to Moses Lake in Washington State.
At various weights, initially in nil wind and ISA temperature (15 degrees at sea level) accelerate to V1 then close throttles and bring the aircraft to a halt using ONLY the brakes.
Note the time taken from start to stop.

NOW, on the (OK actually false) assumption that acceleration was linear and so was braking you can calculate the distance covered, that is your limiting runway distance at that weight.

Try different aircraft weights (limit payload and/or fuel)
Try different winds
Try different temperatures.

I spent over a month doing that with the PMDG B744 to come up with a set of look up tables from which I could determine PLTOW (Performance Limited Take Off Weight) for any runway length, altitude, temperature, wind.

Thanks, Adysmith for answers.

Would not know how to conduct precise testings as per your suggestion.

Regards,

Aharon

The Comet 4s field performance was far superior to later jet aircraft ( except possibly the VC10 ) , largely because its wing loading was a good deal lower than its rivals at about 76 lbs/ sq.ft, compared with about 108 lbs/sq.ft for a 707, and about 116 for a Super VC10 - but that had a much higher lift wing than the Boeing . Compare this with the much less powerful Super Constellation at about 90 lbs/sq.ft and it can be seen that the Comet was always going to be ahead of the game in this respect

Cstorey,

Thanks for interesting explanation. I take it that you deem the fact that it seemed to be possible for Comets to use lxgb Gibalator airport.

Regards,

Aharon

Oh yes, I don't see why not, particularly as BEA versions were the Comet 4B which was shorter range ( and therefore a significantly lower gross weight ) than the Comet 4C of BOAC ( although BEA tended to use the Vanguard more on the LHR-GIB route as I recall )

cstorey wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2020, 17:33

Oh yes, I don't see why not, particularly as BEA versions were the Comet 4B which was shorter range ( and therefore a significantly lower gross weight ) than the Comet 4C of BOAC

Ahhhh that explains why and thanks for this important answer. You have NOT realized that you have unknowingly also helped me to download the CORRECT required Comet model base version for this necessary lxgb Gibalator airport operations or otherwise I would have been using Comet 4C by mistake and wind up seeing viewers laughing at my screenshots showing wrong 4C model base landing and taking off at that particular airport.

Regards,

Aharon

Aharon wrote: ↑

28 Jul 2020, 15:16

cstorey wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2020, 17:33

Oh yes, I don't see why not, particularly as BEA versions were the Comet 4B which was shorter range ( and therefore a significantly lower gross weight ) than the Comet 4C of BOAC

Ahhhh that explains why and thanks for this important answer. You have NOT realized that you have unknowingly also helped me to download the CORRECT required Comet model base version for this necessary lxgb Gibalator airport operations or otherwise I would have been using Comet 4C by mistake and wind up seeing viewers laughing at my screenshots showing wrong 4C model base landing and taking off at that particular airport.

Regards,

Aharon

Ah, I see he has fallen into your evil plan, bwahahaha!

What evil plan?????