American aircraft museum choice
Discussion
No second chance - but tons of experience. NACA/ NASA had learned all about high speed, dead stick landings with high angles of approach from three decades of flying rocket powered aircraft.
The handling characteristics and the standard methods used to land the Shuttle were very close in many ways to the X-15 rocket plane. They flew that 199 times so had built up a huge database on what they called TEM (Terminal area Energy Management).
At one point they had envisaged using pop-out jet engines to fly the Shuttle in to land like a normal jet transport. However, this raised the complexity and weight of the vehicle to the point where the payload capacity began to look rather useless. They decided that by making use of all the data they had obtained from flying rocket aircraft to dead stick landings, they would be able to prqactice the same techniques when bringing the Shuttle back from space.
For all the problems they had with the Shuttle, the approach and landing phase turned out to be one of the least worrying aspect of the system.
As for the odd finish, that was due, of course, to the various materials used to protect the Orbiter during re-entry. Under the tiles and blankets, was a fairly standard aluminium airframe.
The handling characteristics and the standard methods used to land the Shuttle were very close in many ways to the X-15 rocket plane. They flew that 199 times so had built up a huge database on what they called TEM (Terminal area Energy Management).
At one point they had envisaged using pop-out jet engines to fly the Shuttle in to land like a normal jet transport. However, this raised the complexity and weight of the vehicle to the point where the payload capacity began to look rather useless. They decided that by making use of all the data they had obtained from flying rocket aircraft to dead stick landings, they would be able to prqactice the same techniques when bringing the Shuttle back from space.
For all the problems they had with the Shuttle, the approach and landing phase turned out to be one of the least worrying aspect of the system.
As for the odd finish, that was due, of course, to the various materials used to protect the Orbiter during re-entry. Under the tiles and blankets, was a fairly standard aluminium airframe.
Once they had decided that the thing would never have to fly itself off the ground using jet engines (something originally considered for positioning flights), they then amended the design to make sure that it could NEVER take off accidentally during the landing roll out. That's why the Shuttle has such a nose down attitude on the ground. The main wheels are also positioned so far back on the fuselage that the aircraft would not be able to pitch up once the nosewheel was firmly planted.
On the third Shuttle flight, they did inadvertently have a nose pitch up during the landing run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDvyznX1ipY
On the third Shuttle flight, they did inadvertently have a nose pitch up during the landing run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDvyznX1ipY
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