martinbayer
ACCESS: Top Secret
- Joined
- 6 January 2009
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I for one am glad it was tried in an actual X-vehicle - that's how you learn, and that's what X-vehicles are really all about.
They did . . .Sure. It is just surprising to me that they wouldn't build just one wing and blow a jet though it,
--BEFORE building the whole freaking airplane at max cost.
Risk reduction in project management, all the things we learn in school...
Didn't help that the full scale plane had very rough ducts internally...Rockwell was overambitious, they thought they had found the ultimate VTOL system. Plus subscale models worked, but internal losses in the ducts did not scaled in a linear fashion. What worked on models, no longer worked on the full scale plane.
That's a much prettier plane than what they delivered. And it's not like the XFV-12 is unattractive!