Space shuttle turbofans for ferry flight

[Archibald]

Today the space shuttle use a modified 747-200 for its ferry flight (between Edwards AFB and Cap canaveral).
But this was decided only in 1974. Before that, and according to a serious website http://www.capcomespace.net/dossiers/espace_US/shuttle/index.htm
(in french) in 1972-73 the shuttle was to have
- five TF-33 P7 (1972)
or
- four F-401 (1973)
for its ferry flights! There was a fuel tanks in the cargo bay. Of course, these equipments were deleted for spaceflight, to save 10 tons or something like that.
Anybody have drawings of this equipments?

 

[Archibald]

yoooooooouhoooooooooooo.... someone here ?

 

[Matej]

Cant wait?

 

[elmayerle]

This configuration applied only to an intermediate version of the Shuttle design, between the original concept with straight wings and tail surfaces and the final version with an ogee wing, that had a pure delta wing. For modelling purposes, you could figure that the four engines were spaced out from the fuselage, as a percentage of semi-span, the same as the engines on the B-58, though not protruding forward of the wing as on the B-58. I mainly remember this because my alma mater had the nearest large low-speed wind tunnel to NASA-Houston and we did a lot of testing during the Shuttle's evolution; I can remember the model of this configuration, complete with similated exhaust flows.

 

[Archibald]

Merci... I red that range was something like 700km.
I'm asking about handling of such a plane...speed of an airliner,ok but peculiar aerodynamics (very different from a fighter or a bomber).
Maybe not much lift from the wings, but four F-401 seems powerfull enough to fly this brick.

 

[Archibald]

Could be interesting to fit the four turbofans to the 1.72 scale Shuttle (revell)

 

[frank]

Don't forget that the Soviet Shuttle, Buran, prototype was powered by 4 jet engines mounted on the aft fuselage.

 

[Archibald]

I know that. It was the equivalent of the enterprise Ie it never went to space.
Any news of this peculiar article? I mean, in 2000 it was showed in australia, after a bankrupcy it was shiped to the EAU, then the sinsheim museum tried to buy it...

 

[elmayerle]

Oh, and a bit of humor about that wind tunnel model. The four locations were stations 1-4, running from left to right, and each was humorously labelled with a "fuel" (remember, this was done while the "honorable" Sen. Proxmire was riding high); the labels from left to right were: "JP-4", "80/87", "Coal Oil", & "Wisconsin Milk".

 

[Archibald]

According to Didier Capdevilla "capcom espace" (excellent) website Shuttle ferry turbojets were first 5*TF-30 then 4*F-100 before being deleted in the mid-70's.
Could have helped Moonraker hijackers (much better than firing SSME without having External Tank, stupid!)

 

[archipeppe]

Based upon the description given by the excellent Jenkins' book, that's my personal interpretation of the 5 engined air-breathing Shuttle.

 

[Matej]

The position of the jet engines makes them extremely vulnerable. If to place them somewhere, than the best position is to move them aft above the wing.

 

[archipeppe]

The position of the jet engines makes them extremely vulnerable. If to place them somewhere, than the best position is to move them aft above the wing.

I suppose that's the main reason which forced the Russians to place the engines in the aft-end of the fusalage in the Buran Analog (or "Aero-Buran").

 

[robunos]

Based upon the description given by the excellent Jenkins' book, that's my personal interpretation of the 5 engined air-breathing Shuttle

i've seen a drawing of the shuttle orbiter with the jet engines mounted underneath, i'm sure it's in one of the Jenkins' Shuttle books, maybe the first one, the one in the 'aerofax datagraph' series.

cheers,
Robin.

 

[Archibald]

The position of the jet engines makes them extremely vulnerable. If to place them somewhere, than the best position is to move them aft above the wing.

Considering well-known problems with the Shuttle tiles / heatshield the 747 ferry is probably a better solution
IMHO jet blast and take off run would have spread havoc on Shuttle underside, which is already costly to maintain... and vulnerable!

Archipeppe I like very much the 3-views you post - particularly the shuttle-II

 

[archipeppe]

Archipeppe I like very much the 3-views you post - particularly the shuttle-II

I'm really glad that you appreciated my drawings, thanks Archibald.

 

[hesham]

Hi,


the TAAS Engineering created a ferry aircraft for space station,used ram-jet and scram-jet
to reach orbit.


http://books.google.com.eg/books?id=HuMDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=popular+mechanics+1986&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6GwAVLWWEKmu0QW02YGQCw&ved=0CCsQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=popular%20mechanics%201986&f=true