Model Airplanes

Engineers have developed a device that lets planes fly with much smaller tails, reducing the planes’ overall size and weight, thus increasing fuel efficiency.

An airplane’s tail forms a critical part of the control system that helps steer the plane during flying. During flight, air rushes around the vertical tail with great force and is deflected by the tail’s rudder—a moveable flap at the rear of the tail that can steer the plane by angling air to the left or right.

By moving the rudder left or right, a pilot can move the air in one direction or the other, helping to keep the plane flying straight during a strong crosswind.

During the high speeds of flight, the air flow around the tail is so strong that the rudder can control the plane’s path with minimal movement. However, during the lower speeds of takeoff and landing, larger rudder deflections are required to maneuver the plane.

And in the case of engine failure in a multiengine airplane, the vertical tail must generate enough force to keep the plane going straight by turning “against” the working engine.

Airplane manufacturers deal with this challenge by fitting planes with very large vertical tails that can deflect enough air and generate enough

Article source: http://www.futurity.org/smaller-airplane-tails-797892/

Washington (AFP) – The US military’s F-35 fighter jet made its first landing aboard an aircraft carrier on Monday, in what officials called a milestone for the new hi-tech warplane.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the most expensive weapons program in US history and has been plagued by technical glitches and cost overruns, but the Pentagon touted the landing at sea a crucial step forward.

The test flight had the Joint Strike Fighter successfully touching down on the USS Nimitz off the coast of San Diego, with the pilot guiding the plane so its tailhook snagged on the ship’s arresting wires, the US Navy said in a statement.

There are three variants of the plane, a standard model, a second one designed for short-landing and vertical take-off and the third — the F-35C — outfitted to operate from aircraft carriers.

“Today is a landmark event in the development of the F-35C,” said test pilot Commander Tony Wilson.

The landing is part of flight testing at sea that will last for about two weeks, and will help pave the way to deploy the aircraft in the naval fleet by 2018, officials said.

“We plan on

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-f-35-jet-makes-landmark-aircraft-carrier-000450577.html

Initial MSC Apex release to focus on the Modeller.

The release of MSC Apex has certainly raised a few questions in the CAE space. Recently, MSC’s Product Manager Hugues Jeancolas spoke to clarify the news on the new MSC product.

For a company that focuses on simulation, the release of a product featuring only the modeller portion (Apex Modeller), with the simulation portion (Apex Structures) ‘on the way’ was fascinating news. To that point, Jeancolas was quick to stress that:

“MSC Apex Modeller is CAE specific Direct Modeling and Meshing solution that is complementary to existing simulation workflows,” said Jeancolas. “Finite Element model building is time consuming and error prone. MSC Apex Modeller helps engineers efficiently transform CAD geometry into high-quality finite element models. Early adopters have reported 10 to 50 time speed improvements in their CAD-to-Mesh process.”

Therefore, for those that are interested in improving their pre-processing workflows then MSC Apex Modeller appears to be a great standalone tool in its own right.

However, Jeancolas added that when it is released, “MSC Apex Structures will extends MSC Apex Modeller with capabilities for linear structural analysis scenario definition, execution, and post-processing. The solver and post-processing capabilities of MSC Apex Structures will be fully integrated with geometry and meshing capabilities of MSC Apex Modeller. The resulting complete MSC Apex environment is generative, so changes to the Finite Element model automatically triggers results regeneration.” 

This means that, MSC Apex Structures

Article source: http://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArticles/ArticleID/8866/MSC-Product-Manager-Talks-APEX-Release.aspx

Two rockets crashed last week: one carrying cargo to Earth
orbit, the other on a test flight for a suborbital manned spacecraft. It will
take some time for the causes of each accident to emerge; there is no reason to
believe the accidents have anything specific, besides timing, in common.

Both are examples of what sociologist Charles Perrow
famously dubbed “normal accidents“: catastrophes that should properly be
blamed not on the proximate cause — a loose lever or jammed valve, say — but
on the inherent complexity of technologically intricate systems. As he wrote,
“Risk will never be eliminated from high-risk systems.” In fact, Perrow argued
that singling out the particular thing that has gone wrong can be
counterproductive: “Since [redundancy] is often added after problems are
recognized, too frequently it creates unanticipated interactions with distant
parts of the system that designers would find it hard to anticipate.”

On Oct. 31, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crashed, killing one of the two
pilots. According to the
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), a government body that is in
charge of the official crash investigation, nine seconds after SpaceShipTwo’s
rocket engine ignited, the tail structure prematurely rotated, in a process
known as “feathering.” (You can see what the transition looks like in another
flight, at about 2:30 in this video.)

By design, two levers need to be moved in order to switch
the spacecraft into feathered mode, according to the NTSB. Telemetry data
indicate that only one of the levers had been moved. A

Article source: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/11/04/small_step_backward_for_mankind_virgin_galactic_crash_orbital_sciences_explosion_rockets_spacex_risk