> Tim, let me be brutally frank with you. You are going to kill
    > yourself! George Lucas is NOT an aircraft designer.
    > Hollywood is NOT Boeing. Please pick another type of engine
    > to do it with.  I want nothing to do with this project.
    >
    > Paul Lamar


   Good call Paul. You can see the headlines...

   LA based father of three dies in fatal crash of Wankkel power
   experimental
   aeroplane.

   Eye witnesses reported a strange engine noise and then a fire ball
   as the
   experimental aircraft smashed into the set of Lucas films Star wars. The
   NTSB reports that the center of gravity shift caused by a the slide
   throttle
   being pushed to the open position caused the home made experimental
   aircraft
   to pitch down uncontrollably. No wreckage of the plane, other than the
   destroyed wankel engine, was ever recovered, but the resulting fire
   consumed
   an movie prop (a wooden mock up of the films X wing space fighter).

   The Builder Tim's family were shattered by their loss, and have
   moved  into
   a carboard condo on the east side, after failing to make payments on the
   house following the death of the breadwinner.

   Tim, getting a model X wing to launch as a rocket is simple thrust
   (but way
   cool) .You getting a model X plane to fly is a real achievement, and
   even
   cooler. Getting killed by an instable hombuilt with an approach
   speed over
   130 MPH is just plain dumb, and stuffs up things for everyone. Even
   if you
   ever get this thing to fly without your termination, it is going to
   scare
   you shitless, so you put it in a museum and wonder if you might not have
   been better off with a practical plane you can enjoy for years.

   How about moving from scale to semi scale. Maybe the facetted
   cockpit and
   R2d2 on a varieze.

   Mark W




I basically agree...  A couple of thoughts before I completely condemn
the ship:

Does the configuration offer any significant improvement in performance
over a more conventional design?
Specifically, I am interested in speed range.  Sure, it goes 340mph, but
having to land at 130mph is a hell of a compromise.  I can think of
several airplanes that have significantly larger speed ranges.  And are
just as fast for the same amount of horsepower.  How is it on fuel
economy compared to other machines?

Is the design configuration being selected just for the "It looks cool"
factor?  I never like this..  I don't like scale replicas.  I think the
ThunderMustang is an impressive airplane, but I would really rather they
had designed an airplane that was merely reminiscent of the real P-51.
Not a scale model.  The real P-51 is a great airplane, though keep in
mind that it was created under a very short design cycle.  Surely with
as much as was spent on developing the ThunderMustang, they could have
hired some CFD time and ended up with an even better airplane.  Too many
design compromises for looks.  We're building flying machines here, not
'59 Chevy's.  Airplane fins are actually functional.

How do the sims of this thing fly compared to a real airplane?  I'll bet
the real airplanes fly better.

130mph approach speeds in a single engine airplane that doesn't have an
ejection seat is a bad idea.   The crash energy at 130mph is enourmous
compared to 85mph.

Pick turbo fans/jets.  They make more sense for such a hot machine.
Make sure to install two.  If you fly this thing long enough, a bird
WILL FOD an engine while climbing out, while too low to bail out.
Having two engines will mean you can likely keep going.

A roll your own BRS system is in itself a large engineering
undertaking.  One for a 300+mph airplane is a huge challenge.  NASA uses
big parachutes for fast things, but they deploy small chutes first, or
have snubbers, I think.  This means that the minimum effective altitude
for a highspeed deployment will be impractically high.  In other words,
the only time you'll be able to deploy it is when you don't need it -
while at low airspeeds and relatively high altitude.

This project sounds like a really nice demonstration of why the x-wing
fighter shouldn't be built as a real airplane.  Thanks for accomplishing
this.  Please publish your results so that maybe nobody else will
attempt this!


Matt-



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