Re: CEV to be made commercially available

Andre Lieven wrote:

>
> Peter Stickney (p-stickney@xxxxxxxxxxxx) writes:
>> Andre Lieven wrote:
>>
>>> "Neil Gerace" (geracen@xxxxxxxxxxxx) writes:
>>>> "Andre Lieven" <dg411@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>> news:djeoq4$lqh$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>
>>>>> Had the air age gone the way taht the early Space Age has gone,
>>>>> air travel today would consist of 20 seat aircraft, with tickets
>>>>> costing in the 6-7 digits per flight. This economic model is not
>>>>> supportable in any area of transportation.
>>>>
>>>> There were two big factors in commercial aviation's favour
>>>> compared to spaceflight's:
>>>>
>>>> WW I and WW II.
>>>
>>> Notice that the development of the commercially successful
>>> airliner took place between 1919 and 1937. The DC-3 was not
>>> developed the way that the 707 was, as a military aircraft, in
>>> that case a tanker, but was a result of actual commercial
>>> development, and was the then culmination of a long lineage of non
>>> military development.
>>
>> You've got that a bit off, Andre - (Shall we say Facts Not in
>> Evidence?)
>
> Not really. The dates speak for themselves.

Not at all. You _might_ have a case if the DC-3 were a clean *** of
paper design, but it clearly wasn't. Are you being stupidly
argumentative? Or deliberately obtuse?

>> The DC-3 was a stretched version of the DC-2. The DC-2 was the
>> production variant of Douglas' original DC-1 prototype. The DC-1
>> was produced for TWA as a competitor to the Boeing Model 247s being
>> flown by United (United was owned by Boeing, at the time), and
>> incorporated
>> the same technology. The Boeing 247 was essentially an airliner
>> flavor of Boeing's Y1B-9 bomber prototype.
>
> Indeed. Lets re-cap: The military based plane LOST. The wholly
> civilian plane, was developed through three marks, the third of
> which was a great success. That fits with my earlier statements.

You really have no understanding of what you're talking about here.

To recap. Boeing builds the B-9 (And some service test YB-9s) The
Martin B-10 gets selected as the Air Corp's new bomber. Boeing uses
the B-9 design as a starting point for the Model 247 airliner. It's
the hottest thing in the sky - all other airliners are obsolete.
The only problem, from the airline's point of view, is that only
United Air Transport (United Air Lines after 1934) can buy them.
(The same Holding Company, United Aircraft, owned Boeing, UAT, Pratt &
Whitney, Chance Vought, Sikorsky, and Hamilton-Standard)
So, Transcontinental and Western Air puts out a bid for a trimotor
airliner to replace their Fords & Fokkers, and compete with the 247.
Douglas responds with a proposal for a twin engine airplane that will
meet or exceed the 247's performance, using the 247's basic
configuration and technology. The result is the DC-1. A stretch for
an extra seat row gives the DC-2. A bit of widening to fit bunks for
overnight service produces the DST (Douglas Sleeper Transport). A
DST without beds is a DC-3.

> As for the " same technology ", well... proof ?

Monocoque all metal construction. Internally braced cantilever wings.
Retractable Landing Gear. Supercharged, Altitude-rated Engines.
Controllable pitch propellers. High lift devices. (flaps) Cold-formed
rivets. Sophisticated (for the time) Electric and Hydraulic systems.
Automatic Pilots.
These were all products of the Army Bomber competition that spawned
the B-9. It's worth noting that the companies that didn't use these
technologies (They were too unproven, you see) Ford and Atlantic,
(American Fokker) were immediately irrelevant in the big aircraft
scene, where they had been dominant.


>> So, in fact, we've got 2 airplanes at 2 different manufacturers who
>> produced designs based on work done to meet a military contract.
>> There was also a hefty dollop of contribution by the N.A.C.A. in
>> the design of all the aircraft mentioned above.
>
> Indeed, and as several here have said, they wish that NASA did more
> work along the lines of NACA. But, NACA was never a military
> outfit...

NASA does. Go visit the Tech Reports Server and drink from the
firehose. And, while the N.A.C.A. wasn't a military outfit (The CIA
isn't a military outfit, either), they certainly did, and, as NASA,
still do, work on projects for military results, or at teh behest of
the military.

>> The 707 is not a descendant of the KC-135 (Boeing 717, the real
>> one,
>> not the re-badged DC-9), but rather a parallel evolution. Both are
>> direct descendants of the Boeing 367-80, which, while more or less
>> funded by Boeing to Boeing's requirements, grew out of design
>> studies on improving the military KC-97 (Model 367)
>> Stratotanker/Stratocruiser. The KC-97/Boeing 367/377 (The Civilian
>> Stratocruiser, was a transport development of thr Boeing B-50,
>> which was, of course, a direct descendant of the B-29. (The
>> original designation for the B-50 was B-29D.) Hence the Company
>> designation of
>> 367-80. What distinguished the Dash-Eighty from the other Strats
>> was the application of Boeing's vast experience in large transonic
>> aircraft (Exceeding that of the rest of the world combined) gained
>> by designing, building, and supporting vast fleets of military
>> B-47s and B-52s.
>
> Thats all well and good, but I never made any claims about the post
> war commercial jets, so if this is an answer to anything you believe
> that I had said, please clarify just how.

So you're denying that you typed this phrase, quoted above, and
reproduced here:

>>> The DC-3 was not
>>> developed the way that the 707 was, as a military aircraft, in
>>> that case a tanker, but was a result of actual commercial
>>> development, and was the then culmination of a long lineage of non
>>> military development.

It looks to me like you're saying _something_ about jet development,
and getting it wrong.
We've already covered the DC-3.

>
> My only point was, that if post war commercial jets had followed the
> last 30 years of space, that we'd now still have no mass air travel.
> In about the way that we have no mass space travel.

For that matter, we don't have any Mass Bathyscaphe Travel, either.
Air & Sea travel occur in much more benign environments, and can be
done without requiring extraordinary measures to keep the people
alive & comfortable. You climb on an airliner, you won't encounter
more than 'bout 1.5 G except for the occasional bounce of severe
turbulence. You also won't be flying in a region where the
difference in internal pressure and ambient means that any damage
requires the instantaneous use of Pressure Suits & such to stay
alive. You also don't need massive quantities of special fuels that
require exotic handling. (And Cryogenics in those quantities count
for special handling.)

Note that 707s made good, useful airliners. But an easily producable
proposal from the same timeframe, which would have halved travel
times, at the cost of having to be treated as a Space Passenger
(Special training, Pressure Suit & all), the Passenger Pod carrying
B-58, never leaped from the blueprint.

--
Pete Stickney
Java Man knew nothing about coffee.
.