[HN Gopher] Plane Lands/Takes Off in Only 20 Feet (2013)
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Plane Lands/Takes Off in Only 20 Feet (2013)
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 171 points
Date : 2023-03-19 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kottke.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (kottke.org)
| Evidlo wrote:
| How is this significant? Can't you land/takeoff with 0 feet given
| a strong enough headwind?
|
| The article doesn't seem to mention wind at all.
| Wistar wrote:
| Although I can't remember exactly which beach--it may have been
| Copalis or Ruby, both on the Washington coast--from which a
| friend of mine and I took off and landed _behind_ the point where
| we took off. A strong, and steady headwind off the Pacific Ocean
| combined with his highly-STOL-modified and terrifically over-
| powered Cessna 170 allowed us to take off nearly vertically,
| drift backwards from the takeoff point and set down 30-40 feet
| behind the takeoff point. This was in 1979 or early 1980.
|
| The airplane, that the owner, Tom, called a "Cessna 170 BXP," had
| a power-modified Continental TSIO-360 engine taken from the front
| of a Cessna 337 Skymaster, big drooped wingtips, and STOL flaps
| and ailerons modifications. The STOL mods included various
| aerodynamic seals between the wing skin and control surfaces and,
| most significantly, an aileron droop mechanism where the degree
| of droop was linked to the degree of flaps deployed to vastly
| increase the low-speed effectiveness of the ailerons.
|
| It was on big tundra tires.
|
| (Edits: various idiotic-grammar fixes)
| bombcar wrote:
| A possibly apocryphal story was passed around my flight school
| about someone who would to something similar at the airport -
| wait for a steady high wind down the runway, slowly take off
| and hang in front of the tower until they told him to clear the
| pattern, and then fly backwards to the start of the runway and
| touch down and taxi back to the hanger.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| Cool, now do it on a conveyor belt!
|
| https://youtu.be/xUjcHW7SHaI
| [deleted]
| larrydag wrote:
| I believe the key is a strong headwind. I would like to see if
| this could be accomplished without the headwind. I believe
| short takeoff is possible but not quite that short.
| Wistar wrote:
| The _steady_ headwind was everything. The power and STOL mods
| just made it somewhat safer to do, although, had that
| headwind suddenly died, I am fairly sure we would have landed
| very, very hard.
|
| We were young and stupid.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Hmm
|
| Once you're airborne you're part of the airmass and moving
| with the airmass. Your ground speed becomes irrelevant for
| purpose of lift, as you've amply demonstrated.
|
| "Wind died" implies that wind speed relative to the ground
| would change.
|
| But whatever caused the massive airmass to alter velocity
| would impact you as well, right?
|
| So my intuitive assumption is that while sudden air motions
| might disrupt you and flail you around, I'm not sure you
| would actually stall and fall down from loss of lift
| strictly because "Wind died down". (though you might be
| slammed into ground).
|
| Any thought from anybody with more flight hours and
| aerodynamics theory than me? :->
| wtallis wrote:
| With the plane adjusted for hovering (or nearly so), a
| sudden drop in wind speed would cause you to quickly lose
| altitude, but you would also be accelerating forward
| relative to the ground to get back up to the former
| airspeed that the throttle is still set to produce. And the
| pilot would have had plenty of headroom to increase power,
| and that would have been an immediate response to an
| unwanted rate of descent. So a landing would not have been
| guaranteed, let alone a very hard one-but if you were too
| close to the ground for the pilot to react in time I could
| still see the landing being uncomfortable.
| Wistar wrote:
| We were about 20ft off the ground. Tom said he was trying
| to stay in ground effect although I am not really sure
| that was a factor.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Intuitively the effect should be the same regardless,
| it's still the air being forced down by your wings
| forming a cushion increasing lift. There's probably some
| differences but the bulk of the effect should be the
| same.
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| Without headwind you cannot get negative groundspeed with any
| conventional airplane design.
| mlyle wrote:
| Yes, of course airflow over the wings is required for a plane
| to take off, and therefore it must move forward.
| gist wrote:
| https://zenithair.net/
|
| (Some nice video on home page)
| hecturchi wrote:
| The linked article with details on design
| (http://www.zenithair.com/stolch801/design/design.html) is very
| interesting and I wish every company marketing a product would
| write down their design choices like that.
|
| Imagine engineers designing a car would have to write about the
| design rationale of their touch interfaces...
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >rationale of their touch interfaces...
|
| Automotive EE here, I can explain that.
|
| Its cost. Done.
|
| There is design and engineering in buttons and micros that are
| responsive, durable, perform how the user expects.
|
| There is designer placement. Ergonomics and accessibility. This
| button is perfect and looks great here, but for a 5-percentile
| height Female it is outside the limits so, let's redesign a ton
| of things to move it done here where it is stupid for everyone.
|
| Digital buttons have almost zero cost and could be changed at
| will. There is also no holding a vehicle on a lot for weeks
| because the micro that switch bank X uses is unavailable.
|
| For annoying reference, some of the new GM trucks have no fog
| light buttons. You need to access that through the primary
| screen. It's all cost.
|
| It's basically an afterthought now. If they get enough
| complaints they can change it, otherwise, it must be fine and
| within expected grumpy user margins.
| macintux wrote:
| Chevy (and I guess Tesla before them) is removing headlight
| switches entirely which is the topic of much justified angst.
| Safety controls should never only be accessible from a touch
| screen.
|
| https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a42953152/the-2023-chevy-c.
| ..
| cushychicken wrote:
| Every time you think to yourself that the frontier is gone,
| remember: Alaska exists.
|
| The land of truly YOLO pilots. _Glacier Pilot: The Story of Bob
| Reeve_ is a great book about one of the early ones in AK.
| coding123 wrote:
| Every time someone advertises Alaska like this, the frontier
| disappears a little.
| cushychicken wrote:
| I grew up in Bozeman, Montana, so I've got my own sob story
| of beloved disappearing hometown to contend with, thanks.
| xwdv wrote:
| Agreed. Alaska is pretty much fully mapped out, there's no
| real secrets out there anymore.
| mLuby wrote:
| The deep ocean is the last unmapped frontier on Earth.
| mediaman wrote:
| Alaska's population is lower than it was 7 years ago. More
| people have moved away than moved in every year for the past
| 10 years.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Don't really matter. As the population increases and is
| increasingly urban, those values and restrictions are imposed
| on frontier as well.
| blantonl wrote:
| There are probably more unlicensed pilots in Alaska than
| there are licensed. "Restrictions" on the frontier out in
| Alaska are a LONG way away...
| giantg2 wrote:
| Being truly free to do something is different than just
| not getting caught.
| Mizoguchi wrote:
| Check out the Experimental Aircraft Association. If you have one
| in your city and you like planes definitely pay them a visit.
| It's a niche group of guys making their own planes and flying
| them and they are usually pretty excited about visitors. I went a
| few times and got on a couple of rides. They even offer free
| clases for those wanting to learn how to fly. Some of the crazy
| things I learned is that you can build your own plane for under
| $10K and if it is under certain weight, I believe 400 lbs, you
| can flight without a permit. Some planes feature a nice kit of
| avionics but some are completely manual, not even a radio. The
| stall speed of the ones I flew I believe is 45 mph and max speed
| about 80 mph but some little jets can go 200-300 mph.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| With the weight limit you're referring to the part 103 rules
| addressing ultralight aircraft.
|
| 14 CFR 103.1(e)(1)
|
| [If powered:]
|
| Weighs less than 254 pounds empty weight, excluding floats and
| safety devices which are intended for deployment in a
| potentially catastrophic situation;
| Mizoguchi wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification/correction.
|
| It seems crazy to me some rules are so relaxed.
|
| I remember asking if there were any limits on where they
| could flight their experimental planes, say urban/densely
| populated areas, the answer was "nah".
| shostack wrote:
| Got to fly in an A-22 Foxbat in AZ. You rotate immediately on
| applying power. In Sedona with a decent headwind we were off the
| ground at 22kts. Took us a bit more than 22ft but not much,
| that's for sure.
|
| Tiny little go kart of a plane with a lawnmower engine (rotax)
| engine attached.
| xplanephil wrote:
| you can literally land a carbon cub on a helipad on top of a
| hotel: https://www.flyingmag.com/carbon-cub-pilot-takes-stol-to-
| the...
| nl wrote:
| There's a video of one of these planes landing and taking off
| again on the Burj Khalifa helipad. It's a pretty impressive piece
| of flying.
|
| https://youtu.be/B-brmk1ua1g
| tiffanyh wrote:
| (2013) article.
|
| An article from Kottke.org on this exact topic was posted last
| week.
|
| https://kottke.org/23/03/landing-an-airplane-on-a-tiny-helip...
| gaudat wrote:
| `(via digg)`
|
| Wait does digg still exist? I hope it is better than reddit
| now.
| sgt wrote:
| I remember when Digg took over from Slashdot. I was skeptical
| at first but eventually I gave in. Now people wonder if Digg
| exists.
| mihaaly wrote:
| Probably there is a strong headwind?
| Animats wrote:
| That's neat.
|
| In the biplane era, there were some very short takeoff aircraft.
| The tiny Sperry Messenger [1] was a good example. In the 1920s,
| Sperry once landed one of those in front of the U.S. Capitol.
| (This was not considered a security incident at the time.)
|
| That's a well-executed 1920s vision of a flying car.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verville-Sperry_M-1_Messenger
| ruddct wrote:
| Topical, someone just landed a Carbon Cub plane on a ~90ft
| helipad for a stunt with Red Bull a few days ago. The video[0] is
| insane, I've flown in STOL aircraft before but had no idea some
| were capable of landings like this.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfKL7XEnxr4
| irrational wrote:
| I saw this too. When I saw the title, I assumed it would be a
| link to this stunt.
| car wrote:
| A former airline pilot has developed the Explorer, a modern high-
| end STOL with a Pratt & Whitney turbine as its power plant,
| capable of carrying almost 1.5 tons.
|
| https://www.nf-aircraft.com/
|
| I believe their Facebook page has some videos from a recent
| Iceland journey, hopping between backcountry runways.
|
| https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063480673163
| Cherian wrote:
| Everything to do with headwinds. If you think only aircrafts can
| do this, watch this hang glider land:
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uQimddEKrFw Fort Funston,
| California.
| [deleted]
| punnerud wrote:
| What is the trick, big wheels that don't hold the air?
|
| Looks like that is what's slowing the plane when landing, and let
| it start without a runway
| gridspy wrote:
| The trick is that the plane flies while still going absurdly
| slow. 37 kt vs >120 kt for similar planes.
|
| So less momentum on landing to dispose of, or to generate while
| taking off.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Didn't the 1903 Wright Flyer do that?
| rtkwe wrote:
| The Dec 17 flights noted as successful were 120, 175, 200, and
| 852 feet in 1903 I don't see any other attempts noted. Some of
| their earlier flights were probably shorter but didn't really
| get off the ground successfully enough to really be called
| flights or even really get noted most places. The rest from
| 1903 seem to have been gliding attempts that wouldn't fit the
| records here.
| amelius wrote:
| I don't think that's a fair way to describe the landing/takeoff
| distance. It would be more fair if they put two steep walls at
| the beginning and ending of the runway.
|
| Although, for things like an aircraft carrier ship, the metric
| could be useful.
| mft_ wrote:
| How high would you make the arbitrary walls?
| xplanephil wrote:
| that's actually how take-off distance is defined regulatory.
| The take-off distance of a plane is over a 50ft obstacle
| (i.e. a line of trees at the end of the runway or similar).
| amelius wrote:
| So high that the pilot can prove that they did not use more
| distance for the landing/takeoff.
| mft_ wrote:
| So you're defining take-off and landing such that each must
| also include a period of flying?
| digdugdirk wrote:
| There is a very cool race series that revolves around racing STOL
| aircraft like these. The planes start at a standstill, need take
| off, fly in a straight line, land, turn around and take off again
| back to the starting line. All within the length of a traditional
| 1/4 mile dragstrip.
|
| It's weirdly exciting. And it's highly entertaining to see a
| crowd at an airshow going absolutely wild for a couple of piper
| cubs while big military planes do flybys in the background.
| crench wrote:
| I was lucky enough to be resupplied by a Super Cub air taxi
| service multiple times while on a long mountaineering trip in
| Alaska many years ago. It was incredible to see all the random
| places that the pilot could land, including a gravel bar similar
| to the video in the article.
| efitz wrote:
| 9 feet 5 inches: https://youtu.be/hPakbghLe38
|
| On a separate note, while I was in a flying lesson once, my
| instructor flew the plane backwards. The plane, a Cessna 172, was
| moving backwards (the ground was moving forward underneath us).
|
| Same principle as the STOL contests in Alaska- steong headwinds.
|
| In our case the headwind was greater than our stall speed, so the
| airspeed was greater than our stall speed and the wings generated
| enough lift to keep us in the air; we idled the throttle so our
| airspeed would not exceed the wind speed.
|
| If headwind is greater than your takeoff speed then there's no
| reason you can't take off and land in very short distances.
| blantonl wrote:
| A lot of this is not a big surprise for those that are pilots.
| Aircraft design is has come a long way since the 40's.
|
| It's very easy to get a plane off the around quickly that weighs
| less than 1300 pounds and has a 100 horsepower engine.
|
| And for those that think getting your pilots license is
| insurmountable because of cost or medical issues, you can get a
| sport pilots license in as little as 20 hours of training with a
| drivers license as your medical to fly these aircraft.
| Limitations are one passenger, total weight of 1340 pounds,
| daytime good weather only, but you can still fly pretty much
| anywhere in the United States and Bahamas and to almost any
| airport, including Class B airspace and airports (read: largest
| airports in the country)
|
| I'm pretty sure that I can get the light sport aircraft that I
| fly (Vashon Ranger) off the ground in a few hundred feet with
| full fuel (23 gallons) and a 170lb passenger on board and a
| decent headwind.
| smdyc1 wrote:
| The Royal Australian Air Force was flying the DHC4 Caribou aa a
| light airlifter until the early 2000's. It was an amazing piece
| of engineering and was first flown in the late 50s. You could
| literally fly backwards in a headeind and land on a dime. It
| was really useful for tiny dirt strips in places like Papua New
| Guinea. Unfortunately, there's not much out there that can
| match it's capability for what it was.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| "A few hundred feet" and "20 feet" is a huge difference!
| blantonl wrote:
| Of course.
|
| But when you do it on an 11,000 foot runway with full fuel
| and a passenger it's almost comical to fly almost _two miles_
| down the runway centerline. :)
| Zak wrote:
| The Super Cub is a design from the 40s (1949) that weighs less
| than 1300 pounds (930 empty) and has more than 100 horsepower
| (105 at introduction, 150 by 1954).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_PA-18_Super_Cub
| chinchilla2020 wrote:
| "Aircraft design is has come a long way since the 40's."
|
| You could do this in 1940s aircraft as well. Biplanes can also
| do short-field takeoffs with impressively short distances.
| jabl wrote:
| See also an interesting video series of a crazy guy that put a
| turbine engine on a small STOL plane:
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9OFkVHYEhoEfWmN0lQRZ...
| dude187 wrote:
| Took longer than I thought to see Mike Patey and his Draco
| plane (RIP) mentioned
| cleanchit wrote:
| There would have to be some really strong wind in the opposite
| direction, so relative to the ground the plane speed is 10 knots,
| but it's airspeed is >100 knots. Demonstration:
| https://v.redd.it/8ejvh30f9d081
|
| The second and third videos are shot head on so you can't really
| tell the speed
| wtallis wrote:
| This video was obviously shot in very windy conditions, but
| 100kt airspeed is wildly wrong. We're talking about a class of
| planes where 100kt is a typical _cruising_ speed, with maximum
| speeds not much higher. With stall speeds like 37kt or less
| (before accounting for ground effect), landing with a ground
| speed of 10kt doesn 't require a hurricane-force headwind. See
| eg.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_PA-18_Super_Cub#Specific...
| and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubCrafters_CC11-160_Carbon_Cu...
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Yeah I think the super stols might be down to like 25 knots
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(page generated 2023-03-19 23:00 UTC)