Re:Airfoil
by spenczar5 on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @10:20PM
(#39533562)
Space Shuttle pilots themselves referred to it as “The Flying Brick,” I think that is mostly what they were referencing. It was a term of endearment :)
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Yea sorry, this was it. I didn't mean it literally has the glide ratio of a brick
I mean it looks like a brick and it flies
Re:Airfoil
by techdragon on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @03:40AM
(#39535519)
Despite knowing about its nickname… I found myself picturing a paraphrasing of the classic physicist’s “spherical cow in a vacuum”…
“Steerable brick in an atmosphere”… or the slightly more accurate “orientable brick in an atmospheric reentry regime”…
If you want a real "orientable brick in atmospheric reentry regime", check out how they steered the Apollo capsules back down. Kinda bonkers, but worked - they made it asymmetric and then rotated it depending on if they wanted to go down faster, slower, left, or right. Obviously it can't fly, and its glide ratio is actually brick-like unlike my facetious description of the shuttle. But it worked enough.
Kinda like a single control plane missile that spins (rolling airframe?), except... without the control plane lol.
"The F4 Phantom...America's proof to the world that with a big enough engine, even a brick can fly"