BSG: "Acts of Contrition"

[LadyTevar]

I don't know, I found the fully-stocked Bomb Shelton to be quite amusing. There's still about 10 of them left over from the 50's around town that were supposedly big enough to hold 100 people....

*shrug* the plot lines so far have shown a remarkable effort to keep it 'real'. In this, I see the bomb shelter as an attempt to keep the two going on Caprica. Which doesn't bode well for me, since I really don't like the whole subplot.

They are doing too much with Helo on Caprica to simply kill him off. Clearly the Cyclons are setting him up for something big, they gave him Boomer and now a Bomb-Shelter. But they really do need to advance the story or at least show us why he is important.

I fear they're going to use him to draw the remaining civilians into one manageable group. What happens then depends on Boomer and the Blond. I don't think they're as murderous as their companion... and there is the disturbing visual of the Blond telling Baltar she wants a baby............

[Mayabird]

BTW Anyone else catch the Continuity of Apolllo's messed up faced from the previous episode. Suck it down Star Trek suck it down hard bitches that's what you call continuity and true story telling GODAMN feels good to see that after a wasteland of Trek and Andromeda bullshit.

I noticed too. Also, in "33" Commander Adama still had those healing scars on his face from his fight with the Cylon on Ragnar.


I watch BSG with a group of friends every Friday night. One of them was saying afterwards, "I hope at the end of the series they reach Earth, but it's the Earth of Enterprise. And one of the ships lands in San Fransisco, and Berman and Braga walk out to greet it, and Ronald Moore steps out of the ship and slugs them across the face!" Same thing everybody here is saying, I know, but it sounded really funny coming from him.

[JME2]

Very nice; BSG continues to exceed my expectations. One of my problems with the first three episodes was that revelation made at the end of the mini-series involving Starbuck's role in Zach's death wasn't brought up again and that Apollo didn't appear to let it affect his friendship with her.

Well, at least the former was finally addressed and with Adama finally learning of Starbuck's role (though why he didn't put two and two together when he learned they were engaged troubled me; likely it was his grief blinding him or that he always suspected it, but didn't want to believe it, especially as he came to consider her a friend on board BSG)

Nice to see the other, ongoing subplots (the structure is reminding me very much of The Best of Both Worlds :lol). True, I do wish we could have seen more of Gaius, but hey, the character development of Starbuck more than made up for it.

[Sidious]

I fucking PRAY that BSG starts PWNING Enterprise in the ratings. I want a fucking massacre so the message is clear

33/Water: 3.1 million viewers
Enterprise: 3.01 million

Bastille Day: 2.9 million viewers
Enterprise: 2.76 million

And this is with UPN being a broadcast station compared to sci-fi, a cable only station.

Personally, I feel the new BSG is incredible and I have been glued to my TV the last 3 Friday's. I havent actually TAPED a sci fi show in friggin years. As of right now, I feel if BSG is not renewed for a 2nd season it will be a genre tragedy.

[fgalkin]

First episode of the new BSG that I've seen. It was mostlly "meh"-like, IMO, but it does show potential.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Darksider]

I loved the episode.

Thus far i've been very impressed with the series.

After seeing the miniseries, I really didn't have high hopes for this show, but i'm glad i've been proven wrong. (so far)

[Nephilim]

From someone who has seen the entire first season, let me tell you guys that it only gets better and better with each passing episode.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I fucking PRAY that BSG starts PWNING Enterprise in the ratings. I want a fucking massacre so the message is clear

33/Water: 3.1 million viewers
Enterprise: 3.01 million

Bastille Day: 2.9 million viewers
Enterprise: 2.76 million

And this is with UPN being a broadcast station compared to sci-fi, a cable only station.

Damn...

[StarshipTitanic]

Damn...

Remember, those are the Trek fanatics. I think Enterprise's premier got a viewing of 12 million. I'd say BSG is beating them.

[Broomstick]

I don't know where to start, really. The flat-spin is so deadly that even I, a non-pilot, know that once the plane starts spinning there's no recovery.

Well, actually -

Oh, bother, I just don't feel like explaining spin recovery to ground-pounders tonight. Yeah, often a flat spin is unrecoverable, but a lot depends on the aircraft and I'd think a space-capable vehicle with thrusters would stand a better chance of getting out of one than a standard fixed-wing atmospheric craft, but I'll explain it away with unspecified damage to the Viper.

What I want to know is why a spaceship has an altimeter and what, pray tell, do you calibrate it to prior to being launched? Yes, yes, I understand its use as a plot device and I'll explain it away by saying it uses... uh... radar, yeah, radar to measure distance from the nearest ---

Naw, doesn't work for me. I'm too damn familar with the instrument shown on the TV in real life. It works by measuring barometric (that is, atmospheric - and how much atmosphere do we have in space boys and girls?) pressure vs. a reference standard. >sigh< But I guess most folks wouldn't know that.

Watching this episode was a surreal experience for me. I had just driven about 400 kilometers and was spending the night at my parents house. My parents don't normally watch sci fi of any sort, and mom has, for decades, labored under the belief that Star Trek is in the horror genre (and that was back in the 1960's when the old series was on, not some of the trainwreck new stuff). For some perverse reason, though, they insist on watching what their offspring watches, even if said offspring is over 40 and has long been known to watch stuff they don't care for. So mom is trying hard not to look while pretending to look, and dad is totally lost and wanting me to explain what the hell is going on. So I know I missed some of it. But what the hell, it was a break from real life - I had driven all that way because I had to go to the funeral of someone I had known for over 25 years on Saturday morning.

So what did this episode feature? Death and funerals....

I hope the Monday night repeat is a regular feature and I can catch it again tomorrow.

And I really like the scene between Starbuck and Adama when she confesses she passed Zak even after he failed...

... BUT....

What the hell kind of training program do these yahoos have? Granted, I have only civilian experience in flight training, but every flight school I have dealt with insisted that prior to a checkride you fly with someone other than your instructor as a pre-test to make sure you were ready and qualified to avoid exactly that sort of situation as happened between Starbuck and Zak. And that situation is one of the very important reasons that subordinates and superiors, and/or student and teacher, are not supposed to have that sort of conflict-of-interest relationship going on.

On the Galactica in the series they may have no choice - Starbuck may be the only military instructor they have. However, prior to the "now" in the series why the hell wasn't Fleet doing cross-checks on instructors and students?

I do like that they show the civilian pilots struggling with the military hardware. For once a show got that part of flying right - even a competant pilot requires an adjustment period when switching to a new aircraft and there are major, major differences between civilian and military flying - differences that can get you quickly killed. A pilot requires training when moving to a new machine, they aren't superhuman miracle jet-jockies and rocket riders.

Yes, I enjoyed the episode but I have some issues with their flight training and instrumentation.

[Broomstick]

Way back when, there was another episode where StarBuck crashed on a planet with a Cylon.....

"The Return of Starbuck" - it was the very last episode in the Battlestar Galactica 1980 series.

[Steven Snyder]

What I want to know is why a spaceship has an altimeter and what, pray tell, do you calibrate it to prior to being launched? Yes, yes, I understand its use as a plot device and I'll explain it away by saying it uses... uh... radar, yeah, radar to measure distance from the nearest ---

Well, the Viper is atmospheric capable, wouldn't you want it to have an altimeter?

[Broomstick]

What I want to know is why a spaceship has an altimeter and what, pray tell, do you calibrate it to prior to being launched? Yes, yes, I understand its use as a plot device and I'll explain it away by saying it uses... uh... radar, yeah, radar to measure distance from the nearest ---

Well, the Viper is atmospheric capable, wouldn't you want it to have an altimeter?

Yes, an altimeter is very handy - twas not that which I was objecting to, allow me to clarify (and after spending most of my waking hours the last three days on the road, burying somebody, and consoling grieving relatives I really hope my posting skills are up to the task)

The altimeter pictured resembles most closely the altimeters I use in things like Cessnas and Pipers, which are basically WWII era technology. And there is nothing wrong with that - they work quite well, after all, that's why they're still standard fare after 60 years.

While I could creatively explain away that this is merely a coincidental, superficial resemblance between an Earth technology and something from Caprica, the fact is they used one of the damn standard altimeters in filming this episode and -- and --- well, it would be like seeing a California license plate on the back end of a Caprican ground vehicle, OK? At least to me.

Now, the sort of altimeter they showed requires calibration to either a reference pressure or a known altitude. For instance, if I knew the barometric pressure at an airport was 28.88 I could set the altimeter to that. Or if I knew the airport was at 598 feet above Mean Sea Level (MSL) I could set it to that. Or I could set it to the "standard" atmospheric pressure of 29.92 inches of mercury (generally used only for flight at high altitudes). But it needs to be reset because, due to weather, atmosphere pressure changes over time, leading the instrument to err when reporting altitude. If the barometric pressure is 28.90 and you set the instrument to 29.90 you will have a thousand-foot error in your altitude reading... and that would be a Very Bad Thing if, for example, you were flying in a mountainous region.

(And yes, in countries using metric measure - most of 'em - this stuff is given in metric units. Doesn't matter, the basic concept is the same)

So, OK, here are my problems with the "altimeter" in Starbucks' spaceship:

1) There is no atmosphere in space, so most of the time the thing would be useless at best.

2) Every planet is going to have difference atmospheric pressures, and different pressure gradiants, so the instrument is either going to require a hell of a lot of adjusting, or you'll get nonesense from the thing. For that matter, the altimeters I use in the lower atmosphere would be useless above the stratosphere, and questionable even there - and that's on the same planet they were developed on.

3) Every planet will have a different reference altitude - on Earth we use Mean Sea Level - which, by the way, is an average for the sea level. Some planets don't even have seas. Some don't have any atmosphere to speak of.

That sort of altimeter works on Earth because we have these known factors of reference altitude and atmosphere... without knowing those quantities the instrument is useless. Starbuck has never been to the planet she crashed - she has no way of knowing the atmosphere density, the pressure gradient, or what would be an appropriate altitude setting to use as reference.

Yes, yes, presumably they could discover all that, and have little books in the cockpits for known settings for known planets, but that's getting ridiculous.

What she needs is something like RADAR, another wonderful WWII-era technology, that will actually tell her how far away the solid objects are. Not only would it eliminate all that bother with pressure and so forth, it would work on ANY lump she encounters in space and would also have some use in targeting enemies. We have that technology now - why doesn't BSG? Wait, BSG does have it - obviously they're tracking Cylons ships somehow in space...

Now, mind you, as a plot device it's no more nonsensical than those images of airplanes you see flying over maps in old movies, or stuff like Raiders of the Lost Ark or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. The message is clearly that she is running out of space between her and something very big and solid. And I doubt it was as jarring for most folks as for me.

Now, if it had been a dream sequence then it would have been OK (and I, too, had thought it might be that until it was made clear it wasn't) because in dreams all sorts of weird shit is allowed to happen.

But it gets down mostly to nitpick - truthfully, as far as plot goes I have a lot more trouble with what I've seen of their flight training than their Viper instrumentation.

[Broomstick]

I suppose you folks might ask me to explain spins and spin recovery, too? And why a flat spin isn't certain death? (Just very likely death in a lot of aircraft)

[Mayabird]

I suppose you folks might ask me to explain spins and spin recovery, too? And why a flat spin isn't certain death? (Just very likely death in a lot of aircraft)

*looks around*

Broomstick is telling people that she's going to give everyone one of her totally awesome long explanations that'll probably also involve awesome anecdotes from her life if someone asks. Why isn't anybody speaking up?

YES! Please explain spins and spin recovery! Explain, explain!

Well now that I've done that...
*falls over on floor and gets into a posture of rapt attention like a six year old's who is about to hear more awesome stories from Grandpa about how he kicked Hitler's ass in Nam and then flew to the moon to stop the Martian invasion and invented TV, but truthful and Broomstick instead of Grandpa*

[Deathstalker]

In regards to the altimeter, I would imagine that pilots would have a book to set the alitimeter for the 12 colonies and assorted moons etc. Odds are that Starbuck's altimeter isn't calibrated to the planet she crashed on, as she probably wouldn't know the conditions to calibrate it to. But even if an altimeter isn't calibrated, it stills give you reading doesn't it? And it's not like she didn't know she was falling towards the planet. However, if we see Vipers operating in an unkown atmosphere then I can see Broomstick's point.

[Broomstick]

Well, gosh, how can I say no to that?.

With the caveat that I am just a pilot and not somebody with an advanced degree in aerodynamics or (We're not worthy! We're not worthy!) Burt Rutan or the like... (which all seems somewhat like Steven Segal in Under Siege saying "I'm just a cook"...)...

If you forget everything else about fixed wing aircraft, boys and girls, remember this: it's air going over the airfoil that makes the magic work. Really. That's it.

Also remember that lots of things other than the wings themselves are airfoils, or affect airfoils. The propellors on a a prop-driven plane, for instance, are airfoils. Ailerons and flaps change the shape of airfoils, which change how they generate lift. Remember LIFT - it's a hugely important concept in aviation. Lift is what holds you up. It's also what allows you to turn. Lift is the force generated by air moving over an airfoil. You can quibble about whether that force pulls (the "airplanes suck" theory) or pushes (the "airplanes blow" theory) but for our purposes that doesn't matter. The important thing is that the force generated is called "lift" (which can be confusing, because "lift" implies "up" to non-flyers, but in reality lift can be exerted in any direction given the proper circumstances). Lift is what lets the airplane go up, go down in a controlled manner, and steer.

(It is possible to fly on thrust alone - that's how military jets perform extended vertical climbs, and has a lot to do with rocket science, so yes, I am simplifying but if I didn't simplify we'd be here all week and I have this thing called "a job" that interferes with my hobbies I need to go to at some point. So I will continue to simplify. Just keep it in the back of your head that there ARE some exceptions to what I'm saying)

OK, in order to fly in level flight, the wings of an airplane need to generate lift equal to the weight of the airplane and its contents. If you generate more lift than that, the airplane gains altittude. If you generate less lift than the gross weight of the airplane the airplane loses altitude. This is no big deal - airplanes do it every time they land. The trick here is that this is done in a controlled manner, so the descent is at a safe rate for the conditions present.

Of course, airplanes don't always fly level - they also turn. By banking the airplane, you shift the direction (or, more properly, the vector) of lift from vertical (relative to the Earth's surface) to an angle, and it's the componet of the lift at an angle to "level" that pulls the airplane around in a turn. The steeper the bank, the tighter the turn, the more lift required because you need lift enough to hold you up AND lift enough to pull the airplane around in that turn. If you see footage of tight-turning aircraft, or are at an airshow, you can sometimes hear the engine noise increase - because more lift is needed you need more power to generate it.

Let's go back to that airfoil and moving air thing - as I said, it's air moving over the airfoil that generates lift. The faster the air flows, the more lift you get, up to a point (you also get more drag, you see - a quick and dirty demonstration of this can be had by (carefully!) sticking your hand out the window of a moving car - the faster you go the harder the air pushes against your hand. We've all done this at one time or another, right?).

So, it's the air moving over the airfoils of the propellor that pulls an airplane forward (jets are different when it comes to propulsion, of course, but we'll eventually get back to just wings). When the prop isn't turning no lift is generated. When the engine is at idle on the ground some lift is generated, but not enough to overcome friction with the ground. Spin the engine (and prop) faster you get more lift - until you get enough lift to pull the airplane forward - because for the prop, the "lift" pulls in line with the long axis of the airplane, not up relative to the wing. Likewise, the faster the prop pulls the airplane through the air, the faster the wings (which are airfoils, of course) move through the air and the more lift they generate, and the more that lift pulls against the gravity holding you to the ground (or trying to hold you down).

I am beating this "lift" thing to death because it is absolutely vital to understanding spins.

OK, now I am going to introduce the concept of "stalls". A spin is just a really aggravated stall. And when I say "stall", I'm not talking about the engine - sometimes I'll say "aerodynamic stall" to make that distinction clear. This is NOT your car stalling, it's the wing stalling.

Remember I said it's the airflow over the wing that generates lift? That's not just dependent on speed - it's also dependent on "laminar airflow", which means... oh, let's call it an orderly airflow over the wings. If you've seen those car commericals where they have some sort of vehicle in a wing tunnel and they release smoke so you see it flowing over the thing in a nice, neat line - that's laminar airflow, a feature of streamlining as well as lift generation. It's that sort of airflow that creates lift.

Non-laminar airflow is chaotic - it billows and churns and, if you could see it, it looks like water flowing over rapids. Not orderly at all. And it doesn't generate lift.

OK, time for another aviation concept, called "angle of attack". This is not, however, a martial arts stance or the use of drafting tools in combat It's the relationship between the wing and the direction of travel. Again, this is somewhat simplified, but if you represent the direction of travel with a line, and the cross section of the wing from the side as another line, the angle between those lines is the angle of attack. The greater that angle, the more lift you generate - up to a point. Above that point - which is called the critical angle of attack - the laminar airflow over the wing becomes disrupted and lift ceases to be generated by the wing. This is called a stall.

Now, you might be thinking - Ohmigosh! No lift! That means... you're not flying anymore, you're falling! (EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.....splat!)

Honestly, it's not that bad. In fact, pilots will do stalls for fun! Really.

Modern airplanes (say, anything built after the Curtis Jenny, that's around 1914 or so) have wings that are slightly twisted so the whole wing doesn't reach the critical angle all at once. In other words, you don't lose ALL your lift all at once. In some airplanes, a stall produces a genuine "down" sensation, in others it's possible to induce a stall that is so gentle that passengers may be unaware of the loss off lift.

As the stall becomes progressively worse, you lose more and more lift and, because the air going over the wings is so disordered, you also lose the effectiveness of the ailerons, which are what bank and unbank the wings. You have less control of the airplane (which is not to say you have NO control). If the wings depart from level in a stall you do NOT use the ailerons to correct the problem, you need to use the rudder because THAT's working, not the widgets on the wings. The rudder is working (very very simplified explanation leaving out lengthy details and exceptions) because gravity is pulling you down nose-first, generating air flow along the long axis of the airplane which means the rudder - which is also an airfoil - still has orderly - that is, laminar - airflow going over it. Your rudder is still flying, in other words. So it's still working. Your ailerons are out there in the turbulence. At best they're not working. At worst, they're contributing to the problem by adding more drag and messing up the airflow further.

Now, standard stall recovery is simple, although counter-intuitive. You push the nose down further - not always easy when the ground is rushing up to meet you. By pushing the stick or the yoke forward (or, in hang gliders, pulling the bar back - different control, same end effect) you bring the angle of the wings more in line with the line of travel, thus reducing the angle of attack below the critical angle, restoring laminar air flow and normal flight (also, at this point it's a good idea to switch from descent to climb as eventually you run out of sky and into ground)

And you're saying: this is all very fascinating but when are we getting to the spins already?

OK, I'm getting there. Remember I mentioned the air getting all wonky over the wings? And you lose lift? Now, as a general rule you try to keep the lift generated by each wing roughly equal, at least in level flight. If you had one wing generating significantly more lift than the other it would tend to pull that wing up - and since the wing is attached to the airplane what it does it generate a roll, causing the airplane to rotate around the long axis of the airplane. Not normally seen outside fancy airshow flying, but stunt flying is an outcome of unbalanced lift forces.

OK, still with me? It is entirely possible to stall one wing before the other, or stall more of one wing than the other. When this happens you're not only going down, you're rotating around the long axis of the airplane. And that, boys and girls, is what we pilots call a "spin". You're not just stalled, you're in an unbalanced stall.

Spin recovery, in theory, isn't that difficult. FIRST you cancel the rotation. Since your ailerons aren't working, you just the rudder (remember, I allude to this before). Once the rotation stops you're in a normal stall. Lower the nose and resume flying. Simple, yes?

Having actually experienced a few spins in real life, I can state that there is a slight gap between theory and practice - but it has to do mostly with the human being involved. It is VERY HARD to concentrate on flying the airplane when the entire landscape is whipping around you thirty times a minutes and the ground is coming up at 270+ miles per hour, which is the view you get from a Cessna 150 cockpit in a normal, uneventful spin. I didn't scream the first time, but I did invent a few new "colorful phrases". Mind you, I knew it was coming - I had gone up to experience this phenomena first hand. Beats the hell out of any roller coaster you care to name. Anyhoo... believe or not even that can become routine and yes, pilots do those for fun, too. (Not me - not too fond of them at this point. I got spin training because I felt it would be good for me, not because I have any intention of being an airshow performer)

Now, there is not a hard and fast line between "stall" and "spin". Particularly when first learning manuvers it's nothing unusual for a pilot in a stall to experience a slight rotation in one direction or another. This may be so slight as to be virtually unnoticable, or maybe a quater turn, or maybe more - at some point you move from "stall" to "incipient spin" to "spin" but it's a continuum.

A flat spin is even further out on that continuum.

A flat spin is when you're getting even further from a "flying" angle of attack. The nose is coming "up" (these are actually relative directions - but, again, I'm trying to keep this simple. I don't want to get into things like inverted spins and the further complications they cause just yet) and more up... until at some point the laminar airflow unpeels from your rudder. Remember the rudder? The thing you use to cancel the rotation? That only works if the rudder is still flying...

And THAT is why flat spins are so deadly - how do you cancel the rotation if you're rudder isn't working?

And on that happy note, my friends, I must type TO BE CONTINUED because my life is calling.

I'll finish in the morning.

[Broomstick]

>yawn< - MORNING! Here I am again - anyone bored, yet?

OK, before the Other Half dragged me off to bed last night I banged out something about laminar flows and rudders - and now in the dark of pre-dawn I have to say it's not exactly that, but suffice to say that in a flat spin your rudder is pretty much useless because the air going over it is not at an angle to make the rudder effective at steering the airplane. And the same goes for the elevator.

Basically, in a flat spin you have gotten yourself into a situation where the controls don't work. And that is a Bad Thing. In fact, in my pilot's manual for the Cessna 150 Aerobat they do mention the dangers of allowing the spin to flatten out and why and how you should avoid that state, since it can become "unrecoverable". Which is a polite way of saying if you can't fix this problem you die.

So, the flat spin becomes deadly when you have no means of manipulating the airplane to get out of it and restore normal flight. And for many airplanes that is exactly the case - once you enter the flat spin you are fucked.

But that isn't always the case -- there HAVE been airshow performers, for example, that enter and exit flat spins for entertainment purposes. How do they do that? Well, they obviously have something other than aileron-rudder-elevator to work with. At least one airshow performer who performed flat spins had pumps in his airplane that would shift fuel from the usual tanks to an additional tank in the nose of the airplane, changing the center of gravity and balance, causing the nose to drop and unflatten the spin when he wanted to come out of it. Of course, there had to be sufficient fuel on board for this manuver to work - if you're almost out of gas in that case you don't have enough mass to shift to make the trick work. In the X-plane program, when they got high enough there was a disturbing tendency for the airplanes to go out of control because there wasn't enough air passing over the wings and such to generate the lift needed to make things work properly - so they started adding thrusters, much like a space ship, to keep things under control. There is no reason why you can't build systems into an airplane to allow it to cope with a flat spin except for cost and weight. Since most airplanes are not delibrately spun, and avoiding spins is relatively easy for a competant pilot, this choice of economy seldom has dire consequences.

You are also allowed to improvise - for example, two pilots in a Piper Tomahawk entered a spin once upon a time and couldn't get out of it. They survived by throwing all available loose objects as far forward as possible - including one of the pilots, who unbuckled and climbed up on top of the instrument panel, thereby shifting the center of gravity far foward enough to allow spin and stall recovery. Quite unorthodox, but it worked.

Now, let's return to that Viper in a flat spin. Vipers are spaceships - they have thrusters, which we saw operating in several episodes as Vipers manuvered to a landing. They're powerful enough to allow the Vipers to reserve direction at considerable velocity and otherwise manuver in all directions. So... if a Viper enters a flat spin in the thin, upper atmosphere of a planet it should have no trouble getting out of a flat spin - unless the pilot is incapacitated or the thrusters aren't working.

When the episode repeats tonight I'll be able to get a better look at what was going on.

One more thing about spins - I've been saying words like "up" and "down" because it's easier for the non-pilot to understand. But that is actually incorrect. For example, if you were flying inverted, you certainly could stall the wing, but in that case you'd pull back on the stick rather than push forward. Actually, you'd still want to cancel the rotation first, then get the wings flying again - still upside down - then turn over. More or less (this is getting way out on the edge of my knowledge).

You can also stall at any speed and any direction of travel. MOST accidental stalls occur on either take-off or landing, and thus from relatively level flight, but you can also stall out of a steep turn, for example, and you're more likely to enter a spin from such a stall - largely due to human error rather than inherent problems with the airplane. Recently, a spin was captured on video where instead of traveling down towards the ground the spacecraft (yes, this was a spacecraft) was in a spin traveling upwards, away from the ground. Remember that Rutan SpaceShipOne launch into sub-orbital flight where the spaceship started rotating around it's long axis? That happened because the wings had exceeded the critical angle of attack during the climb and the thing entered a spin - even though it was still climbing on thrust and momentum. (the media made this out to be a really huge error - it wasn't. It wasn't good, no, but this sort of thing happens in flight testing.) The next flight of SpaceShipOne the pilot maintained a smaller angle of attack and - voila! - no spin. A stall or spin is an aerodynamic state, it is not dependent on engine thrust, or lack of engine thrust (my landlord used to perform spins and inverted spins in glider planes for the fun of it - no engine at all in those airplanes).

Like I said, I'll watch more carefully tonight - maybe it's more obvious what's going on than I remember.

[Questor]

Just my $.02,

It looked to me like the damage had taken out the inertial compensator and the Starbuck could not reach the controls.

If some of the thrusters were damaged wouldn't that reduce the ability of the pilot to recover from the spin?

Do Vipers have any aerodynamic control surfaces? It looked to my like all of the manuvering is from the thrusters.

Broomstick, thanks for the info, it clears up a lot of my questions.

[buzz_knox]

Is the accident referenced above at the very beginning of the first part of the two parter, or the second part? I watched the first part, and didn't see anything like that, so I must have missed something.

[StarshipTitanic]

Is the accident referenced above at the very beginning of the first part of the two parter, or the second part? I watched the first part, and didn't see anything like that, so I must have missed something.

You didn't notice the short scenes of Starbuck burning up, or the battle at the end where her Viper and a Raider are tumbling towards that planet?

[Broomstick]

It looked to me like the damage had taken out the inertial compensator and the Starbuck could not reach the controls.

What the hell is an "inertial compensator" and why should I believe in it?

Can't they just use g-suits and crap-grunts like we do?

Yes, in a spin (flat or otherwise) you do get a certain amount of g-force from the rotation. However, assuming the pilot is sitting in or close to the center of gravity, the pilot is in the part of the air/spacecraft least affected by this. OK, it's a possibility - but you'd need a ferocious rate of spin to generate that effect. If it's so bad Starbuck - who we have seen works out and can be presumed to be a strong individual - physically can't reach the controls how did she keep from passing out, and how was she able to reach the control to eject?

If they use inertial dampers, and those things fail, why isn't the pilot squashed so hard by the resulting forces that the pilot can't move at all, even to eject?

If you maintain the inertial damperss continue to work even as the pilot ejects, when the pilots leaves the influence of them why is said pilot not shredded? Ejecting out of something like an F-16 can lead to multiple bone fractures or even death (also tends to rip the pilot's clothes off, but that's a minor detail...) -- and that aircraft doesn't require "inertial dampers". How much worse would ejecting from a spacecraft that needed such devices be?

If some of the thrusters were damaged wouldn't that reduce the ability of the pilot to recover from the spin?

Yes, that certainly could.

In fact, I'd say it would be the most realistic scenario that both forces the pilot to eject and allows the pilot to survive bailing out.

Do Vipers have any aerodynamic control surfaces? It looked to my like all of the manuvering is from the thrusters.

Yes, they do.

A surface does not need to be intended to be used for aerodynamic lift to actually generate that lift - as a gentleman driving on the freeway with a poorly secured mattress strapped to the top of his car demonstrated in my neighborhood last summer.

Regretably, my quick search for a good Viper picture illustrating these surfaces was not successful. While most manuvering may, indeed, be done with thrusters (in space, it would have to be thrusters as there is no air to speak of) the tailfins most certainly could and probably would act as aerodynamic surfaces in an atmosphere.

Most notably, the large "fins" at the rear of the Viper attached to the main engines would have aerodynamic properties in an atmosphere, acting as stabilizers if nothing else, much like the fletching on an arrow. If they incorporated control surfaces then they would, indeed, be aerodynamic control surfaces. Look for discussion of things like "rudder" and/or signs of hinged sections on those parts of the Vipers.

Mind you, these things will never be something that can fly without thrust - a Viper would have the glide profile of a brick at best. Then again, the space shuttle doesn't have that much aerodynamic surface in relation to its weight and volume, yet it is landed as an unpowered glider. (Another half-truth - all gliders are, in fact, powered by gravity).

Broomstick, thanks for the info, it clears up a lot of my questions.

Just trying to be of service and yet not lead anyone too far astray

[Steven Snyder]

What the hell is an "inertial compensator" and why should I believe in it?

Because the listing for the Viper Mk7 specifically mentions them.

If they use inertial dampers, and those things fail, why isn't the pilot squashed so hard by the resulting forces that the pilot can't move at all, even to eject?

I would assume that there is a safety device that limits the maneuvering of a Viper into a 'safe' range if a fault in the Interial Dampner is detected. At least I would assume this to be the case, that is how I would design it.

If you maintain the inertial damperss continue to work even as the pilot ejects, when the pilots leaves the influence of them why is said pilot not shredded?

Because the craft is no longer accelerating when the pilot ejects. Once the pilot ejects from the craft, his/her velocity isn't changing, and is therefore in a zero-g environment.

Ejecting out of something like an F-16 can lead to multiple bone fractures or even death (also tends to rip the pilot's clothes off, but that's a minor detail...) -- and that aircraft doesn't require "inertial dampers". How much worse would ejecting from a spacecraft that needed such devices be?

If a craft like the viper were still accelerating, he might be impacted by the tail structure.

[Broomstick]

What the hell is an "inertial compensator" and why should I believe in it?

Because the listing for the Viper Mk7 specifically mentions them.

I thought Starbuck ejected from a MkII...

Anyhow, an "inertial damper" is like an FTL drive (or jump) - a means to get around an inconvenient limitation of the physical world.

If they use inertial dampers, and those things fail, why isn't the pilot squashed so hard by the resulting forces that the pilot can't move at all, even to eject?

I would assume that there is a safety device that limits the maneuvering of a Viper into a 'safe' range if a fault in the Interial Dampner is detected. At least I would assume this to be the case, that is how I would design it.

And if the safety device fails....?

If it fails during a manuver things could get quite messy.

If you maintain the inertial damperss continue to work even as the pilot ejects, when the pilots leaves the influence of them why is said pilot not shredded?

Because the craft is no longer accelerating when the pilot ejects.

What, gravity stops working?

It may no longer be accelerating on it's own power, but if it's headed toward the surface of a planet it could very well continue to accelerate towards that planet, at least until terminal velocity is achieved - which will vary depending on atmospheric density.

Which is also a problem for the pilot, because the terminal velocity of the human body is considerably less than that of most aircraft. When ejecting from, say, an F-16 traveling at a high rate of speed it's not the acceleration of the airplane that causes damage, it's the abrupt decceleration the pilot experiences on encountering air resistance. In the lower atmosphere of Earth, the terminal velocity of the human body (under most conditions) is about 120 mph. If you eject from an aircraft traveling at 500 mph (it's a nice, round number), you will very abruptly slow down. Those who have ejected at high speed and lived to tell the tale describe it somewhat as slamming into a brick wall. It does break bones.

If you were to eject at an even higher speed - say, one requiring inertial dampers - the effect would be even worse.

Once the pilot ejects from the craft, his/her velocity isn't changing, and is therefore in a zero-g environment.

If you eject into an atmosphere (which Starbuck did) your velocity will change. You will slow down, and heat will be generated through friction. That is, after all, why things frequently burn up when entering the atmosphere of a planet from space.

Ejecting out of something like an F-16 can lead to multiple bone fractures or even death (also tends to rip the pilot's clothes off, but that's a minor detail...) -- and that aircraft doesn't require "inertial dampers". How much worse would ejecting from a spacecraft that needed such devices be?

If a craft like the viper were still accelerating, he might be impacted by the tail structure.

The aircraft doesn't have to accelerate for you to hit the tail - you only have to slow down relative to the aircraft. That very thing happens to skydivers from time to time - they screw up exiting the aircraft and wind up hitting a wing or a tail. It's not because the aircraft is accelerating - jump pilots are very careful to maintain precise speed during a drop to help prevent accidents, especially since in a person vs. small plane accident of that sort the people in the aircraft are in fact less likely to survive the impact long-term than the skydiver (hitting the tail seriously screws up the tail where you have two major control surfaces, which can make a safe landing impossible). It's because when you exit the aircraft wind resistance slows down the human body.

Anything falling off of or out of the front part of the aircraft can wind up hitting the tail.

When the aircraft is spinning - such as Starbuck's Viper was - you could be hit by the tail or other structure even if you are somehow keeping pace with it.

[buzz_knox]

Is the accident referenced above at the very beginning of the first part of the two parter, or the second part? I watched the first part, and didn't see anything like that, so I must have missed something.

You didn't notice the short scenes of Starbuck burning up, or the battle at the end where her Viper and a Raider are tumbling towards that planet?

Yes, but that was combat, not an accident. The accident referred to above involved multiple pilots dying as a result of an accidental missile launch. I suppose this was based on the USS Forrestal fire off the coast of Vietnam, in which a cookoff caused a projectile to set John McCain's bird on fire, igniting a massive blaze on the stern of the ship.