MAX KINGSLEY-JONES / MOJAVE
Scaled Composites is not making any changes to its SpaceShipOne after the suborbital vehicle suffered a gear collapse at the end of its last flight on 17 December, which the company says was a result of a "hard landing".
The three-seat SpaceShipOne began glide tests in August, after being released from the White Knight mothership, and went supersonic on the 17 December test, the first in which its hybrid rocket motor was ignited, reaching a speed of Mach 1.2. The aircraft ultimately will be flown at M4.
Scaled Composites founder and president Burt Rutan says he is "absolutely delighted" with the way the first supersonic test went, despite the eventful landing. "Bad things that could have happened during the flight didn't. The transonic acceleration and deceleration were very smooth; we didn't have any [aerodynamic] 'buzz'."
Rutan attributes the collapse of the left main leg to a hard landing by test pilot Brian Binnie. "We didn't manage to get a lot of evaluation of a recent modification to the flight controls, prior to the firing of the rocket motor. We'd introduced some viscous damping to the elevons to eliminate anticipated buzz at transonic speed.
"During the landing, Brian was concerned that he had different handling with the new damping," says Rutan, adding that as a result the pilot failed to flare and the landing was harder than planned.
SpaceShipOne is undergoing minor repairs after the landing mishap at Scaled Composites' Mojave, California plant. Rutan declines to say when the next flight is scheduled.
Source: Flight International
