About This File
316 SpaceShipOne - Feathering Beta
For X-Plane 9 and 10
The Story:
In the middle of the Mojave desert, Burt Rutan and his team at scaled composites wheeled out the model 316 SpaceShipOne from its hangar to begin a day that would go down in history.
Later that day, September the 29th 2004, WhiteKnight climbed to 53,000 FT with SpaceShipOne under its belly. Inside SpaceShipOne was pilot Mike Melvill, and on the ground below was mission control working to get the space craft up to its target altitude. Time came for the drop, so WhiteKnight released SS1. And after 10 seconds of silence SpaceShipOne fired its rocket to begin its voyage into space. It climbed to 102.9 km (above 300,000 ft) from the earth's surface, and Became the first privately funded spacecraft ever to cross the Karmen line.
Days later pilot Brian Binnie flew SpaceShipOne up to 112 Km from the earth's surface, breaking Mike Melvill's record and sealing the future of space travel.
The great sir Richard Branson is now creating the new Virgin Galactic space-line, using Burt Rutans experience to create a new pair of vehicles that shall be called 'WhiteKnightTwo (VSS Eve)' & 'SpaceShipTwo (VSS Enterprise)'.* Sir Richard Branson has now set up a new spaceport in New Mexico where you can take off and travel safely for a cheap fee of $ 200,000 USD.
*WhiteKnight2 and SpaceShipTwo are for download on the org, made by Voidhwak9.
about:
FEATHERING BETA - I used inverted objects under a flap actuated dataref to make the iconic feathering system that made Burt Rutan's design so popuar. I then went on to invert the airfoils so I could get the proper drag characteristics, but this meant that I had to supplement the loss of lift with an extra invisible airfoil. The only way to land this version safely is to turn the thermal rate up to abnormal heights. This aircraft is open to the community to tweak with, there are many problems with flight and therefore this is a beta version.
Included:
• Stunning detailed features such as landing gear and flame
• Fully customized cockpit
• sounds - off the real solid rocket test audio (plus a more realistic wind sound)
• User manual, cockpit manual, poster, and an easy 5 step manual for setting up the historic space flight...
• ...and a whole lot more!
This aircraft can be a bit twitchy in high speeds, this is caused by your frame rate not the flight model.
Resources:
For a detailed step by step look at the flight in 2004: http://joeschwartz.net/extras/SpaceShipOne/index.htm
Scaled Composites: http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/
With thanks:
Everybody below deserves my highest compliments.
Alge2: Note that he has given me permission to re-create his SS1 model, but unfortunately his model had a bug so I couldn't proceed with improving his aircraft. I will mention him for his kindness in giving me the basis to make my own flight model, and his achievements in X-Plane space flight should be acknowledged.
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Enjoy flying the highly acclaimed space flight phenomenon, and if you like it, rate it!
-Hampster