Rutan: “We had an unstable rudder”

by | Jul 28, 2009 | Seradata News | 0 comments

tail zoom.jpg
credit Flight/Alan Radecki / caption: see the notch in the bottom of the rudder

In the photo above the new modification to the WhiteKnight Two prototype Eve’s rudder, a notch cut into the bottom of it, can be seen and above it, glinting in the sun, are the vortex generators previously added. The photo was taken on Monday 27 July during the mothership’s take-off at about 07:37 local time at Mojave air and spaceport as it began its journey to Oshkosh

Scaled Composites founder and chief engineer Burt Rutan told Hyperbola about the latest change to the rudder during a brief chat the aircraft designer had with media after WK2 landed at Wittman regional airport in Oshkosh on Monday 27 July

Rutan explained that originally the only “aerodynamic balance weight,” as he puts it was “on the top” of the rudder and what the company discovered during the first flight, back in December 2008, was that due to that “we had an unstable rudder, it was wandering…it was not an optimum first flight because of that.”

He described the rudder issue as a situation where when the bottom rudder is “shielded” by the landing gear wake its stablising effects are “taken away”. So they decided to add a weight to the bottom of the rudder to increase its stabilising effect – its ability to cope with the wake vortices of the gear essentially

Rutan’s engineers’ solution then was to add that weight to the bottom to ensure that the gear wake did not, in his words, “change the [rudder’s] hinge moments,” and ensure that the rudder forces were good

He finished by saying that that was the “major aerodynamic change we made”

This explanation doesn’t entirely explain the notch, the most recent change, which actually removes some of the mass of the bottom of the rudder, which Rutan says had to be increased, but it does confirm much of what Hyperbola and Flightglobal has written about

Due to technical problems we can’t provide the video of this discussion but hope to in the near future

About Seradata

Seradata produces the renowned Seradata database. Trusted by over 100 of the world’s leading Space organisations, Seradata is a fully queryable database used for market analysis, failure/risk assessment, spectrum analysis and space situational awareness (SSA).

For more information go to https://www.seradata.com/product/

Related Articles

Categories

Archives

Tags

nasaspacexecoreviewsissesaArianespacechinavideoFalcon 9v1.2FT Block 525virgin galacticfalcon 9ULAevaRoscosmosspacewalkDGABlue Originaviation weekInternational Space StationaresRocket LabsoyuzIGTBeidouawardsAirbus DSStarlinkboeingspaceSatellite broadcastingrussiaOneWebmoonISROCargo Return VehiclemarsblogresearchspaceshiptwoorionjaxamarsimpactEutelsathyperboladelaydemocratgoogle lunar prizerocketlunarhypertextthales alenia spaceobamalaunchVegaSESconstellationtourismbarack obamafiguresnorthspaceflightIntelsatnode 2fundedRaymond LygoElon Musk2009Lockheed MartinromeAtlas VExpress MD-2dassault aviationss2sstlaviationLucy2008wk2uksuborbitalradiotestmissiledocking portexplorationSLSAriane 5 ECAVirgin OrbitinternetLong March 2D/2China Manned Space Engineeringsts-122Ariane 5Northrop GrummanElectronmissile defensenewspapercotsgalileospace tourismflight2010Long March 4CspaceportExpress AMU 1buildspace stationaltairsoyuz 2-1ashuttleProton Minternational astronautical congressscaled compositesAriane 6Intelsat 23space shuttleLauncherOneEuropean Space AgencyCosmoshanleybudgetrulesnew yorkLong March 2CInmarsatnew shepardVietnamatvshenzhoucongressMojaveboldenOrbital ATKcnesUS Air ForceGuiana Space Centerlunar landeriacApollolawsSpace Systems/LoralUK Space AgencyLong March 4BKuaizhou 1AkscprotonElectron KSdarpaILSTalulah RileylaunchesVega CFalcon 9v1.2 Block 5North KoreaeuSkylonAstriumlanderbaseusaastronautdragonpicturefiveeventTelesatSpace InsuranceSSLViasatAprilSNC50thfalconWednesdaySea LaunchLong Marchinterviewcustomer

Stay Informed with Seradata

Stay informed on the latest news, insights, and more from Seradata by signing up for our newsletter.