The Aviation Thread [Contains Lots of Awesome Pictures]

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I was never a fan of the Starship.

Now the Piaggio Avanti, that's another story. That as to be one of the most beautiful plane ever made. I regularly see one flying out of CYUL, and in fact saw it sitting at an FBO yesterday night when I left work (sitting in the same spot where a Falcon 7X was last Thursday).

1-private-jet.jpg

The Avanti is a pretty remarkable aircraft in many ways - and I get to see them nearly every day, as our neighbours on the airport have three of them.

First of all, it's quite large inside - you can actually stand up straight inside the cabin (an impossibility in nearly all small corporate aircraft), and it has a huge amount of room inside for passengers - again, it's much bigger than just about anything in its price range. Secondly, due to it's efficient design, the Avanti is stupendously fast - with a cruise speed of almost 400 knots (460 mph or 730 km/h), it's actually faster than most light business jets - it can match speed with a good number of pure jet aircraft and on longer flights, it can outrun them, as it can skip a fuel stop that the pure jet must make (with a similar amount of payload on each aircraft, that is). What is even more incredible is that the Avanti is as fast as it is with only 1700 horsepower available from the engines - the King Air 200 I flew in my last job has exactly that much power, yet it could only muster about 280 knots if I pushed it.

The Avanti does have some downsides and quirks to it, however. Up until a few years ago, there was a lot of doubt about the future of Piaggio and their continued support for the Avanti - these concerns are gone now, but finding out that the manufacturer has pulled up stakes and is no longer supporting your multi-million dollar purchase is enough to scare off just about anyone in the business. Also, while the placement of the engines and props has some major advantages, it does create some problems - the aircraft isn't really able to operate from gravel airstrips (this is important here in Canada, especially north of 60), and the noise it makes isn't particularly endearing to anyone living near an airport:

[video=youtube;R-0tRRcXmpE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-0tRRcXmpE&feature=related[/video]

The small wing does also create some problems - the high wing loading increases takeoff, approach and landing speeds quite a bit, so large flaps are needed to bring those down to more normal levels. One other minor quirk of the Avanti is that when it collects ice on the front wing (it isn't a canard - I'll explain that in a moment), the aircraft starts oscillating in pitch - in other words, the nose starts bobbing up and down.

Now, the front wing explanation. A canard is a front-mounted horizontal stabiliser, complete with elevator (the control surface used to control aircraft pitch). The front wing of the Avanti does not have an elevator on it - it has a flap like the main wing, but not an elevator. The elevator on the Avanti is on the conventionally-placed horizontal stabiliser at the rear of the aircraft.
 
while the placement of the engines and props has some major advantages, it does create some problems - the aircraft isn't really able to operate from gravel airstrips (this is important here in Canada, especially north of 60),
Could you explain that, preferably in terms that someone without aviation experience can understand, please? :) Why do rear-mounted props cause a plane not to be able to use gravel strips?

And it's really a wonderfully gorgeous plane.
 
Could you explain that, preferably in terms that someone without aviation experience can understand, please? :) Why do rear-mounted props cause a plane not to be able to use gravel strips?

And it's really a wonderfully gorgeous plane.

It's more a function of the location of the landing gear with respect to the propellers. In the case of the Avanti, the main wheels will kick stuff like stones into the propellers, which can do quite a bit of damage.

Needs more pics;

LcESF.jpg

I see that exact aircraft nearly every day!
 
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Get ready for some rocket racing:

rocket-racers-04-28-2010.jpg
 
WTF are those? I think I just jimped!
 
They look a little like Long EZs to me - will click the link tomorrow. Thanks.
 
Does anyone here know anything about Gas Turbine design? My uni assignment now requires me to design a small turbofan engine for something like this Dassault Falcon 2000:

dassault_falcon_2000_zs-pkr_01_dc06.JPG


I'm thinking 2 stage compressor, but not too sure about whether I'd go for a constant radius design. Main requirements so far for me are to minimize expense and engine size/weight/complexity.
 
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It's more a function of the location of the landing gear with respect to the propellers. In the case of the Avanti, the main wheels will kick stuff like stones into the propellers, which can do quite a bit of damage.
Okay, that obviously makes sense. Thanks.
 
I'm thinking 2 stage compressor, but not too sure about whether I'd go for a constant radius design. Main requirements so far for me are to minimize expense and engine size/weight/complexity.

Are you thinking 2 stage compressor or 2 stage turbine? A 2 stage compressor doesn't seem like it would be very efficient unless it was a centrifugal compressor which wouldn't help much as far as weight goes.
 
Argh, I meant 7-8. I really should go to sleep now.

My head is currently filled with Lycoming engine info and equations.
 
Took this a few minutes ago...

B777-300ER, not the most awesome of aircrafts, but imposing nonetheless.

DSC_7690.JPG
 
Anything with not one, but two GE90s strapped to it is awesome good sir.
 
So there was an AN-124 here yesterday, I missed it because I was hoping it would stick around until tomorrow because my brother will be coming home and I'll be hanging out at the airport a while before to watch planes. ANYWAYS, the AN-124 flew out this morning, unluckily the flightpath over my house is super quiet today so I didn't see it. BUT, it looks as if next week there will be not one but two AN-124s stopping here (the same one that just left and another one). I'm not going to miss those :x Antonovs are awesomeness, I've never actually seen one (yet) though.

I've been watching air traffic on flightaware.com
 
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So there was an AN-124 here yesterday, I missed it because I was hoping it would stick around until tomorrow because my brother will be coming home and I'll be hanging out at the airport a while before to watch planes. ANYWAYS, the AN-124 flew out this morning, unluckily the flightpath over my house is super quiet today so I didn't see it. BUT, it looks as if next week there will be not one but two AN-124s stopping here (the same one that just left and another one). I'm not going to miss those :x Antonovs are awesomeness, I've never actually seen one (yet) though.

I've been watching air traffic on flightaware.com

Same thing happened to me just the other week with the same aircraft, I bet it was doing a similar job too. Isn't Winnipeg big in the oil and gas industry, because the reason the AN-124 was in Tulsa was to pick up some oil field equipment.
 
Not unless canola oil counts, big fossil fuel lives in Alberta and northern Saskatchewan. But they are ramping Winnipeg up to be a big cargo port (middle of the country/continent, et cetera) so I dunno, could be picking stuff up that came from elsewhere. I do know that el Antonov came from an RAF base.

And I think I was reading the site wrong because it doesn't go that far into the future... *runs away*


edit: oh, and it was Polet Airlines' plane here.
 
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