X-Plane manual

Trans-Atmospheric Flight Operations

The Space Shuttle gets stuff into orbit with some reliability, but is awfully expensive to operate for obvious reasons. They have to refurbish the solid rocket boosters every flight, they need a new external fuel tank every flight, the orbiter requires significant maintenance every flight, and the fuel consumption is, shall we say, "significant". (The fuel pumps alone use more horsepower than the total power output of the "Queen Mary"... when you use more power than the TOTAL output of the Queen Mary just to PUMP THE FUEL OUT OF THE TANK, you know you are burning fuel).

The National Aerospace Plane, or "NASP" is an X-Plane (number 30, or "X-30") conceived to be the next generation of orbital delivery vehicle. It will take off with jet engines like an airplane, then switch to rocket engines at high altitude where the jet engines quit putting out any thrust. The rocket engines will take the plane into orbit, where payload can be deployed. The plane will then fly a re-entry into the atmosphere, and fire up the jet engines again for a normal landing.

Flying the NASP takes practice, but this will get you started. Open up the NASP in the "X-Planes" folder and fill it up with fuel ("Settings:Weights and Fuel"). Go to LAX or some other huge runway and blast off in full afterburner. Throttle back to 100% no burner and climb to 30,000 feet or so. Hit the burner again when the engine thrust starts feeling sort of weak. At about 45,000 feet, or as far as you can climb with the engines, shut them down. (Yank the red fuel levers back). Hit the JATO (Jet-Assisted Take-Off) button to simulate the rocket engines that will punch you into space. The JATO is simply a solid-fuel rocket motor. The real NASP will use liquid fuel, but that is a technicality.

During the rocket assisted climb, gradually level the nose so that the artificial horizon is horizontal at about the time you reach 300,000 feet. X-Plane?s atmosphere goes up to about 250,000 feet, so you will be ?in space? at 300,000 feet. If you climb into space at 45 degrees upside down, you will never get a decent re-entry, so gradually level the nose as to level out at 300,000 feet. Watch the artificial horizon carefully. You must level off in the top of a gentle curve at a reasonable altitude to have a chance of making a survivable re-entry.

At this moment, your indicated airspeed will be zero, but of course this is because there is no air to push against the pitot tube. Your actual speed is extreme, and can be output from the data output window. 18,000 mph is orbital velocity. You will have noticed during the climb that the indicated airspeed was going down as you entered thinner air and the airspeed indicator encountered less air pressure, but the true airspeed was always increasing.

Once in space, keep the space-bird pointed straight ahead until the rocket burns out. Use stick and rudder to always keep the nose pointed right at the flight path velocity vector (the small green moving box) on the HUD. This keeps the nose pointed in the direction you are going. You will need this during re-entry! Once your rocket burns out (4 minutes is up, you can?t climb further and your engine thrust from the ?Data Output? window is 0) it is time for the re-entry. Hit the ?Jettison? button in the glareshield to jettison the satellite you just carried into orbit. Ease the plane into the atmosphere at a shallow angle! Don?t go diving straight down at the planet or you will break and burn up like a meteor for sure! The Space Shuttle skips along in the upper atmosphere to gradually bleed off airspeed, and you must do the same. 18,000 miles per hour at sea level would tear any aircraft ever made apart in a micro-second! While you keep the nose up a bit and skip across, gradually descending down into the atmosphere and decelerating, look for an airport on your EFIS display and fly to it for landing. We can do it!

(next section)

The Space Shuttle gets stuff into orbit with some reliability, but is awfully expensive to operate for obvious reasons. They have to refurbish the solid rocket boosters every flight, they need a new external fuel tank every flight, the orbiter requires significant maintenance every flight, and the fuel consumption is, shall we say, "significant". (The fuel pumps alone use more horsepower than the total power output of the "Queen Mary"... when you use more power than the TOTAL output of the Queen Mary just to PUMP THE FUEL OUT OF THE TANK, you know you are burning fuel). The National Aerospace Plane, or "NASP" is an X-Plane (number 30, or "X-30") conceived to be the next generation of orbital delivery vehicle. It will take off with jet engines like an airplane, then switch to rocket engines at high altitude where the jet engines quit putting out any thrust. The rocket engines will take the plane into orbit, where payload can be deployed. The plane will then fly a re-entry into the atmosphere, and fire up the jet engines again for a normal landing. Flying the NASP takes practice, but this will get you started. Open up the NASP in the "X-Planes" folder and fill it up with fuel ("Settings:Weights and Fuel"). Go to LAX or some other huge runway and blast off in full afterburner. Throttle back to 100% no burner and climb to 30,000 feet or so. Hit the burner again when the engine thrust starts feeling sort of weak. At about 45,000 feet, or as far as you can climb with the engines, shut them down. (Yank the red fuel levers back). Hit the JATO (Jet-Assisted Take-Off) button to simulate the rocket engines that will punch you into space. The JATO is simply a solid-fuel rocket motor. The real NASP will use liquid fuel, but that is a technicality.		During the rocket assisted climb, gradually level the nose so that the artificial horizon is horizontal at about the time you reach 300,000 feet. X-Plane?s atmosphere goes up to about 250,000 feet, so you will be ?in space? at 300,000 feet. If you climb into space at 45 degrees upside down, you will never get a decent re-entry, so gradually level the nose as to level out at 300,000 feet. Watch the artificial horizon carefully. You must level off in the top of a gentle curve at a reasonable altitude to have a chance of making a survivable re-entry. At this moment, your indicated airspeed will be zero, but of course this is because there is no air to push against the pitot tube. Your actual speed is extreme, and can be output from the data output window. 18,000 mph is orbital velocity. You will have noticed during the climb that the indicated airspeed was going down as you entered thinner air and the airspeed indicator encountered less air pressure, but the true airspeed was always increasing. Once in space, keep the space-bird pointed straight ahead until the rocket burns out. Use stick and rudder to always keep the nose pointed right at the flight path velocity vector (the small green moving box) on the HUD. This keeps the nose pointed in the direction you are going. You will need this during re-entry! Once your rocket burns out (4 minutes is up, you can?t climb further and your engine thrust from the ?Data Output? window is 0) it is time for the re-entry. Hit the ?Jettison? button in the glareshield to jettison the satellite you just carried into orbit. Ease the plane into the atmosphere at a shallow angle! Don?t go diving straight down at the planet or you will break and burn up like a meteor for sure! The Space Shuttle skips along in the upper atmosphere to gradually bleed off airspeed, and you must do the same. 18,000 miles per hour at sea level would tear any aircraft ever made apart in a micro-second! While you keep the nose up a bit and skip across, gradually descending down into the atmosphere and decelerating, look for an airport on your EFIS display and fly to it for landing. We can do it!