Quote:
Originally Posted by Cd
As Aerohead pointed out in a previous post, some planes get by with rear airflow which is less than ideal
I've always wondered how that this plane got by with such a truncated tail, and in many cases with the tail cone removed all together. ( For missions like cargo drops etc - see this video at 00:18 )
It sure would be nice to have attached flow with a tail that short !
|
You've got to wrap your head around the way the military views the word "efficiency." Dropping a few paratroopers somewhere is a more efficient way of getting people there than having an armored division fight its way through. Air dropping a few pallets of ammo is more efficient than having an isolated unit run out. Most military equipment has so many oddball performance requirements in its design that it's amazing that it works at all in any normal way.
It's not the rear end of an airplane, anyway. It's a cargo loading door. Any thought given to aero was with an eye to not interfering with loading and unloading. The overall feeling here shouldn't be
"that's not really good aero," it should be
"Wow! it even flies!"
