Quote:
Originally Posted by aerohead
*All structures which are moving at a velocity at,or above critical velocity are limited to the 22-degree slope angle in the aft-body.
|
I've measured the Shuttle tail cone on pics - it's also around 22°.
Quote:
|
You can chop off the last 20% of a fuselage on an aircraft and it will never show on the fuel gauge.This is why the tails on the cargo planes matter very little to overall performance.
|
That's when starting with a fully streamlined fuselage.
On the Arava and Noratlas, the clamshell doors are at or very near the full fuselage width - not nearly the last 20% of the streamline.
On the C-82 it was a bit better, and best on the C-119 .
The operational drawbacks were many, and serious.
Not surprisingly, this WW2 design hasn't stood the test of time and was replaced with the rear loading ramp - pioneered on the Budd-ugly Conestoga (RB-1 / C-93) - which has become the preferred lay-out.