Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: shuttle landing anomaly
Message-ID: <1989Aug16.230127.97@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <4500@portia.Stanford.EDU> <57706@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 89 23:01:27 GMT

In article <57706@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Harold McMillan  writes:
>... I thought that the nose wheel hit unusually hard.
>Maybe they had a hard time getting the nose down and over-corrected.

Easy to do, I believe, because the nose gear is short enough that with all
wheels on the ground, the wing's angle of attack is negative (leading edge
lower than trailing edge) and it is pushing *down*.  This is also why on
landing, especially with a heavy load, they try to hold the nose gear off
the ground for a while -- putting the nose down immediately worsens the
load on the main gear, which is already a somewhat marginal design.
-- 
V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu