Terrible audio, but interesting video


[youtube]http://youtu.be/zG9LlHcX8lg[/youtube]

Rent Iron Eagle III, keep the MUTE on, and fast forward. You'll see some more of this plane.

I hope Rutan's new Jet is able to hold off the Chinese, Russians and Arabs because it's all we have the money for anymore.

Our latest design should be a bicycle mounted gun of some sort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_ARES

FIrst flew in 1990.

I think I saw that thing at OSH in the early 90's sometime.

That has to be a fairly old video, Burt looks quite a bit younger than he does these days,

But the chops haven't aged a bit!

I love that he gave it a shot, interesting design ideas for sure. I wouldn't want to do CAS in it or get into a turning fight in it either, nice airplane but better suited for fun than military IMO.

Still, love to see new designs and smart people thinking outside the box!

+1

As I recall, Burt mounted the gun off the centerline of the fuselage as his thinking was that it prevented the gun gases from being ingested into the engine intake. The minor detail he neglected is how much yaw force is created by this off-center positioning, especially on a lightweight airframe. Everytime they fired the gun, the aircraft would yaw substantially. It was nearly impossible to hold a target in the crosshairs when firing the gun.

Cool looking design but was doomed before it was even built...