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I imagine it's a huge upgrade being able to design with computer modeling. I honestly can't fathom how they calculated supersonic airflow when designing the Co

by chis 9y ago

I imagine it's a huge upgrade being able to design with computer modeling. I honestly can't fathom how they calculated supersonic airflow when designing the Concore.

snowwrestler 9y ago
I doubt they could with much precision, which is probably why they just gave the Concorde a ton of thrust and huge flight control surfaces.
gumby 9y ago
Even into the 90s, numerical simulation of naiver-stokes was pretty minimal (I worked with the NASA Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation folks at Ames at the time) and yet up to then the SR-71, X-1B, Valkyrie etc were all designed, built and flown, not to mention some spacecraft too that you might have heard of :-). There was some computational modeling, but mostly it was old fashioned engineering: slide rules, models, and as someone else remarked, some over-engineering. The same way people built bridges 150 years ago when that was a black art. There's a wonderful/sad picture at the Hiller museum on 101 in San Carlos. It shows the day the Boeing SST program† was shut down. In front of the mockup (which is also at the museum) are wooden workbenches with vices attached. It made me realize that not only were they designing everything with slide rules, but people then built all the parts by hand from drawings a draftsman (not draftsperson in those days unfortunately) also produced by hand from hand-sketches and notes by and engineer. Honestly this blew my mind when I realized that the ME-262, SR-71 and LEM were produced in the same way. And I should have known: at MIT I took Unified the last year (1983) that the practical work was done entirely on old WW II surplus machine tools. In the next room, not yet unpacked, were early CAD systems. † I still wonder if Boeing was every really serious about passenger SST.
- cardiffspaceman 9y ago
  In 1971 my mother worked for Caltrans[1] with the title of 'delineator'. The title was originally 'draftsman' in 1965 or so when she was hired. When it ruins your life, it's a vice. When it holds your work together, it's a vise. [1] California Dept of Transportation
- lostboys67 9y ago
  Reminds me of my Mech eng BTEC thermofluids course the college had a load of ww2 surplus lathes to. Though on my course we only had 1 person who worked at a traditional engineering firm the rest of us worked in RnD at the RAE ARA or on campus at CIT.

by chis 9y ago

I imagine it's a huge upgrade being able to design with computer modeling. I honestly can't fathom how they calculated supersonic airflow when designing the Concore.

snowwrestler 9y ago

I doubt they could with much precision, which is probably why they just gave the Concorde a ton of thrust and huge flight control surfaces.

gumby 9y ago

Even into the 90s, numerical simulation of naiver-stokes was pretty minimal (I worked with the NASA Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation folks at Ames at the time) and yet up to then the SR-71, X-1B, Valkyrie etc were all designed, built and flown, not to mention some spacecraft too that you might have heard of :-). There was some computational modeling, but mostly it was old fashioned engineering: slide rules, models, and as someone else remarked, some over-engineering. The same way people built bridges 150 years ago when that was a black art. There's a wonderful/sad picture at the Hiller museum on 101 in San Carlos. It shows the day the Boeing SST program† was shut down. In front of the mockup (which is also at the museum) are wooden workbenches with vices attached. It made me realize that not only were they designing everything with slide rules, but people then built all the parts by hand from drawings a draftsman (not draftsperson in those days unfortunately) also produced by hand from hand-sketches and notes by and engineer. Honestly this blew my mind when I realized that the ME-262, SR-71 and LEM were produced in the same way. And I should have known: at MIT I took Unified the last year (1983) that the practical work was done entirely on old WW II surplus machine tools. In the next room, not yet unpacked, were early CAD systems. † I still wonder if Boeing was every really serious about passenger SST.

cardiffspaceman 9y ago
In 1971 my mother worked for Caltrans[1] with the title of 'delineator'. The title was originally 'draftsman' in 1965 or so when she was hired. When it ruins your life, it's a vice. When it holds your work together, it's a vise. [1] California Dept of Transportation
lostboys67 9y ago
Reminds me of my Mech eng BTEC thermofluids course the college had a load of ww2 surplus lathes to. Though on my course we only had 1 person who worked at a traditional engineering firm the rest of us worked in RnD at the RAE ARA or on campus at CIT.