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"But its highly experimental design made it the most aerodynamically unstable aircraft ever built." I'm not sure if that's true. The F117 was aerodynamically u
by mysterydip 7y ago
"But its highly experimental design made it the most aerodynamically unstable aircraft ever built."
I'm not sure if that's true. The F117 was aerodynamically unstable in all three axes due to its design prioritizing stealth over all else, needed constant corrections by the fly-by-wire system, and it first flew in 1981.
- hollerith 7y agoHow is when it first flew relevant to how unstable it is?
- EdwardCoffin 7y agoBecause it is an example of a totally unstable plane which flew three years before the plane under discussion.
- imtringued 7y agoThe X-29 is an even more totally unstable plane.
- hollerith 7y agoAh, I see. You want to argue that since the F-117's instability did not prevent its becoming a success, despite using fly-by-wire computers that were 3 years older (and consequently more primitive) than the X-29's, then instability cannot be the root cause of the failure of the X-29.
- EdwardCoffin 7y agoThe person you replied to was expressing skepticism that the claim that the X-29 was "the most aerodynamically unstable aircraft ever built", on the grounds that the F-117 first flew in 1981 (which implicitly predated the X-29 which first flew three years later in 1984), and was unstable on all three axes. You asked of what relevance the date first flight was, and I made the relation of first flights explicit, which answers your question of what relevance it is. That is all. Your claim about what I want to argue exists only in your own mind.