HELIOS PROTOTYPE

[TERRIER]

Hello everyone

May I present a model of HELIOS, a NASA prototype solar-powered flying wing, which is part of their ERAST (Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology) project.

I've always wanted to see something in CELESTIA that flies within the Earths atmosphere and HELIOS seems more appropriate than an aeroplane or low flying shuttle!

Anyway here are some screenshots;







Many thanks must go to Jack Higgins for letting me use his valuable webspace, especially as the file size is just over 1 megabyte zipped.

Here is the direct link to the download, (otherwise see number 26 in Jacks spacecraft section on his website.)

http://homepage.eircom.net/~jackcelestia/files/helios.zip

regards
TERRIER

[Darkmiss]

wow i have never heard of this thing
it looks great, good work on the model.

[jamarsa]

I'd say I saw it in a old book of my childhood... Perhaps a twisted memory, though... But I remember it, somehow.

Wonderful work, anyway!!!

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

That is a bizarre looking vehicle. But it's a darn good model of it . Good stuff!

[Gordon]

waou !!!! wonderfull.

thx.

G.

[ElPelado]

there is a problem with this model: it also flys on the night side of the earth, where the sun doesn't shine... , so from where does it get his energy?



NOW TALKING SERIOUSLY, VERY VERY VERY GOOD MODEL. I LOVED THE RUNING MOTTORS EFFECT.

[Darkmiss]

here is a picture of the real thing
http://www.screenthemes.com/posters/poster_sdff001.jpg

and some more close up ones here
http://www.visionx.com/vxsecure/st/pswd.pl?target=sel_pack.pl&packid=sdff001

but you need to register to download them

[Jeam Tag]

Tres joli!

As usual, for my personnal back-up i add a little comment in french in the readme.txt with more informations that i can find. For this curious plane whitch will be testing its resistance this year, i add these links:

The Constructor: http://www.aerovironment.com/
NASA: http://trc.dfrc.nasa.gov/Research/Erast/helios.html
And the video gallery with some flights:
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/movie/ ... index.html

Hope to see an Helios fleet visiting Mars!
Jeam Tag

[ElPelado]

I read today that there was a problem on a test fly and it crashed....

[JackHiggins]

Yeah heres space.com's take on what happened...

The remotely operated Helios Prototype aircraft, a proof-of-concept solar-electric flying wing designed to operate at extremely high altitudes for long duration, was destroyed when it crashed today during a checkout flight from the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

There was no property damage or injuries on the ground resulting from the accident. The remotely piloted aircraft came down within the confines of the PMRF test range over the Pacific Ocean west of the facility. Cause of the mishap is not yet known.

The solar-electric, propeller-driven aircraft had been flying under the guidance of ground-based mission controllers for AeroVironment, Inc., of Monrovia, Calif., the plane's builder and operator. The lightweight flying wing had taken off from PMRF at about 10:06 a.m. on a functional checkout flight and had been aloft for about 29 minutes over the PMRF test range when the mishap occurred. The mishap occurred during a shakedown mission in preparation for a long-endurance mission of almost two days that had been planned for next month.

The Helios Prototype set a world altitude record for winged aircraft of 96,863 feet during a flight from the Navy facility at Barking Sands, Kauai, in August 2001.

Hm...

[TERRIER]

It's a shame what's happened to Helios, it will be interesting to see the results of the enquiry into what went wrong, here's the link to the Dryden Flight Research Centre home page for any future information.

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/

However here is some ssc code showing the events of June 26th which we can all view in CELESTIA- events that the NASA enquiry and the US Air Force are bound to cover-up !!!!

Code: Select all

#THE DEMISE OF HELIOS - THE TRUE EVENTS OF JUNE 26th!

"UFO" "Sol/Earth"
{
   Class "spacecraft"
   Mesh "spcufoh1.3ds"
   Radius 0.0825
   Beginning 2452816.75
   Ending 2452817.25
   EllipticalOrbit {
      Period   0.5
      SemiMajorAxis   6393
      Eccentricity 0.0023
      Inclination 35
   }
   Orientation [ 90 0 1 0 ]
   Obliquity 35
   Albedo   0.10
}

"Helios" "sol/earth"
{
Mesh "helios.3ds"
Radius 0.0376428
Beginning 2452816.5
Ending 2452817.0
EllipticalOrbit
{
Period 0.5
SemiMajorAxis 6392.9
Eccentricity 0.0022882
   #Inclination 0  # flight around the equator
   Inclination 35  # for a more varied flight
   AscendingNode 0
   ArgOfPericenter 0
}
Orientation [ 180 1 0 0 ]
Obliquity 35 # match this value with the inclination for level flight.
RotationOffset 90
Albedo 0.05
}


The link for the ufo model is as follows;
http://www.amazing3d.com/free/ufo3ds.zip

For best results I suggest replacing your existing Helios ssc in your CELESTIA EXTRAS folder with this one, or adding the beginning and ending values to your existing Helios ssc.
And also don't forget to put your 3ds UFO model into the MODELS folder.

Regards

[TERRIER]

Forgot to mention that you'll have to go back in time to 26th of June 2003 at around 1:00 am British Summer Time to witness the start of helios's flight.

[jamarsa]

Very good hypothesis!! But what about making a xyz path of the UFO and Helios models as a new challenge?

[TERRIER]

Hey! I don't know if many of you are checking out the DFRC webpage into the investigation?

If you are then you'll have noticed how the MIB have got involved - see I told you it would be covered up! Watch out for the flashy thing!!!!!