Quod Erat Demonstratum, means "Is also in agreement"
That's a fast and loose translation.
Often quoted as "Which was to be proved", although "...demonstrated" is more literal.
Also this indicates how it is more often used to conclude any explanation that sprang from an "I shall now show that X is true" sort of introduction, given "prove"!="tested" (unlike in "the exception which
proves the rule"). e.g. your tutor saying "It has been shown that <blah de blah>", who then goes on for about twenty OHP sheets/powerpoint pages with the derivations. And then when the "X = True" pops out of the algebraic muddle, right at the end, "QED"!
(BTW, in last post I meant
Earth-surface to space planes. Don't think I made that clear, with the talk of Mars, which was just another location you could play around with planes... Well, those that you could even get to fly there! i.e. the specialist Mars-planes.)
Anyway, I don't see an
awful lot of emphasis in the derail, so far, to the fact that neither the pilot nor the airplane are travelling upon a traditional ballistic trajectory. Admittedly, the pilot's trajectory is
largely ballistic, modified only by the cross section he chooses to present (or ends up doing so, during whatever flailing around he might need to do to catch a... if I have this right... rocket launcher 'option' hovering in mid-air?). The plane, however, is already designed with aerodynamics in mind (with a less air-bashing forward profile so than the pilot might ever be able to maintain)
plus, has an air-screw in front, giving it further forward motion. Almost certainly, a pilot (or a James Bond) trying to climb back into the aircraft after acquiring a shoulder-mounted 'surface'-to-<foo> weapon from the nearest passing cloud will (even with the mass of the new possession reducing the efficacy of any drag coefficient, and pointing both himself and his new toy into a more streamlined profile, as well) be unable to reacquire contact with his original steed-of-the-air...
Or... well, I suppose that with judicious use of flaps/air-brakes, and (available on certain planes) variable-pitch propellers tuned to just the right reverse pitch. But then you do rather need to get it
just right, and there's always a chance that your once-stable aeroplane will now veer off-trajectory, and even (if left long enough) stop pointing the direction it is going and end up in some sort of flat spin. (The effects of the open canopy might have something to do with it.)
But if you can't guarantee maintaining an equal trajectory, how about deliberately
not doing so? Set the plane into a largely-skyward direction at full-throttle, which you release at the moment of leaving the craft, timing the exit so that you can accomplish whatever sky-bound re-equipping manoeuvre you have in mind. The throttle will not instantaneously revert to neutral, so it shall continue to power your ex-mount for a little longer. As you yourself achieve your peak in altitude (perhaps at the object of your desires' location) and fall to Earth (I suggest going into a head-first, feet up, head tilted 'down' towards your feet and the skies, so that you can visually acquire your craft) the plane has been slowing down and, thanks to a judicious neutral setting on the control column, itself peaked in altitude, some way above you.
Then like a fielder in cricket or whatever-you-call-them in
rounders baseball, you judge the plane's trajectory, twist your way in the appropriate direction and apply just enough retardation to ensure you aren't getting towards the ground so much faster than the plane is getting towards you that all subsequent manoeuvres could only be subterranean, and yet not so much retardation that when you cannot once again
attempt to partly-match the speed of the now largely-idling propeller-driven dive, in the final few seconds.
Of course, I must emphasise, avoiding that spinny thing on the front it going to be one of your priorities (as is colliding, uncontrollably with any significant surface). I suggest that you should have already (ideally, before you even left the hanger!) attached something like a ring-bolt to a handily reachable position on the fuselage, and have (again, prior to take-off) ensured that you have a short coil of bungee on your person, one end attached securely to yourself, the other with a suitable bit of metalwork to mate with the ring-bolt. This is because
despite all the above precautions, I cannot see the plane not passing you at significantly greater velocity (for a number of reasons, not least the fact that you've been deliberately waiting for it to pass.
All the arrangements, and personal aerial manoeuvring, having been properly applied, it is now a matter of hooking your bungee onto the plane's hard-point, both you and the bungee chord surviving the resulting jolt, and then 'climbing' along the chord back to the airframe, and then (with pre-prepared handholds leading towards the cockpit, if not already within reach from the fastening point) clambering back into the cockpit, to resume control (you may or may not have time to stow the bungee chord, but you should certainly ensure that you can close your canopy enough to lock it, just in case) and pull the plane out of its dive prior to performing what might
now be considered a CFIT incident.
Really, it's all too simple. I'm not sure why they didn't do it all the time, in WW2... Apart from not having rocket launchers randomly deposited in sufficiently altitudinous cloud-banks, of course, but I'm sure that they weren't too far off from trying out that idea, after learning of the Japanese use of Fu-Go devices... Yet another sure-fire development forestalled by the early conclusion of WW2, no doubt... I'm still upset about not having personal jet-packs...
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Topic: Games you wish existed (Read 926716 times)