Re: pteros have lift-off

[jrc <jrccea@bellsouth.net>]

Looking back over some of my old notes, I noticed that on March 7, 1999, in 
a letter to Paul MacCready I wrote, "Combined with phasing of the foreleg 
and back leg stroke production that should allow the leap to take the 
shoulder velocity to the vicinity of best L/D without exceeding a load 
factor of about four".   I'm still messing about with the quad leap, and 
currently I'm getting a launch to Vminsink with an acceleration of about 
3.78 g's with the terrestrial part of the launch about 0.31 seconds in 
duration.  Vminsink is slower than Vbg, but 3.78 vs. 4 does seem to me to be 
in the vicinity for guvm'nt work.  Launching to Vminsink ameliorates the 
work required during the terrestrial launch by loading the wings more 
heavily once they do start to flap.  My hunch is that now further work on 
optimization can get the launch acceleration down toward the vicinity of 3 
to perhaps 3.25.
JimC