Talk:VMS Eve

reqImg
A photo of the airplane, one of the Galactic Girl, one with tail number, and one with the name .. would be good. 70.51.10.151 (talk) 10:32, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Done.  AK Radecki Speaketh  03:35, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Speaking of photos, VMS Eve, N348MS, has considerably shorter engine pylons on the in-flight photo in the The Space Fellowship news on maiden flight compared to the one supplied by AKRadecki, rollout video or promotional renderings. Does anyone have more info on that? --bonzi (talk) 00:43, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That's an optical illusion with the shadows...the pylons are the same, if you look at other images that were taken today.  AK Radecki Speaketh  06:08, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Necessary?
Is this article really necessary? Could not the same info be covered in a section on the WhiteKnightTwo page? Is this single aircraft notable enough on its own for its own page, or ever likely to be? More importantly, there are supposed to be only two WhiteKnightTwos built - could not both be covered sufficiently on the main page? - BillCJ (talk) 23:20, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * This is the first of actually twelve such aircraft that are expected to be built, per both Branson and Rutan, and is going to serve as the prototype and flight test article; it may or may not actually see commercial service. It is a bit different than the expected production aircraft. For instance, the left boom has no windows (what you see are simply vinyl stickers), and Rutan noted that there are a number of "lessons-learned" changes that will be incorporated into the production versions.
 * Having said that, for now at least I'd agree that a separate article really isn't necessary. We don't really have precedence for aircraft being handled that way (as opposed to ships and other spacecraft). I would support a merge, if that's what other editors want as well.  AK Radecki Speaketh  23:33, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, the WK2 article only said 2 were expected, at ileast that's what I think I read in a cursory search. - BillCJ (talk) 23:42, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The initial contract from TSC to Scaled was for two. VG will be buying 12 altogether, and indications are that TSC will either set up its own facility or contract the production out. It appears unlikely that Scaled will be doing the regular production aircraft. I'd have to go dig for a cite for that, because my info was from responses to questions that Burt gave during the rollout.  AK Radecki Speaketh  02:42, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Bill, found one of the interview, it's a podcast at http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace/files/folders/burt_rutan_280708/entry17949.aspx inwhich Flight International Technology Editor Rob Coppinger interviews Burt. Burt states that Scaled is only contracted to build the research aircraft, of which Eve is the prototype. He also talks about why there were no windows in the right boom - seems that it was more expensive to add them, and Virgin elected not to have that done. He also states that as an NG company, they are not building commercial spacecraft, rather only have been contracted to do research and development.  AK Radecki Speaketh  00:54, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Since this is the only WK2, the question really should be is the White Knight Two article necessary? because this is the existing example. 70.29.213.241 (talk) 14:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Since no consensus was ever reached on the (previous) Merge proposal of WK2 and VMS Eve, the two articles have continued to exist in parallel to this date. Given that reality, I have just moved some of the very specific "first article" test data from the WK2 article into this VMS Eve article.  See next section for summary of that move.  N2e (talk) 19:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Detailed flight test info for VMS Eve
To this point, a rather detailed Wikipedia article section detailing the WK2 flight test program had emerged in the White Knight Two article. Since the WK2 article is about the class of all WK2 aircraft, and this article, VMS Eve, is about the first article (the first aircraft), I have moved that detailed section from the 'WK2' article to the 'VMS Eve' article today, per Talk:Scaled_Composites_WhiteKnightTwo. In my view, it is a separate discussion to determine what level of detailed flight test data is appropriate in a Wikipedia article over the long term; viz, how much of the detail we ought to keep here in VMS Eve is yet to be determined. N2e (talk) 19:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Landing gear failure during flight testing
On a test flight six weeks ago, WhiteKnightTwo experienced a landing gear failure. I don't believe any mention of this has been made in the article, which is probably okay as it seems to be a relatively minor problem in the grand scheme of things. Nevertheless, I will note here on the Talk page that flight testing has resumed, per this article published today (28 Sep 2010) in Aviation Week. N2e (talk) 02:58, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

VSS Eve
VSS Eve should redirect here, as a plausible misnomer. 65.94.45.160 (talk) 12:41, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Largest composite aricraft?
Technically wouldn't the Hughes H-4 Hercules count as it was a ply/resin construction? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GraemeLeggett (talk • contribs) 11:29, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Flight test program -- preparing for the powered flight phase
This Flightglobal article, dated 13 Sep 2012, contains a lot of information about the next stage of the flight test program. Cheers. N2e (talk) 03:24, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Excessive detail in the "Flight test program" section
The Flight test program section of the article lists all of the some 114 flights of VMS Eve over the past 4 1/2 years. Some of these were "test flights" of the aircraft, the VMS Eve instance of WK2, but a good number of the flights were not. Moreover, a good number of the flights were not WP:Notable and therefore perhaps don't belong in an encyclopedia like Wikipedia.

It seems to me that the flights in this list fit in one of four categories:
 * test flights" of the VMS Eve aircraft, the first instance of a new aircraft design called WhiteKnightTwo. In this phase, the flight envelope is characterized and the plane's designers and engineers learn how well the aircraft matches the design simulations, and the pilots develop the "operating manual" as it were, for the aircraft's future operation.  This phase was largely completed by late 2009, 1 1/2 years after the flight test program of VMS Eve, WK2 began.
 * new/additional "test flights" of the VMSE/WK2 with a large/heavy future-spaceplane (or any other object Virgin contracts to carry) supported from its pylon, which would rather logically result in a bit of recharacterization of the WK2+payload (aircraft/spaceplane) captive-carry operating envelope. This is a few flights, and was certainly over by late 2010, and probably by the time of the first SS2 glide-flight in October 2010.
 * operational flights of VMSE/WK2 where the previously-characterized WK2/VMSE just does what it was built to do: carry items to high altitude and release them, as well as sometimes taking photos and other test data of the post-release tests of the other craft.  Flights across the country to airshows and grand openings at Spaceport America fit into this category, unless notable and verifiable test objectives for WK2/VMSE were stated.
 * routine maintenance confirmation flights, and pilot competency flights, and new pilot checkout flights on this particular aircraft, etc., etc.

Only the first category is a slam dunk for listing on Wikipedia in this article, although arguably, some of the second category might fit here even though the primary article for that info (test of the craft that is released) is SpaceShipTwo or VSS Enterprise, or other item-under-test that Virgin may contract to carry to high altitude and release. The last two of the four categories are clearly not test flights, and we should not call them that here on Wikipedia, at least not without reliable sources that designate them as test flights for the workhorse/carrier aircraft. It is likely that an occasional flight of WK2/VMSE, even in it's workhorse/carrier-aircraft role of the third bullet, will be notable (such as the first supersonic flight of the craft that is carried to altitude and released, or the first flight to space, or the first passenger flights; those would, of course, be listed. But those are not "test flights".

I'll let this sit a bit to see what other editors think, but my intent is to begin to clean the article up and remove all the unnotable flights that are not verifiably "test flights" of WK2/VMSE. Cheers. N2e (talk) 11:43, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

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