How are the Spirit of St Louis, and modern planes similar and diferent.?

Question

I would also like about todays plane engine including horsepower, milege, weight, torque, manufacturers, height, and speed. thank you

Answer 1

One major striking difference is the design time. The Ryan-NYP was designed and built in 60 days, today a transatlantic aircraft designed and built in 60 weeks would be an achievement. Besides it was the most aerodynamic aircraft of its time.

We cannot really compare the Spirit' with a modern aircraft (a big category, ranging from the little GA aircraft to big airliners, biz jets and combat aircraft, too broad) because it was custom made with a single purpose. The Spirit' was made unstable and uncomfortable, just to keep Lindbergh awake through his flight, the fuel tanks were so positioned that the aircraft had no front windshields and Lindbergh need to look out through a special periscope. Today's aircrafts are made with more serious intentions than winning a 25,000 US$ prize and focusses more on safety, comfort and efficiency.

A great aircraft, a superhuman pilot and a legendary flight, pride of aviation, but the Spirit of St. Louis doesnt have the qualifications to be a benchmark.

Answer 2

The Spirit of St. Louis and modern planes are the same in that they have the same basic design i.e. airfoil, fuslage, eppenage... A Cessna 172 has a horizontaly opposed air cooled engine with 160 horsepower and max speed is around 175

Answer 3

Modern Planes

Answer 4

Homework question?

The Spirit of St. Louis is simillar to private aircraft that are still currently in production, (the C-182,) in that both are high wing, monoplane aircraft with cantilevered wings. And they have wet, (whiskey compasses.) The fuel control valves to select or shift fuel tanks are still actually manipulated in the cockpit. The Spirit also shares the same flight controls with about every known, production, fixed wing aircraft, of ailerons, elevators and rudder.

As to the rest of your question there isn't an answer because you're asking too broad a question, but I'll answer what I can.

Torque, for piston aircraft, isn't typically noted in engine performance because the only real effect that an engine's output has is to throw the airplane to, typically, the left at high power settings. The engines are typically designed for larger bores and shorter strokes to make more horsepower rather than torque.

Torque is only relevant in turbine engines in the case of turboprops, because the pilot has to monitor the torque to keep the engine from ripping itself off the P&W 3350's are still flying at well over 2,000 horsepower, and the APU's on commercial jet liners are putting out 1500 Shaft Horse Power; several of them, to provide electrical service and air conditioning when the engines are off.

Weights cover everything from a few hundred pounds in experimentals to damn near a million pounds.

By height, I assume you mean maximum altitude. Again, there's a huge difference from one end of the spectrum to the other.
The Cessna 150 I first flew might reach 10,000' if you skipped two meals, it was a cold day and you had a lot of patience. 40,000 is not unheard of for airliners, some turbojets can climb up to 55,000, and we have Burt Rutan's Space plane which has exited the atmosphere and re-entered.

Assuming you mean range by your term "Mileage" it's also a broad spectrum. Helicopters and small singles are usually hard pressed to make 400 miles, another Rutan expirimental has circled the world without refueling, making 24,000 miles. 4000-6000 miles is about standard for modern, large, business jets. 8,000 miles is currently about the limit for production airliners.

And top speeds for, production, civillian, aircraft range from about 60 mph to about 600 mph, ground reference, without flattening the bell curve by adding ultralights, paragliders and power gliders.

If you need specifics about a certain airplane, buy a copy of Aircraft Trader. Tear the pages out and paste them on a wall. Throw a dart over your shoulder and that selects your airplane, then use a google search to get all the information you can on the performance of that make and model.

Good Luck

Answer 5

Same principles of flight, same general layout; and they follow the same rules of physics.

Lindbergh could fly a modern private plane, with very little checkout time, and today's pilots could handle the Spirit, but would find it awkward, slow, and uncomfortable, with inferior handling.

As for performance, it's apples and oranges -- you've got 80 years of progress to factor in.

Answer 6

Google, Google, Dog Pile, alltheweb, hotbot.

Answer 7

Lets not forget that the Spirit did not have a windscreen... he had only side windows, no autopilot, no GPS, no co-pilot... it was alot different...