Heading Alignment Cone
Revision as of 12:19, 26 June 2007 by 82.171.178.218 (talk)
The Heading Alignment Cylinder is an imaginary cylinder, used to guide NASA's Space Shuttle on to the centerline of a runway for landing. The radius of a HAC is about 18,000 feet, and will be entered at about 22 nm's of altitude. It consists of one 360-degree turn along with a high rate of descent.
The HAC is followed until landing runway alignment, plus or minus 20 degrees, has been achieved.
Once, there was an add-on that visualised the flight path throughout the descent, however this add-on is not found in the Orbithangar.
[[Image:http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/180633main_EDW219_close.gif] The HAC as followed on the landing of STS-117 by Atlantis.]
