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grover posted:The Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy center at Dulles loving KICKS rear end, btw. Is it easy to get to there from the actual airport? I was thinking of actually taking advantage of my flight benefits and taking a day trip up there to see it.
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# ? Jun 20, 2010 06:14 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 13:55 |
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Mobius1B7R posted:Is it easy to get to there from the actual airport? I was thinking of actually taking advantage of my flight benefits and taking a day trip up there to see it. http://www.nasm.si.edu/udvarhazy/ http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...018411&t=h&z=16 grover fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Jun 20, 2010 |
# ? Jun 20, 2010 11:25 |
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Mobius1B7R posted:Is it easy to get to there from the actual airport? I was thinking of actually taking advantage of my flight benefits and taking a day trip up there to see it. I've been telling myself that I need to do the same thing for a year or so...still haven't gotten out there
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# ? Jun 20, 2010 13:10 |
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grover posted:A little of both. F-15E Strike Eagles are still in production, so we know what they cost- pretty much what a Eurofighter, F-35, F-22 or any other capable modern fighter costs. Modern fighter aircraft are simply extremely expensive. Stealth is a lot of the cost difference between the F-15 and F-22; the precision and techniques necessary to reduce the RCS are much more expensive than simple sheet metal and rivets. But the survivability stealth brings gives an exponential return on investment vs old technology. The F-15SE Silent Eagle is more expensive than a normal F-15, and really isn't very stealthy at all. Vectored thrust and the new RADAR add costs, too. I don't see any scenario where the US buys the Silent Eagle. Boeing's not even bothering to market it, and I think they're smart for it. But if I had the cash I'd totally pay $1M for a P-51. Godholio fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Jun 20, 2010 |
# ? Jun 20, 2010 15:51 |
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Godholio posted:But if I had the cash I'd totally pay $1M for a P-51. Gawd me too, but only if it came with wings full of Browning .50cals.
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# ? Jun 20, 2010 17:58 |
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Was that $1M 1945 dollars though? FYI: $1,000,000.00 in 1945 had the same buying power as $12,131,966.29 in 2010[1]. [1] http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm
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# ? Jun 20, 2010 20:06 |
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jandrese posted:Was that $1M 1945 dollars though? No, 1 million today. A P-51 cost the Army Air Force 51,000 dollars back in the day. In fact, an original design requirement was to cost less than 40,000, but they kind of overran that. That's about 620k today.
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# ? Jun 20, 2010 20:20 |
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That's less than a quarter of the cost of a Predator drone!
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# ? Jun 20, 2010 20:43 |
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grover posted:http://www.defense-aerospace.com/dae/articles/communiques/FighterCostFinalJuly06.pdf Yeah, I posted it just because I found it interesting that congressional types took to the same ideas the thread did. I think you are overreacting a bit to report's findings, though. I know your feelings about the F-35, but it's not like one of the bullet points was "ELIMINATE THE NAVY." They want to cut a trillion dollars out of the defense budget not because they hate freedom but because the USA's largest expenditure is defense, and you guys spend 50% more on defense now then in 1986. And that's a date after Regan's big military spending increase, and the opponent was the USSR and the Warsaw pact. So if you are interested in reducing government spending in any way, the logical place to start is defense. Are there any spending cuts in defense you would be for?
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# ? Jun 20, 2010 22:24 |
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Nebakenezzer posted:Yeah, I posted it just because I found it interesting that congressional types took to the same ideas the thread did. I think you are overreacting a bit to report's findings, though. I know your feelings about the F-35, but it's not like one of the bullet points was "ELIMINATE THE NAVY." They want to cut a trillion dollars out of the defense budget not because they hate freedom but because the USA's largest expenditure is defense, and you guys spend 50% more on defense now then in 1986. And that's a date after Regan's big military spending increase, and the opponent was the USSR and the Warsaw pact. So if you are interested in reducing government spending in any way, the logical place to start is defense. Absolute dollars is a pretty lovely way to compare spending now vs decades ago. I'm not sure if you're doing that, or including the cost incurred by two active wars.
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# ? Jun 20, 2010 22:49 |
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Godholio posted:Absolute dollars is a pretty lovely way to compare spending now vs decades ago. I'm not sure if you're doing that, or including the cost incurred by two active wars. Yeah, if he's not adjusting for inflation, then we're actually spending less on defense than in 1986.
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 00:37 |
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Godholio posted:Absolute dollars is a pretty lovely way to compare spending now vs decades ago. I'm not sure if you're doing that, or including the cost incurred by two active wars.
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 00:59 |
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jandrese posted:That's less than a quarter of the cost of a Predator drone! Wherever you're getting your numbers from is off by about 3.5 million dollars.
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 01:40 |
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$1 million is a bit less than a quarter of $4.5 million last time I checked.
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 01:47 |
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grover posted:Using absolute dollars, or even inflation-adjusted dollars can be misleading; % of GDP is much more meaningful as it reflects that our nation is far wealthier now than in years past. By % GDP, Obama is spending more on defense than Clinton, yet less than virtually any other time since before the Korean war, and doing so while actively fighting two wars. Percentage of GDP is how I measure it, too. Does that chart include the war supplemental funding, or is it the annual budget?
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 02:58 |
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jandrese posted:$1 million is a bit less than a quarter of $4.5 million last time I checked. Your math is impeccable, but the plane just doesn't cost that much. The camera is the largest significant portion of the price. However, it's also the most protected component. The camera is almost always recovered, repaired if necessary and reinstalled in another aircraft. The carbon fiber, electronics and engine are all dirt cheap.
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 12:56 |
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grover posted:Using absolute dollars, or even inflation-adjusted dollars can be misleading; % of GDP is much more meaningful as it reflects that our nation is far wealthier now than in years past. By % GDP, Obama is spending more on defense than Clinton, yet less than virtually any other time since before the Korean war, and doing so while actively fighting two wars. And the fact that it's lower by GDP makes exactly what difference? Do you think military spending should always be proportional to GDP?
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 16:10 |
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Putting a stake in the ground regarding decisions about defense spending, and then saying "Not to get all D&D but" is intellectually dishonest. This thread should stick to posting pictures of neat aircraft and cool aircraft facts and etc. If you wanna get on a soapbox about defense budgets from any position, there are other subforums for that kind of discussion. In those subforums, the inevitable contention such discussions bring will not be derailing a thread focused on entirely different subject matter.
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 16:16 |
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SyHopeful posted:And the fact that it's lower by GDP makes exactly what difference? Do you think military spending should always be proportional to GDP? It's just a better gauge on how much we're spending than absolute dollars is all. If I told you that I paid 7,000 a month in rent, you'd think I don't know poo poo about budgeting my money. But if I then turned around and said I make 3 million a year, you might go so far as to think I'm a miser when I could afford a much better apartment than that. Of course I don't have an argument as to why you should plot is as percent of tax revenue instead of GDP. Probably because we run in a deficit so often that the percentages of other poo poo + military would be greater than 100. So you could probably go by absolute government expenditures, I suppose.
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 17:46 |
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SyHopeful posted:And the fact that it's lower by GDP makes exactly what difference? Do you think military spending should always be proportional to GDP? That would be a hell of a vector to tie it to. Country prospers, we take out a few countries. We do bad, we bomb them...less?
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 18:00 |
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ApathyGifted posted:Of course I don't have an argument as to why you should plot is as percent of tax revenue instead of GDP. Probably because we run in a deficit so often that the percentages of other poo poo + military would be greater than 100. So you could probably go by absolute government expenditures, I suppose.
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 18:02 |
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:Putting a stake in the ground regarding decisions about defense spending, and then saying "Not to get all D&D but" is intellectually dishonest. This thread should stick to posting pictures of neat aircraft and cool aircraft facts and etc. Best username/content post EVER.
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 18:04 |
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:If you wanna get on a soapbox about defense budgets from any position, there are other subforums for that kind of discussion. In those subforums, the inevitable contention such discussions bring will not be derailing a thread focused on entirely different subject matter. Sounds like you're trying to cover for the Military Industrial Complex now, Dwight. gently caress it: time for a pretty-seaplane m-m-m-megapost. The seaplane, thanks to Mr. Glenn Curtiss who invented it, was a wonderful solution to the realities of a world with few runways but lots of water. Flying boats quickly grew to a scale impossible to achieve with a land-based aircraft. They were truly the flying fish of their era: Click here for the full 1261x701 image. Curtiss H-1/H-16 Click here for the full 1600x980 image. Click here for the full 1200x960 image. Boeing 314 Sometimes the "flying" part of flying boat was discarded, as the Italians built with little regard to airworthyness: The era of flying boats came to an end with the advent of jet propulsion and mid-air refueling, but not before Howard Hughes took them to their logical (and lovely) extreme: The H-4 Hercules, aka the Spruce Goose. Aside: speaking of Hughes, he certainly had an eye for aesthetics: H-1 Racer, an almost unbelievably pretty airplane. This leads me to the Schneider Trophy Racers -- the intra-war battleground for air superiority: Click here for the full 1792x954 image. Supermarine S5 Click here for the full 1600x1216 image. Click here for the full 1024x768 image. Supermarine S6B Click here for the full 640x416 image. Macchi MC72
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# ? Jun 21, 2010 18:24 |
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Sterndotstern posted:It's certainly a thing of beauty, but my first thought was:
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# ? Jun 22, 2010 03:06 |
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2ndclasscitizen posted:It's certainly a thing of beauty, but my first thought was: The long nose on the H-1 was a result of Hughes needing room for a lot of fuel to set a transcontinental speed record. Even with a set of longer-span wings installed for the transcontinental record (a shorter set were fitted for the absolute speed record), there were only 75 gallons of fuel per wing, so the H-1 carried 150 gallons of fuel in two tanks between the cockpit and engine. Howard Hughes also "borrowed" the engine on the H-1 from the US government. When the aircraft was being designed, Hugues realized that there wasn't an engine then in production that could produce the kind of power he needed, but he had heard about Pratt and Whitney developing an engine for the US Army that might meet his requirements. Somehow, Hughes managed to convince the US government to let Pratt and Whitney lease him an R-1535 for the H-1 (claiming it was for development of an advanced fighter), at which point he had the engine disassembled in the quest for more horsepower. Stock, the R-1535 could produce 700hp, but Hughes needed more power than that, so he had the engine modified and spent a fortune fueling the aircraft with (then experimental) 100 octane fuel, which boosted the output to around 1000hp without blowing up the engine. The tweaks clearly worked, since the H-1 set a landplane speed record of 352mph, followed by a coast-to-coast speed record of 7hrs 28 minutes, averaging 322mph. As for the "leased" engine? Hughes never paid Pratt and Whitney for the engine, nor did he bother returning it to the US government, and to this day it's still fitted to the H-1, which has been on display in the Smithsonian since 1975.
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# ? Jun 22, 2010 03:47 |
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Sterndotstern posted:Sometimes the "flying" part of flying boat was discarded, as the Italians built with little regard to airworthyness: This actually did fly, it just crashed on landing. Edit: Or it just crashed, since every crash is a landing of some sort. And I so want to see one now. It would be like a steampunk villian's flying lair.
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# ? Jun 22, 2010 03:55 |
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Sterndotstern posted:
My dad was good friends with this airplane's builder and pilot. Sadly he crashed it in a state park after an engine failure, and in an effort to miss - i poo poo you not - a family of campers, he stalled it out at the last minute, rolled it in and was killed. The airplane burned to the ground.
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# ? Jun 22, 2010 06:16 |
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azflyboy posted:As for the "leased" engine? Hughes never paid Pratt and Whitney for the engine, nor did he bother returning it to the US government, and to this day it's still fitted to the H-1, which has been on display in the Smithsonian since 1975. ursa_minor posted:My dad was good friends with this airplane's builder and pilot. Sadly he crashed it in a state park after an engine failure, and in an effort to miss - i poo poo you not - a family of campers, he stalled it out at the last minute, rolled it in and was killed. The airplane burned to the ground. Eh? Unless you're talking about the replica that was built much, much later and which crashed in Yellowstone...
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# ? Jun 22, 2010 09:54 |
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82Daion posted:Eh? That would be the one, obviously - right?. We still have the lawn chairs he let us borrow when we met by chance in Oregon. I saw it a few times in person when he was building it, then only once after it was flying. It was beyond beautiful, perfectly constructed. Edit: And yes, Yellowstone is a National Park, not a State - my bad. And double edit: This bugged me, so I had to come back to this post. It somehow annoys me that it's referred to just as a "replica". It wasn't just a replica, at was an H1 Racer. It was a Hughes H1. It wasn't built by Hughes, but for all intents and purposes, it was simply the second one built. The picture above is of that replica. I only got to see if fly once at the Reno Air Races. ursa_minor fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Jun 22, 2010 |
# ? Jun 22, 2010 10:29 |
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I apologize-I didn't realize that that picture was of the replica.
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# ? Jun 22, 2010 10:37 |
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ApathyGifted posted:It's just a better gauge on how much we're spending than absolute dollars is all. If I told you that I paid 7,000 a month in rent, you'd think I don't know poo poo about budgeting my money. But if I then turned around and said I make 3 million a year, you might go so far as to think I'm a miser when I could afford a much better apartment than that. I just found it intellectually dishonest that Grover seemed to be asserting that the military hasn't been getting loved lately when according to his own graph we're spending more than ever since WW2, independent of GDP. Anyway, not going to derail this thread. Somebody do a writeup about the NK-12.
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# ? Jun 22, 2010 15:54 |
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SyHopeful posted:I just found it intellectually dishonest that Grover seemed to be asserting that the military hasn't been getting loved lately when according to his own graph we're spending more than ever since WW2, independent of GDP. That said, there are more powerful gas turbines than this, and the F-35's engine does, technically, couple more power into the liftfan shaft than the NK-12 is capable of outputting, but the F-35B's P&W F-135 isn't considered a turboprop. grover fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Jun 23, 2010 |
# ? Jun 22, 2010 22:38 |
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I went to the red bull air race in NY on Sunday and took a bunch of pics. Its cool to see all the little modifications the teams have made to their aircraft. There are only two basic airframes being used currently in the series but as you can see in some of the pictures very few of them are exactly the same. Most notable are the big winglets on the yellow Brightling MXS-R flown by Nigel Lamb.
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# ? Jun 23, 2010 00:16 |
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grover, did you go posting in LF?
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# ? Jun 23, 2010 00:59 |
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I see your high performance air races, and raise you an X-29:Minto Took posted:grover, did you go posting in LF? grover fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Jun 23, 2010 |
# ? Jun 23, 2010 01:09 |
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grover posted:I see your high performance air races, and raise you an X-29: I always thought the X-29 was cool as hell. Would the airframe have any military value? quote:See, LF would probably have actually made it funny. Well that's a shame.
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# ? Jun 23, 2010 01:14 |
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Minto Took posted:I always thought the X-29 was cool as hell. Would the airframe have any military value?
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# ? Jun 23, 2010 01:19 |
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grover, you're wrong. forward swept wing designs have better higher angle of attack behavior then straight or rearward swept wings, and also are more maneuverable. There are drawbacks although, like increased flight loads and needing a computer to help the pilot fly the drat thing in the first place but you can say the same of all modern fighters.
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# ? Jun 23, 2010 02:20 |
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FullMetalJacket posted:grover, you're wrong. Speaking of vaporware russian fighters: grover fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Jun 23, 2010 |
# ? Jun 23, 2010 02:30 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 13:55 |
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grover posted:Well, now that the derail has devolved into namecalling, sounds like the perfect segue into massive soviet turboprops! They were first built in, what, 1947? And are STILL the post powerful turboprop ever built? Over twice as powerful as the MV-22 Osprey's engines and about 3x more powerful than C-130's. What's the idea behind a turboprop anyway? Why go to the effort of fitting a jet engine to a plane, and then have it spin a propeller rather than move the plane itself?
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# ? Jun 23, 2010 02:48 |